Act 2, Scene 13: "A Tree Grows in SB, But for How Much Longer?"

The tree guy was out today. TRL summoned him for an estimate to get rid of dead branches and boughs on the trees scattered about his princely .45 acres. This dead wood was threatening his children every time a breeze was raised, to say nothing of summer squalls or the far off by very real possibility of ice storms. Plus a lovely little tree amidst the great towering oaks was now attracting bees, or hornets, or yellow jackets. TRL did not know what they were except they had begun to swarm over the tree during the daylight hours, making the area around it dangerous for C and E. And over the last few days unsightly white nodules had begun to form on the underside of this tree’s branches. A fungus? Miniature bee hives? A rare and deadly tree infection or home to new breed of disgusting hairy spider, TRL did not know though he was sure he wanted it away. So he called a tree pruner.

Jeff, the tree guy, walked the property and pointed up. Dead, dead, dead, he says, pointing out the obvious and not so obvious. TRL shows him the bee tree.

The tree is dripping sap, it must be sweet, attracts the bees, he says. That white stuff, I don’t know what that is.

Could it be little bee homes?

Tree guy laughs. No. Might be a fungus, or blight. I would take down the whole tree. You see what it is doing to the gutters and the wood over here, tree guys says, pointing to the steps leading to the sun porch. Rot. Leaves. Moisture. Too much shade. It could also introduce ants and bugs into the home with it being so close.

TRL immediately wants the tree gone, severed at its roots. Which was odd, he realizes, because he loves trees and likes looking out on this one from the second-floor office. But it was threatening his home, and attracting the wrong kind of creature – stinging bugs – to the backyard. And with it gone there would be more sunshine, and better access to the outside water facet, and another option for a patio and place to put the barbeque, he thought. He now saw the attraction of the deforested McMansion plots, great big houses and wide green lawns with all trees having been removed. Yes, napalm the entire backyard, TRL thinks to tell tree guy, exterminate the arboreal brutes.

Even as he had these thoughts, TRL knew that his brain was now thinking like a homeowner, and a suburban homeowner at that. He was no longer the city guy angry if a dog crapped near a tree, threatening its roots. An urban citizen raising hell should an old tree on a block be threatened by a developer, snow plows and salt trucks or careless city construction workers. He felt like a pod person, aware of a change, a transmogrification, but not really caring about the change. He was being anesthetized with the sweet drug of landownership.

$1000 to remove all the dead branches, says Jeff the tree guy. $200 more to take out the tree with the bees and grind the stump down.

Right price, exciting idea, thinks TRL. Do it, he almost says, but knows he must talk to S before authorizing the betrunking of the tree: it stood just outside the guest room that S used as an office, and she had grown attached to the lovely tree at the window.

Act 2, Scene 12: “Dry Cleaning the Family Pet”

TRL pushes C & E around a parking lot in an SB strip mall. They had just been in a kids store hunting for sun glasses, caps and socks. The store only had the socks in C & E’s size. It had been pouring all day, and right now there was a clearing, the gray skies rolling back to offer if not sunshine, at least not fat raindrops. So TRL was taking advantage and wheeling the boys around, giving everybody some fresh air.

This is my life, rolling around a suburban parking lot with a double stroller, he muses. When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. In this case, professional suburban semi-weekly stay-at-home dad.

He spots a cleaners among the toy store, rental shop and Italian restaurant in this low level brick retail enclave. He wheels in the boys.

Do you dry-clean stuffed animals? TRL asks the proprietor, a middle-aged Asian man. Bryan the Bear, a five foot long white furry bear stuffed animal present from TRL’s friend Bryan upon the boys’ birth, was in desperate need of a cleaning. After having C & E spill PediaSure and wipe cheese, plums, crackers and various other food on him, not to mention stamping on his every part, Bryan stunk. A sickly unpleasantly sweet and garbagy stink.

A long stuffed animal, TRL adds, spreading his arms out.

Dry-clean? Repeats the man.

Yes, would you dry-clean the stuffed animal?

That is very big, replies the man, looking at the space between TRL’s hands. I don’t think so. Is it a pet?

A pet? thinks TRL. What is worse, he wonders, that this man thinks TRL wants to dry clean a pet, or that this man would entertain the idea of dry-cleaning the family pet?

It’s a stuffed animal, says TRL, not a pet.

Can’t do it, the mans says, shaking his head. We can’t clean stuffed animals.

TRL thanks him and backs out. Looks like the family was facing plan B: Bryan gets a bath.

Act 2, Scene 11: “Cool Town”

It was D, the nanny’s, last day, and C was up from his nap, sitting in his highchair drinking some weight-giving PediaSure vanilla flavor (tastes like a milk shake with 10 scoops of additional sweetener). He was watching D while she browned the meat for a shepard’s pie she was making in the attempt to use up various ingredients in the refrigerator and insure that they boys did not starve at least for the first several days of her absence. She is going back to college and the boys start day care next week. TRL will have them an additional day, for a total of two days of father-sons extreme bonding.

Watching the cooking channel, I see, TRL says to C. He grabs a RedBull from the refrigerator, clinks with C’s PediaSure, and has a sip. Need the energy, he tells D.

C starts pointing to the counter and starts whining.

If you could verbalize, you would get what you want faster, TRL tells C, though immediately recognizing the fallacy of his words. He has been vocalizing his desires for years.

C whines more insistently.

Chillage in the Village, D says, and hands C a box of crackers. He immediately chillages.

TRL giggles. Chillage in the Village, he repeats. I like it.

Later that night: Chillage in the Village, S.

Where did you get that?

It’s what all the hip college set kids are saying. D said it.

Five minutes later: Chillage in the Village.

S: If this is a theme, get it out of your system now because it is going to grow tiresome. I will have to call D up and yell at her.

TRL: Hey S, Pillage in the Village.

S smiles faintly.

The next day: C and E fuss and cry as TRL and S change their diapers in the morning. Guys, Chillage in the Village.

OK, that’s one, says S. You have two more today, and that’s it.

Oh S, you need a village chillage.

TRL pauses a beat.

That one doesn’t count. It’s different.

S ignores him.

TRL begins to say the phrase quietly, so only he can hear, though S knows what he is up to. He is banned the whole day from whispering to himself .

Act 2, Scene 10: "Suburban Swag"

Saturday morning, TRL is out on the front lawn raking up clippings from trimming the bushes against the house. He hadn’t noticed they were, well, bushy, until N across the street mentioned that he had just cut his bushes with his brand new deluxe power cuter, and then his wife S put in: Looks like your bushes could use a trim.

Suppressing the obvious juvenile comeback, TRL merely nodded.

So the next day, TRL walks out the door in the morning to salvage his reputation in the neighborhood, thinking it was a 20 minute job. The boys are having breakfast, S is reading the paper.

An hour later, while raking up the last of the clippings, he spies next door neighbor R marching towards him. This was unusual.

Hi.

Hi, responds R.

When do you move? TRL asks.

Two weeks from yesterday.

Soon, says TRL. Ah, do you know when the new people are moving in?

End of the month, replies R.

They have kids?

Don’t know.

Do you know what they do?

Blackbox. Never met them. The realtors kept us away. Don’t know if they were amplifying or distorting any information.

Ahah, TRL nods, remembering the day the ugly-ass Dodge Magnum stationwagon had pulled in front of R’s house, the buyer exiting the car and surveying the house.

Do you want a trundle bed? asks R.

What is that?

It’s a double bed, one on top of the other.

Oh. Sure, says TRL, thinking it could go in the basement for guests.

Great. I’ll bring it over. Interested in a snow blower? I’m selling it.

TRL wipes his arm across his forehead to remove the sweat. It was 80 degrees. Who wants to think about snow? But still.

How much? he asks.

I got it new for $1200. I’m selling it for $500.

Wow. Ah, I’ll wait. Maybe it will be a dry winter.

R gives a laugh indicating he knows better, and leaves to get the trundle bed. TRL follows to help.

The trundle bed in the garage, TRL finishes raking and heads inside, finally.

Twenty minutes? S says.

It took a bit longer. We have a trundle bed.

What?

R gave it to us. It’s in the garage. We can put it in the basement. For guests.

That’s great, S says.

A knock on the door. It is R holding a lantern looking thing.

You guys want this bug zapper? he asks.

What does it do? S asks. But TRL quickly reaches for it.

Yes, thank you, we’d love it.

It kills bugs, TRL explains to S as he embraces the free bug executioner.

Infrared, adds R. Drops em without a sound and they fall straight down.

Excellent, says TRL, relishing his new weapon against Nature.

Act 2, Scene 9: "Special Things are Possible Today"

TRL is on the floor stretching. C & E are in their high chairs, covering themselves in Cheerios, yogurt and milk, their daily breakfast ritual. TRL extends his arms and legs, trying to stretch his entire body out to counteract the tightening and muscle shortening that has taken place over the night. He turns his head to the left to stretch out his neck, then the right but before he turns completely a long dark shadow passes over the room through the window.

TRL sits up and stares. A hot air balloon is gliding over his neighbor’s house across the street. It is just clearing the roof and trees. TRL jumps up and shouts for S.

Busy, she yells from upstairs.

TRL runs to the front door window.

You’ve got to see this, he screams up to her.

S comes down the stairs buttoning her pants. What, she huffs. I’m late for work. What are they doing?

TRL points outside.

Oh, exclaims S.

They both walk out to the front stairs. The balloon is the color of the rainbow and you can hear the hot air jets hissing in the ballooner's attempts to lift the balloon beyond the roofs and trees of the neighborhood. They watch as it drifts north and over the next street, and then, because of the trees and angle, TRL and S lose sight of it. They go back inside.

The morning now had a very Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Willy Wonka feel to it, realizes TRL. Special things are possible today.

Act 2, Scene 8: “Car Cramming”

TRL has an article due to an editor. So he starts printing out photos of the family. Cute photos of C & E and S playing and hugging and mugging for the camera. Of C & E in the baby pool with naked cousins G (age 4) and T (aged 2.5). C by himself lounging on a mini plastic chair looking oh so cool (C is instinctively cool, proving that one is either born cool or merely posing), E reading a book intently (upside down).

TRL takes the black and white print outs and tapes some to doors, others to the hutch desk in the guest room, and goes downstairs to stick some on the fridge.

Nanny D: You must have something to do, because you’re procrastinating.

TRL is both amazed that she knows him so well and that he is so obvious, and also pleased that she has taken an interest in him.

Very observant. I have an article to write. About space. Who cares about space, it’s so far away.

D nods.

I mean the guys might like space eventually, planets on their pajamas and stuff, but black holes and dwarf stars and giant vacuums, they just leave me cold. We’ve got enough going on right here and right now to keep me from looking elsewhere for more things to do.

D nods again and scoops up E, who is about to throw a large truck at the refrigerator.

What are you doing over the weekend? TRL asks.

We’re going to the drive-in.

The drive-in, wow, I’ve never been to a drive in. There’s one around here?

Yup. Twenty minutes away. There used to be one closer but that one closed.

What do you do at a drive-in?

D giggles. See a movie.

But how? Where does the sound come from?

The radio.

How much does it cost?

Well, that’s the thing. It’s only $20 so you bring as many people as can cram into your car.

$20 per car?

Yup.

TRL envisions seven 20-year-old college girls in cut-off shorts and half shirts crammed against each other in the darkened car, a movie playing on the big screen. This is the kind of vision that can sustain him for weeks.

Time to get back to work, says TRL.

Act 2, Scene 7: “Fungal Invasion”

TRL hates mushrooms. He had never thought about them before, except in the occasional context of psychedelia or the merits of using portabellas as a main course. But bouquets of mushrooms are sprouting up in his green, green lawn, invading the conformity of the grass like a cancer or an ugly growth emerging on the scalp and growing above an otherwise beautiful head of hair. Mushrooms are evil, TRL decides, and he must kill them all. So he kicks at the brown musky-smelling clusters when he walks his lawn to move the sprinkler or just take in the measure of his property. He once, in a fit of anger, grabbed a hoeing tool from the garage to scrape deep at the mushrooms’ roots, evicting the fungal bloom but also taking out a circle of grass.

TRL knows mushrooms are not to be feared, that they are part of the natural order of things, that outside is outside, but there is an aesthetic standard that the lawn must meet, for TRL’s burgeoning homeowner satisfaction and not to scare the neighbors. Plus he doesn’t want his boys touching these growths. Maybe they’re poisonous. So he kicks at them and knocks their caps off and with it some stem. It is a meager triumph, but a necessary one. The mushrooms can not stand.

Act 2, Scene 6: “Date Night”

TRL and S have entered a new chapter in their lives. They went on a date to Stop & Shop. Well, Super Stop & Shop, which may give it a higher degree of cache, at least linguistically speaking, but a grocery store none-the-less. This was not some exciting themed date, or even a nod to a bygone college alcohol and drug-induced dash to the grocery store to hunt for Haagen-Dazs while cruising in shopping carts and making relentless fun of products while giggling through the frozen foods isle. No, this was the realization after a dinner at a high-end chain restaurant that they needed bananas and yogurt for the kids, probably some milk, too, and fresh fruit wouldn’t hurt. Plus those crackers they enjoy so much. And more baby soap for their baths, and toddler toothpaste. In a word, after an exhausting weekend at a family reunion, and then long days at work, tired but finally unwinding on a first date in months, they realized they would now have to be paying $13 an hour to the babysitter for the privilege of extending their date to include shopping. What is next: dates looking for tile at the hardware store? Taking advantage of late hours at the DMV to renew licenses? Late night meetings with insurance agents and financial planners to discuss annuities, college funds and 401Ks? Probably.