Even as a child, Dad was my job agent. I never had to hire him; he worked free-lance. Most of the jobs I worked at, right up through college freshman year, he got me— thank you very much.
So, one sunny, blue-sky, summer afternoon I was channeling Otis Redding. You know, just “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay, way-hay’-stin’ time.” Instead of on the dock of the bay, however, I was lazing away my time sittin’ on our front step. Wastin’ time was a main hobby of mine back then. One I took very seriously.
It was summertime, and the livin’ was easy. School was out, so there was none of that annoying high school homework to ruin my day. Life was just the way I liked it: I had no plans. Whatsoever. My day was wide open.
Outta the blue a pick-up truck came wheeling into the driveway. Dad was sitting shotgun with Nelson, his co-worker, at the wheel. Now, what was unexpected about this is Dad was officially “at work.” At only like 1:00 o’clock, he wasn’t due back home until 6:00, or later. Something was up…
He was beckoning me to come over. Which, I can tell you, gave me an ominous queasiness in the pit of my stomach. Against my better judgement, I walked over.
“Had lunch yet?” he wanted to know.
And instinctively, without thinking, I said, “Yeah.” Then kicked myself. I should’ve said, No. Not yet. You should always say no,
“Good. Get in.”
“Get in? Why? Whatta you talkin’ about?”
“C’mon. You’re late for work.”
“Work? What work? I don’t have any work…”
“Hop in. Tell you on the way.”
“Jeez! Now wait just a minute, OK? I was planning on… doing stuff!” Dad scooted over. Reluctantly, with all the alarms going off in my head, I hauled myself up into the passenger seat next to him.
I couldn’t help but notice Nelson was grinning a shitty Cheshire Cat grin. And then we were off, me casting an annoyed look back over my shoulder at the warm spot on the front steps already beginning to cool. I was devastated. I should’ve taken off on my bicycle right after lunch.
“So…? Where we going?” I stifled ‘this time.’”
“Dover Cemetery.”
“WHAT? Dover what? Dover cemetery?!”
“Yeah,” Nelson answered for him. “You’re a professional now.”
“Huh? Professional what?’
“Grave digger!” he said, with an evil grin.
“WHAT!?” Old people loved to needle teenagers.
“Lawn mower,” Dad said.
OK, I wasn’t going to pay any more attention to wise-ass Nelson. “Lawn mower?! What, at Dover Cemetery?”
“You got it.”
“But maybe you can work your way up to grave digger…” Nelson pointed out, but I cut him off.
“I don’t wanna be no… graveyard lawn mower, Dad. I mean, what’re you talking about? I don’t know anything about cemeteries! Isn’t it enough that I mow our lawn? But jeez… come on, a cemetery? I mean, what’ll my friends think!?””
“Oh, I dunno. That you’re gainfully employed, maybe?”
“Well, still though, you could’ve asked me!”
“Hey. You’ll thank me when you get your first pay check.”
“I doubt it.”
“Which goes straight into your bank account, by the way. For college.”
“Oh, of course. See? What’d I just tell you? Yeah, like I’m just dying to slave my summer away just to not have any extra spending money!”
Damn, we were already pulling into one of the graveyard’s many access roads. And oh my God! I could spy a dozen or so old-timers, lost-cause-zombie-skeletons, plodding every which way behind mowers. I mean, come on! Halloween in June?!
“Think of it this way,” Nelson said with a wink to Dad. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
“Just for this summer, Monday through Friday,” Dad said.
“What? Dad, the whole…summer?!”
“And see that guystanding right over there?” he said, pointing a finger. “That guy’s your new boss.”
“I don’t need a new boss.” Everything was happening so fast! It was unbelievable! One minute, I”m free. Next minute I’m being sold to a band of gypsies!
We pulled up next to the new boss-of-me. And when I got out (Dad didn’t even have the common courtesy to get out with me) I saw him wink at the guy when he said, rather callously I thought, “He’s all yours, Bub.”
My heart was pounding. But OK, I knew I had to man-up. So I did, though it was a struggle. And by that I mean I held my breath, bit my tongue, and willed myself not to fall down on my knees begging, “No, please, Dad! PLEASE don’t leave me here with these horrible old people!”
But with a boa-constrictor separation-anxiety squeezing the life out of my heart, I just stood there watching my “Judas agent” drive away. Back into the world that, only minutes ago, was my world.
Bub flopped a beat-up lawnmower down off a flatbed trailer with a bang and said “This one’s yours.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
So all afternoon I mowed. I mowed my brains out. And all throughout the afternoon, I felt sick to my stomach. I mean, it was bad enough that I’d been consigned to this chain gang in the first place. But I just couldn’t help dwelling on what my best buds were doing that afternoon while I slaved under a hot sun. Probably hitchhiking out to the lake for a leisurely day at the beach, the lucky bums!
But what was making me really ill on top of that is that I’d been informed (A) we were responsible for mowing a dozen area grave yards throughout the summer, but also (B) at the end of each day we were responsible for taking our lawnmowers apart, cleaning all the parts, putting the damn thing back together again, draining out the old oil, and putting new oil back in! I mean, where the hell was I? And what the hell did I know about lawn mowers, beyond how to gas one up, start it, and how to shut it back down again? Which before… was all I’d ever needed to know. Which was all anybody’d ever need to know, as far as I could see.
But anyway, I had one desperate glimmer of hope I was hanging onto. That being that when the time came to take the damn thing apart, it’d become glaringly obvious that I was totally useless at it. Like, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again if it was up to me. That hiring me had been a big mistake, and finally I’d get fired on the spot! Yeah! My uselessness was my best hope. And, oh, wouldn’t that just piss Dad off. But hah! Take that, Dad! Take that, Nelson!
Thank God everybody stopped for a ten–minute break at 3:00 o’clock. I puttered my mower over to where everybody’d seated themselves on the grass in the shade of some trees. And, aw jeez, they were all swigging down their ice-cold Moxies, Cokes and root beers, leaving me the only one with nothing to drink. Oh sure, let the new kid collapse with severe dehydration, why don’t you!
I just had to wake up from this nightmare. Somehow.
I hadn’t shut my lawn mower down yet, so I began trying to pop the ignition tab off the spark plug with the toe of my shoe. Keep in mind, this was 1963, back before the automatic shut-off safety assembly became a required installment on mowers. Today as soon as you take your hands off the handlebar, your lawnmower shuts itself right down. But back then if you let go of the handlebar, so what? Nothing happened. The machine would just continue on running until it either ran itself out of gas or you disengaged the spark plug. Which is what I was fumbling around trying to do with my foot.
“Holy mackerel there, son!” one of the geezer squad yelled at me.
“Huh? What?”
“You tryin’ to get yourself killed, or what!” He was shaking his head in disbelief. “Jesus, kids these days! Look son. You’re doin’ it all wrong, OK? Now if that there was your lawnmower. I mean the one you got back home. In your yard? Then OK.”
“Uhmmm… I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I always felt pretty uncomfortable around people of that age if I didn’t know them. And really? All I wanted was to be left alone to wallow in my misery. But weirdly, I became aware that the whole crew suddenly stopped gabbing and oddly seemed to be taking quite an unsettling interest in our conversation. And their expressions had all taken on a tone of serious gravity. Why was that?
“All I’m sayin’ is that piece of equipment you’ve been mowin’ with all afternoon is a commercial machine, not some domestic toy. And that spark plug you’re ticklin’ with your toe’s got at least ten times the wallop on it of any home mower. What, nobody warned you about that when they hired you on?”
I found this as disturbing as it was confusing. “Nobody told me nothing!” I said. “I mean, there wasn’t time. My dad… he just dropped me off. And Bub… or whatever his name is… he just…”
“Oh, Jesus H. Christ!! Wouldn’t our dear old town manager be some pleased with the lawsuit he’d be lookin’ at if… well, never mind. No, son. You wanna shut one of these machines down? You gotta use somethin’ that don’t conduct electricity.”
“What? No, at home all I ever…”
“Hold your horses a minute…” He walked over to a nearby gravestone and began poking around in the weeds surrounding the base of it. Meanwhile my mower kept puttering steadily away.
Somebody offered, “That tall one over to the far right, right by your foot, looks about wide enough, Dave.”
He scowled. “The day I need your help, Pops, I’ll ask for it.” But then he did pluck the very blade of grass Pops had pointed out, and walked it back over to me.
“Yeah, this one’s good enough. Long and wide. Strong. And dry as a bone. Been bakin’ in the hot sun all day, is why. Water conducts electricity.”
What, did he think I was stupid or something?“Uh huh. Yeah.” I was being obviously sarcastic. “Water conducts electricity. Thanks for telling me. Got it.”
“‘Course. I figured you’d know that. But… whatta I know ‘bout what they’re teachin’ in school these days?” He shrugged. “Anyway, here you go.”
Not having a clue as to why, I accepted it.
“OK, son. Now, whatcha gotta do is just poke that very carefully down in behind that there little tab you were tryin’ to nudge off the spark plug. And then with your other hand, grab the low end when she pokes out down below. OK?”
What the hell was I doing listening to this old nursing home buzzard anyway. Why was I even here? “Alright. OK. Yeah. Guess so.”
All righty. Then… you’re gonna yank it right back. Towards yourself. And that’ll pull her right off the spark plug. Safely.”
I thought the move through, and shook my head. “Funny though,” I said. “At home I swear I can always just nudge the damn thing off with the toe of my boot, you know?”
“’Course I know. We all of us got one of’em at home, just like you. I mean, because who can afford one of these souped-up industrial jobbies anyway? Not me, that’s for damn certain. But hey, college kid, nobody’s tellin’ you what to do. I ain’t your boss.”
“I’m only in high school.”
“But all I am sayin’ is, it’s your toe. And you wanna try your toe on one of these commercial industrial mowers? Well son, better yours than mine. You’re free to do whatever you want.. It’s a free country. Jus’ tryin’ to offer a bit of friendly advice. You go on right ahead and do as you please. Only jus’ don’t say you wasn’t warned.”
“Hey, I was just sayin’. That’s what works with mine. At home, is all.”
“Well, I’m not sayin’ the shock will kill you. All I’m warnin’ you about is you could burn a couple of toes right off at the knuckles down there, you know? It’s happened before. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“All right, all right.”
So. I bent down and poked that fat blade of grass down in behind the ignition tab. Then I managed fish the lower tip and snag it, so that finally I’d got both the top and bottom tips pinched, thumb-and-finger, with either hand. “Like this?”
“Yeah, that’s it. You got it. But… you gotta hold both ends firm and tight? You don’t wanna let it slip when you pull on it.”
“OK. I guess.”
How the hell did I know? Maybe there was something to what the old man was babbling on about after all, you know? He was the expert. Not me.
I realized I was my breath. It was quiet. Seemed like the whole crew was holding their collective breaths too. I mean, how crazy was that?
“You ready, son?”
I just wanted to get whatever this was over with, so I said, “Yeah.”
“Then go ahead. Do it, but… be careful.”
So…
I yanked— BZZZZZZZZTTTSSNNAP!!
Ouch-Whoa-JEEZUM! What the…? Wow! Liked to’ve just got my fingers bit by an electric eel! And…
…there was this raucous roaring going on. What was that? I mean, talk about confusion. It took me a full ten seconds to clear my head and figure out just what had actually happened! But by the time I got my bearings, it was so embarrassingly obvious.
And it was awful.
Because you never saw such a damn bunch of knee-slapping, haw-hawing old crows in your life.
“Young pups! Every SINGLE damn time, I kid you not! HAW-HAW!”
“Got’im, you did! HEE HEE HEE!”
Why those… bastards!
I couldn’t look up and face them while they continued to bust a gut at my expense. I was too mortified. But finally the noise was dying down some.
“Well. Time to get back at it. Can’t sit around jawin’ all day. Break’s over! Start’em up, boys!”
And there I was. Amid all the yankings of the pull cords; the clatter of the Black and Decker engines all firing back to life; and the blue, oily exhaust smoke being released all over everywhere: the butt of the friggin’ joke! The red-faced little Dumbo, the high-school-kid baby elephant! And oh, had I just made those old bastards’ day or what!
And boy, hadn’t they’d really yanked my damn cord, damnit!
The last one to leave leered at me. “Best be countin’ your fingers, boy. One or two of’em might be missin.’”
I felt about two inches tall. I was so flummoxed, I couldn’t get my lawnmower started for five minutes!
And lemme tell you something. When you were a boy back then, especially my age, you wanted to be the cool one. You wanted to be the Roy Rogers, not the comical sidekick! Not Gabby Hayes or Jingles! And especially never the fool. Man, I was burning with shame. They’d just crushed me like a stink bug under their stinkin’ boot heels. Enough so that over the next few days I’d be avoiding the bathroom mirror worse than Count Dracula, lest I catch a glimpse of the little fool I’d been reminded I really was.
Damn them all to hell was playing like a broken record in my brain.
You know, I’d never ever really hate Dad, ever. But I sure felt like I hated him right then that day, for willingly collaborating in me getting shanghaied by a crew of old, pot-bellied, toothless, nursing-home pirates like those old crones!
Yeah! Thanks one whole hell of a lot, Dad!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
But I’d learned something about life there, hadn’t I though. There’s something called Initiation. And it’s universal. And I’d just been initiated.
But actually, it hadn’t really been my first experience of the phenomenon. I’d experienced it with little the cliques back in the playground days. I’d experienced it as a freshman at Foxcroft Academy. We all had, us freshmen. It was a tradition, after all.
And though I never would have suspected it at the time, and wouldn’t have wanted to believe it on that embarrassing day, I was fated to undergo yet several more prickly-feeling initiations while I would continue my way-too-long growing up process.
I would get played the fool when I got hired as a common laborer on a summer construction crew during college. Then again, I’d really get taken as a fresh fish when I signed on in the spinning room at the Guilford Woolen Mill the following year (that’s a story for another time).
And sadly, the list wouldn’t end there either.
Turns out, though I hate to admit it… I have been one naïve dude, over the better part of my life.
Oh well, guess I’ll just have to focus on the character-building aspects of my initiations, and on the growth of humility they bring.
Yeah. Right. Keep telling yourself, Tommy boy.
And hey, maybe it’s not so bad.
Being the comical sidekick.
Rather than the Roy Rogers.
