I was standing on my side porch (technically, they're both side porches, I was on the little one) when I heard the sound of a truck driving up and out of the driveway belonging to the neighbors we around here refer to as the "Hole People." We call them that because they live in a hollow, a low piece of land. I've never learned their names. Not because I didn't want to; it's just how it is. They're a rough looking bunch, them hole people...
The driver of the truck was a visitor of theirs, and as he drove by my house, he waved. Of course, I waved back. His truck was beat down, red in color, at least most of it was. The rest was rust. It was a loud truck, for its small size. As he drove on, I walked into my house, hearing the roar of the little red truck grow more distant as it drove down the road and away. I made it to my kitchen when I heard that roar again, growing louder and then go silent just as it got to what I guessed to be my driveway.
"Beep-beep!" Feeling that the truck was sitting in my driveway, I made my way back outside, and sure enough, there it was, sitting there, with the biggest, hairiest man I've seen standing half in, half out of the truck. He was an older man, and when I said hairy, I meant hairy. I mean, he had tufts of hair coming out of his ears, man!
"You need that tree cut down?" He pointed to a tree that had fallen in my yard. It hadn't fallen like you'd expect a tree to fall, with a Timber! and a loud crash. Rather, it had slowly started leaning toward the bottom half of my yard, taking its time in threatening the integrity of my fence as it loomed toward it, inch by creeping inch. It is a huge tree, definitely able to crush the fence and if it was 15 feet to the left, my little shed as well. But, before it could do any of that damage (eventually), it nestled its top limbs into the "V" of a double trunked tree on the creek bank. And there it has been sitting around, waiting for time and decomposition to take its toll so it could sock it to the fence.
"I've been visiting my friend and noticed that tree. It's been that way for a long time. I can cut it down for you. My name's Leeroy. L-e-e-r-o-y." And without a hitch, he went on. "I see you have a lot of bicycles and a few lawnmowers. I also haul off scrap metal. You wanna get rid of that stuff?"
The wheels in my brain started turning, slowly at first, having seized up from non-use, but eventually it saw where 2+2 did actually equal 4. I had been needing to get that stuff hauled off; been needing to have that tree cut down; and here was a guy who could do both. My only problem was having the money to have the tree cut. Several people had quoted about $400 to cut and remove the tree.
"Wanna trade all that junk for me cutting up that tree? You don't mind if I leave the cut wood in your yard? I wouldn't be able to haul that off myself." He said all of this with his huge chest puffed out, and even though he was a rather large man, he was older, and I believed him about his limitations.
"Yes. Yes I want the tree cut. Yes, I want that scrap hauled off. Yes, you can leave the cut wood in my yard." I couldn't believe that all those things I needed to do, but for financial or timing issues couldn't seem to ever get to, were about to be done. Today. Not in another 6 months. Not even in another week. Today.
I must say that Leeroy didn't look like someone who was out to be helpful. His looks were very deceiving. A big burly man in a beat down old pickup truck, with tobacco stains in the thick hairs of his mustache and beard, making his living cutting down trees and hauling off people's junk didn't fit my picture perfect idea of a Good Samaritan. But in the silence between the roaring of the chainsaw, we talked. He was one of 62 grandchildren who were not unfamiliar with possum or raccoon on the dinner table. He said he was raised by a "fine Christian woman who taught fine Christian values." He said things like "The engine is strong, but needs a rest now and then" as he referred to his own body. He kept naming off names of local people and streets as if I had lived here all my life as well. He even showed me how to unhook and lay my chain-link fence down so that it wouldn't be crushed when the tree fell down. I didn't even think twice when he asked for something to eat because of his low blood sugar. I didn't have to.
Sometimes people are not as they seem. Appearances don't mean much when you look beyond the exterior shell and see who they really are; when you put aside your prejudices and pre-conceived notions. I'm not saying that everybody hides who they truly are behind a veil of intentional or unintentional deceit, nor am I saying that this man was a saint. But who I initially saw and who I eventually saw were two different people. He had the same rough exterior of course, but his heart was in the right place. In his own words: "I'm not saying I'm perfect nor have I always been a good man, but I try to do good, and that's close enough."
As he pulled out of my driveway with the bed of his truck piled high with a teetering stack of bicycles and the promise to come back at a later date with help to get the lawnmowers, looking ever the part of a redneck Fred Sanford, I realized that it wasn't me who got the better part of the deal. I did get things done that needed to be done for a long time. He even hauled off that carcass of a refrigerator that has been sitting outside for months. Doing what we did sure wasn't what I had planned on doing for several hours on a Sunday. In fact, I was in the middle of doing dishes, laundry, and housecleaning when he first came by. But I sense that he got what he wanted in the way he knew how; by doing something for someone else. For me, he was a blessing in a perfect disguise.
And I learned something else too. Wayne. The hole man's name is Wayne.
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