Now and then I'll post a new bit of my short fiction.


Enjoy!


5/6/11

How It Goes

You only cut lawns to earn money for a decent car, not have to walk everywhere like a chump. Or rely on thumbing rides. Feet are for losers. Hitchhiking is for losers. There’s that old mower gathering dust in the garage. Why the hell not. Tune the engine, put gas in a can, talk to some of the people living along the street. What’s a fair price. Not too high. Avoid scaring away customers. But not too low. Don’t give away your time. That old lady on the corner. She’ll pay thirty for the yard. Thirty for a little pushing, a little sweat. Thirty sounds fine. Crank up the mower. Let the blue smoke fly. Hey there, Mrs. A, I figure an hour to do the job. You want the driveway edged, that’s another ten minutes. I usually charge extra for trimming, but not this time. You get a good deal from me, ok. Remember me next time your grass needs tending.

So what’s a good looking lad need with a shirt in this heat? Can’t doff the shirt and show off some of those hard muscles? I could run my fingers across that belly, I could play that belly like a drum. What would it hurt. So an old lady gets a taste of what she hasn’t had in years. So she imagines herself in a situation that never existed in reality, all right. But an old lady can imagine. Nobody says different. An old lady can do anything she wants within the confines of her own thoughts and not have it counted as a sin.

Cutting lawns is fine for now, but no way a permanent arrangement. There are plenty of guys who make that mistake. Start off with dreams of magnificence, then find themselves hooked to the back of a mower for life. Fools. The walking dead. Backs bent. Hands stained chlorophyll-green. Ears deafened by the two-stroke roar. Glare up at the cloudless sky. The pitiless blue stares right back.

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