Lawn Boy(42)

“?Mi hija más joven?” he said, taking a long draw of his beer. “She two and a half years old. Mi Isabella. Mi chiquitita Izzy. Look just like her mama, with her big feet and her little nose. She talking all the time now. Mia say she never shut up. Last week she say she gonna go get Papá. Bring Papá home. This kills me, Miguel. Seems like half my money I’m spending on my phone. Pinche Verizon gets half my paycheck.”

“Verizon is fucked,” I said.

“Tienes toda la razón,” he said.

We ended up talking for two hours. We joked a little about the old lady and the abundance of dog turds at McClures’, but mostly we talked in earnest, grinding axes and regretting our lots. He asked me what happened to my teeth, and I told him about Freddy’s foray into dentistry. He winced throughout the story, like a guy who’d been there, which in fact he had, opening his mouth to prove it. I could see the gap once occupied by a molar.

“Did it myself, vato. Five shots of mezcal and alicate viejo.”

In spite of all his difficulties, financially, personally, geographically—and let’s face it, they were worse than mine—Tino ended up buying me four beers and a shot of J?ger. I shouldn’t have let him, but he seemed to want the company, and if I weren’t broke myself, I would have done the same for him.

“I don’t know, Miguel,” Tino said, calling for the tab. “Something gotta change.”

“I know the feeling,” I said, clapping him on the back.

And boy, did I ever know the feeling. But at least my family wasn’t a million miles away. At least angry white men weren’t calling for my deportation, blaming me for their problems; at least they weren’t trying to wall my people out. I had it better than Tino, and I’ll admit there was a little comfort in that, but things were getting dire on the home front. As the days of unemployment mounted, the old revenue stream had slowed well past a burble or a trickle, past so much as a lonely drop, to a parched and heat-fissured drainage ditch, strewn with bleached skulls and faded beer cans. No callbacks and nary a word from my old mentor Chaz, who, for all I knew, was collating Walmart circulars at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla.

“All I want, Miguel, is to get by, a ser tratado con dignidad, a caminar con mi cabeza en alto, ?comprendes?”

“Sí. I think so.”





Is That You?




Snaggle-toothed Marlin was manning his post outside Safeway, staged in front of three dozen shopping carts, each emblazoned with Doug Goble’s shit-eating grin, along with his slogan TEAM GOBLE. GOBLE OR GO HOME. I’m pleased to report that Marlin’s ax work was much improved since Freddy’s campfire tutorial. He was banging out “Enter Sandman” by Metallica, and he wasn’t even watching the fret board the entire time. He looked like a guy who actually played the guitar. Clean him up, and he could probably play at somebody’s wedding.

When Marlin finished the number, I reached for my pickle jar and started unscrewing the lid with the intent of scooping out a small offering. But I bungled it, and the jar slipped from my grasp and shattered all to hell. Small change and broken glass scattered everywhere. Marlin set down his guitar immediately and scrambled to my aid as people started walking around us like a couple of undesirables.

Within moments, the special-needs bag boy came out with a broom and a dustpan as Marlin and I scrupulously picked through the glass for silver, and yes, even copper, under the bike rack, behind the propane tanks, below the watermelon display, filling the fronts of our T-shirts. As I was scanning the pavement for coins, I heard a voice.

“Mu?oz? Is that you?”

Confronted by a pair of pointy leather loafers, I reluctantly peered up to behold the living, breathing personage of Doug Goble towering over me, perma-grinning like a mayor on a parade float. Instinctively, my eyes darted to the queue of shopping carts, then back up at Goble.

“Great idea, right?” he said. “As long as some kid isn’t sitting his ass on your face. God, I hate kids. What are you doing down there, Mike?”

“I dropped something.”

“Your piggy bank?”

“Blow me,” I said, blanching.

He grinned even harder, stooping down to help Marlin and me.

“You’ve got a small fortune here,” he observed, dropping coins into my shirt. “Invest it wisely.”

“I’m gonna punch you if you don’t knock it off,” I said.

“Relax, I’m just joshin’. C’mon, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

So there I was at the Starbucks in Safeway with Doug Goble. For all my discomfort, Goble was downright chatty. He acted like we ran into each other all the time, and it had nothing to do with dicks. He talked about old times at the church but never mentioned our penises or the fact that he never said ten words to me after our little foray in the bushes. He talked about a few of his new listings and his plans to expand his real-estate empire into Jefferson County but made not a single reference to holding or tugging or sucking dicks. And yet I was convinced he was flirting with me. He talked about the five acres they were developing over on Weaver and the new parking lot at the casino.

“So, what about you?” he said, like someone who’s not actually interested.

“I’m a landscaper.”

“Ah,” he said. “Landscaper.”