Thirty
Craig
Ulrich was pushy and demanding as usual. “I need you to make a delivery, then water and trim the plants for growth.”
“Hold on.” Shifting to his speed from where I’d been was hard, like I couldn’t get out of four-wheel drive.
“The drop shipper is scheduled to deliver this afternoon, so tonight or tomorrow would be best. It’s just a last mile delivery.”
Last mile was the last leg of delivery, where the product ended up at the customer’s destination. For logs it meant the mill. For bonsai plants, I guessed it was the actual retail customer. “I think Mace and Maize has someone, and I don’t work for them.”
Ulrich’s accent thickened as he grew more peeved. “Lukas and you have made that very clear. This isn’t a Mace and Maize order. It is a Trees by Design order.”
“What is Trees by Design?”
My mobile phone speaker crackled, overcome by Ulrich’s shout, “That is me!” Recovering he said, “Trees by Design is me. Mace and Maize buys from Trees by Design, service and product.”
“And I don’t work for Mace and Maize.”
“No, you work for me,” Ulrich snapped. “And I have a delivery.”
“What?”
“A delivery. Two large bonsai delivered to a Riverside Cafe in Spokane. He’s a long‐time customer, and needs good service.”
“No–I mean–Okay–No, what did you say about working for you?” I’d finally shifted into two high, but now I couldn’t get the traction I needed and my mind just spun out.
“You don’t work for Lukas Mace. You are not dumb or klutzy, and you know trees.” Ulrich’s torrent of words slowed and then as if it was some concession he added, “You understand trees. That is not common. I have more work than I can do. So, I am hiring help. You work for me.”
After months of begging for work, having a job unexpectedly shoved in my face was an overly large ice cream sundae, with whip cream, sprinkles, and sweetened chocolate sauce dropped in my lap. It was too much to swallow. “But I don’t know bonsai.”
“I am hiring an apprentice, not a master,” Ulrich snapped. “And the pay reflects that.”
This was a serious thought-out offer. Sitting down on the couch I asked about the details.
Ulrich had expanded Trees by Design to provide services and product in a dozen stores in the eastern Washington and north Idaho region.
He also had another dozen long term clients he provided care and maintenance, some private, some commercial.
He could no longer do all of that and manage what he was doing in the Seattle area.
And he expected more growth. I’d spend three weeks a month doing what he’d been trying to fit into a one week trip and spend one week a month in Seattle, apprenticing at his main shop.
The pay was crap compared to driving truck but it wasn’t a fast-food wage, and came with vision, health and dental.
I could claim mileage, and he had a place for me to stay when I was in Seattle.
“I tried this once before,” Ulrich added. “Hired someone off an online ad. Total—” there was a long pause while he searched for a word, “total cock-up. Undependable, ruined trees. Claimed hours that were never worked. Cost me clients.”
“Yeah, that’s not me,” I protested.
“I know. I watched you. I’ll still be watching you, but you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty, and you know how much work goes into a day. Bonsai are not easy.”
All the demands and orders, it wasn’t just to keep me busy or to be rude. He’d been trying me out. He’d even seen the cane and hadn’t cared. What he cared about was the work itself, which I could do.
“Living things aren’t meant to be easy,” I answered. “Nor cheap.”
Ulrich laughed, “I knew I liked you. Just make sure our customers know that. So, are we doing this?”
I’m not sure I’d ever said a word that felt so good. “Yes.”
“Great,” my boss said. “We will get more organized but take down the details of this delivery. I hope Lukas doesn’t mind, it’s coming in with Mace and Maize product.
” Pen in hand I jotted down the details.
I already understood transportation logistics so what was expected wasn’t hard to figure out.
I’d go down to the shop this afternoon, meet the shipper, inspect the product, and then coordinate delivery to the customer for tomorrow morning.
“I think good things are coming,” the prickly Ulrich slipped away for a moment before adding, “for you and me both.” Then he hung up.
In the silence, my heart thundered in my ears.
There was a paycheck coming. Not an insurance hand out but an honest trade for honest effort.
Someone finally recognized that I wasn’t washed up, that I mattered.
A cold splash doused my ardor. Rilee had seen that too, at least when we were together it felt that way.
But how could I go back? Things might be different the next time, maybe, but definitely not every time.
And I’d run out, turned my back on her. The answer was I couldn’t go back.
I couldn’t give her what she needed, and I’d treated her like Veronica had treated me. There was no coming back from that.
Pocketing my phone I headed outside, stuttering, “I got a job,” to Jackie on the way.
Lukas and Kathy were covered in soggy leaves and gooey zucchini vines. Putting off something hard never makes the task easier, they should have cleaned this up before the snow came down. Darren was chasing Cami with a tomato cage entangled with a dead plant and blackened gobs of old tomatoes.
“I’ve got a job!”
“What?” Kathy jerked up from her pile. Then the words sank in and she ran across the yard to me. “You’ve got a job! You’ve got a job!” Even though she was smaller than me now, my older sister’s hug crushed me. “You’ve got a job!”
Leaning his rake against the fence Lukas followed, “Don’t keep us in suspense, Craig. What are the specifics?”
Kathy let me go and gave Lukas one of her five-hour-conversations-in-a-glance looks. It stopped Lukas cold. It also drove a cold spike into my chest, “I’m working for Ulrich.” Had Kathy and Lukas put Ulrich up to this?
“That bastard,” Lukas snapped. “He asked me every week if you worked for me. He was just trying to snake you out from us. You know, if you wanted to be in gardening you always had a job with us. We could put you at another location if you need some space.” Lukas was actually angry.
“I bet we can do better than what that guy is offering.”
“You just don’t like Ulrich.”
“I don’t trust the guy. I mean who charges that much for tree sculptures,” Lukas was having a fight he’d clearly had before.
“They’re living things, not just product. And each is unique,” I said. Someone had to speak for the trees. “People pay real money because they know that. Some bonsai are hundreds of years old.”
“So now you’re going to tell me they’re like wine and get better with age,” Lukas shouted.
As usually, Kathy intervened, “They sell well, have a high margin, and I am excited for Craig.”
Darren and his sister stopped their chase game and stared at their dad.
Accepting the distraction, Lukas recovered, though he was still hot.
“Well, this is really good news. I’m super excited for you.
I just don’t-” and then before he said something he regretted he turned back to his garden, shaking his head.
Reaching out and giving my arm a squeeze, Kathy just grinned, “I’m so happy for you. Especially after last night.”
I wasn’t going back to yesterday. I’d just rebuilt those walls and wasn’t interested in poking a hole in them. However, I was pleased Ulrich’s offer wasn’t backhanded charity from Kathy and Lukas, and the fact Lukas couldn’t stand Ulrich was an added bonus.
“I actually need to get going,” I said. “Ulrich is sending a delivery this evening and I need to oversee it.” It felt so good to have someplace to be.
“Well if you’re there I don’t need to bother, so this is great,” Lukas grumbled from the muddy vegetable beds, waving me away.
Kathy hugged me once more for good measure and I went back inside to take a real shower and change my clothes.
I had a real reason to wear work boots again, besides being the only thing that would fit my brace.
I cleaned up and killed some time until I wouldn’t be uncomfortably early.
Then I drove to Mace and Maize. I found my gloves, they were under the Walmart bag of cartoon duck towels I still couldn’t touch.
On the receiving dock the afternoon shadows were growing long. Every piece of shade was icily cold despite the spring weather. Winter hadn’t given up yet and was holding on where it could.
When the blue freightliner showed up and backed into the dock, I felt only a twinge of dissatisfaction as I could have done the approach myself without the three-point turn. But knowing somewhere in that trailer was my freight pushed my critique aside.
True to his word Lukas didn’t come down and just told me to check off the order as the lumpers rolled the pallets off.
As I didn’t work for Lukas I should have billed him for it, but I ate his food so I figured we were even.
There were pallets of terracotta pots, pet food, bird feeders, and lots of plants, including two pallets full of bare root roses.
At the back was one pallet for Trees by Design.
I signed for the loads and directed the layout at the back of the nursery.
My pallet was a mix of gallon junipers and ficus starts and two gorgeous bonsai.
The bonsai were large, at least five gallons, but they were full trees, not starts.
One was a gorgeous ceder, a mix of raw wood and bark, shaped in a wavy double trunk style and potted in a banded rough wooden barrel maybe one hand high.
The other, a ficus with a ropey trunk as thick as my bicep and tight stubby branches covered in leaves, grew in a black glazed rectangular pot so flat it could barely be called a pot.
The tree would have been at home in a towering rain forest with tropical birds winging through its heights.
Until now, the bonsai I’d handled were babies, creatures at the start of their journeys.
These were statesmen, they knew what they were and didn’t need to be reminded they weren’t bushes.
They’d take offense at being called a tiny tree, because they were masters of their domain.
The folds of their bark, and the mass of their roots declared their age, the ficus had been growing for at least a decade.
I’d repotted plants, and shaped them, and mixed their soil, but these trees said, “You don’t know anything.
Pull up a stump and listen.” They were works of art and time.
Checking the bonsai over I confirmed neither had suffered injury in transit and I cleaned up the ficus’s fallen leaves.
They were also heavy. I lifted the ficus carefully onto a stocking cart and wheeled it into the greenhouse.
I left the greenhouse vents open so the tree wouldn’t be shocked by the change in temperature.
Texting Ulrich a couple of photos so he would know the plants had arrived and their condition, I called up the customer.
Myles Pimm introduced himself as the owner of the Riverside Cafe and was excited to have someone local who could take care of his collection.
He’d known Ulrich for years. “I like to care for my personal plants, but I’m too busy with the restaurant to care for the ones at the restaurant,” he explained.
They did Sunday brunch so he asked that I come by early around eight thirty so the delivery wouldn’t disturb the customers.
The ficus was for the inside and the ceder would go on the patio.
He gave me parking directions and then said, “Ulrich has high standards, which I’ve always appreciated. I look forward to meeting you, Craig.”
After the call I momentarily wondered what I’d gotten myself into. What did I know about bonsai really? Nothing. I was just a guy with a commercial driving license and a back full of metal.
But Ulrich knew a lot about bonsai. And Ulrich knew me, so I had to trust that he was willing to pay me because this was something I could do, that he saw the tree in me.
Signing the inspection sheets for the Mace and Maize portion of the load, I left breaking down the pallets to Lukas’s stockers and headed home.
The dream that night was the same one. Rilee on the edge of the bed, light spilling around her.
Her smile curving over her bare shoulder.
Would this be the accident I couldn’t run from for the rest of my life?
It felt unfair that just as the rolling logs were finally coming to rest, ceasing their incessant grind of my soul, something else would take their place.