"You dirty little pervert! Trying for free grabs, are you?"
I pushed away from her and backed off. As I moved backwards she followed me through the water, her sagging breasts pushing a tidal wave in front of her.
"You dirty little prick. You wanna suck my titties? You got a dirty mind, huh? You wanna eat my shit? How about some of my shit, little prick?"
I backed up further into the deeper water. I was now standing on my toes, moving backwards. I swallowed some water. She kept coming, a steamship of a woman. I couldn't retreat any further. She moved right up to me. Her eyes were pale and blank, there wasn't any color in them. I felt her body touching mine.
'Touch my cunt," she said. "I know you want to touch it, so go ahead, touch my cunt. Touch it, touch it!"
She waited.
"If you don't, I'm going to tell the lifeguard you molested me and you'll be put in jail! Now, touch it!"
I couldn't do it. Suddenly she reached under and grabbed my parts and yanked. She almost tore my dong off. I fell backwards into the deep water, sank, struggled, and came to the top. I was six feet away from her and began swimming toward shallow water.
"I'm going to tell the lifeguard you molested me!" she screamed. Then a man swam between us. "That little son-of-a-bitch!" she pointed at me and screamed at the man. "He grabbed my cunt!"
"Lady," said the man, "the boy probably thought it was the grate over the drain."
I swam over to Red.
"Listen," I said, "we've got to get out of here! That fat lady is going to tell the lifeguard that I touched her cunt!"
"What'd you do that for?" Red asked.
"I wanted to see what it felt like."
"What'd it feel like?"
We got out of the pool, showered. Red put his arm back on and we dressed. "Did you really do it?" he asked.
"A guy's got to get started sometime."
It was a month or so later that Red's family moved. One day they were gone. Just like that. Red never said anything in advance to me. He was gone, the football was gone, and those tiny red fingers with fingernails, they were gone. He was a good guy.
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 street playing football…
I finished mowing, edging and clipping the front lawn. I watered the flower beds, set the sprinkler going and began working my way toward the backyard. There was a stretch of lawn in the center of the driveway leading to the back. I got that too. I didn't know if I was unhappy. I felt too miserable to be unhappy. It was like everything in the world had turned to lawn and I was just pushing my way through it all. I kept pushing and working but then suddenly I gave up. It would take hours, all day, and the game would be over. The guys would go in to eat dinner, Saturday would be finished, and I'd still be mowing.
As I began mowing the back lawn I noticed my mother and my father standing on the back porch watching me. They just stood there silently, not moving. Once as I pushed the mower past I heard my mother say to my father, "Look, he doesn't sweat like you do when you mow the lawn. Look how calm he looks."
"CALM? HE'S NOT CALM, HE'S DEAD!"
When I came by again, I heard him:
"PUSH THAT THING FASTER! YOU MOVE LIKE A SNAIL!"
I pushed it faster. It was hard to do but it felt good. I pushed it faster and faster. I was almost running with the mower. The grass flew back so hard that much of it flew over the grass catcher. I knew that would anger him.