Life Sketches by Terry Berkson
A Good Man Is Hard To Find
One fall day several years ago, two guys I’ll call Tiger Goodale and Rudy Marriott drove up to the farm to say that they had a great story for me to write. It seems this one-legged guy they knew was up in an oak, building a tree stand, when his new prosthesis, which he didn’t secure properly, fell to the ground and rolled into a ravine. The guy had a rather large dog with him—they thought it was a Rottweiler, but they weren’t sure. The dog thought the man was playing fetch and dashed down the ravine after the “big bone.” When he retrieved it, he didn’t bring it back and put it before his master. Instead, he kept it a playfully safe distance away, went to a prone position and began to gnaw at it.
“Meanwhile,” Tiger continued, “the guy climbed out of the tree and was yelling and scrambling after the dog and his lost limb.”
Again, the big dog thought his master was playing, and left the bone to jump on the man and roll him around in the freshly fallen leaves.
“I got his phone number,” Tiger said as he dug into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper with some writing on it. “You’ll have to speak to him to get the facts straight.”
“Did he get the leg back?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” Rudy answered. “You’ll have to call him,” he said, pointing toward my phone.
I was definitely interested. Their story reminded me of a tale written by the celebrated writer Flannery O’Connor, where a traveling salesman romances a one-legged milkmaid in a haymow and when she falls asleep, he makes off with her artificial limb, never to be seen again.
So, I called the number and after it rang several times an answering machine came on.
“I’m a freelance writer,” I said. “I got Tiger and Rudy here. They told me about your leg falling out of the tree and I’d like to know the rest of the story.”
A couple of days passed, but the guy didn’t call back. I began to think that Tiger and Rudy had told me a tall tale. Still, I was impressed with a story about a one-legged man who had the gumption to climb trees and I couldn’t get a picture of it out of my head. As a writer, I like to believe that the end product of existence is story, so I felt justified in tracking the guy down. A second message left on his answering machine yielded no response.
So, where do you find a man who knows Tiger and Rudy? I checked the Vets Club and kicked every shin that was around the pool table or near the shuffle board, but didn’t get the hollow sound I was looking for. I didn’t kick hard, but still several of the guys were indignant, yelling “Ow! What’d you do that for?”
“I’m looking for a one-legged man,” I said.
One guy kicked me back! Hard! Nevertheless, I continued my search. The next time I went in, everyone moved to the other side of the room to get away from me. I guess they thought I had gone nuts. Still, I needed to find my man, so, anyone who came in with a new face got a kick. By now I had learned to do it “accidentally,” especially after one guy said, “You kick my leg, I kick your…” I checked out several other places, but none of the shins I kicked would appeal to a termite. Predictably, I was getting the reputation of being a gadfly, but I still persisted.
One night, I heard that two guys resembling Tiger and Rudy—the characters who had sent me on what was now an obvious wild goose chase—had been seen putting a poster on the bulletin board in Spring Park on Main Street. I’m sure they had heard about my method of tracking down a one-legged man. The sign read, “GET YOUR KICKS ON ROUTE 20!”
Terry Berkson’s articles have appeared in “New York” magazine, “Automobile” magazine and many others. His memoir, “Corvette Odyssey,” has received many good reviews: “highly recommended with broad appeal,” says “Library Journal.”