—–
He went straight to orange like his mama told him to.
“How much, Dimmy?” asked Marilyn M. the shop attendant eyeing him from the front desk while cutting cloth for an order.
Dimmy fished around in his pockets and pulled out the two bills he’d brought with him and held them up for Marilyn to see.
“No, Dimmy,” Marilyn replied patiently, use to such dimness from the now not-so-young boy. Boy in mind, man in body. The former will probably never grow up. “I mean, how much thread do you want — string, as you put it? 5 meters? 10?” She had 10 meters of cloth in her own hands now. Time to cut again, SNIP.
2 football fields, he remembered. Mama told him 2 football field’s worth. So he asked Marilyn how much that was.
“Well, that’ll be 200 yards worth of thread. That’s a lot. Are you sure you want that much? That’ll take more than 20 bucks but, tell you what, I’ll give you 200 feet for exactly that price.” Wanda needed to get home to feed the young’n’s. She wanted to wrap this up with the dimwitted man-boy, as in wrap the needed thread up and send him back home himself. She figured his mama told him feet instead of yards for that particular number since that would be priced around the 20 dollars she gave him. He just got the terms confused when converting them to football measurements in his head on the walk over. Dimmy — kind of knows his football but not much else. 2nd string fullback for the Newtown Fighting Newts. With his physical talent he could have been a star. But, you know, the mind…
Without more words, he handed over the bills.
His mother watched him walk through the front door without the needed bag and became furious. “TOYS,” she barked. “You forgot the TOYS. Or did you misplace them on the way home? Did you even get the string?” Dimmy, use to such outbursts but still hurt by the stinging words, pulled out the wrapped thread from his back pocket. “Well, at least you did THAT much. I can make my line across 1 2 3 4 gullies but I can’t position toys along the way. What am I going to DO with you, Dimmy Gene? Your father, God rest his soul, would be SO disappointed in you now.”
(to be continued?)
Sunklands 