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need your lawn mowed? Shakes head, says no. I try twenty other places. Finally get one. It’s a lady in her apron cleaning house, and she sort’f thinks about it a minute with her eyes rolling around, then smiles and takes me on.
    She got this power mower, and the wheels are s’posed to turn by themselves, but something was busted or going the wrong way, ’cause I had to push hard as I could to keep that thing moving.
    I go extra careful, ’specially out back round this big wood kiddie house she built, or her husband built, for their kid, boy I know named Joey, ’cause it got nice paint and she don’t want no scratches.
    Sun was hot, and pretty soon I’m wet head to foot with sweat, both shirt and pants, and when it’s all done I still got to go around with snips, ’cause the truth is what with having to push the mower, the path I went was scraggly with plenty of high grass in the gaps between.
    When I get finished, the lady she comes back out and checks what I done, then gives me the twelve bucks I’d asked her for.
    I think about that for a minute. Twelve bucks down makes it forty-seven thousand nine hundred eighty-eight.
    To go.
    I don’t know how many little yards it would take, so I start thinking ’bout how big the yard would have to be for me to make it all in one go, and I figure ’bout the size of Delaware.
    I got done there at around three thirty and still had a few hours left before curfew. I’m thinking I need more money, twelve bucks ain’t gonna cut it. So I figure I best go down Shatze’s and see’f Marvin’s around.
    Now, I gotta stop right here and say something. ’Cause comin’ up I’m gonna tell you the first thing I saw that helped me find those boys and the man who took’m.
    But you gotta understand one thing.
    I didn’t know what I was seeing.
    Least not right then, when I first seen it.
    Now some people say that makes me pretty dumb, because what with all I did see, then and a couple weeks later, they say it wouldn’t be hard to know just what it all was and put it all together.
    Well that might be true. But looking back now at what horrors I seen that still wakes me up some nights in cold sweats, I figure maybe I wish I was even dumber than I was, and never noticed nothing in the first place.
    And let me tell you something else, too. You know what was going on at home for me and what I needed to do, I mean make all that money and with only ninety days to do it.
    So that’s what I was thinking about, the house and the money, because no way I tried could I forget it. It was always pushing me on. And maybe if something like that was pushing you, you wouldn’t be so smart yourself, and miss a few things when you seen’m, till you got a chance to add’m all up later on.
     
    I got to Shatze’s round four o’clock and I seen Marvin all ready with a heap of white bags on the counter. I asked’m’f I could tag along and he said sure so I grabbed the bags. Big armload they was, and with Marvin holding the door for me I went out, past that old fat counter lady, Miss Norris, looking nasty at me over the counter, ’cause she caught me taking candy once. I go round back, and there’s the van. Marvin follows, limping on that busted foot he got, and I dump the bags in the bin between the seats and sit. Marvin, he gets in beside me and starts up the motor.
    We drive a bit, wind blowing over us ’cause that van’s the sort that ain’t got no doors and you gotta watch your ass not to fall out. Marvin’s got the list of addresses he wrote in his hand on the steering wheel, and I watch the houses and yards and the sun bright over everything, people walking their dogs or just standing in their gardens and the birds singing everywhere.
    Then I turn to Marvin.
    Shit’s going on, ain’t it? I say.
    He nods.
    Yup, he says. Sure is. Lots of shit. Nothing but shit. Same old shit.
    He says that all the time. Same old shit, I mean. S’where he’s coming from.
    They found Tommy Evans, I