Javier

Under the hundred-year-old blooming magnolia tree on the driveway, sixty-two year old Javier pulls his electric edger from the back of the gold Toyota truck filled with oily yard machines, tools and buckets.

”Hello!” Javier waves his strong hand with dirt filled cracks; he tried to remove the lifetime of hand dirt for his Mother’s funeral a few weeks ago when the sun was on his face in Mexico. Paint remover, bleach, old toothbrushes to scrub; the dirt he worked with every day for the past fifty years had become part of his hands. He kept them in his pockets at the funeral.

Every Monday, between one p.m. and two p.m., Javier arrives to do yard maintenance at the lady with the brown hair’s house.

The lady with the brown hair is usually home. Sitting out on her porch, smoking and typing into her computer. She moves inside after greeting Javier, before he turns on the blowing machine and allergies flare.

”Hello, where have you been?” She asks, across the yard from Javier, her brow furrowed with worry. The brown haired woman had thought maybe Javier had passed away. He is built like an Oxen, but he does manual labor every day and smokes Marlboros.

”I have only seen your son for the past few months of Mondays.”

”I went back to Mexico.” As he crosses the grass towards the woman he decides not to tell her why. He doesn’t want to upset anyone. Javier spent his life trying to make everyone happy, even as a young child. He is always of service. Bringing eggs to neighbors, slopping pigs, pruning fruit trees.

Javier and the brown haired lady have known each other for six years. She moved into the property with her three children and Javier did not like that she was alone.

”Can I tell you something funny?” Javier removes his hat, worn to his body as well, like a piece of himself he sets on the table before the brown hair woman’s knees before he settles into the chair across from her.

“Last summer, I found a marijuana joint of yours in your backyard. I smoked some of it. I cleaned the yard. I leave and I’ve lived here for years, I know these roads. I know these roads but I got behind a car at a red light. I started wondering what direction I was in. But then it stopped. But for a moment I was free from regular patterns.”

”Javier, I can give you some weed if you want some.”

“No, I like it too much. One day I will ask. Not today. How’s the house?” He changes the subject, feeling some shame but relief after admitting he smoked her joint.

”They raised my rent last month. For the first time in seven years. I’m trying to consider myself lucky that it took them so long.”

The brown haired woman wanted to buy the house and have Javier work on her citrus trees until she was old and dragging herself around the bungalow.

”The neighbor gutted all the honeysuckle down along the fence. Now there aren’t thousands of hummingbirds in the back yard. They ruined it.”

”They did.”

”What if I lose this house, Javier?”

”Then I will lose my job too.”

The two of them sit in the sun and say nothing.

“Life is weird.”

”Yes.”