His pal Marty was with him that day: Marty Londergan, a dentist, Joe’s buddy from high school. “Joe,” Marty said. “How we gonna get all this shit back?”
“Get a truck,” Joe said. Like everybody’s brother had a forty-foot flatbed in the garage.
“Yeah,” Marty said. “Who’s gonna drive it?”
“I’ll drive,” Joe said. “Used to drive ‘em all the time.”
Sure enough, Marty found somebody’s brother who’d lend a truck, and Joe drove the thing, overloaded, rocking and pitching, with trees hanging off the tail, down the back roads, an hour and a half, back to Wilmington. Then he started digging–a forty-five-foot trench, three feet deep and three feet wide, through blacktop and paving stones. He was out there in gym shorts and hiking boots, sweating like a pig, with the headlights of four cars shining upon his ditch, with Jill leaning out the window to yell, “Come to bed, honey!” … while an old friend or two propped the trees and bushes up in the ditch, so Joe could wall away his realm.
“No, tighter!” Joe’d say.
“I don’t know, Joe…”
“Tighter,” Joe said. He had to have privacy. The rhododendrons, he planted them two feet apart. Next weekend, he’s back for yews. He built a wall of yews around the swimming pool. Never mind there was no room for them to spread their roots.
“Whaddya think?” Joe asked, grinning.
Two years, of course, they’re all dead.