The Power of Testimony

MARK BOUMAN || 35
a cement front porch would make a good place to kick off our sandy
shoes, thus keeping the floors clean. Dad refused to pour one.
“Why don’t you do it yourself if you’re so fired up about it?” he griped.
The next day Mom called a cement truck. She scrounged some old
pieces of wood from the yard and nailed them into rough forms around
the front door. When the driver arrived, he took one look at the forms
and refused to pour. He knew Mom’s handiwork would simply buckle
and allow the wet cement to ooze across the sand. After he and Mom
just stood there for a minute, the driver asked Mom for Dad’s toolbox
and rebuilt the forms himself so that he could pour the cement. Since
Mom didn’t have any cash, she raided Dad’s stash of ammunition and
gave the man a few boxes of shotgun shells.
Two days later, when it dried, we had a real porch sure enough—​
although if it made any difference in the amount of sand inside,
I couldn’t tell.
The constant sand invasion was the reason for our excitement when
a traveling salesman stopped by to demonstrate a Kirby vacuum. We
actually dared to dream that our sweeping days would be over, since
the vacuum, we were all assured, could run on both carpet and hard
floors. We gathered in the living room, Dad in his armchair and Mom
on the couch with the three of us. The salesman stood in the center of
the room, talking about its wind-​ tunnel design and lifting capacity and
precise manufacturing tolerances, after which he made eye contact with
Mom and asked, “Ma’am, would you like to see a demonstration?”
He unwound the power cord with a practiced flourish and plugged it
into the wall. On the way back to his machine, he made a show of walking
slowly over our carpet, studying its gold, scarlet, and green designs.
Then he clicked on the vacuum and ran it over a particular spot, back
and forth, back and forth. By the third pass, the vacuum was leaving a
thin but clearly visible line of sand in its wake. When the salesman ran
the vacuum back across the trail of sand, the vacuum sucked it right
up—​ and then deposited a fresh line of sand in a slightly different spot.