I drank my second cup of tea. I set the plastic cup on Miss Edna’s porch rail.
Then Loretta asked me the question.
“You gonna do the whole street?”
I looked at all those shaggy yards. Nine houses. Ten counting Grandma’s. A widow in most of them. Seeds blowing off the tops of the grass in the hot wind.
I thought about the checkbook. Ray. 400. Ray. 400.
I thought about Miss Edna saying, I can’t pay you much, honey.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I believe I am.”
Loretta grinned. “Well, all right then.”
She turned around and walked straight up the middle of Locust Street with her pitcher of tea, calling out in her clinic voice, loud enough to wake the dead.
“Dorothy! Margaret! Irene! Archie! Get on out here. Opal’s grandson’s cutting the whole street, and it’s free, and he needs tea.”
Chapter Six: Ten Yards
Ten yards in a Missouri July.
If you’ve never been in Missouri in July, I can’t explain it to you. The air is so thick and wet it’s like breathing through a hot towel. By ten in the morning it was ninety-one degrees. By noon it was ninety-six. The cicadas in the oak trees were so loud they drowned out the mower.
I’d been in a desert overseas. Real desert, a hundred and fifteen degrees in the shade. And I’m telling you, Missouri in July is worse. At least the desert’s dry.
By the third yard, my tan shirt was so soaked it was dark brown. I took it off, wrung it out over the curb like a dishrag, and put it back on wet. It felt good for about four minutes.
