My Seoul Man

Chapter 36

I tapped AJ on the shoulder as I noticed Lulu and Star winding through the crowds of people strolling around the stalls.

And Star lit up like a real one when she spotted our truck. Gave me a hearty salute and said, "You guys are a hit! Jeez! You sold out, right?"

Oh, we sold out all right. With a calculator we found online, we figured the net profit to be about $1000, which was damned good for a first day out.

We needed to adjust our buying some--we burned through two days worth of stock in one. But that was a good sign, right?

And at that rate, even if I only worked say...Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'd be making as much as some of the top admins made at our district back home.

Of course, I'd have to pay whoever went along, if I decided to really do this thing.And there'd be unexpected bills for equipment problems and all that.

But even then, I'd net more than I did cooped up in that pokey old portable out in "no man's land."

So I lit up, too. And said, "But we saved you some, though--hey, little mama! We got something special for you."

Lulu bounced and clapped. "Is it that ice thing?!"

"Oh my God, she pestered her cousin Galen so bad he finally just gave his to her," Star said. "Where do you get those sweet beans?"

I nodded toward AJ. "There's your man. AJ this is the..."

I didn't finish the introduction because when I looked back, AJ was standing by the serving window looking like he'd just walked up on that saucer in the woods.

"Is that a...Transformer?" he asked.

Ronnie turned and froze, too. And Yoli came up behind him and dropped the dish cloth she'd been wiping the counters with.

"It's just like how that kid first sees Bumblebee stand up," I said. "Look at them!"

"That's my Lyle," Star chuckled. "He built that thing a few years ago."

That "thing" was some kind of monster truck that could stand up on its back tires or...well, I couldn't see exactly how it stood up but when it did, it looked like a huge robot towering over the track.

Its head and claws swiveled and it spit big plumes of fire, too—the crowd gasped and screamed when the first flames shot out toward the stands.

"I was afraid he was gonna set all our beautiful old trees on fire trying to get it to do that," Star said.

"She made him take it up to the mesas," Lulu told us. "And then it scared all the Murphy people."

"You found a guy just like your Dad, didn't you?" I said.

Star's smile stretched across her face. "They were best buds, Lyle and Bill. I think Lyle woulda wound up all lost like the other young guys out here if he hadn't met my dad and got to tinkerin' around all the time."

"Met you, too."

She winked and said, "Yeah, I finally got 'im to look up from all those gadgets they were workin' on."

I started gathering up some of the goodies we'd put by for them—Star sniffed the air and clapped her hands like Lulu.

"Oh man, that chicken is sick! The spices? The crunch? My God!"

"He taught me that, too," I said. Nodding to AJ.

"What about the tamales? We fought over those for sure. Totally different from the ones some of the Mexican families sell in town."