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18 overflow Strange to see this newly planted tree along this stretch of the Pike, its roadside coastal shelf, a spruce, I think, slender, bottle-shaped, a coniferous Giacometti left to fend for itself, as if the state had simply run out of funds, only one tree left, but green, Garcia Lorca green, when suddenly, wondrous strange, as Horatio would say, I can see it again, a bottle of Teem, twelve cents back then, and richly green, held out to me in the Templeton Pine Grove Cemetery by Freddie Maahs, my dear best friend, who worked there with me after my father died. And I would not take it from him, and he set it aside, and we raved and swore, and suddenly, improbably, fought with each other, furious, green as we were. For a moment I think we tried to make ghosts of each other, until just as suddenly we both sat down, bloodied, punch-drunk, stupid, and out of breath, too tired to speak, beside the grave we should have been digging. Then we thought for a while, he who sorely hated and was embarrassed by his beanpole drunk of a father, and I who had simply lost my own, heart attack, and who had convinced myself I would not take charity from anyone, and more than that, who did not have the 12 cents to repay him, and who could not, would not, admit I was wrong, that I could see, even then, it was just dumb love he was offering, shining, gleaming, standing right there on a gravestone, like a bottle, green, beaded and cool, teeming with a comfort I was too stubborn to drink. ...

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