I stand on my porch and watch him work the yard. George never slows down. His blonde hair is thin on top and he always looks worried. It seems like he mows daily. Today he walked across his yard to pick up a single leaf. His wife and kids came outside before they left. Hugs and kisses all around and then they waved to me in unison. I hope someday that George will drop his shovel and go with them.
I have known George since he was 12. And I was 17.I took a cheesecake over when his parents died last year. Shortly afterwards he came home.
I remember George as a child when I met him in 1974. I was getting ready to graduate. I was never sober. As the evenings grew shadows George and Marcus rode their stingrays with playing cards stuck in the spokes somehow to make a noise when they rode.
Marcus never slowed down. He was a daredevil on that souped-up bike. George was the cautious one. As they rode around the cul-de-sac George would often call out to Marcus.
I watched them ride in the times before dark when I couldn’t go inside because I didn’t want my parents to see how drunk I was. .They would jump the curb to the porch and try to impress me with their riding techniques.
Marcus was nut brown from the sun and his eyes were deep blue. I remember George as sunburned, like he is today. He was too pale to really tan and too much in the sun to avoid the blistering skin. He always had to work his short legs to keep up with Marcus. George always looked soft and round and his buddy was thin and wily.
Once when I was passed out on the side of the house they shook me awake. “I think she’s dead,” George whispered. And when I smoked dope with Donnie Stevens (my summer after graduation boyfriend) in his backyard the “pests” would bang on the fence and pretend they were the FBI.
But mostly through the haze of drugs and alcohol I watched them ride and smoked cigarettes and wrote bad poetry. I still have the poem about Marcus. I call it a “Foretelling” but it used to be named “The Laughing Boy Poem”.
Donnie did grow up to be a police scientist (CSI). George got married and moved away. Marcus didn’t grow up at all. He died in a car crash the week he got his driver’s license. He was 16.
George’s Mom and Dad stayed on the street. They planted the kind of grass that looks like a bright green Astroturf. They always had the best gardens. Tulips out of season lined their winding sidewalk. They often watered when they weren’t supposed to. They were a friendly sporty couple who aged gracefully. He retired and they traveled. Last year they died together in a car accident.
So George came home with his family. And now he never stops working in the yard. He goes to work and before he changes from his suit he is bending over the garden. He planted tulips which died within weeks. The last time I talked to him, he complained that his Dad had let everything go before he died. He is driven. I believe he is driven by grief.
It’s been about a year, but somehow in coming home to the neighborhood he seems like he’s left his family. Tonight as the clouds build to the promise of another storm I’m going outside and walk across the street. I think I’m going to talk to George.
He was out earlier finely trimming a bush he cut this week. He carries scissors in his back pocket and wears a baseball cap on his balding head. Maybe I’ll ask him how his family is doing or maybe I’ll just tell him that his yard looks beautiful and his Daddy would be proud. Maybe we will talk about Marcus as. George’s eyes dart around the yard. Like I always do I will fancy I see ghosts in those dark eyes.
I doubt anything I say will make a difference. But maybe he will stop gardening for a minute. Hopefully, I can make him smile or better yet I will hear him laugh. There are only two of us now that still hear the bicycles approach as the laughing boys ride in the growing dark on nights like this.
