Being the environmentally conscientious sort that I am, I went out to WalFart and bought myself a new push mower. Besides helping to reduce gas emissions, it’s good exercise running up and down the lawn with a push mower. Plus it doesn’t do a half bad job of cutting the grass. But the biggest bonus is that I get to smile and wave at John across the road and rub his nose in it. John’s the competitive type and likes to buy the biggest of everything. He has the biggest home on the street, the biggest car, the biggest dog and—of course—the biggest lawn mower—a Henry 2000. There I am in the heat of a summer’s day pushing my push mower back and forth and John smiles his smarmy smile and waves his wavy wave and asks how I like working up a sweat.
It always goes the same—I wave back and say I enjoy it just fine thank you.
Then he says something like: Well I’ve got this here Henry 2000. It can chew through a lawn in no time at all. Why the grass practically cuts itself. Then he laughs his har har laugh and stands and waits for me to take up my huffing and puffing again before he walks away with that beer in his hand and that gut hanging out over his belt—the biggest gut in the neighbourhood.
If I’m feeling a little courage, I might say something like: Well you may have the biggest lawn mower, John, but bigger isn’t always better—especially when it comes to your carbon footprint—and your beer gut (I sometimes quietly add).
But there was one day when we were having our usual parlay and John suddenly got a pained look on his face and I began to wonder if maybe I’d said something to hurt his feelings.
You know, he said, you go on all high and mighty about your push mower and how virtuous you are, but I’m a decent person too.
Sheesh, I thought. Wonder where that’s coming from? But out loud: John, using a push mower isn’t about judging anybody. Of course you’re a decent person.
Maggie was standing in the front window watching the whole exchange, and afterwards, when I went inside, she quizzed me on what we’d been talking about for so long.
I shook my head. I can’t believe what I’ve just got myself sucked into.
What?
Big John across the road wants him and me to have a lawn mowing competition. Next week. We’ll do all the front lawns on the street. Him with his Henry 2000 on the north side and me with my push mower on the south side. Get the whole neighbourhood involved. Have a barbeque afterwards. Stick posters on the telephone poles.
Oh, Rich, that’s twenty lawns you’d have to mow. That’d kill you.
I don’t think it’ll kill me, Maggie. But it’ll sure wear me out.
I don’t think you should do it.
Well, it’s too late for that. We shook on it.
But Rick, don’t you realize what’s going on here? John across the road is John Henry. He invented the Henry 2000. This is just a publicity stunt. He’s using you.
Using me or no, I had shaken on it and a man’s shake is his word. Actually his word is his word, but a shake is just as good.
That week was busy for both of us. John had somebody in his art department do up a nice poster and he stuck it to all the telephone poles in the neighbourhood. I canvassed everybody on the street and asked them not to mow their lawns—we wanted a healthy blade of grass to show off our mowers. Everybody thought the competition was a fine idea except old Mrs. Trotsky down on the corner who thought it was some kind of capitalist plot and threatened to shoot anybody who set foot on her property.
All week John had his Henry 2000 dismantled on the driveway surrounded by oil cans and wrenches and fresh spark plugs. For my part, I jogged an extra 2 km each day and started bench pressing in the garage. John ordered a gross of hot dogs, which he wrote off as a business expense and I scrounged up lots of charcoal for the barbeques.
The day we’d set for the competition was sunny and clear. Mrs. Trotsky’s daughter was a horticulturalist and she agreed to be the judge of our lawn-cutting competition. Josh from two doors down was a track and field coach at the local high school and he was able to lay his hands on a starter pistol.
So at ten in the morning Josh fired the pistol and we were off. John turned his key in the ignition and my blades went whirling around with a swish swish swish. There were shouts and cheers and laughter and jeers. A good crowd had gathered and Maggie moved amongst the people with a stack of paper cups and a cooler full of lemonade while John’s wife Thelma (who is bigger than Maggie) went around with a digital camera asking if anyone wanted their picture taken with the winner’s wife.
John’s first lawn had a couple of trees and a garden with big rocks jutting along the edge. The Henry 2000 isn’t so maneuverable and the trees and rocks slowed John down. On the other hand, my first lawn was flat and clear so I was well into the second before John could move on. It wasn’t until lawn five that John caught up to me. Then disaster struck. A nut popped off my handle and the mower went all wonky. It would be impossible to finish the race without the nut, but I couldn’t see it anywhere in the grass. A crowd of neighbours (the “green guys,” as they called themselves) gathered around to help. It took a few minutes. A kid I’d never seen before noticed a chrome glint from the petunia bed. I tightened things up again and then was off. But John was already on lawn six and motoring along with confidence.
The sun beat fierce down upon my head. A river of sweat poured off my back. My triceps burned and my quads ached as I thrust the mower out in front. The crowd thinned during the lunch hour but people returned by mid-afternoon as we approached the home stretch. I could feel a throbbing in my head and my mouth was parched. Kids stood by the curbside and handed us cups of water just like they do in marathon races.
John! I shouted. But he couldn’t hear me over the roar of his engine.
I was trying to tell him that I had seen sparks fly from his Henry 2000. On lawn nineteen the engine backfired and a thick smoke began to pour from the exhaust vent, but John pressed on.
John! I shouted again. I was starting to worry. Even though I was on the other side of the street, I could smell an acrid mix of burning rubber and oil and gasoline.
Mrs. Trotsky’s daughter threw down the flag. John Henry had won. He turned the key and the engine sputtered into silence, never to be heard again. A minute later I huffed and puffed my last pass across lawn twenty, then ran across the road to offer my congratulations. Neighbours were cheering and crowding in on John Henry. He beamed through the smoky soot and grime that was smeared across his face.
But John Henry started to wheeze. It was a rasping wheeze that came from deep within his lungs and had a wet spluttering finish. With a worried voice Thelma called her husband’s name and thrust her way into the crowd, knocking people aside with her hips which were bigger than anybody else’s. John! she called. She had poured cold water over a rag and was pressing it to John’s forehead. Beads of water trickled down his face and cut channels through the dark grime. John crumpled onto the top of the Henry 2000, doubled over so his big beer gut blubbered out in every direction, beefy palms planted on his fat thighs, gasping for air.
Thelma! he called. We did it, Thelma. We did it.
Thelma drew her husband’s head into her ample breasts. Yes, John, we did it.
We showed them how a Henry 2000 can beat the crap out of a push mower any day.
We sure did, John. We beat the crap out of it.
Then John Henry looked to the sky as if he saw something far off and descending from a cloud. A little puff of breath issued from his lips and he fell down dead on the edge of Mrs. Trotsky’s lawn. And that’s the story of how John Henry gave his life to show that a Henry 2000 could beat me and my push mower. No doubt the neighbours will be singing his praises for years to come and cutting the hell out of their lawns.