Buck Sampson do be sayin’

On units of measure

He expected Buck to calculate how many quarters-of-a-half-gallon could be combined with some number of five-eighths-of-a-liter to result in a fourteen-liter total volume.

“So you gotta add three of the bifenthrin to one,” Mr. Taggart said. He patted Buck on the back, one hand lingering there over his shoulder muscle. “That gives you nine.”
Buck had no idea what that meant, but it was how Mr. Taggart talked. It was confusing because he mixed up units of measure that he assumed Buck remembered — some pesticides were measured in liters, while others were measured in gallons, or fluid ounces, and some came already diluted or not at all, and further, some additives (like surfactants) were measured in milliliters or fractions of a pint or quart.

Regardless of the official formulas provided by the pesticide manufacturer, the tanks in the truck were built to measure their output in fractions of liters or gallons, depending on the tank. So when Mr. Taggart said, “fill that tank to the two over three, that’ll take ten of the other, then just one more is four, plus three of the surfactant”, what he actually meant was “use that tank that has lines measuring its fill in gallons, and fill it with ten liters of pesticide, which will equal two and two-thirds gallons, then dilute it with one and a third gallons of water to get near four gallons total, which requires three fluid ounces of surfactant”.

It was very confusing. Every time Buck thought he had a handle on it, Mr. Taggart would say something like, “okay, for mosquitoes we need nine five-eighths of the crimpoline mixed with three and a quarter half-gallons of the geraniolic acid”. Yes, that’s right, he measured a formula using “nine five-eighths” (meaning nine units each equal to five eighths of a liter) to mix it with a volume measured in quarters of a half-gallon. He expected Buck to calculate how many quarters-of-a-half-gallon could be combined with some number of five-eighths-of-a-liter to result in a fourteen-liter total volume.

To make matters even more confusing, the formula to calculate how much to spray for mosquitoes gave a result in fluid ounces of the undiluted pesticide. To be more precise, it gave a result in fluid ounces per square meter, so Buck had to calculate the acreage of each property in square meters then combine pesticides in gallons and liters to convert, using the diluted density, into an amount of pesticide per fluid ounce, modified with surfactants by the droplet surface area in cubic millimeters, in order to calculate how much to fill the tank with.

Buck had never really been a math guy in school. He hadn’t even graduated.

From Ex-Con Cravings Can’t Be Refused

On black fellers and persnickitiness

Kax stood up on a look like he don’t think there’s diff’rent kinds of homeboys or like he don’t think Buck should notice ’em.

Buck grabbed the likker with one hand, Lem’s ass with t’other. He pulled down Lem’s boxers and rammed the sealed bottle of likker into his butthole.
“Ackk! — Ah, shit!” Lem scampered off, while Buck’s chuckles turned to a holler-heavy guffaw. The bottle dropped onto the ground, and Lem chased it down, his boxers still round his ankles. Only the tip of the bottle went in his ass, but Lem shot Buck a curled lip — he drunk outta that tip.

Buck laughed at Lem’s snarling. This was not the first time Buck got a likker bottle in his ass. Lem was too persnickety to drink outta it or even pour it into a cup thru the tip, once it been in his ass. So’s now he gotsto spend all night wiping it down and warshing it clean.

Black fellers do be like that. Not Kax though, who be boofing and oofing as Buck punched his belly and told him this story. Kax weren’t the cleany, prissy sorta homeboy. Kax stood up on a look like he don’t think there’s diff’rent kinds of homeboys or like he don’t think Buck should notice ’em.

From Fists, Men and Muscles

On the code of the good man

A good man’s code was ’bout defending women ‘gainst the fellers who ain’t got the good man’s code. Sometimes even the men who talked like they respected women was the ones who least respect ’em.

From Buck the Workin’ Man

On the downlow

“I been to prison, I was the only white guy in my cell-block, Lem. Believe me, I know ’bout the downlow. I seen it, I heared it, I smelled it, I had a bunk nexta it, usedta get splashed by the downlow on the reg’lar.”

From Buck on the Oil Rig

On gastronomy

Lentils was just flat beans, and Buck do spoon beans up.

Then Buck got up again to get some of the Porchagees soups and a fish thang that had rice, and being a good boy his grandmamas raised right, Buck got all the veg’ables too. There was eggplant in sauce and onions in a different sauce, plus these roasted like turnips or sump’in, Buck do eat them up fer sh’ore, and two veg’able curries. One was lentils, one was other. Buck liked the other. Lentils was good too though. Lentils was just flat beans, and Buck do spoon beans up.

Buck got a big bowl and wolfed ’em down, ‘long with a scoop of curry and a bowl of miscellaneous Muslim food — that’s how they do, Muslims put buncha diff’rent stuff in a bowl steada having diff’rent dishes, whereasever Indians put buncha diff’rent stuff together and make one dish, then put it in a bowl. Only Americans did it right, with a main dish and some sides, on a plate, not a bowl. But Buck do eat the Muslim food and the Indian food, he got no quarrels with they bowls.

From Buck on the Oil Rig