Outdoors
Big Karl was an oversized snowboarder with an appetite for both food and adventure. Sure, he stood six-foot-four and routinely knocked down a dozen fish tacos per sitting, but what really made Karl “big” was his unfailing ability to burger-flip the chicken salad off a crater rim cornice like it was nobody’s mountain but his own.
During two epic gravity-defying seasons, Big Karl racked up so much hang time while hucking himself off the local array of cliffs, kickers, gaps and jibs he made Air Jordan look like a puddle jumper. He was, indisputably, the most balls-to-the-wall freestyle aerialist I have ever had the pleasure of repeatedly failing to out-do.
Although he eschewed organized competitions and corporate sponsorship, fortune eventually came calling and pro deals were inevitably signed. Interviews were granted. Articles were written. A movie contract materialized.
Unfortunately, while enjoying a leisurely warm-up run just moments before the cameras started rolling, Big Karl took a digger on the flattest, widest, most obstacle-free section on the mountain and broke his leg.
Within the span of a few hours, he’d gone from an elite 24-year-old snowboarder on the rise into a lumbering, Franken-footed gimp with no job and $46,000 in medical bills who couldn’t so much as wiggle his right big toe—let alone drive his own car anymore. And his attitude reflected it.
“Plates, screws and brackets,” he kept moaning as I chauffeured him back from the hospital. “It’s like a goddamn hardware store in there.”
Not only did Big Karl need help getting around, he needed assistance maintaining his self-respect. So, although we were five full-grown men renting out Eagle’s Eyrie that winter, it fell on me—Big Karl’s oldest friend—to take on the role of chief caregiver.
“Call me Nurse Ratched,” I said, stacking pillows six-high on our coffee table to elevate his cast-ridden leg. “As long as you take your medication and stay off that gimpy limb as your doctor ordered, things will go swimmingly.”
Grumbling, he hoisted his leg onto the pillows and immediately set about making demands.
“Throw in unfettered access to your spaghetti western DVD collection,” he winced, “and you’ll placate me good and proper.”
But that only kept him occupied for a couple days. Once the snow level started to drop and flurries reached the cabin, something inside him snapped.
“Try focusing on simpler pleasures,” I advised, attempting to distract him. “Go make some mixed tapes for your bros or start visualizing all those honey-glazed spare ribs we’ll be barbecuing at the party tonight.”
“No!” he cried, rising defiantly up on his crutches, “I’m not hungry.”
I’m still not exactly sure how he managed to hop past me through the living room, squeeze out our front door, gain three full flights of steps on me and wind up at the bottom of our driveway without killing himself before I was even across the front deck, but I guess if anybody could do it, Big Karl could.
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