Tree Kicker

“Where did those cashews come from?, Gomes asked me.

“The PX”

“No, I know that.  I mean, do you know where a cashew comes from?  How does it grow?  Look it up, you’ll be surprised.”

I never knew that a cashew was the bottom of a fruit.  One cashew comes out of each of these fruits.  That’s why they are so expensive.  They have to take this one cashew off the bottom, pile a bunch of them up, roast the, salt them, can them and then distribute.  Seems like a pretty narrow profit margin and definitely not something I want to waste my time doing… even if they grew in my backyard. Gomes, Gianne and I continued to discuss the process of this wonderful fruit/nut when Gomes raised the question:

“I wonder how long it would take to even grow one of those trees.   A year?  Two years?”

Suddenly, we all turned our heads to Mark, screaming from across the room, “Five fuckin’ years!  Do you know how long it takes for a banana tree to grow?  Five years!  Do you know how long it takes for an apple tree to grow?  Five years!”, his face was red with rage at this point, “It takes five fuckin’ years for any tree to grow.  You think I’ve got five fuckin’ years to wait around for some fuckin’ apples.  It’s motherfuckin’ ridiculous.  Fuckin’ shit!”

He looked exacerbated.  Gomes tried to calm him down but he stormed out of the room, probably outside to have a cigarette.  We all laughed when he exited.  Mark looks, talks and acts like a Vietnam War veteran but he isn’t one.  His brother is, and many of his friends are also but he isn’t.  I think he feels like he is by extension.  Maybe he has enough vicarious stories that he actually feels like he was in the war.  Whatever the case, none of us knew how adamantly against cashew trees he is.   From now on, we’ll have to keep our tree talk to whispers.