Trying to Save Piggy Sneed (22 page)

“We are no longer communicating,” they'd say.

And Ronkers would charge, “Well, she's just going to be passing it on to someone else, who in turn

“Good for them!” they'd holler.

“No,
look
,” Ronkers would plead. “It's more serious than that, for
her”

“Then
you
tell her,” they'd say. “I'll give you her number.”

“Oh,
Raunch!”
Kit would scream. “Why don't you make
them
do it?”

“How?” Ronkers would ask.

“Tell them you won't
fix
them. Tell them you'll let them pee themselves
blind!”

“They'd just go to someone else,” Ronkers would say. “Or they'd simply tell me that they've already told the person — when they haven't, and never intend to.”

“Well, it's absurd,
you
calling up every other woman in the damn town.”

“I just hate the long-distance ones,” Ronkers would say.

“Well, you can at least make
them
pay for the calls, Raunch!”

“Some of these students don't have any money.”

“Tell them you'll ask their
parents
to pay, then!”

“It's tax-deductible, Kit. And they're not all students, either.”

“It's awful, Raunch. It really is.”

“How much higher are you going to make this damn sleeping platform?”

“I like to make you work for it, Raunch.”

“I know, but a
ladder
, my God

“Well, it's up in your favorite tree, right? And you like that, I'm told. And anyone who gets me has got to be athletic.”

“I may get maimed trying.”

“Raunch! Who are you calling
now?”

“Hello?” he said to the phone. “Hello, is this Miss Wentworth? Oh,
Mrs.
Wentworth, well… I guess I would like to speak to your
daughter
, Mrs. Wentworth. Oh. You don't
have
a daughter? Oh. Well, I guess I would like to speak to
you
, Mrs. Wentworth.

“Oh, Raunch, how
awful!”

“Well, this is Dr. Ronkers. I'm a urologist at University Hospital. Yes,
George
Ronkers. Dr. George Ronkers. Well… hi. Yes,
George.
Oh,
Sarah
, is it? Well, Sarah

And with the end of the summer there came an end to the rearrangements of the Ronkerses' interior space. Kit was through with carpentry and busy with her teaching and her school work. When the workmen left, and the tools were carried off, and the dismantled walls no longer lay heaped in the Ronkerses' yard, it must have become apparent to Bardlong that reconstruction — at least for this year — was over.

The walnut tree was still there. Perhaps Bardlong had thought that, in the course of the summer building, the tree would go — making way for a new wing. He couldn't have known that the Ronkerses were rebuilding their house on the principle of “inviting the tree in.”

With autumn coming on, Bardlong's issue with the black walnut tree grew clear. Old Herr Kesler had not been wrong. George and Kit had a premonition of it the first cool, windy night of the fall. They lay on the sleeping platform with the tree swirling around them and the yellowing leaves falling past them, and they heard what sounded like a candlepin bowling ball falling on their roof and thudding its way down the slope to score in the rain gutter. “Raunch?”

“That was a goddamn
walnut!”
Ronkers said. “It sounded like a brick out of the chimney,” Kit said.

And through the night they sat bolt upright to a few more: when the wind would loose one or, toward morning, a squirrel would successfully attack one,
whump!
it would strike, and roll
thunker-thunker-thunker-thunker dang!
into the clattering rain gutter.

“That one took a squirrel with it,” Ronkers said.

“Well,” said Kit, “at least there's no mistaking it for a prowler. It's too obvious a noise.”

“Like a prowler dropping his instruments of burglary,” Ronkers said.

Whump! thunker-thunker-thunker-thunker dang!

“Like a prowler shot off the roof,” Kit groaned.

“We'll get used to it, I'm sure,” Ronkers said.

“Well, Raunch, I gather Bardlong has been slow to adapt “

In the morning Ronkers noticed that the Bardlong house had a slate roof with a far steeper pitch than his own. He tried to imagine what the walnuts would sound like on Bardlong's roof.

“But there's surely an attic in that house,” Kit said. “The sound is probably muffled.” Ronkers could not imagine the sound of a walnut striking a slate roof—and its subsequent descent to the rain gutter — as in any way “muffled.”

By mid-October the walnuts were dropping with fearful regularity. Ronkers thought ahead to the first wild storm in November as a potential blitzkrieg. Kit went out to rake a pile of the fallen nuts together; she heard one cutting loose above her, ripping through the dense leaves. She thought against looking up — imagining the ugly bruise between her eyes and the blow on the back of her head (driven into the ground). She bent over double and covered her head with her hands. The walnut narrowly missed her offered spine; it gave her a kidney punch.
Thok!

“It
hurt
, Raunch,” she said.

A beaming Bardlong stood under the dangerous tree, watching Ronkers comfort his wife. Kit had not noticed him there before. He wore a thick Alpine hat with a ratty feather in it; it looked like a reject of Herr Kesler's.

“Kesler gave it to me,” Bardlong said. “I had asked for a
helmet”
He stood arrogantly in his yard, his rake held like a fungo bat, waiting for the tree to pitch a walnut down to him. He had chosen the perfect moment to introduce the subject — Kit just wounded, still in tears.

“You ever hear one of those things hit a slate roof?” Bardlong asked. “I'll call you up the next time a whole clump's ready to drop. About three
A.M.”

“It
is
a problem,” Ronkers agreed.

“But it's a
lovely
tree,” Kit said defensively.

“Well, it's
your
problem, of course,” Bardlong said, offhanded, cheerful. “If I have the same problem with my rain gutters this fall as I had last, I
may
have to ask you to remove the part of your tree that's over
our
property, but you can do what you want with the rest of it.”

“What
rain gutter problem?” Ronkers asked.

“It must happen to
your
rain gutters, too, I'm sure….”

“What
happens?” asked Kit.

“They get full of goddamn walnuts,” Bardlong said. “And it rains, and rains, and the gutters don't work because they're clogged with walnuts, and the water pours down the side of your house; your windows leak and your basement fills with water. That's all.”

“Oh.”

“Kesler bought me a mop. But he was a poor old foreigner, you know,” Bardlong said confidingly, “and you never felt like getting
legal
with him. You know.”

“Oh,” said Kit. She did not like Bardlong. The casual cheerfulness of his tone seemed as removed from his meaning as the shock-absorber trade was from those delicately laced trellises in his yard.

“Oh, I don't mind raking up a few nuts,” Bard-long said, smiling, “or waking up a few times in the night, when I think storks are crash-landing on my roof.” He paused, glowing under old Kesler's hat. “Or wearing the protective gear,” he added. He doffed the hat to Kit, who at the moment she saw his lightly freckled dome exposed was praying for that unmistakable sound of the leaves ripping apart above. But Bardlong returned the hat to his head. A walnut began its descent. Kit and George crouched, hands over their heads; Bardlong never flinched. With considerable force the walnut struck the slate-stone wall between them, splitting with a dramatic
kak!
It was as hard and as big as a baseball.

“It's sort of an
exciting
tree in the fall, really,” Bardlong said. “Of course, my wife won't go near it this time of year — a sort of prisoner in her own yard, you might say.” He laughed; some gold fillings from the booming brake-systems industry winked in his mouth. “But that's all right. No price should be set for beauty, and it
is
a lovely tree.
Water damage
, though,” he said, and his tone changed suddenly, “is
real
damage.”

Bardlong managed, Ronkers thought, to make “real” sound like a legal term.

“And if you've got to spend the money to take down half the tree, you better face up to taking it all. When
your
basement's full of water, that won't be any joke.” Bardlong pronounced “joke” as if it were an obscene word; moreover, the implication in Bardlong's voice led one to suspect the wisdom in thinking
anything
was funny.

Kit said, “Well, Raunch, you could just get up on the roof and sweep the walnuts out of the rain gutters.”

“Of course
Fm
too old for that,” Bardlong sighed, as if getting up on his roof was something he
longed
to do.

“Raunch, you could even sweep out Mr. Bardlong's rain gutters, couldn't you? Like once a week or so, just at this time of the year?”

Ronkers looked at the towering Bardlong roof, the smooth slate surface, the steep pitch. Headlines flooded his mind:
DOCTOR TAKES FOUR-STORY FALL!

UROLOGIST BEANED BY NUT! CAREER CUT SHORT BY DEADLY TREE!

No, Ronkers understood the moment; it was time to look ahead to the larger victory; he could only win half. Bardlong was oblique, but Bardlong was clearly a man with a made-up mind.

“Could you recommend a tree surgeon?” Ronkers asked.

“Oh,
Raunch!”
said Kit.

“We'll cut the tree in half,” Ronkers said, striding boldly toward the split trunk, kicking the bomb-debris of fallen walnuts aside.

“I think about
here
,” Bardlong said eagerly, having no doubt picked the spot years ago. “Of course, what
costs
,” he added, with the old shock-absorber seriousness back in his voice, “is properly roping the overhanging limbs so that they won't fall on my roof.”
I hope they fall
through
your roof
Kit thought. “Whereas, if you cut the whole tree down,” Bardlong said, “you could save some time, and your money, by just letting the whole thing fall along the line of the wall; there's room for it, you see, before the street. …” The tree spread over them, obviously a
measured
tree, long in Bardlong's calculations. A terminal patient, Ronkers thought, perhaps from the beginning.

“I would like to keep the part of the tree that doesn't damage your property, Mr. Bardlong,” Ronkers said; his dignity was good; his distance was cool. Bardlong respected the sense of business in his voice.

“I could arrange this for you,” Bardlong said. “I mean, I know a good tree outfit.” Somehow, the “outfit” smacked of the fleet of men driving around in the Bardlong trucks. “It would cost you a little less,” he added, with his irritatingly confiding tone, “if you let me set this up.

Kit was about to speak but Ronkers said, “I would really appreciate that, Mr. Bardlong. And we'll just have to take our chances with
our
rain gutters.”

“Those are new windows,” Kit said. “They won't leak. And who cares about water in the old basement? God, I don't care, I can tell you.

Ronkers tried to return Bardlong's patient and infuriatingly
understanding
smile. It was a Yes-I-Tolerate-My-Wife-Too smile. Kit was hoping for a vast unloading from above in the walnut tree, a downfall which would leave them all as hurt as she felt they were guilty.

“Raunch,” she said later. “What if poor old Mr. Kesler sees it? And he
will
see it, Raunch. He comes by, from time to time, you know. What are you going to tell him about selling out his tree?”

“I didn't sell it out!” Ronkers said. “I think I saved what I could of the tree by letting him have his half. I couldn't have stopped him, legally. You must have seen that.”

“What about poor Mr. Kesler, though?” Kit said. “We
promised”

“Well, the tree will still be here.” “Half the tree “Better than none.”

“But what will he think of us?” Kit asked. “He'll think we agree with Bardlong that the tree is a nuisance. He'll think it will only be a matter of time before we cut down the rest.”

“Well, the tree
is
a nuisance, Kit.”

“I just want to know what you're going to say to Mr. Kesler, Raunch.”

“I won't have to say anything,” Ronkers told her. “Kesler's in the hospital.”

She seemed stunned to hear that, old Kesler always having struck her with a kind of peasant heartiness. Those men must live forever, surely. “Raunch?” she asked, less sure of herself now. “He'll get
out
of the hospital, won't he? And what will you tell him when he gets out and comes around to see his tree?”

“He won't get out,” Ronkers told her.

“Oh
no
, Raunch

The phone rang. He usually let Kit answer the phone; she could fend off the calls that weren't serious. But Kit was deep in a vision of old Kesler, in his worn lederhosen with his skinny, hairless legs.

“Hello,” Ronkers told the phone.

“Dr. Ronkers?”

“Yes,” he said.

“This is Margaret Brant.” Ronkers groped to place the name. A young girl's voice? “Uh …”

“You left a message at the dorm to have me call this number,” Margaret Brant said. And Ronkers remembered, then; he looked over the list of the women he had to call this week. Their names were opposite the names of their infected partners-in-fun.