In the first half of this story I had found a baby’s diaper in my Brooklyn rain gutter resulting in a cold war between me and the suspected culprit, who told me the stork had dropped it. The cold war included trash talk about fixing cars and trimming trees. The first branch cut easily and so did the second. I stole a glance at Diaper Man who was looking disappointed at my success. But half way through the third cut, the branch twisted and jammed the chain, and no matter what I did I could not free it. For a long time, I tugged on the rope from several positions as muffled laughter came from the window sill above, but nothing I did freed the chain, so finally I quit. That evening when I walked out front with some trimmings I had cut and tied in a bundle, Diaper Man was sitting in front of his building in a beach chair. When I dropped the bundle next to the curb he laughed out loud in my direction. “Something funny?” I asked. “You don’t know how to cut a tree,” he said. “And I suppose you do?” “You gotta get into the tree.” “Like you get under the hood?” I countered. “Yeah.” “Then how come your car’s still not running.” “It runs,” he insisted. “I’ll tell you what. You trim my tree and I’ll fix your car.” “I’ll fix my own car,” Diaper Man said sticking out his chest. And I’ll trim your tree for nothing. You just get me a big enough ladder.” “The one I used to remove your diaper is the biggest one I have.” “That’ll do.” Of course, I didn’t take Diaper Man up on his offer. He more than likely would have fallen out of the tree and sued me. Instead I hired a professional, who, with the use of ropes, made the trimming job look easy. That was several years ago. Recently, on a visit to Brooklyn, I drove down my old block and was saddened to see that my house was gone, replaced by five floors of condominiums. Even the willow had been cut down. There was no longer anything familiar, no longer any sign that I had ever lived there. I felt like my Brooklyn life had been erased. Then, as I sat there in my car I heard a loud explosion. When the smoke cleared, there was Diaper Man, one of the reasons I had decided to leave the city, still trying to get a car started. Here was a living remnant of my past life in Brooklyn. I was actually happy to see him and tempted to talk some trash about his mechanical ability. Maybe I would even join in on his work under the hood. After all, he did once volunteer to trim my tree. But no, I was sure he wouldn’t let me touch his car. There was still a lot of smoke in the air. He looked at me as if I had never moved away and asked, “You got any questions?” I couldn’t resist. “Do you know anything about chickens?”
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