Malik explained the basic idea as well as he understood it.
Older plate-type planters used interchangeable discs to meter seeds.
Different crops and seed sizes required different plates.
His mother listened.
Then asked the question Malik had been avoiding.
“What are you going to do with nine hundred of them?”
“I don't know yet.”
She leaned back.
“Malik.”
“I think they're worth more than scrap.”
“You think?”
“Yes.”
“That was most of what you made all summer.”
“I know.”
“School clothes?”
“I already have clothes.”
“Truck fund?”
He did not answer.
Malik had been saving toward his first vehicle.
Not a good vehicle.
Just something that started.
His mother looked frustrated.
Then his grandmother spoke.
“Well.”
Everyone turned.
She took another bite.
“If he spent one hundred eighty dollars, he'd best learn what he bought.”
His mother looked at her.
“That's all you're going to say?”
“What would yelling do?”
“He spent his savings on rust.”
“Maybe.”
His grandmother looked at Malik.
“Maybe he bought something else.”
Malik waited.
She pointed her fork at him.
“That's your job to find out.”
Nobody praised him.
Nobody punished him.
The plates simply became a debt Malik owed to his own judgment.
The next Monday, he began.
Bell's repair shop closed to customers at six.
Malik usually swept floors, put tools away, and went home around six-thirty.
Now he stayed.
Bell gave him an old workbench in the back room.
Malik selected ten plates from the first crate.
He filled a coffee can with kerosene.
Used shop rags.
A wire brush.
Scrapers.
The folding magnifying loupe Bell had given him months earlier.
The loupe had belonged to Bell for years.
Malik had first noticed it while helping disassemble an old carburetor.
He watched Bell examine a tiny stamped marking.
“What is that?”
“Magnifier.”
“I know what it does.”
Bell handed it over.
Malik looked through the lens.
The number suddenly became enormous.
Bell watched him.
“You always turn parts over.”
“I want to see the numbers.”
“Good habit.”
A week later, Bell gave him the loupe permanently.
No ceremony.
“Keep it.”
“Why?”
“I've got another.”
That was probably a lie.
Malik kept it anyway.
Now the loupe became one of his main tools.
Plate one.
International Harvester marking.
Casting number.
Twenty-four cells.
Diameter measured.
Condition: surface rust, no cracks.
Plate two.
Different manufacturer.
Thirty cells.
One chipped edge.
Plate three.
No obvious logo.
Casting number mostly hidden.
Malik cleaned until it appeared.
Every evening, another handful.
Iron dust accumulated beside the bench.
His fingernails remained black regardless of how much soap he used.
His mother began putting a towel on the chair where he sat at dinner.
“You're bringing Bell's shop into my kitchen.”
“Sorry.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“I meant it yesterday too.”
The first week, Malik assumed identifying plates would be simple.
Read number.
Find number in book.
Done.
It was not.