Whither Bigfoot

I don’t know whether I got my friend killed.

I don’t say that because I did anything to him, or caused an accident or something. For that matter he’s not even dead (though he could be, soon).

I say it because I’m not sure who’s responsible for what happened today, or, really, these past 24-odd years. I’ll explain.

Back in college, my roommate Chetly and I both sought out the easiest majors any law school would credit. He picked journalism, and the muckraking bug bit him hard. He wrote scads of stories for the student paper about our university’s arguably-shadier dealings. And instead of helping him study, I basically cheered him on, and did some of his homework, and kept our fridge full of beer. Sometimes I’d tell him to buckle down on stuff for class; invariably, he’d just say “in this world you gotta stand up for something, Jack.”

Fun? Idealistic? Sure. But his grades stunk. So, he didn’t get accepted where I went, and our paths parted.

A few years down the road, he called me. “Jackie boy. It’s illegal for private universities to rip off the government, right?”

I knew it was. I knew he knew it was. I also knew that, barely-granted law license or no, my friend had never stopped rifling through files in academic archives, trying to expose scammers and hypocrites and whatnot. And, so, he’d never developed much useful legal expertise. I should’ve told him to read 31 U.S.C. 3729 himself. But, true to form, I didn’t.

“Very illegal. Whoever rats them out in court can make a killing in reward money.”

Chetly chuckled, as he did when he fancied himself temporarily brilliant. “I’ve got a live one on my hands. Wanna see the file this weekend?”

What I wanted was to play golf that weekend. And I wanted the ten grand he owed me. And I sorta wanted him to leave the college administrators alone for a while.

But I just said “make sure you’ve got copies of the billing records, and I’ll meet you Friday.”

Whereupon, he brought me a milk crate of papers. Whereupon, I filed a federal false-claims suit on his behalf. Whereupon, the feds took the case. Two years later they cut him a check for $21 million; my end of that was $7 mil.

Of course, we partied like rock stars. I was right there with him from Jamaica to Juneau. But whereas I socked most of my cash away in low-yield bonds and suchlike, and I limited myself to one Corvette (plus a junky pickup for ‘worky’ things), Chetly bought three Ferraris.

I tried to tell him not to start a tech company that analyzed major-league pitchers’ wind-ups. Eventually, I wound up incorporating the darned thing for him; he lost $4 million. I tried to tell him boats and planes burned money. He bought several of each. I don’t know what he blew on opening a microbrewery, because I wouldn’t help him with that. Must’ve been a good chunk, though.

But I never really used my skills to hammer him into wising up. I didn’t even attempt to advise him not to fly to Ukraine for a wife. It’s a poor excuse, but I couldn’t imagine he’d find one. He wasn’t quite 5’6. His belly shaded his shoes, and he didn’t speak a lick of Ukrainian. But the day Chetly landed here with Oksana, half a foot taller and half a life younger than he, I grabbed his lapels ten seconds into her first venture to an American ladies’ room.

“Dude, you are not getting married!”

He smiled and shrugged. “Don’t have to.”

I relaxed and let go of his jacket. “Good. Maranatha, then.”

He winked, and chuckled a bit. “I already did it. Over there. It was the right thing. And you know what I stand for, hey?”

I must’ve slapped my own forehead pretty hard. Oksana noticed the redness when she returned.

“Ooh, your... your head? What is wrong?”

I didn't answer. Nor did I pipe up while I found them an immigration lawyer in my office building the following week. And I didn’t say ‘boo’ thereafter, as Oksana’s shoe collection metastasized and Chetly’s law practice, and his money, atrophied.

So, right on time, two years and a month from that day at the airport, I walked back to work from an early lunch. The elevator opened to reveal Oksana and a guy I knew a little; Cal, something, who mostly sold tennis lessons in the tonier ‘burbs.

Oksana turned pink. She spike-heeled past me like we’d never met. Cal wasn’t smart enough to stall; he just caught right up and opened the outside door for her.

I grabbed my phone and dialed Chetly’s cell. Voicemail. I called my secretary and had her check Judge Nichols’ docket. Sure enough, he had a hearing that afternoon. So I dashed for the courthouse, and I arrived in courtroom 2-A in time to see my friend slam a fist down on one of the tables up front. He was yelling. And he hadn’t just started.

“Your ruling is worse than wrong! It’s vicious! It’s duplicitous! I won’t stand for it!”

Judge Nichols made a face that only angry prison guards ever make. She hefted her gavel. I quick-stepped up past the bar and stood in front of Chetly.

“Your Honor? I’m terribly sorry to interrupt. But I have to say, as it’s probably obvious to the court by now, that my colleague has been under an extraordinary amount of stress. He hasn’t been himself. That’s why I’m here today, Judge. I was concerned that something like this might happen.”

She leaned forward and stared at me so hard, I worried I’d get another red mark on my forehead.

“Counselor? This isn’t your case. And right now your buddy’s two seconds from a stay in the Graybar Hotel. Do you intend to go in there with him and keep him company?”

Chetly tapped me on the shoulder. I swatted his hand away; the whole room heard the ‘smack.’ I didn’t look away from the judge.

“No, Your Honor. But if it might please the court, I do have a plan for taking him to therapy. Immediately. Would Your Honor be so kind as to adjourn this hearing?”

She pointed her gavel at me, then tapped it gently on the bench, twice, for emphasis.

“One month. And I want to see the records, plus a check for opposing counsel’s fees – assuming I ever let him back in here again.”

I didn’t have to tell Chetly to pack his crap and leave the courtroom, or to wait with me outside as I hailed a cab. I did have to call my secretary and tell her to find us two seats to San Francisco as soon as possible. We were halfway to the airport when she called me back.

“Jack? All I can find is a NetJet. They only have a G-5 in town, so it’d be about $20,000 one way. You want?”

I didn’t let myself think. “Please. And ask ‘em for two bottles of bourbon, will you? Then push my appointments and take some time off, ma’am. I’ll be back in ten days.”

Chetly didn’t say much until we were westbound at 48,000 feet and we each had about a third of a fifth in us. Then the floodgates opened. I didn’t have to mention Oksana. He related that her green card had arrived, and his credit cards weren’t working too well anymore, so he'd known the score for weeks. I felt sorry for him. But, moreso, I was relieved.

We had three hours in the air to commiserate and to form half a plan. Chetly loved skyscrapers, so we booked the Hilton in the financial district. We navigated check-in OK, but once we’d demolished some steaks and too much wine, walking required extra attention. Inebriation didn’t deter him one bit.

“North Beach! Dollies! Onward!”

As we set off, I assumed he’d meant Vesuvio, where Kerouac and Bob Dylan used to drink too much, and wayward graduate assistants still do. But after three blocks uphill, Chetly passed the bar’s entrance and pointed kitty-corner across at the Condor. I made half an effort to slow his roll.

“Strippers? Chet, man, ain’t you learned nothin’?”

He waved me off with an exaggerated hand. “Bah! These girls are honest! Everybody knows the deal up front. It’ll be refreshing!”

So, to the Condor we stumbled, and spend on rented faux-lasciviousness we did, ‘til closing time. Most of our later hours are a blur. But I do still remember him saying something about ‘going to find Sasquatch in the morning.’ It made no sense to me.

That is, until dawn broke, and it did. It couldn’t have been 6:30 when I heard a knock at the door. I rolled over to see Chetly wheeling a room-service cart between our beds. I didn’t like it a bit.

“Jesus, Chetly! What’re you, concussed?”

He thumbed a remote, and the TV magnified my hangover. “What? We said. Humboldt County, to look for the Yeti. Squatching! It’s a couple hundred miles, and we don’t have wheels yet. Eat up, Jackie!”

I still can’t believe I ate -- and kept it down. It’s harder to believe a rental-car agent handed me the keys to a new SUV, but that happened too. Then we hit the road. We found clothes and camping gear and hooch at a big-box store in Santa Rosa, and we had lunch farther up the 101 in Laytonville. We passed through several groves of giant redwoods along the way. Chetly was amazed.

“Jack! Look at these, will you? Look how they stand. Perfectly straight. Solid. Timeless. That’s the way to be, Jackie. These trees are the omega!”

We arrived at Humboldt Redwoods State Park in the early evening. I found an outhouse. Chetly met me back at the car with a park map.

“We’re going to the farthest edge. Sasquatch city! I’ve got the route all set.”

I didn’t start the car right away. “Whoa, sir. This is Humboldt. In October. It’s harvest season for the midnight ganja farmers, and where you want to go is where they grow. You wanna get shot?”

He did his hand-wave thing again. “Ach! Yetis don’t go to campgrounds, Jackie. We’ll be fine.”

And, then, of course, dumb me starts the car and drives, over washboard roads and two-tracks until I guessed we’d left the park a ways back.

Our two-track stopped. So did we. A hundred yards off, through the beginnings of a wispy fog, we could just see a smallish, decrepit old barn. Chetly was geeked.

“That’s where Bigfoot would live! Come on!”

He was off down a trail toward that barn lickety-split. I could’ve sprinted to stop him. I should’ve. I didn’t. I just followed. When he was about 20 yards from its rotted door, I heard the most sickening metallic “SNAP” sound anybody’s ever heard.

The louder Chetly screamed, the faster I ran. I saw a toothed bear trap clamped to his leg; his blood was puddling on the trail. But I didn’t slow down. I made for the barn and burst inside, hoping for something to use as a tourniquet. I found some old binder twine. I also found a wooden wheelbarrow, so I grabbed that and went pell-mell back to where he lay.

I tied off his leg tightly, then we struggled and cussed until the trap was off. But for that wheelbarrow, I don’t know how I’d have hauled him back to the car. I did, though. And then I drove like hell, and I kept him awake and talking, and I got him to a hospital.

As I say, I don’t know, now, whether he’ll live. But since I’ve had this time to think, I’m sure I do know that if he does, at least one of us, from now on, is just going to have to be responsible.