The Week We Mowed Every Yard by Hand

Thursday

Thursday I mowed in my green rubber garden clogs, because they were the only shoes I owned that were not falling apart.

I know that is not what anybody should mow in. I wore two pairs of socks and kept my feet well back from the deck.

It was the hottest day of the week, ninety-one degrees by two o’clock, with no wind at all.

The kind of day where the heat comes up off the sidewalk in waves and the pavement smells like tar.

Around three in the afternoon we were at the thirtieth yard of the week, a narrow lot in Orrville with a steep little bank down to the sidewalk.

Banks are the worst part of push-mowing. You have to go across them sideways and hold the mower from sliding.

I finished the bank and stopped at the top to catch my breath. I was dizzy, if I am honest about it.

I had not drunk enough water. My arms were shaking on the handle, and I could feel my heart beating in my ears.

I did not see Jarrell leave the back of the yard. I did not hear him go to the truck.

The first thing I knew, there was something ice cold against the back of my neck, and his long hands were tying it in a knot under my chin.

It was a rag from the cooler, soaked in the ice water at the bottom.

He tied it the way I used to tie his sweatshirt hood when he was little and did not want to wear it, a careful double knot right in front.

He did not say anything. He did not ask if I was all right.

He just finished the knot, patted it twice with two fingers, picked up the rake, and walked back to the curb like it was nothing at all.

I stood there in that stranger’s yard with the cold water running down my back and my eyes stinging, and I thought about the seven-year-old boy who used to ride in the truck with me to those first six yards, asleep against the door with a juice box in his lap.

I have been told a lot of things in my life by a lot of people. Nobody ever told me anything as plain as that rag around my neck.

We finished nine yards on Thursday. That made thirty-two. Nine left.

Friday’s yards were the last of the Orrville list, and the last three were on one quiet street, the street where Kristal lives.