His dead daddy still owed me thirty-nine dollars and seventy-three cents, and if anybody thought old Amos was gonna charge a nickle to a Sullivan they had another think coming. "Nope," I told him. "Ain't no way."

      I rang up his beer, his bread, his smokes, and the pile of candy he'd bought for the bunch of sorry kids hanging out of the busted windows of his hundred dollar car. Then I added fifty-nine cents for the honey-bun he'd stuck in his back pocket, forty-nine cents for the pack of gum in his front pocket, eighty-nine cents for the roll of paper towels I keep by the register on Tuesdays, and a dollar just because he was a thieving Sullivan. If there's one thing in this world I can't stand, it's a thief. "Nine dollars and a nickle," I said.

     "That's mighty high," he said and handed me a ten.

      "As a cat's back," I agreed and gave him seventy cents change because he was a thieving Sullivan and sacked up everything but the Tuesday paper towels. "You welcome to take yore business someplace else."

      He stuck his short-changed change in his pocket and went out the door with his mighty-high sack of stuff and didn't say nothing. There ain't no other place. They closed their doors when the oil bust hit. Thought thirty dollar oil was gonna last forever. Me, I knowed better. There's more oil under an acre of A-rabs than the whole state of Louisiana. All them A-rabs had to do was open them valves a little bit wider, just like I knowed they would.

      I started this store out of the back of a truck with watermelons and cantaloupes me and Mable hauled out of Mexico all the way to this crossroads in Louisiana. It used to be on the main highway, but it ain't no more. I ain't no crook, but me and Mable--that's her over there on that stool watching the candy rack so no damn kids can steal--she's about blind but the kids don't know it--we'd pay them Mexicans a dollar for twenty watermelons and they'd throw the cantaloupes in for nothing. These people around here'd pay a dollar for one watermelon and a quarter for a cantaloupe.

      But them watermelons over there by the wall and the chicken feed are five dollars now. If I can get a good cantaloupe, I got to sell it for a dollar. And half the time if I do get one, me and Mable have to eat it. People nowadays don't eat much of anything that ain't in a can or wrapped in paper. Me and Mable sell more beer in a day than we do watermelons and cantaloupes in a year. And Mexican beer costs more than American beer. Figure that out if you can. I can't.

      But I can figure where to put my money. It's in hundred dollar bills wrapped up in paper sacks, ten thousand dollars to the sack. It shore ain't in no fancy canopy over my gas pumps so high-faluting women don't get their hair wet if it's raining. And it ain't in no plate glass windows so them damn kids can throw rocks and bust holes. And it ain't in no high-priced beer cooler. Them four old refrigerators work just fine. And air conditioning? Them screen doors work just fine. A good breeze don't cost nothing.

      Yep, my money's in paper sacks. Got nineteen sacks of money back in the storage room mixed in with forty years' worth of tax receipts. I know people. Any of them Sullivans or anybody else busts in here at night, ain't nobody gonna steal tax receipts. Besides, me and Mable live in the back and I sleep light. Mable don't know it, but soon as I got a few more of them sacks, me and the sacks and a new woman are headed for Mexico.

      When them Sullivans drove off in a clanking-knocking cloud of black smoke, up drove a fine car and out stepped a Yankee. You can spot one a mile away because they'll have a good car, new clothes, and a gawking look on their faces. I used to be one myself. But I don't claim it because it's bad for business.

      "Amos," Mable asked, squinting out the screen door at the Yankees, "who's that?"

      "Tourists," I said real loud because Mable can't hear very good. "Probably driving around looking at oil wells."

      The Yankee came in, followed by a Yankee gal with lipstick and blond hair and big shaking titties. "Oh, Charles," she said with a deep breath and a bounce, "isn't this a quaint little store."

      "There's ants on the floor," Mable told me. "Get the bug-spray."

      That Yankee's eyes rolled around the shelves and the walls and stopped on Mable like he ain't never seen an old woman squinting from a stool. "Yes, my dear," he told his gal, "it certainly is. I have never stepped in one more quaint."

      "Hey!" Mable told him real loud. "Don't stomp no ants in my floor. You'll knock a hole in it."

      He jumped back, gandered down at his shoes, then at the worn-out floor, then up at Mable. She squinted and he stared. He finally looked at me.

      "Howdy," I said. "You folks passing through?"

      "Yes we are," he said, Yankee-fast. "We're on our way to New Orleans." He looked out the screen door toward the oil well pump-jacks a-screeching and a-going up and down across the street. "The people around here must certainly be rich."

      I knowed right off that he could talk a whole lot faster than he could think. "Some are," I told him. "Most ain't."

      "Well," he said like he knowed what he was talking about, "there must certainly be an enormous amount of wealth in this area."

      I wanted to tell him that a lot of the wealth in this area came from selling oil wells to Yankees. If he'd hang around long enough, somebody'd oblige him. He'd soon find out that his well'd only pump up twenty dollars worth of oil every day and burn up twenty-five dollars worth of electricity doing it.

      They walked around the shelves, looking over at Mable, him whispering to his gal about "ignorant red-necks" and both of them talking about the "interesting line of merchandise" and acting like they ain't never in their lives seen a jar of pickled pig's lips. I heard them say "conversation piece" and "cocktail party." After a while they came up to the counter and put down two belly washers, some cheese crackers, a pack of gum, and a jar of pig's lips. He wanted a pack of cowboy cigarettes. She wanted a pack of those skinny little things liberated women don't do nothing but get lipstick on.

      I rang it all up and added in the Tuesday paper towels, a dollar because he was a Yankee and thought I was dumb, and another dollar because I knowed I could get away with it. "Twelve dollars and thirteen cents," I said.

      "My," he said, "that certainly is high."

      "Yep," I said, "we can't buy in volume like big city stores."

      "Yes," he said with a knowing, Yankee nod, "I certainly understand that." His Yankee look turned even more superior. "I have a degree in Economic Theory from Harvard University."

      "Is that right?" I said and tried to sound as impressed as I could. I handed him his change and didn't short-change him because I knowed I couldn't get away with it. While he counted it, I said, "I got an economic theory of my own."

      "You do?" he said and grinned like I'd said something funny. "Would you mind sharing your theory?" He looked over at his gal and muttered out of the side of his mouth: "This certainly should be interesting."

      "It's simple," I said. "If yore intake is exceeded by yore outgo, yore upkeep is gonna be yore downfall."

      The gal laughed, titties a-shaking. He stood there with his jaw slack while I sacked up everything but the Tuesday paper towels. "Y'all come back," I said.

      He picked up the sack and out the door they went. They drove off with their certainly superior Yankee tires kicking up a cloud of Louisiana dust. I decided right then and there that my new woman was gonna have blond hair and big titties. What hair Mable's got left is gray. And she's got big titties but they about eighty years old.

      "Amos, who was that hussy?" she asked from her stool.

      "Weren't no hussy. Was a Yankee."

      "Smelled like a hussy," Mable said, "and hussies don't wear brassieres."

      Sometimes Mable can see better than other times. If there's one thing in this world I can't stand, it's a liar, but I said, "Didn't notice."

      That Yankee's dust hadn't settled good when up drove a preacher.

      "Who's that?" Mable asked.

      "Goddamned preacher."

      "Oh, Lord!" Mable cried out and closed her squinting eyes and rocked back and forth on her stool. "Lord, forgive Amos! Lord, forgive him!"

      The screen door opened and in came the preacher. He walked right by me, headed for Mable. "Good morning, Brother Amos," he told me through a preacher smile that showed every tooth in his head. "How you doing on this wonderful day the Good Lord gave us?"

      "Fine," I told him and thought how wonderful it'd be if the Good Lord made that smile freeze and the floor fall in.

      But they didn't. The preacher walked right up to Mable and took her hand. "Sister Mable," he told her in that honey-dripping preacher voice, "the Lord's got a place for you at the foot of His golden throne."

      That's good, I wanted to say, but you better hope she can take her stool because if she sits on that golden ground, there ain't no way she could get up again. But I didn't. They started praying and I heard my name mentioned once or twice. I figure there ain't no way I can miss going to heaven. Every preacher in this parish comes by at least once a week and holds Mable's hand and mentions my name to the Good Lord. And it'd be a real blessing to me if the Good Lord would answer them back and say, "Preacher, buy yore beer and whiskey from Amos instead of driving to where don't nobody know yore face."

      But the Good Lord didn't say nothing. I just stared out the door and watched a woman from over in the next parish make loops around the block, waiting on my parking lot to get empty.

      "Amen," the preacher and Mable finally said. "Bless you, Sister Mable," he said. "We gonna put a plaque on every one of our new stained glass windows and dedicate them to you."

      Mable likes plaques. Every church in this parish has got plaques with her name on them. You can even see her name writ in brass way up on the side of the new steeple of the downtown Pennycost church. I give her fifty dollars a month to spend like she damn well pleases, and if she wants to give it to preachers, that's her business. But I ain't gonna lie, never have, never will, and I don't like it a-tall. Fifty dollars a month is lots of money.

      "Brother Amos," that preacher said to me when he let go of Mable's hand, "can we expect you in church this Sunday with Sister Mable?"

      "I'll be there."

      He left and the woman made one more loop and parked. I reached on the shelf behind me, got down a half-gallon of the whiskey she and her Baptist husband drank, put it in a sack, and set it beside the Tuesday paper towels. "Howdy," I said when she came in.

      "Howdy," she said and looked to see if the sack was sitting where it was supposed to be. It was, so she eye-balled around the store to make sure nobody she knowed was in there. They weren't, so she got a jug of milk out of a refrigerator, a loaf of bread off a rack, and put everything on the counter. "Write this down," she said.

      I had her ticket book in my hand. I figured the tax on the whiskey, a little extra of my own, and added it to the price of the whiskey and wrote it all down as gas. Then I wrote down the Tuesday paper towels, the jug of milk, and two loaves of bread. "Anything else?" I asked and pushed out the book for her to sign and started sacking up everything but the Tuesday paper towels.

      "No," she said and didn't even look at the book, just like I knowed she wouldn't. "I'm in a hurry."

      Out the door she went with the loaf of bread sticking up out of the sack, just like it was supposed to.

      Along about dinnertime a whiskey truck had ran and so had the grocery truck. I was stocking whiskey behind the counter. That stuff's high, so I wouldn't let Mable touch it even though she wouldn't anyway. She had her specks on so she could see, and she was out in the aisle putting up groceries and telling me about the devilment the Good Lord was gonna do to my soul if I didn't quit selling beer and whiskey.

      It was a real blessing when a big long car pulled in the parking lot and out stepped John Wesley Dry-Hole Patterson. Dry-Hole--that's what we call him when he ain't listening--had a big black cigar in his mouth. He's been in the oil business almost as long as I've been in the store business. He was dressed like a cowboy with a pocket full of credit cards, but if he's ever stepped in a pile of cow mess I'll be in church with Mable next Sunday. I know people. Dry-Hole thinks anybody with oil wells ought to look like they from Texas. And he's right.

      He eased his Stetson hat down toward his eyes and stepped inside. "Morning, Amos," he said and started fumbling around in the cigar rack. "How's business?"

      "'Bout as low as oil, John Wesley. Don't reckon it could get much worse."

      "Yep, that's mighty low, mighty low." He put a handful of cheap cigars on the counter. He was in politics before he was in oil, so he turned to Mable and said real loud: "Morning, Sister Mable. May the Good Lord bless you today."

      She looked up over her specks and a grocery shelf. "Thank you, Brother Patterson," she told him, "but if the Good Lord blessed me, He'd do away with the devil's left hand, beer, and He'd take away the devil's right hand, whiskey, and He'd put my man Amos in church on Sunday."

      "Yep," Dry-Hole said like he was running for office, "a man ought to go to church with his wife. I'm there every Sunday." He cocked his hat back on his head. "I take a little nip now and then, but--humph, humph--it's for a cough."

      "Bless you, Brother Patterson."

      "Thank you, Sister Mable. Oh, Sister Mable, I almost forgot. My wife said to tell you they gonna carve your name in every new pew down at the True Vine Missionary Baptist Church."

      "Well, bless Sister Patterson, too."

      Dry-Hole turned around and looked at me. I knowed what he wanted, but I didn't get it off the shelf because he didn't want nobody thinking they knowed what he was thinking. I knowed that for a fact. "Half-gallon of Scotch," he said. "Best you got."

      I put it on the counter with the cigars and rang up everything but the Tuesday paper towels. "Forty-eight twenty-two," I said.

      He handed me a hundred dollar bill like I knowed he would because oil men ought to pay for things with hundred dollar bills. I handed him his change and didn't short-change him a penny because I knowed I couldn't get away with it.

      And that's when the screen door opened and in walked the Harvard Yankee, gal a-trailing and a-bouncing behind him. "Say," he said to me, "would you happen to know if any of the oil wells in this area are for sale? The oil industry certainly has some interesting tax advantages."

      Dry-Hole looked at me and shoved his change back across the counter. I stuck it in my register.

      "Well," I told the Yankee, "this might be yore lucky day. This feller right here is Mister John Wesley Patterson." I put a Yankee look on my face. "He owns about a hundred oil wells. Folks around this area call him Gusher Patterson."

      Dry-Hole moved the cigar to the other side of his mouth and stuck out his hand. A money-making look sparkled in his eyes like the rings on his fingers. "Call me Wess," he said, "because, truthfully, I've only drilled three or four gushers."

      An impressed, money-losing look came to the Yankee's eyes. He shook Dry-Hole's hand and said, "Would you be interested in selling some of your wells?"

      "Might be," Dry-Hole said around his cigar, "and might not be. Oil's down right now but in two or three years it's gonna hit forty dollars a barrel. All a feller's got to do is hang on." He pulled the cigar out of his mouth, flipped the ash in the floor, and smeared it around with the toe of one of his boots like he was thinking. I knowed he'd already done his thinking. "But, on the other hand," he said and put the cigar back in his mouth, "I do have a note due at the bank."

      The Yankee spoke up and Dry-Hole's note was good as paid: "I certainly would be interested in seeing some of your wells."

      "Let's go outside and talk," Dry-Hole said. He put the cheap cigars in his shirt pocket, the high-priced Scotch under his arm, and out the door they went.

      "Y'all come back," I told them.

      They stood around Dry-Hole's big long car for awhile and talked. Dry-Hole opened the back door, flipped down the cover over the built-in bar, and came out with three glasses of ice. The Yankees drank and Dry-Hole sipped. One more drink, and in the car with Dry-Hole they got and off they went to pay a note.

      Mable had finished the groceries and was back on her stool. "John Wesley shore is a fine Christian man," she said. "There's a place in heaven for John Wesley Patterson, and, Amos, there ain't no place in heaven for a man that sells the drink of the devil."

      Nope, I wanted to tell Mable, Dry-Hole ain't going to heaven because he's spent his whole life drilling in the other direction. But I didn't. I went back to stocking the devil's right hand on the whiskey shelves. Mable squinted at every bottle. When I finished, I pulled Dry-Hole's hundred dollar bill out of the register and stuck it in the sack of money hid beneath the junk under the counter. It filled it up: ten thousand dollars.

      I rolled it up, tied it with string, and handed it to Mable. "Hide this with the rest," I told her.

      She put on her specks, got off her stool, and waddled to the storeroom. When she got back on her stool and was squinting at me again, I said, just to make sure she wasn't trying to pull something on old Amos: "How many sacks I--we--got?"

      "That one was nunber twenty," she said with a smile on her face like all that money was gonna do her some good.

      She ain't no more than got her mouth closed when the door opened and in walked another preacher. "Good afternoon, Brother Amos," he said. "Isn't this a wonderful day to be doing the work of the Lord?"

      I didn't even answer him. He grabbed Mabel's hand like I'm sure he grabbed his collection plate and said, "Bless you, Sister Mable."

      Dry-Hole came back later that day and bought another half-gallon of Scotch. But things didn't work out the way he'd planned. Somehow or other that Harvard Yankee formed something called a Holding Company and left Dry-Hole and the bank holding the bag. Last I heard of him, him and his gal were in France.

      And, me, just as soon as the Good Lord blesses me with two or three more sacks of money, old Amos is Mexico bound.