“I can handle it,” Grayson said. “It’s easier for me to just stand or sit here on the curb, not walk around. And if anybody gives me any trouble.” He knocked on his boot. It sounded hollow, like a plastic drum. “This thing’s sole is stainless steel.”

I left Grayson in line. The card players were passing a thermos around, something steaming that smelled medicinal. Grayson gave me a little wave. It was strange to leave him there, his boot oversized as a cartoon. I thought that was why I felt a little sad, a little lonely, to walk off without him, because I was worried about his foot.

The flea market had changed. For as long as I could remember, there had been stalls selling airbrushed T-shirts, birdhouses, sparkly phone covers. Mama had taken me there to buy my birthday present one year. We had just moved in with Lobo. I remember her telling me to pick out whatever I wanted, anything, even a rabbit fur coat—we could afford it now. And I hadn’t. I hadn’t wanted anything, not from his money. Not as a bribe.

Trucks had hawked elephant ears and French fries then. Now, I was surprised to see canned goods were for sale, hard sausages, dried meat. Camping gear. The flea market had become a somber, muted place. Even the tents looked gray. Snow pooled in their sagging tops. And the faces of the people, hard and searching, who walked, hands in pockets—they were gray, too.

I passed a stall selling root vegetables. A woman in a matted fur coat, which smelled like it had been in a basement for a decade, picked up a potato from a bin. The potato looked wizened, old and undersized. “How much do you want for this?” she asked.

The owner of the stall hurried to her elbow. “I’ll trade you two dozen for that coat,” he said.

Before, sellers at the flea market had accepted cash only, cold hard cash, no cards. Checks were unheard of. Even if you knew the person writing the check, even if they lived down the holler from you, you could never really know a person. You could never trust what they might do, what drugs or hunger might lead them to.

But two years running of extreme cold, and bartering had become a system. Along with cash, I saw blankets exchanging hands, food, live chickens squawking in a wire box.