THE TREE CUTTERS RIDE by Dustin M. Hoffman
Donovan climbed trees every day, massive ones that poked at the sun, but the 250-foot Skytower ride pained his groin – a plunging tug on not one but both nuts. He ascended over the amusement park, the city, over both the Carolinas. The park was built straddling the state borders, like it couldn’t make up its mind. He turned to his friend Yan to say, “I’ll climb the tallest tree you got, but I don’t like this having no control.”
Yan nodded toward the acne-pocked teenager operating the ride’s controls. “And we’re the dummies trusting this kid not to drop us. How many shits you think he gives?” He said this as he held his sixyear-old son’s ears. Donovan hadn’t thought about freaking out Yan’s kid until now, which probably made him an asshole, as much as his own dad had been. Once Yan uncupped his kid’s ears, he nudged him toward the curved window. “Take a look down, kid. See your whole world.”
Donovan kept the back of his head glued to the wall. His body tingled at the sight of his home state made miniature, at the corpselike lump of Kings Mountain, at the endless trees Donovan could hack away if only he was steady on the ground, armed with his chainsaw. On the next Skytower rotation, the setting sun caught Charlotte’s skyscrapers and glared. From here, they resembled cutter teeth on his saw chain, all lit up as if sparking like in the nightmare he had where he was buzzing off branches at work. They dropped toward his dead daddy who was resurrected only to drunkenly stumble under Donovan’s murderous branches.
“How long they gonna spin us around up here?” Donovan asked.
The Skytower continued rotating, and Charlotte’s twinkling buildings disappeared. The roller coasters now plummeted in front of him, soulless silhouettes flailing from the cars. He’d rather fall out of a thirty-foot loblolly than go on one of those. If Yan asked him, though, he might have to do it. A guy can’t say no to another man’s dare, can’t risk looking like a pussy, and that goes double if they work together. What if Yan told the other guys? They hated Yan anyway, talked about him sneaking across the wall from Mexico to steal their jobs. He’d only started last month, and Donovan felt bad for him, which is why he’d said yes when Yan asked if he wanted to join him at Carowinds. He’d thought maybe Yan would be bringing his wife, but, no, turned out he didn’t have one. Just this kid. Just the kid and two guys, and people had already been staring at them, probably imagining who got top and who got bottom.
Yan’s kid was smushing his face against the glass, and Yan yelled at him to “stop licking everything all the dang time.” Donovan was goddamn grateful for this forty-seven-inch tagalong, too short for any serious rollercoastering.
“Kid is gonna catch Ebola licking everything like that,” Yan said.
The kid pressed his whole body against the thin glass, and it made Donovan’s insides start twirling again. He couldn’t help imagining, and then couldn’t stop from blurting it. “If he fell out, little guy’s guts would splatter thirty feet across the concrete.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Yan said, covering his kid’s ears too late.
Donovan waved an apology toward the kid without risking moving his body from the seat. “Sorry. I’m just saying.”
“That’s dumb, man. That’s impossible.”
But people probably died all the time on these rides. Why all the seatbelts and bars and guardrails and signs warning off pregnant ladies and weak hearts? That’s why his chainsaw wore a slew of stickers and had a manual warning about lifting the saw above your shoulders, about never touching the chain without pulling the sparkplug, about safety glasses. When a tree cutter stopped worrying about buzzing off three fingers or catching a splinter through the eyeball – that’s when he’d hurt himself. Fear was a protectant. Fear kept a man’s various viscera stowed in the skin casings where they belonged. He’d never witnessed a bad accident. But he had seen his crew messing with Yan’s harness. Donovan had laughed along with them, all those assholes he worked with who’d tightened the harness so small it must’ve strangled Yan’s scrotum. If he would’ve warned him, he might not have felt guilty enough to say yes to the amusement park.
The Skytower lurched into its slow, steady descent. It was a good feeling to have the ground in your future. He even allowed himself, in the last fifty feet, to unstick his sweaty scalp from the wall so he could glimpse the parking lot in miniature. The ride landed, and the passengers turned toward the exit. He was happy to join his fellow survivors, and he even scruffed Yan’s kid’s hair to celebrate the confidence recalibrated to his groin.
“What next?” Yan said as they stood on the concrete, the park crowd swirling around them in currents of human traffic. “We should ride a coaster, right?”
“Doubt they’ll let your little guy on.” Donovan cracked his knuckles. “Too bad.”
“Freak that. Let’s go check,” Yan said. “What do you say, little macho man?”
The kid ran ahead, and the two men had to break into a jog to keep up. He zoomed past the Dale Earnhardt coaster, the Nighthawk, the Southern Star, all of which he was too small for.
“Well, what the hell can we do here?” Yan asked the teenager holding a measuring stick outside the Carolina Goldrusher.
“Maybe try Camp Snoopy?” the kid said, wincing, because Yan’s fists were balled, and Donovan admired that about his coworker, his buddy, how he scared this stranger without hardly trying. His muscles flexed in neat scoops that showed through his Johnny Cash T-shirt.
“We’re not here for some wimpy cartoon stuff. Give us a real ride. I paid a half-day’s work for me and my kid and my man to get in here.”
The kid eyed Donovan, and he wished he could explain that it was just a language flub to call a friend “my man.”
“Maybe, like, the water park might be more fun, um, sir,” the kid said.
Donovan hadn’t brought swim trunks. He and Yan and his son would have to strip down to their cutoffs. Three guys splashing each other in the wave pool, their bodies bobbing, bumping, everyone watching as Yan slapped Donovan’s nude back.
“Or, if not the water park, maybe try a spinning ride or something. You and your family would love those, I bet,” the worker kid said, and Donovan’s face burned.
“Point me at a spinny ride then.” He smiled and punched the kid in the shoulder.
So they headed in the direction of the teenager’s finger, a ride called the Rock ‘N’ Roller. Donovan studied the ride and was pleased to see it stayed at ground level. No lifts. No drops. Just a frenzied spin, the buckets slicing the air like the teeth of his chainsaw. Fast he could handle. As they lingered in line, Donovan felt the crowd watching them again, kids mostly, a few man-wife couples. Their eyes seared. That teenager had called them a family, and anyone could’ve heard that. He imagined shouting to them all, We’re friends from work. Just two dudes hanging out, because he needs a friend, you know. But that explanation jammed in his head. He revised it to leave no room for questioning. He’d shout: I like vaginas, and so does my friend. And for good measure: He’s barely my friend. Just a guy I work with.
Donovan realized then that he was staring at an old man’s mouth, a white beard stained yellow probably by years of chain-smoking Winstons. The old man sneered, mouthed a silent, bit-lip fuck you. His daddy would’ve been that old, that angry, if another man tried staring at him. His daddy had once gotten into a shoving match with Donovan’s shop teacher at a bar for being a “lippy faggot.” Donovan had liked that shop teacher, who trusted him to run the lathe, to run any saw he liked, said he had the sharpest eye for angles of any kid in class. Donovan had been proud, but maybe that, too, had been a gay thing. His daddy had kicked out three of the shop teacher’s front teeth in the bar parking lot.
The line moved, and they were ushered through a gate to pick their seats. The three of them popped into a single car. Yan in first, then his boy, then Donovan. Yan pulled the seatbelt, slapped it into Donovan’s hand, as if they were at work, prepping the mini excavator bearing its fanged bucket. The kid stayed silent as Donovan closed the door, locked it, and Yan secured the grab bar over their bodies.
“Kid goes in the inside, dudes.” Another ride worker stood above them wearing opaque sunglasses and slicked black hair, his sleeves rolled like a ’50s greaser.
“He is inside,” Donovan said.
“All the way in is the rules. Just read your car.” The worker kid snapped his fingers at the car’s safety door, where a sticker printed with red letters indeed proclaimed: “Smaller passengers must sit on the inside.”
“Sure, yeah, we got it,” Donovan said, because he could tell Yan was ready to make a scene again. The three of them reshuffled until Donovan’s hips pressed against Yan’s. Donovan scanned the other cars to see who was watching. He could feel the warmth of Yan’s legs through their jeans. The seatbelt pressed into his thighs, threatened to slice through him.
The ride started moving at a slow, loping speed. Yan’s kid looked worried, and Yan looked bored. Outside their car, eyes swirled around them. Couples giggled and whispered in each other’s ears. A car full of boys cackled, and young girls giggled somewhere behind them. As the ride picked up speed, Donovan spotted the stained-beard grandpa, who scowled, who stared so hard a hole felt bored through his forehead. Faster and faster, the faces blurred. Elvis Presley moaned about shoes on the speakers as Yan and his boy slid against the centrifugal force, their body weight sloshing into Donovan. By top speed, Yan was practically on top of him. He hooted and his boy shrieked in joy, and Donovan reminded himself to smile. You were supposed to smile on rides. That’s what normal people did. Yan’s shoulder rammed into his pectorals, mashed his nipple. Their knuckles merged along the grab bar, and Donovan tucked his hand to his side but ended up sandwiching his fingers between his and Yan’s thighs. The blurry stares tornadoed around, churning into a thousand-strong whir of pale, wet eyeballs. Yan shouted frick yeah into his ear, shouted it again, so close he could feel his hot breath, taste the funnel cake Yan had eaten. Yeah, yeah, yeah, fricking yeah. Their hips squeezed together, fused, Donovan’s hand trapped touching. His jeans pulled under him, pinched at his crotch. The ride wouldn’t stop whirling his body against Yan’s, and everyone watched.
So Donovan punched Yan in the nose. Instantly, blood sprayed. The people behind him were screaming. Yan clutched his nose, his body folding against Donovan. The ride slowed finally. Yan’s kid gawked at his bleeding dad and started whimpering. Now, surely, all eyes were fixed on them. Yan’s blood had speckled the white cars behind them, and the riders shouted. Donovan’s legs surged with the electric desire to flee, sprint all the way home, where he’d drink himself into a stupor until work on Monday, when he’d tell the guys they’d been right not to trust Yan. But the grab bar locked him in. No escape as Yan’s head lolled against Donovan’s chest.
“I’m sorry, man,” Donovan said to the back of Yan’s head. “I didn’t mean to.”
The ride worker, still sporting the blackened shades, was rushing to unlock the bloodied passengers. He slammed up bars to free them. He moved so fast that his sunglasses fell to the ground, and he didn’t notice when he stepped on them, crunched the plastic into shards.
Fuck this, Donovan thought and heaved at the bar as hard as he could. Surely eight years lugging chainsaws up tree trunks could grant him the ability to escape a kid’s ride. He pushed harder and pushed so hard a fart ripped through his jeans like a gunshot.
“You just fart?” Yan was finally lifting his head. “That’s messed up. We’re trapped here, man.”
The kid quieted, soothed to see his dad move. Yan lifted his head and blood drained in fat drops from his nostril. He studied the blood on his fingers, smiled at his kid. The crowd of blood-speckled passengers ogled him. “Good news, folks,” he announced. “I got the cleanest blood in the Carolinas.”
Someone laughed, and a din of chatter crashed the silence like a felled oak.
But Donovan waited in hell for the worker kid to unlatch him – trapped, hip to hip, next to the man he’d just punched. If Yan would just punch him back, they could be done with the thing. Instead, Yan wiped his nose with his shirt and soaked it in the last gush of blood escaping his nose. Then he reached a blood-stained hand behind Donovan and clenched his shoulder.
“You could’ve just said you weren’t into me,” he said.
Yan’s hand pressed heavier than that blur of a thousand eyes, heavier than a tipping tree trunk. He could smell his sickly sweet funnel cake breath again, practically taste the copper of his blood. Across the circle of cars, the greaser worker tugged at stuck bars. There were a dozen more cars before he got to theirs, and here Yan was admitting he was gay, that he’d tricked Donovan into a date. Or maybe Yan was just fucking with him about being gay. How often had all the guys at work mimed thrusting with the chainsaw at their crotches while winking at each other? Donovan performed that joke weekly. It was the same reason they cried wolf. Screaming Good fucking God, I just sliced off my thumb, which made the chance of dying by blade seem silly.
The greaser kid finally reached their car. He’d donned blue rubber gloves hastily enough to have missed a finger that flopped flaccid and broken looking. “Shit, shit, shit,” he said, fumbling at the lock. “Oh shit, sorry for saying shit in front of the kid.” He jerked at the bolt, and Donovan prayed to the amusement park gods to give this kid the strength of one hundred workers to free him.
Yan reached around Donovan and grasped the kid’s floppy blue hand. “It’s okay, man. No rush. I’m not dying.”
The bar released, giving like a sawn tree limb. Donovan hopped out of the car and had the urge to run again, but he waited for Yan and the kid to sidle out of their seat.
They left the ride and made it as far as the Do-Si-Do, its red wheel whipping above them, before Yan gave his kid a twenty and told him to buy them all a treat. The kid lumbered off slowly. Donovan would’ve gladly hopped on the Dale Earnhart rollercoaster to avoid being alone with Yan. It was as if the chainsaw belt had snapped, flinging its rakers and teeth into flesh.
Yan patted Donovan’s cheek, and Donovan winced. Yan said, “Think I’m gonna punch you or something?”
“I deserve it. I can handle it.” As Donovan said it, he heard how stupid it sounded.
“We don’t go places much.” Yan was looking over his shoulder at his poor kid who’d never be able to enjoy a carnival ride again. “I wanted you to meet him. He doesn’t know too many other good adults. No grandparents or aunts or uncles around here. Just me.”
“He’s a nice kid,” Donovan said. But he was thinking about his own father who’d hated rides. The one time he’d coaxed his drunk dad to get on the Gravitron at the local carnival that sprang up in the vacant lot near the cemetery, he’d afterward vomited into Donovan’s cotton candy bag. He could still feel the weight of it bulging inside the thin plastic. “But why me?”
Yan rubbed a knuckle against the dried streaks of blood under his nose. “When you know as few people as we know, you just want your kid around people. Kids need people, as many as you can get. One guy can cut down a big maple with root rot, but it’s faster and safer if you got five guys on it, right?” He sucked his knuckle now, and Donovan imagined the coppery taste on his tongue. “Hell, at least one more to help. My kid deserves that.”
Donovan didn’t say anything. He was thinking about how the best Daddy memory he could conjure was him drunk driving Donovan to the carnival. His mother had called the cops on his daddy when she’d found out. But he never stopped being drunk. Couple years later, his daddy had ruined shop class. After the bar fight his teacher wouldn’t let Donovan near even the drop saw. If Donovan ever had kids of his own, he’d teach them how to run every kind of saw. Blades were so much safer than daddies.
“Doesn’t he?”
“Doesn’t what?”
“My kid. He deserves people. He’s better than a big rotten maple.”
“Yeah, Yan,” Donovan said. “He’s better than a maple.”
The kid returned, and, of course, he carried a bag of cotton candy. Donovan hadn’t even dared to whiff that burned sugar smell for years, and now the kid was stuffing pink fistfuls into his mouth with no pleasure. Just shoveling. No smile. Yan’s kid was too sincere, too stoic. In that way, Donovan supposed, he was pretty similar to a big fucking maple. Sometimes you just had to prune some diseased branches or poison the pests, not topple the whole thing.
“Get yourself a good batch there?” Yan asked.
“Yeah,” the kid said through a mouth gummed up with pink. “It’s pretty good.”
Yan dipped in his blood-stained hand, came up with a pink fist. His smile bit in. “It’s still warm,” Yan said. “Offer some to Donovan.” The kid aimed the opened bag his way.
Somewhere, the old man with the stained white beard might’ve been watching, sickened by these men and this boy. Yan’s blood from the ride would be drying into his white beard, a new stain, pink as the cotton candy. Maybe others watched them, too – the whispering, kissing couples, the kids, his coworkers spying from the treetops. Donovan reached into the bag, fingered a big fluff, tore it free. He let the cotton candy melt on his tongue.
Dustin M. Hoffman is the author of the story collections One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), No Good for Digging (Word West Press, 2019), and Such a Good Man (University of Wisconsin Press, 2025). His stories have appeared in New Ohio Review, Ninth Letter, The Threepenny Review, Witness, and One Story.