Lawn Boy Returns Read online

  “Well, since we’re claiming this is an emergency and that many livelihoods are at stake, I’d say three to six months.”

  “How long does it take if they don’t think it’s urgent?”

  “Don’t ask. But in that case … maybe your grandchildren could get some money.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yes.”

  This, I thought, has been a very interesting day.

  12

  The Entire Organization Imperiled by a Threat, Perceived or Real, to One Part

  Arnold and I were sitting quietly. I was trying not to barf on his picnic table.

  All I had wanted was a new inner tube for my ten-speed, which I never got to ride anymore anyway, and now all this had happened.

  In my mind’s eye, I could picture Allen and Kenny at the state fair, probably riding the Ferris wheel and eating ginormous wads of cotton candy and dragging around ratty stuffed animals they’d won at the milk can throw. Would I ever have fun again?

  Money problems for someone my age are supposed to be about not having any, not about having so much that the feds come after you.

  And here I’d thought telling Kenny and Allen I was rich had been tricky. Wait until Mom and Dad got home and I had to break it to them that my finances were being audited. Or frozen. Or audited and then frozen. Whatever. It was not the kind of news you broke to your parents over the phone; this called for face time when they got back from up north.

  I thought about talking to Grandma in the meantime, but she’d probably just tell me not to go swimming until an hour after I ate.

  And I would have liked to talk to Joey, but he might handle the trouble by pinching heads at the tax office. Nope, I was on my own with this one.

  Oh, well, I thought, it’s only money. It’s not like anything really bad has happened.

  That was when Rock showed up on the back porch.

  “We have trouble,” he announced.

  I don’t know about anyone else, but thirty seconds without bad news and I’m bored.

  “What kind of trouble, and what do you mean ’we’?” Arnold and I asked at the same time.

  “Joey Pow wasn’t supposed to win. Some rough people wanted Bruiser to win. They told Joey Pow to throw the fight or else …”

  “Or else what?”

  Rock flinched. “I don’t know if he forgot to lose or if he just doesn’t have it in him to be dishonest or if he didn’t want to let you down, but now these guys are mad. They lost a lot of money on the fight and …” Rock trailed off.

  “Why are you telling us?” I asked.

  “You’ve got no reason to trust me after our prior dealings, I understand, but Joey, well, he’s a good person and these are guys I used to know and it’s your grandmother they threatened.”

  “Grandma?” I jumped up. “What are they going to do to my grandmother?”

  “Well, nothing, since Joey hasn’t let her out of his sight.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Okay, Grandma was safe, but if they had come after Joey once, they’d come after him again. Joey was my fighter, and I needed to help him out of this jam.

  “Who are these guys who wanted Joey to throw the fight?” I asked.

  “Local … businessmen who have invested in Bruiser’s career, really shady characters who’ve been keeping an eye on Joey for a while. Once they heard he had a kid for a sponsor, they thought he’d be a soft touch to throw the fight and make some easy money.”

  “Like how you thought it would be easy to take the lawn business away from me?” I folded my arms and glared.

  Rock ducked his head. “Yeah. It’s just that, well, no one expects a kid to be doing the kinds of things you’re doing.”

  Including me.

  “Do you know anything about them?” I asked. “Anything that will help us figure out a way to get them to leave Joey alone?”

  “I know that they’re greedy.”

  “That could work in our favor,” Arnold said. Behind that laid-back attitude and happy face, Arnold was nobody’s fool.

  “And Zed is part of that crew,” Rock said.

  “I knew he was up to no good,” I said. “His story about being family is bogus.”

  Rock handed me a piece of paper. “I’d really like to help, so I made a list of names and addresses for you. Joey got me out of that bad crowd. Even washing urinals is better than hanging around with those people.”

  I studied the list and smiled. I handed the names to Arnold, who opened his computer and started tapping away.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked him.

  “We need a team meeting.”

  “Exactly. All hands on deck.”

  13

  Crisis Management as a Form of Team Building

  An hour later we were all crowded around Arnold’s picnic table—me, Arnold, Rock, Kenny, Allen, Savannah, Lindy, Gib, Frank and Kathy. And the lawn team, Pasqual, Louis and Benny. In the meantime, Arnold and I had figured out a plan.

  We couldn’t go up against these guys in terms of force because we weren’t, you know, violent criminals. We weren’t sure it would help to report them to the cops, because no one likes a rat. And they could come after us for that later. We just needed to make enough trouble for Bruiser and his crew that they’d lose interest in hassling Joey and Grandma.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” I said when everyone had squeezed around the table. “We need to … um … neutralize our opponents, and I’m looking to each of you to, uh, play to your strengths.”

  Arnold and I handed everyone a copy of the list of names and addresses that Rock had given us.

  “Savannah: Arnold and I want you to make an anonymous call to the people at the tax office,” I said, “and alert them to some underreporting of income by these individuals.

  “Lindy, let those attorneys who were here this afternoon know about the, uh, civil liberties violations these guys have made because they, I don’t know, abuse their employees by … withholding overtime pay. Or something. You’ll think of the right thing.

  “Kathy, call your friends at the newspapers and TV and radio stations and tip them off about the crooked betting ring in this town.”

  She sat up. “It’s crying out to be exposed by the media!”

  “Frank and Gib, Arnold says you used to work for a bunch of lawyers. Call as many as you can, tell them you’re thinking about hiring them and that you want to sue the guys on the list for, oh, noise violations or unlicensed house pets. That way the attorneys can’t be hired by any of the bad guys later. That’s—” I looked at Arnold.

  “—potential conflict of interest,” he finished.

  “Allen and Kenny, tell your folks you’re spending the night with me. Tonight when it gets late, really late, like so late it’s actually early morning, you go with Rock. Allen, bring your iPod and speakers, with the remote that you rigged to be super-powerful from a distance. Set the speakers high in the trees in Bruiser’s yard—Pasqual and the guys will have hidden a ladder in the bushes—and don’t forget to import that demo of Kenny’s band from camp, Infected Wound. You can sit with Rock in his car—it has tinted windows so no one will be able to see you. Blast the demo. Then stop. Play it again a few more seconds. Wait a little longer. Crank the volume a couple more minutes—it’s Chinese water torture by way of headbanging music.”

  “Awesome.” Neither guy blinked at being instructed to join up with a reformed gangster who smelled strongly of urinal cakes to prank a former heavyweight champion prizefighter.

  “Pasqual, Louis, Benny, these people need some yard work done. The kind that includes the improper disposal of all the animal waste you’ve collected from all the yards, you know, the accidental over-fertilization of the lawn directly under open windows. And if those windows have been mistakenly superglued open with the glue left over from Allen’s science project last spring, well, it’s an imperfect world, isn’t it?

  “Arnold is going to be researching their financial histories to assist Sav
annah and Lindy in creating legal nuisances for them.

  “Okay, is everyone clear?” Nods all around the table.

  “What about Zed?” Rock asked.

  “Leave Zed,” I said, “to me.”

  14

  The Abrupt Termination of Proven Liabilities, with Some Pain

  I was sitting in the kitchen the next morning eating cereal and looking off into the distance, counting the number of girls in the front yard wanting my autograph. Kenny and Allen had gotten back to my house about a half hour earlier, after a long night of band blasting.

  “You should have heard it, man, it was great!” Kenny said. “We set the speakers up in the trees, dumped the ladders back where Pasqual had put them and then boogied to Rock’s car. Bangbangbang, heavy metal blare. Dead silence. Wait for it … wait for it … wait for it: Bangbangbangbangbang heavy metal blare. Dead silence. The lights in the house were flipping on and off all night long and this big scary guy kept coming outside with a flashlight, looking for us.”

  “Rock ordered pizza and soda. I didn’t know that Tony P’s Pizza Palace would deliver to cars in the street.” Allen looked happy.

  “Then we peed in the empty soda bottles.” Kenny looked even happier about that part of the story.

  They grabbed some toast and headed out to the girls. I stared at my cereal.

  Just then, Zed walked in, a towel wrapped around his middle and a toothbrush in his mouth. Looking good. The towel was so low in the back that I could see butt hairs in the crack. Groovy. I put my cereal down. Forever.

  “Hey, dude, got coffee?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Your granny said it was okay to shower in the house cuz my rig doesn’t have one, which is okay cuz I don’t take many showers.”

  Color me shocked.

  “You spoke to her this morning?”

  “She stopped by the rig on her way ta Joey’s workout.” Zed helped himself to a bowl of cereal, and the towel slipped lower as he reached for the milk. Please, I thought, please—no lower.

  “I was looking forward to speaking with you,” I said. “How are you and Joey related, again?”

  “Oh”—he waved his hand—“you know….”

  Well, no, I don’t know, which is why I asked. But before I could say anything, he went on.

  “I’m a bettin’ man and I bet my last dollar you gotta place fer a fella like me in yer organization.”

  And I’m betting you’re on your last dollar.

  “Look,” he said, “just think about it. I’m havin’ a few buddies over later ta, you know, hang out. Whyn’tcha come on out ta the rig, meet everyone, get some grub, and we can talk business?”

  Before I could say no, not ever, unless you boil me in oil, he left the kitchen scratching his underarms and then—I winced—his butt.

  That went well, I thought. Yeah, I seized control of the situation.

  But I didn’t have time to deal with Zed right then because I had to distribute paychecks to the work crews and I had a lot of ground to cover after I picked up the checks from Arnold’s house. I had to tell each crew that there might be a slight disruption of business while we got some financial details ironed out.

  This took more time than I thought it would. Mostly because everyone wanted to have their picture taken with me to show their families that they really did work for the kid in the news.

  But that was just as well, because all day long I dreaded dealing with Zed, even though the rest of the team had done their bits during the day. I kept telling myself that all I had to do was point out that there was no place in Joey’s career, my organization or our driveway for the likes of him. I knew that a well-structured argument would be my best weapon.

  It was either that or hit him with a car axle.

  As I drove up to my house on my lawn mower, I saw that our driveway and most of the front yard were packed with rusted-out pieces of automobiles. It looked like a junkyard—no, a tailgate party for a really bad demolition derby. Someone had pitched a tent in the side yard, and I was amazed to see a seating area with furniture from my house. My mother would have freaked if she’d seen all those grubby people sitting on her good sofa with their dirty boots on her coffee table, let alone that her living room set was now crowded in with the outdoor furniture on the side patio.

  And there were twenty, no, thirty, no, fifty or so people making themselves at home in our yard. I had never seen so many exposed beer bellies, homemade tattoos and butt cracks in my life. A bunch of people were sitting around a kiddie pool they’d filled with ice and cans of beer. One guy was taking a whiz against the side of the garage.

  Loose dogs were milling around. I was horrified to see that one of them was eating a child—but it turned out to be a doll. The dogs were peeing too, and Pasqual would probably burst into tears when he saw what these mangy beasts had done to his beautiful grass.

  Five portable grills were set up on the driveway. People were standing over them cooking hot dogs on sticks and what looked like skinned possum or some other source of protein not usually found in butcher shops. And everyone was eating that slop off my mother’s good dishes from her china cabinet in the dining room.

  I heard Grandma’s voice and wheeled around. She was talking to Zed. He had his arm draped around her shoulders, and my blood ran cold. She was supposed to be with Joey, not here, not with Zed, not with Zed touching her.

  Zed slipped his hand into her purse.

  I jammed the lawn mower into rabbit gear and went storming up the driveway, screeching to a stop in front of Zed.

  “I know that you work for Bruiser and his people.”

  The entire party fell silent.

  “I don’t work fer Bruiser; I jus’ know him ’n’ his friends.”

  “The same friends who expected Joey Pow to throw the fight.”

  “You talk like that’s a bad thing.”

  “And take your hands off my grandmother. Joey might not be here to protect her, but no one’s going to hurt Grandma.”

  “You think you can stop me?”

  That was when Grandma slugged him.

  Slugged him so hard that he dropped to his knees and then fell to his side and curled up in a fetal position, making high-pitched whistling sounds.

  While Zed rocked back and forth clutching his side and gasping for breath, I circled his guests on the lawn mower, herding them up like a border collie herds sheep—if border collies drove riding mowers and the sheep were scary redneck white trash—and forcing them to the dented rust buckets they called their cars. After a few loud minutes of people cursing, car motors grinding and backfiring, everyone had gone.

  Zed, without a word or so much as a glance in our direction, crawled to his truck, backed out of the driveway and headed down the street.

  “Grandma, you punched Zed in the gut!”

  “No, dear, it was the kidney. It’s extreme, and not proper in the ring, but a very effective tool when you’re under attack. He’ll pee blood for several days, but he’ll never show up to make trouble for Joey again.”

  “How do you know about punching kidneys?”

  “Joey taught me. The secret is to keep your wrist straight and aim two feet past the target and get the weight of your shoulder into the blow. And when you make chocolate Bundt cake with the river of pudding in the middle, it’s important to remember to use the cook-and-serve pudding and not the instant mix or it’s not so much a river as it is thin ooze, and no one wants that on their dessert plate.”

  Grandma is never lacking in life lessons and surprises.

  15

  The Perils of Free Enterprise

  Luckily, Allen and Kenny stopped by and helped clean up. We had just finished picking up all the garbage and dog poop from the yard and dragging the furniture back into the house. It almost looked like we’d never played host to the Souls of the Damned convention. Allen and Kenny rode off on their bikes just as my parents drove up the driveway.

  The car had barely stopped bef
ore they tumbled out and threw their arms around me and Grandma, hugging and kissing and telling us how long the five days away from us had seemed.

  Five days.

  It felt like I’d lived several centuries since they’d left.

  Zed had arrived and departed.

  My staff had expanded.

  Lawyers had filed papers.

  Tax problems had erupted.

  My staff had become a bunch of organized troublemakers to scare off some bad guys.

  Grandma had thrown a kidney punch.

  My parents looked calm and happy.

  The exact opposite of how I felt.

  “We have so much to tell you, it’s been so thrilling—life-changing, really,” my mother said.

  That was how I’d describe my last week too.

  “We found a little cottage on the north shore of a lake,” Dad explained. “You can see the sunrise over the east shore and the sunset along the western horizon.”

  Grandma said, “It’s no use boiling your cabbage twice.”

  After we shot each other a confused look, Mom picked up the story.

  “It’s got a screened-in porch where we can eat breakfast and watch the lake,” she said. “And a stone fireplace and three little bedrooms with built-in bookcases. The nights are so quiet and dark that you can hear the leaves rustle on the trees and there are more stars in the sky than you ever imagined.”

  “And you can spend a lot of time in the fresh air.” They both said this at the same time. My parents are big on me spending time in the fresh air.

  “But that’s not the life-changing part—” Dad started before I cut him off.

  “Listen, Mom, Dad, I waited too long earlier this summer to tell you what was going on with my business. So I need to interrupt and bring you up to date on Zed and the lawsuits.”

  “Who’s Zed?” Dad asked.

  “Lawsuits?” Mom looked worried.

  “And the staff and the tax audit and the media attention and the people who wanted Joey to throw the fight, too.”