Jimmy Gets a Leg Up

Jimmy Gets a Leg Up

This is just a short story about friendship.

There is no sex in this story.

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He gave me a quick glance and a smile saying, "I won't be long." With that, he swung his leg onto the narrow pavement, and then with two feet under him he lifted himself upright.

This was not news to me. "You never are!" I called out. The sun was going down as I watched my friend walk across the lawn, passing by the granite stones until he found his destination, and I thought back to the events that led us here.

This man, Jimmy Rogers, is my friend. His parents were big-time country-music fans, which explains the name. Whenever he complained about his name, I'd tell him to be glad they didn't name him Merle or Willie or Twitty. I'd mix it up and throw a different country singer's name at him until I finally got to Dolly and Reba, and after that he never complained again. Anyway, we've been best buds since grade school, and we give each other no end of shit. That's how we support each other. Whenever one of us complains, the other throws some stupid shit to remind them that it could be worse. We got older, and we were supposed to get wiser, but we never really stopped behaving like those two kids in grade school.

Jimmy put on a uniform and went off to play in the sandbox, and he came back even crazier than when he left. I was never very good at following orders, so I stayed in school. When Jimmy got back, he went into a trade school, came out a plumber, and got into construction. Well, that inspired a whole new level of shit, if you know what I mean, but the truth is I was proud of him. I was wearing a tie and writing code all day while he was building things with his own two hands that actually worked. He was also making more money than me and he deserved it.

Jimmy and I were having a few beers one Saturday and I asked him what it was like in Afghanistan. He got very quiet for a while and studied the beer in his glass. Eventually, he drew a deep breath and said, "I saw the best and the worst of human beings. I saw American solders fight for the freedom of people they didn't even know. There were good people over there trying to build a modern country, but I also saw the devil himself. I saw women treated worse than slaves by men who didn't deserve to breathe the same air, and I saw children treated as expendable. There were Afghan citizens building schools for both boys and girls and then the teachers would disappear in the night never to be seen again. Everywhere I looked I saw people risking their lives and dying for their troubles, and we were always on the outside looking in. The enemy was like a ghost army that attacked its own citizens, and you couldn't tell a combatant from a civilian. The worst part of it was that I knew eventually we would leave, and it would all go back to what it was before we got there."

I guess that's what made Jimmy the wild man that he was. After that, we just sat and talked about everything and anything other than his time in the service.

When Jimmy came home, he bought a Jeep, and I sometimes think that was the beginning of everything bad that happened to him after that. In the spring he rolled the canvas roof down and drove around that way until the first snow fall or whenever it rained bad enough. When the first warm days of summer came, he took the doors off the Jeep, and they stayed off until Halloween. Then he slowly reassembled the Jeep and by Christmas it was almost respectable again. All the while he was driving across town and around the countryside and always too fast. It seemed that everywhere he went he knew everybody, and everybody knew him.

So it was inevitable that the best-known man in town would meet the most desirable woman in town, and soon he had company in that Jeep just about everywhere he went. It didn't make him drive with any greater caution. If anything, his joy made him more reckless. Jimmy and Hanna soon became inseparable, and it wasn't long before they announced their engagement. They were married in the spring and their marriage only increased Jimmy's enthusiasm for life.

Life for Jimmy and Hanna was like one nonstop party until without warning the party ended.

I got the call on a cold and rainy November day. It was that confluence of two poor decisions. Jimmy anticipated the changing light that was slow in coming while the truck entering the intersection tried to slip through on the last of a yellow light. Jeeps aren't made to sustain that kind of impact and Jimmy wasn't, either.

I raced to the hospital, but nothing prepared me for what I found. Jimmy had lost his left leg below the knee. Hanna was inconsolable and his parents were in mourning. Everyone understood that Jimmy had survived, but they behaved as if life as he knew it was over.

Jimmy was heavily sedated when I arrived, and he remained that way for the rest of the day and night. Hanna remained with him as we took turns keeping her company while the rest of us stood outside discussing what needed to be done. We would get him home, set him up with a bed in the living room of his apartment, and take turns helping Hanna take care of him until he was ready to take care of himself. Sure, it sounded good, but as I looked around at the other faces, I saw doubt and despair.

Of course, all our plans went to naught. Jimmy remained in the hospital for nearly two weeks and was then transferred to a long-term rehabilitation facility. His medical needs were extensive and only after his leg healed could he begin the serious business of physical rehabilitation. He needed to learn to stand again, then walk, and eventually care for himself. When he finally went home, he was on crutches with a prosthetic limb.

It wasn't until he was home that I saw the side of Jimmy that I'd never seen before; he was scared. He had shown me the internal wounds of war, but this was something altogether different. Looking back, I wonder if he knew things the rest of us never suspected.

Hanna was the dutiful wife, attentive to his every need, but the spark was gone from them both. Eventually, Jimmy returned to work with a desk job. He was like a racehorse harnessed to the plow. An office job wasn't Jimmy. The road back to full mobility with his prosthetic leg was long and difficult, and I worried that he might give up. At times, he seemed like a beaten man, but he persevered.

My view of Jimmy evolved a lot over those long months. The fun-loving jokester I'd known for so long was quick to anger and struggling to smile, but he was struggling, and he was not giving up. Slowly, with tremendous physical and psychological work, he regained his mobility and his sense of humor. In time he left his desk job behind and returned to working with his hands. This was when his attitude really began to improve, and that was when I began to notice that Hanna remained increasingly subdued. Her husband was recovering, but she was not.

I tried to speak with Hanna about it, but she was quick to dismiss my concerns. "Relax, Bill. You're imagining things. Jimmy is good again. We're fine." But they weren't fine. Anyone could see that.

Like I told you, I've known Jimmy since we were kids, and I knew this was not something I could ask him about. He would tell me if he needed to and only when he was ready. I just needed to be there if and when he needed me, or so I thought.

It was my wife that sounded the alarm. We were sitting together in the evening. The kids were in bed, and we were not far behind when she quietly said, "I saw Hanna today."

"Oh, that's good. She needs to get out more."

"No, I mean I SAW her. I wasn't with her."

Now, there isn't a husband alive who doesn't know that there's more to that story.

Still looking down at the carpet, she said, "She was with some guy."

I just looked at her and waited. There was no point in rushing her.

"She was hanging on his arm and looking at him the way she used to look at Jimmy."

"Crap!" was all I could think to say. I took a moment, but the question had to be asked. "Do you think she's cheating on him?"

She shrugged, then looked me in the eyes and nodded with sadness in her face.

"What do you think we should do?" I asked.

She shrugged again, shook her head slowly, and said, "He doesn't deserve this."

We agreed on that.

Eventually, with a terrible sense of sadness, I kissed her on her head, pulled her to her feet, and walked my loving wife to bed. There was no romance that night. There was only sadness and mourning for a friend who already knew greater pain and heartache than he deserved. In time, we would decide what to do about Hanna and Jimmy, but tonight we held each other until we eventually drifted off to sleep and I said a quiet prayer of thanks for the woman I loved and who loved me.

It turned out that Jimmy was ahead of us both. Whether someone else told him or he just surmised it from her behavior at home, he had put two and two together and come up with three. It was another rainy November day when Jimmy pulled up to my house and asked me to go with him. As we drove across town I asked, "So, what's all the urgency?"

Without turning to look at me, he said, "I need to put an end to it."

"An end to what?"

"An end to all of it. An end to the lying, the cheating, and the marriage. I'm putting an end to all of it."

We rode on in silence for a time after that. Then with just a glance in my direction, he said, "You knew, didn't you?"

The guilt of never telling him overwhelmed me. "We suspected."

"We? Who else knows?"

"Just Jill and me. At least, that's all I know about."

"How did you find out?" He was calm, but his world was collapsing around him, and he was looking for solid ground to stand on.

"Jill saw her out and got suspicious. We never really knew for sure, so we kept it to ourselves until we knew more."

"How long?"

"About a month. We didn't want to say anything if we were wrong."

Jimmy was nodding. Then with a deep breath he said, "You always were slow. I've sensed it for three and I'm betting it started before that."

Like I said, we've been friends since we were kids and giving each other shit was our specialty.

We pulled into the motel parking lot and Jimmy waved to a car that was parked near the entrance. The driver came over and simply said, "Room 132. They've been in there for about 90 minutes."

I looked across the lot and saw Hanna's car. It was all getting real very fast.

The unnamed driver then added, "Remember what I told you. Don't do anything stupid. I don't want to be a witness that puts my own client behind bars."

Jimmy just nodded slowly. He knew what he planned to do, but he wasn't sharing it with us. Not yet.

In time the door opened, and Hanna exited the room with a guy I didn't recognize. We learned later that he worked with her, but that didn't matter. The man with no name walked up to her, handed her an envelope, and said, "Hanna Rogers, you've been served."

She looked confused like she didn't recognize the language that he spoke.

As the man walked back to his car, Jimmy pulled up beside her and for a moment he just stared. They say there is no honor among thieves, but you might expect that Hanna's friend would move to protect her. Instead, he stepped back as if preparing to run. Then with the quiet voice of a man in pain, Jimmy said, "If you wanted out, you could have just asked me instead of cheating."

She seemed to be searching for the words that would explain or excuse her betrayal, but nothing came.

Jimmy turned his focus to the road ahead, put the car in gear, and drove away.

Two years had passed since that ugly November day when Jimmy's marriage imploded. There were some difficult times filled with self-doubt, but Jimmy worked to rebuild his life the way he worked to rebuild his body. Month by month, the old Jimmy returned until I found myself sitting in his Jeep one evening while my friend walked across the grass in search of a granite stone.

The time for reminiscing was past and my friend was returning to the car. It's amazing to me how well he walks with hardly a limp, just a slight swing of that left leg as he crosses the lawn. He turns and drops into his seat, swings his leg into the car, and gives me that big smile I've known all my life.

"I'm done! Now let's go get a beer."

I said, "I knew we were coming here when you started ordering iced tea instead of beer."

He chuckled and said, "I needed a lot of fluid, and I didn't want a DUI on my record."

I laughed quietly as his joke. I wonder how it is that he has lost so much, and yet somehow, he is the one who always lifts my spirits?

"Alright, but if you have too much, I'm not putting you to bed!" It was a poor attempt at humor on my part.

"Don't worry about me. I'm planning on finding someone to do that tonight." Jimmy was in high spirits as we headed for our favorite dance bar where the food was good, the beer was cold, and the women were all lovely. My wife would be waiting for us and worrying just a little as she so often does, but every woman in the place would welcome Jimmy when he arrived. That's just the way it's always been with him.

As we drove away my mind wandered, and I wondered about all the thoughts my friend keeps so closely to himself. When the spirit moves him, he comes here to this cemetery on the outskirts of town, and he empties his bladder on the grave of the man who stole his wife. No, Jimmy didn't kill him. He's seen too much of that in his life and wants no more of it. Call it fate or call it karma, but circumstances had killed the guy leaving Jimmy's ex alone and somehow less attractive than she had been in the years before her betrayal. However, that wasn't what was on my mind this night. What I wondered was how Jimmy, after so much pain and betrayal, never had an unkind word to say about her. He never let her back into his life, but he never trashed her when he had the opportunity, and no one would have blamed him if he did. I guess he just wanted to hold in his mind that memory of a time when his life was good, and he was truly happy.

The divorce went through easily enough, not that any divorce is ever easy. From what he told me, she never begged him to reconsider and never fought too hard to stop the divorce. Jimmy was fair, even generous, and in the end, they parted and went their separate ways. I've thought about them often and I think that Hanna was just a woman who never grew up. For her, life was an endless party, and she was unprepared for the reality of a lost leg and a wounded husband. It's a pity really because Jimmy healed and was eventually his old self again.

He took his time, but eventually he found Gail. She was well named. Gail blew into his life like a storm and swept up all that were before her. She quickly won over Jimmy and all his friends, and then completed his healing until that spark of mischief and joy returned and he once again had that gleam in his eye and a smile on his face. Pretty soon after that, he was again running around town in a new Jeep with the roof and doors off, but he now had Gail riding beside him, and everyone agreed that she was a keeper.

Time passed. Jimmy and Gail grew steadily closer and ever more devoted to one another until they married two years later. She gave him three children, each more wonderful than the other and more mischievous than their father. Somehow, she road herd on the lot of them and kept them all mostly out of trouble.

By now you know that I admire my friend and I live a bit vicariously through his various antics. Together, Jimmy and Gail began making new stories and having new adventures. Still, when he showed up at Halloween dressed as a pirate with a peg leg on his left, an eye patch on his right, and a wench at his side with three smaller pirates in tow, that was going just a bit too far!

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So there you have it, just a little story about friendship, loyalty, and healing. In the greater scheme of things, a cheating wife is just a bump in the road on the way to a full life.

Yes, I do know that the title is a double entendre. I couldn't resist the opportunity.