The nut won’t give, even arms locked and him bringing his full weight down. Plus the mower, designed to keep the business end safely flush with the ground, can’t settle blade up. Maybe it’s the vice grips, too, increasingly clear the wrong tool, even when he tightens the bolt and holds as far out on the handle end as he can, like his dad showed him, to get maximum torque. He assigns himself the task of looking up the word ‘torque’ when he gets home, and then the task of remembering that he’s going to look up the word ‘torque’. He loosens the handle bolt a couple of turns to make the pliers lock easier, but the grips just chew the nut instead of, well, gripping it. But it’s the only tool he’s got, the only one he brings with him on mowing jobs. He still likes how they resemble a robot lizard.

He’s hit a wedge of brick, probably from the decrepit landscaping around the Craft’s old house. Must’ve missed it while he was taking care not to throw clippings over the ant lion burrows lined up in the strip of dirt along the garage. The blade is shot, he can see that, a huge chunk bit out of the steel. His dad spent a good evening at the grinder making the edge bright and efficient. His dad will not be happy. These things happen, but he’s supposed to be old enough to know better, and knowing better now includes blades and bricks.

It’s morning but hot already. He used to mow his lawns in shorts but the mower threw rocks against his shins, and he does jobs now in jeans whatever the heat. He thinks about the taste of water from a hose. He remembers the hose he coiled beneath the side spigot before he began mowing the weeds into squares. The Crafts wouldn’t mind if he took a drink. He leaves the machine wrong-side up.

He turns the valve and brings the hose close, lets the coupling’s threads click against his teeth, lets the water, like a rod of glass, push out his cheek.