No One Knows Your Name Until It's on a Stone

No One Knows Your Name Until It's on a Stone

The grass was still wet from last night when John pulled the Toro Recycler off the truck. He set it on level ground and checked the deck. Wet morning like this, you had to watch the clumping. He primed the bulb three times, set the choke, and pulled. Nothing. He pulled again. The engine coughed and quit. The handle was cold in his hands.

"Come on, Mulcher."

He pulled again and it caught, rough at first, then settling into its idle. He stood there a moment with his hand on the handlebar listening to it run. Quieter than the old one.

"Not much voice to this one," he said.

He engaged the blade and started his first pass along the near row, walking slow, letting the wet grass feed through clean. The Recycler cut it fine and mulched it back down into the turf. He had told the supervisor when they ordered it. That's the one. Toro Recycler. Fancy name for a mulcher. But that's the one you want. Everything cut just fine. No bagging it, no hauling it off.

He worked his way into the morning.

"Morning, Mrs. Jones."

He made his turn at the end of her row and came back around, easing wide of the concrete base. She had flowers from somebody, a small bouquet knocked sideways in the rain, stems bent but not broken. He shut the Mulcher down and straightened them, pressed the wire holder back into the ground until it held.

"Pretty ones too," he said. "Somebody came out in all that weather for these."

He looked at the fresh dirt at the near edge, washed a little at the corner from the rain. He would come back with the edger before he loaded up.

"Your boy finally made it back," he said. "Good for family to stay together."

The Mulcher caught on the first pull. He moved on.

The sound changed when he ran close alongside the concrete markers. The Recycler's note dropped and flattened, a dull echo bouncing back at him, then opened up again once he cleared. John knew the sound. Small ones talked back. The big ones just swallowed up the sound.

Colonel Mac's section was near the middle of the grounds in a row that ran back toward the tree line. John slowed as he came in. Someone had moved the small flags to the grass edge before the rain and one had listed sideways and was close to touching. He left the Mulcher running and walked over, straightening the flag and pressing the wire stem deeper until it held firm.

"Made sure they didn't touch," he said. "You know how I am about that, Colonel Mac."

He stood there a moment with his hands at his sides looking at the flags. Three in the row. Mac's was the one on the end.

"Couldn't get to you last week. Had a lot of company and I just couldn't get in to get the job done." He looked down the row. "You understand how it is."

He got back behind the Mulcher and finished the row. The flags stood straight behind him as he went.

The back section was the hardest part of the morning. The iron fence ran the full perimeter of the large family section and broke every pass into short awkward cuts. Stop, back up, angle in, stop again. Every single time. He muttered at it low under the engine noise.

"Pain in the ass back here. Birds shit all over the fence."

He caught the top rail to steady himself backing in and the metal was hot enough to make him pull away. Mulberry seedlings kept pushing up in the corners, working through the grass from seeds dropped from above. Grubs worked under the surface where the grass had gone yellow and thin near the base of the large stone. Somebody had scratched letters low on the face, faint but deliberate.

John looked at all of it.

"Still making enemies," he said.

He flagged the grub treatment again in his notebook. Third time. He would call the supervisor directly this time instead of writing it down. He finished the section and moved on, glad to be clear of the fence.

He shut the Mulcher down at the far end near the tree line and sat on the cooler he kept in the truck bed. He unwrapped his sandwich. The bread had held. He looked down at the grass blades stuck to the toe of his boot and left them there.

"Having lunch, Mama."

He took a bite and chewed slowly.

"Brought one of yours today. The dill pickle. Sarah finally got the garlic right." He looked at the sandwich.

"I told her twice about the garlic but she has to come to things her own way. You know how she is. But she got it this time. I don't know what she did different but she got it."

He had raised the Mulcher deck two notches before he started this row. The violet weeds were coming in soft at the edge of her section, small purple flowers working up through the grass where the ground stayed soft near the tree line. His father had spent thirty years fighting them in every yard they ever had. Sprayed them, pulled them, cursed them by name. Every spring they came back the same as before.

He had let these ones go.

"Daddy would have something to say about that," John said. "You know he would. But they look nice, Mama. They really do look nice with the grass."

He finished the sandwich and folded the wax paper and put it in his shirt pocket. He sat a few minutes more with his hands on his knees. The air was cooler than last week. You could feel it coming in from somewhere further north. The grass was already slowing, growth coming in thinner each time out. He looked at the Mulcher sitting quiet in the turf.

"Won't be needing you much longer," he said. "Couple more weeks maybe."

He would drain the fuel before he stored it. Sharpen the blade while he had the time. He always let that go too long.

He stood and stretched his back and picked up the cooler.

"Good pickle, Mama. You tell Daddy I left the violets."

He was finishing the last row near the maintenance gate when he saw the fresh concrete work at the far end. A new pad, poured recently, edges still clean and sharp. No marker yet. Just the gray square sitting level in the ground.

DeShawn was loading his tools into the maintenance cart nearby, brushing dried concrete dust off his forearms. John walked over.

"Who's moving in?" John said, nodding toward the pad.

DeShawn looked up and shrugged. "Don't know yet."

John looked at it a moment longer. Clean pour. New work.

"Family get the name ordered?"

DeShawn wiped his hands on the back of his jeans.

"Won’t know until the stone comes in, I guess."

John stood there a moment. Off to the side where they had dug out for the form, a small clump of violets lay on the dry dirt pile, roots exposed.

Then he went to load the Mulcher.