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GREEN CHIPPER
Incessant dog bothers Phil Grim, maladjusted Amish nerd as he and Vini Dare, former Southern California junior surfing champ work quietly with long pole saws in the middle of two maple trees seventy feet tall. Phil repels recklessly to the ground and confronts dog with massive loud chainsaw, revving engine repeatedly. Up drives Chip with big green wood chipper idling loudly. He stops right by Phil, they confront the dogr an excited French poodle, with odd menace. As the dog jumps against limits of the chain, a neighbor, an old man, leans over the fence and shoots the dog with several rounds from a magnum .22 rifle. Then Vini drops a big branch across all the electric wires and it explodes to shower sparks over the proceedings. Thus begins another morning with Green Chipper. Butch Ruger and MowMow McGinnis talked each other down slowly as Chip soothed angry homeowners. Butch a tall, angular lesbian, Mow a wiry Vietnam combat veteran and former prisoner of war. Vini kept Phil from turning on the chipper until Mow was back into consciousness, so the big blades and engines wouldn't remind him of choppers. Chip scolded Vini, knowing him to be stalling brush draggage. Laughing when Butch and Mow rolled out of the truck with full gear on, they slowed to tap cigarettes and smoke, pointing to telephone poles and transformers to still trembling wires. Phil pushed up the gas intake on the chipper and wrestled a big branch butt to the shelf before the self feed wheels and waited for the engine to hum, staring at Butch and Mow with blank expression; occasionally picking a nose booger with grimy finger. Vini rolled a massive tangle of brush over a short fence. Butch and Mow each had a rake now, circling behind Vini to push more brush to him so he could feed more to Phil, who labored backing brush up and feedinge proper amounts into the chippper blasting tight chips hard against dump truck wall. The job finishing to smaller twigs being raked up, Chip tiptoed up gleefully to turn the chipper down and rake a pile in a corner. As the last was chipped and gravelly type stuff tossed, Chip gathered everyone around to announce that he had sold a large job with the lady next door when she had complained that her television screen had exploded when Vini hit the wires. no one noticed the dead dog yet, Chip pushed him into the shrubs while Butch, a Paramedic, helped the old man that had shot the dog. Suddenly foreman Bull Pastrami appeared striding across the Iawn just raked, "Rake it again. Dare." He was shorter than the others, crew cut under bright green hard hat, clipboard in arm. He approached Chip briskly, compared notes, then walked around the job Chip had just sold to the lady whose tv had fried. After work in a parking lot near their base garage on fringe of a huge city park, Phil opened tailgate of transport truck and stood between chipper trailer and gear box, sharpeninga small climbing saw Vini had dulled on a horse shoe found high in a massive white oak. The others sauntered into the bar, bragging and kidding in rough green collar fashion. Over tinted safety glasses, Phil eyed pretty legs of a woman leaving happy hour. Tonight ladies night, Butch to buy all drinks. Though striking in appearance she held poorly concealed disdain for men sexually. She worked with demonic vitality to prove worth in the company, and greeted near nightly sessions of public drink with boisterous expectance. Platonics ruled. While Vini bounced to heavy metal, ordering a round of drinks he charged to Butch with a wink to a waitress, MowMow stumbled nervously about, asking total strangers for valium. Bull gestured broadly to ceiling corners with arm around shoulders of the also short club owner. Bull apparently sold him some kind of job, ordered a round of big sandwiches, then joined the others at a table. Vini gestured for drinks, introducing the waitress to Butch, who strained a smile saying, "Yeah, run a tab, I'm really thirsty." Mow had a telephone brought to him and settled into a smoke, leafing thoughtfully through a thick catalog of business cards. "Sold my brother in law a ceiling job," Bull announced proudly. Bull was a fast talkingr hard working, ultra organized hustler. He was dancing a nerdy twist to heavy metal, toasting Vini, who was untying really long hair from under his day helmet, a custom made hard hat braided and clamped each morning to his thick hair. His night helmet was for his current Harley, or even the Ferrari he occasionally snowed up for work in. Butch was talking energetically to a burly waitress about happenings in the women's movement. They laughed, sort of rotating in the aisle, scanning the after work crowd , letting their eyes get caught. Suddenly Mow leaned forward with menace, the phone at his ear, hissing to Butch, "go check on Phil." As Butch trotted worriedly out the door, Mow rose to push his seat back and circle quietly to the back of the bar. He was sort of arguing with a bartender when a Viet Namese looking person approached in a trenchcoat. That's when Butch ran back in and dove to body check some people by the far wall and the massive chute of the green chipper knocked several concrete blocks and some paneling onto a table. People near the Asian man watched in horror as he whipped a sawed off shotgun from beneath the trench coat, MowMow shot him point blank once in the forehead with the bartenders pistol before he could fire the weapon. Phil appeared at the front door revving the biggest chainsaw they had. He was gagged and blindfolded, stumbling as people stampeded. Vini jumped from his table top to another then ran down the bar, sliding and flying to confront the dazed farmer with shrill bark designed to be heard over loud machinery. The befuddled Quaker stopped, cocked his head, and shook himself violently, saying in deep raspy voice, "China." He slumped, shutting off the idling saw, bowinq his head, "China evil."
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