Rudy knew it better than anyone, but it didn’t soothe him any. When the redbuds came onto the trees, we got a job taking down a cherry, which pissed him off. The clients, a young couple who taught at the university, asked us to slice the cherry into rounds and build a flight of steps through their garden. Rudy barely waited until they were out of earshot before losing it. “I’m not their fucking trained Ewok,” he said.

“Come on, Rudy,” I said. “They’re respecting the whole living system. They’re keeping the tree as part of the landmass.”

He looked at me with deep contempt.

“I’ll show you a fucking landmass,” he said. “I’ll fucking spread my shit evenly over every one of these steps. I’ll save my hair and fingernails and make a fucking mosaic, if that’s what these goddamn hippies want.”

I put my head down, went for my ear protection.

“That’s the trouble with people,” Rudy went on. “No one knows how to live. No one knows what friendship is. Goddammit. Me and Aldi Birch go back years, and now he won’t talk to me? Fuck that.”

“We dropped a tree on him,” I said. “And then you blamed him for it.”

“Don’t be a bitch,” said Rudy. “You want to get fired?”

“Why don’t you call him?” I said.

“Why doesn’t he call me?” he said.

“If you don’t call him, maybe I will,” I said. “I know it’s his way, but all the same I get worried about him, all alone in there.”

“What about me? Don’t you ever worry about me?” asked Rudy.

I looked at him. Briefly, that moment came back to me, when we’d lain side by side after the tree fell, when I’d noticed the iron oxide color in his eyes. I didn’t like him any better now, but I remembered it. “That’s an interesting question,” I said. “Yes, I’m always a little bit worried about you. But also, I’m worried about myself when I’m around you, which is why I like to keep my ear protection on.”

Rudy rolled cherry rounds down the hill, heedless of tender violet shoots. I used a shovel to dig out benches for stair steps.

He said, “Just don’t butt in for once. I’ll call him.”

“What are you going to say?” I asked.

“None of your fucking business,” Rudy said. “I’m going to say, I’m sorry I crushed your hip. I’m sorry about the oak. I’ll tell him I’m sorry.”

But then he didn’t. He looked at his phone. He drank a Natural Ice. He didn’t call.

Rudy didn’t call Aldi until the last time it snowed.