astronomy is on at the IMAX. It would be great to see it.” He sighed and I knew he was thinking about our budget.
And there I sat. My pockets full of money. And I could have said no problem, I've got money, and I'll earn more money tomorrow and more money the day after that….
But I kept my mouth shut.
I could have said all those things but nothing came. Somehow it didn't feel right for me to be the one offering to take us all to the movies. If I did that, wouldn't Dad feel worse? Wouldn't it sound like I was bragging?
I ate my meat loaf and green beans and then went into the living room and watched a little television. Or tried to. I still had the sound of the mower in my ears so I couldn't hear the set. And my whole body was still vibrating from sitting on the mower all day. After a few minutes, I couldn't keep my eyes open. By eight o'clock I was sitting on the couch with my head hanging forward, drool dripping onto my T-shirt, sound asleep.
Mom shook me awake and sent me up to bed, where I crashed onto the pillow, still dressed, pockets full of bills. End of day one with my lawn mower.
And that was the easiest day.
There was a second then or a minute or maybe even a day when things could have remained sort of normal.
The next day I moved the mower farther into the richer part of the neighborhood, where the lawns began to get larger while my mower seemed to get smaller. Of course it didn't really, but that's how it felt. Soon it became obvious that I could only do three or maybe four lawns a day if I worked from just before dawn to just after dark.
And while it's true that the owners of the largeryards paid me more—I was getting thirty to forty dollars a lawn the second day—there was also the distance factor. I had to ride the mower from lawn to lawn and as I moved farther from our house that meant it would take me longer to get home at night, putt-putting down the edge of the street on the mower. Plus, I had to stop every few hours to buy more gas, and that really chewed up my time even more than the bigger yards. Great mower, small tank.
I must have been the only kid my age in what felt like a ten-block radius who hadn't signed up for sleepaway summer camp or who wasn't on baseball and/or swim and/or tennis teams that summer— I was burned out on sports after spring baseball league. All the older guys had real jobs like at the Clucket Bucket or the Dairy Whip and all the guys my age were mostly busy or gone, so I had a long summer full of nothing ahead of me, almost as if I'd known how things were going to work out. Which, of course, I hadn't.
More and more people wanted their lawns mowed—on the second day I had eight jobs—and the fact was that I was fast approaching my limit.
Three lawns a day, plus refilling the tank from time to time, was all I could manage, and I would have to mow the lawns every week. Three lawns a day, once a week, twenty-one lawns if I worked seven days, dawn till dark, no days off.
Making approximately six hundred and thirty dollars a week.
It seemed like a staggering whop of money. Summer was twelve weeks long, which meant that by the end of vacation I would have made over seven thousand five hundred dollars.
Way,
way
more than I needed to buy a new inner tube for my old ten-speed.
And of course, there would be no vacation.
Which ran through my head as I worked. No vacation, no summer fun, no bike trips with my best friend, Allen, when he came to visit his father in the summer.
No vacation.
Seven thousand five hundred dollars.
No summer fun.
Seven
thousand
five hundred dollars.
I had just finished the second yard of the second day, and I was already a little sick of the sight ofgrass, grass, grass. The only sound in the world seemed to be the sound of the mower. The vibration of the seat was the only feeling my butt had ever known.
And then I met Arnold.
He showed up on the sidewalk when I started the third yard of the day.
Another customer, I thought.
I had
And there I sat. My pockets full of money. And I could have said no problem, I've got money, and I'll earn more money tomorrow and more money the day after that….
But I kept my mouth shut.
I could have said all those things but nothing came. Somehow it didn't feel right for me to be the one offering to take us all to the movies. If I did that, wouldn't Dad feel worse? Wouldn't it sound like I was bragging?
I ate my meat loaf and green beans and then went into the living room and watched a little television. Or tried to. I still had the sound of the mower in my ears so I couldn't hear the set. And my whole body was still vibrating from sitting on the mower all day. After a few minutes, I couldn't keep my eyes open. By eight o'clock I was sitting on the couch with my head hanging forward, drool dripping onto my T-shirt, sound asleep.
Mom shook me awake and sent me up to bed, where I crashed onto the pillow, still dressed, pockets full of bills. End of day one with my lawn mower.
And that was the easiest day.
There was a second then or a minute or maybe even a day when things could have remained sort of normal.
The next day I moved the mower farther into the richer part of the neighborhood, where the lawns began to get larger while my mower seemed to get smaller. Of course it didn't really, but that's how it felt. Soon it became obvious that I could only do three or maybe four lawns a day if I worked from just before dawn to just after dark.
And while it's true that the owners of the largeryards paid me more—I was getting thirty to forty dollars a lawn the second day—there was also the distance factor. I had to ride the mower from lawn to lawn and as I moved farther from our house that meant it would take me longer to get home at night, putt-putting down the edge of the street on the mower. Plus, I had to stop every few hours to buy more gas, and that really chewed up my time even more than the bigger yards. Great mower, small tank.
I must have been the only kid my age in what felt like a ten-block radius who hadn't signed up for sleepaway summer camp or who wasn't on baseball and/or swim and/or tennis teams that summer— I was burned out on sports after spring baseball league. All the older guys had real jobs like at the Clucket Bucket or the Dairy Whip and all the guys my age were mostly busy or gone, so I had a long summer full of nothing ahead of me, almost as if I'd known how things were going to work out. Which, of course, I hadn't.
More and more people wanted their lawns mowed—on the second day I had eight jobs—and the fact was that I was fast approaching my limit.
Three lawns a day, plus refilling the tank from time to time, was all I could manage, and I would have to mow the lawns every week. Three lawns a day, once a week, twenty-one lawns if I worked seven days, dawn till dark, no days off.
Making approximately six hundred and thirty dollars a week.
It seemed like a staggering whop of money. Summer was twelve weeks long, which meant that by the end of vacation I would have made over seven thousand five hundred dollars.
Way,
way
more than I needed to buy a new inner tube for my old ten-speed.
And of course, there would be no vacation.
Which ran through my head as I worked. No vacation, no summer fun, no bike trips with my best friend, Allen, when he came to visit his father in the summer.
No vacation.
Seven thousand five hundred dollars.
No summer fun.
Seven
thousand
five hundred dollars.
I had just finished the second yard of the second day, and I was already a little sick of the sight ofgrass, grass, grass. The only sound in the world seemed to be the sound of the mower. The vibration of the seat was the only feeling my butt had ever known.
And then I met Arnold.
He showed up on the sidewalk when I started the third yard of the day.
Another customer, I thought.
I had
Similar Books
