Chapter Nove (9)

Jayden laid asleep in bed, Benny holding him.

Friday Saturday and Sundays were our early mornings. "Jay-j," Benny grumbled. I slapped the alarm clock next to our bed. It was Friday.

"Lets go back to sleep." I faced Benny, he kissed my head a smiled at me.

"Sure, the second Alarm goes off in thirteen minutes." He sighed. "As long as you breath with your mouth shut." I pouted. He sighed and held me close. The second alarm went off, and we got up and showered. Ate our oatmeal, and jelly toast. And mowed our Saturday morning and afternoon, yards. Jayden Mowed and I trimmed just the way Mr. Winters taught us, and just like Mr. Winters said, we got $40, and a few tips from time to time. It took us two hours a yard, the first two weeks, but we're going much faster, today. I did the math, we were making $18.72 an hour, I was sure we could get that up to about $20, just a few more weeks. We were on the last yard when there was an ear cracking bang, and a banging then the mower died.

"Benny?" I shouted and dropped the broom I was using to sweep up. I ran to the back yard, he was standing behind the mower, it was smoking. "Benny?" I shouted panicked, ran to him, pulled him from the mower, and held him.

"I am fine." He whispered. "This is Mr. Winter's house." I let him go, the old man was mean, perhaps spite ran through his veins, and the last thing I wanted was him to know I was gay. He was the kind of man to say something about it, and like I said he was mean.

A few seconds later, his back door opened, We both prepared for the worst. "Boys are you alright?" He shouted, and walked over to us.

"Yea, I am fine." Benny sighed. "I don't think the mower is."

"Your parents are gone, how are we going to get it fixed?" I whined at Benny.

Mr. Winters kicked the mower. " Well you hit something big, the smoke says, it will take more than even your father can fix... Your father is good, but, your burning oil, so the engine is damaged."

"Oh man, dad is going to be pissed." Benny said.

Mr Winters pulled the mower back, and picked up a black metal ball. "Well, it wasn't your fault." He bent down and picked it up, and handed it to Benny.

"What is it."

"A cannonball, my little godson likes to play with it, he left it somewhere, I don't know how it got out here he knows he is not allowed to bring it out here." He sighed. "I am sure I can fix this." He grabbed the mower and went to the garage. He had very nice lawn care tools, mowers, and trimmers.

"Why do you let us mow your yard?" I asked when I noticed how nice it was.

"Cause, your young, and trying to earn honest money, doing honest work." He sighed. "Look I know all the kids on the street think I am some old geezer. But we are a lot alike." He looked at us like he understood something about us. "Only things were different for us back then." He looked at us. seeing if we understood him. "Mr. Tompshon was my partner."

"Wait you were gay?" Benny asked.

"Am gay." He corrected. "Kids your age often TP'ed our house, or busted our mailbox, it stopped, but my cuddly catus exitor stayed." He sighed. "If I really want more for you than we had,I figured I had to change too, so here we are." He said taking the plastic housing off the engine. He tinkered with it, and pulled it apart. "Yea, there ain't no saving this one."

"Thanks!" Benny sighed. "Could you take us to the store to get a new one, I think we got enough today." He agreed, that it was the least he could do we piled in his old pick up, and took us to a commercial lawn supply store.

"Uh, Mr. Winters..."

"Please, John."

"John." I corrected, these are all a lot more than what we have." I said reading one's tag.

"Your, mower broke, and It was my fault, I am going to replace it." He said, with a tone saying there was no arguing.

"John, your grandchildren?" A salesman asked.

"Chuck!" John smiled. "No my neighbors I have been telling you about." Benny and I glanced at each other, then at John."

"He talks about you two all the time, he is very proud of you two. What brings you in?"

"Their lawnmower had a run-in with a civil war era cannonball." He chuckled. "I am here to replace it."

"Well, we have all kinds of used mowers." Chucked said.

"Do you have new the Red Snapper NGM-100?"

Chuck smirked. "Of course." Be mentioned us to a section of mowers that looked high tech, and expensive. We walked to the smallest one, which was still two inches larger than our old one. "Self mulching, and 15% more power than any other mower its size."

"It will use more gas." I pointed out.

John laughed. "No, this is like a tuned-up Honda civic, fast, and powerful when you need it, but sips gas."

"You'll be mowing yards, in half the time." Chuck said.

"That means we'd be making more than $20 an hour each!" I turned to Benny Excited.

"You mentored them and that's all you told them to charge...." Chuck asked skeptically.

"Thats 25% more than we were going to ask." Benny pointed out.

"John ran the best lawn scaping business in the metro area, he had some big stuck up clients, and made twice that much."

"Really?" Benny and I asked John dumbfounded.

"Yes, after I had earned my reputation." He said surrerending with his hands. "You are both also just learning." He pointed out. "Chuck fill out the papers, They have a bit they need to finish." Chuck nodded, and had two guys help get the assembled mower into the truck. John drove us home. Taught us both how to use the new mower, and sent us on our way.

"I don't think he has a godson, to leave a cannonball in his yard." Benny sighed, as we crossed the street

"You think?" I sighed back.

"He has been your neighbor for seven years, have you seen any kids in his yard before?" I shook my head. "Me neither."

"Then why did he leave the cannonball in the yard?"

"Well, only one reason, to buy us a new mower." He sighed.

"Why?" I asked.

"Dunno" He shrugged as he typed the code for the garage door in the pad. "He said he wanted more for us, than he had."

"We have money for pizza, Lets have him over for dinner?"

Benny looked at his watch. "Go invite him over in an hour, so we can get cleaned up."

I nodded. 'What do I ask?"

"Tell him we want to have him over to say there are no hard feelings." Benny nodded. I ran over to Mr. Winters and invited him over. Benny had placed the order for the pizza, and was waiting for me to shower. We tidy up the house, clearing the soda cans from breakfast, and rinsing the plates.

The doorbell rang. "John." Benny and I greeted him. "Please come in." Benny motioned him in.

"Where are your parents?" He asked.

"They'll be back later."

"Oh" John looked uneasy.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

"A gay man, in your house alone, with two gay boys." We glared at him. "Young men." He corrected himself.

"Well, nothing is going to happen, we have a few questions for you." Benny sighed.

"Ok, we eat on your patio." He nodded. We agreed, I showed him, to the back yard, and Benny got us sodas.

"How'd you meet, Mr. Thompaon?" I asked.

"Kinda like you, he was my best friend." He sighed. "He mowed yards like you do when I see you two, I kinda see us, when we were your age, only you have you two can be out." He paused. "Do you get how lucky you are that you could stroll through the park holding hands?"

I blushed. "You saw?"

"Lots of people did." He smiled. "And no one cared."

The doorbell rang, Benny got the pizza, and I got plates and napkins. We all loaded up our plates. "So about your Godson and the Cannonball." Benny chuckled.

"Saw through it huh?" John chuckled. "No, I don't have a godson." He paused, and read the expression on our faces. "Look... Youngmen your age, don't often take initiative like you did... I always wanted to have kids, but not being into women, kind of made it hard. When Sean, was alive things were ok, but since he's been gone, I regret never having any."

"Well we appreciate everything, not just the mower, we almost had more customers than we do weekend, now the mower is bigger and faster." I sighed

"Well, Jayden, Like you pointed out, this mower will help you get better, but like all new tools, it takes time to learn how to use, properly at its optimal speed." He leaned forward for another slice.

"Huh?" I asked.

"I mean, it's new, so it is going to take time to learn how to use it, at the speed you're used to, let alone how to get good at it at full speed.." He inspected our faces. "So dense." He chuckled. "Step one get good at your old speed, step two get good at the faster speed, if you don't people will complain your quality went down."

"Ohh." We nodded.

"How's your trimmer?" He asked while standing.

"I don't think a cannonball would hurt it." I chuckled. "But I think it's pretty good." I stood and led him to the garage. He took it off the wall, inspected it. "Next week leave in in the middle of the driveway, so I can work on it." He hung it up.

"What did you do during the winter?" Benny asked.

"Well, we saved 1/3 of what we made during the summer." He started.

"What about the snow?" I asked.

"That's very hit and miss." He sighed. "You two don't have a truck, so you can't do snow. anyhow... But some winters would be great business, and others, it'd hardly snow. It's best to look at any money from snow removal "

"What about a snow blower, we can save our money, and buy one, I saw them in that shop."

John chuckled. "Here's a deal, you buy gas, and get to my place at 3 am, Ill hook up my plow, and you two can do the walks."

"Three am?" I wrinkled my nose.

"So we can be out by 4, and done by 7."

"So early," Benny whined.

"$50 for twenty minutes of work each?" John asked.

"Fifty!" we shouted.

"That's $75 an hour each." I pointed out.

"We'll make a new flyer!" Benny shouted.

"You make that flyer, and get customers, I will drag your butts out of bed into the snow if you don't get up."

Benny and I laughed. "4 Am is when My dad drags us out to go finishing in the winter." Benny laughed.

"Ok, just so we are clear. I want to teach you everything I know, everything I learned."

"Why?" We asked.

"We don't live forever, and I have heard kids call me me 'mean old mister winters', I am not young, when you're my age, you tick off days on the calendar and wonder how many more you got." He sighed. Benny and I looked at each other, we knew what he meant, we felt, a pull-on or stomachs, we just learned he was really cool.

"Hey, you have a long time." I sighed.

He frowned then smiled. "Yea we got time!" He told us really cool goofy stories about him when he was our age, and the crazy things, he did with Sean, and how they both over the years realized they loved each other, just like Benny and I did. The sun was low in the sky. "It's been a few hours." He sighed. "I gotta head home, us geezers turn to toads if we aren't in bed by nine."