16
I didn't know exactly why but Chuck, Eddie, Gene and Frank let me join them in some of their games. I think it started when another guy showed up and they needed three on a side. I still required more practice to get really good but I was getting better. Saturday was the best day. That's when we had our big games, other guys joined in, and we played football in the street. We played tackle on the lawns but when we played in the street we played touch. There was more passing then because you couldn't get far with a run in touch.
There was trouble at the house, much fighting between my mother and my father, and as a consequence, they kind of forgot about me. I got to play football each Saturday. During one game I broke into the open behind the last pass defender and I saw Chuck wing the ball. It was a long high spiral and I kept running. I looked back over my shoulder, I saw it coming, it fell right into my hands and I held it and was in for the touchdown.
Then I heard my father's voice yell "HENRY!" He was standing in front of his house. I lobbed the ball to one of the guys on my team so they could kick off and I walked down to where my father stood. He looked angry. I could almost feel his anger. He always stood with one foot a little bit forward, his face flushed, and I could see his pot belly going up and down with his breathing. He was six feet two and like I said, he looked to be all ears, mouth and nose when angry. I couldn't look at his eyes.
"All right," he said, "you're old enough to mow the lawn now. You're big enough to mow it, edge it, water it, and water the flowers. It's time you did something around here. It's time you got off your dead ass!"
"But I'm playing football with the guys. Saturday is the only real chance I have."
"Are you talking back to me?"
"No."
I could see my mother watching from behind a curtain. Every Saturday they cleaned the whole house. They vacuumed the rugs and polished the furniture. They took up the rugs and waxed the hardwood floors and then covered the floors with the rugs again. You couldn't even see where they had been waxed.
The lawn mower and edger were in the driveway. He showed them to me. "Now, you take this mower and go up and down the lawn and don't miss any places. Dump the grass catcher here whenever it gets full. Now, when you've mowed the lawn in one direction and finished, take the mower and mow the lawn in the other direction, get it? First, you mow it north and south, then you mow it east and west. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"And don't look so god-damned unhappy or I'll really give you something to be unhappy about! After you've finished mowing, then you take the edger. You trim the edges of the lawn with the little mower on the edger. Get under the hedge, get every blade of grass! Then . . . you take this circular blade on the edger and you cut along the edge of the lawn. It must be absolutely straight along the edge of the lawn! Understand?"
"Yes."
"Now when you're done with that, you take these . . ."
My father showed me some shears.
". . . and you get down on your knees and you go around cutting off any hairs that are still sticking up. Then you take the hose and you water the hedges and the flower beds. Then you turn on the sprinkler and you let it run fifteen minutes on each part of the lawn. You do all this on the front lawn and in the flower garden, and then you repeat it on the rear lawn and in the flower garden there. Are there any questions?"
"No."
"All right, now I want to tell you this. I am going to come out and check everything when you're finished, and when you're done I
DON'T WANT TO SEE ONE HAIR STICKING UP IN EITHER THE FRONT OR BACK LAWN! NOT ONE HAIR! IF THERE IS . . . !"
He turned, walked up the driveway, across his porch, opened the door, slammed it, and he was gone inside of his house. I took the mower, rolled it up the drive and began pushing it on its first run, north and south. I could hear the guys down the stre…
