Hank was trying to cut down a tree.  It was an oak tree, or a jacaranda, or a palm tree.  He didn’t know much about trees.  It was late in the morning and Hanks breath smelled like it was being filtered through a dead cat.  There were bags under his eyes.  The morning sun and squinting made them worse.

The tree had always been there.  It was there when he and his wife moved into the house.  He never thought twice about it.  The branches were tangled.  The trunk split into two at about knee height.  Above that, it was a mess of twigs and leaves shaped like canoes.  The whole thing leaned over the house.  Hank used that as an excuse to get rid of it.

To his credit, the tree was leaning over the house, but it never bothered him before.  Maybe it was his wife’s fault.  His wife was a woman with too skinny legs and aggressive facial features.  She was always barking orders at Hank, throwing things at him, threatening to leave.  They were constantly at each other’s throats.  Hank’s wife was also a bit of a floozy.  When she got drunk she gave handjobs to young college kids in the back of an old cowboy bar.  I guess she was known for that.

Either way, Hank got an ear-beating from his wife about the tree and its leaves.  In the fall they fall off, like most leaves do, and that was enough to start a fight.  Hank hated the tree after that.  He tilted his head and looked up at the gnarly branches.  The way it leaned made him think it could fall on the house.  He was right, but it was a sturdy tree.  Unless there was a hurricane, it wasn’t going anywhere.  And there weren’t any hurricanes where they lived.

Hank, with his shorts pulled up over the mushy part of his belly, thought of ways to get rid of the tree.  He’d blow the whole thing up if he had the know-how.  Demolish it like an old football stadium.  Sit and watch from a chair at the other end of the yard.  The only problem was the house.  If he used a chainsaw, it would surely come down on the house.  He’d never hear the end of it from his wife.

A neighbor drove by, a woman in a minivan.  She waved at Hank.  He watched her without moving his head.  He didn’t wave back.  Then he looked up at the tree again.  A bird with a long nose flew into a thick web of branches.  It had a worm dangling like a spaghetti noodle out the side of its mouth.  There was the sound of more birds, chirping and bouncing around in a nest.  Hank couldn’t see them.  The bird with the worm hopped over and the chirping got worse.  Then it flew off again.

There was no plan in Hank’s mind.  His brain was working like a drain pipe choked with hair.  Hank went to his toolshed and brought out the chainsaw.  It fired up when he pulled the cord, but died after a few seconds.  No gas.

Hanks wife came outside in her slippers.  She kept her big chin too far out in front of her body.  It made her uglier.  She said something to Hank and put her hands on her hips.  He said something back and shooed her away with his hand.  She slammed the door and locked it.  Hank went on, adding gasoline to the chainsaw.

With serious exertion and minor scrapes, Hank managed to crawl up onto the roof.  He started buzzing off some of the smaller branches.  They came down around him.  He kicked them over the edge onto the ground.  The wife was outside again, but Hank couldn’t hear her over the chainsaw.  He cut more of the branches until one side of the tree was almost bare.  A part of the trunk still leaned precariously toward the house, but it looked like it might miss the corner if he felled it correctly.

Hank got in his belly and climbed back down off the roof.  He looked up at the tree again and closed one eye, trying to imagine it falling down.  He was trying to convince himself that it wouldn’t take the house down with it.

For reassurance, he tied a rope to the trunk, pulled it tight, and anchored it away from the house.  Hank had never felled a tree, but it seemed like a smart thing to do.  His wife was inside on the phone.  He could see her through the window.  She was doing something gross with the excess skin on her neck in the mirror.  Pinching and folding it.  Hank made a face and went back to work.

He cut a hitch out of the more dangerous of the split trunks.  He had the right idea, cutting away from the house, encouraging it to fall where he wanted.  After each cut he walked around the base of the tree and eyeballed the edge of the roof.  With the rope and the hitch, it looked like it would fall without causing any damage.

The chainsaw got jammed up when he started to cut from the opposite side.  The leaning tree pinched down and sandwiched the blade.  It was stuck.  That really pissed Hank off.  He struggled with the chainsaw, his face getting redder and sweatier by the second.  At one point, he was kicking at the chainsaw and using his shoulder to ram against the trunk of the tree.  The wind blew and some leaves came off the roof around him.

Panting and swearing, Hank went back his toolshed and returned with an ax. He flailed and chipped at the trunk.  Bits of bark shot off.  He closed his eyes and swung away.  Some of his swipes missed entirely, the momentum swinging Hank 360 degrees.  This went on for several minutes.  His wife was too busy playing with her loose skin to notice.

All at once it went.  There was a snap and all those twisted branches were coming down on top of him.  His agility was poor.  There was only enough time to turn.  He got a half step.  The trunk kicked off the side of the house and landed on the back of Hank’s shoulder.  It drove him into the ground.  Bones were certainly broken.  There was dirt in his mouth and one of his arms was twisted at an odd angle.  He was conscious, but that didn’t help anything.

From the tree falling, it took about three seconds before Hank’s wife came screaming out the front door.  Her head spun around on her neck and a little smoke shot from her ears.  “Hank!  You no good sonuvabitch!  I told you!  I knew you were going to knock that tree into my goddam house!”

Some of the neighbors looked out their windows.  They saw the tree and the edge of the roof busted to shit.  They heard Hank’s wife’s verbal onslaught and giggled.  They didn’t know her well, but they knew Hank was in trouble again.

She went on screaming, throwing her arms in the air, pointing at the damaged roof until she realized that Hank wasn’t standing there with red cheeks.  Her chin shot out further in front of her body.  She walked around the branches and stepped over the fallen tree.  That’s when she saw Hank.  He was squirming, trying to pull himself out with the good arm.

She paused and a little color ran out of her face.  Hank looked up at her with one eye.  He spit out a mouthful of dirt.  Once she knew he wasn’t dead, she folded her arms and took a step back.  “Serves you right.  If you think I’m gonna help you out of that mess, you’re dumber than you look.”

She turned and went back inside, grabbed her purse, came back out, got in the car and drove off.  Eventually one of the neighbors would call for an ambulance.  It would take an entire team of firefighters to get the tree off of Hank.