The Bootleg Vendor at Table 6. On the edge of Route 1, where the… | by Chelsea Judge | Bless Her Heart & Mine Too | Sep, 2025
On the edge of Route 1, where the pavement crumbles into red clay and the flea market stretches wider than a football field, sits Table 6. It’s nothing special at first glance — a warped folding table with a crooked sign that reads “Rare DVDs — $2 Each” in fading Sharpie. But anybody who’s been coming for a while knows to steer clear or brace for something unforgettable.
Every Saturday, the locals swarm the market for hot boiled peanuts, knock-off perfumes, and tomatoes that smell like summer. I was there with my two roommates, Tiffany and Monique, on what was supposed to be a quick stroll to grab fresh honey and see if Miss Laverne had restocked those coconut wax candles.
We’d just turned the corner past the guy selling parakeets in shoeboxes when we saw him. Greasy mullet. Oversized shades. Tight jeans from 1983. That was Earl, a bootleg vendor with a personality as slick as his hair.
“Ladies, I got that good stuff today,” he said, grinning like a catfish on a skillet. “New releases. Even some… special features.”
We laughed awkwardly and peeked at his stack of DVDs. Everything looked normal enough — cartoon collections, old sitcoms, even a copy of The Notebook that looked like it had seen a few baptisms. But then Earl tapped the underside of the table and said, “If y’all lookin’ for the grown folks section, I got inventory under here.”
I blinked. “Grown folks?”
That’s when he lifted the corner of the tablecloth like he was revealing a sacred scroll. Below was a dusty milk crate stuffed with unlabeled DVDs in crinkled sandwich bags. He gave us a wink like we were part of some secret society.
Tiffany whispered, “Did this man really just try to sell us bootleg porn at 11:30 in the morning?”
We backed away faster than a church lady from a snake-handling revival. Monique, who was always the bold one, shook her head and said, “Sir, we came for tomatoes and honey, not trauma.”
Earl shrugged. “Suit yourselves. Y’all don’t know what you’re missin’.”
That night over smoothies, we couldn’t stop laughing about Earl’s secret stash. It became a running joke — whenever something got too awkward, we’d just say, “Table 6 energy” and move on. But the truth is, it stuck with me. That strange blend of weird, wild, and utterly Southern.
Because in towns like ours, even a regular Saturday can turn into a story you’ll be telling for the rest of your life.
