Horseshoes

Good news and bad news. Bad news first--I didn't have the time or energy to write a new blog post this week. The good news--I've been writing for a long time, so I have plenty of stories filed away in the archives, most that have never been read by anyone before. This one is from the summer of 2008, when I rode my bicycle across the United States, from my then-home in New York, to my current-home in Oregon. From the archives, this is "Horseshoes." I hope you enjoy.

         

           It’s my first experience with “dry” heat and I can’t get over the fact that I’m not sweating—105 degrees outside but not a drop of perspiration. My whole life I’ve been accustomed to the drenched armpits, soggy crotch, and dripping hair; a mop-top after it’s been soaked in a bucket. There are no sweaty palms, damp socks, or droplets bubbling up, flowing down my arms and legs in long, thin streams. There is only heat; a sun-baking, skin-burning, hair-bleaching, lip-chapping, eye-drying heat, pounding down on myself and the world around me. And I like it.

            I am traveling through the barren desert of western Colorado. Looking back towards the east I can barely make out the Rocky Mountains; now just jagged bumps, a saw blade's edge on the horizon line. The road runs straight, rising and falling over rolling hills, and there is nowhere to hide from the sun. The ground is burnt umber and the big yellow star hangs so high that even the largest hill doesn’t cast so much as a sliver of shade. Trees are scarce, their branches twisted and bare, contorted in such a way that I probably couldn’t identify them if I had a resource book in front of me. And besides that there is next to nothing—no people, no buildings, no animals that I can see, no clouds, no water; only the occasional eighteen wheeler flying by at a cool 75 miles per hour.

            It’s mid-afternoon and my water supply is running low. I’ve tried my best to conserve, but in this environment my mouth always seems to be dry, my body always yearning for liquid. I’m down to a half bottle and decide that I will stop at the next building I see. And there it is! How about that? A small restaurant/bar in the godforsaken middle of nowhere. Strange, I think of something and poof, it’s there, right in front of me. Could it be luck, the power of the mind, or just sheer coincidence? Either way, I am a happy man.

            I lean my bicycle outside the building, next to the door. I don‘t bother locking it, because after all, there is nobody around to steal it. I walk inside and the room is as dark as a cave. I remove my sunglasses but it still takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. The place appears to be empty but then I hear somebody’s voice. “Howdy,” it says, but I look around and don’t see a soul. Am I hearing things? Is there a ghost in the room? Or am I just going crazy from the sun? Then the same voice, “Sure is a hot one today.”

            I walk over to the bar and standing behind it there is a small child, his body rolling with fat, his eyes barely level with the counter top. “What can I get for you?” he asks.

            “I’ll take a Pepsi.”

            “One Pepsi, coming up.” He grabs a glass, fills it with ice, opens a sliding cooler and removes a can of soda. He cracks the top, pours it to the brim and sets the filled glass and half empty can on the bar top in front of me. “You hungry?” he asks. “Kitchen’s open. Can cook you something up.”

            “No thanks, the soda will do just fine.” I am confused. I quickly scan the room to see if there are any adults hiding in the shadows. Not a soul in site. Now I begin to think that this kid is an adult himself. I’ve seen these people on TV before, on Discover, or The Learning Channel or something. Some rare genetic disorder causes their bodies to remain the same size even as they grow older, like that kid from the show Webster. But how am I to know? That isn’t something that you just go ahead and ask somebody. I just need to be careful not to insult him in any way.

            “Have you ever heard of a restaurant named McDonalds?” All right, now he’s just fucking with me.

            “Yeah,” I say with a chuckle, “I think I’ve been to McDonalds before.”

            “They’ve got a sandwich there, it’s called a Big Mac. Ever had one before?”

            I have just officially entered the Twilight Zone. “Yeah, I’ve had a Big Mac once or twice in my day.”

            “Two all-beef patties, cheese, lettuce, onion, pickles, on a sesame seed bun.”

            “Yep, that’s the one.”

            “They call it a special sauce,” he says as he gives me a wink of the eye, “but that’s just regular old thousand island dressing. Ain’t foolin’ this guy. If you want I can make you one of those. Ain’t no trouble, the kitchen’s open, the fryer’s on.”

            “No thanks,” I say, “the soda’s just fine.”

            “You sure, ’cuz like I said, ain’t no trouble.”

            Suddenly, out of nowhere a woman enters from a back room. “God damn it Earl, what did I tell you about being behind the bar. You’re lucky your father ain’t here to see this.”

            “But mom…”

            “Don’t you ‘but mom’ me. I ain’t gonna tell you again. You are not allowed behind this bar.”

            Well that mystery is solved. “I’m sorry about that,” the woman says. “Is there anything I can get for you?”

            “No thanks.”

            “You sure? You hungry? I can cook something up for you. Ain’t no trouble.”

            “The soda will be just fine.”

            “I already asked him momma.” I look over and the kid is sitting on the stool right beside me. “He says he don’t want nothing else.”

            “Well,” says the woman, “if you change your mind, just holler. ‘Cause like I said, ain’t no trouble.”

            “Thank you.”

            “You ever play horseshoes?” says the voice beside me.

            “Yeah, I play horseshoes.”

            “Got some pits outback, wanna play a game?”

            “Sure, I’ll play a game of horseshoes with you.”

            “All right,” says the child, “but I best warn you, I’m really good.”

            As we walk out the backdoor and towards the pits, the child carries on about how good he is at horseshoes, how he beat his father and his uncle. But what he doesn’t know is that I’m pretty good at horseshoes myself. In fact, I spent almost an entire summer after college, doing little more than throwing horseshoes everyday for hours on end. It is a rarity that I find somebody that can even challenge me. But what the hell, for all I know this kid could be some sort of prodigy, a Bobby Fisher or Tiger Woods of horseshoes.

            I immediately realize that’s not the case. His first throw is a good ten feet short of the pit, and his second shoe hit’s a tree about five feet to the right, ricocheting off the trunk and rolling back to only a few inches from the pin. “One to nothing,” he says with a smile. “Told you I was good.”

            Now I don’t take pride in crushing young children at adult games, so I toss left handed for the first few rounds, making him feel like he’s got a chance. But I quickly realize that it doesn’t matter, because he can’t even get his shoes close to the sand. So after about five minutes, the score is still 1-0. “You guys ever get any business out here in the desert?” I ask.

            “Oh yeah. On mother’s day we were packed. And on Easter we did pretty well too.”

            Is that all it takes, I think, to operate a business in the middle of nowhere, a few minor holidays and maybe a couple of regular drunks? Not a bad way to live really; simple, easy, stress-free. I switch to my right hand, my good hand, my throwing hand. I let the shoe go. It sails through the air, one complete flip, and wraps around the stake. Ringer! I look at the kid, “Three to one,” I say.

            As we walk to the other side to retrieve our shoes a man makes his way to the backdoor of the bar. “Hey, dad,” yells the child with enthusiasm. “I was winning one nothing, but he just threw a ringer, but I can feel a comeback.”

            “Well don’t get too cocky,” says the man as he disappears through the door.

            “That’s my dad. I just beat him yesterday.”

            Another round and another ringer. The score is 6-1. “You know there’s a special rule,” says the kid as we gather our shoes out of the sand. “Anybody under the age of ten gets to stand up to five feet closer if they want.”

            Now the little brat is making up his own rules. “Hell,” I say, “you can stand wherever you want. Doesn’t matter to me.”

            “No, but for real, it’s in the rule book.”

            “Oh yeah. You got that rule book handy?”

            “Ah…ah… I don’t know where it is right now, but I’m telling you, it’s in there. Plus my arm’s tired from beating my pa yesterday.”

            “So, first it’s a rule, and now your arm’s tired.”

            “But it is a rule.”

            “You can stand right in front of the pin for all I care.”

            The child edges up about five feet closer to the pit but it doesn’t make a difference; he still couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. Every round I score a few points and every round he shuffles a few feet closer. The excuses start piling up: “I’m tired,” “I just ate,” “The sun is in my eyes,” “I think I got a sliver in my throwing hand.” Before long the score is 15-1, my Pepsi is gone, and it’s about time to get back on the road. I look over at the child and say, “You want to see a ringer?”

            He doesn’t say a word but gives me a look that speaks volumes—yeah right, let‘s see a ringer. I toss the shoe in the air and it falls perfectly around the pin. “That was luck,” he says.

            “You want to see another one?” Again I toss the shoe and a second later the sweet sound of metal on metal. Clink. Clank. Double ringer. “Twenty-one to one,” I say as I shake his small hand. “Nice game, kid. Keep practicing.”

            “You want to play again?”

            “No thanks. I gotta get going.”

            The kid follows me back into the building where his parents are standing behind the bar talking. I pay for my Pepsi and as I’m heading towards the front door the child yells out, “Come back again, will ya?”

            I turn around and say, “Yeah, if I’m ever traveling through these parts again, I promise I’ll stop by, play another games of shoes.”

            I walk outside, and am about to hop on my bike when I realize that I forgot to fill up my water bottles. I gather them in my arms and make my way back through the front door. The child is yapping at his parents with a voice filled with pure enthusiasm. “…and then he asked me if I wanted to see a ringer. And then he went and threw one. Just like that. Then you know what, he did it again. It was unbelievable. He must be the best horseshoe player I’ve ever seen in my life. You know he might be the best horseshoe player in the…” He notices me walking towards the bar. “Hey, you’re back.”

            “Just hoping that I could fill up my water bottles.”

            “Definitely,” says the child. “Over here, you can use the sink.”

            I fill up my bottles and return to my bike. I ride off into the sunset and can’t help but smile. And that’s the story of how I became a horseshoe-throwing legend, the greatest in all of western Colorado.