“You’re not paying for my mess,” he said. “You’ve done enough.”
The next Saturday, I was due to leave. My leave was almost over. I had to report back to Camp Lejeune by Monday morning.
I got up at five-thirty. Grandma was already up, frying eggs. Over easy.
At six-thirty, I heard a truck in the driveway. Not a big diesel. A small, rattling four-cylinder. The Ranger.
Ray climbed out. He was wearing old jeans with grass stains on the knees and a T-shirt from a church fish fry in 2014. He walked around to the back of the house and stood in front of the shed.
I went out to meet him with my coffee.
“I don’t remember how to do it right,” he said. He didn’t look at me. “Your grandpa showed me when I was ten. But I was mad about it. I didn’t pay attention.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll show you.”
I pulled out the mower. I showed him how to check the oil, and pull the plug wire, and check the blade. I showed him the air filter. I showed him where Grandpa’s tools hung on the pegboard, outlined in black marker.
Then I took him out to the front yard. To the long side, by the fence.
“You go down the long way first,” I said. “Fence to fence. Then you come back and overlap by about the width of your hand. Line up the edge of the wheel with the line you just made.”
He nodded.
“And keep your eyes on the end,” I said. “Not on your feet. Your feet’ll follow your eyes.”
His first line was crooked as a snake.
He shut off the mower and looked at it. He swore under his breath.
“Again,” Grandma called from the porch.
She was sitting in her broken lawn chair at the top of the steps, in her blue housecoat. Her hands were folded in her lap.
Ray looked up at her. He almost smiled.
He started the mower again. His second line was a little better.
“Again,” Grandma said.
It took him an hour and a half to do Grandma’s yard. It took me forty-five minutes the Saturday before. But when he was done, it had stripes. Not perfect ones. A little wobbly near the redbud tree. But stripes.
He was soaked with sweat. He shut off the mower and stood in the middle of the yard, breathing hard, looking at it.
Grandma stood up. She came to the top of the porch steps.
She looked at the yard for a long time.
Then she nodded. Once.
Ray had to turn away and pretend there was something wrong with the mower for a minute.
Then he rolled it next door. To Miss Edna’s.
She was sitting on her porch in her straight-backed chair, snapping green beans. She watched him come up her driveway.
“Raymond Gaines,” she said. “Is that you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You going to watch Herbert’s roses?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She went back to snapping her beans. Ray started the mower.
I left at noon.
