Friday, June 19, 2009

Lawnmower Boys

Darell and Daquan are shooting hoops in front of the vacant duplex on my inner city street.  They’re twins, eleven years old.  The boys appear every afternoon around 3, slack-faced from sleep, and then dance around a portable hoop till long after dark.  Around midnight their mom appears and sits in a man’s car with the lights off.  Cars pull up slowly, stop alongside, and then drive off as raccoons slink in and out of the knee-high weeds of the duplex.

Darell is quiet and kind.  But Daquan…once a Hispanic kid down the block called him a name, and Daquan got a brick in his hand, marched straight up to the kid and smashed him in the face.  Next thing I know Daquan is handcuffed to a SB police car, threatening the cop and getting his head slammed on the hood.  With the cop yelling and Daquan’s head turned sideways to me all I remember is his blank, watching-television gaze.

Then one evening I’m sitting on the porch with my 13-year old daughter, and Darrell walks up.  “Borrow your mower?” he says.  Daquan watches from across the street.  Hmm.  Yes, I say, if you guys mow those weeds in front of the duplex.  My daughter watches them push my shiny red mower away.  Four hours later, after dark, Darell returns.  The mower is dirty, missing its safety flap, and the weeds at the duplex remain untouched.  “Where were you?” I say.  “A lady on Harrison needed her lawn mowed,” he said.

The next week, I see the twins pushing my mower down the street, three blocks away.  “Your wife said we could use it,” says Darrell.  “She did?” I said.  “Well, bring it back by 8.  Before dark.  That’s two hours.” Three hours pass.  After four I’m driving around the neighborhood.  No twins, no lawnmower.  I consider calling the police, but I don’t need the lecture: “You loaned your mower to who?  You didn’t know them very well?  How long you lived in this neighborhood?”

The next morning, the mower is back on my porch.  It’s filthy, the pull rope handle is missing, and the blade is dinged up.  But it had come back.  That’s when I had an idea.  A wonderful, white, middle class idea.  My daughter watched me explain it to the twins:  “$2/ hour to rent the mower.  You check it out on this clipboard for x hours.  If you’re late, I get extra rent.  I maintain the mower, you buy any parts you break.  Take care of it and you start making real money, buy your own mower, start a business.” I liked my plan.  So reasonable.  So empowering.  So…clueless.  The twins watched me talk with their television gaze.  Darrell just said, mm, and they walked off with my battered mower.

Late that night, he pushes it back up to my porch.  The air cleaner housing is missing.  “You’re late,” I said.  “A friend on Portage needed it,” he muttered, and handed me three wadded-up dollar bills.  “Did you make any money?  I asked.  He shrugged, and disappeared through the light of a flickering street lamp.

That’s the last I ever saw of the twins.  The battered basketball hoop stood alone a few weeks before it was stolen.  One evening I found two strange boys standing on my porch, holding up their pants.  “Use your mower?” one said.  “No,” I said.  “Hey, where’s the twins?  Darell and Daquan?” “They broke into Covaleski.  They’re in JVC,” one boy said, and they walked away through the waist-high grass of the duplex.

Next week I got home from work late and hung up my jacket.  My daughter says, “Hey dad, you see the lawn over at the green house?  “No”, I said, “Now what?

“I mowed it,” she said, as she walked up the stairs.

Broadcast by Jeff Nixa on June 19, 2009 • WVPE's Audio Archive
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