The Absolutely True Story of a Traveling Bonsai Tree Salesman (from Texas)
Together we left the house, our first stop—on what would become the journey to patio beers—being the local bike repair shop that part-times as a coffee shop. Or coffee shop that part-times as a bike shop? It’s unclear.
I waited outside as she entered, paid the fee, and returned with her 10-speed purple friend—more than two weeks later, work the regional shop could have done in a few days. Then I noticed the unfamiliar words on her handles and said,
“Babe, those aren’t your grips.”
She looked down, sure that I couldn’t possibly be more familiar with her grips than herself.
“What do you mean? Of course they are.”
“Your grips have always said ‘Lizard Skins’ on them?”
“You’re right,” she laughed. “I would have just rode off with them without a thought.”
“You gotta go back in there. They can’t just take your grips and slap on a random pair. Those are your grips.”
I held the door as she turned and wheeled back into the shop. “Back already?” the owner called from behind the counter.
“Yeah…so these aren’t my grips,” she said confidently.
An awkward exchange ensued between owner and adolescent subordinate, but the wrong was righted with a new pair of grips, on the house.
Back out on the street, the Friday afternoon traffic whizzed by in every direction, Boiseans eager to play regardless of the partly cloudy sky. At the corner, as we waited for the little man to signal our crossing, we observed a middle-aged man setting up what looked like a portable bonsai tree stand. He wore a pair of bulky Hoka shoes and a wide-brimmed hat that was, for the weather at hand, hopeful.
The stand was constructed in hierarchical tiers; youngling trees sat low on the first level, while others of increasing size and age rested in the backdrop of the terraced display. The Eldest was an eighteen-year-old of wisdom and grace, and a pretty penny at that.
None of the $40 newborns immediately caught my eye, as I sought the right balance of height, curvature, and pot color.
“What do you think,” I asked her. “Any of these seem like the right match for me.”
“That’s for you to decide,” she said. “You’ll feel it when you know. And if not, you could always come back another time.”
“When will you be selling here again?” I asked the salesman.
“Two years, maybe three. It depends.”
A scarcity trained by late-stage capitalism set in.
But then, down at the man’s feet, I saw another dozen or so youthful trees; right away one called to me. I picked it up, examined it presently, and asked,
“Is this one for sale?”
“Mm. Yes it can be, let me just quickly—”
He swept it up with his rubber-garden-gloved hands and went at the unsuspecting juniper with scissored enthusiasm. Like a child’s first haircut by the assertive, yet careful hands of an experienced barber.
I watched for a moment before asking, “What exactly are you doing? Where should I trim in the future?”
“Mostly underneath,” he said, hands working at breakneck speed. “Water two times a week, fully saturated.”
“Easy enough,” I said. “How much sunlight does it need?”
“Lots of sun if it’s inside. Mix of sun and shade if outside.”
The instructions all seemed so simple and straightforward, not what I imagined for the distinctive art of bonsai. An itch of curiosity crept in, about the man’s background and how one comes to such a profession.
“Are these all your trees, or do you have more?”
“Mm. About seven or eight thousand more,” he said, without looking up. “My mother runs the greenhouse in Texas.”
Everything’s bigger in Texas, I thought, imagining the tranquility of a bonsai forest, a cathedral of deft touch and patience.
“I’m lucky I stopped by,” I said.
By now he’d completed the trimming, placed the young plant into my receiving hands, and took my card for payment.
He returned the card and I turned to go when he knelt down, picked something up, and reached for the juniper one last time. Proudly, like placing the cherry atop a cake, he set a small turtle trinket into the soil and said,
“May you grow together.”
