SOMETHING FOR THE EFFORT by Kaye Longberg
The two of them had been taking turns pushing the mower out of the city. Now Ladell had it, and Doan was walking ahead, swinging the jug of gas and carrying the starter fluid in the back pocket of some low-hanging jeans so long and raggedy at his feet he walked like a brother in chains. They were walking along an iron fence with grape vines climbing it, and Ladell sometimes left the mower and went eating grapes off the vine if he saw any ripe ones.
Doan spit out the one he tried. “Feel like snot in your mouth,” he said.
“You know it don’t taste like it,” Ladell said.
They stood looking through the fence into a yard so big it dropped out of sight down a hill before any of a house showed. “I see me some long grass,” Ladell said.
“Yard like this can’t belong to no house,” Doan said. All the time now he was spitting, like knowing what Ladell was swallowing got his mouth full of cotton.
“A house down there somewhere,” Ladell said. “A lake down there, too. Jamond been fishin on it.” He took up the mower with grape-stained hands, and its wheels rattled ahead. A sweet old grassy smell came off the mower.
Doan turned and walked backwards to stare at Ladell. “Say Jamond been fishin where?”
“Somebody let him fish.”
“Oh yeah?”
“He never told you that? He wanna fish around here this one time, right? He goin down somebody drive with his pole to get to the lake, and this dog come and scare all hell outta him.”
“A poodle scare him?”
“Like a Doberman or some shit. He drop his pole and start to run, but ain’t no place to go and this dog on his ass. So, this fly red car sittin parked in the drive, right? Jamond fuckin jump on the hood and fall on the windshield so hard he bust it.”
Doan laughed deep. “Then they let him fish?”
“Real, man. Jamond was one scared nigger. They felt bad about it.”
“I think I’ma cry.” Doan spit far out into the street.
“’S a private lake, see.”
“Ain’t no such thing as a private lake,” Doan said, talking with his hands, the gas swishing in the jug.
“Ain’t no way on it. When Jamond been up in the hospital for his Aunt, he see the lake from a window. Next day he walk around it with his pole, lookin for how to get on it and fish. End up at the place with the dog.”
Walking slower, Doan looked from Ladell to the yard through the fence and back at Ladell pushing the mower. “Where this all happen at?”
“’Round the other side.”
“The other side?”
“The other side.”
“Not this side.”
“Not never, D. Now how about movin your giant self outta the way?” The sidewalk ran downhill some, and the mower was nearing Doan standing there rubbing himself on the head under his do rag.
“I’ma be lookin out for that red car, anyways,” Doan said, side-stepping.
Ladell turned the mower into a drive painted a fine deep black. It was a smooth drive – not cracked like the sidewalk – that started flat and then went down a hill up ahead. The wheels were good and quiet here, except for the crooked one up front with a clatter. He’d gotten the mower used, off Potter’s Hardware with his paper route money. Then he’d quit the route because mowing got him more money, and out of the ’hood besides.
“Take a week to cut all this,” Doan said. “Yard like this want pro’s.”
“We pro’s.” Ladell looked at Doan and saw him checking out the yard, lazy-eyed.
“Man, you make me sad,” Doan said. “We shoulda turned back a long time ago, like back at that sign that say Welcome to the Home of Gerald R. Ford –”
“Aw, not the sign again.”
“– Thirty-eighth President of the United States.”
“You need to forget about that sign.”
“I for one do not feel welcome. This a racist neighborhood. Ain’t no niggers livin here and ain’t none wanted, neither, if they got private lakes and shit.”
“I make me some money here,” Ladell said.
“Not today, you ain’t. We ain’t made nothin and we oughta turn back. We gone too far.”
“So gwan home yourself.”
“See that? See what I’m sayin now? Sad!”
Ladell had reached the place where the drive cut a turn downhill. The mower pulled at his arms, and his legs and back gripped with leaning against the hill. His shoes – a grass-stained old pair of Nikes with no laces – were smacking the drive, and he curled his toes to keep from walking out of them. It was hot out, and they’d been walking a long while. He’d lost count of how many houses they’d tried. Nobody wanted a cut, and he was starting to think he would’ve had some luck by now without Doan. He wanted to turn back, but not without earning something first, not without getting something for the effort and the disappointment. The only trouble was, he didn’t feel like cutting the hill or pushing the mower back up it even the once, when they’d be leaving. He could see the lake now, and houses big as motels all around it, and every kind of boat sitting empty at the shore, and nobody anywhere around.
“Somethin skanky,” Doan said. “This lake got a smell.”
The wet-smelling breeze was cooling Ladell’s sweaty skin. Breathing hard, he licked his lips, thirsty. He wanted to ditch the mower and let the hill carry him on down to the lake. He pictured running in in his clothes and belly-flopping near shore.
Attached to the house there was a garage with three stalls. One stall was open and empty. Through this he could see part of the second stall. He saw a motorcycle and a big plastic trash bin on wheels. The third stall was too dark to make anything out.
“Ain’t no red car here,” he said. “No dog, neither.”
“Nobody home,” Doan said.
Whenever Doan came along, he always hung back in the yard and let Ladell ring the bell and do the talking. Ladell hated the bell-ringing and the talking just as much as Doan. What he hated most was the edgy way white people looked at him at their door. When they let him work, anyway, they paid good. Very good. And they’d look proud of paying so good, but if he offered coming back in a couple weeks they’d start looking like he just pushed a button he shouldn’t have pushed. And they’d say No, don’t bother.
“I’ma see about that,” Ladell said.
He pushed the mower into the grass by the pebbly walk, dried his face on his shirt and went and rang the bell while Doan stood off in the grass, shaking the starter fluid like he was itching to work. The bell made a dog bark inside. A deep old big-dog kind of bark came running to the door, and then the dog, a white one about crotch high, stuck his loud face in a window next to the door. The window had striped glass that copied the dog in a lot of thin blurry strips.
“I see a dog,” Doan said. “Ain’t that a dog?”
“Woof,” Ladell said.
He waited longer than he wanted to with the barking on his nerves. When it started sounding tired, he turned away like he was too smart to ring again.
“Nobody home,” he said. He bent to grab the gas Doan left on the walk and felt unsteady, like he was still leaning against the pull of the hill. “You gonna push the mower now,” he said, wiping sweat off his face, “less maybe you wanna chill in the lake a while, since nobody here to stop us.”
Doan stuck the starter fluid back in his pocket, raised the mower’s front wheels and turned it to the walk. “Don’t need no chillin,” he said.
He sounded more sure of it than was right on a hot day. Ladell started feeling anxious, like when he shot craps or played cards. “Ain’t you said there ain’t any private lakes?”
“The trouble is gettin there,” Doan said, pulling a face.
“Naw,” Ladell said, “you can’t swim.”
“I swim.” Doan glared like it wasn’t a lie, but his voice was telling different.
“I swim, too.” Ladell set the gas on the blacktop, took off his shirt and laid it on the jug. He crossed the drive and went around some pricker bushes along the side of the house into the shady front yard leading to the lake. He thought Doan might stop him, but didn’t want to look like he thought so.
Mostly, he walked faster than usual, but sometimes, when he told himself the yard was just a park, he went slow. Then, because it wasn’t a park, he’d speed up again. At the shore, he stepped out of his shoes and saw Doan coming along behind him, slow and steady, walking in those baggy jeans like his feet were tied. On account of his size, Doan could make people nervous, so he had this slow way about him, like he was always trying to look gentle, but it didn’t always help. One time, a cop drove trailing him while he was doing nothing but walking, right in the ’hood, too. The cop asked him what he was doing. Walkin, Doan said. Cop said, Walk faster.
Behind Doan, off in the house, the dog was going from window to window, rearing up and working his trap like he was making some kind of racket nobody was around to stop. Watching the dog, Ladell started to laugh.
“You like my crib, D?” he called. “My dog wanna come out and play.”
Doan looked back at the dog in the window. He shook his head, reached and pulled out the starter fluid again. “That dog get out here somehow, I’ma spray him.” He popped the cap, sprayed a chemical mist, and sniffed the sprayer.
“Now I’ma show you my private lake,” Ladell said. “This gonna feel so good.”
He waded in from shore instead of taking the wooden dock. Under it, the sandy bottom disappeared about half way out to the end, where the water turned black and two boats were tied, one on each side of it.
The water was colder than he’d expected. He walked till it reached the legs of his shorts and then belly-flopped, but looked for the bottom with his feet as quick as he could and squatted there when he found it, keeping the water at his shoulders like he was standing out in the deep. His wave rocked the aluminum rowboat at the end of the dock so it banged like a kettle. Then the white motor boat on the other side of the dock started rocking and slapping the water, too, but not as much, and with a drumming kind of sound.
At the shore, Doan took off his shirt and jeans and left them in a heap. Doan had flunked a grade twice in school, so he was older than Ladell and already so tall he had to look down at just about everybody. He’d been working his body a couple of years, thinking he was going to be a millionaire football star some day. At home, he’d slide under his sister’s bed and lift it off the floor, over and over. He could lift it when a bunch of her girlfriends were piled on it giggling, too. Girls liked how he looked and he showed he knew it in the way he moved.
“Ain’t no girls out here,” Ladell said, easing out into deeper water.
Doan waded out alongside the dock in his underwear – a bright pair, like bleached or new. “No girls, we in the wrong place,” he said.
The weeds got thicker the deeper Ladell went. They felt rubbery under his feet, and stringy brushing his legs. Before long, he was standing instead of squatting, with the water still at his shoulders. He’d gone out almost to the end of the dock.
Doan was about knee deep when there was a slamming sound back at the house. He winced and then froze, except for slowly moving his head just enough so maybe he could see the house out of the corner of his eye. The flap in the back of his do rag swung forward on his neck and shoulder like it was hair. His skin was shiny with sweat.
Behind him, a white lady with her head wrapped in a towel came around the house in a long bathrobe. She stopped by the pricker bushes and put her hands on her hips.
“Hey!” she yelled.
Doan glared at Ladell, then looked at the lady. “’S up?” he called.
“This is private property!” she yelled.
Doan slowly turned his face back to Ladell. They stared at each other.
“You!” she yelled, “Don’t you touch that boat!”
Ladell glanced at the aluminum rowboat tied at the end of the dock and wished he was close enough to touch it, just to mock.
“I guess I’ma get dressed now,” Doan muttered.
As he started back to shore the lady yelled, “Stay right there, you.”
“You big scary nigger,” Ladell said in a hush.
“Lady, I’ma put my clothes on,” Doan yelled.
“Stay right there! Just like that. The police are coming right now. You stay!”
“She talk like she think we dogs,” Ladell said. Then he remembered the dog in the house, and just then the lady took off running the way she came, holding the towel knotted on her head.
“The dog,” Ladell said as he saw it round the corner of the house at a run, barking as it came. He lunged for the boat and hung onto the side, the boat rocking and dipping with his weight. Bringing his legs up along its side, he swung one of them up into the boat and clung there, trying to shift his weight, and finally tumbled in. Next he crept after the two ropes and untied them, freeing the boat from the dock.
“I’ma spray it,” Doan said. He started for his clothes on shore, but then he froze a second, watching the dog, and turned and climbed onto the dock instead.
Ladell sat and plunged the oars into the water. He pulled on them unevenly, and the boat turned and dipped to one side as it moved away from the dock. When he rowed again to right it – pulling evenly this time – the boat slid straight along like he’d been rowing boats before.
Pounding to the end of the dock, Doan was calling, “Wait, man! Wait!” The dog was behind him, making a lot of noise, but running slow. The dog was fat, and maybe old.
“You fine,” Ladell said, drifting. Tall as Doan was, he’d touch bottom and reach the boat in a few steps.
Doan threw himself off the end of the dock like a long-jumper, working his arms and legs like he was still running, only now on air. He splashed in, landing between the dock and the boat, and went under while thrashing, tilting his face up and sputtering.
Ladell sprang up and almost fell out, but grabbed the sides, catching himself, and fell back into the seat yelling, “Hey! Lady! Help!” But she wasn’t there. After she went and let the dog out, she hadn’t come back to the yard. He scanned the windows, waving his arms and yelling. Only the dog was coming. It had reached the dock and was starting down to the end, trotting now, with all its nails ticking against the wood.
Ladell leaned forward, holding the sides, searching the dark rippled water where Doan had been. Air bubbled up to the surface. He pulled an oar out of its socket and swept it across the surface like it would help him to see. He couldn’t see anything, so he swept the oar down deeper, feeling with it. The boat moved in a half circle as he did.
He didn’t see the dog jump; he only heard it splash down, and his heart suddenly lifted like someone was there to help. When he saw it was the dog swimming toward him, its body like a bloated white bear, its darting eyes small and dumb in its sopping head and its teeth showing with its snorting and snarling as it swam through the dark water where Doan should’ve been, Ladell pulled the oar out of the water, raised it above his head like a club, and sat waiting for the dog to reach him.
Kaye Longberg’s fiction has appeared in So to Speak, The MacGuffin, South Carolina Review, and River Oak Review. Her work has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize.