“I stayed around Portland for the first three weeks. Went to McDonalds, the movies, shopping, things like that. Just to get my sea legs, so to speak.” He looked up at Carol for reaction, but she just shook her head. “Huh. That usually gets a laugh. Shows that I’m plucky.” She rolled her wrist for him to continue.
“After a few months, I headed south, moseyed down the coast. Got to San Tomas and liked what I saw. Sat for a few days on the pier, did some fishing, and got the feel for the place. Then I thought I’d check out the mountains. I drove up 18, turned onto one of those lumber roads, and drove ‘til it petered out. Pulled the van into a space under a large oak and settled in. And that’s how I met Josh. Turns out I was camping on his land.”
“How long was this after he bought the camp?” When The Gimp looked at her suspiciously, she shrugged. “Just trying to get a timeline here. Nothing more.”
“Four or five months.”
“So how did this Lennon and McCartney meeting take place?”
He refilled her glass. “Actually, I saw Josh before he saw me. I’d been there a coupla days and planned to stay a few more. The logging roads were good for getting me back in shape. And after my workouts I’d just sit out next to the van and read through the different vocational and Chamber of Commerce stuff I’d assembled. Trying to figure out what I was going to do next and where I was going to do it.”
Carol put her notebook in her purse. “So you met him…”
“I saw him the second afternoon I was there, I was sitting next to the van reading, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Up on the far hillside, above the line of spruces, some kind of animal scrambling up this steep hillside. I’m thinking it’s an antelope, so I grab my binoculars. And I’m stunned to see it’s some guy, dressed only in running shorts and shoes, just attacking this face. I mean attacking it. Using this high-knee action that reminded me of my football days. I ached just watching him.”
He took a sip and let his tongue troll his upper lip. “He’d get to the top, put his hands on his knees, looking like he was going to toss his cookies. But then he’d straighten up, head back down the hill and do it all over again.”
“And that was Josh?”
He nodded. “Next day, he was at it again, so I wheeled over and waited in this grove at the bottom of the hill and watched. Shit, I’ve never seen anyone punish themselves like that without a coach around. Finally, on his fifth trip down the face, I wheeled myself out of the shade and said hello.”
“You look like you could use a beer,” The Gimp said.
The runner had his back to him, preparing to ascend the hill. He turned, almost in slow motion, his eyes taking in the wheelchair, then settling on The Gimp’s face. There was nothing rude in the eyes, but nothing welcoming.
The Gimp closed the gap between them with a single flick of his wrists. “I’m Ken Sanderson,” he said, extending his hand.
The man leaned forward, the sweat from his forehead dropping on the hands as they shook. “Josh Clements.”
“What about that beer? When you’re finished. I’ve got a cooler in my van. I’m parked in a clearing about half a…”
“I know where you are.” He gestured at the chair. “Thirty minutes enough time for you to get back?”
“Plenty. It’s mostly downhill.”
Josh nodded, then turned back to the hill.
“What were your first impressions?”
“That he was in great shape. He had those long, ropy muscles you only see on athletes and abs that you normally only see on blacks. And that he was—maybe not rude, but definitely private.”
“I know the type.”
“Then times it by two. Past five years, I’ve never heard Josh volunteer a word about himself. You catch him at the right moment, he’ll answer a direct question, but that’s it. That first meeting would probably have been a polite one-beer conversation if he hadn’t been so fascinated with the van and how I’d modified it. Anyway, one thing led to another and he wound up inviting me back to his place for dinner.”
Evening had fallen, bringing with it a harsh rain. Josh directed the van down the lumber road and out onto the highway. After less than a mile they turned onto a side road that climbed in switchbacks until it stopped before a gate. Josh slid out, undid the combination lock and chain, and waved the van through. Leaving the gate open, he climbed back in and nodded up the road.
The van’s headlights bounced up an incline of rutted road that soon leveled onto a small plateau. The headlights swept over a series of small cabins—silhouetted against a hard wall of green-black forest—before coming to rest on an L-shaped log structure. Parked in front of the building was an ancient gray pickup.
The entire camp was dark, except for a slight flicker of light coming from the far- right window. Josh slid out as the van came to a stop and disappeared into the building. He emerged a moment later, a large flashlight in his hand.
He moved around to the driver’s side and opened the door. “Need any help?” He shined the light on the hydraulic lift.
Ken waved him off. “That only works on concrete and flat ground.” Shutting the door, he swiveled in his seat until he faced backwards, then slid off the chair onto the floor. He scuttled across the floor on his knuckles, stopping before the door. Unlatching it, he pushed slightly, letting the door slide back on well-lubed rollers.
His wheelchair was collapsed and stored on a complex of pegs attached to the back of the passenger seat. Ken lifted the chair out onto the driveway, then pushed down on the left arm until the chair opened and snapped into shape. Sliding a collapsible hook from its door setting, he tucked it around the left armrest to hold the chair steady. Then he hoisted himself off the floor and into the chair. Unhooking the armrest, he turned towards the cabin.
Josh took the rear handles and guided him to the cabin’s stairs. Turning him around, he backed him up, a stair at a time, onto the porch, then turned so they were facing the front door. Josh stepped back into the darkened cabin. A moment later there was a small rush of light, then he was back in the doorway, a lantern in his hand. He stepped back and motioned him inside.
The doorway opened onto a single, large L-shaped room, the short leg holding the kitchen. It was an industrial set-up, with yawning holes where appliances used to be. A round cherrywood table and four mismatched chairs populated the dining area, in back of which was an eight-foot pool table, its felt torn and faded. The far end of the room was dominated by a massive rock-lined fireplace, flanked by a couple of couches and wingback chairs.
The air inside the room was thick with the rich, spicy smell of something that had been cooking a long time. He wheeled towards the kitchen to investigate, but the smell lessened. Turning back to the fireplace, he saw a large iron pot hung on two heavy hooks over a strong-coaled fire.
As Ken settled next to the fire, Josh stepped out the back door. He returned a moment later with two beers, the cans dripping wet. Ken nodded his thanks and gestured towards the pot. “What is it?”
“Lebanese stew. Lamb, eggplant, spices, simmer for three hours. Don’t look so impressed. It’s about all I know how to make. And until I get some electricity up here, it’s about all I can make.”
“How many cabins? I saw five.”
“Seven. Two tucked back into the woods.”
“All yours?”
He nodded. “Along with the land you’ve been camping on.”
“So what did you guys talk about?”
“Me. The trouble I was having deciding where to live and what to do with the rest of my legless life.”
He shook his head. “I was still a bit fucked up. No clear idea what I was going to do. I had two notebooks filled with materials, stuff I’d sent away for while I was in the VA. The first one was all about where to live—notes on what towns are most wheelchair-accessible to which ones have the most snow—not good for cripples. The second was all about different career options—and that’s what got Josh going. I mentioned some of the things I was thinking about and boom—he’s got stats, starting salaries and required skills for almost every job I was considering. All without a single note.”
“How’d he know all that?”
“William told me later it came from all the research Josh’d put into finding jobs for the first group of cons up at Moetown. The guy was a walking encyclopedia.”
The beer ran out shortly after midnight. An hour before, when Ken mentioned how much he’d liked what he’d seen of the area, Josh had gone down to one of the cabins, returning with three binders packed with lists of local employers, organized by industry.
“This is good stuff, just what I’ve been looking for,” Ken said, leafing through the notebooks. “You got a little more time to talk about all this, if we get more beer?”
“Got as much time as you want, but forget about the beer. The nearest liquor store is thirty-five miles one way, twenty the other.”
“How about a bar, then?”
“Same distance.” He nodded at Ken’s reaction. “Tell me about it. It’s the one thing about this area…”
He stopped and looked over at Ken, who was smiling broadly.
They spent the next four days with realtors. Their requirements were specific: it had to be close to, but not on, the highway; large enough to house both the bar and Ken; and it had to be within the purchase range of his disability checks. On the third afternoon the realtor showed them the old Barton lodge. Abandoned for the past five years, it wasn’t on the market, but the realtor tracked down the owners and a week later the lodge was Ken’s.
He returned to Oregon to see his mother, close out his accounts and do the financing through a veterans’ association. Returning two weeks later, he found the parking area cleared and graded, a dozen cars parked in front of the lodge. Wheeling his way up a newly-installed ramp, he entered the bar area, where he found the drivers, none of whom he recognized, reshoring the foundation and renovating the plumbing.
He finally found Josh under the house, where he and two other men were installing a new water heater. “Once the guys up here heard this was going to be a bar, they got motivated,” Josh said, easing his head and shoulders through the crawlspace and looking up at him. When Ken started to protest, Josh held up his hand. “Think of it as a barnraising. They’d do it whether you had legs or not.”
The bar went its first year without a name. Ken focused on keeping the beer cold, and the atmosphere relaxed. The bar quickly became the center of the mountain community—a stopover on the way home and a gathering place on nights and weekends.
Two weeks into its operation, Ken hired Tina to help behind the bar—weekends at first, then full-time. In September the state dropped its lawsuit against Josh and the camp officially changed hands. Over the next few months, in quick succession, Lucky, William and Clark were released and moved in.
It was Tina’s cousin Peggy who wound up naming the bar and its owner. Visiting from St. Louis for two weeks, she was a nightly visitor to the bar. During that time she’d had to fend off numerous advances, Ken’s among them. But, as he confided to William one night, Peggy hadn’t experienced The Move yet.
On Peggy’s last night, Ken turned the bar over to Tina early and wheeled himself over to Peggy’s table. He had saved some of his best stories—his boxing championships, the road back from the loss of his legs—for this night. “Something like that happens to you,” he said in a gentle voice, “it puts things in perspective. You spend a month not being able to move—I mean, at all—just getting sponge baths and getting acquainted with what’s left of yourself, you learn to appreciate things, especially about touch and how special it can be.”
He motioned casually at his chair. “When you see life from one of these things, you see things a little different. When you’re a cripple…”
“Oh, Ken,” Peggy reached over and rested her hand atop his. “I don’t see you as a cripple. Not at all.”
He twisted his hand slightly to get a better, warmer grip. “That’s sweet of you to say. But you and I both know that…”
“I’m serious.” She took his face in her hands. “To me you’re just someone with a real bad limp. You know. A gimp.”
He blinked twice and cocked his head. The soft smile still on her face, she tilted her head to match his. He started to say something then stopped. Before he could gather his thoughts, the bar behind exploded with laughter. He pulled hard on his right wheel, spinning to see Tina sitting with Josh and William.
“She’s my cousin, Ken. I had to warn her.”
He turned back to Peggy, who patted him on the cheek. “You’re good. If I hadn’t been warned, it probably would’ve worked.”
“You’re just saying that.”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
The next morning Ken and Peggy came down to find a large, beautifully painted sign leaning against the front porch. In cobalt blue paint against a cream background were the words: “The Gimp’s Place”. Josh and Clark hung the sign that afternoon.