“Six crates.”
Otis stopped.
“Six what?”
“Crates.”
“Of?”
“Seed plates.”
Otis slowly turned.
“How many seed plates?”
“About nine hundred.”
There was a pause.
“You bought nine hundred seed plates.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“One eighty.”
Otis looked at him for a long time.
“You got fifty-six dollars left.”
Malik frowned.
“How’d you know?”
“I know what Bell Repair paid you this summer.”
Malik waited.
Otis took off his glasses and wiped them.
Then asked:
“You know what you bought?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Malik blinked.
Otis put the glasses back on.
“Would’ve worried me more if you thought you did.”
They backed Otis’s trailer around the parts building.
Loading took almost an hour.
The crates were too heavy to move full, so Malik and Otis transferred plates into smaller boxes.
The iron left rust dust on their gloves.
Grease blackened Malik’s coat.
At the bottom of one crate, they found several cracked plates, two sprockets, a bent planter-chain guide, and a mouse nest.
Otis looked at the nest.
“Premium inventory.”
Malik ignored him.
They needed two trips.
By the time the final load reached Bell Repair, daylight was fading.
They stacked everything along the rear wall of the parts room.
Otis stood with his hands on his hips.
Nine hundred pieces of old iron occupied far more space indoors than Malik expected.
“You bought all that for scrap money.”
“Yes.”
Otis picked up one plate.
Turned it over.
Wiped the back with a rag.
“What do you figure is under the dirt?”
“Numbers.”
“Anything else?”
“Don’t know.”
Otis handed it back.
“Then start with numbers.”
Malik’s mother already knew by the time he got home.
Millbrook County did not have social media in 1990.
It did not need it.
Information moved through feed stores, diners, churches, repair shops, barber chairs, and people who had absolutely no business knowing something but somehow did.
Denise was sitting at the kitchen table.
His grandmother Ruth was across from her.
Dinner waited.
Malik removed his coat.
Denise asked:
“How much did you spend?”
No greeting.
Malik knew better than to pretend confusion.
“One hundred eighty dollars.”
Ruth continued buttering a biscuit.
Denise stared.
“One hundred eighty.”
“Yes.”
“On what?”
“Seed plates.”
“How many?”
“About nine hundred.”
Denise blinked.
“You bought nine hundred of anything?”
Malik almost smiled.
“This is not funny.”
“I know.”
“You saved that money all summer.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“I’m figuring that out.”
Denise leaned back.
He recognized the expression.
She was doing arithmetic.
$180 represented groceries.
Fuel.
Part of a property tax bill.
A tractor tire repair.
She had never asked Malik to contribute his earnings to household expenses.
Still, he knew what money meant on their farm.
Ruth finally spoke.
“Well.”
Denise looked at her mother.
“Well what?”
Ruth took a bite.
“He bought them.”
“I know he bought them.”
“Can’t unbuy them.”
Denise sighed.
Ruth looked at Malik.
“Then you’d best learn what you bought.”