A man remembers when he was eighteen or nineteen and mowed lawns. That was fourteen or fifteen years ago. The narrator feels memory is like fiction, and that placing context becomes harder to do with time.

When he was eighteen or nineteen, he mowed lawns and had a girlfriend. She ended up having to move further away, so they would condense all the relationship stuff, like sex and dates, into brief intervals of time. In the present moment, he is not sure if he loved her. He knows he liked being around her and other things about her, but he is not sure if he loved her. Outside of their time together, his life was monotonous.

One morning at the beginning of July when he was eighteen or nineteen, he received a breakup letter from his girlfriend.  He did not know what to do. He smoked and drank and then went in to work as a lawnmower. Since working at the lawn service place, he had saved up a good bit of money for a trip he planned to go on with his girlfriend. Now that they broke up, he did not know what to do with the money. He tried spending it on random goods but ultimately decided to quit his job and spend the money he saved. His boss does not want him to quit as he was among the best lawnmowers on his crew. The man was meticulous and did everything just right. Some people said he was overly tedious, but he did what he thought was his best work because he simply enjoyed mowing lawns. He often mowed for housewives. He only ever slept with one client.

He agreed to work one more week for his boss. He chose the furthest job away from his last job. After three rings on the door of an old-looking, but respectable home, a middle-aged woman opened the door. She asked what he wanted. He said that he was here for the lawn. She questioned him. She asked how long it will take. He said he could tell her after he looked at her lawn. The yard was well-tended and not in need of his service. He felt sort of disappointed. She told him to do it and that she wants it shorter. He said he will be done in four hours.

He began his meticulous work. After an hour he took a break. The woman, who was now drinking a whisky, approached him. She offered to make him lunch. He tried to decline but she insisted. At twelve they had lunch and didn’t talk. He returned to his work on the lawn. By two-twenty, he finished mowing. He thought about something his girlfriend wrote in the break-up letter about her not knowing what he was lacking in their relationship.

The woman of the house offered him a beer. He accepted. They chatted and drank outside. She complimented his work and brought up her late husband who was also quite meticulous and often mowed their lawn. He tries to picture her husband but cannot. They smoke. She says she started hiring help after he died because neither she nor her teenage daughter was able or willing to do the work. She told him to come back next month but he informed her that this was his last job. They talked about his role as a student, a role in which he does not take much pride in. She invited him inside. He tried again to decline but she eventually convinced him. He followed her inside. She led him inside to her teenage daughter’s bedroom. They sat. He observed the room. He found it like most teenage girl rooms but less frilly. She leaves to get them drinks. She returned with the drinks. She told him to go through her things and then comment on what she thinks the girl is like. He felt this is odd. The woman responded to what he said by replying that he was close to correct or that she saw what he was trying to say. They sat in silence for some time and then she offered to pay him. He said that she may pay through the company that he worked for.

She handed him the crumpled bill and he felt it would be wrong to refuse it. They said goodbye. The woman seemed as if she had more to say.

He went to a diner and had bad spaghetti. He sat in his car outside afterward and smoked. He felt worn out. He thought again of his girlfriend’s letter. She had said she did not know what he could want in her. He realized then that all he wanted to do was to mow a good lawn. The diner owner came to check on him, but he was fine. He left the parking lot and drove by many homes with many different lawns and many people living different lives.

He has not mown lawns since but suspects that if he has a house with a lawn, someday he will mow again.