When Rudy began collecting buckets, I figured it was something to do with self-improvement. Fall was the season that Rudy traditionally vowed to get his shit together. He had tried hibernating the whole winter. He had tried fasting. He had quit drinking briefly. He had tried eating a pound of raw ground beef with cayenne and honey in it twice a week. He had tried swishing coconut oil around in his mouth for thirty minutes a day. He had tried Christianity. He had even tried simply announcing, when I showed up for work in the mornings, “Look at me. I am new and improved. I’m a better man.”

Now buckets rolled around in the back of his truck, more of them every day. Five-gallon mayonnaise buckets, two-gallon buckets that were stained with deep green frosting, food-grade buckets that had once held potato salad, lemon meringue pie filling, nondairy whipping cream. I worked for Rudy nearly full-time that fall, repairing trees from summer storms, preparing them for winter ones.

“Why so many buckets, Rudy?” I asked him, when I could no longer see the chain saws underneath them. We were facing a spruce that day, its split trunk showing a keyhole to the sky.

“New business idea,” he said. “Whenever we go out on a tree job, pruning, removal, I don’t care what it is, we offer the client some fruit trees, too.” He tightened his harness, unwound his throw line. “If everyone had fruit trees growing in their yards, no one could be pushed around. We’d be like, Fuck you, we have our own fruit, so stop trying to sell us your fucking Washington State apples and shit. We’ll do for ourselves.”

“Sounds like permaculture,” I said.

“I don’t care what it sounds like,” he said. “If the hippies want a tree, fine. If they want to talk to me about culture, watch me kick some hippie ass.”

“So you’re planting an orchard?” I said.

“A nursery,” he said. “That’s why the buckets, or are you an idiot?”

“Where are the trees?” I asked.

“I’ve been cultivating rootstock out on the coal company land,” he said. “But it’s too much shade. The trees need eight hours of full sun. I’ve got to find somewhere better. I’m thinking maybe the pipeline easement runs down the side of your place. Plenty of sun. Lots of space.”

“You ever worry about it?” I asked.

“Worry about what?” he asked.

“The pipeline,” I said.

“Oh sure,” he said. “Sure I do. You hear about accidents sometimes. But it’s like getting hit by lightning. Could happen but no use fretting about it while you wait. Anyway, the mailman told me the company’s selling out,” Rudy said. “Abandoning their holdings.”

“Is that good news?” I asked.