The Homewrecker

Summer of '95. I was working at the same summer job I held throughout college: parkway restoration for the Elmhurst Forestry Department.

I loved that job. I was outside all day, got to talk with my co-workers as we worked, got to drive dump trucks and tractors around town. Mostly, we fixed the damage from the water main breaks that had happened all winter long, or fixed damage to lawns caused by a city crew having removed a tree. I pulled up with my crew, scooped out all the bad stuff, threw down good dirt, planted seed and moved on.

Two things made the job extra fun for me. The first is that special tasks came up often--like maybe a resident had been particularly onerous and demanding, or the job was something other than parkway restoration, but not big enough to be worthy of the attention of the full-timers--and I was the boss's go-to girl for these special missions. The second is that I was surrounded by characters. Funny, somewhat peculiar men worked in that department and I have 5 summers of experience with them that is stranger than fiction.

These two circumstances converged one morning when Harold, the boss, sent me and Critter out to an address on Park Avenue to remove a load of woodchips.

"Critter" is the name of a part-timer who was my age. He was married with no children--got "hitched" at age 18 because "there's a lot of VD out there"--and in addition to working his two part-time jobs, he avidly pursued his other interest, a radio shock-jock called ManCow.

"Avid pursuit" because he'd take days off work to go down to ManCow's studio to snap photos of him and turn them into ManCow trading cards. "Avid" because he mowed the word "ManCow" into his grandmother's back lawn, took a picture of it from the attic, and then framed it as a gift for ManCow.

So Critter had his quirks. Next to these, he had some good qualities, too. He was a kind person, pretty funny, interesting to talk to. And--not sure if this is a quirk or a quality--he deeply believed that it was immoral for a man to allow a woman to work harder than he does. So if I used a square nose to thrown down dirt, Critter would use a giant coal shovel. Our boss didn't know this. All he knew was that the male crew leaders always complained about what a slacker Critter was. And that when Critter was on my crew, we got a lot done.

The lady on Park Avenue had ordered a load of wood chips. The city delivered these for free to residents. When a full-timer's truck was filled with chips after a tree removal or a lot of trimming, instead of dumping it onto the city's pile, he'd dump it on the resident's driveway apron. The particular Park Avenue resident insisted that Roy back his truck up her driveway and dump the chips in her backyard. He explained that this was a bad idea--risk to property, etc--but she'd have none of it and after a series of angry calls to city hall, Roy was ordered to comply.

He dumped them. She looked at the chips and said, "I don't want these."

They didn't look like the crisp, winter chips she had seen her neighbor get. They were summer chips, with foliage chopped up and spread throughout. Roy tried to explain that the city doesn't pick up chips once they are dumped. But after a series of angry phone calls to city hall, Critter and I were ordered to go pick them up the next morning.

We were there by 7:20 AM. Truck and front-loading tractor parked at the curb. The eight cubic yards of chips loomed up the driveway that was shared by the two brick houses. I rang the doorbell and the resident told me to go ahead and get the chips, but first, ask her neighbor who shared the driveway whether she wanted them for herself.

This annoyed me. What was with this lady? Then I figured I would enjoy ringing someone's doorbell at 7:20 AM and blaming it on the neighbor, so I did.

This other lady didn't want the woodchips. But she did have a question. The tree on her front lawn was dead. What should she do?

I explained that because it was on her private property and not the parkway, it was solely her responsibility, that she could call such and such number to ask for a tree removal service recommendation, or just look in her phone book, and then I briefly explained the different kinds of price quotes she could ask for, depending on how much she wanted done. I said it all with a smile on my face, and I enjoyed feeling like such a know-it-all.

Then I heard Critter say, "Or. . ."

The lady and I turned to look at him. He was leaning against her porch railing, smoking. "Or, you could plant moss on it and then it would be a dead tree that's green."

I rolled my eyes but then noticed the lady's interest was peaked. He carried on, telling her that it was a popular option nowadays, that she could buy the moss at any nursery, that it made a wonderful new habitat for "suburban micro-wildlife."

After she thanked us and shut the door, I said, "Critter?!"

He shrugged and said, "I think it'd look cool." This guy. His BS was going to get us into trouble one day.

ManCow was broadcasting at this hour, so Critter wanted me to operate the tractor while he wore his earphones and used the coal shovel to scoop chips into the front bucket. Fine. No problem.

This tractor was old. And lurchy. But if you were careful with the clutch, you could get a smooth enough ride. I navigated up the driveway, very wary of the houses on the sides, noting that I didn't have much space to play with. I filled the bucket, Critter topped me off, I backed down very slowly, very carefully, dumped the chips into our truck.

Then back up the driveway, carefully, but realizing that, actually, there was more room on each side that I'd thought. Fill the bucket, back down, carefully, but not as slowly because there was actually plenty of room to work with.

Dumped the chips. Back up to the top. Critter stuck his cigarette in his mouth to use two hands to top me off. Into reverse, headed back down and then CLUNK.

The bucket slammed into the corner of the first lady's house.

I froze. The tractor stopped moving. I peered around the post of the cab and saw that three of the bricks were gouged, their clay shards lay on the driveway.

I didn't know what to do. What was I going to do? I can't believe I'd just done that. What was I going to do?

I continued backwards, slowly now, though I was panicked, and I hadn't noticed that the whole load had shifted in the bucket, that now there was a big stick poking out of the left side. I didn't see this until I saw it stabbing at the window screen as I passed by it, stabbing so hard it poked the screen into what turned out to be the bathroom where, I could see, the man of the house was showering.

Insert f-bomb here.

My escape plan crystallized: We were just one load of chips from having a full truck and we'd have to go dump it before getting the rest. I would hurry up and get the last bucket, and by the time we got back from dumping, these people will have been off to work. I hoped.

I emptied the bucket, headed back up the driveway for just one more and Critter jogged over to meet me as I pulled up. He stepped up to the cab, blew smoke out the side of his mouth and then turned to me to say, "The window will be easy to fix."

"Just fill the bucket, and let's get out of here!"

He smiled at me and then made of point of sauntering back to the pile. Critter had a plan that seemed more fun to him than making a quick get-away.

The bucket was filled just as the guy came out in his robe and black dress socks. I didn't let him catch my eye and instead, backed out with the utmost care.

From the street, I watched Critter talk to him. The resident was pointing at the corner of his house, waving frantically. Critter was nodding, leaning with one arm on his shovel, taking drags off his cigarette with great calm. Then Critter used the cigarette hand to point to the house and gesture with authority about something and nod knowingly. Then he stuck the butt into his mouth and shook the guy's hand with great manly aplomb. The guy went inside. Critter came down the driveway.

He climbed into the cab and we were off. I didn't want to ask, but I had to ask. I listened to the truck slide through its gears, wondering how long I could make myself wait. And then, several blocks away, I said, "What'd you tell him?"

Critter turned to me with a half-smile, amused not that I wanted to know but that I finally had a vested interest in what he'd come up with.

"Well," Critter began, "I told him this would not be a problem. That we would color match the brick to our supply back at the shop and that a couple building maintenance guys would come back out with a house jack. This is a hydraulic tool that you insert into support beams or corners. It puts the pressure up and down so that we can cut out the middle, damaged bricks and then insert the new ones. Piece of cake. Told him we'd put the order in right away."

Silence in the cab. Just the loud hum of the truck engine.

"Critter," I made myself ask, "Is there any such thing as a house jack?"

"Oh, hell no!" he said.



I was expecting that incident to end my time at Forestry. I told Harold what had happened. But Rich, a full-timer who is still a good friend of mine today, interceded. This was not my fault, Rich argued. This was the City Manager's fault. He's the one who caved into a whining resident and forced the workers to violate city policy and this was the very reason we even had the policy: to avoid damage to residential property.

Yeah! That's right!

The residents were gone by the time we were back to get the rest of the chips. Building Maintenance guys did go up there, but all they could do was paint the gouge with a sealant. Critter never had to explain about the house jack. And word spread around the shop very quickly about how Amy Ferrone had screwed up so badly.

But I kept my job, and was around the whole rest of the summer whence I bore a new nickname: The Homewrecker.