Kalvin, a man who barely reached five feet of height, mowed the beaches of Cape Cod every evening at six. I watched him for fun after the state of Massachusetts confiscated my hound, Cherry. Instead of walking her at night, I trekked the mile from my small house down to the coast and listened to Kalvin hum bluegrass tunes while he trimmed what he must have believed was his God-given lawn.
The funny thing about his mowing the sand was if he had ever tried to use the thing on his actual lawn, the blades would’ve been too dull to cut the grass. Kalvin lived in a shack in my overgrown backyard. Accepting his presence was the condition for the low rent my landlord offered. He couldn’t tell me how long he had been there and admitted the shack was the oldest thing on the property. It was secluded enough that I didn’t mind.
Kalvin wasn’t a nuisance unless I came home on days that he exercised. I would pull into the driveway while he did burpees in the weeds, and before I knew it, he was shouting, “I’m the world’s shortest Marine,” and wouldn’t pipe down until he finished exercising. I tried my best to be quiet when going inside after work, but he always seemed to know when I had gone and returned, making it permissible, in his mind, to be loud.
The few conversations I had with him went about as one would expect. I asked him where he was from, what he did, and why he moved to the cape. After introducing himself again as the world’s shortest Marine, Kalvin described to me his decades of service in the Middle East. “They wouldn’t let me go. I was too good for them. They made me a sniper once. Over two hundred kills. Chris Kyle had nothing on me.”
He talked like an old Southern man, almost stereotypically twangy. “Nice dog you got there.” He gestured to Cherry who lazed between us. The grass tickled her large ears. “I bet she’s the love of your life.” He slapped his thigh and keeled over breathlessly. I shrugged, supposing that she was all that I had. I hadn’t had much since finishing university.
Massachusetts was hundreds of miles from my hometown, which resulted in a heap of student debt and nowhere to live. But with a determination to stay in the north, I rented a shack not unlike Kalvin’s and began working various bookkeeping jobs until I met my current boss and moved into a nicer place. I used to think about my family everyday, but now, I couldn’t say whether they called me or not.
The government took Cherry when they found out I didn’t have a license for her. Dog-catchers must have been sweeping the area, checking for dogs without tags, and stumbled across her playing in the lawn. What disturbed me the most was how concealed she would have been if they caught her outside. Cherry never left the overgrown lawn, so the catchers must have crossed into my property and chased her down. After taking her, they left a surprisingly informal note, a scribbled-on yellow sheet, advising me to call some government number. When I called, they asked me to please be patient and stay on the line. They left my landline on hold for a week.
During this week, my interest in Kalvin increased. I wouldn’t call myself active in the local community or a social bug, but I did enjoy watching people, and Kalvin was a dream come true for people-watchers because he didn’t seem like a real person. When I asked my landlord about him, he told me how during their negotiations for the shack, Kalvin said he would pay whatever the landlord wanted, so he doubled its price.
“Isn’t that exploitation?” I asked.
“Don’t you have better things to do than ask me about this?” I wasn’t quite sure if I did.
Kalvin’s shack had enough room for a bed and a desk. Nothing else could have reasonably fit in there. One time in the early evening, I looked through his glassless window and saw the interior’s extent. He slept in a sleeping bag on a crooked carpet with a desk above him that provided shade from the sun peeking through the ceiling’s holes. On the desk was a radio that played bluegrass whenever he wasn’t around. I had overestimated the size of the shack. There was only enough room for his desk, which blocked the door and explained why he crawled through the window. It reminded me of my father’s office. When I was little, I looked through the window and asked if he would talk to me. He always waved me off, told me he was working. I was never sure on what.
A week later, I asked my landlord if he would consider giving Kalvin a window. He shrugged and asked for my rent. Then he walked to the shack and stuck his arm through the hole, withdrawing from it a couple of crumpled bills.
I never approached him when he mowed the beach because I felt like it would be an intrusion to interrupt him. He didn’t acknowledge me. Sometimes I walked in the opposite direction and circled back to see him still at it, pushing his full weight into the cutter, howling at the horizon.
“Have you gotten any news about Cherry yet?” my boss asked. She leaned against the doorway to my office. I worked as the bookkeeper for her rental/repair business. She rented out power tools and trucks to local contractors. We were small, but she had built up quite the inventory. I didn’t enjoy running numbers, but it was something to do.
“They won’t pick up the phone. I’m thinking of going to animal control tomorrow.” I tried to swivel my chair but remembered it was wooden.
My boss never entered my office. She stood a distance away from my desk and drew me closer with her words. “If you need the day off, you can take it. We’re slow this week.” Our offices were in a townhome, housing only four employees and herself. A massive shed on the back of the property contained the tools, and half a dozen trucks sat in the untrimmed grass.
I waved her off. “I’ll be coming in tomorrow unless you let me take you on a date instead.”
She sighed. “I‘ve been through this with you. I don’t date coworkers,” she said, noticing the grin on my face. “And I don’t date locals either so don’t even think about quitting.” I turned my chair back and eased the anxiety that churned in my stomach. We wouldn’t have worked out anyway, I told myself. It was the lesson dating in university had taught me.
I both found and lost Cherry while on a walk. It was why I didn’t have a license for her. My idea of a stray dog was that of a scrapper, a malnourished pup with matted hair and rabid eyes. When I saw Cherry walking past me on the street, I thought she was someone else’s dog. She walked with so much confidence that she nearly galloped. I looked away but eventually felt her on my heels, trotting behind like she’d known me her whole life.
I sat on my porch in the evenings, watching the sun draw the light back from the beach. I could only see a few bits of sand through the thick trees and loose suburbia.
I knew Kalvin was coming around the house from the sound of the weeds. They scratched against themselves and the man. Every now and then, I joked that Kalvin would get lost in the lawn because the weeds had grown so tall. The man truly was short, and seeing him from the porch only emphasized this.
“Do you need something?” I asked. I had a beer in my hand and placed it behind my chair so he wouldn’t notice it. I was surprised to see him. He normally mowed the beach at this hour.
“Nothing in particular.” He spoke like somebody who didn’t want to ask for the thing they had come to ask for. He had a thin rectangular sleeve tucked under his arm. His hands were in his pockets, and he dryly whistled into the humid air. I asked him what he had there. “Oh, this?” He turned his baseball cap around and scratched the back of his neck. “It’s just a couple of old records. You listen to records?”
“I have a player inside.”
“Want to put them on?”
I waited a minute. He shuffled around and itched himself some more. I invited him inside. He hesitated at the door and put one foot inside like he was testing the waters. He never eased up during his time over. I offered him a drink, he thanked me, and I almost forgot the strangeness of the man until he slapped the record sleeve on my kitchen table and said, “I listened to these tunes back in the Middle East while I was shooting Hajis in disguise.”
I winced and said, “So what is it you listen to then? Any of the same garbage that you hum?”
Kalvin didn’t seem to notice the slight. “The big guys for sure. Monroe. Flatt and Scruggs. The Osborne Brothers. Fantastic stuff.” He ruffled through the half a dozen or so records he had. He wasn’t delicate with them, and I could see scratches from where I stood at the other side of the room.
“Boy, let me tell you. When I was your age, and when I had a record player, I was revered. The shortest boy anyone knew, yet I could take down the whole lot of boys my age. You’re what…just graduated? You should join the military. The Marines. You have the build. You look motivated enough. Well, maybe not motivated, but you’re capable is what I’m getting at.”
I opened my mouth to try to shut him up. My father had said similar things. He told me I should strive to be like him, take notes on his ambition. Being a man is about responsibility and taking care of others, he said. He nudged my mother who agreed without looking up from the half-knit scarf in her hands.
“What do you do around here anyway? You oughta go out and do something, boy. You ain’t even killed someone and you call yourself a man. My Pa didn’t tell me I was grown until I came back after three years and thirty kills.”
“Can you stop talking about how many people you killed?” I rubbed my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to look at him.
“I guess you’re one of those folks. That’s disappointing. Too queasy are you? My Pa knocked that queasiness right outta me. I better get you used to it.”
“No, you will not.” I looked at him now. “You’re not going to tell me how many kills you’ve gotten or describe the brutal deaths of children who were forced into wartime because we decided to invade them.”
Kalvin inhaled, bent over and clapped his hands together, and spoke on his exhale. “Well, I ain’t talking to you anymore.” He stood up and took his cap off. “You can keep the records.” He went to the door.
“I don’t want them.”
Kalvin waved to me on his way out and ignored the sleeve I threw back at him.
“I said you didn’t have to come in today.” My boss kicked off the doorframe and crossed her arms at me.
“I don’t need your sympathy. I’m glad to be here.”
Her smile diminished. “You don’t look like you are.”
“It’s damn hot out, the beaches are full of junk, and that stupid veteran waltzed into my house and ticked me off.” I never looked at the person I was complaining to.
“Did you get a call back?”
“I’m still on hold.”
“Are you going to go in?”
“I can’t go in because I’m here.”
“I already said you could go.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Unless I ‘go out with you.’ You’d leave then, wouldn’t you?”
“It wouldn’t work out anyway.”
“That attitude is exactly the reason you’re alone.” I sneered and slammed my laptop shut. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We’ve been slow this week is all.”
I felt Cherry’s absence most sorely while in bed. Since she left, I hadn’t slept on my mattress. Instead, I opted to preserve the last of her shedded hair and the wrinkles she left in the sheets. But even when I slept on the couch, I could feel where she used to rest, where her side met mine. The feeling was familiar, the closeness. I had been with a few women in college, but I could hardly remember any of them now. I couldn’t distinguish one from the other.
I hadn’t seen Kalvin in a few days partly because I decided to stop walking to the beach. Instead, I sat on my porch as if to defend my home. Every now and then, I looked through Kalvin’s window to see if he was there, and sometimes, I called out his name and threatened to contact our landlord if he kept it up. Eventually, I figured he had moved out, and I wasn’t sure if I was glad or disappointed.
Going to animal control yielded nothing, and they couldn’t even advise me on getting in contact with the state. They admitted that finding her was a “lost cause.” What a way to soften the news. I asked my boss if I could have a few days off, and she obliged.
When Kalvin turned back up, he carried a vintage tape deck I’d never seen before. He hummed along to the same bluegrass songs he always played. He walked right by my porch with tiny old-school headphones on, pushing his lawn mower across the ground, weed-filled dirt catching in its treads. Having hardly slept at all recently, I drifted off in my porch chair and dreamt of Cherry. I woke up when Kalvin returned some hours later in the night. He lifted a brown and dirty bottle to the moon and stepped onto my porch. I couldn’t protest.
“Would you like a sip? Come on, have one. Take a sip.” He brought the bottle to my lips. Fluid flowed over the dirt crusted rim, tasting bitter and earthy. I coughed.
“You ever had a woman?” he said. “I had a woman. We cheated on each other when I became a Marine. You interested in anyone? Sure you are. Tell me about her.”
My voice was gravelly. My mouth tasted like sweat and gasoline. “I’m in love with my boss.” Kalvin sipped through a smirk. “But I pissed her off the other day.”
“Sure you did. What’s she like?”
“She’s kind. She employs me.”
“That’s it?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I ought to be in love with somebody. It’s been too long.”
“You don’t oughta do shit, boy. Christ, take another sip.” I took the bottle in my hand this time.
“I ought to do something.”
“Join the military.”
“Christ, will you stop with that and all of the killing business? I’ll kick you off my porch if you say another word about it.”
Kalvin turned in his chair and snatched the bottle from me. “Listen here, I know that you think what I did over there was wrong and that killing people isn’t justifiable. But at least I did my duty. At least I cared about something.” My mouth dried up as he spoke.
He sat back down and sipped for a minute in silence. He appeared to look around intently. “Tell me about Cherry.”
I was surprised he remembered her name. I cleared my throat. “I found her when I was out running one day. I can’t quite remember what I did back then, what I was thinking, or what I wanted.”
“Here, have another sip.” I took the bottle and drank and thought about telling him to leave, that he wouldn’t be allowed near me anymore. I handed the bottle back.
“But when Cherry showed up, I guess I stopped caring about all those things. Now that she’s gone, it’s all coming back.” I squinted in the direction of the beach. I couldn’t see anything while clouds covered the moon. “You know, you sound like my father. He always told me to be like him. ‘You have no ambition,’ he said. So of course he loved hearing that I was going to school up here, but when he found out it wasn’t well known, wasn’t prestigious, he lost it. Now I’m doing busywork in an office as small as your shack. I don’t doubt he was right about it all.”
He seemed a lot bigger in the dark. “It’s beautiful around here though, isn’t it?”
I didn’t respond at first. Then the question I’d been holding back for years burst forth. “Why do you mow the beach?”
“Because it’s something I like doing. And it’s a little crazy, don’t you think?” He keeled over and laughed a full laugh.
I finished off the bottle and exhaled death. I could see a speck of moonlit sand now that some leaves had fallen. I pictured the length of the beach, unobstructed by the tree line. I laughed with Kalvin. I brought out more drinks, and we talked until morning
Eventually, he stumbled down the porch steps, his silhouette against the sky, and pushed through the weeds toward his shack. His muddy lawn mower sat in the grass like a mossed-over relic. The shack was distant and small. He clutched the frame of the window and hoisted himself through and disappeared.
Many years later, I would think about this period, of Cherry, of Kalvin, of my boss, and recall that I had nothing to do, no sense of duty or responsibility. It was like my father had said. I had no ambition. I realized that there was a vast sadness in that, a vast nothingness. For the longest time, I thought that feeling of nothingness was a sign that I was going in the right direction, living nobly and different from my father, different from people like Kalvin. I thought I was free from what everyone else regarded as a confined life full of responsibilities. It took me some years, a job that did something for people, a partner to call out my detachment, for me to understand that I hadn’t been free then, that it had been the opposite the whole time.
