He reached to shake my hand, smiling,
as though we two had just accomplished
something big together, he the mechanic,
who had quickly done his satisfying work,
and I the driver, wise enough to have
heeded his repeated warning about the
“washboard road” ahead, which
could have caused who knows what
kind of damage, maybe something
dangerous, had he not noticed the
tell-tale leak of shock-absorber fluid
under our car. Fortunately, he had
shock absorbers ready to install
right there in the filling station,
so no need to wait for a delivery
out there in the desert of New Mexico.
It really didn’t take that long.
Not too much business at the station,
wherever it was, just people like
me and my wife stopping for gas on the way
to somewhere else they wanted to be.
So off we drove with genuine (I should add)
new shock absorbers, ready for the jagged
road ahead, which proved to be as smooth
as Isaiah’s prophesy of what’s to come
with our new shocks installed.

Sometime later I realized that we’d
been conned. The guy had surely squirted
grease beneath the car as phony evidence.
What to make of it? Of him?
It doesn’t make me mad to ponder it:
a lot to unpack though. I made his day.
How often does that ruse work so well?
How often does he try? Had he perceived
that I was too naive to know that trick,
which wasn’t new at all? Too honest
to conceive of such a scheme?
Con artists are artists, after all: performing
artists, who have a script but improvise as well.
My handshake was to him applause:
Bravo! You’ve totally fucked me over,
and I don’t even know. That big smile: his bow.