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The Dandelion Tender

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On a bright and cloudless Tuesday with the sun shining in the May sky, Conrad H. Moss knelt in his front yard, his fingers brushing the yellow heads of the dandelions the way you touch something you intend to keep. He stayed there longer than was necessary. Then he went inside and found the warning from the town’s city council instructing him to remove the weeds from his lawn or be issued a citation. The ticket would cost him two hundred and fifty dollars, after which the town’s Department of Public Works would eradicate them anyhow. He read the notice calmly, though with frustration and anger working quietly inside him. It was marked WARNING—INITIAL NOTICE at the top, rubber-stamped in red ink. The dandelions growing in his yard were the primary objection; unloved by most but superstars of the weed world, tough, resilient, opportunistic, and very successful.

The following morning Conrad went to Village Hall to appeal the citation. The judge was unyielding.

“I’m sorry Mr. Moss, it’s the law. I cannot bend it for you. The only way to get a different outcome is to get the law changed,” said Judge Mary Thomas.

“We have standards in this community, Connie. We all want to keep our property values up,” said George Filipisi. “I know you understand that.”

Connie had a lump in his throat. He was too upset to make an impassioned plea, and making speeches had never been part of his nature. He left abruptly. He had two weeks to pay the fine.

It was a small town in the heart of the Midwest, situated smack-dab in the flyway where the river flowed into the big lake. It still bore some resemblance to itself a hundred years ago but had not fully escaped the winds of change; cell phones, hip-hop, immigrants, and a cannabis dispensary had all blown in over the years. The shoe factory that had once employed over three hundred and fifty people had closed long ago. The town’s population was about half of what it was in 1965, when school enrollments were at their highest and you could choose between a Ford truck or a shiny new Cadillac on Route 12. The neo-classical movie palace built that same year showed The Sound of Music first, then Bloody Pit of Horror, which caused a three-day demonstration on Main Street before they pulled
it. There was talk of burning rock ’n’ roll records, but the whole thing blew over, and a couple of years later there was a rock band at the high school prom.

Conrad had moved to town a few years ago. He had no living family and largely kept to himself. His parents had called him Connie when he was young and had not given him a middle name. Having what some considered a girl’s name and no middle initial seemed like no big deal until people began remarking it was odd, so he adopted the middle initial H in a nod to social conformity. It didn’t stand for anything; it was just to make it look more normal on a business card. His father had often said to him, “Tall trees get cut down, best not to stand out.” Conrad retired now, lived alone in a modest ranch house, used no social media, and spent most nights reading paperback mysteries. He hadn’t voted in a major election for a couple of decades, telling himself his knowledge of politics was too limited to cast a proper vote. He had draped a string of Christmas lights from the roof a few years ago and left them there, lit only from the day after Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day.

Nobody in town knew much about him, or where he came from, or why the dandelions mattered to him the way they did. He would not have known how to explain it, even if asked.

Conrad’s neighbor Albert Willis was very attentive to his lawn. He added iron to make the grass as bright green as a fluorescent bulb, applied fish castings and bone meal, and was especially inhospitable to dandelions, which he attacked with poison. He had once had a Japanese-style koi pond until a great blue heron flew over and devoured the fish in a single morning. Al still felt the sting of it, the chaos of wild nature and the wasted expense. He had since dedicated himself entirely to the lawn.

“I don’t get that guy,” Al said to his wife Betty. “Doesn’t that dumb cluck understand the whole neighborhood suffers?”

“Not dumb,” said Betty. “He does the crossword puzzle.”

“He’s still an idiot.”

“He does the New York Times puzzle. Weekend ones.”

“So?”

“The weekend ones are the hardest. Janet told me. He comes to the diner every Sunday, orders a Denver omelet, asks for a pen, and finishes it. By himself.”

“New York Times, that figures. I don’t care about his puzzle. I care about our neighborhood. Dandelions! Next thing you know, vacant lots, squatters, biker bars.”

Conrad’s neighbor to the right was Robert “Bob” James Cobb, Jr. His father Bob Sr. had been the mayor once, a beloved figure and pillar of the community, a tall man with hands the size and tanned surface of a leather baseball catcher’s mitt and a large bushy mustache he would let any child pull. He was the kind of man who ruled his era, rugged and respected, a souvenir replica of Pat Garrett’s Colt revolver displayed proudly on his mantel. It was only discovered after his death that Bob Sr. had kept a collection of women’s dresses, custom-tailored to his measurements, hidden behind a false backing in a closet that opened to a secret chamber with a fireplace and a full-length mirror. They found photographs of him modeling the couture there. His taste was exquisite, it was remarked around town before the whole thing was swept quickly under the carpet and forgotten. There had never been any evidence he had loved anyone other than Mrs. Cobb, with whom he’d produced seven children and by all accounts been happily married for fifty years.

Bob Jr. resembled his mother, small in stature with a nervous disposition. He watched his neighbors closely. Like Al Willis, he worried the dandelions would spread like a runaway pandemic. One evening he went over to Conrad’s house.

“Conrad, I’ll get right to the point. You must exterminate your dandelions.”

“Why?”

“Because. Everyone agrees. They are unsightly, worthless. And they spread,” Bob said, then coughed. He looked flushed and was sweating.

“No.”

“What is your problem?” Bob Jr. shouted, then swooned a bit.

“Do you need to sit down? Water? You don’t look so good,” Conrad said.

“Neither does your lawn. Fix it!” Bob Jr. demanded and left in a huff.

A neighbor named Phil, who kept to himself behind tall hedges, confronted Conrad one afternoon.

“What’s your problem? Just kill the dandelions.”

“I’ll do no such thing.” Connie looked Phil right in the eye.

“You’re ruining the neighborhood.”

“It’s still a free country, isn’t it?”

Phil walked away in disgust, wondering why it had to be free for everyone.