Desert Boys by Chris McCormick Page B

From across the street, Mr. Reuter waved and smiled. Then he pulled on the red rope above his white head, lowering his garage door until it was shut.
    Work hadn’t started. I hadn’t yet been paid a nickel. But already I felt it. That was the first time I sensed I owed him something.
    III. SOME NOTES ON MY UNDERSTANDING OF ADULTS
    Some children transcend their age with patience and understanding—an understanding that you have to go through this thing called childhood before anyone takes you seriously, before you’re empowered to drive change. I wasn’t one of those children. I was a child in every sense of the word, but mostly I was a child in that I felt nothing like a child.
    At twelve, I felt both prepared for the simplicity of the average adulthood and eager to sense the nuances of a more complicated version, one I’d have much preferred to live. Already I’d divided those older than me into these two camps: Pester and Foster. These were actual lists I kept as a kid, written with red ink (“Pester”) and blue (“Foster”). And like all camps, they had their leaders.
    Unfortunately for my parents, I’d placed them at the head of the Pester camp. Mom and Dad—full-time salespeople of clothing and furniture, respectively—would come home from work, make dinner, and speak exclusively in questions. They’d ask my sister and me about our days at school, what we had learned. Whenever we asked about their days at work, they’d say, “Work isn’t worth talking about.” I expected as much from Mom—like many immigrant mothers, she considered education and God the only worthwhile topics of conversation—but I kept hoping my dad would break. Once, when I said as much to him, he offered me a piece of advice. He said, “The greatest quality a person can have is to be a deep, genuine listener.”
    I argued that if he never said anything about himself, I’d never have a chance to listen.
    â€œWithout even knowing it, you’re learning how to listen right now,” he said mystifyingly.
    Eventually I gathered that he meant to compliment himself, that by speaking to my sister and me mostly in questions, by hardly ever telling us anything, he was showing us what a good listener looked like.
    That’s when I put him at the top of my “Pester” list.
    I should add that the “Pester”/“Foster” lists were always changing. Coach Vierra, my gym class teacher, fell from the good side to the bad after he issued me a demerit for spitting on the blacktop. (The sizzling effect was something to see.) My sister, Jean—sixteen and impossible, most days, to locate—found herself on different sides of the list all the time, depending on whether or not I saw her that week.
    This is a long way of saying Mr. Reuter was different. After hearing my mother’s opinions of him (she’d spent some time reaching out to the former Mrs. Reuter, and had come back, like a journalist, with a version of the story), I’d put Mr. Reuter down in red ink, too. According to my mother’s vague commentary, after all, this was a selfish bully of a man we were talking about, “the king of cutting corners.” But then he hired me for that job. Aside from Jean—who, because she was my sister, hardly counted—Mr. Reuter was the only person who’d ever made the transition from Pester to Foster on that list of mine. I made it out to be—someone breaking a pattern like that—a big deal.
    IV. INSTRUCTIONS & INSIGHTS FROM MR. REUTER
    In the driveway, Mr. Reuter held out a shovel. He had one hand on it, arm outstretched toward me. His other arm rested akimbo on his waist. I took the shovel with both hands and let the metal hit the cement.
    â€œHey,” he said, “don’t let the spade touch anything it can’t dig out. That means anything but grass, dirt, and shit. Got it?”
    I lifted the shovel