Rory Biggins, sixteen, in 1972, needed a summer job. Alice Cooper could attest that School was Out, and Rory had designs on bankrolling enough scratch to finance a set of used wheels. He knew about two down-in-the-mouth petroleum burners he could get for $100, but Rory set his sights a little higher. Cruiser Jackson at Clayt’s Texaco owned a 1966 three-on-the-floor, small-block V8 Mustang that he was willing to let go for $500. The metallic blue paint was for shit; it drank a little oil, but the Detroit Special was calling Rory’s name. He begged Cruiser to hold it for him until he could come up with the five Franklins. Cruiser promised Rory he’d keep the ‘Stang on ice until the end of summer.
Fast food places were an option – the turnover rate was high, and most paid a starting wage of $1.50 an hour with raises to $2 if you stuck with it. But the thought of being cooped up in a hot, smelly, greasy kitchen all summer was more than Rory could stomach. Besides, those paper hats made you look like a damn fool.
Rory’s pal, Shanny Cropper, had a job at Fontana’s Wholesale Nursery, working outside among the flowering shrubs, trees, fruit, and berry plants. Shanny said he’d put in a word with the owner, Big Jim Fontana, about hiring Rory for the summer. The only drawback was the pay, which was $1.30 an hour, considered agricultural wages. However, it was a full-time position, eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, with a $50 bonus after Labor Day. Rory figured that by then, if he were careful, he’d have $400 clear from Fontana’s, and with a hundred now sitting in his savings account, the Mustang would be his if Cruiser Jackson was good at his word.
The seven-thirty am starting time at Fontana’s meant Rory, who walked two miles from home, had to leave at seven. He carried a sack lunch and wondered what lay in store for him on his first day as a Nursery employee. It couldn’t be as bad as cleaning grease traps and mopping filthy floors.
Shanny met Rory in the front office, where Olive Fontana, Big Jim’s mother and the matriarch of the Fontana clan, held court. She, along with Big Jim, his wife Candy, and their identical twin fourteen-year-old daughters, Megan and Regan, lived on the sprawling nursery property in separate houses. Big Jim and his family in the bigger stone mini-manse, and Olive in the original smaller house, built in the 1930s by her late husband, James Matthew “Jimbo” Fontana. The larger home featured a below-ground swimming pool, and an eight-foot redwood fence surrounded the house and yard.
Olive had Rory sign his W-4 form, and with a smile, offered: “Think he’ll last, Shanny?”
Shanny was non-committal as the two left the office, and he showed Rory the employee lean-to where he could stash his lunch sack and jacket. A soda machine sat next to the lean-to, and Rory thought, damn, I didn’t bring any change with me. Three others were sitting on benches outside the wooden structure – a guy and a girl both about Rory’s age, and a man in his twenties who was Shanny’s brother-in-law, Ken. He operated the heavy equipment, including forklifts, loaders, and the ATV that transported the plants on dollies. Ken was a quiet sort who chain-smoked Tareytons and minded his own business. Shanny introduced Rory to Daryl Sealey, who looked like a varsity wrestler or an inside linebacker, and Chloe Hartung, who had a healthy farmgirl look, but seemed to Rory like she would rather be back on the farm than here working at the nursery.
A sixth person appeared out of nowhere and stood before the others with hands on his hips and an Old Gold dangling from thin lips, smoke curling into his almond-shaped eyes, which didn’t appear to bother them in the slightest. Kazuo Yamamoto, who went by Kaz – don’t call him Mr. Moto, said Daryl later, if you don’t want his boot up your ass – was the crew’s foreman and answered only to Big Jim. Rumor had it that Kaz was in the Imperial Japanese Army and fought against the Allied Forces in World War II. He was in his early fifties, so the math worked on that account. Kaz knew horticulture backwards and forwards, and the plants in the nursery flourished under his watchful, and some would say tyrannical, overseeing.
Kaz could speak English well and was sharp as a tack, but he preferred to communicate in short bursts of pidgin-like instructions, such as “You pull weed.” Then he’d point to the section where the weeds needed tending. Rory wished he had a dollar for every time he heard: “No talk, pull weed.” Kaz was also quick with vocal criticisms of the three grunts – Rory, Daryl, and Chloe. He left Ken and Shanny alone, as they were higher on the Fontana Food Chain, but pulled no punches whenever he felt one or more of the three were slacking off or not pulling their weight. His favorite pejorative was to call the offender a Dumb Shit – not Dumbshit, but Dumb Shit – two words. Chloe wasn’t immune – Kaz was an equal-opportunity name-caller.
Rory, being the new guy, took the brunt of Kaz’s verbal abuse, partly because when working with Daryl, he often lagged in the volume of weeds he could pull, or the amount of full pots of potting soil he could carry from the large pile into the greenhouse 50 feet away. Daryl carried four pots in each hand easily and even tried five at a time once, without dropping any. Rory could handle three pots with no problem, but when he attempted to carry four, they’d go down before he made it to the greenhouse. Then Kaz would double and sometimes triple down on the comments, chuckling and shaking his head between each Dumb Shit. Rory wondered if he’d made the right decision in hiring on at Fontana’s. He’d worked with Japanese boys and girls in the berry fields as a young teen and found them to be some of the friendliest kids he’d ever met.
The crew broke for lunch at 11:30 each day and were expected to be back at the lean-to by noon. On Rory’s first day, Daryl invited him to run across the highway in front of Fontana’s and eat lunch in the abandoned orchard up a short driveway.
“How can you guys stand working there? It’s only been four hours, and I already want to quit.
“Kaz is a hardass. Don’t take his shit personally. Probably still fighting the war.”
“The Vietnam War?”
“Ha-ha, no, man… World War II. You know, the atomic bombs…”
“Oh, yeah, right. Well, he’s still an asshole.”
“You’ll get used to it. Let’s eat and get back on time, or old lady Fontana will dock our paychecks.
“They can do that?”
“Yep.”
***
Rory stuck it out, and by July, he could feel himself getting stronger from the physical labor – he could carry four pots in each hand now with nary a mishap. The Dumb Shits were fewer and farther between – Rory heeded Daryl’s advice and took Kaz’s hazing in stride. A classmate, David Krebsbach, was hired two weeks after Rory, and he lasted two days. Kaz was in a good mood afterwards, like he’d accomplished a targeted mission.
Chloe often joined Rory and Daryl for lunch in the orchard, where they kicked back, gossiping about the others and letting off steam. Daryl talked about his girlfriend, Maddie, who worked at Taco Charlie’s, one of the fast-food joints Rory was glad he wasn’t working for. He could sense Chloe paying more attention to him as his summer tan set in and was proving he could hold his own at the Nursery. They were the same age. She and Daryl went to the next high school over from Rory’s – Daryl was 17 and would be a senior in the fall. Rory told them about the Mustang and hoped the Fontanas would make good on the $50 bonus. Daryl said he hoped so, too, but there was probably a loophole involved.
August came, and the temperature soared. The days seemed twice as long while toiling out in the jungle of nursery stock. Rory made sure he had plenty of change for the pop machine – the water supply out back was fed by a tank system with a liquid fertilizer mix, and you couldn’t drink from those hoses. The one clean water source next to the office was warm and had a muddy taste. So, the Fontanas made a little profit from the pop machine. Rory was sucking down his second ice-cold grape soda after lunch when Kaz strode up to the lean-to.
“You three, big house, now.”
Rory, Daryl, and Chloe followed Kaz to the north side of the property, where Big Jim and Candy’s domicile stood. When they arrived, the gate to the pool and garden section was open. Shanny, Ken, and Big Jim were waiting by a large boulder that sat on a flat patch of sandy gravel, and Kaz left them there without a word. Big Jim, who always looked red-faced, explained what he wanted done.
“Candy wants a rock garden, and we need to move this boulder into place, so it’s in harmony with the rest of the material… right, dear?”
Candy, who was lounging near the pool in a white two-piece, toenails painted bright red, answered:
“Yes, Jimmy. Have them roll it to the middle. I want to see how it reflects the light.”
Big Jim muttered something under his breath and called Ken over to his side, who seemed to have a grasp on the situation. The boulder wasn't completely round and had to be moved only five feet or so, but it still took some engineering know-how.
Ken and Chloe had long iron pry bars wedged into either end of the boulder, and the three boys muscled the rock into place with maximum effort. Candy stood in wedge-heeled sandals, observing the process with her arms crossed.
“I think it needs to move a little to the left, Jim, honey.”
“It’s fine where it is, dear, you won’t be able to tell the difference once the other stones are placed.”
Candy acquiesced, and Big Jim hurried out of the gate and back to the front office. Ken and Shanny grabbed the pry bars, put them in the dolly behind the ATV, and drove back to the nursery yard. That left the three grunts standing together between the future rock garden and the pool. The twin Fontana daughters were in string bikinis, sitting in lounge chairs, each reading Tiger Beat Magazine.
Candy Fontana came sashaying over and put her hand on Daryl’s arm.
“So strong… I bet you could have rolled that stone all by yourself!”
“No ma'am, it was too heavy for just one person.”
“Oh, pooh. You’re just being modest. Stay a minute, and I’ll bring out some cold lemonade.”
“Uh, we should get back to work, ma’am…”
Candy pooched her ruby-red lips into a pout and batted her unnaturally long eyelashes.
“Well, okay… my door is always open. If I need anything else lifted, I know who to call on.”
“Uhm… goodbye, Mrs. Fontana.”
Chloe, Daryl, and Rory left the Fontana ladies to sunbathe and went in search of Kaz. Daryl kept shaking his head, and Rory started laughing when they were out of earshot of the Fontana house.
“Man, she is into you, buddy… You going back there?”
“Funny, Biggins… that’s all I need. And Chloe, you better not tell Maddie about this.”
“Why, Sealey? Nothing happened… she put her claw on your arm, is all. And what about you, Rory? You couldn’t keep your eyes off the daughters!”
“What!? You mean those junior high teenyboppers? I was waiting to see if Muscle Man would put the moves on the mom.”
Just then, Kaz appeared around a dolly full of hydrangeas and pointed toward a row of shrubs.
“No talk, pull weed.”
***
On the third Friday morning of August, Daryl requested the following Monday and Tuesday off to attend a family function. He was told by Olive Fontana, "Okay, but it might affect the amount of your bonus if you miss the two shifts." He grumbled about it all day and stormed into the office with Rory at the end of their shift.
“What the hell, Olive! You’re going to dock my bonus for two days off? It’s bad enough we’re treated like garbage here – no raises, no decent drinking water, can’t even talk to each other out back!”
“That’s Mrs. Fontana, son. For one thing, every employee is treated fairly and equally. The water situation is being investigated, and I am unaware of the no-talking policy. The bonuses serve as a substitute for raises. Hmm, let me check something… Ah, yes, it says here on my sheet you started work three days before Mr. Biggins, along with Miss Hartung. That being the case, with your two days of unpaid leave next week, your fifty-dollar bonus remains intact and will be added to your last paycheck. Satisfied, Mr. Sealey?”
“Can I get that in writing?”
“You have my word… Good evening, boys.”
As Daryl and Rory left the office, Daryl said quietly, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Come Monday, with Daryl off, Rory and Chloe had to pick up the slack and work a little faster at their assigned tasks. Kaz was with Shanny and Ken, dealing with a root rot problem in the tree field, and the cool, late-August morning passed peacefully. Lunch in the orchard had become a regular thing, and Chloe was there waiting when Rory ran up the weed-filled driveway. She had a Tupperware container today.
“Hey, partner. We should invite Kaz to join us for lunch… He’d lose his mind with all these weeds and rye grass.”
“Hey, Chloe… Yeah, Pull Weed would take on a whole new meaning. What’s in the Tupperware?”
“Fresh strawberries… Here, have some.”
“I thought strawberries were a June and July crop.”
“These are everbearing. My mom grows them in our backyard – this is the third, and sweetest cycle this season.”
Rory took a couple of berries, and she was right… They were sweet and juicy. Chloe moved a little closer and held out the container.
“Now feed me some.”
Rory did as she asked, and Chloe closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and let the berry juice run down her cheeks.
“Now kiss me… I want you to.”
Rory again did as she asked and was swept away into a sweet mixture of strawberries and the tender longing he had been feeling for Chloe all summer. They held each other as the late summer breeze coursed gently through the orchard, the only witness being a small, wild rabbit sitting on its haunches. The rabbit bolted through the tall grass when the pair uncoupled from their dreamlike, fragrant kiss, and they looked shyly at each other.
“I’ve wanted to do that ever since that day at the pool, Biggins.”
“I wanted to on my first day.”
“We'd better get back. Wouldn’t want to get docked a dime for being late.”
“No, that’s a grape soda lost.”
Chloe and Rory ran down the driveway and across the highway with their lunches uneaten, making it to the lean-to as the clock struck twelve. Kaz was waiting with an Old Gold smoldering between his teeth, and said with a smile: “Let’s go. Pull weed.”
Daryl was back on Wednesday, and the last week and a half for the three grunts went by uneventfully. On their last day, the Friday before Labor Day weekend, Kaz came over to Rory a few minutes before he clocked out.
“You come back next summer?”
“Not sure, Kaz, we’ll see.”
“Start weak, finish strong. Good worker.”
“Thanks, Kaz… That means a lot.”
Kaz nodded and flicked an Old Gold butt into the dusty path before walking back to attend to the fruit trees.
The final paychecks, including the summer crew's bonuses, would be ready for pickup on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Daryl and Maddie were camping, and Daryl was coming back on Wednesday to see if Olive made good on her promise. He and Rory exchanged phone numbers, and the friends shook hands goodbye. Rory and Chloe agreed to meet back at Fontana’s on Tuesday. At least she has that old Corvair, thought Rory. I’ll be walking until I can cash that check.
When Rory got home, his dad was waiting for him in the driveway, standing next to a 1966 three-on-the-floor, small-block V8 Mustang with for-shit metallic blue paint.
“What, you bought the Mustang? Cruiser was saving it for me!”
“Hold your horses, kiddo… Yes, I paid for the car, and you can pay me back next week.
Cruiser called me at work and said he had it tuned up, the oil changed, and I had him put four new tires on. They were an extra fifty, but that’s on me. Didn’t want you driving around on baldies.”
“Gosh, thanks, Dad… I don’t know what to say.”
“Come on in the house, we’re eating early tonight.”
***
On Tuesday morning, Rory saddled up the Mustang and drove to the Nursery, hoping Chloe would be there waiting. When he pulled into the front, she was walking out of the office with an envelope, saw him parked, and approached his rolled-down window.
“What, you already picked up your check?”
“Nah, my dad fronted me the money – I’ll pay him back today.”
“Nice ride… Except for the paint.”
“I’ll get my paycheck, then let’s go for a spin.”
“Spin the bottle?”
“Something like that… I’ll grab a grape soda on the way out.”
While Rory collected his final paycheck, Chloe retrieved a strawberry-filled Tupperware container from her Corvair, then slid into the passenger seat of the 1966 three-on-the-floor, small-block V8 Mustang with chipped and peeling metallic blue paint.
The Piker Press moderates all comments.
Click here for the commenting policy.