“Give it a pull there, now.”
I pulled the cord with all my might, and nothing happened.
“Again.”
I took a deep breath and pulled back again.
The engine coughed, sputtered, and died.
Grandpa tapped at the mower with a hammer and then took a large strike at the side.
“Do it one more time,” he replied as he took a few steps back which made me wonder if it would throw the blade or explode in such a spectacular display it would make “Bridge on the River Kwai” look like just a few firecrackers had gone off.
I nodded as I held onto the control bar once more and tried to bring our 1980’s Day Prometheus back to life. The mower sputtered, choked and then, to the astonishment of my grandpa, myself and maybe all of mankind, the engine got to full power, and I pushed it forward into the grass. I was ecstatic to see it working as it had been kept in a secluded corner of the storage shed as grandpa had a riding mower. He said I could use it over his dead body.
I ran down the road to Rob’s house. Rob said he would work on the flyers, so I let him do it. His mom was some graphic artist or something with her computer, always printing out old-school looking banners and cards from a very loud printer. That day was no exception as Rob showed-off the artwork: a tuft of grass in a circle with a line crossing over it. I realized where Rob had gotten the name from and wondered if we would be taken seriously with our name homage to a great comedy by Bill Murphy.
“Can you take us into town, so we can put a few signs?” Rob asked his mother.
“Get some tape and maybe some tacks to put them up.”
“Where should we go?”
“There’s the beauty shop in town.”
We stopped and looked at her in what must have been the most confused expressions known to modern man.
“I believe you’ll find some ladies who would value your services. And then there’s the laundromat and the coffee shop. We’ll think of a few more on the way to town.”

When anyone said, “to town”, it meant driving ten minutes to the “new part” of town where there were actual restaurants like Panther Steakhouse and not a small building that served ice cream and maybe had ONE hot dog available by the time you got there. I sat in backseat with Rob and his younger brother. His sister and mother were in the front seats.
“And one day, we’ll drive ourselves.”
“And you take your brother and sister to school.”
Rob shot his mother a look of absolute terror—you’d think he’d seen the end of the world or the results of an Algebra test.
“I would expect you to help, Robert. Like I’m doing right now. Hint, hint?”
Rob nodded.
“You’re going to be my chop-fer,” Ryan stated with a tone that had I said it like that to my grandfather, he would have drop-kicked me thirteen miles into Pettis County.
“Only if I can drop you off at the state line. I hear Kansas is nice this time of the year,” Rob replied.
His mother tried to hide a smile behind a frown.

Our first stop was indeed said beauty parlor. We stood on opposite sides of the door and looked back and forth at each other. Rob’s mom had dropped us off so she could go to a store down the road.
“Well, let’s go in,” Rob stated as he gestured for me to open the door.
I shook my head. I knew what the inside of a southern beauty shop looked and smelled like, for having to sit down on an uncomfortable bench and try to not watch the soap opera playing on a tiny television set sitting precariously on top of an old snack machine while my grandmother would have her hair cut, trimmed, sprayed, and whatever else. It was, in fact, that very same shop, but I wasn’t about to walk in like everything was cool.
“We need to ask about putting up a flyer.”
“That’s where you come in,” I replied.
“We should split the conversation. Show everyone we’re together on this.”
“Can I just be the silent partner?”
“I’m opening this door.”
“Okay.”
“And you’re coming in with me.”
“Alright,” I said with a sigh and then took a deep breath—as our noses were about to be attacked by the smell Aqua-Net and hair dye.

Rob opened the door and we hastily stepped in and then closed the door. There was a blast of a hair dryer and several ladies talking but the sounds screeched to a halt as fifteen eyes were all on us.
“My name’s Robert Bent and we wanted to know if it was okay to put up a flyer for our new business?”
“And what business is that?” A woman whose hair nearly reached the ceiling only stopping short of the slowly rotating fan above her.
“We will perform any type of lawn service you need.”
I moved forward to hand the flyer to the lady. Her expression was a cross between my grandmother’s when someone---not naming names—ate the last of her strawberries and of someone who was wondering when we were going to leave. I feared she’d tear my hand off with her knife-like fingernails. She took it and looked hard at it. Was there a huge spelling error? Was the price too high? Did she understand the Ghostbusters reference?

Then, she gave us a cigarette-stained teeth smile. “Sure boys, put one up on the board and give me this one.”
Rob obliged and hung the flyer on the bottom of the already stuffed board. He used two thumbtacks for good measure.
“What are they selling, Sue?” A woman under a hair dryer asked.
“Thelma, didn’t’ you say Ray was argue’n about your backyard?”
“He’s always yelling about the yard.”
“Looks like you boys have a new customer,” she said with a wink.
“Thank you,” Rob replied.
“Thank you very much. Have a good day.”
We waved bye to everyone, walked out of the shop and down the sidewalk in front or the strip mall.
“See, wasn’t that easy?”

We had similar interactions at the laundromat, the hardware store, and the drugstore. The owners would look at us like we were trying to hold them up or bore them to death but, they’d take our flyer, allow us to hang one up and then take a few notecards that we—well, Rob’s mom—fashioned into colorful business cards proudly displaying our name and a contact phone number, which would be Rob’s as my grandparents hated using the phone. I’m sure my grandfather would have preferred sending a hand-written letter before even attempting to look at a computer.
Which was fine by me. It would be like being a fireman: when the call comes in, you scramble to get to your destination in order to squelch out the flames. You don’t pretend to be a hero or comment about good you are, you just get in there, through the heat and fire and do it.

Heat and fire….a great description of a summer day in my neck of the woods. Tragically, the pond was gone by the middle of summer: when it would have been perfect to cool off. Instead, one had to use a garden hose and maybe a slip-n-slide…until it’s taken away because someone’ younger brother thought it would be a great idea was to walk on it with a pair of soccer cleats. No amount of duct tape could fix it. I tried.

Our next stop was Panther Steakhouse, a place I had been to a few times before with Rob’s family. It was like a time warp with ancient, we’re talking from the early 70’s and 80’s, decorations all over the walls. If my grandfather had ever walked in he probably could have identified everything in the dining room and grandma would have critiqued their lack of grits and bland gravy. They had largest hamburgers known to this twelve year old and nothing was ever bland to me, so I had no complaints.
We asked to put up a flyer which we placed prominently in the middle of a cleared-out message board.
“There it is. Front and center.”
I nodded.
“I keep saying it, but I think is going to work. We have all summer and a little into the fall. Hey, maybe we could work on weeds too.”
“Like, pulling them?”
“No, I mean like lobbing a few grenades of weed killer and, poof! Goodbye crabgrass!”
It was ideal thought, but Rob had forgotten what had happened at the mayor’s estate when he used week killer on his grass…which happened to be a form of well-manicured wild grass that was, surprise, surprise, surprise, susceptible to that form of herbicide.

We walked back into the dining room and sat down at a table designed for four but were able to cram Ryan onto the end with an extra chair. The lunch went by pretty quick a little back and forth from Rob’s mom and the two us as she asked what our plans were for the money we received and if we were planning on saving any. She specially looked at Rob and annunciated on the word “any”. Rob replied that he was going to save up for a car. A basic vehicle to get back and forth to school. I kind of wanted to laugh because that was entirely east from the west from the “Big Foot” machine he wanted, the one where the tires alone would be a house payment. Ah, youth.

“You have ten new messages,” the answering machine at Rob’s house announced. We waited anxiously, like waiting for the bar on the TV to scroll through the school closings in our area and hope that our school’s name would be there, shining in all of it’s “Snow Day” glory. The tape clicked a few times and then played the first message, which was someone wanting to ask Mr. Bent about his car warranty. The second was a political ad. The third was one of Ryan’s “friends” screaming into the phone about something. I took a few steps away. One could not expect the heavens to open and a choir of voice singing that they wanted to hire a just turned teenager and a preteen. Maybe we could acquire a mercy job. A bless your heart gig.
“There’s one there, I know it, I know it, I know it” Rob chanted.
I only nodded as messages four and five were hang-up,
I stopped listening at six and became oblivious to the garbled voice as I thought we’d have to try harder. Maybe do one for free? Show that we could indeed do it as good as the fabled “Lawn Commander” could.
“Yes, this is Miss Karmine. I, uh, uh saw your ad. Could you call me please at six, six zero …”
I didn’t recall the reset of the number but Rob frantically grabbed a pen and paper to write it down.
“One call. It only takes one.”
I nodded.
Mr. Bent arrived at six in the morning to pick me up. My grandparents were amazed I had gotten up before breakfast and had taken a shower without being ordered. I wouldn’t say I moving into a grown-up phase of life—I was still only 12 and some months but there I was: abandoning Saturday morning cartoons to go do something I would considered a punishment for mouthing-off a few weeks before.
There were two mowers and a weeder tethered and strapped down on a small trailer. I sat in the back with Rob.
“I feel this, man. How bout you?”
“Yeah, yeah, I feel it. How many do we have?”
“Two,” Rob replied as he flashed “victory” fingers to me. “Dad’s packed a cooler for us,” Rob pointed at the trailer.
“Water?”
“Yeah, and some fruit. I asked for a Hershey’s bar or something sweet but Mom said it was granola bars or nothing.”
“Works for me,” I said as the truck turned down onto a gravel road and the dust kicked up.
“We’re going to be driving one day and do this all by ourselves.”
Rob stated he wanted to play football in Super Bowl, be an astronaut, win a million dollars and, yeah, that 4x4 truck. The issue was he seldomly even stayed with anything. Football required getting up early each morning to practice, then go to school, then more practice, and then a team of guys get to smash into your head. Being an astronaut required math skills that Rob could never do even if he hired a tutor for a million dollars. However, if he could keep up with this grass cutting job then maybe the truck thing was still possible.
We came to a stop in front of a large house with large front yard and a huge backyard. A huge backyard that was built onto a hill. A huge backyard that was built onto a hill that looked like it had not been touched in over a decade. One could go on safari in it. One could lost in it and have to yell “Polo!” For someone to find them. I’d either get paid for this or have my picture on a milk carton by the afternoon.
“Smells like money,” rob replied.
“That’s not what I smell as I looked to the other side of the house where there was a corral with several horses.
“You boys off-load the trailer, I’ll let them know you’re here.”
“We can do that, Dad.”
“You unload your stuff, okay,” His dad shot back. It wasn’t a stern or sharp rebuke. More of a “do as I say” tone of voice. Usually Rob would counter would some kind of sarcasm but he simply nodded as we jumped out of the truck and walked to the trailer.

There was a little heat and stickiness in the air. The kind of feeling that, sometime around now and later the skies would open up and the deluge would fall. We quickly removed the tethers and bungee cords from the mowers as Mr. Bent came back to the truck.
“You boys sure you can get this?”
“Of course, Dad. We’re up to the challenge.
Mr. Bent’s expression was a cross between “I’m proud of my boy,” and “the boy ain’t right.”
We’ll get this done in record time.
“Well, if it going to be done in record time, then, I’ll stay here with truck and read my paper.”
Rob motioned to me. “I’ll take the front if you want to start on the back. Then, I can meet up with and tackle the other side. We can meet in the middle.”
“Okay,” I replied as I pulled my socks up and rolled my mower towards the quasi-bamboo forest. I looked at how tall it was—some of it towering over me—and wondered why I didn’t ask to bring the tractor. I also kind of thought that, maybe, this was a test to see if we were serious about this as our first customer’s land was like a junior version of Mt. Everest. This would be our Sisyphus moment and either come out of it on top or be given the second worst punishment known to young man: to have an older man and woman look at your work, lower their heads and make that guttural sound that sounds like they’re about to die and kill you with silence.

I think I had been mowing the corn maze incognito for over an hour before the mower sputtered and died. I took that time to take a look at my handiwork and I had cut through through a rather large swath ground, so I felt pretty good as I hiked back to the truck to get the gas can and a drink of water. Rob had half of the front lawn completed. I had a feeling that he wasn’t going to be joining me anytime soon. That was okay, I thought nothing of it. We’d get through the project and be paid the same, so I was fine with everything.
I opened a bottle of water and took small sips in-between wiping the sweat from my brow.
“How is it in back nine?” Mr. Bent asked as he looked at me through a pair of sunglasses.
“Kind of think. Ran out of gas.”
“Well, rest a bit. Don’t get over-worked,”
“Yes sir,” I replied as I picked the gas can and walked back to my work-in-progress with a leisurely pace. My knees cracked as I bent down to take the cap off and fill the tank. My socks and shoes had a fine assortment of souvenir briars, brambles and cockleburs I could take home with me. I walked the can and my bottle of water back to Mr. Bent. Rob was standing a few feet away from his dad. Mr Bent appeared to inch away from Rob and the closer I got the more I could smell why. The consequences of growing up was be to be bathed in the essence of eau de sweat.
“How’s it going back there?”
“Pretty good. Hoping to avoid ticks.”
“Chiggers are worse,” Rob replied and then took a swig of water.
I nodded as I sat the gas can down and my water back into the cooler. Then, I ran back to try and get as much done as possible.

Mr and Mrs. Williams were impressed with our work and they talked with Mr. Bent as I assisted Rob with loading the mowers back onto the truck. What we thought would take an hour or two ended up being almost five hours from start to finish. If I known how sore I would be feeling the next day I would taken it down a notch but, at the time, the adrenaline was flowing so much I hadn’t noticed my skin was as red as a crayfish in butter sauce.
We thanked the Williams’ and the three of us walked back to the truck as the sound of thunder pealed in the distance.
“Looks like the second job will have to wait, boys.”
“It may pass us,” Rob replied as we looked at the slowly darkening sky.
“Just a pop-up storm, but enough to make it dangerous to be standing out in it. We’ll go home and call the second job and reschedule for tomorrow afternoon,” Mr Bent stated as lightning flashed overhead.