The Good Gardeners

                                                                               

Good Gardening

     Junior worked in the movie studios for about ten years. The third year, he bought a new Lincoln Continental, flashy clothes, all the record albums he wanted, and dated the coolest girls in town. He rented an apartment in Venice, not far from the trendy Marina. He always kept a good chunk of change in his savings. He once told me, “In Hollywood, you make good bank, but hell, man, you never know, what with strikes and between movies, when you’re going to hit a dry spell,” which he did, there abouts 1980, when movie makers started turning to technology, namely computers. 

     But before Hollywood came calling, back around 1966, Junior quit high school in the eleventh grade, and started his own gardening business. He was a good-looking guy, a little overweight, and could charm his clients into thinking he knew more than he did about horticulture. 

     On weekends, he played a “tasty” blues guitar in a local band. He still lived at home and drove his Chevy truck wherever he went, even to his band’s gigs. In the early 70s, he met a rhythm guitar player from Brentwood, Mike Zinc, who lived up in the hills, up on Tiger Tail Road, with his parents. The two hit it off and became good friends. 

     They started hanging out, writing songs, and trading licks on the guitar. Mike's dad was a big wig in Hollywood, a director or something. He took a liking to Junior, thought him too cool and smart for gardening, and offered him a job, learning to edit film, which, at the time, meant literally cutting film and splicing it together. It took skilled fingers, organization, but not a lot of brain power. That was fine with Junior because he always had music going through his head, anyway. 

     Film editing was a clean job, and prestigious, especially for a Mexican kid out of Venice who didn’t finish high school. Junior was a quick study, learned fast, and was in demand, except that, unfortunately, like I said earlier, the movies started changing. Film editors began turning to computers. The job needed guys who could understand some math, read schematics, and compose memos, areas in which Junior was deficient, even though he had no problem memorizing the pentatonic guitar scale in the various octaves, talked about half-notes and quarter notes, ninths and sixteenths, and he could play right along, note for note, with Albert Collins, B.B. and Freddie King records. 

     Within a year, the Lincoln, the apartment, the fancy clothes, and most of the girls were gone. Lucky Junior never sold his Chevy truck or gardening tools, so, by 1980, he was back to cutting lawns and pruning hedges, while in the evenings performing in clubs throughout Los Angeles, hoping to make it big, since music was his real love. 

      Junior never got depressed over the change, disappointed, for sure, but never long-faced sad, at least that any of us could see. He’d go with the flow, and he was always quick with a laugh, like when he said, out of nowhere, one day, “You know, we had three Juniors in the family, me and two cousins. My grandmother used to take care of us. She'd call out to us,” he laughed, his face brightening, “Junior! One of us would take off running. We always knew which one of us she wanted,” again he laughed, “by her tone. That's how we knew. Junior!” 

     One day, he asked if I wanted to hang out with him while he did his gardening route. He said it would be a short day because he wanted me to go with him and see the big contest, winner $100. I asked, “One-hundred bucks, for what?” He waved me off and said I had to see it for myself. 

     After we finished up his last house, rolled up the hoses, and loaded up the equipment, off we went in his, now, aging ’65 Chevy truck. He had a cassette player and wanted me to hear who he considered the best blues guitarists around, Jeff Beck, Peter Green, and Little Luther. 

     Usually, Junior cruised. He didn't like pushing the Chevy too hard. This day he was rushing, taking the turns along Sunset Boulevard really fast, even Dead Man's Curve, where singer Jan Berry nearly killed himself in his corvette, even after he recorded the song with the same name. 

     When I asked Junior about the contest or the money, he told me I had to wait, like it wouldn’t be the same if he told me. He just said, “Come on, man, you gotta see it for yourself. It’s really cool, though,” then he’d guffaw, releasing a burst of laughter. 

     Once we were back in the lowlands, among working-class folk, south of Olympic Boulevard, he got onto Centinela Avenue, heading towards the projects, the border of Culver City and Venice. He zipped past Washington Place and Washington Boulevard, taking the bumps hard, his tools clanking in the back of the old truck. “You’ll dig this, man. I go every year.” 

     I stopped asking and waited it out. Junior had a quirky sense of humor and rarely disappointed anybody with his stories or adventures. Like him, you just had to go along with it.

     We reached Louise Avenue then passed the Sporting Goods store at the corner of Short Avenue. There was already a line forming in front of Mago’s, home of the avocado and bacon burger. I saw a bigger group, mostly men, around the corner at the gardening, lawn mower shop, George’s, where all the gardeners from this side of town bought their tools and supplies. “Come on, Junior. George’s,” I said, “really?” 

     He laughed, "Check it out." 

     There were gardening trucks parked up and down the streets. Junior found a spot near Culver Boulevard, behind Betty’s Music, where all the neighborhood kids bought their musical instruments. “Come, on, brother, let’s go,” and he was out the door. 

     I followed him past the submarine sandwich joint, and we crossed the street to the alley behind the George's, where a crowd of at least a hundred or more guys had already gathered. I mean, the buzz, the hum, an alley filled with gardeners. It could have been the Rose Bowl and 90,000 wild fans, the way it felt. I was from another part of town, Santa Monica, a few miles to the north, so I didn’t know anybody, but Junior knew a lot of the guys, mostly Chicanos, Japanese, Mexicans, and a sprinkling of white guys, ex-hippies who found Nirvana working in the gardens of the rich. 

     This was before the Mexican immigrants monopolized the trade. Junior greeted everybody as he pushed his way through the crowd. I heard someone say, “Everybody ready?” Junior leaned over and told me, “Dude, this is the championship. They’re down to the last two guys.” I followed him. “What’s it about?” I asked. 

     “You’ll see. You’ll see,” he said, chuckling. 

     At 5:00 sharp, everybody crowded into the alley, packed solid. They formed a long line, two or three deep, to watch. At one end, two guys stood, one guy looked Chicano, wore an L.A. Dodger cap, white t-shirt, and Dickies. The other, a Mexican, who wore a straw campesino’s hat, and matching green shirt and pants. Each brought their own cheering section, a bunch of gardeners, some already tipsy from the booze. 

     The two stood a few feet apart, stretching like athletes before the game. In front of them they each had a rubber water hose, at least hundred feet long, more like two fifty-footers connected at the joints. The fans closed in. I could hear guys making bets, “Pedro, quince bolas.” Then from another part of the crowd, “Twenty bucks on Hank,” and on it went. The biggest bet I heard was more than the prize money. 

     Junior grabbed me by the arm and moved me closer. “Hank Armenta is a three-time winner. We went to Venice High together. Come on, man, you stand too far away, you’ll miss it.” 

     "Winner at what?"

     Suddenly, it got quiet, except for the cars passing on Centinela Avenue. There was an eerie tension in the alley. Some guys were passing around a fifth of Seagram. Then, when the judge announced the contestants' names, everyone hollered and whistled. A short guy stepped up near the two gladiators. He squatted and put a leveler down on the asphalt, making sure the ends of the hoses were even. He gave everybody a thumbs up, like okay. Next, I heard "Get ready!" Then a shot, like a starting gun at a track meet. In a blur, the Chicano and the Mexican reached down and took hold of their hose, and started pulling and rolling, looping the hose into a neat circle close to their feet. 

     They rolled the hoses the same way we did when we finished washing down a house, except these guys moved lightning fast, all hands, arms, and legs, like 3-D. For a second, it was neck and neck, or hose and hose. They moved like dancers, their bodies swaying in unison, pulling and rolling, guiding the strange rubber snake into a neat circle, and within thirty-seconds, it was done, the finish too quick for my eyes to see. 

     The judge, George Yamamoto, who owned the gardening-lawnmower shop, sponsored the contest, and put up the prize money, walked up to each hose. He looked at a stopwatch. Then, he took a tape measure to see whose hose formed a more perfect circle. George called out, “And still champ, Hank Armenta.” 

     We had to admit, though fast, Pedro’s hose wasn't quite as tightly wound as Hank’s. The crowd roared, like for the winner at Wimbledon. Some in the crowd cheered, some groaned. I heard a few "Ah-hoo-ahs." Money changed hands. Someone turned on a boombox and a ranchera echoed down the alley. Beers began appearing, even though drinking in public was forbidden in Los Angles. Hank Armenta walked around, puffy chest, a winner’s medal hanging from his neck. 

     “You believe that shit?” Junior said, laughing, as we walked back to his truck. He kept marveling, “Man, where else but in L.A. are you ever going to see something like that?” 

     I wasn’t sure if he was serious or just pulling my leg. Then I saw it, that gleam in his eye, the one he gets whenever he's on stage and hits the right note on his guitar, stretching the string taut, the sound blending perfectly with the other musicians in his band. I knew then that he was dead serious.