My Seoul Man

Chapter 40

Wally and his "friend" Rita came running up to the side door of the tractor with a dolly stacked with produce boxes.

"We got grapes, strawberries, kiwis—near 'bout bought out a whole stall down the road a piece," Wally said.

AJ and Ronnie ran to help them haul. But I couldn't even look up from the sugar syrup I was trying not to ruin.

There was a line of kids and anxious adults, now, too, wrapped all the way around the trailer.

And damned near all of them wanted the same thing: tanghulu, it was called in Japan. Candied, fruit skewers.

They were simple to make and mad popular in Asia. But we'd added a little chili heat and tamarind tang—Southwestern/Mexican borderlands flava. Just to see how they'd fly.

And they were flying, all right. Three big pre-assembled batches sold out so fast we had to stop everything and create a little assembly line to skewer and candy coat some bagged fruit we'd set aside for later.

AJ said, "We owe you, man! It's a damned good thing you two stopped by."

"Guys, we need to start rinsing that stuff, like, pronto," I called out. "I got more syrup almost ready here—Yoli can you skewer?"

Wally's girl Rita rushed over to the stove and said, "Shove over, girl! I been makin' cactus juice candy since 4-H Club and whatnot back in the day."

She looked like a modern-day Lucille Ball with her red, curly hair and big blues. Had the voice, too. Raspy and brassy.

"Can you start some more syrup for me, then?"

"Precious little I can't do after cookin' for 50 starvin' ranch hands for damn near that many years. So you holler and I'll foller."

We all got a much needed laugh out of that. And Wally stepped up to the counter next to Ronnie and said, "You kin go on back'n' get to cookin' again if you want. I know how to run one o' them gizmos."

He meant the Clover payment system we were using. I called it "Clever." Cause customers could just "boop" their debit and credit cards on the little sensor thing and it would do all the math for us. Even kept track of inventory and all that.

AJ slid a bunch of French fry corn dogs over toward Ronnie and called out, "That big order's ready."

"That's what I'm talkin' about,"Ronnie said. "We get that next batch o' taco pies, we'll be all set, Eb."

I leaned to peek into the oven. "Five minutes?"

"And then take a break," AJ called over. "And drink water, okay? It's stifling in here today."

"Well, at this rate we'll be sold out in, like, an hour or so, bae," I said. "I can hang."

Rita shoved an ice-cold bottle of water at me and said, "Do what the man says, girl! You pass out in here, it'll stop the whole show!"

And Ronnie said, "The new orders are mostly for those fruit things. And they take, like, two seconds to dip."

AJ slid past everyone else to "shove" me toward the back door and give me a quick peck on the cheek. But I felt super guilty walking past that line of people outside waiting to be served. Walked off away from the truck swilling water as fast as I could.

Made my head ache, that frosty water. So I sat down on this little tree stump out next to the truck park picnic tables. Customers were eyeing the benches and folding chairs like hawks, trying to find room to sit and eat—I was almost ashamed of myself for hogging that stump.