Lawn Boy(9)

I do most of my creative work in our backyard, where nobody will complain about it. A cluster of mushrooms in the myrtle. A pair of pom-poms in the privet. In the barberry, a gnome eating a hot dog. But my masterpiece, liberated from the shapeless clusterfuck of Japanese holly behind the shed, was originally supposed to be a mermaid, in homage to the Little Mermaid. But ultimately, the shrub refused to submit to my artistic vision. One pesky limb in particular thwarted my efforts—one very proud and protruding limb. It was a teachable moment, really. I learned that sometimes it’s better to give in to the thing itself than to fight it. Which is to say, my masterpiece ended up being a merman with an erection. I guess you could say that the erection was already there, and I just freed it.

Working beside Tino is one of the bright spots on Tuesdays. I’ve learned a lot from Tino, but don’t tell him as much. I’m not saying I like the guy. He calls me puto five times a day, and his laughter grates on me. But he’s efficient and detail oriented, and he takes pride in his work. He’s got a good eye for the big picture: the lay of the yard, the importance of definition and balance, the subtle transitions in terrain that create flow. And he’s holy hell with a pole pruner.

But this Tuesday, Tino was out of sorts. One of his uncles had a birthday party the previous night. A gran fiesta, as he put it. Multiple barbecues, four cases of Tecate, three fifths of tequila, and 2:00 a.m. soccer in a parking lot. Bottom line, Tino didn’t look so good Tuesday morning: bleary eyed and kind of pale for a Mexican. You could smell the tequila coming out of his pores. Within a half hour of arriving at Truman’s, he chipped in the hostas, then blew chunks again on the flagstone walkway, not three feet from where I was working.

Well, guess who must have been peering out the window and soon came marching down the walkway?

“What exactly am I looking at?” Truman said, indicating the pile of chum.

Sheepishly, Tino began to ramble some kind of explanation in Spanish.

“No hablo espa?ol,” said Truman. “Did you do this? Is this yours?”

Tino looked at his feet.

“That was me,” I said. “I was just about to clean it up.”

Truman subjected me to a doubtful once-over.

“I ate some funky Indian last night,” I said. “Pretty sure it was the masala. But it sure looks like the paneer, doesn’t it?”

I’m not sure whether Truman bought it or not, but I’m pretty sure about this: the guy is a prick. If I were running this show, Truman wouldn’t even be a client. I’d have standards: no creeps, no ingrates, no busybodies, no racists. No clueless rich fucks. I’d also pay my crew more than twelve bucks an hour, but don’t get me started.

“Well, kindly take care of it,” Truman said.

Kindly, my ass.

And things only got worse from there. An hour later, my fat boss, Lacy, showed up on the work site. Not that I ever really liked him, but he’s changed in the past year. For starters, he never works alongside us anymore. He just delegates, usually by yelling on the phone. Back in the day, he used to always have good medicinal weed for his bad back. Black Rhino, Blueberry Kush, you name it. These days, safety meetings are strictly forbidden. In fact, if Lacy smells weed on you, he’ll send you home. But the worst part about Lacy is that he’s a social climber, and not a very good one. Basically, he’s just a brownnoser.

“What the fuck, Mu?oz? I just got a call from Truman. Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m sick. Should I go home?”

“It’s too late now. You already puked.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Fuck you. Look, I got a call from McClure,” he said. “You need to start picking up the dog shit on the back deck. Like now.”

“But you said—”

“It doesn’t matter what I said. We can’t afford to lose an account over some dog shit.”

“Why don’t they hire a—”

“A dog-shit picker-upper? I looked in the yellow pages, and guess what? I couldn’t find one. So that leaves you, Mike. Is this gonna be a problem? Because I know Tino’s cousin is looking for work.”

“But, Lacy, you said—”

“Look, every crew needs one, and it turns out you’re my dog-shit guy. Get the hell over there and clean the deck.”

I hate working at the McClures’ to begin with, but for different reasons than I hate working at Truman’s. If I were in charge, we’d dump the McClure account, too. They don’t want any pruning or bed maintenance, and the lawn is only about fifty square feet, hemmed in by shaggy cedars on all sides and riddled with roots everywhere. It’s awkward as hell to maintain. You can’t push the mower more than three lengths in any given direction before you’ve got to swing it around again, careful to keep the front wheels off the ground, or the mower will clip a root and stall. It’s perpetually shady as fuck, so the grass is wet in July—and it grows two inches every time you turn your back.

That’s not the real problem, though. The real problem is Duke, the McClures’ two-hundred-pound St. Bernard, who takes elephant-sized dumps everywhere. And I mean everywhere: on the gravel footpath and in the beds lining the walkway. And yes, on the deck. And guess who the McClures expect to pick up all those turds? I’ll give you a hint: not Hillary Clinton.

It was dumping rain by the time I got there. As usual, there were lawn cigars everywhere. The fucking dog had managed to shit in a pot of nasturtiums three feet off the ground. I couldn’t even get my brain around it. As always, the McClures were thoughtful enough to set out a little fireplace shovel on the deck for me, and let me tell you, the instrument is sorely deficient for the task.