Tree Huggers vs Tree Muggers
My old roommate Chicago Larry and I lived in a HUD house down in the ghetto in Seattle, two white boys gentrifying a mixed neighborhood not very much interested in being gentrified. Larry was a city boy and I was his chucklehead country sidekick. Our neighbors were pimps and gunrunners, white slavers and drug salesmen. Larry said, “They don’t know what to make of me, but I know exactly what to make of them.” Me, I didn’t have a clue what to make of either.
The lot next to our house was vacant, one of two or three on the block, overgrown with blackberries and bushes, weeds and garbage. A house had once stood there, but all that was left to indicate a prior civilization was the foundation and a couple of old fruit trees. In spring the cherries would blossom in a showy junkyard display and brighten our days. We didn’t get many cherries, not once the birds noticed them ripening up.
The day the guys came with a chainsaw to cut the cherry, Larry was home since he drove cab at night. The whine of the saw next to his bedroom window woke him up in a bad mood. He pulled on his pants and walked out the door to speak with these urban Paul Bunyans. “Whatcha doin’?” he asked. They said they were cutting the tree down. “What for?” Larry asked. “Sell for firewood,” they said. Their saw was dull and hadn’t made much headway into the trunk of the cherry. “This your tree?” Larry asked. “This yours?” they answered.
Larry said no, it wasn’t, but he didn’t want to see it cut down either. He said he’d pay them what they’d get for the firewood. The loggers said, in their best getto-lingo, to go away. They called him a Honky, started their reluctant saw and went back to work killing that tree. I won’t say Larry’s an unreasonable fellow. He prefers negotiation to violence. Up to a point. Past that point, Mr. Hyde steps into view.
He went back in our house, got his .38, the one he carried for protection in his taxi and went back outside. He tried to make himself heard over the shrieking chainsaw, but the two loggers refused to look his way. Larry pulled the trigger and everything stopped immediately.
Larry suggested they put their saw in the truck and leave now. It seemed like a good idea to them as well. Five minutes after their departure, the police arrived. Reports of gunfire, they said. Did Larry know anything about this? “Indeed I do, Officer,” he said, more than happy to tell them his side of the story.
“Do you own the tree, sir?” the younger one asked. “Do you still have the weapon?” Larry retrieved the .38, stood at the bottom of the stairs, answered a couple more questions, all the time gesturing with the gun in his hand, explaining his position with the tree muggers.
Finally the older officer stepped forward and asked, “Would you mind giving us the weapon?” There was a long moment when all three pondered the reality of him holding a loaded pistol, no doubt still a bit adrenalined up, obviously a person of some volatility, waving a pistol for story-telling effect. Larry smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.” The old cop took the gun. Everyone relaxed.
They cited him for discharging a firearm in city limits, confiscated his gun and warned him about further violations. Larry bought a new gun next day and hid it in the ceiling where he forgot it when he moved. No doubt it’s still there. The cherry lived. It oozed sap for a year, but it lived. Last time I drove by our old house a three story town house filled the vacant lot. They’d cut the cherry down to make maximum use of the space. Gentrification, I guess, has its price….
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It’s too bad that Larry and his Seattle Chainsaw Gang visitors did not have a better understanding of American agricultural practices.
Larry might have explaind that his offer to not cut down the cherry tree was simply following a template developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where citizens are paid NOT to grow crops, or in this case cut firewood. The dudes with the chainsaw might then have accepted payment for conservation of our natural resources, knowing their hard work was completed, according to United States Government standards.
At least until the next year, when hopefully another check (or cash on the barrel head) would be offered to not cut down the same cherry tree.