The Homicidal Tree & Disaster Dave
Disaster Dave gave a tree a hickey with his trailer, hauled by his cumbersome truck that maneuvers like my fat, elderly aunt trying to dance the quickstep.
Easing into a very tight turn out of a parking area cramped with cars illegally parked, there was the tree. Or rather, there it wasn’t. The tree’s unexpected girth hid behind a big bush. Dave didn’t care if his trailer pruned the bush a bit, but the tree leaped out to chew the trailer’s fender.
For once, Dave was glad he faced a crisis alone. No witnesses and no recriminations beyond the guilt and anger barking in his head. (Later, he would have trouble quieting the ruckus because this wasn’t his first wreck. He’s edited traffic signs, electric utility boxes and phone poles. Inching out of a parking spot one night, with his windshield covered by smeared gray dust from a fairground, he nudged the bumper of a gray car that was almost invisible because it was camouflaged with the same gray dust. His truck’s bulk rocked the car like a steroid-stoked wrestler bumping a wheelchair, but there was no damage, at least nothing Dave could see through the dust.)
As a connoisseur of the demolition derbies commonly held at county fairs, Dave appreciated the minimal force the tree used to inflict the dramatic aesthetics of his fender’s twisted metal. But he didn’t have time to ponder the scene. As usual, he was doing tourism on a deadline between fairs; so pounded the jutting fender into submission with his ever-handy crowbar (a very satisfying experience) and exited before the tree attacked again.
(The location of this epic encounter remains anonymous for fear Earth First might seek revenge for his arboreal assault. Rest assured the incident didn’t mar the Gardens of Versailles or even an old lady’s lawn. It occurred on a skinny gravel road in the country, where an owner might claim unseemly value for an extraneous tree.)
Disclosure: This is Dave’s tale, and he believes facts sometimes interfere with a good story. Keep that in mind if you’re tempted to locate any of the scarred waypoints of his bumper-car travels across the nation. However, it is Disaster Dave, who drives with the finesse of a machete doing brain surgery.
