My Lawnmower Guy

Sun's going down over the Republican Women's Committee Gardening Club's well-groomed flowering dogwoods on this cool April evening. Looking out across my street, the ember red glow of the waning sunset illuminates the pink blossoms into an incandescent fire, a pastoral counterpoint to the grating roar of the leaf blower wielded ably by the indefatigable Mr. Blackstar. Even though it is really almost too early in the year to be doing this, he is out there eagerly razing my tender new grass shoots, punctuated with the odd spurt of wild onion, right down to the ground. Skin like mahogany, long and lanky as a gibbon, he sports a short forest of ineradicable white whiskers that overrun his jaw, neck, ears, even nose. They sprout forth from the dark soil of his skin like wiggly, fiber-optic tendrils. As dedicated as he is to landscaping, this is one hedge that will never really feel the blade. He hitches up his baggy trousers, wrestled maniacally into place by a great profusion of green plastic weedwhacker wire, and stares over nearly opaque, grassy glasses. Eyes sparkling, despite bright blue cataract rings, and ever optimistic, he's always chuckling, smiling, talking about his dear wife at home. He's a sweet guy, very dedicated to her, homebound with diabetes, and never complains about how he's paying the bills by way of the few lawn jobs he's able to get at 84. Chortling merrily, he tells me about the catfish fry at Reidsville Baptist this past weekend. He's attentive to the details of his tale, though these are somewhat wasted on me on account of the fact that I can hardly understand his southern speech, tumbling like a Carolina spring over hardened ridges of gums. Mr. Blackstar lives a freewheeling life, unbound by any societal injunction to leave the house in the morning wearing one's teeth.

Mr. Blackstar is like a wind-up Sherman tank, even in his mid eighties, and his energy and industry have always amazed me. Whether it's freezing or boiling hot, he starts a job early and perseveres like a mole, never varying his pace, methodically pressing forward toward the completion of his labors at the day's end. Any attempt to get him to accept a glass of water or stop for lunch are for naught, he's got his eye on the far horizon like a migrating bison. Then he loads up his gear. Lawnmower handles jut out the back end of his rusted, lemon yellow Ghetto Sled. It's actually a Monte Carlo or something like that, but its truer nature has been shaped by years of back-end bottom scraping due to the weight and great proliferation of yard implements. That and a lifetime of junk acquisition. Yep, it's a Ghetto Sled and it's front-end lists unnaturally high on balance as it sits parked in a languid, perpendicular sprawl across my yard. Forget discretion, this baby is on display for the whole neighborhood, it's twin lawnmowers forming a kind of fin. Like the longest '57 Chevy you've ever seen, assembled out of baling wire and tin cans.

Actually, Mr. Blackstar is a pretty good find. Far better than the other self-styled handymen who have come to my door. I've seen 'em come and go. Most recently there was a guy called Tunafish. I had the hardest time calling him that. I just couldn't do it. I found my self greeting him somewhat officiously, "Good morning, Mr. Fish." Even that quickly denigrated into 'Monsieur Poisson' and 'El Pescado', among others. He would begin a day of house painting with his wife Lulabelle (who resembled Grampa from The Munsters altogether too much, including the unusually protuberant canine teeth). She would sit literally all day and do the newspaper crossword puzzle while he'd work. While I can't fault his time investment, I did quickly become curious about his productivity, which seemed glacial at a sprint. Puffed with pride, he'd pull me over to investigate his work at the end of a day— nine feet of trim. "Hmm", I'd say. "Very nicely done, Mr. Fish."

But today the air is cold and fresh. The evening starlings whip and dive crazily between the chimneys and telephone cables. Mr. Blackstar heads up the walk, yellow light streaming long through the fence boards. I see he's done too good a job again. Cut down almost all my monkey grass which trims the flowerbeds, whacked right up to the knuckles of the flowers themselves. My little garden pool is now brackish and green, filled with lawn mulch. "Great", I think, "My own backyard mosquito incubator and muck hole". I shake my head and smile— a Zen surrender into the impermanence of all things. Just then the Buddha himself sidles up, radiating a toothless smile. Blades of grass stick out at odd angles of his sweaty face. Without a word I give him the entire contents of my wallet. Twinkling, he folds the fifty-odd dollars up into a small triangle, which is then fitted deftly into his shoe. With a belch of smoke and a roar, the lemon cruiser heads off down Lindsey Street, somewhere towards the neighborhood of Shambala.

Postscript: Sometime after writing this piece, a local man revealed to me that "Mr. Blackstar" is actually "Reverend Blackstar", and quite a fixture here in the community. He's supposed to show up Friday if the grass isn't too wet from all the rain we've been having.


written May 10, 2002