those imperial tracts of green

by Wesley R. Bishop

The lawnmower hummed beneath Joe Monroe like an old hymn sung through a beer can. He carved lines across the 14th fairway, sweat clinging to his brow. The Imperial was a country club, and it didn’t believe in days off for weather or dignity, so the sun baked him as if he were part of the catering menu.

He wore the green polo with the club’s crest—two crossed golf clubs over a heraldic goose—as if that meant something. Joe had grown up on the other side of the river, the side with houses struggling to maintain their roofs and dogs that barked all night. The kind of place the old men at the club called “real America” until someone Black walked by, then it was just “sad.” If it was Joe, in regular clothes, no uniform, then it was “dangerous.”

Marietta was a town in Ohio which pretended not to be Marietta. It was a place full of monuments to things that didn’t need remembering, a piece of municipal jumbles that overstated its past, made it seem like something more important than it was. The club sat on what they called “historic land.” (Nothing like a land acknowledgement at a place that was predominantly white in its membership and underpaid its Black and Brown workers). There were signs explaining it had once been a fort, a battlefield, a Native burial ground, and finally the place where “somebody’s granddaddy built an empire.” No one ever said empire of what.

Joe steered the mower up toward the back garden where a wedding was being staged for the next day. It was to be the kind of celebration where everything looked rustic but cost five figures. White chairs lined up like a colonial infantry. A live quartet would play with the seriousness of surgeons. At the far end of the garden, the bride’s mother—tight curls, tight dress, tighter smile—was yelling about the hydrangeas not being the right “aesthetic.”

Joe cut the engine and leaned back, the smell of cut grass and gasoline sweet in his nostrils. He pulled a copy of A&P from his back pocket, the one story from his lit class he hadn’t been able to finish in one go. Updike’s prose was like cream cheese on a burned bagel: too smooth for the situation.

He flipped back to the ending. Sammy, the clerk, quits his job because three girls walk in with their swimsuits on. The story ends with him thinking how hard the world was going to be for him now. Joe snorted.

“No way in hell,” he said aloud. “Quit your job for some girl you just saw once, and she didn’t even say thank you? That boy’s never missed rent.”

Joe imagined his own version. A teenage cashier quits his job at the Kroger after falling for a girl in a crop top, only to come home and explain to his parents why the lights are off next month. Yeah, real romantic.

“Updike’s never sweated for a W-2,” he said.

He closed the book and got back on the mower, mentally writing a new story as he went. A boy working at a golf course in a forgotten town watches white people hold ceremonies for themselves, mowing the green into neat little rows like grooming a horse that kicks you in the teeth.

That story had bite.

By the time he finished the third fairway, his boss—Ron—was already waving him over. Ron was an annoying yelp of a man. Too dumb to hold a real conversation, too loyal to ever be fired from where he worked. A real “yes man” for the owners, a “corporate climber” as his dad would say.

“Joe,” Ron said, lowering his sunglasses. “We got the wedding for the Caldwells tomorrow. Big donors. Real important people. Mr. Leeway has put out the bulletin for all of us to be at 110%. I need you to stay invisible.”

Joe blinked. “Am I usually loud?”

Ron laughed like it was a compliment. “You know what I mean. Just… be your best self. You're one of the good ones.”

Joe didn’t say anything. Just nodded and turned back to the shed to dump the mower. "One of the good ones." Like he was a golden retriever with a GED. Everyone knew Ron had his sights on the topmost rungs of management at the Imperial. It was likely he’d achieve it in the next few years, especially now that a rival golf course had come to town and was looking to hire. Loyalty would be rewarded at the Imperial, if you stayed.

Later, after Joe had finished trimming hedges and checking the lights at the lower pond, he walked past the kitchen doors in the main building and heard shouting. One of the waitresses, Jenny, stood red-faced in front of Mrs. Caldwell, who was pointing at her like she was picking a wine.

“You people never get the orders right,” Mrs. Caldwell hissed. “You’re lucky we even let you work here. Want me to call ICE?”

Jenny stammered, then tried to explain it was a simple mistake—Brie instead of goat cheese, nothing more—but it didn’t matter. Ron stepped in, and within minutes, she was gone. No last paycheck. Just a scolding and a shrug.

“It’s sad for sure, I loved Jenny as much as anyone. But what was I supposed to do?” that is what Ron told the landscapers, who then proceeded to tell everyone on staff. By the time Joe clocked out for the day he had heard it as well. News traveled fast through a staff on shared shifts, especially when blood was drawn like that. The warning was clear. Anyone else slightly fucks up, and they’d be gone.

Joe sat alone in the utility shed, the air thick with fertilizer and futility. He took out his laptop and wrote:

Dear Mr. Leeway,

Fuck you. I quit.

He considered sending the email right then, but he was still working on the perfect ending to this story. He went home, printed off the note.

The next day he got a fancy envelope from the front office and submitted it to Maria who asked where to forward it to. He told her.

Out on the green, the Caldwell’s wedding party gathered. Men in bowties and boat shoes drank white wine under parasols. Women with shoulder-padded, pastel dresses and pearls laughed like they were getting paid to. The string quartet struck up “Canon in D.” The bride posed for selfies with a glass of champagne.

Joe slipped into the maintenance panel, using Ron’s keys to open the main gate. He then checked the sprinkler layout, and grinned.

He waited until the groomsmen were adjusting their boutonnieres and the photographer crouched for the big shot. Then, he flipped the switch.

All fourteen sprinkler zones came alive with industrial ferocity, pelting everyone in tailored linen with blasts of reclaimed groundwater. The quartet let out a screech and scattered. The bride screamed. Mr. Caldwell shouted something about lawsuits. Joe watched from behind a rhododendron, arms crossed like a man watching justice wear Prada and slip on wet turf.

Someone yelled for Ron. Someone else shouted for “security,” which meant Gary, the 78-year-old golf cart wrangler.

Joe walked toward the parking lot, soaking up the chaos. Ron would have fun explaining how his keys had caused the chaos (Joe had been sure to leave them in the lock), and why there was a letter Ron had signed in the front office to Mr. Leeway saying “Fuck you. I quit.”

Just as Joe passed the edge of the lawn, a little girl from the wedding ran past him, laughing, soaked, waving her arms like wings. Her joy was pure.

That, he thought, was real. So, too, would be the opening Ron’s firing would cause. Nice pay bump. Joe would be sure to apply when he could.

He looked over his shoulder one last time, took in the splattered dresses, the ruined makeup, the old-money faces twisted with inconvenience.

“That's how you fucking do it, Updike.”

And then he left for the day. He had a waitress to rehire.

BIO: text