the outlaw tree

"This here's Miss Bonnie Parker. I'm Clyde Barrow. We rob banks."

when you flout the law the way my wife and i do, it's just a matter of time before the cops show up.

mind you, i didn't want to flout the law. my wife made me do it. i protested, vociferously. but in the end her will was done. we became scofflaws.

the jackhammer we brandished in the commission of our crime will not help our case. it was a bosch brute, and it busted up the concrete in front of our house like butter going through a knife. there may have been some operator error involved.

but at the end of the day -- a very long day -- the deed was done. we vandalized the hell out of that concrete, moved it out of the way, dug into the dirt below...and planted a tree.

at one point our gladys kravitz neighbor sent her husband over to see just what we thought we were doing. we're making some room in front of this telephone pole to plant a tree, my wife said.

that's when the inquisition-by-proxy began. did we have permission? did the city say this was allowable? won't the tree get up into the lines? isn't the concrete holding up the pole?

my wife lied like a hardened criminal. oh, yeah, we called the city and they were fine with our little plan. they even gave us a list of trees to consider. cornelian cherry trees are particularly good in locations like ours. it's all good, and don't worry about it one bit, mr. kravitz. run along now, so we can finish before the storm rolls in.

my wife is an accomplished liar. i believed her, and i knew she was lying. the cops, however, may not be convinced so easily.

i fully expect them to roll up one of these days. they'll be cool at first, because we live in a nice neighborood and seem like nice people. on the surface.

but it won't take long for them to figure out that we flouted the law. we broke up 4 square feet of city concrete, planted a tree, and put down some shredded hardwood mulch. these are the facts, and they are not in dispute.

Bonnie Parker: What would you do if some miracle happened and we could walk out of here tomorrow morning and start all over again clean? No record and nobody after us, huh?

Clyde Barrow: Well, uh, I guess I'd do it all different. First off, I wouldn't live in the same state where we pull our jobs.

me? i intend to plead insanity. i was driven to dig by my scofflaw wife.

will it work? only a fool would hope.

i fully expect that one day we'll both hang from our outlaw tree.