MOWER MAN

By Cheryl Sease

 

“God bless you!”

A bleached-blonde woman wearing hot pink slacks stuffed cash into Vern Miller’s hand, then hurried back to her car on jeweled sandals.  The last thing he saw of her was puffy ankles and red-painted toenails.

Vern hadn’t had time to refuse, even to react, really.  He’d opened the hood of the riding lawnmower to adjust a backfire out of the engine.   It was an old mower, but good, even though now and then it needed babied.  He was parked alongside the highway,  murmuring to the running engine by way of his fingertips and a screwdriver and didn’t hear the sedan stop behind him.  The woman leapt into his peripheral vision, and Vern banged his head getting out from under the hood.  He choked on a wave of flowery perfume, and took a step back from her bright red lips.  Before he could blink, the money was in his hand.

“Uhhh….,” he said, but she was already gone.

He opened his meaty fingers and pondered the bill in his hand.  “Wha…”  A whistle slid through his teeth, and Vern snorted, a smile cracking the set of his mouth.  He looked around, but there was no one to show.  No one to tell, “Look here!  That old bag gave me a hundred bucks!”

Vern slipped the screwdriver into the pocket of his short-sleeved plaid shirt.  He hitched up his worn baggy jeans and resettled the John Deere cap on his head.  The cap was his oldest friend.  The seam where the cap met the bill was stained from years of sweat that had bled up the front over the yellow deer.  It was smudged with Vern’s greasy fingerprints.  At night, Vern hid the hat so his wife wouldn’t throw it away while he slept.

He fingered the money.  He couldn’t stand there all day and wonder if it was right to take it and stuffed the bill deep in his pants pocket.  How would he give it back anyway?  Now he could get that new fishing rod he wanted.

Another car whisked by and honked as Vern slammed the hood to the mower.  He lifted his chin in acknowledgment.  Another friendly stranger, but not so friendly that they were handing out dough.  Vern wheezed out a laugh and settled into the mower seat, hot now from being sun-beaten.  He shifted in the seat several times, so that no one place got burnt before the temperature of his backside matched that of the yellow plastic.

Gingerly, he touched the hot steering wheel and turned the key.  The engine cooed now like a satisfied infant.   Nobody knew small engines like he did, if he did say so himself.  He put the mower in gear and moved on, happy to ramble along on the shoulder at mower speed.  You could think when you went slow, and the sound of the engine blocked out any annoying sounds, like the wife complaining about the porch not being painted.  Now days, people were supposed to wear ear plugs when they mowed.  Not Vern.  Let it roar!

Ten miles more, and he would make the turn on the gravel.  Another three miles, and he would reach Brooke’s place.  He’d sold the mower to him yesterday after dickering a good fifteen minutes, but it ended in a fair price and included the matching lawn cart, towed behind.  Vern had to deliver it, because Brooke didn’t own a pickup.  Vern had a pickup, but he pulled the distributor cap from his own truck to fool his wife into thinking it didn’t run, and he was forced to drive the mower the eighteen miles.  At five miles an hour, he would be gone a good long while.  By the time he shot the breeze and had a beer before Brooke drove him back home, it would be time for supper.  Then he’d had to fix his truck.  No time to paint the porch today, Gracie.  Sorry.

His thought was cut short by a car going the opposite way, filled with kids.  It slowed nearly to a stop, coasting along, and didn’t bother to pull onto the shoulder.  The kids waved like maniacs at him and screamed so loud he could hear them over the mower.

“Way to go, man!”

“You’re a saint,” a girl in back yelled.

“Yeeaaahhhhh!”

“What th…”  Vern waved at them, and they yelled louder, instead of pulling off the road  where it was safe, like he was trying to direct them to do.  The boy driving finally gunned the gas and they sped away.  Vern stopped the mower and looked around.  There was a bean field and a dangling barbed wire fence behind him.  No one else to yell to but him, and why they found him so interesting was a mystery.  With a shake of his head and a frown of confusion, he went on.

Vern neared Cedar Road and passed a new ranch house with a football field-sized front yard.  It was meticulous, not a weed in sight, and it was so pretty it almost made a guy cry.  The owner had a mower half the size of Vern’s and was doggedly making laps, the mower sputtering along as fast as it could go.  A smooth-coated, black-and-white terrier flitted around the mower, bobbing and weaving.  The owner’s mouth opened and closed, and he pointed at the house.  The dog darted to the porch and stayed there.

Thunderclouds formed in the west and promised rain soon.  It wouldn’t do to have a beautiful lawn unfinished when the rain started.  The water made the blade sticky and the cut uneven.  Then there were the tire tracks, making ridges in wet ground that would never work themselves out.  Vern looked at what the guy had left to mow and dropped the deck on the mower.  He punched the pedal and whipped around the frontage, cutting in five minutes what would have taken the owner thirty.

The homeowner stopped his own mower and looked briefly at the house, mouthing something.  A woman stood on the porch next to the dog.  The man pointed at Vern.  He said something to his wife, and she began to fling her arm furiously, and she jumped up and down.  They looked as if they might run to him.  Vern spun the wheel.  He lifted the deck and returned to the gravel shoulder, the lawn cart giving a bounce.  When he glanced over his shoulder, they were still waving, and he waved back out of obligation.  Even the dog was wagging his tail.

When the white Olds slowed next to Vern, going the same direction, he pursed his lips in resignation and hit the brake.  The car stopped, and an ancient woman rolled down the window.  She sported bubbly blue-white curls on her head.  She lifted a gnarled hand at him, turning it in little side-to-side movements.  Vern had a vision of the parade in town seventy years from now with the newest Miss Earlyville still officiating.  He turned the motor off to hear her.

“What’d ya say?” he asked.

“Just look at you!  You’re an inspiration, young man!”  Her voice warbled, and she dabbed at her eyes.  The younger man at the wheel smiled at him and nodded his head.

“Thank you,” Vern said flatly, and they drove away.  He scratched at an itchy place on the back of his neck where his gray hair crawled out from under his hat.  “Damned strange day.” He pulled a bottle of water from a homemade holder on the dash.  Vern unscrewed the cap and tipped up the bottle.  The water was warm and tasted of the well, but he wouldn’t have noticed if it was gasoline.

Because then a Newscenter 10 van lurched onto the shoulder.  It screeched as it stopped in front of him and threw rocks against the nose of the mower.  A tall, clean-cut blonde man gamboled from the van and approached him with an outstretched hand.  “Ryan Roth!  Newscenter News at Five!”

“Uhnnn….” Vern said, and darted his eyes to Ryan Roth’s cohort, a stick figure  with bushy hair and a Grateful Dead t-shirt, who pulled a video camera from the belly of the van.  Vern shook his head deliberately.  “No, no, no…”

“Marty, wait!  Sorry, Sir.  It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, Mower Man.”

Vern frowned.  “Mower man?  Uhnnn, yeah, I’m a mower man.”

“Tell me about your journey today.  How’s it going?”

Vern looked from Roth to Marty.  “Fine, I guess.”

“A man a mile back flagged us down.  He said you stopped and helped him finish his lawn. Why did you do that?”

Vern shrugged.  “It’s gonna rain soon.  Woulda been a shame to ruin it.”

“You’re truly an inspiration, Mower Man.  Taking time out when you’re on such an important mission yourself.  Not to mention putting yourself at risk with a storm coming in.  Do you think of yourself as an example of what can be right in the world?”

“Huhn?” Vern said.

If he’d had a few beers, it would explain this.  He had funny dreams all the time when he drank too much.  One time, he pushed Gracie out of bed, thinking she was the neighbor’s dog.  He’d had a six-pack of Bud that night at the lodge and a shot of Wild Turkey besides.  He couldn’t mix whiskey and beer, ever.  But he hadn’t had a drop today yet.  He was waiting for the first taste of a cold one at Brooke’s.  Ryan Roth waited, but Vern couldn’t think of a thing to say.

A beat-up yellow station wagon stopped across the road.  One tire had a white wall and one didn’t.  It was cloaked in dust, and the back fender was rusty and dented.  A tendril of blue smoke escaped the tailpipe as the engine clacked to a stop.  Wire held the front bumper to the frame.

A young man in faded trousers and snagged knit shirt got out.  He looked both ways down the highway before he let his children emerge, a girl about the age of Vern’s youngest granddaughter, maybe seven, and a little boy about a year younger.  Their fresh-faced mother got out in a billowing cotton skirt and plain white blouse with different-colored buttons.  She held a baby with a blue pacifier plugging its mouth.

“Ryan,” Marty said, pulling a cell phone away from his ear, “there’s a big wreck just east of Gardner.  Bob says to cover it.”

Ryan Roth took Vern’s hand and shook it again.  “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Straight.  I wanted to finish the interview, but unfortunately, I have to prioritize.  Good luck to you.  I hope you can get out of the rain.”  Roth glanced at the building cloud bank.

Vern  narrowed his eyes and frowned.  Straight?

Marty pulled the van onto the pavement and spun more gravel as he left.  The family  crossed the road and approached him.  The young man stuck out his hand.

“Hello, Sir.  My name is Jeremy Martin.”  He shook Vern’s hand with gusto and sincerity Ryan Roth hadn’t possessed.  “This is my wife, Beth, and our children, Michael, Jessica, and Andrew.”

“We’re on a mission like you.”  Beth held out a newspaper and Vern gazed at the front page.  It was the Gardner Gazette, this morning’s edition.  MOWER MAN SIGHTED NEAR EARLYVILLE.  Alvin Straight, whose story has captivated the nation, has been seen passing through our county.  Straight, a retiree from Laurens, is traveling to Wisconsin on a John Deere riding mower to visit his ailing brother.

“We’re on our way to see my mother in Ohio,” Jeremy explained.  “She’s got cancer, but the doctor says she has a good chance.”

“You’re such a wonderful man,” Beth said, “to make a trip to see your brother, when all you have is a mower to get there.  You must love him a lot.  Is there anything we can do to help you?”

Vern looked at the picture in the paper at a man with a kind face and a battered cowboy hat.  Crinkles of white showed on his neck where his skin had escaped the sun.  He wore a plaid shirt.  Straight stood in front of a John Deere rider that looked similar to Vern’s, but it was a different model.  Straight’s mower was pulling a monstrosity of a trailer that had no hint of resemblance to the lawn cart hitched to Vern’s mower.

Vern lifted his eyes, but not much.  He studied the Martins in their worn mended clothes, the children spanking clean in clothing just a little too big for them, a mismatched shirt and skirt on the little girl.  The children’s tennis shoes were in tatters.  The family looked at him in adoration, the only shining thing about them, and Vern couldn’t destroy it.

“Yes,” Vern said.  “I do love my brother, very much, and  I’ll get to see him by and by.  Just a little slower than you kids will get to your mother.  Tell you what, that Dodge of yours burns a lot more gas than this mower, and I don’t really need this.”  Vern pulled the crumpled, damp hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and pressed it into Jeremy’s hand.  “A nice lady gave me that just awhile ago, and before I could give it back, she left.  I’d rather you had it.”

Jeremy looked from the money to his wife.  Beth’s eyes became blue pools.  “We can’t take this, Mr. Straight!” she said.

“Sure you can!  I won’t have it otherwise.  Now go on and find yourself a safe place off the road.  That storm will be here before you know it.”  Vern turned and plopped into the mower seat, a sagging bedraggled superman.

“But, Mr. Straight,” Jeremy said through a rent in his voice.

Vern turned the key and smiled widely at them, showing crooked teeth that gapped in the middle.  He wrapped himself in Alvin Straight and wore him like a cape.  As he drove off, he looked back and winked.  The Martins were smiling, even the youngsters, and the baby sucked furiously on the pacifier.

“God bless you,” he called to them.  Vern gunned the mower and hightailed it.  He turned onto the gravel as the first drops splattered the green John Deere hood and the clouds roiled overhead.

 

 

**This is based on the true story of the Iowa man, Alvin Straight, who rode a John Deere mower to visit his ailing brother, 240 miles away, in Wisconsin.