A short story about springtime and garden centers, and who you might meet there...
A Monumental Idea
By Jillyson Zack
She’s back again. I knew she couldn’t stay away. It’s the third time she’s been here this week. Thinks she’s a real Aphrodite, but I can see the Medusa underneath. Nah, Medusa’s not quite right. Give me a minute and I’ll figure it out. What? A big lug like me can’t know about mythology? I’ll have you know in my line of work, it’s pretty important to know your Gods and Goddesses. After all, no one wants a statue of Peyton Manning in their gardens. It’s all about mythology.
Just look at her, hanging around my statues. She thinks if she plays hard to get, that I’ll come down on my price. Well, no way, sister. I’m an artist, and if you want art, you gotta pay. Now she’s running her hand down that fountain like she’s petting a cat. Not gonna work, honey. Is that supposed to turn me on? Maybe make me chisel you a one-of-a-kind granite marvel to watch over all the parties you’ll throw on the grounds of your estate? The kind of parties someone like me would never be invited to? Not gonna happen.
You think you’re so much better than me. The real problem with people like you is jealousy. You could never create the things that I do. All your money, it can’t buy you a gift like mine. You come into a garden center, dressed like you’re going to a Broadway play, like that makes you someone special. Why? So everyone can see you got money to burn. And, after you show off your giant wad of cash, you play these coy little games to get me to come down on a price that you can more than afford. Well guess what, princess. You picked the wrong guy to play this game with.
Don’t get me wrong. I see a nice average family who clearly saved up for something a real long time, I cut them a break. They work hard. They should have something nice for that, but for this flashy broad? Not a chance. Maybe flirting and pouting works for her any other day, but not today.
So now, she’s over there, hanging all over the boss. Like she’d really put out for him if he gets me to knock the price down. If he really believes that, then he’s a bigger idiot than I thought. Well, I guess he’s not that big an idiot. He figured out a way to take credit for my art without having an ounce of skill of his own.
“Sure, Tony. I’ll let you show your stuff at my place,” he says to me. “I’ll contract all my stonework out to you. That kind of exposure ain’t free, Tony. All I’m looking for is a small percentage, just like any good manager would get for hooking you up with work.”
At least I was smart enough to keep the final say on pricing my work, and veto power over any job I don’t want to take. So here’s the deal; he gets to show my patios, retaining walls, ponds, barbeques, and my hand-carved statues and fountains in his T.V. commercials, and I get to say who gets them and how much they pay. Oh yeah, plus I get to give the man a cut of the profit once I’m done busting my ass; such a deal. But it’s a living, and an honest one; not like Miss I’m-so-hot-you-should-give-me-everything-I-want over there. Oh, great. Here they come.
“Tony! I’m going to give you the rest of the day off to take care of Ms. Carmichael.” LoPresti walks her over to me, practically singing the words like he’s doing me some kind of favor; like he’s got any authority over me.
‘Give me the day off’ he says. I wouldn’t even be here today if I didn’t have to price out a driveway job.
Before I can remind LoPresti that I don’t work for him, I work with him, the dizzy blond butts in with, "That's Miss Carmichael.” This broad’s a real piece of work.
Yes, let’s make sure that everyone knows you’re more than willing to give up having a husband and kids to be a big shot business woman. I guess the super-short skirt of your little gray suit doesn’t say it loud enough. Believe me, honey. No husband would let you walk out of the house looking like that.
I cross my arms and raise an eyebrow. When I get this customer out of the way, I’m gonna refresh the little gargoyle’s memory about who brings in the real money here, big time.
I guess the look shakes him up, because he changes his tone. “She loves what you do, Tony, but she’s just not finding that one perfect item that would complete her yard. I told her you’d be glad to show her your more unique items - you know, the things you have at home.” LoPresti at least has the nerve to look embarrassed when he drops this little bombshell.
“Oh you did, did you?” I ask. My tone lets him know he way overstepped his bounds on this one. Nobody comes to my place unless I invite them there. I push the question of how LoPresti knows what I have in my yard to the back for now. I don’t conduct personal business in front of a potential customer, and this gal must’ve really whipped out some big bucks to make him act this way with me. So I turn my attention to her.
I tell her, “I’m sorry if there was some misunderstanding, Ma’am, but the work at my home is not for sale. If there’s something special you’re looking for, maybe you can give me some details and I can sketch out a plan for you.”
She looks me over like I’m some big dumb mouth-breather who isn’t fit to shine her pointy stiletto shoes. I can see her stereotyping me. She sees my dark, curly Italian hair, sun-creased face, strong calloused hands; clearly, a man who works outdoors for a living.
Her eyes move on to my clothes; my faded denim button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up, dark blue jeans with powder from the stonework all over them, worn but sturdy work boots. In order to get what she wants she’s simply going to have to deal with me. I can see the exact moment on her face when she decides there’s no other way.
“The problem is I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for. I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it. It can’t be like anything else out there. It has to be one-of-a-kind.” Well, at least the lovely Miss Carmichael is no puzzle. She’s as completely stupid as she looks, in her tiny little “business” suit, a shiny blue dress shirt with a neckline cut down to her belly-button - as if putting a gray blazer over the top of it makes it OK to dress like a bimbo. Dumb broad leaves nothing to the imagination. She walks towards me, her heels so high she can hardly keep her balance in the garden center’s gravel lot.
I look down at her and say, “Miss Carmichael, if I were able to show you a piece of my own, that would mean I’ve already created it, see? If I made the same one for you, it wouldn’t be one-of-a-kind, now would it?” I tell her this in a slow manner, like someone explaining something to a stupid child. I fight back a belly laugh as LoPresti shoots me daggers with his big, round, gargoyle eyes.
“But surely, you can show her some pieces that would give her an idea that she could apply to a different, unique item.” Boy, LoPresti just won’t let up. How much dough is this broad claiming she’s willing to dump on this, anyway? Now I’m really getting steamed. Fine, I’ll take her home, but LoPresti and me are gonna have some words when I get back.
***
I pull into my drive, after experiencing the joy of a ten minute-turned-thirty minute drive from LoPresti Garden Center. Blondie is afraid she’ll ruin her pretty little outfit in my work truck, and just as afraid that my work clothes will leave behind a trail of lower-class cooties in her Jaguar, so she decides to follow my truck on her own. Thank God that’s over with! One more minute of having to pull over and wait to catch sight of the spoiled little witch in my mirror, and I’d have to back my truck right over the top of her little toy car.
She gets out, takes one look at my house, and wrinkles her nose like she smells something bad. Suddenly, I’m glad she has her own car here, because that means once I show her my stuff, she can get the hell back over to her own side of town.
“Right this way,” I say, directing her up the driveway to the back yard.
Now here’s where doing what I do really pays off. My yard is beautiful. That sounds conceited, I know, but the space is landscaped perfectly. Every inch is used to its best advantage.
Little islands of exotic plants and stonework dot the privacy fence, with the greenest lawn this side of Heaven in between. There’s a garden for a quiet dinner for two, plus a patio for a party of twenty or better. The coolest outdoor fireplace-slash-barbeque that has ever been built by human hands lives there. In a quiet corner of the lot is a fully stocked Koi pond. I work hard, so I want a nice place to kick back and recharge. I even built a really great horseshoe pitch. What man could want more?
Then there’s my favorite spot of all; a garden for relaxing, with a pair of hammocks by a bubbling fountain. OK, the fountain isn’t there yet, but it will be soon. A giant chunk of granite, a blank, sits in a small pile of rubble from my false starts at trying to capture the soul of the stone. That’s the final project, and I’m working it on now. Or rather I wish I was, instead of wasting my day with this snotty rich supermodel wannabe who probably won’t buy a thing anyway.
It’s the perfect yard for a couple to relax or entertain. Why should the fact that I’m single right now stop me from planning for the future? Someday, when I’m not so busy with my work, I’ll find someone to share it all with. But for now, I have to pollute my sanctuary, my perfect world, with the likes of this woman. That same, sour look is back on her face as she walks through the gate into my yard.
“I thought there’d be, you know, more.” She looks around, as if she somehow missed a showroom on her way back here.
“This is my home. I live here,” I remind her. “The work that I show to people is back at the garden center.”
“I see.” She says and looks away. The same way a cop who knows what you did says “I see,” when they don’t believe a word you’re saying, but can’t prove a thing.
“Look. Let’s try this a different way,” I tell her. “Are you looking for a statue? A fountain? A planter?” Sometimes you can coax an idea out of someone by tossing out some options. Of course, the person you’re tossing to should have a fully functioning brain for that to work.
“I was thinking I’ll need several pieces.” She says. “I want to have a monument garden done to commemorate each one of my achievements. Something to represent when I graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Business, something to commemorate my very first company making the Fortune 500, something to show the date I made my first million. Do you see why these pieces have to be unique and special?” Miss Carmichael turns her big blue eyes to me, and I see some sign of life in them for the first time all day.
Of course, for someone like her, talking about herself would be the highlight of her day. Of all the conceited ideas I ever heard, a monument to your own achievements has to be at the top of the list, but hey, it’s her money, right?
So, I tell her, “Sure, we can mix it up; one thing can be represented by a statue, another by a fountain, maybe one by a garden…you see what I’m saying? That way, each one is special and won’t blend in with the others. Why don’t you take a walk through the yard and look at some of my gardens. There’s statues hidden around in some of them that might give you a few ideas.”
She looks at me and says, “This better not be a waste of my time! I’m a very busy woman, Mr. Muletti.” Then, she moves along to the gardens.
‘A waste of her time,’ she says to me. She insults my best stuff… in my own home. I’m watching her walk along, turning her nose up at every single one of my best pieces like she’s at a flea market instead of an art gallery. Yeah, LoPresti and me…we’re gonna have some words.
Now, of all the finished, beautifully landscaped gardens I have in this yard, where do you think she ends up? Right smack in the middle of the under-construction relaxation garden, of course. She about breaks her neck on the rubble around my granite blank for the fountain. Since I already have some basic chiseling done, there’s rocks and debris all over the place. Not to mention, there’s plenty of sharp places on the blank itself that I haven’t worked down yet. I watch her wobble, and my quick reflexes send me her way in a hurry to catch her.
“What’s the matter with you?” she yells, steadying herself on the blank before I get to her. “Don’t you dare touch me! How can you leave a mess like this lying around for someone to fall over? I should sue you for everything you’ve got!”
OK. My patience has run out. I don’t care how much money this self-centered princess plans to shell out on this monument to her utterly perfect self. She’s outta here.
I yell at her, “Look, you come into my home, you walk up to an area that clearly has work going on, in the most ridiculous shoes I’ve ever laid eyes on, and you’re going to sue me? You can just walk yourself right back to your flashy little car and drive yourself back to whatever level of Hell you came from. Out!” I’m almost nose to nose with her now, pointing to her Jag in my driveway.
Miss Carmichael has this crazy look in her eyes. She yells, “Keep your filthy hands off me! People like you always try to make us pay more than you charge anyone else! Jealous because you were too lazy to go to college! You’ll never have the money we do, and it drives you crazy! You think we don’t know your games? And on top of that, you think you’re going to trick me into coming back here with you and then cop a feel? No way, you muscle-bound ape!”
“Trick you?” Now I’m really yelling. “LoPresti begged me to bring you here!”
I could see she wasn’t listening to a word I said, so I didn’t even bother trying to tell her I hold a business degree, aside from being an art and art history major. And I paid for every dime myself - mommy and daddy didn’t buy my education.
Well, she’s pretty livid now. She pulls her arm back and goes to slap my face. She might’ve actually done it, too, if it wasn’t for the little matter of her come-see-me-at-midnight shoes. The heel of one of her stupid shoes gets caught in the rubble during her wind-up, and down she goes, bashing her empty head on my granite blank like an egg on a frying pan. What a mess - I guess her head wasn’t empty after all. Lucky for me, granite doesn’t stain. Now, I have a call to make.
Eventually, the police come, and that’s the story I give them. Not bad, huh? They buy it hook, line, and sinker. The Jag gets towed back to wherever Jags go to die, and Miss Carmichael is scooped up and hauled out. And here I am, standing in what’s left of my yard; my poor, trampled yard.
I look around, taking in my crushed plantings and ruined hedges. My beautiful lawn is now a muddy mess. There’s torn crime scene tape tangled around a sapling, fluttering like a filthy flag advertising what happened here. Don’t get me wrong - I’ve seen plenty of crime scenes in my day, and I know these guys all have a job to do. They don’t mean any harm. This is the first time it was on my home turf, and I guess I’m taking it a little too personal. LoPresti has no idea of how he owes me for this, but he will.
All the greenery is bad enough, but I’m mostly worried about my real work: my statues. I walk the lot, checking all my work for damage.
I see my Zeus is still guarding the fireplace/barbeque in the party area. I knew the minute I saw Mr. Jameson’s chiseled features, his roman nose, when he was looking at fire pits back at LoPresti’s that he was the perfect Zeus. Well, not the minute I saw him. Truth is, I really didn’t look at him all that closely until he commented on my fire pits. Tacky, he called them.
Now, Zeus holds a bug zapper in his outstretched hand. A poor reference the Zeus’ lightning bolts, and probably the only tacky thing I’ve ever made.
Poor Jameson disappeared on a business trip in London, I hear. Nice place, London. Lots of marshes there. Anyway, Zeus was my first, and I’m pretty proud. I’m glad to see he came out of this in one piece.
Next, I come to Mr. Stratton, holding his triton as Neptune, standing in the center of my Koi pond. Man, that guy got me going. The jerk made me rework his fountain three times when it was clearly perfect the first time. For a big guy, he sure was whiney. At least I can finally laugh about it!
I hear poor Mr. Stratton bought it in a hit and run accident while he was out for a jog. Rotten shame, how some people won’t even stop to see what they hit. Some world we live in, I tell ya.
Some of the floating plants are looking rough and the fish are agitated, but it’s all easy enough to replace. Neptune was moved off of his base a bit; the stupid morgue people stepped into the pond and bumped him when they hauled Carmichael out. All fixable stuff - that’s a relief.
Next, I move onto Angie Shasta, my Venus de Milo. She stands forever in armless beauty over my little dining area for two. You’d think Jameson would be the favorite, since he was first and all, but I’ve still got a heck of a soft spot for this dame. You’d think a gal that pretty would have been nicer.
I fell hard for her - thought she might actually be the one. Then she started up with that accountant. Poor fella looked like an owl when I saw him on the news, getting hauled away for her murder - eyes big and round like he couldn’t believe what was happening. I reach up and touch her cheek, glad to see she’s OK. The past is past, and now she gets to have dinner with me any time I want.
The little bistro dining set took some damage; someone knocked the table over and broke some of the imported French tiles in the center. That’s gonna cost some big bucks to fix, and I know just where the dough is coming from; that little gargoyle LoPresti. Gargoyles are supposed to bring luck. Maybe I can use one over by the potting shed. Lift the bad mojo that jerk brought to my own back yard.
My gaze finally lands on my granite blank. I was saving my fountain for last, because I just couldn’t come up with the perfect idea that would make the granite come to life. Staring at it now, I know exactly what the stone wants to be. I do a couple internet searches for the right picture, then sit down with my chisels and get to work.
When I’m done, I have a fountain featuring Styx, the Goddess of the Underworld River and the Spirit of Hatred. Her face is the face of Miss Carmichael, as a monument to all she achieved in this world.