"Potatoes." He named a price.
"Well," I said in surprise. "That's cheap."
"Tell you the truth, bub. They got blasted."
"Blasted? What do you mean?"
"Well, now, it's hard to say. Something fell and hit the storage barn."
"Fell?"
"Fell, bub. A bitty explosion. But nothing much. Maybe seventy percent of the load is good. The bad ones will be in sacks in the middle. Won't even know it. What do you say?"
That season potatoes were going good in the wholesale markets around the city. I figured Joe Loftus and I could clear a neat profit even if thirty percent of the load was waste. So I agreed to the deal and for the next hour or so used the muscles of my back along with Joe, the farmer, and the farmer's two grown boys to load the sacks of potatoes into the empty van of our big semi-trailer. When he had finished I paid off the farmer and his wife gave us each a cup of coffee. Then Joe and I climbed into the cab and we rolled.
"Hear something?" Joe asked about half an hour later.
It was dark by then and traffic on the Montauk Highway was light. "Potato sacks shifting around," I said. "We didn't pack 'em too good, I guess."