When the past comes calling

Debbie Jacob

MY ARTIST friend Greer Jones-Woodham said she had the solution to my gardening problem.

“Emanuel showed up in the neighbourhood looking for work and cleaned my yard. He’s excellent – a bit slow, but you’ll like him,” Greer promised.

The next day, I arrived by Greer at 12.30 to pick up Emanuel.

Greer had left out an important detail about him. Emanuel, with his long beard, single hoop earring and track shoes, was much older than expected. He was thin, but not frail. In his favour, he looked sturdy, upright and strong. I asked, “How old is he?”

“Seventy-three, but don’t worry,” Greer said.

Emanuel had packed a rake, sheers and umbrella on his bicycle and strapped his weed wacker vertically between the handlebars. He couldn’t transfer his gear to my car, so Greer did it.

I made small talk as we drove away, but Emanuel wouldn’t speak. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar.

He settled into cutting a two-foot-square patch of grass outside the gate. Fifteen minutes later, he had not budged.

I coaxed him into the yard.

Greer called to check on me.

“I feel like throttling you,” I said.

“I’m coming over,” she said.

Emanuel’s weed wacker sounded like a car revving its engine as he cut the grass in a semicircle. Then came silence.

“Emanuel, are you in the back of the house?” I shouted from the gallery.

“Yesss,” he said.

The word came out long and strong like a rumbling earthquake. It was the first word he spoke. Nobody ever tackled that concrete jungle on the eastern side and back of my house where weeds grew out of the cement, so I was surprised Emanuel did it without my asking.

I offered water, tea and a cheese sandwich, but Emanuel refused everything with a firm, “Noooo.”

He reminded me of Bartleby the Scrivener from a Herman Melville short story, but instead of saying, “I prefer not to,” as Bartleby did, Emanuel just said, “Yes” or “No.”

Greer and I watched from the gallery as he cut the front lawn. He had disappeared into his work the way artists and writers do when in a state of flow.

“He never looks up,” Greer said.

Greer headed home. At 6.30 pm, I insisted Emanuel stop working. He had been sweeping up every blade of grass he cut. When I turned my back to close the house gate, Emanuel disappeared. I found him crouched in the front yard, clearing a spot where the lawn had grown into the drain.

“Did you always do this work?” I asked.

“Yehh,” he said in his sing-song voice.

“Did you ever work with anyone else?"

“Noooooo.”

“Do you like this work?”

“Yehhh.”

“Why?

“I love agriculture.”

“Everyone but you butchers my yard,” I said.

“For some people, it’s a hustle,” he said.

His voice reminded me of the Mighty Popo, a calypsonian and character from bygone Carnivals. With excitement and pride, Emanuel said, "I always had two weed wackers. I bought a new one every Christmas.”

Emanuel said he worked every day except Saturday.

When we got into the car, I asked how much I owed him. He gave me the same answer he gave Greer, “Whatever you want to give.”

I hadn’t expected his slow, methodical pace and six hours of work for a yard that others spent 20 minutes cutting, so I sheepishly handed him all the money I had, a measly $260, and promised myself I’d make amends when he returned in two weeks as promised, though he has no phone for me to remind him.

Emanuel took the money without counting it and ate the cheese sandwich. At Greer’s house, I asked, “Will you eat a meal at home?”

“Noooo,” he said as he strapped all his equipment to the bicycle. “I will make a cup of shining bush tea.”

“Are you married?” Greer asked.

“Not yet,” he said.

Emanuel turned and walked the bicycle down the hill.

“Just when you think all is not well in this country, this man from the East Dry River walks into our yards like a mythological creature who showed up to help us. Sometimes the past comes calling and offers larger-than-life characters with big hearts and few words,” said Greer.

“Where do we find people like Emanuel who care so much about their work?” I asked.

Greer shrugged. “You can’t find them. They find you. When they do, you just have to appreciate them and remind yourself that such people exist.”

Emanuel turned a corner and disappeared into the night.