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By Root 1250 0

recent scuffles, re-enacted in full. The bros retained a choreographic memory of every fight they had ever been in. Then also, recent meals; ranger actions of any kind, important or trivial; the weather. Cutter would drop by almost every night, even though he clearly had somewhere else he could go. In that sense he was like Frank, and perhaps as a result he and Frank didn’t talk much. The truth was that Frank spoke to few but Chessman and Zeno. Sometimes he would talk to Fedpage about items from the Post, or Andy would command that he join one of Andy’s stock exchanges. Cutter always brought a sixpack or two, and they would fall to and divide the cans and drink until the drink was gone. This usually perked them up.

“Cutter is a tree surgeon,” Zeno clarified to Frank, “our tree surgeon, currently unemployed.”

“Not city parks?” Frank asked Cutter, gesturing at the patch on the shoulder of his shirt.

“Used to be.”

“But you look like you’re still doing it?”

“Oh I am, I am.”

“Cutter is the keeper of the forest. He is the unsung savior of this fucking city.”

“What else am I gonna do.”

“So you cut on your own?”

“Yes I do.”

“He steals gas outta cars to keep his chainsaw going, don’t ya Cutter?”

“Someone’s gotta do it. This town’d disappear like that.”

“The forest it wants this city back, you know it does! That’s who’s winning.”

“—two three years I swear. But city knows some of us’ll keep at it, so they keep cutting staff.”

“They cut more people than trees!”

Cutter laughed. “Yesterday Byron couldn’t buckle his harness but in the last hole, you know he’s so fat these days, and so it gave loose on him as he finished dropping a big branch, and he fell and popped out of the waist belt but his legs held, so he swung down and the chainsaw smacked him right here on top of his leg. So he’s hanging there screaming like a fool, I cut my leg, I cut off my leg oh God! But weren’t no cut on his leg, just a bruise and a scrape. So we calling up to him, Byron you okay, ain’t no cut on your leg, quit your wiggling, you gonna slip out your harness and crack your head like a egg. But he was yelling so loud he never heard us, My leg, my leg, I’ve cut off my laaig! I can’t feel it no more! And we telling him, Open your eyes fool and look you’re fine, and he won’t do it. I can’t stand to see it! His eyes all squished shut, No no no, I can’t do it I can’t stand to see it, I can’t stand to look it’s too horrible, I can feel it’s gone, I can feel the blood dripping!”

The bros loved this. “I can feeeel it!” It was obvious this was something they’d be saying for months to come, a new addition to their clutch of stock phrases.

“How’d you get him down?”

“We had to pinch his eyelids open and make him look.”

Bursts of raucous laughter, shouted comments, a mocking re-enactment of how it must have been. Another little climax of hilarity or celebration punctuating the day.

After that they sank slowly into sullen peacefulness or sullen squabbling, same as always. The various aches and complaints. Fedpage went back to his Post, the rest to the chessboard or the scraps on the grill topping the flue of the smoky fire. Dry leaves and wet branches and again the meat was both black with smoke and undercooked. Prod the fire to keep it sputtering along. Out into the dark for a round of copious urination. Some slipped off to find another haunt; others slumped in their places, the evening’s entertainment over.

Frank walked out into the night. Sound of the creek, the citysurround. Voices in the distance; there were people at site 20, as always, and also at 18, which was a surprise. As he closed on his tree it got quieter and so did he, making his final approach as quietly as possible, covered by the noise of the creek a short distance below. Under his tree he waited, listening carefully. Night goggles, survey the scene; nothing warm upstream or down. When he was convinced no one was nearby, he called down Miss Piggy and clambered up into the night, up into his aerie, like a mountaineer scaling a last overhang to a ledge camp.

He pulled through the gap