I mowed my lawn today, and I hate rocks. Oh, by the way: I do NOT own a riding lawn mower, and my breath is never caught up while cursing. I DO have dogs named Snoopy and Prisom, and another named Hershey (who didn’t make it into this edition, sorry to say) and they are all both fat and happy.

It isn’t often that I come across a story so adamantly biographical in nature, but this is one. I did not get attacked by the rocks in the back yard today, thank God, but I did do battle with them. I’m not certain that I won, but I did survive.

———

I turned the key and pulled the choke. “Start, you fu…” I said.

My words were interrupted by the kick I launched at my mower, but the thought persisted and continued: “…MONSTER!”

With my fuzzed brain fuming, I stomped out the backyard gate and around the front. In the shed, I moved around the random crap of ages and unearthed my old push mower. I haven’t used it since I bought the Murray and I didn’t want to use it now, but you’ll be home soon and you asked me to mow the backyard. I could hear what you’ll say if I don’t get it done. Jerrod, I don’t know why you even say you’re going to do things. But there are other factors, you know? No excuses here. Only factors.

It went well until I hit the first rock. Cthonk! The rock bashed against the inside of the deck and my pants came very close to being wet. I cursed, turned the mower off, and climbed off the seat. Underneath, behind the muck and shadows, I saw no rock. But there was one right next to my left hand when I began to sit back up. When I pushed myself up on my haunches, I saw another one. As I stood, two more appear. I turned away from those and saw a herd of them grazing their way across my yard.

“Aw, hell,” I said, not without resignation.

I gathered up the rocks then, about fifteen in all, and tossed them over the back fence, the short one. Chain link. Done, and done. I climbed back onto the mower and continued along my circular path. Seven feet later, I was attacked.

Claaank, kraak, tong!

And the Murray was down. The blade was broken. When I looked under the deck (after stopping it again, of course) I could see the glaring, sheared metal of a clean break, and the clean scrapes the blade made as it piddled around inside. Thank my lucky rabbit’s foot the blade didn’t slice through the deck and make a lucky Jerrod’s foot. And, I suppose, it’s lucky that I didn’t sell the push-mower to Jimbo when he asked me about it last summer. I told him it had been put to a decent burial and shouldn’t be exhumed. What’s exhumed, he said. Dug back up, I said. Like a zombie? he said. I shuddered, remembering that. I shuddered, and I thought about the rocks. I didn’t miss any, at least I don’t think I did.

So, after unloading the Christmas decorations, the Thanksgiving decorations, the Vaentine’s Day decorations, the various hardware for honey-do’s I haven’t done, my music gear from a life a million years ago, and my weedeater, I was able to begin work to exhume that push-mower. And it really was like bringing it back from the dead.

Oil, check. Gas, check. New zip-tie to hold down the kill switch, check. Seventeen pulls to start, check.

Exhausted before I even start. Check.

Oh yeah, the dogs.

Snoopy is scared to death of the thing, anyway. Prisom just walks behind me. Just to make sure they were out of the way, I went ahead and let them in to lounge on the cool tile of the back room. No more worries about the dogs. Check.

Back outside, I walked the mower around, opened the gate, and pushed it through. I closed the gate and turned around. My jaw hung loose, and I think I mutter some confused words, but they might have been in my head.

Spread across the lawn like diamonds on a jeweler’s cloth were rocks of all shapes and sizes. Gray rocks, white rocks. Smooth, shining rocks, and porous, dullard rocks. Rocks that seemed to smile, rocks that scowled, and one—in particular, this one frightened me—that had two spots like eyes. The rock’s left eye had a scar across it. You broke my lawnmower! With sudden alarm, I realized that I was angry at this rock, this immobile chunk of earth that stared at me from my domain.

My? He’s the rock, old man. He’s “of the earth,” so to speak.

That’s right, he’s the rock. The rock. He’s not the neighbor, not the landlord. He’s a fucking rock and he’s not giving me that look at all. He’s not even a he, to be honest. It. It’s an it.

I smiled then, and looked into those spots on it, not the eyes on him. I remember distinctly a flutter of the muscles in my left eyelid. To ward those spasms away, I launched myself toward the stupid, scowling rock and kicked it as hard as my flip flops would allow. I watched with supine interest as the rock sailed away and skittered among the branches of the rabbit brush against the large, rock wall at the edge of the yard. With a dull, final thunk it landed in the dirt. I left it, for now.

Though I reveled in my triumph, I was quickly humbled when I looked again at the yard.

There were more rocks.

I don’t mean that there were the other rocks that were there before I kicked scar-rock into outer space, I mean that there were more rocks. There were at least twice as many as when I looked before. I tried to count them, but muddled myself somewhere around 34, lost count, and walked toward the closest one to begin displosal. I picked up about twenty of them, and went to empty my arms over the back fence.

Please take a moment to reflect here with me that I am not crazy. I thought I was for a minute, but now I know I’m not. It was just a little confusion, that’s all. A trick of the light.

There were more rocks, and they were closer. I screamed, I ran and tripped over the push-mower, I clawed at the grass. I turned and saw several rocks tumbling across the yard toward me and jumped to my feet, sprinting for safety. I hit the dog-eared fence, hurled myself over it and landed hard on the other side. On more rocks. I was on my feet again before I could think to say “Call on God, but row away from the rocks”, and I slammed the front door behind me as I cowered in the safety of my kitchen.

Inside, I hyperventilated, rummaged through drawers for a paper bag and eventually sat on the floor with it, inhaling my own hot breath. When I could no longer see the spots edging into my visual field, I stood and proceeded to the cabinet above the fridge and grabbed the Jim, put it back, and grabbed the Herradura. It was time to calm down.

The shot slid into a cup that I believe was larger than a coffee mug, and I tossed it back. I choked, because it wasn’t a shot. It was a rocks glass. The thought nearly got me started with the paper bag again, but with stomach contents rather than exhaled breath. I squelched my stomach back into place and managed to hold that in.

For the first time since my flight, I noticed that my dogs were going crazy, barking, scratching against the glass door, begging to be let in on the excitement.

I let them bark, and I went back outside.

My heart was racing. I stood next to the gate and peered through the cracks between the slats. I didn’t want to look through the bigger slot where the latch hung, I wanted to see little bits at a time. There would be fewer rocks that way, I figured. And there were. So I opened the latch, stepped through the gate, and closed it behind me. Still racing, blood pumping, temples thudding, eyes jumping. The push-mower stood to one side of me, still thrumming along, drinking its petroleum cocktail.

A fan of rocks spread out away from the gate, as if they had advanced there. As if, God help me, they were planning their attack on the house, next.

That couldn’t be, of course. I stood there and stared at the stones, at the rocks, for several minutes. My thumping heart quieted. My leaping stomach settled.

And I bent over to pick up a rock. My vision was focused into the area of the rock, the green of the grass around it, and my feet. I could see my feet, planted firmly on the ground, but I felt as if I were floating above it in some ridiculous horror story. Something Steven King might have cobbled together from his personal slush pile, maybe after mowing his own yard.

I stood up too quickly, and a wave of nausea rose through my innards. Unfortunately, I couldn’t just stand still and let it subside. The rocks had moved. I had seen the fan shape, and now the rocks were gathering into paths, coming together in lines like spider’s legs spindling away from the center—me.

The thudding of my heart deafened me, and if I screamed, I didn’t hear it. My lucky Jerrod’s foot swept forward and caught a bunch of rocks, contact with which shot pain into my toes and foot and up my leg, but I didn’t care. I kicked this way, that way, kicked and kicked until I was satisfied that I had demonstrated my alpha-ness, had shown the rocks who was the master of this world.

My world came clear through my frenzied cloud of turmoil, and I saw that the rocks were now arced in a semicircle around me. I was not the alpha here.

The mower was to my right, and I grabbed the handle, pushed it into the pile of rocks, and quickly made my exit through the gate. I was only delayed for a few seconds fumbling with the latch.

Outside the fence, I heard the slaughter of rocks, the zang, pow of them as they were flung, crushed, and mutilated. I smiled to myself, and slid down against the rough wooden slats of the gate, conscious that I would likely have splinters in my back later. I began to laugh, but this was quelled when I heard s faint whisper of sound in front of me.

Whuump.

A lonely rock landed in the grass just beyond where my right foot lay on the sidewalk. I stared at it, horrified and then angry. My lips curled and I pushed myself up to attack it with a tossing fury and a gale of hatred. But…

Whuump, plunk.

Two more rocks landed, one in the grass again, the other on the walk.

I didn’t wait for their friends to come to the party. I ran for it and locked myself inside the house.

Cheryl, I love you. I’m sorry that I didn’t work harder at being a good husband, but it seems there is always something that gets in the way. Today it was the godammed rocks.

They’ve been beating against the walls. I ran to the office, because it doesn’t connect to the back yard, but it’s no use. I’m surrounded. They’ve made it in, too. Not two minutes ago I heard shattering glass, and the tumble of the rocks as they hit the tile floor. I guess the dogs were too scared to react, because I didn’t hear them yip or bark at all.

There is thunder pressing against the office door. I don’t think I’m going to make it, but rest assured. I’ll be safe. I’ll probably be in the back yard.

With the rocks.