Lawn Boy(8)

At the time, I thought she was talking about Nate and me.

The three of us slept in the living room, Mom on the floor, and Nate and I on a fold-out couch. The fact that we were all trying to sleep never kept Aunt Genie from watching television, sometimes all night long. Many nights, I slept dreamlessly to the babble of infomercials and televangelists, only to awake at dawn and find Aunt Genie still sitting there on her bile-colored La-Z-Boy.

After nearly two months of this, my mom picked up a second job, at the elementary school. By that time, Aunt Genie was so anxious to get rid of us that she lent my mom half the money for a new rental on the res. And no, in case you’re wondering, you don’t have to be an Indian to live on the res. Apparently, all you need is a bunch of broken shit in your yard.

We managed to stay afloat for a year at that place until the landlord jacked the price, and my mom was forced to rent a one-bedroom apartment, or we might have been back at Aunt Genie’s again. That didn’t last, either. It was simply too hard for my mom to support us, even with two jobs. That’s probably where stepdads 1 and 2 came in, at least in theory.

Stepdad 1 was Chuck, who was about five two and carried a comb in his pocket, right where his wallet should have been.

Stepdad 2 was Ronnie, a guy who liked to pump a little iron and go crabbing, until he married my mom, that is, after which point he simply enjoyed being a fat fuck and sitting in a chair.

Both Chuck and Ronnie suffered very audibly from chronic back pain, migraine headaches, and a general, debilitating condition called “the fucking system.” Both stepdads, in the Victor Mu?oz mold, were work averse, and both played a little guitar. In the case of both Chuck and Ronnie, the honeymoon ended abruptly, with neither marriage lasting two years.

I’m not making excuses here, but I’ve come to believe that to a large degree we are products of our environment. So I suppose it’s no small wonder that expectations for Mike Mu?oz have always been low. But mark my words: somehow, some way, I’m gonna change all that. Old Mike Mu?oz fully intends on going out and getting his one of these days.





Getting My Mow On




Just in case I seem like another disgruntled wage slave, don’t get the idea that I don’t actually like landscaping. Maybe it doesn’t pay a fortune, but I’m outside in the fresh air eight hours a day, seeing the immediate results of my labor. There’s a lot of satisfaction in that. Think about it: why else would all those old fogeys who retire do nothing but work in their gardens all day long? I’d way rather mow your lawn or deadhead your rhodies or even mulch your flower beds than do your taxes or make your sandwich. At least with grass, you get the last word. Not like a sandwich, where somebody eats it. And what’s more beautiful than a great green field of new-mown grass? What’s more pleasing than a tidy edge or the clean lines of scrupulously pruned boxwood? I’m not gonna get all nuanced about the art of landscaping or start in with any of that navel-gazing philosophical crap like they do in books—it’s not a metaphor for the human condition, it’s a fucking yard. Just know that I’m a guy who really enjoys maintaining them, generally speaking. And yeah, maybe someday I’ll write the Great American Landscaping Novel, but in the meantime, Tuesdays are a bitch.

All our Tuesday accounts are located across the Agate Passage on Bainbridge. We call the bridge the service entrance because virtually nobody on the island, as far as I can tell, mows their own lawn or maintains their own pool or cleans their own gutters. Nobody drives a broke-dick truck, either, unless it’s from 1957. Even the high-school kids —with names like Asher and Towner—drive new cars. They seem happy and healthy, if not a little bored. They all appear harmless enough on the surface, except that most of them don’t seem to realize how good they’ve got it or how people less fortunate than themselves have helped account for their good fortune, have even suffered, so that they can enjoy their wealth and security.

But like I said, one day I’m gonna get mine. It probably won’t be a Tuesday, though. Tuesdays start with a half day at Truman’s, a huge residence over on the east side of the island, with two hundred feet of high-bank waterfront on the sound, facing Ballard, all of it hemmed in by neat boxwood borders. There’s an acre of manicured lawn, which Truman makes us mow with an old rotary mower that he must’ve inherited from Fred Flintstone. No leaf blowers allowed at Truman’s, either. No radios, and especially no salsa music, which is fine by me. I guess when you’re a big rich, important person, sitting around on your ass, meditating on your big important, rich-guy thoughts, moving your money around in the “free market,” the one built on the backs of slaves and children, you can’t be bothered with noisy lawn mowers.

Truman is an uptight little bearded guy about five foot three, who’s always home on Tuesdays. I have no idea what he did to become so rich, but my guess is next to nothing. Whatever the case, he sure doesn’t know how to enjoy it. Every time you look up, the guy is watching you out a window, and he wants you to know it. You had best be raking or pruning when he looks out the window, or you might end up like Eduardo and Che, both of whom got fired due to Truman’s watchdogging. That’s why I usually hide behind the boxwood for a few hours, pruning.

With boxwood, it’s all about crisp edges and clearly defined boundaries, which are two things my life could use more of. So the work is pretty gratifying that way. It would be a hell of a lot more gratifying if I could make of that boxwood anything I chose. Not to brag, but I’m kind of a savant when it comes to topiary. Though I’m never called upon to do so professionally, I can coax zoo animals, naked chicks, or just your basic geometric shapes out of your garden-variety shrubs. Sometimes when I’m walking around, I’ll see a shapeless clutch of holly and imagine an obelisk or a spiral. Or I’ll see a line of yews and picture a Greek colonnade.