22
I’m back on my land cutting grass while Guns N’ Roses plays from my black radio on the back porch. My push mower is one hundred years old, and once belonged to my father. Though I long since had the money to replace it, I figured it’d be only fair to run it to the ground, bury it, and start over only when necessary. It was faithful to me, still cut fine, and the truth is, I’m more loyal than most. I have an affinity for things, however inanimate, and like to think that everything, even lawn mowers, can carry a certain spirit. So what if the gears and wheels require more effort than the new ones in the shops? I don’t mind.
Cutting grass in the summer is something I’ve always enjoyed. As the lawn moves beneath the wheels and roaring blades, I take one step closer to serenity. The smell of fresh cut grass fills my senses and makes me dream deep nostalgic dreams of summers gone by. I keep my yard trimmed and healthy and soiled, weeded out and shining like a sea of emerald swords. Something about a healthy green lawn keeps me feeling in line. Crazy, but I know all sorts of folks that don’t care much for it, not like I do anyway. There are plenty that bemoan the work it requires, never understanding the process or the reward. Believe it or not, there are those that never stood out on a back porch and looked out at a freshly cut landscape and felt that sensational fresh feeling of new beginnings. I love it for its attention to detail. For me, the details were always the best.
“Take care of it, and it will take care of you.” My father used to say. “A lawn says something about a man.”
Today, while cutting, I’m consumed by what went down at Jimmy’s Place only hours before. The whole thing didn’t line up in my eyes. I tried to get ahold of Prince earlier, but he had fallen off the map. I’m sure he’s somewhere smoking, staring deep and heavy, running the whole thing over and over again in his mind. He had believed it was to be. As had I, in the end. I wipe the sweat out of my eyes. How long until the fall breeze kicks in? I push the mower forward and dive into every inch of my life that played out this morning.
I can’t put my finger on it, but there was something hidden in Saul. He was different and distant, but I had the feeling there were a million things on his mind. There were orchestras in his silence. All my life I’ve watched the quiet and the loud, and let me tell you something real that you can trust: the quiet ones are more interesting, complex, and unpredictable. What weighs heavy in their mind that stops them from speech? What do they see that the others do not? I always thought they knew some profound truth about life that all those circus folks with loose mouths, businessmen, frauds and clowns, attention junkies who never shut the fuck up for five seconds, would never understand. What a drag, that bunch. Give me the quiet, the listening folk every time.
For all his stillness, Saul showed me many things, but I have to hear him out. I need to get down to the bones of it with him, whether he wants to or not. We owe each other that much. Tonight, I’ll head back to Jimmy’s and when Saul’s shift is over, we’ll have it out. We’ll get to the truth of it all. It’s been enough Saul, enough sitting back for the both of us. One way or another, we’re gonna shake the tree down and speak honestly. No more running around in circles, ole Saul. No more.
Sweat pours from my head and down my body, the excretion of abused things inside. Whenever I perspire like this, I can’t help but think about the alcohol and the smoke and all the other badness I’ve done to myself rushing to escape me. What a fascinating self-preservation it is, these brief cleansing moments.
Too many bad habits. Will I ever outrun them? So many things traded in, and for what?
Sometimes, I believe it’s bartering. Sometimes, I believe it’s longing for romance, for dreaming, for experience, for winding and enthralling feelings. To me, to be bored and in a circular route was plain as death. To be living and scrapping for nothing, settling for checks, mediocrity, and predictable blandness. What a loss. The candle had gone out, then. A dying process, a grand submission to everything lifeless. That’s how that goes. So, I fill up with drink sometimes and I smoke. That’s the cost, I suppose.
I’m rounding another thick corner of lawn while the sun refuses retreat. I have always attempted to justify my behavior this way. I’m always chasing my idols, adopting their history, and getting closer to my great something, my calling, my purpose on the planet. On midnight porches I smoke long, hard, and smooth. I pour booze down my throat, all along believing it somehow brings me closer to the truth, believing I can ascend, believing I can look down over my whole life and see all the mysteries that have eluded me, revealed and naked.
In this, I’ve convinced myself that I care little about dying. I’ve convinced myself that death, at least from these origins, does not frighten me. For in these moments, high and alive, dreams become air that I breathe. The sky moves in tandem with water and wind, and everything’s free, and that freedom is everything, that freedom is me. As I finish the lawn, I conclude that this is the king rumination. This is the center of the enterprise, and I am dancing on the floorboards.
I bring the red and black iron push-mower into our storage garage in a few final efforts and close the door until next time. Walking around to the front yard, I look at my lawn and I know it—this is the man I’ve become. Come gather round! All history, my idols, my heroes, my friends, Johnston, my dead mother, my dead others, my enemies, all! Even my father—come gaze at the grass. What does this say about myself as a man? This is mine. Take a look! Stay and peruse and make judgment. This here is my soul laid out bare. This is me. This lake of green. Judge me off this, and this alone! I smile and wipe more sweat off my brow. I am an eagle in the sky. I am free. I think about the taste of an ice-cold beer. How sweet life is, and should be.