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nerves with their actual fingers so I lowered my glance.
    â€œTodd’s being polite but we know the truth,” I heard him say. “I’m only here a couple-three weeks and I already got the man convinced I’m Saddam Hussein!”
    Then he laughed his coyote laugh while strings of something whipped around inside his chest.
    â€œTruth is,” he said, after he stopped laughing, “my man is astraight shooter. That’s the first thing. Also, he’s got an actual brain on him and thinks for himself.”
    I looked up and saw him giving me a special dead smile in which he raised his upper lip while the rest of his face didn’t move. “You think I didn’t know?” he said.
    Then he turned to Annie and said, “I knew. Todd’s got a whole life going on hidden in his head. But do I freak him out? Yes, I do. That was kinda obvious from that first night. But he’s gotta understand I ain’t no Valda-mort. I’m thinking maybe we should try a little working together, do some vocational stuff and see if that builds some bridges.” He paused. “You know?”
    Annie was nodding.
    â€œBuilding bridges,” she said, “is always a net positive.”
    They continued talking but I had stopped listening. I was thinking of the films I’d seen of coyotes. I was thinking of how they walked kind of always like they were sneaking. They dropped their heads with their grinning mouths and they creeped forward. They were all always coming up behind something that wasn’t expecting it and biting down hard.
    I was surprised at a certain point to see Mike standing in front of me holding out his hand while in the background I heard Annie saying, “Affirmative behavioral support is the thing, Mike. We’ll reconvene in two weeks.”
    â€œFine,” Mike said to her, and then he turned to me. “We agree on the plan to pull together?” he said. I held my own hand out in front of me, even though I had no idea what our plan was and I never liked shaking hands.
    â€œOkay,” I said, while I watched my hand go up and down like something caught in the belt of a machine.
    â€œThere, see?” said Annie Applin. She was smiling and reaching for her coffee mug as we left the room. “You guys are gonna have a blast, I just know it.”
    Two days later, when Mike the Apron showed up at our front door first thing in the morning, I found out what our plan was. It was that we work together experimentally on the Lawn Crew, and that we begin that day by clearing grass behind the septic tank. It was going to be a “bonding experience,” he said, and some “quality time for us dudes.” After he said these things while standing just inside my cottage he let his mouth fall open in a way that made me uncomfortable. I went to change my clothes.
    Most people don’t like working on the Lawn Crew and I don’t either. You get hot and dirty and bits of grass enter itchingly all over your clothes and travel also up your nose and into your ears. Plus, using the tool called a “scythe” is dangerous. Many things scare me but scythes belong to a special category of scaring power. You hold the long curved blade by the two wooden handles and swing it back and forth intersectingly at the bottom of the grass as you cut it. You get a rhythm going and it can feel good in your arms but the blade is extra-sharp and is also very long. It’s what the Grim Reaper carries, who brings Death. In the woodshop they no longer use power tools after Jimmy Hoffman cut two fingers off with a band saw and his parents sued. But they haven’t figured out that the long, hooking blade of the scythe is just as happy to take away parts of you.
    I followed Mike out the house and towards the long weeds behind the septic tank. Mike was very friendly at first as we started cutting. He called me his “little man,” even though I’m taller than he