The Dogwood

Between the dying day and the approaching storm, the air was glowing with a sickly green light.

Our last yard of the day was Mrs. Spurlock’s house. It was an easy yard to mow: not too many hills to navigate and not much stuff to trim around. She did have this one dogwood tree right in the middle of the front yard. More a sapling than a tree, really.

But on arriving, I noticed that despite the season being early summer, her dogwood didn’t have a single green leaf on it. It looked like a stick that had been stuck in the ground by a child.

I was concerned about that dogwood, and I said so: “I’m concerned about that dogwood.”

“I’m concerned about them clouds,” said Bruce. We all looked at the clouds. He was right--they were very dark, and to my eye moving quickly. “We better mow it fast.”

Bruce was the boss, and he hopped on the riding mower and motored to the back yard. Sly got the walk-behind and started on the front yard. I picked up the weedeater. Mrs. Spurlock eyed us out the front window. She liked to hover while we mowed.

On a fast day, we could knock this one out in about half an hour. This turned out not to be a fast day.

I had been weedeating about ten seconds when the line ran out. So I had to go back to the truck to wrap me some new line. Naturally I have to do this chore every few days, and I’m decently quick at it. But it does take a couple minutes, and I didn’t feel like I had a couple minutes. So I hurried.

Nothing will slow you down like hurrying.

In my hurry I accidentally caught the line on one of the tabs sticking out of the weedeater head, which made me drop the whole spool. The spring fell out and I had to crawl up under the truck to find it. Bruce, of course, rounded the edge of the house about that time and spied me laying down under the truck. So he stopped mowing and came at me hollering.

“What are you doing?”

“Dropped the spring.”

“The what?”

Now, I know he don’t wrap the line every day, but it’s Bruce’s weedeater and Bruce’s mowing business. He ought to know there’s a spring in the weedeater head.

“The spring in the weedeater head.”

“Why’s it under there?”

I climbed out.

“It ain’t. It’s in my hand.” That was not a gracious response, but he was irritating me. I know how to weedeat, and I know how to wrap line. Which I commenced to doing again.

I saw a lightning strike from the ominous clouds. They were creeping closer.

“We ain’t got time for this foolishness,” he said, accurately in my opinion. Although maybe we didn’t have the same foolishness in mind.

“We need some more line,” I said. Partly to change the subject and partly because we did, in fact, need some more, and I would be the one to feel the lack of it in a couple days. I was putting the last of it on the weedeater.

“We will get some directly,” he said. If you’re not from around here, “directly” sounds like it ought to mean “right away,” but it don’t mean that. It means off in the future at some undetermined point.

I finished wrapping the weedeater line. The clouds looked even greener and the wind was whipping about. A green sky was a tornado sky, my pappy said, but I hadn’t ever seen no tornado.

It didn’t look right out there that day, though, and that’s the truth.

I resumed my weed trimming along the curb. Sly was halfway done with the front yard, but Bruce was still lagging due to his unexplainable need to come watch me fish the spring out from up under the truck.

I saw it happen when Sly hit the dogwood. He was trying to trim pretty close to it with his walk-behind, which he’s good at. Probably he was doing me a favor—if he could swirl around that thing close, I wouldn’t even have to trim it. And believe it or not, the mower is better at stuff like that. The weed eater is liable to nick the bark, which the mower won’t do.

But in this case it didn’t work out. The mower bumped the dogwood, and the dogwood fell straight over.

Now first of all, he didn’t mow it over. He bumped it. I saw. Barely nudged the thing and it dropped like a sack of taters.

Second, you will recall that I had earlier expressed some concern for that dogwood. It was brittle and barren, not a leaf on it. This was early summer and every tree with any life in it was covered in green growth by this time.

What I’m saying is, that dogwood was already dead before he hit it.

That dogwood hit the ground and immediately Mrs. Spurlock’s door opened and she was out there amongst us. She had been hovering, as usual. She arrived in what appeared to be a nightgown and slippers, and she kneeled down and cradled the dogwood in both arms. And dang if she didn’t start rocking back and forth with it like it was a baby.

I kept on weedeating, but Sly just turned the mower off and stood there. I guess he didn’t know how to react. The lightning was almost constant by this time. I did not feel good about my chances of surviving to see another day. Also I failed to understand why everyone was ignoring the storm. Sly’s hat had been blown plumb off his head, and his hair was flying about, and he just stood there staring at Mrs. Spurlock.

I heard Bruce’s mower stop, which was another bad sign. Normally when he finished the back yard, he would disengage the blades but keep the engine on, and drive the mower back to the truck. There was no good reason for him to cut the mower off while still in the back yard.

My trimming path led me there pretty soon, and I saw Bruce leaning over, wrestling with something in the ground. He pulled, he twisted, he kicked.

He saw me come around the house. “I’ve hit a staub,” he said. “I want you to look at it.”

I did so, from my weedeating path. There was a metal rod sticking out of the ground a few inches. Some kind of rebar I guess.

“How have we never hit that before?” I asked.

“It don’t make any sense,” he answered. I finished around the back patio.

“Did ye stove up the mower?” I asked.

“I reckon. Sheared the pin, anyway.”

The wind was whipping all around and I could feel a few scattered rain drops. He had only left one strip unmowed, so I decided to just knock it down with the weedeater. This got Bruce’s attention. He narrowed his eyes and came to watch me, to make sure I didn’t nick the yard or cut it uneven.

“Is sly done with the front?” he asked.

“Not even close,” I said. “He hit that dogwood.”

Bruce cursed, and seemed to recall the approaching storm. He jumped back on the mower and started it up and went back to the front lawn.

By the time I finished the back and headed to the front, Bruce had loaded the rider into the truck and was finishing the front with the walk-behind. Sly, God love him, was still staring at Mrs. Spurlock, who was still cradling that dogwood. I walked over to them. Sly looked at me helplessly. He looked at Mrs. Spurlock.

Finally he said, “I think it’s dead, ma’am.”

Mrs. Spurlock didn’t answer him, but she looked up at me and she was crying. “You plant them and feed them and care for them,” she said. “But you just can’t ever tell how it’s going to go.”

I got a lump in my throat at that comment, and I couldn’t figure out why. And then it hit me then that she wasn’t talking about the dogwood. I guess my gut knew it before my brain caught it.

She was still looking at me and I thought I should maybe say something. “You did your best, ma’am, and I reckon that’s all anyone can ask.” My throat hurt and I feared I would cry in front of Sly and Bruce.

“You think you have it under control,” she said. “You think if you make the right choices, you get to pick how it turns out. And then when you realize you don’t have control, you grasp for it. You push and you pull and you fight to get it back.” She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “You don’t realize you never had it to begin with. It weren't yours to have.”

“Dogwoods are finicky when they’re young,” said Sly. Neither his gut nor his brain had caught up with old Spurlock yet.

Bruce finished the yard and loaded the walk-behind. There was a bolt of lightning so sharp and close that it hurt my eyes, and I felt the thunder in my balls. This time the thunder and lightning got Sly’s attention and he started to the truck. Mrs. Spurlock finally seemed to notice the storm also, and she stood up.

“Remember what I told you, son,” she said. “You ain’t got no control, ever, over any of it. Just take care of them and love them as much as you can for as long as you can.” I don’t have kids yet, lady, I thought. But I just nodded.

She turned and started to the house. The rain hit like a wall of water, and Bruce honked his horn, but I just stood there and watched her walk to her door.