None of this changed the fact that he wanted it—all of it—for himself. There was no question of whether he had the nerve and determination to smash his nose to the grindstone, but where had discipline and a solid work ethic gotten Papa? Decades of sacrifice just to barely scrape by. To actually get ahead and stack cash apparently required a skill set like Al’s, a propensity for schmoozing, manipulation, and scheming, especially since everyone else in the rat race was more than willing to deploy the same set of under-the-belt tactics.

The chainsaw motor quit and the air zippered quiet. By the time Henry got back to the shoreline, Al was a pink, panting loaf, dragging a rake listlessly over the twigs and leaves scattered down the slope. “The fuck you been?”

Henry didn’t bite. Just picked up the second rake and asked about the root systems. He’d heard this shit grows right back.

“It does,” Al said, wheezing. “Grab a shovel.”

“You dig them out. You’ve had the easy part all morning.”

“Dude. I ain’t got boots.” Al wiggled a sneaker spongy with sawdust. “And plus whose idea was all this anyway, huh?”

Henry surveyed the slope. From the hill’s crest down to the water were dozens of nubby yellow stumps, too many to count. “No way I’m digging all those fuckers out. It’d take all week.”

“You won’t have to. Just the ones up top, close to the yard. The rest we’ll cover with mulch.” Al knocked his temple. “Work smart, not hard, dipshit.”

But the digging was hard. Tedious. First Henry had to go around each buzzed stump with the shovel head flipped over to scrape away the topsoil and expose the root system, then diligently chip around and under each thick strand so he could stab through them with the spade, or else get down on his knees and cut them one by one with the loppers, making a slow rotation all the way around the stump, until he’d cleared enough of the upper, toddler-ankle-thick roots to dig out from under the system, then finally spear the shovel head underneath and pry the whole thing out by leveraging his weight into the shovel handle. Strenuous, slow-going work, much more taxing and aggravating than the first task of gathering and running the thorny stalks over to the truck.