WEN: 096A33
Exhibitor Name: Daniella Smith
Division: Creative Writing--
Class: 04 Short Stories (
0400 - By Daniella Smith
11 Aug 1994 - 1400 hours I could barely hear Wyatt’s shouting over the whirring of the lawnmower. He wasn’t yelling at me, I quickly realized - I could discern who or what he was yelling at. Usually, if he were to yell at me (which was the only way he would ever address me), he would make sure I was in his line of sight and me in his. “Up close and personal,” Marie would dub this behavior. As much as her joking tone diffused the severity of Wyatt’s habits, she wasn’t wrong. One time during a stifling hot Nevadan afternoon, I was instructed by Wyatt to cut the bushes in his front lawn. A slight slip of my pruning shears had resulted in one plant being more uneven than the others. Always looking for an opportunity to scold me, Wyatt jumped from his worn lawn chair and brusquely took the shears from my gloved hands and spit on my face as he yelled, threatening to snip a large chunk of my hair. No, he wasn’t yelling at me now. I kept on mowing, but instead of focusing on the path ahead of me, I glanced in Wyatt’s direction. He was directing his anger toward the front door, where it was slightly ajar. A slim, pale hand was clutching the frame, but I couldn't see the rest of whoever was inside the house. I didn’t know if Wyatt had a spouse or not, or lived with anyone. I’ve never actually ventured into his house before: whether it was from nerves or fear, I didn’t know. But, I had a pretty good idea of what the interior looked like if it was anything like the exterior: drooping rustic awnings; shotgun shells and cigarette butts littering the perimeter; wooden steps leading up to the porch snapped in half. If someone did live with Wyatt - which was highly unlikely, since I couldn’t even stand the sight of him - they would probably be in a constant state of discomfort. I voiced this opinion to Marie over a glass of iced tea once, and she simply shook her head as if to say: what can you do? Nothing, I suppose. Grim curiosity urged me to shut off the lawnmower so that I could hear Wyatt clearly. I didn’t, knowing what would happen if I did: bloodied nose, pay reduction. He kept shouting, and I kept mowing the lawn. However, I was paying more attention to the front door than I was before. The pale hand didn’t retreat; in fact, the figure behind the door was shifting more and more out the door, until I could finally see a red heel poking out of the doorframe. I was nearly finished mowing his front lawn. A sole patch of yellowed grass was left, adjacent to the chain-link fence that ran around the house’s perimeter. As I approached the fraction of grass, the metallic roar of the
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