karl

i find it easier to write about people who aren't on the internet. that way i am not intimidated by the thought of them reading it or misinterpreting it when they do. it probably shouldn't be that way, but writing usually works better when i don't filter.

so, for instance,  it's easier to write about my dad, because he "doesn't do computers." and i've been thinking about his friend karl, because he doesn't do computers (as far as i know) and he is a character like my dad - which is probably also what makes writing about them so easy.

karl makes me smile. he is the only karl with a k (not a c) that i know. he loves hunting and fishing and smoking cigarettes. he has a medium build with tan skin, brown hair, and a mustache. he wore a cartoon tie and brought a disposable camera to my wedding to snap picture of me and my dad. i wasn't even sure they still made disposable cameras in 2013.

his voice has its own drawl to it - the kind you could easily pick out if you had to. when i was dating lance and i saw karl one time, he said, "chelsea, i heard ya got a steady!" um yeah, yeah i guess i do? i'm not sure how to respond to that, but thank you for allowing me to feel like i'm living in the 1950s that i paint so dreamily in my mind for a moment.

one of my earliest memories of karl is waiting for  him to clean out the backseat of his car so my brother and i could ride in the back on the way to go hiking. something had a ketchup stain on it and he said, "damn it, that's not gonna come out. oh i mean darn it. you didn't hear me say that, did you?"

karl is one of the kindest people i've ever known. he picks up hitchhikers, lets people stay at his house if they're down on their luck, and is quick to give money to people in need.

my dad says that karl is probably the hardest working person he knows. if you ever need a tree to be cut down, call karl. "boy, he has a gift. karl can make a tree fall exactly where he wants it to." i am laughing as i write that. my dad is fantastic at acknowledging other people's gifts. he says that one of his roommates is "a genius with a telephone." here i am laughing again, because what does that even mean? more than he can operate a telephone and make calls my dad doesn't feel like making. but to hear my dad talk about it you would think that guy has set olympic records.

but karl is your guy if you ever need a tree cut down. he has had several jobs and maybe he got fired sometimes, but he would always get right back out there and find another. he never gives up.

when karl worked at cactus willie's, a buffet with made-to-order steaks, we tried to visit him at work with my dad. i say try, because i don't actually remember that we ever ate there at a time when karl was working. i think my dad had just found a convenient excuse to eat at a steak buffet as much as he wanted to and took advantage of that.

i pretend gag when i think of cactus willie's now, because i have adopted my mom's disdain for buffets and smorgasbords. why stuff your face with rows of mediocre (at best) food, when you could order one sensible portion of deliciousness at a nicer restaurant? if that's not enough to convince a person not to like buffets, i think what happened to my dad the last time we ate at cactus willie's would.

my dad was wearing new shoes. he has enormous feet and is very particular about the shoes he buys, so finding a pair he likes is a big deal. i forget what they looked like, but they probably cost a pretty penny because joseph benjamin shank does not skimp when it comes to footwear. we waited in the winding line to get into cactus willie's, because it was wildly popular when it first opened and that was when karl worked there. we got our table and went our separate ways to fill our plates. all i remember eating there was soft-serve ice cream cones.

midway through the meal, my dad got up to go to the bathroom.

when he came back, he had this look on his face that you knew something was either terribly wrong, or you were about to hear a really good story. this time it turned out to be both.

when he opened the door to the bathroom, someone had thrown up all over the floor. so my dad slipped around and wound up with someone's steak buffet puke all over his new shoes. if there are words to describe the look on my dad's face after this debacle, or how much it burned him up, i don't have them.

we never ate at cactus willie's ever again. it could've been the shoe incident, but it's more likely that we stopped going because karl stopped working there and moved on to trucking. cactus willie's has since gone out of business (i guess we left a big hole in their income) and i will forever count it a privilege of adulthood to choose restaurants myself.