Ronnie took them. He folded one over and jammed it into his pocket. The other he began to eat slowly as Wooster did.
The first time Ronnie had gotten licorice from Wooster, he had eaten it down pretty fast. Wooster didn’t say anything, knowing that most kids did that. But after Ronnie finished wolfing his pieces down, he watched Wooster eat. Wooster coddled his licorice. He’d suck it a bit to soften it. Then he’d chew a bit. He just savored it as his one vice. He’d had a sweet tooth for red licorice for years.
After that, Ronnie never wolfed his licorice again. Ever. He would eat it like Wooster. At first it was funny. The boy seemed to actually be trying to imitate just what Wooster did. But after a while he just ate it slowly, as though he liked it that way. And why not? It made your five pieces last longer!
The two sat and ate their licorice slowly as Paul began to saw at the trunk of the tree with his dull bow saw. It was comical! The trunk was about seven inches in diameter where Paul was sawing it; about three feet off the ground. A bow saw is just not the right tool for the task though. It kept twisting on him. And the trunk would squeeze down on the blade harder and harder the farther Paul got into the wood, until he had to tug it loose and try sawing in a different place, lining up the cuts so they would meet somewhere in the middle. That, of course, almost never worked just right. Wooster had been there, done that. Even with a chain saw it often didn’t work.
Paul was one of those talkers. Some men work silently. They just do their work. Wooster’s dad was that way, sort of. He would make noises from time to time. Grunts and sighs, whistles, and quick in-drawn breaths. But he never actually talked much. His thing was his tongue. He’d stick it out when the work got hard. You could tell it was not a good time to interrupt dad when the tongue was out. He’d probably yell at you! Some men need to talk though. They usually talk at whatever they’re working on. Asking questions of the project, stating philosophical truths. It could be funny to Wooster. It was like they expected inanimate objects to answer back!
Paul was talking now. Talking to the tree, “C’mon you. Why are you doing this? Why won’t you cut through? C’mon! C’mon!”
Wooster was smiling when he said to Ronnie, “Sounds like Mr. Compton is having a few troubles doesn’t it? That tree has a mind of its own.” Wooster never talked down to Ronnie. He just talked to him like he would anyone else. If the boy understood the subtleties of the conversation, well and good. If he didn’t, then maybe he would learn something. Wooster wasn’t going to act differently with Ronnie just because he was retarded. Wooster figured Ronnie was like everyone else: He’d understand what he could, and either ask about or ignore the rest. It worked fine for them both. Sometimes Ronnie asked a question, sometimes he just sat.
Ronnie nodded at Wooster and said, “It sure does.” Wooster didn’t know if Ronnie knew what the troubles were or not. Ronnie didn’t ask anything this time.
“You dang tree! C’mon!” Paul snarled it.
Wooster openly giggled. He was not mocking Paul. It was more in sympathy. He’d been in the same type of situation many times in his life. Maddening situations where you wanted something to go a certain way, and it seemed to fight you on every step. It was easy to laugh about when you weren’t the one fighting the tree. Still, that was life. Sometimes you were the laugher, sometimes you were the one fighting the tree. Wooster and Ronnie got the good side of the coin this day.
Ronnie said, “What’s funny?”
Wooster turned to him and said, “Nothing. I was just thinking.” He didn’t want the boy to think it was good to laugh at an adult.
Ronnie nodded and said, “I think it’s kinda funny when Mr. Compton talks to the tree.”
Wooster smiled and said, “Yeah, that is funny, isn’t it? They grinned at one another, and Ronnie pulled the bent licorice from his pocket and began on it. Wooster reached down and pulled another piece from the tub. It was good.
Paul was getting more frustrated by the moment. He stepped back from the tree for a minute, leaving the saw hanging in the latest cut he had inflicted on the trunk. He said out loud to himself, “I think I’ll pick these branches up.” He then began to stack the branches up near the drive so he could later take the whole mess to the dump. It was a good way to step back from his frustrations for a bit. After he had finished picking up the branches, he raked the lawn around the tree, dumping all the twigs and such in his trash can.
“Ok, now I’m ready again,” he said to the wind. And with that he began to push the bow saw back and forth again. It tried to twist and bind on him again, but he was getting the hang of it. He found that if he pressed on the top portion of the trunk, it split the cut wider and allowed the saw to move more freely. So there he worked while Wooster and Ronnie watched. His body leaned into his left hand up above the cut he was making in the trunk, and his right hand did the sawing. He got pretty far through this time before he could no longer move the blade. Of course, when he tried to remove the saw from the trunk, he found it took all his strength. But no matter; he got it out.
Paul figured one more cut on the opposite side and he’d have the top of the trunk off. He set to it after a short breather, during which he looked at the ground around the tree. He was thinking it had to be easier to dig the roots out than it was cutting through the trunk with a bow saw!
Ronnie reached down for his last piece of red licorice while asking, “What’s Mr. Compton doing standing there like that?”
Wooster said casually, “He’s just taking a breath and deciding where to cut next. A man’s gotta plan his work out y’know. Like you planning on where to go through the hedge. You can’t just dive in anywhere.”
Ronnie regarded Wooster for a moment, then said, “Hmmmm.”
Paul went back to work on the trunk, and in twenty minutes or so he was rocking the top back and forth trying to break the last vestiges of pulp holding the pieces together. With a powerful shove, the top came away and teetered off onto the lawn. Ronnie jumped off the rocker and clapped his hands, yelling to Paul, “It’s off!”
Paul looked across the street at the noise and grinned at the boy, taking small bows as though he were in front of an appreciative opera audience screaming “Bravo!”
Wooster, smiling, watched Ronnie clap his hands. At first he wasn’t sure Ronnie was all that excited about watching the cutting of the tree, but apparently he was enjoying the spectacle very much. Wooster shook his head at himself and grinned along with Ronnie. Here he was, eighty plus, and here was Ronnie, ten minus. And there they were cheering for a tree cutting like they were at a World Series game! It tickled Wooster.
Paul sauntered across the street and up onto Wooster’s porch. He nabbed himself a piece of licorice, and settled onto the porch next to Ronnie, smiling a wide grin of triumph. It was nice to see his buffoonery with the tree was getting rave reviews somewhere! He winked at Wooster and said to Ronnie, “So you’re impressed with my lumberjack expertise, eh Ronnie?”
Ronnie gave him a blank stare.
Paul said, “You know what a lumberjack is, Ronnie?”
Ronnie shook his head.
“It’s a man who cuts down trees for a living. Your dad sells furniture for a living, and a lumberjack cuts the trees to get the wood to make the furniture. I’m being a lumberjack this morning.” He gave Ronnie a broad grin and tapped his leg.
Ronnie grinned back and said, “You cut that tree pretty good Mr. Compton.”
Wooster kicked in, “You sure did Paul!” He winked at his friend. They both had done jobs with the wrong kind of tools in their lives and knew the comical outcomes that could be achieved by amateur homeowners!
Paul said, “Well thanks men. I’m thinking of going into the logging business if