Immigrants I Have Known

Munir A.

One Saturday as I was working in my yard I noticed a man in a truck down at the corner dumping black plastic garbage bags down off the road embankment. In a huff of righteous indignation I half-ran, half-walked to confront him. As I closed the distance I could see that the bags were full of lawn clippings. I could also see this wasn’t his first offense.

I said, (something to this effect) "Hey! You can’t dump here. This is my neighborhood and you can’t dump here!"
He made a feeble defense.
"How would you like it if I came and dumped my trash in your neighborhood? The County has a no dumping law and you can’t dump here!"
More feeble attempts.
He was a small man with an anxious look. A kind of swarthy Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.
“You can’t dump here!”
And so it continued until he had picked up his bags and left.

A week later Mrs. Yak answered the doorbell and encountered a small swarthy man with an eager smile and bright dark eyes.
"I am Munir. You called for my ad? I come to give estimate for cutting your grass"
"Yes I saw your ad. Would you like to take a look at the yard?"
"Yes. Can I ask question?"
"Sure."
"Do you have husband? He very tall?"
"Yeah, he’s pretty tall..."
"He have, how you say, salt and pepper hair?"
"Yes."
"Oh he’s a hard man. A very, very hard man!"
"Why would you say that?"
"I was down there in my truck..."

Mrs. Yak got the full story.
Munir got the job and as he left was heard muttering, "A very hard man..."

When I got home Mrs. Yak told me she had hired this very nice Israeli—with a puzzling story—to mow our lawn. We had a good laugh and dubbed him the "Abu Nidal Lawn Service" after the infamous terrorist and founder of Fatah to whom is attributed numerous atrocities during the 80’s, one of which triggered the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

It turned out that Munir was a Christian and at the encouraging of some Arab-Americans in our church, I invited him to a men’s bible study. Alas, his grasp of English would not allow him to continue.

Munir mowed our lawn faithfully every week for several years. (And he hauled off the clippings.) Except one day, November 1st to be exact, he missed his appointment. He came the next day to apologize and explain that he couldn’t mow this day either because it had started to snow. Mrs. Yak informed him that she had planned on the lawn being cut one last time before winter and that he had better hurry before the snow piled up. Mowing in the first snowfall of the season Munir was heard to say, "A hard woman. A very, very hard woman!"

We lost track of Munir after we had to trim our household expenses one year. I’m sure he moved on to bigger and better opportunities. As most immigrants do.