Jessie marked the date on his phone's calendar, August 27. That was when Tony said he would "take care of it."

Jessie's wife had become a real nag, hounding him constantly, "Why don't you do this? When are you going to do that? Why isn't so and so done yet? What are you waiting for? Why don't you ever do what I ask?" and so on. It had been too much for him to bear. The time had come to do something about it. That's when he had first called Tony.

One week before the date they had agreed upon, Jessie decided to give Tony another call to make sure everything was on schedule as planned.

"Hey, Tony, Jessie. Just wondering if we're still on for the 27th."

"Yeah, no problem. I should have everything ready by then to do the job."

"Not that I don't trust you, but you're going to be neat and clean up when you're done, I hope."

"Yeah, kid, no problem. Your talking to a professional."

"I suppose you're right. You were highly recommended."

"You're darn right, I'm recommended! I'm the best in the business. You don't have to take my word for it either. Ask anybody."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult your professionalism. I'm just a little nervous about it, I guess."

"Don't worry about a thing. I've done jobs just like this, even tougher. And they've all come out without a hitch. You'll never even know I was there."

Jessie shut off his phone, feeling reassured that everything was in good hands, and his problem would be solved. No longer would he have to worry about his wife nagging him every day. It was finally going to be "taken care of," neatly and professionally.

The following week, on the specified date, Tony arrived as planned. He parked his truck on the street just past Jessie's house and quietly exited the vehicle. It was early in the morning, and he didn't want to disturb the neighbors any more than necessary. He slowly walked up the long driveway and around to the back of the house. Jessie saw him crossing the backyard and went out to greet him.

"You don't have to stick around," said Tony. "I can handle this. In fact, it's better if you're not here. You'll only make me nervous."

Tony was the coolest, smoothest guy Jessie ever knew. He couldn't imagine him ever being nervous about anything, even when executing a big job like this. Jessie had been planning on getting this done for weeks, and now it was finally going to happen. He was finally going to have the big dead maple tree taken down. His wife had been relentlessly nagging him about it every single day.

The tree had to be dropped carefully. If it didn't fall just right, it could land on the garage.

As Tony proceeded to drop the tree onto the driveway, Jessie's wife suddenly pulled out of the garage directly under its path.

Copyright © 2020 by Michael DeFrancesco