BackwaterBlog

“EH?”

I’d long since learned that to talk to Walter, on the phone or otherwise, was an exercise in patience that would tax the very life out of you.  And believe it or not, it wasn’t a hearing problem, he could hear a pin drop.  He simply had an inability to listen unless he was ready to, and would turn your conversation on and off in any way he could until that particular recording head in his brain swung into place and was pressed to the ‘on’ position.

So unless I was in a hurry, I got used to pausing after every phrase and waiting for the engagement of the Walter Recording Studio.

“Walt, that’s the way things work down here.  A little slower.”

“Oh.  That’s what I thought too.”  Which was another favorite trick.  He’d ask a question, get an answer and make out as if he knew the answer all along.  Cute, the first few times.  After the forty-’leventh? 

Still, he was a neighbor-to-be.  I kept an eye on his place as it developed.  We’d tip a beer at the end of the day, or he’d drive out of his way to check out prices on lawn tractors for me.  Little stuff, companionable things.  Toward the end of January his place was finished and he moved on in.  Why, we even had him over for supper a couple of times.

But there was this constant little hum in my head, coming directly from next door.  “You gonna buy that lawn tractor?  Grass is gonna be gettin’ pretty high here in a month or so, you know?”

“Yep, that’s a fact Walt.”

“Too much yard to mow with a push mower.”

“You’re right about that, Walt.”

“I got a push mower but it’s too much yard by a half.”

“Same here, Walt.”

“What?”

“I said, I’m not gonna mow my whole yard with . . .”

“HUH?”

Pause.  Long extended pause.  Pause until you hear an audibe click! from somewhere to the west of Walter’s right ear.

“I’ll be getting a tractor pretty soon, Walter.”

“Oh.  You know, I was thinking, we ought to go in for one together.  No sense spending all that money for something we both need.”

Uh oh.  This was the worst combination of all, Yankee thrift and the need for companionship.  And worst of all, it actually made sense.  Adjoining yards, one tractor to take care of both, cut the price in half.

I mentioned it to Ally and she was all for it.  “Heck yeah, why not?  I know you, you want to buy that expensive biggun’ thing and we could really use another couple of chairs in the family room, and . . .”

So there was that.  Walter increased his visits to Sears and Home Despot and would return, fanning tractor pamphlets under my nose with a flourish.

“Here, looky here!  Sears’ got this one for twelve hunnert, but there’s a floor model with a ding on it so I talked the salesman down another two, and with my Sears card I get 5% off, and . . . “

“Walt . . .”

” . . . there’s a sale going on right now so I bet we can zap him for even more!  Whaddya think?”  There’s something fascinating about a transplanted Yankee on a bargain hunt, the gleam in the eye, the steam from the nostril.

“Walter, that particular tractor couldn’t do much more than . . .”

“Eh?”

Pause.  Click!

“That tractor is only good for cutting grass.  It won’t pull a plow, or a cultivator, or a box blade.  Remember?  We talked about this last week.”

“That’s what I thought too.  I told the guy it was too small.”

Sigh.  “So why even . . .”

“Told him we (big emphasis on the ‘we’) were in the market for a biggun.”

“I see.”

“No sense foolin’ around with something that won’t get the job done.”

“Right.”

“No sense a’tall.”

It must be understood that as a carpenter, I share tools rarely.  I buy them for me, to be used by me, loaned out never.  Hell, I’d rather give you a tool of mine rather than lend it to you.  A tractor is simply a big expensive tool.  See where this is going?

When the spring came and the grass got too high to ignore, I acted.  Surgically, and with great vigor.  Three days of intensive internet research, a few phone calls, two actual physical tractor visits.  It was brief but thorough.

A shining Friday saw me, son Ben and a gleaming black tractor on a sagging pickup truck backing into the yard, ramps were produced and a hulking monster of a tractor rolled to the backwater grass.  Complete with back plow and box blade and an aerator.  Walter was in my yard before the truck had come to a full stop.

He was grinning, if a bit uncertainly.  “Got one, eh?  Geez, that’s a beast.”

“It is that, Walt.”

“I just about give up on ye, almost put a deposit on that John Deere over at Lowe’s this morning.”

I mentally rolled my eyes, sure in the knowledge that Walter wouldn’t have put a deposit on a ball point pen without at least twenty cell phone calls.  Ben heaved the box with the sleeve hitch out of the truck and it clanked a little.

“Take it easy there, Benster!”, from a concerned Walter.  “Don’t need no damaged equipment you know.  You got the recept, didn’t you chief?  Didja get the extended warranty?  How much discount on it?”

Pause.  Click!

“Got a couple hundred off retail.  No warranty.  Cost too much.”

For a minute I thought Walter was approaching apoplexy, the way his eyeballs were a bulgin’.  And I busied myself with unwrapping the stuff, trying to time it just right.

I heard the long, deep intake of breath and turned my head just as the first “But . . .” was forming.

“And the whole deal was only thirty two hunnert, Walt.”

POOOOOOOOOOOOOOF!

“Walt, you okay?  I said the whole deal was only . . .”

“Eh?  HUH?  AH!”

“Thirty two hunnert.  Why, they just about gave it to me, cut another 50 off since me and Ben picked it up.”  I toed the big back tractor tire.  “Good size rig, ought to pull that box blade just fine”, I murmured.  “Don’t you think so, Walt?”

It was an effort.  He was breathing heavily, passing a furtive hand over his back pocket where his wallet was stowed, a furrowed brow crunching numbers frantically.  But at length, he spoke.  “Just . . . just let me know what my share . . .”

“Oh I ain’t worried about all that just now.  I’m sure we can work something out.”

“But . . .”

“I know it’s probably a little more than you were expecting.”

“It’s . . .”

“Sure is a big tractor though, isn’t it?  Ought to make this place look pretty good after I get the grass in shape.  Make things easier, for sure.”

“Thirty two . . .”

“Yep, helluva deal.”

It was a helluva deal.  Why, I’d have cheerfully paid retail just for the chance to see that cloud of smoke coming from ol’ Walt’s wallet and wafting over the yard.

Cheerfully, I say.