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MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONThe Swing
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CATCH LIT A JOINT and smoked it as he drove past the Gulf Coast Pak & Ship, which still had its sun-faded WE SHIP FOR THE HOLIDAYS sign up from last year. It was Friday, Christmas Eve, and he was going to fetch his holiday bonus from Mr. Zimmer in the big yellow house, his last paycheck for the week. Squinting from all the light coming off the Gulf, Catch smiled, and his fingers slid along the steering wheel, anticipating those crisp, new bills Mr. Zimmer would count out from his silver money clip.
He passed the old-people’s home, and through his open window he could smell the stuffing and sweet potatoes cooking. He always did like mushy food, and he laughed, thinking about what a good old person he would be. He snuffed out his joint, slipping the charred nub into a Ziploc bag for later, and reached into the passenger seat for some cheese crackers and beef jerky. He still had the open box of satsuma oranges and divinity cookies from Mrs. Gimbel and the sugared pecans from Mrs. Anderson. He’d save those for later. A man on a bicycle wearing a Santa hat waved, and Catch waved back.
In the Zimmers’ drive, Catch slammed his truck door shut, straightened his hat, and laughed out loud at the Christmas display on the lawn next door: Santa was riding in his sleigh, holding a whip to the reindeer, while two white wire angels with flashlights stood in front of the sleigh, looking like those people who guide planes in for landings. The Zimmers didn’t go for outdoor holiday decorations, and this, combined with their last name, had made Catch think at first that they were Jewish, but it turned out they were Lutherans.
Around back the Zimmers’ grown daughter was swimming laps in the heated pool, steam dancing off the surface of the water. She slogged back and forth without once stopping or looking up. The daughter’s young son sat in a wheelbarrow parked next to the pool, reading a science book bigger than his head.
“Hey, partner,” Catch said.
“Hey,” the boy said, his mouth going back into the little green scarf someone had wound around his neck. What was his name again? He was tiny and blond, and his eyes were big like his mother’s, and his mother’s mother’s. He looked like he wanted to smile but couldn’t; like he thought he had to ask permission.
“Excited about all the presents you’re going to get?”
The boy nodded. There was silence, and then the boy asked, “How are you?”
Catch wasn’t accustomed to a seven-year-old talking this way, and he had to get used to the boy again. Teddy — that was his name. This kid wasn’t stupid and not a bit shy, but if the Zimmers weren’t careful, he was going to turn into a wormy, womany sissy. Catch liked to give it to him straight. “How am I, you say? Could be better. Could be worse. I’m still standing. Still breathing. I call that a victory.”
Teddy looked curiously at Catch, then tucked his mouth back into his scarf.
Catch inspected the green yard he’d seeded with rye grass a month earlier. He’d learned to anticipate what homeowners needed. There were a lot of house-proud people in this neighborhood. Catch could fit five trailers like his inside the Zimmers’ house. He didn’t know where all the money that had landed on this street came from, but he figured either out-of-state sugar or oil. Nobody ever made that kind of money in Mississippi; you had to leave, make your money, then bring it back with you. Some of these folks lived on the Gulf year-round, but there were others, like the Zimmers, who came down for the winter. They needed a local to keep up the house and the lawn. Catch often wondered why the Zimmers kept coming back here, why they didn’t get a place in, say, California.
The little porch on the martin house was rotting off. The birdhouse was made to look like the big house, and Catch felt obligated to keep it looking as nice, but Mr. Zimmer wanted him to concentrate on the big jobs: trimming the boxwood around the tennis court and cutting back the line of bamboo. Last Christmas, Mrs. Zimmer had ordered a fancy swing from a catalog, but with so much on her mind, she’d left it outside on the ground for a month, and after several heavy rains, the seat had cupped and split. Catch had told Mrs. Zimmer he could make a better swing himself anyway. Leave it to him; he’d get around to it. He’d even picked the perfect live oak to hang it in.
The Zimmers’ kitchen door opened, and oniony smells wafted out; there was Mrs. Zimmer, looking frantic.
“Catch,” she said. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.” She gave him an envelope. “That’s for the month, and there’s your bonus, too. Now, I know it’s your day off, but I need you today and tonight. Could you help? Please? The lawn needs mowing again, and we can’t put up the tree by ourselves. We’ve got guests coming over at six. And tomorrow’s Christmas. I just don’t know if I can manage. Do you want to come in for coffee? Have you had breakfast?”
Mrs. Zimmer wasn’t quite like the other retired women. Lady up the street wouldn’t even let Catch inside her house; at lunchtime she opened a can of Vienna sausages and dumped them out on a paper plate, then handed the plate to Catch with some saltines, like she was feeding a cat. Catch was a white yard man. He wondered what that woman had fed the black men who’d worked for her before him.
Catch tipped his hat, said he’d had breakfast, and sure, he could take the mower for a once-around.
Riding the John Deere, he lit the rest of his joint: just enough to make the morning feel like a celebration. The air was cold and hurt Catch’s teeth. At least it wasn’t August or September, when he would have been sweating into his eyes. Riding a mower and smoking some weed the day before Christmas suited Catch just fine. Pot was the only drug he liked to mess with. His former boss at the lumberyard had had a bad cocaine habit. Catch could deal with just about anything but that. One morning his boss had knocked the cowboy hat off Catch’s head and lit into him, yelling and waving a knife. Catch punched him in the face, good and solid, then picked up his hat and left. That was the end of that job.
