Lawn Boy

  “Get me a listing, and I’ll give you the truck, Mike—outright.”

  “How can I get you a listing?”

  “Just be yourself—except don’t talk.”

  “Okay. But who would I be ta—”

  “Don’t talk.”

  “Got it. I’m just ask—”

  “Stop talking.”

  “Right, I understand. But what—”

  “No, really. Stop talking.”

  “You mean now?”

  “Yes.” He rubbed his temples. “Sorry, I think I’m dehydrated. Your voice grates on me sometimes. No offense.”

  “Here, drink some water.”

  “I’m trying to lose weight.”

  “But you’re skinny.”

  “Says you.”

  “No, really, dude, you’re skinny.”

  “Please stop talking for a minute.”

  He continued to knead his forehead and temples, jaw clenched. I tried not to talk, but I couldn’t help myself. I was still putting things together.

  “So, wait. When you told me I should take the job because I should look out for myself, you really meant I should take the job so I could look out for you? Like literally?”

  He grimaced through his headache. “Yeah, well, both. Look, you can talk some. Just stick to gardening and the writer shtick, they like that. Piggot especially. Just don’t make it sound like you’re writing some kind of manifesto. Tell them you’re writing about horses.”

  “What about the truck?”

  “You continue to make the payments until you get me a listing.”

  “Will it be mine?”

  “No. You’ll just be making the payments.”

  “To the dealership?”

  “To me. I’ll need five hundred up front for a deposit.”

  “But I’m not really sure if I can swing five hu—”

  “Trust me,” he said. “You need the truck. How else are you gonna haul all your equipment back and forth? You think they’re gonna let you into the country club in that Datsun?”

  There was no getting around it. “Okay, fine,” I said.

  “I’ll also need the first payment of three hundred.”

  “Doug, that’s eight hundred bucks. I haven’t got it.”

  “Fine, I’ll take it out of your last paycheck. But whatever you do, don’t take the signs off the doors ever again.”

  “You know about that?”

  “I know a lot of things.”

  “But I won’t be Team Goble anymore.”

  “Sure you will.”

  “How? You’re not paying me. You’re just renting me a truck.”

  “I got you the job, right?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “That’s four favors you owe me.”

  What Are You Trying to Prove?

  Turns out, the five-hundred-dollar deposit just about cleaned me out. But I figured with all the money Piggot would be paying me, I’d be able to build my savings back up in no time. Twenty-nine ninety an hour! What was a three-hundred-dollar-a-month truck payment next to sixty grand a year? Think of the things I’d be able to do with that kind of money! I could move out and still help my mom with the rent. I could take everybody on vacation next summer. We could rent a cabin on the beach somewhere. I could buy my mom a decent car. As much of a dickhead as Goble was, I was grateful to the guy for getting me this gig. And to think I almost passed it up.

  Sunday night, I texted Remy:

  Hope you’re good. We still need to have that beer!

  A few hours later, she texted me back:

  Long time no hear.

  Been stupid busy. New job. How about that beer?

  Pretty busy with a new job myself. But maybe soon.

  On Monday morning, I suited up in my white coveralls and drove out to the country club, my intent being to tell Piggot that I’d changed my mind about the job. Recognizing the truck, they let me through at the gate. I parked in front of Piggot’s and rang the bell. I waited about thirty seconds, listening to the dogs wheeze and skitter around in the foyer. I was about to start poking around the side yard, when the door opened a crack and one of the pugs wiggled out and started customarily snuffling all around the cuff of my coveralls.

  “Willoughby! Down!”

  The pug ignored Piggot’s command. Just as the little fucker was mounting my ankle, Piggot gave him a kick, and this time he scurried off under the hedges.

  “What brings you back here, Mike?”

  “Well, sir, after further consideration, I’ve decided to take you up on your job offer.”

  “Oh, that,” said Piggot. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid I can’t extend that offer at this point in the game.”

  My heart sank. He must’ve have found somebody else. This is what happens when opportunity knocks and you hide in the bathroom.

  “What I can offer you is fifteen dollars an hour.”

  “But sir, that’s—”

  “Yes, twenty-five percent less than what you were making for Mr. Goble, I realize that. He called me yesterday with the recommendation.”

  “But you said—”

  “Circumstances have changed, young man. You already had a job when I was courting you, did you not? Having discussed the matter with Mr. Goble, I’m given to understand that he can no longer afford your employ and that you’re currently in need of a position. He suggested fifteen dollars would suffice.”

  “So, wait, you talked to Doug?”

  “As I said, he called to recommend you.”

  “And he told you to pay me less?”

  “He made a recommendation.”

  “That fucker,” I said.

  You see how it is, people? The money grubbers of the world will collude and conspire, and they’ll stop at nothing to keep you down. They’ll trade your sorry ass like a commodity, then laugh about it over cigars. So get ready for that ride downriver.

  “Do we have a deal?” said Piggot, extending a hand.

  “This is bullshit,” I said, hating my white coveralls.

  “Be that as it may, in light of all this, I’d say fifteen dollars an hour is a nice offer. So, what do you say?”

  “Sixteen-fifty,” I said.

  “Fourteen,” countered Piggot.

  I could see where this negotiation was leading. Part of me wanted to turn and walk away.

  “Okay, fine,” I said, shaking his hand.

  Within the hour, I was clearing a spot on the bluff for the roses. But believe me, I wasn’t happy about it. Piggot donned a pair of navy-blue duck boots, as though he planned on working side by side with me. But he didn’t lift a finger. He only watched, always standing a little too close for my liking.

  “I taught English for eight years at the university level,” he informed me. “Bet you didn’t know that.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m still on the board of directors at a certain prestigious university press.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “Could you please move?”

  To my surprise, Piggot didn’t object to my tone, or didn’t notice. I couldn’t help it, I was irritated. Yes, fourteen bucks an hour was more than I was making with Lacy back when, but I felt cheated. It was considerably less than I was making yesterday. Fourteen bucks an hour left no room for my big plans. No beach cabins, no new cars for my mom. I’d be damned if I was going to suck up to Piggot for fourteen bucks an hour.

  “I could be quite helpful, you know,” said Piggot from my back pocket.

  “Then how about grabbing a wheelbarrow?”

  “In your bid for publication, I mean. I have influence. God knows, you don’t want to end up like Richard.”

  “Filthy rich and drunk? Sounds okay to me.”

  Piggot smiled at that one. I think he liked me at fourteen bucks an hour.

  “How about using your influence to pay me what you offered me in the first place?”

  That one got a full-fledged chuckle out of him.

  I coul
dn’t see what he was driving at with all this influence stuff, anyway. I really didn’t want to hear it. Anyway, how could he help me publish? I didn’t have anything to publish. The Great American Landscaping Novel was a Great American Joke. I had exactly eleven pages of overwrought, steaming dung. It was worse than the MFA crap I’d checked out at the library—at least they could write sentences.

  I had no business transplanting those roses in September, but they were struggling and who knew what they’d look like come winter. I probably should have watered them for about a week first, and if I were making $29.90 per hour, like I should’ve been, I would have insisted on it. I would’ve pruned them back a week before I moved them, too. But I was only making half that, so fuck protocol. I dug each bush out to a depth of a foot and a half and moved them over to the bluff, four at a time in the wheelbarrow. I should have amended the soil, but that, too, seemed like a lot of effort for fourteen bucks an hour. At this point, I didn’t care if they lived or died.

  Piggot followed me breezily back and forth from the bluff, hands in pocket, twice stepping on my heel. Now and then reciting a line of poetry. Every time I stooped to plant one of the Cartiers, he stood right over me, blocking the sunlight. It wasn’t until he started beating around the bush about the place next door that I recalled Goble’s directive to gather recon—the real reason I landed this job, the one Goble forced me to take, negotiating the terms without my consent. I wasn’t exactly in a hurry to do any favors for Goble, since the guy sold me out to the tune of a 50 percent wage cut, but I have to admit I liked the idea of a black guy moving in next door. That stuffy old neighborhood needed a shaking up. An All-Pro defensive back with a criminal record might be just the ticket. I hope the guy drove a ghastly green Humvee limo emblazoned with a silver Seahawk and a vanity plate that said CAN’T TOUCH THIS or U MAD BRO. I hope he parked it right out front where everybody had to look at it.

  “I understand your friend Mr. Goble will be showing the Swanstrom estate next Thursday.”

  I remembered Goble’s other directive: don’t talk. But fourteen bucks an hour didn’t seem like much incentive for silence.

  “He’s not really my friend,” I said. “And yeah, he’s gonna show it.”

  “What do you know about this football player?”

  “I know he had six interceptions last year.”

  “That’s good?”

  “Yeah, that’s good.”

  “I understand he’s had some character issues.”

  “Yeah, he punched a cop. But that was years ago, back when he was at Stanford.”

  “Stanford. Hmph,” he said disparagingly.

  “And who knows,” I said. “The cop probably deserved it if he was anything like the cops I know.”

  Even as we were discussing it, through the laurel hedge I saw Goble roll up in his convertible and pull in next door, where he immediately hopped out of his car and started fussing with his sign.

  “I don’t like it,” said Piggot. “This is a well-established neighborhood. These families go back generations.”

  “Don’t all families go back generations?”

  “Not like these families.”

  “So, what’s wrong?” I said, hefting a rosebush out of the wheelbarrow. “You don’t want a black neighbor?”

  “It has nothing to do with being black. I haven’t got a thing against people of color. This is about a time-honored standard. This is about legacy. You can’t just move into this community because you’ve got a little money. It’s not about money.”

  “You ever think of moving?”

  “Why should I move? My family has been here for over a hundred years. We settled this island.”

  “Before you, it belonged to the Suquamish tribe. They used it as a hunting ground.”

  “Not anymore,” said Piggot.

  I kept expecting Goble to make an appearance, but he stayed next door, looking over the place, picking up stray leaves, dusting ledges, admiring his sign, and snapping pictures from different vantages. At one point, Piggot tiptoed over and peered through the laurel to see what Goble was up to.

  “Frankly,” he said upon his return, “I don’t see what makes your friend think this football player will even want to live here. Especially not in that drafty old house.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, mounding soil around one of the Cartiers.

  “I can’t imagine he’d be comfortable with the arrangement. He’d feel like an outsider—he’d have to. Why would he want to move here? I thought they all lived on the Eastside.”

  “Black people?”

  “The players.”

  “Maybe he likes the view.”

  “Hmph,” said Piggot. “Of course he does. But you’d think he’d want something a little more garish, wouldn’t he?”

  Something I’ve observed about rich people: when they pay you, they assume they’re buying your confidence, even when they’re getting you at a discount. They expect you to agree with them.

  “Beats me,” I said.

  Piggot straightened himself up and, for the first time all day, reached for the shovel.

  “We’ll just see about this,” he said.

  The next hour was the only time I’d seen Piggot attempt anything resembling work. And he wasn’t very good at it, severing roots with the blade of his shovel, toppling the wheelbarrow, and generally getting in the way. He managed to get his hands dirty, all right, but otherwise he was more of an obstacle than he was a help. By the time I broke for lunch, Piggot had worn my patience to the ragged edge. I needed to get away from him for a while, so I walked out to the truck, where Goble was sitting in the cab waiting for me.

  “So?”

  “So, what?”

  “You got anything for me yet?”

  “No,” I said, wishing I had a lunch. “And by the way, I’m only making fourteen an hour.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I recommended fifteen. So, you’ve got nothing for me?”

  “He doesn’t know shit about football, how’s that?”

  “Is he scared?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Did he say anything about the sign?”

  “No.”

  “Are they circling the wagons?”

  “Fuck, I don’t know. I just want a sandwich.”

  “Mike, listen to me: if we can spread fear, we can bust this neighborhood wide open. We could clear huge dollars.”

  “That’s you, man, that’s not me. I just want a sandwich. Personally, I’d like to bomb this neighborhood.”

  “Shhh. Jesus, Mike, don’t blow this.”

  Maybe I was just hungry, maybe my blood sugar was low. Certainly, I was disgruntled. Two hours in the company of Piggot, at fourteen per hour, had simply exhausted my goodwill. Something in me snapped—my tolerance, I guess. Suddenly I didn’t give a shit about the world in which I’d found myself hopelessly enmeshed, through no fault of my own. I didn’t care about the money or the truck or what happened to anybody involved. I just wanted to go back to Suquamish and read a book and eat a sandwich.

  “I’m out of here,” I said, firing up the truck.

  “What, you’re taking lunch?” said Goble, checking his watch.

  “That, too.”

  “Good, we can talk strategy. Leave the truck, so they have to look at my signage. We’ll take my car.”

  “Get out,” I said.

  “I’ll drop you back after lunch.”

  “Out.”

  “What’s got into you, Mike?”

  “I’m not coming back, Doug. My work is done here.”

  He checked his watch again. “But it’s only noon.”

  “I’m quitting.”

  “You can’t quit, Mike.”

  “Watch me.”

  “But you still owe me.”

  “Out of the truck, Doug.”

  “You can’t take this truck. It belongs to me.”

  “Then give me my five hundred bucks.”

  “That was a deposit. To prote
ct myself from a situation exactly like this one, Mike.”

  I started pulling out of the driveway.

  “Stop the truck, Mike, I mean it.”

  I stopped with a lurch. In the rearview mirror, I caught a glimpse of Piggot prairie-dogging behind the Japanese holly. Fucking weirdo.

  Goble leveled a meaningful gaze at me. “You’re not taking this truck.”

  “Give me my five hundred bucks.”

  “The truck belongs to me, Mike. You’d be stealing it.”

  “Fine,” I said, swinging my door open and stepping out of the cab.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not taking the truck.”

  “Well, who’s going to drive it back to town?”

  “Fuck if I know. But if I don’t see my five hundred bucks by the end of the week, I’m gonna tell anyone who will listen about how you put a dick in your mouth.”

  “Jesus, what the hell are you talking about? Get back in the truck.”

  I made a little cock-sucking gesture and turned so Piggot could see it from behind the holly.

  “Get back in the truck! You’re making a scene.”

  “It was your idea, Doug. Remember? Out behind the parsonage.”

  “Jesus, Mike, you’re seriously losing it here.”

  “Let’s talk about favors, Goble. Let’s talk about me putting your dick in my—”

  “Stop!” he hollered, reaching for his wallet. He started rifling through bills. “I’ve only got one eighty here.”

  I grabbed for the cash.

  “I’ll get you the rest next month,” he said.

  I narrowed my eyes menacingly and shook my head.

  “Ugh, fine,” he conceded.

  I followed Goble directly to the cash machine and collected my three hundred twenty bucks. It killed him to part with it, believe me. Then I followed him to his condo and parked the truck, lingering in the cab in wistful silence for a moment. What was I giving up here? Sure, it was only fourteen bucks an hour, but it was bound to go up if Piggot wanted to keep me. And losing the truck, that hurt. After months of limited transportation, months of schlepping around Kitsap County on the shame train, I hated giving up that truck. But I had to. It was an imperative. I couldn’t be around Goble or Piggot anymore. Goble wore too many faces, and Piggot probably collected Nazi paraphernalia. I’m telling you, Tino and his cousins never looked so good.