John Columbus

The tornado left at nine at night. The chainsaws started at ten. I could not start mine until March. Let me explain the gap. One hour after it passed, in the dark, in a neighborhood with no power, I heard an engine pull and catch, and then another, and then six. Nobody organized it. There was no siren for it. Men came out of houses with saws they already owned, because in this country a man who lives near trees owns a saw the way a man owns shoes. They cut the road open first. Not their own driveways. The road. I asked why the road first. A man said, "Ambulance can't fly." Ambulance cannot fly. Therefore the road. Before your own house, before your own roof, before walking into your own back yard in the dark to learn what you have lost. I had no saw. I had two hands and a great deal of enthusiasm, which I have since learned is the least useful combination available in an emergency. So I asked for a job. A man in his sixties looked me over and handed me the flashlight. I want to be precise about how I received this. In my tradition, when a man is given a light while others work in darkness, he is being told that the work depends on him and that he may not move. There are accounts of men holding torches at castle gates through entire nights. I know what a light means. I held that flashlight for four hours and forty minutes. I did not sit. I did not switch hands, which was an error. I put the beam where the blade was going half a second before it got there, and when a man moved I moved with him, and when a man stopped I held the light exactly on his hands so he could see what he had. At two in the morning the road was open. He took the flashlight back and said, "Thanks, you were good on that." You were good on that. I have received formal commendations in my life. I have a scroll signed by a man whose name is in books. You were good on that. I did not sleep. At seven in the morning I bought a chainsaw. It is a good chainsaw. The man at the store asked what I was cutting and I said "trees," which he appeared to find insufficient. I could not start it. I am going to report the number honestly, because I have decided that lying about small things is how a man begins lying about large ones. Forty-seven pulls. Across two days. In my garage. With the door closed. On the third day my neighbor Dale walked in without knocking, which is normal here, took it out of my hands, flipped a small lever I had not known existed, and started it on the second pull. He did not laugh. I want that written down. Dale did not laugh. He said, "Choke." I said I did not understand. He said, "Yeah, they don't tell ya." They don't tell ya. Four words, and an entire national attitude toward instruction manuals. Eleven days after the storm I learned who had cut the tree off my fence and left before I got outside. I found him and thanked him. He said, "It was on your fence." To him that is a complete explanation. The tree was on the fence. He owns a saw. There is no step between those two facts at which a decision occurs. My saw is by the door now. It is sharp. It starts on the second pull, every time, because I have practiced starting it one hundred and six times, which Dale says is "more than you need to." It is not more than I need to. I intend to be on that road at ten o'clock.