Chico is THE (Tree) MAN!
By May Lattanzio
5 July 2008
I met him in a neighbor's yard, amid a clutter of downed pine trees. I had a couple of dangerous trees in my yard – the yellow pine by the wellhouse, and the oak that grew for a hundred years (I counted the rings), a few inches from the end of the house. He told me his name was Chico, and his resin-tacky hand fished around the glove box for a card. I kept it.
It had already dropped a limb that went through the roof, and I went up and did the patch myself. I hope it holds. Florida has recently passed laws regarding roofing that have increased the price of a new one thousands of dollars, now unaffordable for me.
Chico was elusive as an eel, but I finally tracked him down with the help of the neighbor, and he gave me the best estimate.
We made the appointment and then the comedy of errors began. The hydraulic lift he rented wasn't working correctly and then it started to rain. Day one was a virtual failure.
He worked with two small chain saws. I don't know how they run. Fuel caps were lost, screws were stripped, chains became dull and wrenches misplaced. A nut was lost - I did the impossible among the leaves. I found it dragging a magnet. Truck batteries died going out of my gate; endless jump starts, cousins called to pick him up, cell phones went dead as well, and the weather didn't cooperate at all, resulting in Chico taking other, smaller jobs.
His climbing spikes worked. So did he. He climbs trees like a monkey. His daddy taught him well. Chico has no fear of heights, and up he goes. He can make a spider web of nylon ropes that insure a limb or a trunk will fall exactly where he says it will.
Chico's a small, powerful man, arms, chest and back covered with tattoos. He was a boxer. His nose shows it. He did some foolish things as a younger man that endangered his health, and landed him in the clink, but now he's out and determined to have his own tree service business, with his dependable crew, his wife, Michele, Chico's "good woman". She grew up in the tree service business too, and she knows just how to handle the ropes on the ground. She knows how dangerous it is, and when he's up high, she worries. He was up in that tree many times when the wood was damp. Scary stuff.
Chico's funny. His motto rang out more than once during the weeks he kept returning..."Let's git 'er done!" He maintains his sense of humor and never gets upset. When one of the limbs surprised him by swinging back, despite the care he took to harness it so it would go the other way, it hit him in the leg. We on the ground thought we'd have to get someone to get him out of the tree and take him to the hospital with a broken leg. He came down rappelling with his good leg, laughing but in pain. He said he felt his leg almost break; he felt it bend. The climbing spike saved it by acting like a brace on the inside. Told him not to come back until he felt better. The tree was becoming an ominous entity in the yard and Chico admitted it frightened him a little.
Chico's mother is Cuban and when he heard I have Cuban blood, started speaking Spanish to me. Didn't work. Don't speak Spanish.
Finally, after much planning and careful placement of ropes, a neighbor in his mowing machine holding pressure on one of the lines, the trunk fell with a tremendous thud, naked of branches and limbs in the company of Chico, Michele, his brother and the neighbor. It came down exactly where he planned to lay it, a few feet from the fence; a job well done with no hydraulic lifts, no heavy duty chainsaws; just excellent technique that comes from experience (the old fashioned way), climbing spikes and the rescued, secondhand saws.
This week, the stump of the red oak is sprouting new growth. The rest of it has been taken to be made into stair treads.
I promised I'd find him work, and whenever I hear of a job, I give him a referral. Everyone needs a second chance and a new start.
Chico would like to do high steel in New York City.
Need any work done?
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