Chris McCormick - Desert Boys

At twelve, I felt both prepared for the simplicity of the average adulthood and eager to sense the nuances of a more complicated version, one I’d have much preferred to live. Already I’d divided those older than me into these two camps: Pester and Foster. These were actual lists I kept as a kid, written with red ink (“Pester”) and blue (“Foster”). And like all camps, they had their leaders.

Unfortunately for my parents, I’d placed them at the head of the Pester camp. Mom and Dad — full-time salespeople of clothing and furniture, respectively — would come home from work, make dinner, and speak exclusively in questions. They’d ask my sister and me about our days at school, what we had learned. Whenever we asked about their days at work, they’d say, “Work isn’t worth talking about.” I expected as much from Mom — like many immigrant mothers, she considered education and God the only worthwhile topics of conversation — but I kept hoping my dad would break. Once, when I said as much to him, he offered me a piece of advice. He said, “The greatest quality a person can have is to be a deep, genuine listener.”

I argued that if he never said anything about himself, I’d never have a chance to listen.

“Without even knowing it, you’re learning how to listen right now,” he said mystifyingly.

Eventually I gathered that he meant to compliment himself, that by speaking to my sister and me mostly in questions, by hardly ever telling us anything, he was showing us what a good listener looked like.

That’s when I put him at the top of my “Pester” list.

I should add that the “Pester”/“Foster” lists were always changing. Coach Vierra, my gym class teacher, fell from the good side to the bad after he issued me a demerit for spitting on the blacktop. (The sizzling effect was something to see.) My sister, Jean — sixteen and impossible, most days, to locate — found herself on different sides of the list all the time, depending on whether or not I saw her that week.

This is a long way of saying Mr. Reuter was different. After hearing my mother’s opinions of him (she’d spent some time reaching out to the former Mrs. Reuter, and had come back, like a journalist, with a version of the story), I’d put Mr. Reuter down in red ink, too. According to my mother’s vague commentary, after all, this was a selfish bully of a man we were talking about, “the king of cutting corners.” But then he hired me for that job. Aside from Jean — who, because she was my sister, hardly counted — Mr. Reuter was the only person who’d ever made the transition from Pester to Foster on that list of mine. I made it out to be — someone breaking a pattern like that — a big deal.

IV. INSTRUCTIONS & INSIGHTS FROM MR. REUTER

In the driveway, Mr. Reuter held out a shovel. He had one hand on it, arm outstretched toward me. His other arm rested akimbo on his waist. I took the shovel with both hands and let the metal hit the cement.

“Hey,” he said, “don’t let the spade touch anything it can’t dig out. That means anything but grass, dirt, and shit. Got it?”

I lifted the shovel and held it horizontal. “Got it,” I said.

He went over the plan. The house, like every grass-having house on our block, had two front lawns: a bigger one separated from a smaller one by a driveway. The bigger side was three times the size of the smaller one, about 170 square feet. What he wanted was for the entire smaller side to be dug out and turned. He was going to fill that small side with cement, to extend the width of his driveway by five or so feet. That would take me a day or two, tops, he said, and we’d start there. The next step in the plan was to dig out a circle — ten feet in diameter — from the bigger side of the lawn. To the best of my ability, I was supposed to center the circle in the yard. I’d have to measure it and mark it off somehow. Then I’d get to digging.

The job seemed more complicated than what I’d signed up for, what with all the calculations. I told him so.

He scoffed. “You think I was going to give you fifty bucks to turn grass into mud? The money is for the precision.”

“I don’t know,” I said. Fifty dollars wasn’t as much as people made it out to be.

“The problem here,” Mr. Reuter said, looking me in the eye, “is that you’re not used to being entrusted with things you could easily mess up. Is that true?”

It sounded true. I didn’t think too deeply about it, and said yes.

“It’s a shame. It’s the death of a young man, not being given the opportunity to earn trust. The opportunity, you know? Just that. It’s bigger than anything. Oh, you’ll find ways to make fifty bucks here and there. That’s not really what you want out of this. I can tell. It’s not every day you get the chance to point at something you’ve done and say, ‘I could have ruined the shit out of this, but I pulled it off.’ You don’t think I could’ve — if I really wanted to — done this myself? Hell, it would’ve saved me a lot of time, not to mention the fifty. But I see you mowing lawns around the neighborhood, itching to make your mark on something. Grass, though, it grows back quickly, doesn’t it? Not even a couple days later, all your work is invisible. It’s gone. You’re trying, and I give you credit for that. But this—” He grabbed the shovel’s handle between my hands. “—this is permanent. You’ll see.”

I asked if I could say something.

“Sure,” he said.

“I’ll do it for seventy-five.”

V. SOME REALITIES OF MY FIRST DAYS DIGGING

It took two full days of digging to finish the smaller side of the lawn. I didn’t really have a strategy. Starting in the middle, I stepped the shovel into the ground as far as I could (about two inches) and pulled. In layers, I moved back until I reached the perimeter.

Mr. Reuter spent most of the time inside the house. At the beginning of each day, he placed a full pitcher of water and a cup on an oil stain in the driveway. The first day, I drank all the water in a couple of hours. When I got thirsty again, I went to the front door and knocked. Mr. Reuter answered, holding the telephone to his ear with his shoulder, carrying the holder and its wires around with him. With a look of disappointment — his glasses seemed to sink lower the unhappier he got — he took the pitcher from me and said he’d bring more water out in a bit. I went back to work. He never showed up with more water. Some time later I took a break, crossed the street, and drank as much water as I could from home. In a strange way, I came back with a feeling that I’d failed. I hadn’t made that pitcher last, and had to run home for help. The next morning, when I saw that a full pitcher of water had once again been placed on the driveway, I made a point to drink nothing more.

As I worked, so did the heat. In the desert, the idea of spring was a myth from another culture. It went from winter to summer like flipping a coin, and it seemed as though I’d lost the toss. The heat turned the saliva in your mouth and throat to mush. Your skin turned white until the burn settled in, some hours later. You’d go home after work and cling your lips to the mouth of the tap the way two animals might kiss, chugging water until your stomach ached with it. Still somehow you’d piss only once a day, this orange urine that came out smelling like the heat itself, liquefied.

The clouds came and went in clumps, leaving spots of shade here and there on the pavement. From time to time, the garage door opened upward like a salute, and Mr. Reuter would walk out, barefoot, careful not to stand on a sunny spot of the driveway. He’d say something like, “Progress,” or else, “You’re getting it.” Then he’d hop from spot of shade to spot of shade until he was back inside the garage, pulling closed the door. These tiny moments of encouragement had an enormous effect on me. More than once I thought the heat was too much, or the work was too much, or else the money was too little, and then Mr. Reuter would say his little something, and I’d go right back to work, doubtless in my efforts.