Free Pieces by Mark Tompkins Page A

the notepad. He was a
“ little yellow sticky” man to
the core, and they were seen, en masse, throughout the house. Now
he was slowly replacing them with the electronic version. He
transcribed his mental list to electrons and when he was finished,
checked on his thumb again. There was a black blister underneath
the nail, but the ice had kept the swelling to a minimum and the
pain was becoming manageable. He knew that it would be tender, so
he vowed to be very careful with it for the next few days. Now,
with his electronic shopping list, it was time to head to the
hardware store.
    His gaze drifted outside to the storm clouds
gathering on the horizon. Hill City, South Dakota is known more for
its snowfall than its rainfall, but when it did rain, it could be
what his father used to call ‘a real toad strangler’. It was
mid-June; the peak of the rainy season, and Austin hoped it
wouldn’t rain too hard until he had the chance to install some
fresh seals around the cellar’s storm doors. He wanted to stop the
spread of mildew and have the cement floor poured within the week.
He saw by the trees that the wind was blowing from the east, so the
storm might miss him, but just in case, he wanted to be back from
the hardware store before the rain fell.
    He opened the door of his Ford truck, knocked
as much of the dirt off his feet as he could, and slid into the
familiar cab. It was an old truck with the normal array of
scratches and dents, but he still liked to try to keep it nice.
Once a week, he ran it through the car wash and vacuumed the
carpet. He had owned this truck for the last twenty years and
considered it an old friend. It had been with him through both of
his failed marriages and was the only thing in his life that had
been truly faithful. Periodically, he contemplated trading it in
for something with more of the modern perks. However, at age
fifty-seven, he didn’t want the burden of another car note and he
doubted he would find another one so dependable.
    He backed out of the driveway, noticing his
only neighbor, Jason Francois, spraying the cracks of his driveway
for weeds. Jason, a retired military man like himself, kept his
yard and home tidy. They had the typical “wave and say hello”
acquaintance. Austin hoped to get to know him better, but was busy
working on the house and hadn’t found the time to initiate anything
more meaningful than quick bouts of renovations small talk. For
now, though, he was off to the Hill City hardware store.
    The little brass bell dinged hollowly when he
entered the store, drawing looks from the counter.
    “ Morning, Hank,” Austin
said.
    “ Morning, Austin. How’re the
renovations coming?”
    “ Alright, I guess. I found some rotten
stairs and I’m going to need a few boards to replace them. Can you
have Alex throw a few two by twelve’s in the back of the truck for
me?”
    Hank nodded and yelled the instructions to
the back room behind the counter where Alex, a strong young man in
a flannel shirt, threw three long boards over his shoulder and
exited out the back door.
    Austin absently scratched at the two-day
stubble on his chin.
    “ I’m having a cement floor poured in
the cellar tomorrow and once that’s done, I think I’m going to put
some of those heavy duty plastic shelving units up. You know, the
ones that just go together, without any tools?”
    Hank nodded again and pointed to the back of
the store. “I know the ones. I got ’em on the back wall there.”
    Austin turned and scanned the back wall of
the store over the short aisles. Seeing them, he nodded,
satisfied.
    “ Yep, that’s them. Those suckers may be
plastic, but it’s thick and they sure can hold a lot of stuff.
Besides, I’m not putting anything too heavy on them, I’ve already
got some metal ones in the shed I can put the heavy stuff
on.”
    Austin pulled a cart from the line and
meandered off down the aisle. He remembered a woman in Louisiana
telling him they were “buggies” not