The crane operator stared at the Mercedes trapped behind my concrete wall. Then he turned to my furious neighbor.
“Sir, this is extremely risky. The lifting angle is terrible. I strongly recommend against it.”
“JUST DO IT!” Richard shouted. “I’LL PAY WHATEVER IT COSTS!”
I stood on my porch, fighting a smile.
Half the neighborhood had gathered across the street to watch. Mrs. Patterson was out in her bathrobe. The Delgado kids were sitting on their bikes. Somebody had brought a lawn chair. Somebody else was filming on their phone.
They’d all come to watch the richest man on Maple Hollow Drive rescue his precious car from my front lawn.
I’d brought a chair out too. And a glass of iced tea.
I thought I was about to see the best afternoon of my life.
My name is Robert. I’m forty-eight years old. Six months earlier, I never would have imagined that a parking dispute would bring a forty-ton crane to my doorstep.
I’m not a dramatic person. I want you to know that. I’ve worked as a groundskeeper at the Pine Ridge Golf Club for twenty-two years. I mow fairways. I repair divots. I spend my mornings on a little green cart with a coffee thermos and a rake, making grass look perfect for people who mostly don’t notice it.
I like my job. I like grass. I know that sounds strange, but I do. There’s something honest about it. You take care of it, and it takes care of you. You neglect it, and it shows. Grass doesn’t lie.
My own lawn was my pride. I’ll admit that.
When my wife, Carla, and I split up three years ago, she took the furniture and the dog and moved to Tucson with her sister. I got the house and the mortgage and a lot of very quiet evenings. I didn’t know what to do with myself. So I started working on the lawn.
I tore out the old patchy grass and put in Kentucky bluegrass. I leveled the low spots. I put in a sprinkler system with my own two hands. I edged it. I aerated it twice a year. My daughter, Emma, who’s a junior at the state university, used to tease me about it on the phone.
“Dad, are you still talking to your grass?”
“I don’t talk to it.”
“Mrs. Patterson says she’s seen you.”
“Mrs. Patterson needs a hobby.”
By the second summer, it was the best lawn on the street. It was thick and even and so green it almost looked fake. People slowed down their cars to look at it. Twice, strangers knocked on my door to ask what fertilizer I used.
It was the one thing in my life that was exactly the way I wanted it.
And then Richard Vance moved in next door.
Richard bought the big house on the corner in early spring. The previous owners were a retired couple who’d moved to Florida. It was the largest house on Maple Hollow Drive, with a three-car garage and a circular driveway and a stone fountain in the front yard that nobody had ever turned on.
Richard was in his fifties, silver-haired, and tan in a way that suggested boats. He owned some kind of trucking and logistics company. He had a loud laugh and a firm handshake and a watch that probably cost more than my car.
He also owned three luxury cars. A black Range Rover, a red Porsche, and a silver Mercedes sedan, the big one, the S-Class.
The first week he lived there, he walked over while I was edging the sidewalk.
“You must be the lawn guy,” he said, holding out his hand. “Everybody on this street talks about your grass.”
“Robert,” I said, shaking his hand. “I’m just a guy who likes his lawn.”
“Well, it’s beautiful.” He looked across it like he was appraising a property. “Really beautiful.”
I liked him that day. I’ll be honest about that too. I thought, Okay, he seems friendly. Maybe a little full of himself. But friendly.
Three weeks later, I came home from work and found his Mercedes parked in the middle of my front yard.
