On the corner down the street from his house lived Mr. Vito Canelli, a retired widower. From the time the ground thawed until it froze again, he worked in his yard. Especially on his lawn. He seeded and fertilized every couple of weeks, watered it daily. Mr. Canelli had the greenest lawn in the county. It was usually flawless. The only times it wasn't was when someone cut the corner turning right off 541 onto Jack's street. The first few times were probably accidents, but then some of the more vandalism-prone kids in the area started making a habit of it. Driving across “the old wop's" lawn became a Friday and Saturday night ritual. Finally, old Mr. Canelli put up a three-foot white picket fence and that seemed to put an end to it. Or so he thought.
It was early. Jack was walking up to the highway towing the family Toro behind him. For the past few summers he’d made his money doing gardening chores and cutting grass around town. He liked the work and liked even better the fact that he could adjust his hours almost any way he wished.
When he came into view of Mr. Canelli's yard he stopped and gaped.
The picket fence was down—smashed and scattered all over the lawn in countless white splinters. The small flowering ornamental trees that blossomed in varied colors each spring—dwarf crabapples, dogwoods—had been broken off a foot above the ground. Yews and junipers were flattened and ground into the dirt. The plaster pink flamingos that everybody laughed about were shattered and crushed to powder. And the lawn...not just tire tracks across it—long, wide gouges up to six inches deep. Whoever had done it hadn't been satisfied with simply driving across the lawn and flattening some grass; they’d skidded and slewed their car or cars around until the turf had been ripped to pieces.
As Jack approached for a closer look, he saw a figure standing at the corner of the house looking out at the ruins. It was Mr. Canelli. His shoulders were slumped and quaking. Sunlight glistened off the tears on his cheeks. Jack knew little about Mr. Canelli. He was a quiet man who bothered no one. He had no wife, no children or grandchildren around. All he had was his yard: his hobby, his work of art, the focus of what was left of his life. Jack knew from his own small-time landscaping jobs around town how much sweat was invested in a yard like that. No man should have to see that kind of effort wantonly destroyed. No man that age should be reduced to standing in his own yard and crying.
Mr. Canelli's helplessness unleashed something inside Jack. He’d lost his temper before, but the rage he felt within him at that moment bordered on insanity. His jaw was clamped so tightly his teeth ached; his entire body trembled as his muscles bunched into knots. He had a good idea of who’d done it and could confirm his suspicions with little difficulty. He had to fight off a wild urge to find them and run the Toro over their faces a few times.
Reason won out. No sense landing himself in jail while they got to play the roles of unfortunate victims.
Jack needed another way. And then, as he stood there, it leaped full-blown into his head. For years he’d done fix-its around town, but never anything formal. This would be different.
He walked over to Mr. Canelli and said, "I can fix it for you."
The old man blotted his face with a handkerchief and glared at him. "Fix it. Why? So you an a-you friends can destroy it again?"
"I'll fix it so it never happens again."
Mr. Canelli looked at him a long time without speaking, then said, "Come inside. You tell me how you do this."
Jack didn't give him all the details, just a list of the materials he would need. He added fifty dollars for labor. Mr. Canelli agreed but said he'd hold the fifty until he saw results. They shook hands and had a small glass of homemade red wine to seal the deal.
Jack began the following day. He brought in three dozen small spreading yews and planted them three and a half feet apart along the perimeter of the comer lot while Mr. Canelli started restorative work on his lawn.
They talked while they worked. Jack learned that the damage had been done by a smallish, low-riding, light-colored car and a dark van. Mr. Canelli hadn't been able to get the license plate numbers. He’d called the police, but the vandals were long gone by the time one of the local cops came by. The police had been called before, but the incidents were so random and, until now, of such little consequence, that they hadn't taken the complaints too seriously.
The next step was to secure three dozen four-foot lengths of six-inch pipe and hide them in Mr. Canelli's garage. They used a posthole digger to open a three-foot hole directly behind each yew. Late one night, Jack and Mr. Canelli mixed up a couple of bags of cement in the garage and filled each of the four-foot iron pipes. Three days later, again under cover of darkness, the cement-filled pipes were inserted into the holes behind the yews and the dirt packed tight around them. Each bush now had twelve to fifteen inches of makeshift lolly column hidden within its branches.
The white picket fence was rebuilt around the yard and Mr. Canelli continued to work at getting his lawn back into shape. The only thing left for Jack to do was sit back and wait.
It took a while. August ended. Labor Day passed, school began again. By the third week of September, Mr. Canelli had the yard graded again. The new grass had sprouted and was filling in nicely.
And that, apparently, was what they’d been waiting for.
The sounds of sirens awoke Jack at 1:30 on a Sunday morning. Red lights were flashing up at the comer by Mr. Canelli's house. Jack pulled on his jeans and ran to the scene.
Two first-aid rigs were pulling away as he approached the top of the block. Straight ahead a black van lay on its side by the curb. The smell of gasoline filled the air. In the wash of light from a street lamp overheard, he saw that the undercarriage was damaged beyond repair: The left front lower control arm was torn loose; the floor pan was ripped open exposing a bent drive shaft; the differential was knocked out of line, and the gas tank was leaking. A fire truck stood by, readying to hose down the area.
He walked on toward the front of Mr. Canelli's house where a yellow Camaro had stopped nose-on to the yard. The windshield was spiderwebbed with cracks and steam seeped around the edges of the sprung hood. A quick glance under the hood revealed a ruptured radiator, bent front axle, and cracked engine block.
Mr. Canelli stood on his front steps. He waved Jack over and stuck a fifty-dollar bill into his hand.
Jack stood beside him and watched until both vehicles were towed away, until the street had been hosed down, until the fire truck and police cars were gone. He was bursting inside. He felt he could leap off the steps and fly around the yard if he wished. He could not remember ever feeling so good. Nothing smokable, ingestible, or injectable would ever give him a high like this.
He was hooked.
5
One hour, three Coronas, and two kirs later, it dawned upon Jack that he’d told much more than he’d intended. He’d gone on from Mr. Canelli to describe some of his more interesting fix-it jobs. Kolabati seemed to enjoy them all, especially the ones where he’d taken special pains to make the punishment fit the crime.
A combination of factors had loosened his tongue. First of all was a feeling of privacy. He and Kolabati seemed to have the far end of this wing of Peacock Alley to themselves. The dozens of ongoing conversations in the wing blended into a susurrant undertone that wound around them, masking their words and making them indistinguishable from the rest.
But most of all…Kolabati…so interested, so intent upon what he had to say that he kept talking, saying anything to keep that fascinated look in her eyes. He talked to her as he’d talked to no one else he could remember—except perhaps Abe, who’d learned about him over a period of years and had seen much of it happen. Kolabati was getting a big helping in one sitting.