Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

UROLOGIST BEANED BY NUT! CAREER CUT SHORT BY DEADLY TREE!

No, Ronkers understood the moment; it was time to look ahead to the larger victory; he could only win half. Bardlong was oblique, but Bardlong was clearly a man with a made-up mind.

"Could you recommend a tree surgeon?" Ronkers asked.

"Oh, Raunch!" said Kit.

"We'll cut the tree in half," Ronkers said, striding boldly toward the split trunk, kicking the bomb-debris of fallen walnuts aside.

"I think about here," Bardlong said eagerly, having no doubt picked the spot years ago. "Of course, what costs," he added, with the old shock-absorber seriousness back in his voice, "is properly roping the overhanging limbs so that they won't fall on my roof." I hope they fall through your roof Kit thought. "Whereas, if you cut the whole tree down," Bardlong said, "you could save some time, and your money, by just letting the whole thing fall along the line of the wall; there's room for it, you see, before the street. ..." The tree spread over them, obviously a measured tree, long in Bardlong's calculations. A terminal patient, Ronkers thought, perhaps from the beginning.

"I would like to keep the part of the tree that doesn't damage your property, Mr. Bardlong," Ronkers said; his dignity was good; his distance was cool. Bardlong respected the sense of business in his voice.

"I could arrange this for you," Bardlong said. "I mean, I know a good tree outfit." Somehow, the "outfit" smacked of the fleet of men driving around in the Bardlong trucks. "It would cost you a little less," he added, with his irritatingly confiding tone, "if you let me set this up.

Kit was about to speak but Ronkers said, "I would really appreciate that, Mr. Bardlong. And we'll just have to take our chances with our rain gutters."

"Those are new windows," Kit said. "They won't leak. And who cares about water in the old basement? God, I don't care, I can tell you.

Ronkers tried to return Bardlong's patient and infuriatingly understanding smile. It was a Yes-I-Tolerate-My-Wife-Too smile. Kit was hoping for a vast unloading from above in the walnut tree, a downfall which would leave them all as hurt as she felt they were guilty.

"Raunch," she said later. "What if poor old Mr. Kesler sees it? And he will see it, Raunch. He comes by, from time to time, you know. What are you going to tell him about selling out his tree?"

"I didn't sell it out!" Ronkers said. "I think I saved what I could of the tree by letting him have his half. I couldn't have stopped him, legally. You must have seen that."

"What about poor Mr. Kesler, though?" Kit said. "We promised"

"Well, the tree will still be here." "Half the tree "Better than none."

"But what will he think of us?" Kit asked. "He'll think we agree with Bardlong that the tree is a nuisance. He'll think it will only be a matter of time before we cut down the rest."

"Well, the tree is a nuisance, Kit."

"I just want to know what you're going to say to Mr. Kesler, Raunch."

"I won't have to say anything," Ronkers told her. "Kesler's in the hospital."

She seemed stunned to hear that, old Kesler always having struck her with a kind of peasant heartiness. Those men must live forever, surely. "Raunch?" she asked, less sure of herself now. "He'll get out of the hospital, won't he? And what will you tell him when he gets out and comes around to see his tree?"

"He won't get out," Ronkers told her.

"Oh no, Raunch

The phone rang. He usually let Kit answer the phone; she could fend off the calls that weren't serious. But Kit was deep in a vision of old Kesler, in his worn lederhosen with his skinny, hairless legs.

"Hello," Ronkers told the phone.

"Dr. Ronkers?"

"Yes," he said.

"This is Margaret Brant." Ronkers groped to place the name. A young girl's voice? "Uh ..."

"You left a message at the dorm to have me call this number," Margaret Brant said. And Ronkers remembered, then; he looked over the list of the women he had to call this week. Their names were opposite the names of their infected partners-in-fun.

"Miss Brant?" he said. Kit was mouthing words like a mute: Why won't old Mr. Kesler ever get out of the hospital? "Miss Brant, do you know a young man named Harlan Booth?"

Miss Brant seemed mute herself now, and Kit whispered harshly," What? What's wrong with him?"