columnist highlighted the most bizarre or absurd cases.
“Well, Diamond admitted later that he had ‘Police Beat’ in mind when he made the call. But the paper did him one better, it ran the call as their lead, ‘COUGAR’ HOWLS IN HILLS. According to Sandoval, that story destroyed her business.”
I shook my head. “And did she retaliate?”
“If so, it didn’t involve us. But I can’t believe she didn’t, because a couple months later Diamond hit her with City Ordinance fifty-eight seventeen.” She paused. When I showed no recognition of the number she said, “Smith, the tree ordinance. Diamond’s last complaint was about that eucalyptus. The tree that attacked him!”
Now I did remember. In Berkeley, we take pains to keep the fences of our pasture distant and out of sight. We rarely smack into them. In between those fences, though, we are happy to argue about every weed and pebble. City council meetings last till the wee hours. But many of our municipal wars are over fairness to the underdog.
The tree ordinance, however, was not a battle between haves and have-nots. It was between haves and used-to-haves. Between people who have trees and their neighbors who used to have views. By and large Berkeleyans love trees. On the university campus, gardeners have used giant cranes to transplant sixty-foot Italian stone pines rather than cut them down. Berkeleyans are horrified when lumber companies to the north threaten stands of virgin redwood. But on streets like Panoramic Way, where houses nestle together like toes in a tight shoe and each of those toes sells for half a million dollars, a view of San Francisco Bay, the city skyline, and the Golden Gate Bridge can be a fifty-thousand-dollar eyeful. And a neighbor’s redwood that blocks that view is not the same as the virgin redwood a hundred and fifty miles away.
I glanced from the deck to the five eucalypts, and from them to Sandoval’s shabby house. “Pereira, Sandoval’s not blocking Diamond’s view. Her house is uphill from him.”
“Not his view, Smith.”
“His solar collector?” That was another stipulation of the ordinance—trees that had grown up and blocked a solar collector were liable to trimming, thinning, topping, or removal.
Pereira chuckled. “Only in the most personal sense.” Clearly she could barely contain herself. “Maybe Dr. Diamond has spent too much time looking at the jaundiced white of molars. Or the whiter white of dental crowns. But Has-Bitched does not like to see white on his own epidermis. He never said it in the public hearings, of course, but what he wants that sun for is to lie out in it—in the buff. And when that eucalyptus branch attacked, it scraped the tan right off the left flank.”
Moving closer to Pereira, I lowered my voice, a tactic that she might have considered. “Pereira, the impression I got from the dispatcher was that the branch just fell on him.”
“It seems like it, from the evidence on the branch and the tree where it broke off. You know eucalyptus branches don’t bend and creak and ease their way to the ground like some other trees. They break off and—”
“—fall just like that,” I said, snapping my fingers before she could get hers in position. “Pereira, I don’t call that assault. Assault assumes a perpetrator.”
“Ah, Smith”—Pereira moved her hands in a wide arc as if encircling the whole pasture of possibilities—“but, you see, Has-Bitched does call it assault. Has-Bitched says Leila Sandoval hired a tree trimmer to sabotage the branch so it broke off just when he was sitting beneath it.”
“How did the tree trimmer manage this feat?”
Pereira laughed. “That Has-Bitched doesn’t know. Discovering that, he says, is our problem.”
3
R AKSEN, THE ID TECH , hurried toward me, the bag that held his sampling paraphernalia in one hand, camera case slung over shoulder. He was tall, so thin his pants seemed to stay up by good will alone, and had wiry brown
“Well, Diamond admitted later that he had ‘Police Beat’ in mind when he made the call. But the paper did him one better, it ran the call as their lead, ‘COUGAR’ HOWLS IN HILLS. According to Sandoval, that story destroyed her business.”
I shook my head. “And did she retaliate?”
“If so, it didn’t involve us. But I can’t believe she didn’t, because a couple months later Diamond hit her with City Ordinance fifty-eight seventeen.” She paused. When I showed no recognition of the number she said, “Smith, the tree ordinance. Diamond’s last complaint was about that eucalyptus. The tree that attacked him!”
Now I did remember. In Berkeley, we take pains to keep the fences of our pasture distant and out of sight. We rarely smack into them. In between those fences, though, we are happy to argue about every weed and pebble. City council meetings last till the wee hours. But many of our municipal wars are over fairness to the underdog.
The tree ordinance, however, was not a battle between haves and have-nots. It was between haves and used-to-haves. Between people who have trees and their neighbors who used to have views. By and large Berkeleyans love trees. On the university campus, gardeners have used giant cranes to transplant sixty-foot Italian stone pines rather than cut them down. Berkeleyans are horrified when lumber companies to the north threaten stands of virgin redwood. But on streets like Panoramic Way, where houses nestle together like toes in a tight shoe and each of those toes sells for half a million dollars, a view of San Francisco Bay, the city skyline, and the Golden Gate Bridge can be a fifty-thousand-dollar eyeful. And a neighbor’s redwood that blocks that view is not the same as the virgin redwood a hundred and fifty miles away.
I glanced from the deck to the five eucalypts, and from them to Sandoval’s shabby house. “Pereira, Sandoval’s not blocking Diamond’s view. Her house is uphill from him.”
“Not his view, Smith.”
“His solar collector?” That was another stipulation of the ordinance—trees that had grown up and blocked a solar collector were liable to trimming, thinning, topping, or removal.
Pereira chuckled. “Only in the most personal sense.” Clearly she could barely contain herself. “Maybe Dr. Diamond has spent too much time looking at the jaundiced white of molars. Or the whiter white of dental crowns. But Has-Bitched does not like to see white on his own epidermis. He never said it in the public hearings, of course, but what he wants that sun for is to lie out in it—in the buff. And when that eucalyptus branch attacked, it scraped the tan right off the left flank.”
Moving closer to Pereira, I lowered my voice, a tactic that she might have considered. “Pereira, the impression I got from the dispatcher was that the branch just fell on him.”
“It seems like it, from the evidence on the branch and the tree where it broke off. You know eucalyptus branches don’t bend and creak and ease their way to the ground like some other trees. They break off and—”
“—fall just like that,” I said, snapping my fingers before she could get hers in position. “Pereira, I don’t call that assault. Assault assumes a perpetrator.”
“Ah, Smith”—Pereira moved her hands in a wide arc as if encircling the whole pasture of possibilities—“but, you see, Has-Bitched does call it assault. Has-Bitched says Leila Sandoval hired a tree trimmer to sabotage the branch so it broke off just when he was sitting beneath it.”
“How did the tree trimmer manage this feat?”
Pereira laughed. “That Has-Bitched doesn’t know. Discovering that, he says, is our problem.”
3
R AKSEN, THE ID TECH , hurried toward me, the bag that held his sampling paraphernalia in one hand, camera case slung over shoulder. He was tall, so thin his pants seemed to stay up by good will alone, and had wiry brown
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