“Said her grandson was home from the Marines and was out cutting grass and might need something cold.” Loretta looked down the street. “She didn’t say you were going to do Edna’s too.”
She was quiet for a second. Then she lowered her voice.
“He charged these old women,” she said. “Your uncle. Did you know that?”
“I’m starting to,” I said.
“He went door to door in April. Told them the city was cracking down on tall grass. Told them they’d get fined fifty dollars a day if they didn’t keep it cut. Then he offered to do it for them.” She shook her head. “Two hundred. Two-fifty. Three hundred for Mrs. Banks, because her yard’s bigger.”
“Is that true? About the city?”
“There’s an ordinance,” Loretta said. “Grass over twelve inches. But they send you a letter first and give you ten days. Nobody gets fined fifty dollars a day. I called city hall myself.”
“Did you tell them that? The ladies?”
“I told some of them.” She sighed. “But he’s Opal’s boy. And he was polite about it, at first. And they’re scared, Hunter. Most of them are living on a few hundred dollars more than your grandma. One letter from the city and they think they’re going to lose their houses.”
I looked down Locust Street. At all those shaggy yards. At the curtains moving in the windows.
“Half of them paid him a month or two and then couldn’t anymore,” Loretta said. “So he stopped coming. And their yards went to seed. And now they’re all scared the city’s going to come after them.” She looked at me. “Which is why every one of them is peeking out their window at you right now.”
