There's a bait vending machine outside the gas station on State Highway 23, on the corner where you turn off to come into Flat Rock. It's been there longer than anyone can remember, which in a town like ours means at least fifteen years, maybe more. No one's entirely sure when it arrived or who put it there. That's not the kind of question people ask here anymore.
The machine itself is nothing fancy—painted forest green, the kind of color that was probably fashionable sometime in the '80s. The front panel has a scratched acrylic window, yellowed slightly from weather and time. Inside, in neat rows, are the offerings: styrofoam cups of live nightcrawlers, containers of shiners, hand warmers in the winter months, a few cans of that smelly dip that supposedly keeps the mosquitoes away (it doesn't). Everything you'd need for a dawn fishing trip to the lake, all available at two in the morning if the mood struck.
And someone, somewhere, is keeping it stocked.
That's what gets people. Not the machine itself. Vending machines are common enough. It's the fact that those worms are always fresh. The shiners don't go bad. The plastic bags of jigs or leaders replensihed. Someone is out there, regularly, making sure that at three in the morning on a Tuesday in March, if you pull up to that machine with two dollars and an itch to fish, you'll find exactly what you need.
I asked Del Paulson about it once. Del runs the gas station, and has for about twenty years. He's the kind of guy who notices things. I figured he would know.
"Damned if I know," he said, wiping his hands on a rag. "Comes with the lot, I guess. When I took over the place, it was already here. I don't stock it. I don't touch it. The money comes out—or it doesn't, who knows—and the product stays fresh."
"You ever see who fills it?" I asked.
"Nope. And I don't ask questions."
That's the Flat Rock way, I suppose. We've got enough mysteries in this town without interrogating every oddity. The machine works. The worms catch fish. That's enough.
Maybe it's old Frank Kellerman, who's been retired from the bait shop for a decade but can't quite let the work go. Maybe it's someone's kid, doing it quietly, making a little money for a new bike on the side without anyone needing to know their name. Maybe it's someone from out of town, restocking it once a month on their way through, some small act of commerce or kindness or strange hobby that only makes sense to them.
I've fished that lake maybe four times in my life. I'm not a fisherman. But I've pulled up to that machine at odd hours, not to use it, just to look at it. There's something oddly comforting about it. In a world where everything seems to require seventeen steps and a customer service number, there's this machine. Simple. Reliable. Asking nothing but two dollars and trusting you to know what you need.
The funny thing is, nobody in Flat Rock talks much about it. You mention the machine, and people nod. They know it. They might've used it once. But there's no gossip or betting pools about who maintains it. No theories passed around the diner. It just is, the way the water tower is, the way Jefferson Street is.
Maybe that's the real mystery. Not who stocks the machine, but why we've all collectively decided not to make a fuss about it. In a town where everybody knows everybody else's business, we've all agreed to leave this one thing alone.
There's something almost reverent about it, if you think about it long enough. And somewhere, someone is making sure it stays that way. I don't know who they are, and I'm pretty sure I never will.