Lars

Sharing Stories

June 30, 2023 at 5:20 a.m.

This is Brad Huff (Ariele's husband) who entertained his co-workers when he slipped on this dress left hanging in the locker-room. The photo was passed around a lot with many different "balloon" comments. This one says "Lil' Brad in a dress says, 'Let's hug it out.'"

...by Terry Cook

“Lars”

Lars Hanson was the seventh child and the only boy in a family of second-generation Norwegian immigrants from the Lake country in Michigan. He joined the Marines in high school to see the world. What he saw made him choose to wander until he found a small town out West in a wide valley between the base of three mountain ranges. Tall, strapping Bunyanesque, he drew comfort from mountains to match his size.

In the beginning, working in the lumber mill planing logs into lumber suited him. At the end of his shift, he often joined the crew at the tavern by the river. The men crowded in, stinking of sweat and dying timber. Lars bought the first round, then found a seat at the end of the bar and let the conversations float around him as he drank the cold beer. He was twenty-nine that year, had lived in the small town for three years, and kept mostly to himself. Conversations outside of work were a struggle for him. He had a deep voice but often spoke so softly you had to lean in to hear him. His words were chosen carefully so as not to waste any effort.

After a few beers, he took himself home, showered and set about fixing his evening meal. The familiar routine of elk steaks sizzling in butter in the skillet with potatoes and sometimes mushrooms. To this he added a salad , and sliced bread from the loaf he’d made on Sunday. It was a familiar routine. He let this wash away the melancholy that settled in from time to time. He was edgy and this restlessness made him twitchy. He had an abiding sense that something might be missing in his life.

The following week, a red Harley Davidson Sportster rumbled down the canyon road. Echoes reverberated for miles as he wove in and out of the shadows along the narrow gravel road. Already past noon, the sun had finally started to heat up the canyon. The man rode all in black: black helmet, black leather jacket, black leather chaps, and blackjack boots. Revving up the engine on a short stretch of straight road, he felt the power beneath him and the breeze teasing his beard. At the next curve, he let up on the throttle, smiling at the backfire. It was a good day for a ride.

Some thirty miles downriver he came to a long, wide alluvial fan scattered with a few houses and travel trailers. An old homestead was carved into lots for people looking to get away from the racket and demands of city life.

Lars sidled the motorcycle into an open space in front of an old run-down shack that posed as a saloon. He skirted the carcasses of old cars and the remnants of a backhoe leaning into a ditch above the river. A dozen trucks hitched to trailers stacked with rubber rafts in primary colors were gathered. Flatlanders came to float the river for bragging rights, having conquered Class V rapids. Dozens of scantily dressed sunburned people had spilled out of the bar, hanging around the slanted porch and swilling cheap cold beer.

In the shade of a sagging cottonwood tree, Lars parked his bike. He reached up, pulled off his helmet, and shook loose his red hair which hung to his shoulders and shone in the sun. His mother called this his “Viking legacy.” Tugging off his gloves, he ran his large, scarred hands through his hair. He removed his jacket, boots, and socks and finally the leather chaps, carefully laying them over the saddle seat of the bike.

(Brad's dress was turned into a Mrs. Santa outfit in this photo. Like Lars, Brad is six-foot-four!)

Lars stood there in a hot pink sleeveless dress all six-foot-four inches of him. The dress unfurled in rumpled pleats. He made a few halfhearted attempts to smooth out the wrinkles. The skirt flared around his legs like the pinup girl on the calendar in his garage.

Next, he took out a pair of white size thirteen stiletto heels from the saddle bags, buffed them with his bandana and put them on.

He turned the mirror of the bike up toward himself and ducked to see the image he made.

He smiled, then carefully applied a siren red lipstick, mindful not to get any on his beard. He daubed his lips with the bandana and put on sunglasses. Satisfied, he made his way through the gauntlet of trucks and then through the gawkers on the porch, being careful to walk on his toes.

He took a seat and quietly raked his eyes over the crowd. Then turned to the bartender.

“I’ll have the usual.”

Several river guides greeted him, offering to buy his drink. The place cleared of flatlanders in a rush of forgotten things. It was always that way.

He laid a fifty dollar-bill on the bar.

“I’m sorry. I hope this covers your losses.”

Lars took a delicate sip of the dry martini, glad to be rid of the visiting sightseers, and winked at the bartender.

Terry Cook is a Washington State writer and in Ariele Huff's Thursday ZOOM Writing Group.

SHARING STORIES is a weekly column for and about the 50 plus crowd living in the Puget Sound region. Send your stories and photos to ariele@comcast.net. Tell local or personal stories; discuss concerns around aging and other issues; share solutions, good luck, and reasons to celebrate; poems are fine too. Pieces may be edited or excerpted. We reserve the right to select among pieces. Photos are always a plus and a one-sentence bio is requested (where you live, maybe age or career, retired status, etc.).
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