Gopher-Go

Gopher-Go is a strychnine-based poison that Brady Hartsfield acquires, mixes into hamburger, and intends to use against Jerome Robinson’s dog, Odell. Its decisive role is an unintended reversal: the bait prepared for Odell is eaten in part by Brady’s mother, Deborah Ann Hartsfield, and kills her. The poison begins as a planned weapon and ends as the instrument of a death Brady neither intended nor can undo.

Acquisition and Intended Use

Brady first arranges the purchase under the false identity Ralph Jones, using a low-limit Visa card and a mail drop at Speedy Postal near Discount Electronix. He orders a two-pound can of Gopher-Go and researches strychnine poisoning online. The information confirms for him that the poison will be lethal to Odell; rather than deter him, that prospect makes him eager to carry out the plan.

The mail-order purchase does not satisfy Brady’s impatience. At Garden World in the Skyway Shopping Complex, he buys two additional cans, placing them in a cart with fertilizer, mulch, seeds, and a short-handled gardening claw. The conspicuous combination makes him worry that a cashier might remember him, but he proceeds. His choice to buy more poison in person, despite the order already on its way, shows how urgently he needs to feel that the scheme is advancing.

Brady’s intended opportunity comes from watching the children who gather at Zoney’s GoMart, including Barbara Robinson and her friend Hilda. They sit near the store’s parking lot, and Brady has seen them while driving the Mr. Tastey ice cream truck. He arranges two free afternoons at work so he can watch the store and wait for the girl to appear with Odell. He buys a pound of hamburger for the bait, then stores the poison high in the garage and hides the meat behind soft-drink cans in a small refrigerator beneath the worktable.

Preparing the Bait

After his mother has gone to bed, Brady mixes two cups of Gopher-Go into the hamburger. He puts the mixture in a bag and returns it to the garage refrigerator, taking care to conceal it behind the cans of soda. He also washes his hands and the mixing bowl thoroughly. These precautions are directed at keeping the preparation hidden; they do not account for the possibility that someone in the household might eat the meat.

The method depends on an ordinary food item appearing harmless. Brady has bought ninety-percent-lean hamburger and thinks of it as a treat for Odell, while the garage refrigerator is ostensibly where he keeps soft drinks. His preparations join the mundane domestic setting to a planned act of violence: poison is stored beside familiar groceries, and the intended bait is made from food a dog would eat.

The Plan Turns Back on Brady

The danger Brady has created becomes real when he returns home and discovers that the bag of poisoned meat has been moved to the kitchen refrigerator and partly eaten. His mother is gravely ill. He recognizes the hamburger beside her and understands that the poison, not a lodged piece of food, is responsible. The intended victim is absent; the person who has consumed the bait is his mother.

Brady retreats to his basement computer room rather than seeking an antidote. He knows the poison has acted too long for that response to help, and reasons that his mother must have gone into the garage looking for something to eat after drinking. In the kitchen and garage, the hidden meat had seemed secure because he assumed she would not look there. Her accidental discovery exposes the flaw in that assumption: concealment from notice is not control over what happens next.

When Brady eventually goes upstairs, his mother is dead. The poison has achieved the lethal outcome he wanted for Odell, but against a different victim and with consequences he cannot reverse. Brady’s later thought about the maxim that whatever can go wrong will go wrong links the mishap to Murphy’s Law. The episode makes Gopher-Go more than a tool in an attempted attack on the Robinson family: it turns Brady’s own concealed violence inward, killing Deborah Ann Hartsfield and leaving him with the result of his plan.