A Tree Grows In Bridgeton

Bridgeton, New Jersey has neighborhoods with boarded houses and gritty crime that raises its ugly head along the impoverished landscape. I always keep my eyes peeled when I have reason to drive through its back roads on business.

When I stopped at a red light with my window cracked, I heard a roaring chainsaw start up out of nowhere. I checked my rearview mirror but I was alone at the light plus no pedestrians were in eyesight. As the chainsaw revved, I looked around at a row of plywood sealed rundown houses but the otherwise quiet street did not offer a clue.

Once the chainsaw began sounding like it was having difficulty eating whatever it was being fed, goose bumps hiked on my forearms. As I waited for a green light, I became unnerved over not being able to discern the peculiar situation. Then to my immediate right, a plywood door swung open. A Mexican man walked to a curbside idle truck for tools. His egress exposed the underbelly of what was once a home for humans. Wood chips flew everywhere, raining down on my windshield like strange confetti.

I looked inside the vacant building. A lumberjack of a man worked on cutting down a huge tree that had almost outgrown the width of the building. To my astonishment, I looked up and confirmed that the tree also peeked out the dilapidated rooftop. It triumphed over its surroundings proving bigger than the house that once kept it prisoner.

I wondered what the perseverant tree must be thinking as it drew closer to its last carbon monoxide breath….humans for hire killing the only living thing on an entire block. Humm...this deeply rooted social worker drove on.