Friday Free-For-All

Introducing what might be another regular feature of The Big "C." I say "might" because there's no way to tell how well this will go, or how much you're willing to participate. But I plan to be taking Saturdays off from now on, so I thought I'd offer up something worth checking into over a 2 day period.

And what's more worth checking into than a collection of your answers to semi-provocative questions.

That's right: It's time for you to weigh in.

The inaugural question for the pilot run of this Friday Free-For-All stems from the stunning lack of defense for the Natalie Merchant song I pummelled on Tuesday's post. What? No Merchant fans out there? Were you afraid I'd go all Barry on you if you wrote to defend it?

Well, so OK, I promise there will be no Barry-ing of any FFFA contributions.

But here's the point I'd like to re-visit about that song: The words did not fit the music. The music did not fit the lyrics. If you're OK with that, OK.

What I'm looking for is other examples of songs where the music conjures one kind of image or mood or feeling, but the lyrics describe something that just doesn't match.

You don't have to write much about it. A title suffices. If you want to add a brief description, great. Whatever you got.

Note on posting: I've gotten e-mails from several folks saying they tried to post, but couldn't figure it out. The key is to choose "anonymous" under "profile." Everything else is pretty straightforward.

And, for that matter, if you want your post to stay anonymous, then don't bother signing at the bottom of your message and we'll never know.

So go for it! I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Theme Song Thursday: Mighty To Save

The word "Savior" is tossed around a lot. Maybe this is a little interesting to people outside of the culture that does the tossing. I want to de-code the term a little bit so at the very least, all can see why the theme song I've chosen should mean so much to me lately.

Savior. Saved from what?

Here's a keen illustration of the point taken from this past weekend's trip to the County Fair.

I reported earlier that no one has stared at my body and noticed anything amiss. This wasn't an entirely true statement. Some one did stare. We were just outside the gate, on our way back to the car when this woman, from a good 20 yards away, locked onto my chest. That's the only reason I noticed her. I noticed, at first, that there was a person, from kind of far away, staring at me.

We both continued walking towards each other. She was. . .intent. I checked her face. But it wasn't a compassionate face. I know compassion. Many breast cancer survivors have looked me in the eye and I know what that looks like.

This woman was snarling. Judging. She really was. We got closer and closer and I started to look her over with a little judgement of my own. She was a huge woman. Wearing pants that were too tight and a tank top that showed too much. And even when we were close enough that--surely!--she'd have the shame to look away, she kept staring. Her head was now turned in order to stay locked on.

And I thought, "What are you looking at, you heffer?"

A lot of you are thinking that you'd have thought the same--or worse--if you had been in my shoes. Some of you are probably applauding me in some sense.

Here's the thing: That's what my ugly heart thinks. This is not what God's heart ever thinks. This is not what Jesus ever thought towards anyone.

It's seems like a small infraction. It seems like something "completely natural" and "totally understandable." Yeah. It is. But it's not loving.

And let's not be coy, either, people. Is this even the worst thing I've ever felt towards someone? I'm 34 years old. How many un-loving thoughts have I managed to rack up in that time?

When I die, how can a heart that is not loving be united with God's heart that is totally and perfectly loving? It can't. Unless a Savior has come along to make it possible.

But I'm thinking about more than just the death moment. I'm thinking about right here on Earth. I don't like that I thought of this woman as a heffer. I need a Savior to save me from being ugly right now. I needed a Savior to save me from being angry with my children--and He delivered. I needed a Savior to save me from a debhilitating streak of pride that was tearing through my work--and He delivered.

Now, there are days when I need a Savior to save me from falling into an abyss of fear and self-body-loathing. I need a Savior to protect me from some horrid lies that come up--Will Bryan have little thoughts in his head every time he sees a "complete" woman in the movies? Will Joshua have a story to tell one day of a mother he has photos and some vague memories of because she died while he was so young?

Is Jesus mighty enough to save me from all of this?

It's a real question, friends.



*Note on all the people holding their hands up

This might be different from what your are used to thinking of as worship. I remember a time when I saw this kind of thing and thought these people were faking something, or getting caught up in hysteria.

But this is what I look like when I worship, and for me it's not hysteria and I'm not faking it. You know, when people hold their arms out and cheer at a rock concert, we don't think twice. When people in the stands cheer wildly over a homerun, it's totally cool.

If I believe that Jesus IS Mighty to save me from everything I mentioned above, of course I'm going to raise my hands to Him and cheer like this.

So Long, Mayfield

This is Part II of remarks following the post-port surgery appointment.

We brought Gemma and Joshua with us because we wanted them to see the mysterious place where I'd gone so many times and had my surgeries. They were very excited about seeing the hospital, so I think they had some sort of need along these lines.

Yes, all of that went well. I was glad they could meet Mayfield, so they could see that Mommy was being cared for by nice people. I was glad Mayfield could meet them because he is the one God used to save their Mommy's life. All looked good with the port. And so this is where Mayfield leaves off and we continue on under the care of one Dr. Maurice Markus.

This was the sad part that I just wasn't expecting. It felt like a real loss to say good-bye to this doctor. I cried most of the day.

Maybe a big part of the emotional charge is that the rest of the walk is still unknown. I don't know what chemo is going to feel like, or what these coming 18 weeks will be. I didn't know everything about the past 6 weeks, either, but at the start of them, I knew Mayfield and it was an enormous relief and blessing to have him as a constant.

Not to saying anything bad about Dr. Science, of course. Once I learn the story behind his name, I'm sure I will like him just as much.

So, here I am, some history behind me, looking ahead into a murky darkness with nothing but God's promises and a mental image of baldness, fatigue, and emaciation. (Though, if the latter happens, just think how many medical folks will be telling me how thin I am!)

In a position like this, I climb into the Way-Back machine and visit Amy Ferrone, graduate student, as she sat her cozy, cinderblock, studio apartment about 2 months before her wedding.

That morning, I had broken out into a cold sweat. Possibly the only nerve-related cold sweat of my life. Was I really going to marry this man? I hardly knew him! And that's a literal statement.

I was planning to get married to this person I hardly knew, move to a place where I had no friends, and no job, that was longer than a day-trip drive from anyone I even knew and then. . .live there for a year, 9 months of which Bryan would be at sea.

This was madness.

Why was I doing this?

I remember taking deep breaths, and deciding to read through my journal. This calmed me. I was reminded as I read that God had orchestrated this whole thing. That this was His crazy idea, not ours.

The cold sweat faded. Then I read where I "happened" to be studying in the Bible at the time. I came to the part where Moses is sharing a last speech with the people of Israel before they cross into the Promised Land after their long years of wandering.

They had some history behind them, as I do now and did then as that young fiance. They had only God's promise and a murky darkness of the unknown ahead of them.

God told them, and I paraphrase, "Remember the ways which I have led you these 40 years. I worked miracles among you to sustain you and protect you--miracles that your fathers hadn't even seen before, I designed them uniquely for you. And here's one of the reasons I led you in the wilderness for 40 years and worked miracles among you instead of just delivering you straight to the Promised Land: So that you would know that people don't live by bread alone, but they live by the Words that proceed from Me."

That is, this is one of the ways God worked then and still works today: He gives us experiences with Himself, and tells us to remember them. And when we're tempted to rely on "bread alone"--e.g. on what we know in this physical body, what we see, what we hear, what we read about, what we feel--to remember that this is not all we are and this is not all our life is.

We don't live by bread alone. We also live by the words that proceed from the mouth of the Lord our God. That is, we decide to trust what God says--His commandments, His promises, what He has done in our lives to show Himself to us--over what we can see for ourselves.

Back then, 10 years ago, this was a watershed moment for me. What I could see for myself was that it's stupid to marry someone you hardly know and walk into a life where nothing is certain. But what God had said to me and Bryan was that we should get married that Spring. I thought, 'These are the verses I will remember on the days of this coming year that absolutely suck. God has sustained me--sometimes in supernatural ways--to get me to this point, and if I will keep my eyes on Him and off what I perceive to be a bummer situation, then I will live.'

That first year was really terrible. Full of a grief I never expected. But I lived to be thankful for the experience, though it took me a few years to arrive at that gratitude. I know Bryan pretty well now. Turns out he was the right guy to marry.

You see where I'm going with this: History behind me, nothing but God's promises and a murky darkness ahead of me.

What I haven't told you is how Mayfield came to be my doctor.

My first clinical appointment was on a different base, with a nurse practitioner who sent me for an immediate mammo and ultra-sound. The second the MRI results came back (a week later), this nurse practitioner was on the phone, trying to line up a surgical consult for me.

I was on the phone with her, too, urgently making it known how intently I wanted to see a civilian and not anyone at Ft. Carson.

I believe she tried her best. But she ended up talking to the surgery clinic at Ft. Carson with my MRI result on her screen and on theirs. The surgeon "on call" was Wilcox. This means he would be assigned my case. But he was planning to be on leave that week, so he'd have to see me as early as possible the next week.

Mayfield "happened" to be walking by the office while this phone call was happening, heard about the scheduling issue, and said, "I'll take this patient."

I do not believe this was a coincidence. And in the coming 18 weeks, we'll be able to look at this gift--a divinely arranged appointment with the doctor who would do so much to make a difficult process a little easier and a lot more joyful--as a word that proceeded from God. What I see is 18 weeks of bodily weakness and physical trial. What I will trust in is that God has chosen it for me, and that He will use it to some good purpose of His own, and that one day, I will be able to see for myself all the reasons to be thankful for these 18 weeks.

If all we have looking ahead into the darkness of the unknown are God's promises, (and we have more than this, I know--we have the help and support of so many awesome people), then we also have a history with a God Who makes good on those promises.

This was a good-bye to Dr. Mayfield. But God's grace stays with us.

Etherized Again

I had my port surgery follow-up yesterday with Mayfield. Part II of the report from that appointment will come tomorrow. I'm knocking out the important part today.

And that part is to provide the complete details about my experience coming out of the haze. "Complete," that's my promise to you, even if it results in my own personal defamation, because the blogger code forbids that we varnish the truth, friends. And I am, I think you've seen over the last month, a very serious blogger.

This "etherized" report begins with the movie High Fidelity. It's not important what the movie is about (it's about music fanatics and the search for the wise decision when you have absolutely no worthy source of wisdom to consult--good luck with that, fellas!) it's not important that it's one of my Top 5 all-time favorite comedies, nor is it important that this is one of the few times when a movie is better than the book.

What's important is a short exchange early in the movie between Barry, an unkempt, obnoxious store clerk and his two co-workers.

(These guys are arguing about which group recorded the superior version of "Little Latin Lulu")

Co-worker 1: I just prefer-

Barry: BULLCRAP!

Co-worker 2: How can it be bullcrap to state a preference, Barry?


I've always thought that Barry is right about this. He meant that the first co-worker was wrong to think that one song was superior to the other. And Barry never learned the to censor himself for the sake of civil decorum.

I've learned to censor myself. When people talk about their aesthetic tastes, I put on a "You're OK, I'm OK" kind of air and let it ride. I like to think that I do have important things to say about important subjects, matters of eternal consequence, really. So I try not to waste personal capital or interpersonal energy on temporal matters.

(The only thing that matters to Barry is rock n' roll. So of course he's passionate about calling out the inferior choice.)

So, yes, I do believe there are some objective standards to be applied to aesthetic values. For instance, if you don't think Tobias Wolf's "Say Yes" is a perfect short story, you're wrong.

If you don't think Gene Hackman's Hoosiers pep talk is among the Top 10 greatest Locker Room Speeches in American sports movies history, you're wrong.

If you don't think Springsteen's "Frankie" is an ideal summer song for playing when you're sitting outside with friends, you're wrong.

(I know you are thinking: "Frankie" - a guy's name in a song!!! Nope. This Frankie is a woman. But this reminds me that right before the port surgery, Mayfield came in to do his pre-surgery thing and mentioned that he'd thought of another guy's name. Michael Jackson, in the old days, sang a song about "Ben," who was, I think, a rat. (?) I don't know. This is Mayfield's reference, not mine. I looked at him for a moment when he told me this and then said, "I won't hold it against you that you know the lyrics to Michael Jackson songs."

Then he said, and serious blogger that I am, I must allow him his defense, "Hey, this was from his young, black days. Not his old, crazy days."

And now you are thinking: Amy! You learned about a song for the on-going list in an on-going mission and you failed to report it??? COME ON!!! Are you serious about wanting to accomplish something during this whole cancer thing or is your whole blog just a big, worthless joke?

I know. I know. I need to keep my eye on the prize.

So: Mickey, Bill, Billy, Maurice, Jack and now Ben. That's 6.

Dang. I had a point here. . .

Oh right. My point is that it's not the case that all aesthetic values are subjective. Some are objective. And there are a couple of ancient Greek philosophers who would back me up on this.

But in my day to day operations, I don't live as though I believe this. Instead, I try to be polite.

All of which is a set-up to the "personal defamation" portion of the story. You see, Mayfield told me today what I said when coming out of the ether last Thursday.

It wasn't full-on "ether" like in the first surgery. It felt all the same to me in that I was suddenly asleep and then suddenly awake somewhere else. But this is stalling. It's time to tell you what I said upon first consciousness.

I was having a bad dream that there was a song playing that I hated. It was a Natalie Merchant song. I don't hate all of her music. But this one particular number is terrible. What do the lyrics even mean? It's so lazy! It just repeats itself with kind of dark and cynical words that can't possibly match up to the melody and light-heartedness she's singing it with! I hate this song.

Are you dying to know what I'm talking about? Fine. You want to ruin your day by getting it into your head? Fine. Here are the lyrics. And here is the song performed, though the video was made by some random poster. I don't mind pointing out that it pained me to re-expose myself to this song just to find the links for you. But that's the kind of serious blogger you're dealing with.

So I was hearing this song in my sleep and wanted to turn it off so badly, but couldn't. I was stuck listening to it. When I could speak, and Mayfield was standing there, here's how the conversation went:

Me: Was there music in the OR?

Mayfield: Yeah.

Me: Well I heard this song in my dream. It was like a nightmare. I couldn't turn it off. I kept thinking, 'This song sucks!'

Mayfeild: Yeah, Amy. That was my IPOD playing.


Well. If he thinks that's a good song, he's wrong.

It gets worse. That is, I knew about the IPOD thing before the follow-up because it was the first thing I remembered saying. Wasn't sure if it was as remarkable to him, but, yes, 4 days later, he mentioned it. (At one point he read some of this blog, and now I'm thinking that he may still be reading and finding himself further commented-up, in which case, "Hey, Bro! It's all good!")

Here's what he told me about that I didn't remember: There was a song playing as they wheeled me out. A country Gospel version of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," and I was saying, through my haze, "I have a better arrangement of this song. I have a better arrangement!"

Here again, we find the same aesthetic. . .non-politeness that is a little more like Barry and a little less like what I aspire to.

What Mayfield didn't know I meant was not, simply, that I had a recording at home I thought was better than this recording. But that this classic hymn, beloved by so many, is one that so poorly matches up the lyrics to the melody.

The lyrics are a lullaby. The melody is just. . .a disaster. I don't care who's singing it.

I wrote different chords and melody to it altogether! Years ago. I sang my version at Gramma's funeral, as a matter of fact, because she was the one I had always pictured really living out a song like this. So by crying out, "I have a better arrangement!" I was really saying--should I write "admitting" in that, obviously, I think this is true?--that I have a better musical aesthetic regarding this one hymn than all of modern Christendom.

And so we see how, when etherized, one's deep-rooted, easy-to-cover-up-so-you-can-look-like-a-good-person arrogance surfaces to the outside. Did it seek out and offend the snotty anesthesia nurse? Or the combat nurse who ignored my caution and put a giant bandage that I did not need directly onto my arm hair while saying, 'Too bad, so sad!'?

No. Twice in the same foggy 5 minutes, I managed to assault one of the Good Guys in this whole odyssey.

So that's the full story. The whole confession. I didn't want to tell you all about it. But a serious blogger does not obfuscate the truth.

On Marriage

Bryan's brother offered a beautiful toast at our rehearsal dinner. Brent shared how he could rejoice at our wedding not because of his confidence in the bride and groom, but because of his confidence in the God Who had brought us together. A union in Him between two people who trusted in His faithfulness was a union that would flourish.

We're ten years down the road from that toast. I would imagine that breast cancer and breast removal surgery could be a real test for some couples' relationships. It doesn't feel like that for us. Instead, we've been having these completely stunning moments together. . .

Here's one: While the kids were away for a few days, Bryan and I had time to just be together and talk without interruption. I asked him if he had any grief in all this. He'd lost something, too, after all, and he is entitled to his own feelings.

He said there was a slight feeling of loss, but that it paled in comparison to the other things he was feeling--sadness for me and everything I was enduring, overwhelming relief that I wasn't going to die, great hope that we'd grow old together. Then he said that the whole situation would be a lot harder if he had lost me in it. If I had slipped into a ball of depression, or closed in alltogether and stopped being the Amy! he knew and loved. But, as things are, I'm still here, still as much his friend and wife as before. "And," he noted, "This sounds strange, but it's as though the things who make you who you are have blossomed even more because of the cancer."

My babyduck.

I'd be remiss if I didn't explain why we are as happy together now as we ever have been. We have Bible verses inscribed on our wedding bands. My verses are Ephesians 5:22-24:

"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."

There was a time when I hated these verses, and tried to argue that they don't really mean what they obviously mean. These arguments having failed, I found myself in a pickle: I didn't want to try to do marriage outside of how God says to do marriage. I had figured out by then that not doing things God's way doesn't turn out very well.

But neither did I want to submit to a man.

So I figured I would remain single. And I planned accordingly.

The issue of these verses came up again a few years later in the context of a collection of scholarly work that took seriously objections like mine and gave good answers to them. I won't go into the details here, but suffice it to say that I stopped hating these verses and figured that I'd be OK with them only if the right man came along.

How would I know the "right" man? 1. It would be a God thing in my life and I'd be able to see God's Hand working to bring him along. And 2. He would be a man who took seriously his own set of Ephesians verses:

v 25. . .28 "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. . .husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies."

Bryan takes these verses seriously. How did Christ "love the church"? He entered our world and died here, for us. Every day--long before cancer came along--Bryan enters my world--my strange-to-him female, mother of 2 little ones, at-home world, and he dies to himself here.

And now that cancer has arrived, his self-sacrifice has multiplied, not with any great fanfare, he just looks to see how he can help and serve and he does it.

I'm not telling you this to brag about Bryan. I'm telling you to brag about Jesus, Who lives in Bryan. In his own strength, I'm not sure how well Bryan could do loving me in a daily, normal sense, let alone in all the special ways that my health now requires. But he's not living on his own strength, he is living in faith. That's not a mumbo-jumbo statement. The Bible tells us that the same power that resurrected Jesus from the dead now courses through the bodies of people who believe in that resurrection. Bryan believes it. He lives it. He loves me because of it.

This is leadership that is easy to submit to. (Even then, I don't do a perfect job of it.) This is the structure God built for our marriage and--praise be to God for this--it's a structure that is not damaged by something as trifling as cancer.

Thank You God for Bryan, yes. But, also, thank You God for Jesus, that He can make every last thing strong and sweet.

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.