He was ejected, they told him, and he demanded all the details. Even got photos from the accident scene.
A still from the state trooper’s dashcam showed him crumpled up against the posts that held the sign that shows motorists what gas stations and fast food joints are at the next exit.
He would joke with people that Jack in the Box destroyed his shoulder.
The not walking took some getting used to. But he was philosophical. Had a cousin with spina bifida, kinda bucked him up about it, made him feel like a partner-in-wheels.
But the shoulder was a nightmare. He did the rehab, did extra rehab, even had a date with one of the therapists.
He didn’t expect the relationship to go very far, and it didn’t. The drag was that he had to change therapists.
And this new physical therapist, he said no, absolutely not, maybe one day, two years from now, maybe never.
Gordon Atkins simply wasn’t having that.
He was still sitting in his new van when he called Jose.
“Come over.”
Jose knew without asking. When he got to Gordon’s he just about sprinted up the new ramp and flung Gordon’s door open.
“You think you’re ready?”
Gordon looked at his best friend.
“The ground is kinda wet. Just push me out back. It’s gonna suck. I appreciate it in advance.”
Jose went for the wall that held Gordon’s competition recurve.
Gordon held up his hand like a traffic cop. Jose saw the wince but froze. Gordon wheeled himself over and pulled his bow from the rack, laying it across his lap.
At the bottom of the ramp, Jose took over chair pushing duties, wheeling Gordon toward the three targets that had been in Gordon’s backyard since he bought the place with his endorsement money.
Jose looked at the basketball hoop on the garage, thinking they’d never play one on one the way they used to.
“No targets,” Gordon said.
“I can take em down,” Jose offered. “You can just shoot at bales if--”
“No bales. Take me all the way out back.”
Jose shrugged and began to push.
There was a little trail toward the pond, worn from years of friends headed back to the pond to drink beer after archery practice.
They were all good marksmen, but compared to Gordon, they were kazoo players backing up Hendrix.
Jose pushed ‘Hendrix’ along the thin path, through a line of blue spruce, and out into the open field with the pond to their right.
Gordon uncased his bow and struggled to nock an arrow.
Jose wasn’t gonna help. Wasn’t gonna offer. He knew what the answer was.
He watched Gordon struggle to raise the bow, leaning to the right of the chair, making noises like he was wrestling a bear.
He got the bowstring to a three-quarter draw, bellowing like the bear he had been wrestling had clamped down with his jaw on Gordon’s intestines.
Then he did something Jose never thought he’d see.
Gordon kicked his head back so that his eyes were skyward, though they were squeezed shut like they belonged to a scared child at a horror movie, and released.
40 minutes later his quiver was empty, sweat had overtaken whatever color his shirt had once been, and his bow-his Gordon Atkins signature model bow-was at least four feet deep in the pond.
Gordon looked at Jose, smiling, peaceful, almost proud.
“Time for me to find a new challenge.”
***
Photo by Robert Gomez on Unsplash
Really good.