speculate about what's actually on that little part of the X chromosome that we still have and men don't—besides the antidote for testosterone poison, I mean.
Toni Bledsoe, who got married again last year and really wants to make it work this time, swears it holds the gene that'll let a woman ask directions.
'When it's perfectly obvious Pete hasn't got a clue where we are, I tell him I've got to pee. RIGHT THIS MINUTE! Honey, if there's ever been a man willing to argue with a woman's bladder, I never met him. And don't want to. So he heads in at the nearest service station and while I'm inside asking for the ladies' room key, I'm also asking the clerk, 'What's the fastest way to highway whatever from here?' Then back in the car I say, 'Pete-Sweet, I bet we could make up some of the time I just lost us if we took a left at that light up yonder... '
My sister-in-law Amy, Will's wife, mutters about being the only one in their house with the physical dexterity to put a fresh roll of toilet paper on the hanger; and K.C. Massengill, who used to work undercover for the State Bureau of Investigation, keeps wondering if that's why there's so much hurling and flatulence on
I myself think that extra segment gives us a more rational attitude toward tools.
Ever notice?
It's almost as if their try squares and saws and electric drills are some sort of ceremonial totems that will be profaned by secular (i.e., feminine) use unless ringed by ritual promises and protected by sacred vows. Probably goes back to the Stone Age and the first fire-hardened pointed sticks or roughly flaked rocks:
Some men'll let a new puppy mess all over a hundred-year-old Persian rug, use a hand-embroidered guest towel to wipe it up, then get bent out of shape if you pry open a can with one of their screwdrivers or dirty up their hammers cracking black walnuts.
Uncle Ash is a sweetie about most things but he's never real happy if Aunt Zell or I take anything other than simple gardening tools from his well-stocked shed back of the house.
All the same, if I was going to labor in the vineyards of the Lord, I needed to show up with more than empty hands and a willing heart. Fortunately, my brother Herman has four truckloads of tools and he lives right here on the edge of Dobbs. He growls worse than our daddy ever did, but he's not Daddy and I don't pay him too much mind. * * *
He was growling at Annie Sue when I drove into their backyard after supper that Thursday evening. Annie Sue was huffed up and sir-ing him in that snippy-polite way teenagers do when they want to make sure you know that the respect is only on their lips, not in their hearts.
'I told Lu Bingham I'd wire our WomenAid house and now he says I can't,' she told me hotly, her Knott-blue eyes flashing in the late afternoon sunlight. 'He never lets me do anything!'
'She never did a circuit box by herself and she don't have a license,' said Herman. From the tone of his voice, I gathered he'd already said that more than once before I drove up.
'Reese hasn't got a license and you let him wire everything by himself.'
'No, I don't and even if I did—'
'Because I heard you tell Granddaddy and Uncle Seth I know more about how electricity works than he does.'
'Miss Big Ears is liable to hear something she don't want to hear, she keeps talking back to me,' Herman said darkly.
He still had his work clothes on, as if he'd just come in himself. Hot, tired, dirty and probably hungry, too. There was a pinched look on his face, and I had a feeling this might not be the best time to ask him to lend me a hammer. Or for Annie Sue to goad him into saying things it might be hard to back down from. She always makes a big dramatic deal out of things and since she turned sixteen, she and Herman always seem to be bumping heads.
'Come on, honey,' I said. 'I bet your daddy could use a big glass of tea about now I know I sure could.'
Annie Sue wanted to stay and urge, but I was already steering Herman to the lawn chairs clustered under their big pecan tree, so she headed for the back door, impatience with adults in every step.
'And bring me that pack of Tums over the sink,' he called after her.
The chairs were in deep shade and it was a pleasure to sit for a while though I knew that mosquitoes would chase us once the sun was fully down. I shooed their big lazy tom from my chair, and as soon as I sat down, he jumped back in my lap like a furry rug. A hot furry rug. But I'm always a sucker for a purring cat, and I missed having one around since Aunt Zell's cat disappeared a month or so earlier.
An occasional car passed on the side street and from beyond the thick shrubbery, I heard the muffled laughter of young children splashing in their backyard pool. Nadine's gardenia bushes had almost finished blooming, yet a few creamy white blossoms hung on to perfume the air.
Cindy McGee and another teenage girl pulled up in the drive behind my car, hopped out, and called, 'Hey, Mr. Herman!' before heading for the back door with the familiarity of best friends who run in and out of one another's houses a dozen times a week. They were inside only a few minutes till they were out again, carrying two summery dresses on padded hangers. Their high light voices called, —Bye, Mr. Herman!'
Herman shook his head. 'Girls! How they keep up with which dress is whose is beyond me.'
'You still working over at Tinker's Landing?' I asked as car doors slammed and they drove away.
He slouched down wearily in one of the wood-slatted chairs he'd built himself. 'Yeah, finished up one house all except we were short two switch plates. I thought they were two-gangs, but turned out they were three and Reese didn't stock the trucks like he was supposed to.'
He gave a heavy sigh. 'Guess I'll have to get Annie Sue to start doing it again.'
All his kids had worked there in the summers, but Annie Sue was the only one who actually liked it, a fact that seemed to be lost on my brother.
