Chapter 7. I Tried Fried Pickles
Chapter 7. I Tried Fried Pickles
I think I’ll be able to maintain a good business relationship with this man going forward.
True to form for a veteran, Rafael handled the paperwork quickly and accurately.
The price he offered had been fair, there had been no friction in the transaction, and there was a quiet confidence in everything he said and did.
He had even said that the reason he accepted my price was because he wanted my first deal to remain a good memory.
It was enough to make me think that someday, I would like to grow old like that too.
Vroooorooong—
And at last,
the Mustang that had sat gathering dust in one corner of my heart for twenty years left in search of a new owner.
Loaded onto the trailer Rafael had brought, its retreating figure looked strangely wistful.
It was not even a living thing.
So why was it that an object made of iron and fire could stir this much feeling in me?
Farewell. I hope you find a good owner and spend your life running to your heart’s content...
Even after it disappeared, I stood there for a long time, staring down the road.
The empty space in the now-vacant storage unit felt unusually hollow.
It was the right choice. For both of us. It’s time for that car and for me to start living new lives.
It was time to stop drifting and settle down. The money from selling it would help a great deal with that. Of course, I never imagined that “settling down” would mean this town of all places.
Still, if I’ve already made up my mind, I might as well do it properly.
I held the paper in my hand closer and looked at it.
A cashier’s check with Rafael’s signature on it.
(Translator’s Note: A cashier’s check is a bank-issued guaranteed check commonly used in the U.S. for larger transactions.)
I still can’t believe a single sheet of paper is worth sixty thousand dollars.
Even after subtracting the roughly $6,800 I had spent on the engine, parts, and everything else, I still had more than fifty thousand dollars left.
Just looking at the number written on the check made my sunken mood feel a little lighter.
Then again, I had just completed my first successful restoration and closed my first deal...
How are you supposed to celebrate something like this again?
It felt like too much of a waste to head straight back to the motel in silence.
Looking outside, it was still early enough that the nearby pubs should be open.
Maybe I should go have one light drink and a bite to eat before turning in.
The nearest bar was twenty-five minutes away by Uber, but today, of all days, I decided I could allow myself that much luxury.
{The Rusted Spur Saloon}
{The Rusted Spur Saloon}
Saloon, huh...
I arrived in front of a bar whose name alone already smelled of the American West.
It had an old-fashioned exterior, and even swinging wooden doors.
Of course, there was a regular door inside as well, but the atmosphere of the place was obvious at a glance.
Creak—
The inside of the saloon was dark and subdued.
A quiet guitar and low voice from Merle Haggard drifted from the speakers, and the walls were lined with faded rodeo photographs and rusted horseshoes.
When I sat down at the bar, a man who looked like the bartender greeted me with a slight nod.
“One Dragoon IPA.”
(Translator’s Note: IPA stands for India Pale Ale, a beer style known for stronger hop bitterness and aroma than standard light lagers.)
He had been drying a glass, but nodded and, a moment later, set a beer in front of me with practiced hands.
A copper-colored beer crowned with a tidy cap of dense foam.
Normally I stuck to light lagers, but today was a special day, so I had decided to vary my beer choice as well.
And that choice had not been wrong.
“Damn... this is good.”
The aroma of hops burst briefly and sharply inside my mouth.
Then a bitter, pine-needle-like flavor followed with solid weight.
I was savoring the dry finish—like desert wind cutting off cleanly—when,
“Hey! Well, look who it is.”
An unwelcome voice sounded from behind me.
Uh... so what were these idiots’ names again?
Two white men stood in front of me, grinning smugly.
Their faces were familiar enough that I was sure they had been high school classmates, but their names hovered just out of reach.
“You disappeared after graduation. What kind of wind blew you back into this backwater dump?”
“The way you don’t even look at people when they’re talking to you hasn’t changed a bit.”
As expected, the dimwits in this town had not changed at all.
But there was one thing they did not know.
The Jason standing here now was not the cowed, timid Jason from the past. He was a former E-5—his rank in the Navy SEALs—who could put both of them on the ground at the same time if he felt like it.
(Translator’s Note: E-5 is a U.S. enlisted pay grade; readers do not need the exact title to understand that Jason is identifying his former rank/status.)
I don’t particularly want to ruin a good day, but... maybe I should at least say hello.
Without a word, I rose from my seat and slowly walked toward them.
The two idiots, who had been snickering, saw my height and build and suddenly darted their eyes around in visible confusion.
“You two—”
“Hey! Jack, Cole! What the hell are you two doing over there?”
At that moment, another familiar voice flew in from behind.
It was Steven.
Ah, right. The Jack-Cole-Steven trio! So these bastards were Jack and Cole!
A lot of time really must have passed.
The fact that I had forgotten even the names of those three idiots proved it.
“Yo, Steven. Get over here. Jason’s here.”
“Yeah, get over here and say something too. It’s been forever since we saw him, and he’s looking at us like he thinks he’s better than—”
“Both of you, shut up.”
At Steven’s short rebuke, Jack and Cole both closed their mouths.
Without sparing those two even a glance, Steven walked straight toward me.
“What, having a drink? Came alone?”
“Yeah. I was going to drink quietly and leave, but I guess I picked the wrong place.”
At my answer, Steven furrowed his brows and scratched the back of his head hard.
“Don’t mind those idiots. I’ll buy you a beer as an apology.”
“You really don’t have to. But if you insist, I’m not going to refuse.”
Apparently pleased with my answer, Steven nodded without hesitation.
“Heh. Jason, you’ve really changed. In a good way.”
He actually moved his own beer over beside me and sat down.
“Hey, Steven, what the hell are you doing? Forget that guy and come play darts.”
Jack, apparently unable to make sense of the situation, came over again to interrupt, but Steven’s attitude was firm.
“I told you to shut up. I’m drinking with Jason here, so you two can play darts by yourselves.”
Jack shot me a sidelong glare as he went back, but honestly, I felt nothing at all.
After SEAL training had toughened both my body and my mind, petty provocations like that no longer shook me or drew a response.
Which meant that earlier, when I had started walking toward Jack and Cole, I really had only intended to greet them.
“So, did the Mustang sell okay?”
“Yeah, more or less... Wait. How do you know that?”
I turned toward Steven in genuine surprise.
“Easy. You can tell from that stupid grin on your face, which isn’t your usual expression. Sold faster than I expected, too.”
I had been grinning...?
No way.
And Steven, this bastard—had he always been that perceptive?
Well, it was not as though I had planned to hide it in the first place.
“Yeah. Thanks to that, I sold it for a decent price. Sixty thousand dollars, cashier’s check on the spot.”
“Whew, that’s way beyond decent. I’m telling you, Jason—you really do have talent for this.”
“Talent... I don’t know about that. But anyway, I’m thinking about getting seriously into restoration work.”
Steven reacted calmly, as if he had already expected that answer.
“So you’ve finally made up your mind.”
“Yeah. So, do you happen to know of any decent used trailers on the market?”
If I was going to get serious about restoration work, there were all sorts of things I needed, but the most urgent of them all was a trailer.
If I wanted to buy project cars or sell them later, I would be dead in the water without a trailer to haul them.
If I outsourced transport every time, a few hundred dollars would vanish in an instant.
And even though trailers looked like no big deal, they were surprisingly expensive.
Even the cheapest kind—an open car hauler, basically a wheeled platform you could tow behind a truck—went for around five thousand dollars new if it was a steel model.
And enclosed trailers—full box-type units—easily went over ten thousand.
So the best way to keep costs down was obviously to find a used one in good condition.
“Hm. If it’s a used trailer, do you want enclosed? Or open?”
“Open if possible. It’s not like I’ll be handling supercars right away.”
“Even so, if you’re going to be hauling things around the desert, at minimum you’ll want a dual-axle trailer with integrated brakes... and anything in good condition like that gets snapped up instantly.”
“Yeah, figures.”
It was only natural. Good deals like that would never just sit around waiting. In this town, where trucks were more common than sedans, practically everyone wanted at least one trailer.
“Ah! Although there is one place where you might be able to get something like that...”
“There is?”
“...But I can’t just tell you for free, can I?”
His eyes gleamed under the low-hanging bar lights.
“Come on. I thought you were going to ask for something serious. Fine, then order something too. Food, not booze.”
I had already been thinking there would not be enough food if I had to share with him anyway, so in a way it worked out.
He had helped me estimate the Mustang’s value last time too.
“I’ll have chicken wings. What about you, Steven?”
“Hmm, then I’ll have fried pickles.”
“What? Why would you order something that deranged? More importantly, that’s all you want?”
Fried pickles.
I was not sure whether to call it unexpectedly modest, or just an aggressively rural southern Arizona kind of choice.
“Deranged? Man, you have no idea how good fried pickles are with beer. ...Jason, don’t tell me you’re one of those people who can’t eat fried pickles? Nah, no way, not even you could be that bad—”
“No, I’ve just never tried them in the first place.”
“...What? You’re telling me you lived in this town for over a decade and never once ate fried pickles? Dear God in heaven, how is that even possible?”
He stared at my face as though a bolt from the blue had just struck him.
Then—
“Not the chicken wings. Fried pickles instead. Two plates total.”
He changed my order on his own.
“Hah, Jason. For the sake of my own peace of mind, you have to try this. The condition for me giving you that trailer information is that you experience this flavor. Deal?”
“Well, if that’s the condition... deal.”
Until the food came, he kept muttering that this was as shocking as driving a Chevy truck, and asking whether I was really an Arizonan at all.
And finally, the fried pickles—two plates—were placed in front of us.
Why on earth would anyone fry pickles...?
Americans loved frying things so much that they had come up with monstrosities like fried ice cream and fried candy bars.
But for all that, I had spent my childhood under Korean parents, so not once in my life had the thought I want to eat fried pickles crossed my mind.
Oh, so they don’t fry a whole cucumber?
Contrary to what I had expected, the fried pickles came sliced into round discs and deep-fried.
The smell was surprisingly ordinary for fried food, and because they had been lightly coated in yellow cornmeal, they looked like little gold coins.
“Don’t use a fork. You have to eat them with your hands while they’re hot. And dip them in the sauce generously!”
Steven nagged at me from the side.
What was he so passionate about, anyway?
Ignoring his burning gaze as best I could, I dipped one into the ranch sauce that had been served alongside it and popped it into my mouth.
“Hmm...”
“So? How is it? How is it?”
Steven, I have not even finished chewing yet.
Since it had just come out of the fryer, the outside was hot, but the inside was surprisingly lukewarm.
When I bit down lightly, the distinctive moisture of the pickle came through, along with its peculiar tang.
“It’s not that different from just eating a pickle, though? I guess it’s just nuttier and warmer.”
“Then hurry up and try it with the beer too.”
Gulp, gulp—
“Oh, okay. It does go pretty well with beer. That moderate sourness keeps it from feeling too heavy.”
“Heh heh heh, right? Honestly, it’s not some amazing gourmet food or anything, but once you start eating it, it keeps popping back into your head. Just wait and see—you’re definitely going to get hooked too.”
Only then did he finally stop watching me and begin properly enjoying the fried pickles and beer in front of him.
In the end, the two of us put away four plates of fried pickles that night, and even that was not enough, so we each finished off a chili cheeseburger too.
As for the beer, at some point I lost count.
It was my first time eating this extravagantly in a bar instead of a restaurant.
By my standards, this qualified as an absurdly lavish day.
And somehow, it did not feel bad at all.
The information Steven gave me in exchange for trying fried pickles was something called a Public Surplus Auction.
A Public Surplus Auction was a public-agency auction where city- or county-owned goods were sold to private individuals, and according to him, usable trailers sometimes showed up there.
Sitting on the motel bed, I tapped at my phone screen.
Because public auctions posted their listings online in advance, you could check the item list and condition ahead of time.
When I accessed the site, it was crammed with listings for office desks, chairs, monitors, partitions, and all sorts of miscellaneous odds and ends.
They really auction off absolutely everything.
There was far too much irrelevant stuff, so I searched the keyword “car hauler.”
A few seconds later, the result list narrowed down to exactly one item.
Lot #059 — Dual-Axle Flatbed Car Hauler — County Roads Dept. Surplus.
...Huh? This looks exactly like the setup I’ve been looking for.
With a pounding heart, I opened the listing.
A photo of a flatbed trailer appeared, with dual axles and a low, level deck.
(Translator’s Note: Dual axle means it has two wheel axles, which improves stability and load support.)
From the photos, the rust did not look especially bad, and aside from that it seemed fairly clean, with no major dents.
Because it was public property, the description written underneath also felt unusually trustworthy.
If I’m lucky, this could actually be really good...
I had never once thought about buying a trailer through an auction.
Then again, if you really thought about it, everything I had been doing lately was unprecedented for me anyway.
And because it was an auction, if things broke my way, there was a real chance I could get it for a ridiculously low price.
Haha. An auction. I really am trying everything now.
The auction date listed on the auction calendar was two days later.
“All right. Then I’ll challenge the trailer by auction. And tomorrow... I guess I’ll go see Daniel.”
Now that the Mustang had sold well, and since I had come all the way back to Arizona, there was no way I could leave out visiting the home of a former Navy SEAL teammate.
That was where the people were—the reason I earned money, and the people who had given me the strength to keep going this whole time.
[The fried pickles]
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