Free The Man Who Ate the 747 by Ben Sherwood

score was tied, but the crowded bleachers buzzed mostly with talk about the man from
The Book of Records.
    Willa sat in the stands, listening to the hubbub. Mrs. Orville Clappenfoos, secretary of the Nuckolls County Historical Society, was absolutely sure this would be the first world record, ever, for a Superior citizen. Donald Quoogie, the State Farm agent in town, worried that Wally was definitely violating some Food and Drug Administration regulation and would end up in jail.
    Making notes on her box score, Willa tried to follow the softball game. She didn’t want to get swept up in the 747 hoopla. A world-record attempt would end badly for the town. She knew it on pure instinct. The guy from
The Book of Records
probably wasn’t all bad, deep down. In fact, he seemed sweet and smart. But if the world came to town, and expectations were raised, what would happen if the dream went bust? If it glimpsed a bit of hope, how would Superior ever go back to wasting away?
    A ball sailed into the gap in the outfield for an extra base hit. The crowd cheered. As a girl, Willa played shortstop on this very diamond. With her good strong arm, she threw out plenty of boys, and loved it when her father recorded her triumphs in the paper. She competed in every sport, even flag football, and it showed in her writing. She knew the inside moves and readers loved it.
    She checked her watch. Not much time to get across town for the last story of the day. The auction would begin at six. She motioned to one of the team managers, a skinny teenager with an earring and buzz cut.
    “Virgil,” she said, “do me a favor. Give me a holler later with the box score from the last inning.”
    “You bet.”
    “And one more thing. Tell Missy to follow through with her fast pitch. She’s pulling up too soon.”
    “Will do,” Virgil said.
    She took off for her truck and drove as fast as shecould through town. The sun was still lancing rays across the land when she pulled up to the Stack homestead.
    Two hundred farmers had come to bid. They moved around silently, inspecting the farm implements arranged methodically in the yard. The Stack family had farmed this patch of land on the Republican River for 100 years, but now crop prices had collapsed, and the bank had no choice but to sell it all.
    Willa had covered too many of these foreclosures in the last year, farmers saying good-bye to beloved tractors and combines, their precious acres sold off to conglomerates in Chicago and St. Louis. She had written too many words about her own friends and their families giving up after so much struggle. Week after week, her front page featured little else but the decline and fall of their way of life.
    She walked to a high spot under a maple tree and watched the auctioneer. He was a circuit rider, a traveling man who had made quite a living in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. He was a quick talker who seemed to think that if he did the dirty work fast, it wouldn’t hurt as much. Not far from the auctioneer, Bud and Gena Stack watched quietly, their faces drawn.
    The bidding started with a hush. Bud averted his eyes as his cherished tractor was sold to a neighbor for five grand. Gena cried into her apron.
    Willa could see that as usual there weren’t many buyers, just a lot of lookers. It was strange how somany farmers came to watch. It was like the traffic jams on the interstate when a car went off the road. Folks wanted to see the wreckage. There but for the grace of God …
    Willa was taking notes when Tom Fritts approached in a white Stetson, matching starched shirt, and boots from the hide of some uncertain but exotic creature. The town banker, he was the richest man in the county, the one who foreclosed on the Stacks. He was an old friend of her father’s. They’d both gone to school with Bud.
    “How you doing?” he said to Willa, tipping his hat.
    “Better than you are, I’m sure.”
    “You know I hate this.”
    “How many more you expecting in the next