The arizonic (1)

The cypress tree

- Dude, my dad gives us sixty bucks each if we help him on Saturday to cut the cypress tree…

Marquitos was my best friend since childhood. Our parents were neighbors and friends since we moved to a semi-detached house in Leganés. We had gone to school, high school, and shared common hobbies, such as sports or pretty girls.

His parents had a small house that they had inherited from their grandparents in Miraflores de la Sierra, a town north of Madrid, and they used to spend their summers and some winter weekends there, when the cold or snow didn't prevent it. In fact, I had been to their house hundreds of times with my parents for barbecues, and I knew it like the back of my hand.

The house was a bit old, from the seventies, one of those white houses with a stone base, a slate roof, and wooden shutters, which are so common in the Sierra de Madrid. A small plot with a tiny pool, which had seen better days, and a somewhat neglected garden.

The thing is that the cypress tree surrounding the house was quite wild, because it hadn't been cut for a couple of years, and since we were in winter and it was pruning season, Marquitos' dad had proposed that we go with him the following weekend to help him cut it and tidy it up a bit.

I had made some money working as a lifeguard some days during the summer, but between drinks, festivals, and other things, I was broke again, so I agreed, because sixty bucks would be enough to get by for two or three weekends until Christmas, when my grandparents would give me some money.

The plan was to go on Saturday morning, spend the day pruning the cypress tree, and return to Leganés on Sunday after lunch. Marquitos and I could go out on Saturday night and, with luck, pick up some girls from the village, so the weekend didn't look so bad. I would end up with sixty bucks more in my pocket and, with a bit of luck, with a girl from the Sierra in my contacts.

On Saturday morning, we left for Miraflores and arrived at noon. Although it was December and quite chilly, the sun was shining, and it was a spectacular day. One of those days with blue skies, where the gray of the mountains contrasts radically with the spectacular Madrid sky.

Marquitos' dad, Josema, would use the chainsaw, because he knew how to use it, while we had no idea how to use that thing. Our job was simply to collect the pruned branches, pile them up in a cart, and take them to a heap in one of the corners of the plot. When the heap got too big, we would have to transport all the branches to a huge container in the urbanization to throw away the vegetation.

The work was a real pain, but since Marquitos is a jokester, we didn't stop laughing while doing it. Although the December morning was cold, between the sun and the physical work, we both ended up sweating like pigs, so we took off our shirts. Josema, Marquitos' dad, who was wearing a blue work overal...