Tree of Knowledge (updated)

The Tree of Knowledge

Genesis 2:9 - And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The tiny bird worried something in the long grass blades. Dew flecked off the brittle strands of grass as its feathered body ducked and dodged among them. It seemed that its little brain couldn't decide whether the thing it was troubling was alive or dead. The tiny beak would pluck at it and it would jump, but in effect all it was attacking was some limp object that had caught its narrow attention. This occupied the bird intensely. High above, on the top two-by-four of a grape stake fence, a cat crouched, silent, still, watching every move the bird made. Wind tousled its hair but it didn't stir.


Time to mow the goddamn lawn.

He adjusted the spark. Then he pulled on the starter cord. The engine juggled into a brief cough and grumbled back into silence. He pulled out the choke. Pulled the cord again. The engine sputtered into life. He throttled the choke and the engine responded, its tinny roar barking up the Sunday afternoon silence with the acerbic interruption of thoughtless lawn mowing. He released the brake and the lawn mower lurched forward. He finagled it out onto the lawn.

He recalled lawn mowing fifty years ago, as a young man. It had seemed easy then. You follow the paths chopped in the lawn. The grass responds to the blades. Watch out for sprinklers. There you have it. Today, so many years later, he found that subtle tightening in his chest distracting in his efforts to remember the old neural pathways to lawn mowing. He wrestled the lawn mower over the dry grass. As it growled along, the startled bird rose and planed right over the head of the cat, which eyed the whole episode with typical feline emotional distance.

The sun settled over the lawn. Beams of light shifted and poked through a storm of dry grass blades and dust stirred by the lawn mower. Round and round the man and machine marched over the lawn. Dogs barked. A child rode by on a bike that had been made to sound like a motorcycle with playing cards clothes-pinned to the spokes. Round and round the man strode behind the lawn mower, letting his arm drag a little on the turns. It was aching.

Disturbed by the lawn mower, the cat padded through the open chain-link fence gate and across the shaggy backyard lawn. He came to the trunk of the large Bluegum Eucalyptus there and put his paws on the raw bark, digging in a little with the claws in a taught, arched stretch. In a breath, he climbed the trunk, lighting on a branch high enough to taunt dogs from; there he sat in a furry crouch, eyes deep slits gazing at some distant place, lids heavy and bordering on a nap. The lawn mower droned on, turning around and around.

Just to the rear of where the old tree stood James opened the gate and strolled though it. The cat didn't notice (it wanted us to think), but as cats will do, it was keeping one eye on the movements of the boy just in case. He stopped and put his schoolbooks down, then took the cards out of his pocket― Mad Magazine Trading Cards― this was the Jack Davis monster series. These were the best things he had ever owned. He shuffled through them, studying each one. The lawn mower had stopped in the middle of the yard and was popping and chugging there.

Grandma had spotted James from the kitchen window. She quickly opened the refrigerator and took out the lemonade. She poured a glass. Then she pulled out an ice tray and broke the ice in it. One by one the cubes plinked into the cold lemonade. She took the glass to the screen door of the backyard slider and hollered over to him.

"James, I have lemonade."

"Be right there Grandma.”

He gathered his things and ran across the lawn to where she was putting the glass on a wrought iron table.

"How was school today?" Grandma asked over a hug.

"It was OK I guess. Where's Grandpa?"

She looked up, turning her ear toward the front yard where the lawn mower still choked and putted.

"He's mowing the lawn it sounds like.”

"Do you think he wants some lemonade yet?"

"I don't know. He hasn't been mowing long. Why don't you ask him?"

James set down his glass and ran past Grandma into the living room with its familiar smell of Cherry Blend pipe tobacco sifting through the dry air. He turned down the hallway, choked with pictures of grandchildren and favorite pets long dead on the walls. He was through the screen door and had avoided the vine trellises when he saw a man who had stopped his car and was bent over Grandpa giving him CPR.

The man's wife had got out of the car and was heading up the driveway to alert whoever was inside to call an ambulance. James watched as the man breathed into Grandpa's mouth, and then massaged Grandpa's heart. His wife yelled at James to call an ambulance; by this time Grandma was in the driveway, her mottled hands fluttering about her mouth.

"Ambulance!" Someone shouted, and Grandma spun around and dashed through the porch screen door and to the kitchen phone. James watched the man trying to revive Grandpa, and then as an afterthought, pulled the throttle on the lawn mower and let the engine die. Silence swelled and flew up and down the street, nestling in the tops of the trees everywhere, and then perched― waiting for someone to say something.

Four days later, James stood in his black suit by the old Bluegum Eucalyptus tree, watching large ants wind a trail over the bark. Behind him, relatives mingled under the awning on the patio, their conversation somber. James watched the ants scour the tree bark for something invisible. He had moved the lawn mower into the garage several days ago. The lawn was still half-mowed; sometime he would finish it for Grandma. He felt a little guilty that he had not offered to do it before; no one had known that Grandpa was so sick, he told himself.

Under the awning Dad was talking to Grandma.

"We have to go upstate in a week, Mom. Carolyn's folks are having a reunion and we need to go. I know it may be too soon, but could James stay with you while we're away? I wouldn't ask but―”

"Of course he can," she said, her glasses reflecting the sunlight from the liquid in a cup of coffee she nestled in her hands.

"We'll get him packed and―”

"It's all right. Grandpa loved James and it would be good to have him here. I really don't mind."

"Thanks, Mom."

"Of course, you're more than welcome," she said.

There was distance in her voice. Her eyes were focused elsewhere. Her mind was on other things. She was hearing the lawn mower over the ambulance siren again. She closed her eyes and traveled to another time. She saw the trailer she and her husband lived in when they were in Arizona. A dapper, fully-coiffed Grandpa was pumping up a bike tire. They rode bicycles together in the evenings, up and down the lit streets. That was a good time.

There were other good times too. She would remember them all. Having distanced herself from the conversation on the patio, her eyes roamed the lawn. They traveled over the neatly trimmed bushes, the weeded yard. They rested on the small, suited figure, tracing paths in the bark of that old tree with a stick.

Grandpa had planted that tree in 1978. She remembered when he brought it home. She made him iced tea as he dug the hole. She watched him from the patio, smiling, content with the fact that he was there, right where he should be. This is all she would ever want. This is all she needed. As she watched, the wind tugged at one of the leafy branches, moving it slightly, blowing tufts of dust in the dry earth. She thought the branch made a gesture to the boy, like it was trying to reassure him. She finally took a sip of the coffee and turned back to her family.

James saw the relatives gather around and reach out to his grandmother to comfort her. He didn't see his dad with his hand over his mouth battling back tears, or his mother, who had just come out from the living room now massaging his shoulders. James was oblivious to all that. He was mostly watching the ants. He watched them form trails like ticking veins across the tree bark. They had their little paths to follow. One by one, over the dry bark, they explored and dabbed at the world with little antennae. He amused himself drawing a twig over the paths and watching their confusion as he wiped away the scent trail. He ran the stick this way and that. The ants were predictable. The wind blew in a gust and he heard a sigh.

He was sure it was a sigh.

The dust swirled about him and got into his eyes. He stepped back and patted it away. When he could see again, he noticed the ants were making trails that all seemed to be pointed towards the roots of the tree. The wind coughed up dry Bluegum Eucalyptus leaves. He heard something again, seeming to come from deep inside the roots. The ants changed course and followed a trail to the grape stake fence now. They were deserting the tree, like tiny rats deserting a ship. Grandma was watching and hollered across the lawn, "Come out of the dust, James; you'll ruin your suit."

In the garage the lawn mower, still sitting there in the blood of chopped grass, still smelling of gas and oil, rumbled on. It sounded like someone was revving it with the throttle. Uncle Nye got up after a few people had reacted to the sound in surprise, muttering under his breath, "Damn kids," and walked over to the garage. In a few seconds, the engine was silent again. He closed the garage door to “keep out the riffraff.” The lawn mower sat alone in the light from the garage door window, surrounded by darkness. All was silent now. There were the "lawn smells", the stink of gas and oil and nothing more.

A gust of wind came up and blew through the mourners, shaking the table covers and causing people to leap toward the food to protect it. James dropped the stick and strolled over to where his dad was sitting with Grandma, his eyes red and swollen, his nose red too.

"Can we go home now?" James said.


The Bluegum Eucalyptus tree had been a part of the house almost as long as Grandma and Grandpa had owned it. The Bluegum always flowered from April to November, bringing hummingbirds into the yard. The tree seemed to "nail down" the property―anchoring the entire lot. The house was a three-bedroom built in the late 60's, nestled in a converted orchard. To the west beyond the grape stake fence there was the football and baseball field of a local grade school, and beyond that, newer townhouses and the main street leading out of the neighborhood.

Angie and Bob (Grandma and Grandpa to family) bought the house in 1968 after selling their trailer. Together they selected the plants and trees that populated their home, pouring over catalogs on warm summer evenings, sharing a pitcher of cold tea. Their biggest yard buy was the Bluegum Eucalyptus tree.

The Bluegum comes from Tasmania and southeastern Australia. Grandpa learned that it was brought to California in 1856 (he liked looking up things like this in the Encyclopedia). He and Angie looked over the catalogs for days finally deciding on this tree over a Willow. Grandpa recalled that Willows got worms.

Not much grew around the Bluegum; it was always bare under the thing, except for the crabgrass. Grandpa said the Bluegum was an important source of fuel in other countries. It was used for windbreaks (which is why Grandpa's Bluegum was at the southwest part of the yard), "shelter belts", and sound barriers along highways. The only problem was that Grandpa insisted on planting the Bluegum next to the grape stake fence, knowing those fences could catch fire easily.

He made the mistake of mentioning that to Grandma and she had fussed about it ever since. It is the stringy outer bark that catches fire. The tree itself has some unique properties after being burned. Release of what is called "crown-stored" seed is triggered when shoots die, and these seeds spread like crazy in the aftereffects of a fire. Grandpa's tree grew over the grape stake fence. The Bluegum Eucalyptus, at least 25 feet at its crown, formed a leafy bridge between their home and the old Meyers home next door.

The house on the other side of Grandma's was one of the older ones on the street. It had been a family place owned by the people who had tended and taken care of the orchard. Now the orchard had become tract homes, and this house stood out like a sore thumb. It was a large, two-story thing with a wasp's nest by the door to the top bedroom where Richard Meyers sat with his shotgun, drinking beer and watching the surrounding neighborhood like a predatory animal.

He kept a black and white TV playing all the time, switching channels between wrestling and Roller Derby; his favorite was wrestling. He slept, ate, drank and sometimes pissed in this room. Richard had done some time in prison for sex crimes and was on parole. His aunt was an elderly woman, easily bamboozled by his jailhouse charm. At first, Richard did odd jobs for her. Later, as she grew more senile and became more of an invalid, he tended to ignore her until she died leaving him the house. Richard Meyers was bad; more than that, he was a hard core sociopath. He was someone the neighbors steered clear of.

After they got to know him, most things steered clear of Richard Meyers.

Richard liked the room high above the bedrooms of the old house. It had been his uncle's study. He loved trashing it. He also liked the view; he could see into the neighboring yards from there. He watched families come and go like a hawk gazes over a dry field, searching for signs of his next meal. The windows ran around on the study almost the entire length, except for the wall where the pictures hung.

Hunting scenes, diplomas, football photographs--all suffered dart wounds inflicted by Richard Meyers. Broken glass and pictures made the wall look like it had been attacked by a sapsucker gone mad. Richard sat in his uncle's favorite chair, its fabric peppered with cigarette burns, watching Sally Handerburgh sun in her yard― with her top off. He sat there watching her for hours imagining what she would say if he climbed to the roof from the porch outside, shinnied down that old Peppertree and ended right there in the yard with her. His fantasies morphed from that scenario to an epic stroke comic.

He loved that room. He looked to his left where the buzzing from the wasp's nest always drew his attention. He liked the wasps. He wasn't afraid of them. He was used to being stuck. Richard Meyers was also a heroin addict.

He had watched the people huddled under the awning at the old coot's place this afternoon. That bastard had lived a good life. He wondered where he got the energy to manage that lawn. Richard sat in a chair on the porch with the wasps busy above his head. He sighted the shotgun on the ass of that cat watching something in the grass below.

Here, kitty, kitty.

The front sights of the shotgun waved back and forth as he aimed at the cat's furry backside. "Boom," he said, then came the crisp "click" of the hammer as it dropped onto an empty cartridge chamber.

He had watched the old man and the old woman come and go, like an owl watches the coming and going of field mice. He was more than interested when the old man sat in the yard one day, a coffee table up, cloth spread over it. What was it glittering in the sunlight, laid out in uniform rows in a kind of book thing? Gold, copper, silver... all shimmering in the sun. He liked watching the old fart brush and polish them. He estimated there was at least several thousand dollars worth of money there. What's an old fart going to do with all that?

He could score some decent heroin with that money; he could put those coins to some use―you bet. He also knew that the old man was dead now, and the only thing between him and those coins was his old lady, that poor old tired bitch, thin and frail like his aunt―one foot in the grave. Richard Meyers leaned over and took the phone off the hook and dialed. He was calling Lenny, his dealer.


"Do I have to stay with Grandma?" James asked.

"You're too young to stay by yourself," his mother answered.

"Mom."

"No argument. Grandma can use the company. She always likes it when you visit after school."

She was packing his clothes, making sure she had him all set for the school week. This was no small task.

"I'm thirteen," he said, but knew better. They were intent on having him be forever "their child.” He turned and walked out into the garage where his Dad was going over the car. He was eyeing a dipstick and fussing with some rags.

"What's it like not to have a dad?" James said.

Dad stopped for a moment and thought about it, then said, "I miss him. It's sort of like this big hole has been dug out of my life. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. I just wondered. It's really odd knowing I'm going over there this evening and he won't be there."

"I know. Mom is taking it hard too. I feel bad leaving like I am, but your Mother and I need to make this trip. I feel like I'm deserting the both of you. Do you feel like that?"

"I wish I could go."

"You'd just be stuck with a bunch of 'dry-balls', Son. There's no fun in that."

"What am I going to do at Grandma's?"

"The yard needs work. You can help with that after school."

"Can you think of anything else I can do?" He said as he wiped a wrench.

"Grandma is going to need all of us. I guess yard work isn’t fun, like you say, but she needs the help. We're family. It's up to us to give it to her. If it wasn't for this reunion I'd be over there now. Grandpa left some things undone. Right now she has no water in the back bathroom. That's going to be a real hassle getting that fixed."

He wiped the dipstick.

"Damn, I forgot to check it," he said, plunging it once again into its metal scabbard. He drew it out, eyeing it carefully. It was a fraction below the "fill" mark.

"I guess I need to get some oil."



Grandma was washing the dishes. She washed each one. There wasn't much. It was only her dishes that she needed to clean now. She washed a cup, over and over. It said “97 Airborne” on it. This was his favorite mug. The warm water made her hands red. As she washed the mug she watched that damn cat on the two-by-four that topped the grape stake fence. It sat there crouched, eyeing the lawn. She watched it for a moment; then, for some reason, she looked up and saw Richard Meyers beading down on it with a shotgun.

She didn't know much about her neighbor, but from what she knew, she was sure she didn't like him. The barrel of the gun rolled and wove like a coiled snake. How dare him! Did he think he could shoot neighborhood pets like that? The cat was oblivious to it all. Every muscle, every strip of feline sinew was focused on something in that lawn. It was sizing the thing up. This was lunch. Never mind that bland cat food. The wind blew making the periwinkle along the fence nod and bow. Every inch of that cat was ready.

The cat made its move, streaking straight down the grape stake slats, only to be caught up in a flurry of Bluegum Eucalyptus branch. It came out of nowhere, hitting the cat in midstride. It caught him solid, sending him scrabbling and howling into the dry grass, a spitting storm of dust and fur. She could hear Richard Meyers laughing at the poor thing. The cat, visibly shaken, sped off over the fence and tumbled into the baseball field behind it.

Her husband had not liked that damned cat; he always tried to protect things from it. He didn't like the predatory nature of the thing, the greed it he thought it showed when stalking. He would have laughed too, seeing the tree swipe it in mid-flight like that. Neither of the witnesses to this ever questioned once how that branch could swing in an arc out of nowhere, just at the instant the cat was getting ready to nail its dinner. It must have been the wind. That’s it. Grandma returned to the dishes. Richard returned to his beer. The cat returned home, probably never to venture into that yard again.

Show's over.


Some people say the Santana winds were named by an Associated Press correspondent stationed in Santa Ana. He called them "Santa Ana" winds in a 1901 dispatch. They originate in California's eastern deserts, blowing through mountain canyons, exiting the mouths of them at 100 miles per hour at times. The theory is that these winds are fueled by "sinking air", because air will dry and warm as it sinks. Whatever they are, however they occur, they are hot and dry and blow like hell.

A Santana was blowing dust and debris up vacant streets now. Telephone poles wagged like monks at prayer, their lines bouncing. Richard Meyers was sitting in his "office." Roller Derby was on, but he wasn't watching. Instead, he was gazing at the neighbor's lawn as the wind whipped around his "hunting perch.” He knew the old woman and the kid were there. He'd seen him arrive that afternoon.

The wind was blowing about fifty to sixty miles an hour. The power lines that swung by his "perch" waved ominously. He never took his eyes off the light in the bedroom window as night fell, until it flicked off about 9:45. He sat back and popped another beer. He would wait until two or three A.M. He had the gear laid out on the workbench in the garage, all his B&E shit. Wouldn't hurt to get a catnap. It would be time to do his thing soon enough. He put his feet up and closed his eyes.

Outside, the wind pummeled the screens on the windows. Papers and cans meandered down the streets, clinging to culverts and chain link fences like platelets in arteries. A dog howled somewhere, frightened inside his doghouse now being raked and buffeted by sixty mile an hour gusts. It was 2:15. The streets were dark. Only the street lamps witnessed the fierce "devil winds" tearing and pulling at treetops and making roof eves groan.

Richard Meyers labored under the stark garage bulb. He buckled on his converted carpenter's belt, duct tape hanging in a silver ring from it, along with screwdrivers, chisels, lock picks and a glasscutter. He knew already that he was going through the bathroom window. He took out the black ski mask from a tool drawer, brushed wood shavings off it, and pulled it on. He glimpsed himself in a broken mirror loosely attached to a garage stud and grinned.

Pretty scary.

This was going to be easy. He felt cocky. The old bitch won't know what hit her. He stood on the little side porch now, the winds tugging at his mask and jacket. He closed the door behind him and peered through the grape stake slats at the old woman’s bathroom window, its glass obscured. The streetlight in front of both their houses lit the eves under the old woman’s roof.  He put his hands on the tips of the grape stake and muscled himself up to the two-by-four, balanced there with his knees, swung a leg over and dropped down, hanging onto the fence ridge only briefly.

He would go in through the bathroom window because that would put him in the part of the house that neither she nor the kid could see― unless they were taking a leak. This was the bathroom he had heard the old man complaining about to the mail carrier weeks ago. This was the one with no water.

He felt around the sill. The glass was back an inch or so. The old man had kept this window cracked open and no one had bothered to close it. Why should they? Who was going to rob them? He pushed it back further and felt the warm, still air of the bathroom on his hand. He eased the glass open all the way; wide enough for his skinny butt. He wrestled himself up onto the ledge using the stucco wall for traction, twisting and straining until he was through the window up to his armpits. Then he used the back muscles in his upper arms to leverage his torso in.

There was nothing on the wall below him. Upside-down, he hand-walked the rest of his body to the floor. Silently, carefully, he slid his feet and legs along the wall to his right, landing with a soft "thud" on his knees in the bathtub, bruising a shin on the faucets. Slowly he righted himself Thank God for that noisy-ass Santana. He stood, straightening the tools on his belt. Now to business.

The Santana winds raked and clawed over the roof shingles of the house. He moved to the closed door of the bathroom and eased it open slowly, revealing the hallway. He knew the old woman was sleeping in the bedroom to the left, because he had heard her and the old man through the open window one night, arguing. Only a night-light in the working bathroom at the end of the hall lit his way.

First the old lady.

He flushed his back to the wall, taking care not to move any pictures or scrape a screwdriver against it, then snaked his way along it into the doorframe of Grandma’s room, pausing there to look across the hall where he thought the kid might be.

Darkness. Breathing. He slipped into the old lady's bedroom, walked over to the bed and stood there for a minute. She was sleeping with her back to him. He didn't want to grab her and have her scream, waking the kid. He moved over to her side of the bed, facing her.

Jesus, what a sleeper. Look how close he was. A bomb wouldn't wake this old hag. He paused for a few moments. As if to punctuate this moment the wind rattled the shingles along the spine of the house. She stirred; he placed his hand on her mouth and hissed, "Shhh.”  She tried to speak anyway and he clamped his hand tighter, snorting at her.

"Shut up now. Don't say nothin'. I just want those coins―you know. Gimme those coins and I'll leave." He lifted his hand away; as she started to speak, he cautioned her again.

"Quietly."

"I don't know what you mean," she said. This pissed him off. He flipped her over, taking out a screwdriver and pressing it to her neck.

"I want those coins. Don't give me no shit about it or you're dead meat." He prodded her neck arteries to stress his point. She began to blubber. That's all he needed. He dragged her hands behind her back and wound the wrists with duct tape. He rolled her over and bound her ankles. He was in control and this old bitch was going to give him what he wanted.

It was then that he heard what sounded like a drawer opening in the kitchen.

That little bastard. What's he up to? How long has he been awake? Did he call 911 ? Richard Meyers slid into the hallway, wielding the screwdriver like a sword. He was going to skewer the little shit. He rounded the hallway into the dark living room. The wind was even fiercer now. Power lines danced and waved outside. Streetlights flickered. He needed to find that little prick fast.

He got reckless. He strolled into the living room, brandishing the screwdriver, and turned to meet a flurry of fists rushing him from the kitchen. One fist connected with a meaty thud, then there was a pause, scrabbling back in the kitchen through a drawer and suddenly he felt a large bread knife enter the soft flesh below his bottom rib on the right side. It slid in about six inches and stopped.

Awwwwww shit. This was gonna hurt.

Richard Meyers fell to his knees, and then slumped to a seated position on his heels, bracing himself with his right arm. He groped for the knife handle. He felt the part of the knife that was sticking into his lung move as he manipulated it. Gingerly, about six inches of hard metal unsheathed itself from his flesh. He felt blood pour down from the wound to the waistband of his pants, staining the rim of his underwear. This little bastard was going to die tonight. Pain grouped around the wound, the cut muscles dancing. He tasted blood in his mouth. He watched the boy tear through the back door, heading toward the garage. He struggled to his feet, fighting back a faint.

He coughed blood. He was fucked up; he knew that. He felt the lips of the wound ooze blood. He put his hands to his chest and it came away wet and greasy. He almost lost it again. Not yet. Not until I finish my business here. He lumbered into the garage.

He was standing there in the darkness again.

"Come on out, kid. I won't hurt you. We just had a misunderstanding. I'm not hurt bad... really."

The darkness didn't respond.

"Say kid, you didn't call the police, did ya? You didn't dial 911 on old Dick, did ya?"

The darkness answered back with a Brrrt.

Richard listened to it, trying to figure out what it was. Brrrrt! Brrt! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! It was a power mower. The bitter smell of combusting gas entered his nostrils. Something came at him about floor level, something that made scraping noises. The blades chopped away at his pants-leg, carving out trails of flesh, the lawn mower trying to dry hump him chewing on his shin at the same time. He screamed. Reaching down, he tried to push it away, searing his hands on hot metal for his trouble. He screamed again, bent over in a stage curtsy, frantically trying to remove a mechanical eating-machine from his leg.

He fumbled around the top of the lawn mower, burning himself again on the exhausts before he found the choke. The mechanical chewing-machine stopped humping him. He drew his leg away from the bloody teeth. The sound that came out of his throat was angry, raw and frightening.

A voice chirruped back, "I didn't do it!"

Richard reached along a shelf for something to hurl towards the voice. He found gallon paint can and launched it. The sound it made against the wall was abrupt. The garage door to the backyard opened, framing the shadow of a fleeing thirteen-year-old boy.

Oh no. You're not getting away that easy.

Richard fumbled in the darkness and his hand came to rest on the handle of a croquet mallet. He wrenched it from its rack. He tasted blood. This was really bad. When he finished the kid he was going to do the old lady too. Oh yes. He would punish them both. A wave of dizziness washed over him. Pain snaked up his shin and ignited in his knee. He limped out the door, waving the mallet. The little bastard would not get away with any of this.

The Santana winds nearly lifted him off his feet. Ten or twenty yards in front of him, he could see the kid almost to the Bluegum Eucalyptus and the gate that opened onto the football field. Not this time, kid. He swung the mallet and the wind took it. It flew straight to the boy and thumped him with brute force between his shoulder blades. James fell, the breath knocked out of him. In seconds, Richard had him pinned to the ground, his fingers dug deeply into the soft tissues of James's neck, restricting the airway, choking the life out of him. James began to lose consciousness.

Above them a branch from the Bluegum Eucalyptus lost a portion of itself torn away in the wind. It made a thirty five-inch stake. The branch had separated above and behind Richard making a spear of wood pointed down at him; oblivious, he was focused on methodically choking the life out of the boy who had nearly killed him. Richard was so intent on what he was doing that he never heard the branch moan, never saw its leaves shudder just as it lurched. But he did feel that thirty five-inch stake poke him between the shoulder blades, driving it into his chest cavity, skewering his heart.

Richard's death-grip on James loosened as he felt his heart constrict around the sharp object that had impaled it. He was still on his knees as James caught his breath and scrambled out from under him. James stood back, bracing himself in the fierce winds. He watched Richard's hands flutter up to the growing stain on his T-shirt, watched his windblown face go slack, blood in the teeth that were clenched in a grimace which was fast forming his death mask. Richard crumpled around the stake in a cloud of dust and leaves, and was still; and now there was nothing but James, the wind and the Bluegum Eucalyptus tree.

The police arrived, then an ambulance, and then the coroner. James had carefully unwound as much of the duct tape from Grandma's wrists and ankles as he could. From the bedroom looking out through the glass slider, they both watched as the police struggled in the wind to "maintain the integrity of the crime scene.” Richard remained impaled on the branch for many hours until all questions had been asked, all pictures and notes taken. The coroner, looking like he was in a wind tunnel, cut the branch; then he and an assistant wrestled Richard into one of those bags. They rolled him on a gurney like a mobile concession, and wheeled him to the waiting corner's wagon.

Good-bye Richard Meyers.

It was days before the Santana died down. This one had done considerable damage to the community. There were bits and pieces of debris everywhere, clogging the tract streets. On Appleyard Avenue power lines were down and the power crews worked feverishly to restore electricity. Everywhere, neighbors found residue from other yards plastered up against their fences. It looked like trees and shrubs had exploded all over the place. Chain saws whined as road crews sawed up and then removed fallen timber. The sky was blue and clear.

When James's parents returned home, they were shocked to see the damage to the neighborhood; they were angry and frightened when James and Grandma told them of their ordeal with the deceased Richard Meyers. Not long afterwards, Grandma sold the house. She moved in with the family and lived peacefully there for another three years, dying of a stroke one Sunday afternoon after church.

In the yard where the Bluegum Eucalyptus stood guard, a cat stalked and hunted, unmolested. The tree allowed the feline to roam freely. It left little packages of destroyed and bloody prey in the dry grass.

Some months later, to the dismay of the new owners, lightening struck the Bluegum Eucalyptus tree at sunset, setting it on fire. It burned the bark and thirty feet of grape stake. It burned, sending a column of smoke into the night sky, smoke lit by the searchlight from a police helicopter and the revolving lights of the pump trucks that had to knock down the far gate to get into the yard.

Three days later, the Bluegum Eucalyptus was sawed down and hauled away in the back of a truck; only the stump remained, surrounded by fresh grape stake replacement fencing. Three weeks later, the stump was removed.

After months of initial effort that stretched into a couple of years of tender loving care, a rose garden filled up that corner of the yard, its blossoms thick and fragrant.