John Amos set up the tow truck on a level spot at the top of the driveway and unleashed a fat cable with a hook on one end and a very large winch on the other. He hooked the cable to my trailer axle and started the winch to pull the trailer out. We couldn’t get a straight pull, so we snaked the cable around a small tree to get the proper angle. Turning on the winch, the cable sliced through the tree with a puff of smoke and a sharp twang. The tree came down, further blocking our way.
Plan B was to position the tow truck closer to the trailer with a straighter shot and remove a couple of smaller trees. John Amos, of course, had a chainsaw in the bed of his tow truck. At the sound of the saw, Mr. King reappeared to demand what the fuck I was doing cutting down his forest, pontificating that he’d bought this house because of the woods, that I would pay for every goddamn tree I cut down, and that he was going to go back to the house this instant and call the local agent to send the insurance adjuster because he was going to file the biggest claim ever filed against the damn van line for fucking up his forest. I noticed he directed all of this at me, ignoring the towering John Amos. Had Mr. King confronted him directly, the situation might have become more complicated. John Amos could have cut the bastard in half with or without the chainsaw, but he knew the odds to the decimal point how that would pan out in Richmond.
“I’m gonna own this fuckin’ van line when we’re done, you little bastard” was Mr. King’s parting shot.
John Amos’s plan worked, and between me putting the tractor in reverse, easing the load on the winch, and John Amos constantly repositioning the tow truck to correct for the proper angle, we eased out of the woods a few inches at a time. Six hours later we had the truck on safe pavement, and we only had to cut down nine more trees. John Amos took off, having collected a cool $1,600, and it was 4 p.m. The insurance adjuster had arrived and was waiting inside Mr. King’s house to interview me. I had to be in Fredericksburg the next morning at 8 with an empty truck to load a new shipment to Missouri.
The interview went quickly. The insurance guy was sitting on the floor of an empty bedroom with a notebook and pocket tape recorder. Mr. King was standing, looking out the window. I entered the room. The adjuster turned on the tape recorder.
“Mr. Murphy, can you please describe the events that occurred today, resulting in the loss of twelve trees on this property?”
“Yes sir. Earlier this morning, in attempting to unload at the King residence, I went too far down the driveway with my truck and got it stuck. In order to extract the truck, the tow truck operator was required to cut down several trees.”
Mr. King butted in. “Did you verify it’s twelve fucking trees? A dozen beautiful fucking hardwoods?”
“Mr. Murphy, do you dispute the number of trees?”
“No, sir.”
Mr. King kicked in again. “Hardwoods, goddammit. Hardwoods, all of ’em.”
“Mr. King, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the room.” He headed for the door, muttering, “Hardwoods,” all the way down the stairs.
“Mr. Murphy, were all of the trees cut down hardwoods?”
“I can’t say, sir. I don’t know my trees. All I can say is that all of the trees cut down were in the way. Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, Mr. Murphy, ask away.”
“Is this going to be some massive claim?”
The insurance adjuster reached over and turned off the RECORD button. “Mel downstairs thinks he’s going to get a check for what it would cost to get every tree replaced and replanted by the guys at the garden center. So suppose you go out and buy a twenty-five-year-old oak tree and move it in with a big tree mover and plant it where the old one was. That’s probably five grand. Multiply that by twelve trees, and old Mel here has probably already spent the sixty grand on a tricked-out bass boat. But here’s the deal: Loss of trees in a situation like this is calculated as a percentage of trees lost as a percentage of the land’s value. This here’s a five-acre lot worth about a hundred grand. The value of the trees is a tenth of that, so say ten grand worth of trees. There are a thousand trees on this lot, and you killed twelve of them. so that’s .012 percent of ten grand. Mel’s got $120 coming.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Two reasons. One is we’re on the same side. The van line is my client. The other is Mel’s an asshole. I could smell him a mile off. And you look like you’ve had a pretty bad day.”
“Thanks. My day’s not even close to being over yet.”
“Fuck Mel. You take care of yourself.”
I still needed to get the truck unloaded. It was a job that would take three experienced men about six hours under normal conditions. It was four thirty, and the truck was half a mile from the house. Screw it, I thought. Drastic times called for drastic measures: I called the local Manpower office and asked for twelve movers for immediate work going until midnight. Amazingly, they said there would be a van full of men with me in less than an hour.
I went back to the truck and prepared to unload. I opened the back doors, set up the walkboard, and instructed my two helpers about what was about to happen. I’d been paying them for dozing and smoking and wandering around since this morning. Frog never said another word to me after his initial advice. Mr. King picked this time to come back and tell me that his whole family was tired, that it was almost 5 p.m., and that we should pick up tomorrow at 8 a.m. sharp.
“Sorry, Mr. King. We’re unloading now. We’ll be done today, or tonight, rather.”
“Three of you walking a half mile? No fucking way. It will take you three days.”
Just then the Manpower van pulled up, and a dozen workers of various types spilled out onto the pavement. Some of them looked a little worse for wear. Mr. King decided not to argue and scurried homeward to defend his womenfolk against this armada. Laborers who are available at a moment’s notice for any kind of work that might take all night are generally people who have run out of traditional options. Mr. King had probably never seen this end of the American employment pool. His American Dream doesn’t take note of economic losers, so he, and others like him, tend to treat such people as invisible—until a couple of them are carrying your sacred marriage bed into the master bedroom suite with the Jack and Jill closets, separate toilets, and the Jacuzzi tub.