Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver [60]
Hacksaw blade
(The last time he’d used the saw on a stripped bolt, he’d noted it was dull.)
2. Black plastic for mulching between the tree rows
3. AA flashlight batteries (four)
4. 3 PVC pipe fittings, L-shape, ½ inch (broken irrigation line)
5. Paint markers for the hybrid trees
(He resented this item, since he knew he still had some markers down in the barn, but he’d wasted nearly an hour yesterday looking for them and suspected they’d been taken. Maybe by a neighbor child. Maybe by a groundhog.)
6. Weed killer, one gallon concentrate!!
The resentment attached to this final purchase was boundless and only feebly expressed by his underlining and exclamation points. But he couldn’t delay it any longer. He had to face Oda Black every time he needed bread, Miracle Whip, and bologna, and he knew how they must be tarring and feathering him down there at the store behind his back. “Here comes the county’s worst road frontage,” Oda probably cried when his truck pulled up out front, chuckling as she shoved herself up from her armchair by the front window and slid her swollen feet toward the register. “Shhh, everybody! It’s Mr. Pokeweed.” All right, then, he would spray his front bank himself. Bring that forest of briars crashing down around the ears of the snapping turtles. Garnett still turned red to think about it. At least Oda didn’t seem to have heard about the turtle.
He added malathion (for Japanese beetles!!) to his list, refolded the paper, replaced it in his shirt pocket, and went into the house, comforting himself with thoughts of Pinkie’s Diner. In the front hallway he paused to sort through a stack of mail he had brought in yesterday but forgotten to look at: advertisement circulars, nonsense, not even a bill. He slid the whole lot into the trash and closed the west-facing window in the kitchen against the heat that would arrive this afternoon in his absence. After his errands he would go to Pinkie’s for the fish-dinner special that was offered every Friday afternoon: all the fried catfish you could eat with hush puppies and slaw, $5.99. Garnett suspected that since Pinkie’s had it on Fridays, it was probably meant for the Catholics, but the diner was a place of business, after all, not a church. Catholics in Zebulon County were few and far between, and anyhow Pinkie Prater would accept $5.99 from a dog or a horse if it came in, and put it in his cash register with no questions asked. Pinkie’s on Fridays was a settled matter in Garnett’s mind. In fact, on the rare Friday when he failed to keep his appointment with the fish-dinner special, rumors about Garnett Walker’s health circulated so fast that when he turned up next at Black Store or the filling station, people were amazed to see him alive.
No matter. A predictable mare beats a wild hare, his father used to say. Pinkie’s was Garnett’s only extravagance, and he liked to look forward to it. He did not tend to eat well since his wife had died. It had been enough years now that he had gotten used to cold meat sandwiches for dinner and a single place mat on the table, but he had never learned to cook. Certainly not something like a hush puppy. How would you even begin to make a hush puppy, what in the world was in one? Nothing to do with a puppy, surely. Garnett had long known, though he didn’t much like to admit it, that God’s world and the better part of daily life were full of mysteries known only to women.
He would have to change his shirt before starting out. He had broken a sweat out there in the field, to say the least. He closed the bathroom door (though he lived alone and never had guests) and took off his shirt without looking in the bathroom mirror. After he had washed himself with a cloth, he went to his bedroom bureau to retrieve his last clean undershirt (tomorrow was laundry day) and to the armoire to take down his town shirt from its hanger. (It smelled slightly of Pinkie’s fish-dinner specials; he would remember to wash it tomorrow, even though this