[The Bridge of His Nose]

Pyracantha is horrible, nasty stuff, and yet some people grow it on purpose… at least for a while.

When I was halfway through fourth grade, we moved across town to a house that had one of these plants that was taller than the side yard fence, growing even taller in the few years that it took us to decide to get rid of it. I used to think that the birds would get drunk on the fermented berries because they would eat them and fly loopily near the bush, where the neighbor’s cat would watch them with twitching tail (but without snacking on them), but now I’m thinking that maybe their cyanide compounds have neurotoxic effects. (I’ll let you know.)

Oh sure, there’s an abundance of glossy, deep green leaves, which I admit is pretty, and I can appreciate the cascades of tiny pale flowers and ample clusters of shiny red-orange berries (which taste rather mealy and pyucky, and are mildly poisonous unless you prep them); however, while we’re on the subject, let’s not forget their namesake fire thorns, shall we? My memory of getting poked by these things is that it burns, but maybe my brain is making it up. I’m not going to test it to find out.

So, if you’re planning to prune a pyracantha (or perhaps tear it out altogether), dress formally, as if you have been invited to closely attend the defusing of a bomb.

Unless, of course, it’s over 100 degrees outside, in which case I suggest throwing caution to the nonexistent wind and stripping down to shorts, sneakers, and gloves. That’s what Jeff and I did when Mr. Lil Olman hired us tear down all of the pyracantha that covered his backyard fence. It was a dry, dusty, pokey, chokey, scratchy, ratty, snakey, sensory nightmare of a damn job (and to make matters worse, this was during my long-haired years) but we needed the money. Plus Jeff knew this guy from somewhere or other, and felt some kind of obligation to help him out.

Anyway, there we were, over-our-heads deep in sweat, itch, self-pity, and wry amusement, when Jeff suddenly tore off at blinding speed (or maybe that was just the dust in my contacts) and vaulted the side gate. When I heard him tearing down the street I thought that he was racing away to swear at a polite distance from Mr. Olman, but then I picked up the dopplered strains of “The Entertainer.”

My brother can hear an ice cream truck the way a dog hears someone so much as thinking about cheese.

Jeff returned shortly thereafter, grimacing from the salt in his pyracantha scratches, nonetheless proudly bearing an ice cream novelty for each of us.

He had evidently harbored a grudge for 15 years, having been traumatized by the sadistic ice cream man of our childhood, the one who would let us just about catch up before driving further down the block. (Bastard. Giving Scott Joplin a bad name.)

We spent the next several minutes reveling placidly in ice-creamy contentment, cooled by the breeze of Jeff’s childhood trauma wafting away.