Lawn Boy's arrested development.

Maggie, the prior owner of this house, offered us her lawn mower when we closed. She said it was a commercial quality Lawn Boy worth about $300 - $400 new and that it was only five years old. I said if that was the case I would give her $150 for it.

My first few hours in the new house I was overwhelmed by the impressions, the needy parts and great views and neglected parts and great light inside and all the little glimpses of damaged door frames, missing molding, drawer pulls, dangling cables, odd dark patches in the ceiling paint, etc. One of the impressions was that the lawnmower had aged a few decades in the scant five years of its alleged youth. It was also evidently not used to having to work for a living. The oil and grass crust on it was dry as bone.

We had noticed the general neglect of the yard when we were going through the purchase process. The day before closing Maggie said she was having a lawn service over to spruce up the yard and landscaping, chores her able bodied teenagers had rebelled at before they hit puberty and weren't about to adopt now.

It was a dry summer. The neighbors had brown spots on their lawns. Neither immediate neighbor seemed particularly anal about their lawns, and I was glad for that.

So forgive me if a few weeks past closing I am just getting to the mowing part. Sara and I had a marriage to test against the ineluctable modalities of moving homes. Which, since you ask, we are doing quite well at.

Okay, so the Lawn Boy. Allow me to laugh. I don't know which five years Maggie was under the impression constituted the age of the mower, but one of them was probably 1989. I looked up the serial number on the web and there was a recall notice on the model from 1989, something about a gas tank that was likely to crack open and burst into flames, stealing a march on the poor mower's barbeque intentions for later in the day, no doubt.

My options were many, but they all boiled down to getting a new mower or trying to play out the string of inherited karma to its bitter frayed end and get the damn thing repaired. I am a karma gambling addict. You know who you are. If I have a choice between a clean break with the past or a visit to the abbatoir of intentions through salvage-laden memory, I choose to nose around in the old sleeping bag of lessons, debts, half-fulfilled promises, broken parts, kits and souveniers whose source is forgotten with the sweats and ecstasies of the trip they mementoed.

Why start fresh when you can start with a green grey crust of dried grass, insect parts and 40 weight oil baked into a death mask on your cooling fins and carbeurator? That's what I always say. And that is what Sara fears to hear the most, running from the room in frustration with my backward ways.

I had the tools out and the mower on its side on the driveway when some 12 watt light of reason came on in the brain. If I had to salvage the mower, at least let someone else do it somewhere else, and keep my time free for unpacking and organizing the things that really cried out for our attention.

Thus it was I discovered the Penn Lake TruValue hardware store, where an elderly gnome ran the cash register while his second and third generation DNA experiments chased each other with hose couplings and crescent wrenches in the back room. He allowed as they could look at it for the twenty dollar minimum, tune it up for $54, and fix it for a price to be determined on inspection. I agreed to that, to a new astro turf door mat, to cable tv accessories and the phone numbers of a hauling company and a yard aerating company. "Don't do this critical job yourself" the yard aerating company warned sternly. I was agreeable, and slightly saner than at any time in the last seven weeks as I signed the credit card chit, mused cheerfully with the woman behind me in line about the trees and rain and prospects for an early fall.

We might not survive the move, but we will move on from the selves who moved. And that is the ultimate karmic gamble.

You know who you are.


Addendum, Sept 2.

That same day....

Sara got off work early, and convinced me that I needed to visit Marshall's discount store with her for a good laugh and maybe a bargain. On the way I told her about the Lawn Boy. As I recounted the Lawn Boy saga, my gorge rose and spilled over just as we passed another hardware store with a sidewalk display of used mowers. I whipped into the parking slot in front of a bright orange Ariens autothatcher, 6 horsepower, its tread still distinguishable on the rubber tires, a hallmark of youth noticeably absent from the majority of used mowers. The affable hardware shill met us, hand out and eyes crinkled with humor at the thought of actually selling one of these moribund industrial lawn aids.

"There are two ends to the continuum of lawn mowers" he began...

"As there are two ends to most continuums" I suggested, helping him gather momentum.

"Ah! Right. Well, over here, " he indicated by wagging his soft, turnip-shaped left hand, "Here you have the lawn owners eager for a maincured look"

"Right down to the buffed clear coat and moon shaped cuticle!" I hollered in assent

He stared at me, and then proceeded to wag the right hand, which revealed a gentle lack of blemish or callous belying his authority among handtools and the rough gasoline fueled disciplines of do-it-yourself yards.

"Over here, then, you have those who just want to get off the sofa long enough to say they mowed the yard and don't care what things look like when they are finished."

I imagined myself on the sofa, my back to the yard, reading the Times editorials and raising my gorge to the level it might propel a Lawn Boy or Toro through the thatchifying abundance of my fescue and buffalo grass. Yes, the sofa.

"So which are you?" He inquired, twisting his head on his neck like an owl.

"Oh, the sofa. Definitely the sofa end of the continuum." I hastened to reply, lest he think I meant to spend real money on an upscale used machine.


"Which of these is the best of the lot?" Sara said, coming back to our show-and-tell from a quick survey of the green, orange, rust and sand colored retirees from the lawn wars.

"Well, " our Virgil, our guide through the purgatory of Home Ownership which begins at the front curb and ends before you get to siding and plumbing said, " Well" he allowed himself time to actually check his inventory at this point, something which seemed to take the starch out of his uniform shirt.

"Hmm, well its the end of the season, of course, not much left here."

"Hmmm. Yeah, you don't want those" he indicated the entire north limb of the l-shaped display, where, I noticed, the under - $100 workhorses patiently awaited their last owners.

"What about that one?" I asked, pointing to the bright orange Ariens. It seemed to stand at attention, its vital forces undimmed by a decade or two of abuse and bad lawn maintenance habits.

"Well, they sure have their own way of doing things" our guide insinuated sinisterly, taking me by the elbow and turning me toward the exceptionally long TORO with its rear bag, drop blade clutch, three speed self propelled variable throttle 5.5 horsepower and discernable tread on its tires. "I say this is the best deal on the bunch" he asserted. "This is one of the best. See this bar?" He wrestled with the large lawn appliance festooned with cables, levers, rubber flaps, kevlar bullet proof bags, sensors, struts, spars and a mizzen mast. Pushing it free of the pack of suburban disjecta, he put one foot on the cowling of the enormous motor and pulled the starter rope. It sputtered to life, then, as he pulled aforesaid bar up, amazingly, sputtered and roared into second life, as though there were two independant but symbiotic engines of vanquishment under his control. I noticed that the rear bag engorged with an almost mammalian enthusiasm for the task of deflowering the lawn when he in fact pulled what I came to think of as the man-bar. He shouted like a midshipman on the aircraft carrier deck as the f-18s came to land. "This is the clutch bar, it lets you engage the blade without stopping the motor."

What I heard was "Thib ikluus barrets jake jay wib wobbing wober"

I thought it was a magical incantation, similar to the Ghost Dancer's prayer to the Great Spirit to make them invisible to their enemies. I could see how a suburban lawn warrior might need such protection.

Without making him explain the other lanyards, jibs and fo'csles on the craft, I said I would take it.

We packed it into the van, and Sara sighed with the forebearance of a truly good woman. As we walked to Marshalls, which was a dozen doors down the mall, she began to perk up. I phoned the TruValu and explained that I had betrayed the tenuous trust established this morning in the act of surrendering my Lawn Boy to their repair ministry. "You want it what?" the hardware guardian yelled into the phone when I explained that I wanted to get the Lawn Boy back with no repair. It was beyond his scope of duty or insight as to why a person who had already paid the twenty dollar minimum for inspection would want to get the machine back untouched. I made up a lengthy, subtle lie concerning my arrangements with the previous owner of the machine, the career of those arrangements, the crisis point coming when she would not repay me for repairs, and as I blathered into the cell mouthpiece I sensed a gust of indifference emanate from the man.

"Its on the truck right now. He's driving it away. You want it off the truck?" he interrupted me, and I knew why there was no hope for great literature in a culture that insisted on the blunt contrast between "on the truck" and "off the truck" as the true hinge on which the door of discourse must swing open or shut.

"Yes" I conceded with my most monosyllabic effort to date.

Sara stood patiently. "You want a laugh?" she said, as though offering lemonade to Joan of Arc as the flames licked up around her calves.

She led me to the lamp display. "Now, tell me this is funny" she said, pointing to what at first glance looked like a vaguely victorian, ornate import bedside lamp. On closer inspection, I saw that tiers of bronze-colored plaster fronds wound up the lamp neck, barely concealing beneath them the three monkeys of "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" fame.

"Is this a subtle critique of my handling of l'affair du lawnmower?" I asked.

She giggled and reassured me it was not meant as a critique of my hypocrisy, male obsessions, or poor taste in totem animals.

We bought the lamps, to her joy. I had paid off a few minutes of her hour's investment in my lawn crusade so far.

The story really continues...

Sara offered to drop me off and go pick up the Lawn Boy. I set up the Toro and started in with a fierce love of the land in my heart and white knuckles gripping the several safety and function bars which controlled the beast which in turn controlled my lawn. Up over the first turn, so far so good. First patch of real green grass after a long run of brown grass, pesky little fists of weeds and dirt, and the mower coughs, chugs down an extra shot of raw 30 weight, tries to rev up to a survival level of rpms but fails, falls out of gear and sits there idling, its blade surely still as the night before christmas. I drop the clutch bar, as instructed, raise it and see a linkage at the front of the cowling respond by engaging the clutch. Then it seems to change its mind, on its own, disengages the clutch and the motor happily prattles on like a golfer at a cocktail party telling of his latest battle with par to an empty couch.

I drop the clutch bar and slam it back up in a more manly fashion, pretending that this sort of thing happens and I am the sort of man who doesn't let it define the larger moment. In case anyone is watching the new neighbor through their picture windows: I imagine them martini in hand, their contracts with the professional lawn service proudly matted, framed and hung in the den.

Again the thingy does the whatchy and briefly engages, then drops out of gear. I roll the beast without benefit of self propulsion to the driveway, and turn it off. A brief examination of the several sets of numbers and numbered indents scattered throughout the superstructure reveals there to be about 8 basic places that settings can be set, and most of those range over 3 to 5 choices. A brief averaging and mental accounting yeilds my guess that there are 8 to the fifth or 5 to the eighth permutations of settings on what is beginning to appear as the Lawnship Enterprise to my timorous command. I resolutely drop it into neutral, disengage the clutch, engage the deadman throttle control to fast, but not full rabbit icon fast, and yank the starter rope as though I were decapitating several used lawn contraption salesmen with one dull garotte.

It brays back to life, and I drop the clutch bar and slam it home one more time. Sara has returned and is watching with deep affection for my masterful imitation of a slowly disintegrating lawn amateur among the pros. "Something smells like it is burning" she observes. I think it is my shirt collar as my rage at the still blade boils blood, but she is right, a thin line of blue smoke is coming from the cowling. I shut it all down. Now what to look at? Having looked at everything on top, I tip it over and there is the source of the problem: two small tufts of grass, the size of thimbles, have jammed between the tips of the blade and the housing. I start to pull the grass out by hand, but am stopped by visions of the feral mechanism coming to life and flinging my bloody hand into the neighbor's yard.

I use the stake of the sprinkler which I could never get to work to clear the jam. Upright, I start it up and drive up the first shoulder of the lawn. Toro takes the challenge in mighty gulps, until it hits the same patch of 7 straight inches of green grass again. Once again the blade comes to a halt, the clutch thingy flips me off. But I have Knowledge, this time. I push the machine quickly to the drive, declot, and then ponder. How can I mow a 75' by 35' front lawn in 6" increments? "Maybe it is set too low for the length of the grass" Sara suggests, her love and admiration for my heroic antics undiminished by the complete lack of progress or savvy I am demonstrating to the world beyond our lovenest's kerb.

Sara is not just smart. She is really smart, and observant. More punishingly, she is kind and patient as well, skills honed in front of a blackboard in front of senior high mutations of the human species. The entire 100 or so grams of my throbbing forebrain knows that she is right, she is helpful, she is loving in her choice of words and tone to convey to me an idea that might help me achieve my goal. It is the tiny, 2 or so gram weight of lizard brain remaining in my medulla that takes offense, not because she is wrong or evil, but because it is a lizard brain which has been highly aroused by the sight and smell of effort, however wasted so far. I sublimate my lizard's ire to taking the machine back to the drive one more time. A quick more intense inspection reveals that each wheel is capable of being set from "a" to "e" height. I have them all on "b" so I change them to "d", start up and et voila, the machine continues for a full 12 feet before once more bleching to a motorized but bladeless state of apathy, a violent but harmless turmoil in my hands.

I realize at this point that there is no setting, or combination of settings that will put me out my misery short of returning the mower to the store.

At mcDonalds, after giving up the promise of a Bull that turned out to prefer the smell of flowers, the Ferdinand of lawn champions, I am self-medicating with cheeseburger and lemonade guarenteed to contain 0% juice. Sara, swathed in the raiment of consoling silence that only a loving wife can wear so well, watches me confront the ebbing tide of confidence in my skills or desires to meet the Homeowner Survivor challenge of the moment. The very blades of grass are voting me off the island.

We return home and juggle the mystery boxes of the move, and I grow more morose. We both realize that I cannot suffer the unmanning of my dream by an aptly named Toro without once more donning the suit of Lights, taking up the red cape and entering the ring again before the discontents of the audience have become embedded in a Reputation. "Oh, him," I hear the smirking neighbor's say, " he couldn't even mow his own lawn the first week he moved in. Word has it he never left the house again...sits in the basement reading old Esquire magazine's and hasn't gotten out of his dressing gown in two years..."

Refusing to be bested by a machine, in the sight of neighbors, on the battlefield of my lawn, refusing to have my front yard become the Waterloo of my home ownership dreams, I stood up suddenly, a light in my eye and a new resolve in my voice. "Honey, the Sears in Eden Prairie is open for another hour. I am going to go get a new mower!"

Sara stood up, and backed up to the wall, seeking support as she trembled with pride in my rededication to our destiny, our suburb. "Don't you want to wait until tomorrow?" she offered, aware of the toll the days events had taken on my stamina, my judgment and our credit.

"A man has to do..." I summarized, and pushed past her to enter the green lists one more time.

Outside the Lawn Boy sat forlornly on the drive, the job ticket still stapled to its handle. After my dance with the demon Toro, the smaller, less complicated outlines of the LawnBoy had a certain appeal, a certain pathos with which I could relate. I stopped and looked at it. What if? I thought. What if the journey to the hardware store had somehow loosened some obstruction in the fuel line, or what if I had flooded it and it was now ready to run? WHat if the hardware grunts had looked it over before sending it off to the repair shop and set one of the knobs or levers differently, in the code known to men with flagstone fingernails and firebrick wrists?

Sara had come to the door to say one last thing of wisdom and love before I drove off in the Mercury, my new Rosinante, to joust at the 4-cycle windmills. She saw me touch the Lawn Boy and her eyes widened in concern. I had gone off the deep end, and now hallucinated a friendly machine among the massed spite of all the mowers that would never work for me. I grasped the pull cord, put my foot on the cowling in comradeship, not mastery, and pulled as though the centrifugal force of the green machine's magneto would spin love out to blanket a surly world.

It blurbled into life.

I whapped the throttle to its proper setting, on the rabbit icon's ass. I imagined its ears jerked up in surprise. I headed toward the large unmowed triangle of shame in the middle of my lawn, and did it justice with a few manly passes. On the last turn, I saw Sara standing on the drive, her eyes glistening with the pride of a woman who had seen her husband come back from the dead. She raised her hands and gave me a slow, heartfelt ovation.

It was the reason there are men and women. It was the reason women stay with men who stay with their pain. It was the reason there are homes and yards and the reason there are green things in the yards, where children play and old folks doze in sanctuary from their unfinished dreams.

It was home, and we had put our mark on it. And it was good.