Alphabet Soup

Like a cleverly scripted farce, simultaneous with B's decision to occupy a second home she's never seen, A decided that it was time to cut the damn trees again, because A's view of the ocean was almost totally obscured. As a courtesy, A notified her tenants, G and H, that a crew would be coming to trim the shrubbery. G took no notice of the scheduled tree surgery, but H thought it would be nice to see the ocean. In any case, it was A's project on A's property and had nothing to do with G and H (as yet). A crew of five, headed by J, promptly arrived on A's property and began to hack up the palms and other varieties of tree growing on A's property. A sliver of ocean crept into view. Next, they lopped the tops and leafy limbs of a tangled mess belonging to K, whose land is undeveloped and who doesn't give a damn about trees. I once knew a fellow named L who was a nihilistic drunk, too -- but K and L don't have anything to do with the rest of the story, so to hell with them.

Enter the Mob, comprised of 50 upscale expatriot property owners, whom we shall refer to collectively as M. Every comedy needs groundlings and a chorus to heckle the hero.

A, G, H, and J don't take much notice of M, aside from polite acknowledgement when they pass in public, but social metaphysicians E and F are keen to remain in the good graces of M. They pursue this quest by gossipping about others who are more prominent than themselves -- including N, a tough self-made millionaire, who thinks E, F, and M don't deserve the time of day. He specifically hates their propensity to gossip and slander, so he cautioned G that F was shooting his mouth off at the local pub, for the benefit of M, attributing to G a scurrilous remark about N, which G could not have said because it was so dumb. G assured N that he would speak to F and immediately did so in a way that allowed F and E to retain their privacy, dignity, and presumption of innocence. All was therefore copasetic between hilltop neighbors E, F, G, and H. Indeed, E, F, G, and H had enjoyed each other's companionship at dinner parties in their respective homes. From time to time, these happy gatherings were joined by A and other players in M -- all of whom have a shared neocolonial interest in and are de facto sovereigns of a 30,000-acre 'Project' that developers bought for a song twenty-five years ago, evicting the indigenous poor (hereinafter referred to as P). The social landscape, therefore, is a few M in economic power over many P, who work as gardeners, maids, and cooks for M and are paid an average of $75 a week for six 9-hour days of labor. Many P work two jobs, and most of their women and children work, too, to make ends meet, because M's dollars are pushing up the cost of living near åThe Project'. If M speak to P, it's a curt order. P rarely speak to M, except to nod in agreement, fearing economic reprisal from bad-tempered colonists. On the occasion of a burglary at E and F's rented home, two years ago, F and three drinking buddies loaded their Second Amendment veins full of vodka and proceeded to terrorize a P village with shotguns, which prompted the de jure P government to threaten criminal sanctions against future armed M lawlessness.

H's Unforgivable Disinterest

As comical as it may seem, the broomstick was wielded with an ear-splitting denunication of gardening. Tree-hugger E had many reasons to go to war on this issue. B was arriving soon. To advance in B's good graces (and perhaps persuade B to consider cheap rental or favorable owner-financed sale of B's property to E and F), it was important that E defend B's interests, including the lushness of B's shrubbery. But more urgently, E saw herself as a vested member of M, and it is M's permanent moral agenda to punish anyone who acts "selfishly." M are particularly touchy about new residents, seeing each newcomer as a threat to the colonial order. In E's mind, the crisis was A's plan to enhance the value of her property, plus H's indifference to E's divine right of privilege as a senior member of M.

Since A had no property right to trim B's trees, A opened negotiations with E (as B's putative agent and a card-carrying member of M). Negotiations continued on and off for three weeks, interrupted by other business, because A is a property developer with many responsibilities and obligations. Three weeks after J was run off with a broomstick, A received a fax from E, saying that A could go ahead and have J come back and trim the trees on B's property. Here, the story becomes confused. My best guess is that what E had in mind was that A should pay J to clear B's driveway, which is an overgrown mess -- not realizing that E's terse, ambiguous fax message could be interpreted to mean that E had dropped her objection to A reclaiming an ocean view by having J trim B's big, floppy trees in the back yard. I've often suspected that tiny little mistakes are the cause of war. Apparently, it's true.

While G and H were happily entertaining a houseful of guests, J clobbered a dozen leafy green giants and -- presto! -- the ocean went north fifty miles. No tree was felled, and not one was mortally wounded. They were pruned pretty severely -- but all will bud, branch, leaf, and flower again in a few months, guaranteeing to replay this situation comedy from the top, all over again, in not-so-slow motion. I'll check back in five years and see who assaults whom next time around.

The Miracle of Justice

Sick with outrage and ecological despair, E summoned millionaire neighbor C, who arrived from Biarritz or the Bahamas or some such place to attest the horror of topless trees in B's back yard (a location visually inaccessible from B and C's homes). After trooping through the jungle to inspect this botanical crime, C marched up to A's house and confronted H during a leisurely breakfast on the patio, where six guests witnessed the Grand Old Man of M scream that H had commited an unprecedented, despicable act of wanton destruction, denying that E sent a fax to A. H quietly withstood two or three minutes of hysterics and then told C to scram, since C angrily refused to listen to the fact that H played no role in this calamity. C's blind rage was far from inexplicable, however. His overgrown trees block A's view, too.

Comforted by C's boorish behavior, E paced up and down B's driveway the rest of the day, waiting to launch another verbal attack on innocent H. But A had warned G by telephone that E was on the warpath, and G encouraged H to make herself scarce until her two pals, Q and R, showed up. Late that afternoon, G, H, Q, R, and housemaid S were flopped in various postures of anticipation in the living room, when E stormed across the patio, calling H to come out and receive another verbal beating -- and perhaps something less verbal as well. Angelic H did the ladylike thing and invited E to enter the living room, but E refused to take more than one step across the threshhold, sensing that her lunatic behavior wouldn't play in a rational environment. E proceeded to seethe, red-faced and trembling, that B's natural resources had been "raped." Unfortunately, H was online, searching for auto parts at that moment, seated at the opposite end of a large room. She couldn't quite hear what E was ranting about and H politely repeated the invitation for E to enter and sit down.

There followed an extraordinary, amazing pratfall. S crossed the room, explaining in broken English that H had nothing to do with J's tree-trimming, and when E told S to shut up, in the caustic tone of voice peculiar to colonial autocrats, S grabbed E bodily and threw her out of A's house, threatening to punch E in the nose if she returned. In the 25-year history of 'The Project', no P had ever before manhandled an M, and S did it without asking permission of her employer H or anyone else. It happened so fast, that G, H, Q, and R sat there like lumps, unable to prevent S from kicking E the hell out for being an asshole. After the fact, S came to G and apologized for defending her friend H, with the additional suggestion that S's cousin was an immigration officer and E could be deported, if that would be helpful.

The Moral of The Story

And so, nothing changes in a comedy. H is still angelic, and M spend their time complaining angrily about sullen, lazy P, who won't do what they're told, no matter how many times one curses at them. N doesn't give a shit what slander F concocts about G, and C is not long for this world at age 84. A couple more curses are all he has left. G learned not to rely on T, and Q is helping S file legal paperwork, so that a dozen P families can receive emergency aid after a flood wrecked their huts. J returned to B's property and cleared away the mess, and A finally regained her view of the ocean, with a minimum of delay. It only took a month this time.