Based on a true story.

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Although he never smoked it, Harry Musterman loved grass; the other kind—the monocotyledon herbaceous plants whose seeds were sown around his house after the native flora that thrived in the fertile sod and attracted insect life and never needed mowing was plowed up. 

Harry obsessed over his grass—mowed three times a week; five times a week after retirement.  At 9:30 am.  Underneath the bedroom window across the street of a young couple who both worked second. Romeo and Juliet v. Briggs and Stratton. His yard was thick and plush, Augusta National, a perfect match to the wall-to-wall, deep-pile green shag purchased at CarpetLand in the Paradise City mall.  His wife Nell could have vacuumed inside and out. 

Harry enjoyed golf—not so much for the thrill of smacking a little dimpled ball into a hole in the ground, but for the 18 beautiful manicured fairways of Bermuda grass, overseeded each fall with rye grass so that the rhizomes (underground stems) and stolons (aboveground stems) can form a denseness that crowds out weeds and heals quickly after heavy foot traffic, come spring.  

Acres and acres of God’s magnificent wall-to-wall, deep-pile green shag.  The spikes on his shoes tickled the blades, and that tickled Harry.  The bentgrass putting greens were like walking across sponges, although the pleasure messed with his focus on tapping the little dimpled ball into a hole in the ground.  He watched the Golf channel just to watch the grass grow.   

Harry watched other outdoor sports on tv, too—not so much to ooh! and aah! over a catch, or a hit, or a score, but to ooh! and aah! over the logo-cut outfields and the green-turfed surfaces in wintertime marked off in one-yard grids.  

God, his Creator, gave the world 780 genera and 12,000 species of grass to be mowed, fertilized, watered, aerated, sprayed, blown, and combed.  God, his Creator, invited Harry Musterman to shop CarpetLand in the real Paradise City mall on May 3, 1999.  Nell, a year later, came up to browse.

Romeo and Juliet worked hard, survived, and grew creaky together, unlike their literary namesakes. Now, he felt as old as King Lear, with the destitute and crazy parts erased, and was sick of trudging up and down the yard (sometimes diagonally to break up the sweaty monotony) pushing a mower in 21” swathes for the past 33 years.  Like old King Lear, he would have divided his property between his two daughters—had he and Juliet had had two daughters—and let them tend to the damn grass while he sat on the front porch and smoked a bowl of the other green flora in retirement.

For Romeo’s 67th birthday, Juliet surprised her long-time lover, worn out and sick-of-the-damn-lawn-that-always-needed-tended-to, with a robot mower; why not, they had one inside that did their carpets that were definitely not wall-to-wall deep-pile green shag and it saved a lot of time and energy.

The Monagues set the wire perimeter with pins and let the robot rip.  They named it Harry, in memory of their long-dead neighbor who loved mowing so much.  Harry, the machine, could mow 24/7; maybe Harry, their long-dead neighbor, was mowing 24/7 somewhere in Paradise City.

Harry, the landscaping wonder of cutting-edge technology programmed with artificial intelligence algorithms, did great and was fun to watch, doing grass like his indoor cousin did dog hair and lint. It replaced the two Lear daughters that were never conceived; even “went home” on its own, parked and recharged itself.  

The old king smiled, took his pipe, and relaxed on the porch, only having to fetch the wonder whenever Harry slid down the hell strip from the sidewalk, just past the perimeter wire.  Even after adding spikes (“golf shoes”) to the wheels, Harry still slid nearly to the pavement and had to be fetched every once in a while.  Tough job to handle when the temperature and the humidity were equally in the eighties.  No sweat.

Harry didn’t have much time to recharge whenever heavy spring rains were followed by heavy spring sunshine. Or in August and crabgrass season, and fell a day or two behind trimming the back yard of the double-lot fiefdom, so the Lears bought another mowing robot. Of course, named it Nell. Each was corralled by its own perimeter wire. Harry did the front fiefdom, Nell, the eighth of an acre that faces the alley.  Close, but not too close.  Like their long dead neighbors.

Last June, ancient Romeo was relaxing on the lower balcony, feeling indica lazy, when Nell came propelling around the corner of the castle, somehow jumping its perimeter wire that narrowly separated the two mowers.  He would fetch the 21-pound machine all the way back to the eighth of an acre that faces the alley in a minute, but hell, he felt too relaxed to even do that.  Let the wayward robot join Harry on a joint mow, something the dead neighbors never did, and he would enjoy the leisure of watching them do something together, for once.

Harry was golfing on the hell strip, trimming up and down the slope between the sidewalk and the highway, shoes dug in deep, straddling the perimeter wire to keep in-bounds.  

Nell, zig-zagging over the tufts Harry had missed, seemed angry. Then she snapped 90 degrees towards him, coming full-force ahead, rear-ending him so hard that he jumped the perimeter wire past the hell strip and rolled out onto the pavement.  Then continued rolling across the highway into the dead neighbors’ yard.  And began mowing.  And mowed.  And mowed. With a battery that never died like the dead neighbors did.  King Lear penciled back in the crazy part of his personality when he got the robot’s notification on his watch that read: WENT HOME, HARRY. 

Call it what you will—the Force, the Matrix, God, the Old Man in the Cave, the Tree of Life, the Spring of all Knowledge—it, and its bitchy sister, Karma, have their cosmic ways of working. Reincarnation. A recycling of souls, as it were.

Some folks may not have a pleasant second chance; may never find their perfect life after this one.  Others do.  Paupers come back as kings.  Sadists come back as peace-makers.  Quadriplegics come back as dolphins.  Those abused with a lifetime of suffering come back as pampered pets.  Beaten welps come back as mental health professionals. The cosmic way of working does not discriminate between man and beast; their souls are interchangeable.  Newly created artificial intelligence is now included in that non-discriminatory soulful interchange.  Harry Musterman’s spirit is home and happy and mowing; Nell’s soul is still limited by her perimeter wire, which is close, but not too close.

Hopefully, we all will get our own pleasant second chance; our own perfect life after this one. Reborn as a happy human. Or a spoiled fur baby. Or downloaded into a wonder of cutting-edge technology.  The challenging part might be getting there.  Sometimes a nudge or two might be needed.

By CraigE