Avery Jenkins, with a story about the fierce friendship between him and a fellow crew member as they were clearing the Appalachian Trail.
—
“Goddammit!” My expletive rattled through the forest, ignored by the trees. It was one of those bright but foggy days you get in the mountains, where the clouds are thin and low and you are in them. The forest was mostly birch with some fir, and for the third damn time that week, I had dropped a tree backwards and it had gotten hung up in all the young, springy birch trees surrounding it.
As I stood looking at the tree, cursing under my breath, a familiar voice came out of the forest.
“Whatsamatter, Ave, you fuck up another one?” Tom asked.
Tom Preston (not his real name) was one of my co-workers on the Appalachian Mountain Club Trail Crew during the summer of 1977, and had become one of my best friends. We were 20 years old. He was tall where I was short, we were both as hard as the granite mountains that we worked and played in, and neither of us had been able to defeat the other in arm wrestling. Tom had a goofy grin, an infectious laugh, and a thing for the Grateful Dead and Little Feat.
We were friends, but this week had been different. He’d been riding me hard, all week, calling me out on every little mistake, and making fun of me every chance he got. I was angry. My response fit the context.
“Shut up,” I said.
Tom shouted down the mountainside to one of the other AMC Trail Crew employees. “Hey, Ninny, you gotta see this,” he said. “Ave screwed up another one.”
A couple minutes later, Ninny showed up, and he and Tom continued to make fun of me as I tried to figure out how to get the tree down, short of the somewhat dangerous maneuver of climbing the tree, lopping off the branches that were hung up, then riding the bastard down to the ground. I’d done it a few times already this week, and the boulder-strewn area I was working in made it a less-than-desirable experience.
The ribbing continued unabated, and finally I snapped. “Shut the fuck up!” I shouted, as I turned toward Tom, and heaved my double-bitted axe. It embedded itself in a tree. I was as surprised at that as was anyone else. Tom and Ninny slunk off into the woods to work on their own sections of trail. I finally got the tree down. At dinner, cooked on a Primus white gas stove next to our canvas tents, little was said, except Tom’s continued belittling.
♦◊♦
The next afternoon, we came to loggerheads again. I don’t remember how it started, or what was said, But Tom had his face inches from mine and was giving me more abuse. In a fury, I snatched the knit wool cap that Tom wore off of his head, threw it down on a stump, and slammed my axe into it, cutting it in half.
Tom’s eyes grew wide.
“Krumholtz knitted that for me!” he shouted. Krumholz was his girlfriend. “You—”
Suddenly he stopped. He reached down and grabbed the remaining top half of the cap, and slapped it on his head.
“Hey, look!” he said. “It’s a yamaha!” he exclaimed, fumbling for the word he meant, yarmulke, the traditional headcovering of Jewish men.
“Just call me Rabbi Preston!” he shouted, and then broke into a cossack dance, perhaps associating Jews with their diasporatic home in eastern Europe and Russia. Actually, I’m not sure what was going through his brain. But he started laughing, and I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing too, and we laughed until we couldn’t stand up.
For the next few days, the hazing diminished. After we had come out of the woods that week, Tom confessed to me.
“I had a bet, Ave,” he said. “I bet Ninny I could make you cry this week.”
I looked at him. I said something like “try again, chump,” and then let it go. After all, Tom and I were friends.
Tom and I and the others on Trail Crew went on to share other adventures over the next few years. For a while, Tom and I shared a log cabin in South Tamworth NH, both of us working for the same lumber company, and living on company land to save a dime.
We both had motorcycles then, and Tom was going to see his girlfriend, Krumholz, and asked me to pick up his Honda Gold Wing from the mechanic for him. I never told him, but riding Tom’s Gold Wing was the first time I ever broke 100 mph on a bike. It was beautiful.
Eventually, we both went our own ways, Tom to work for the railroad, and I went back to college, first becoming a reporter and, later, a doctor. My daughters knew Tom only from the stories I used to tell them about Tom & Daddy on Trail Crew. He was a memory lost in the mists of many years.
♦◊♦
A few weeks ago, Tom messaged me on Facebook. Since our days on Trail Crew, I had seen him only once in 35 years, and even then it was just for a few short hours.
“Ave,” he said, “I’m getting married in two weeks. I’d love to see you at the wedding.”
“I’ll be there,” I replied.
Three days ago, I went to Tom’s wedding. It was at a Baptist church, where Tom was clearly a loved and valued member. This was a long, long way from the Tom I once knew, who had a closer relationship with Jack Daniels than Jesus. During the ceremony, the pastor spoke of Tom’s appearance at the church, and of his spiritual conversion.
I looked at Tom. He was the same man that I once knew. I would recognize that gait, that smile — that laugh! — anywhere. But there was now a gravitas about him that wasn’t there before. His hair was gray, as is mine.
After the ceremony, I greeted Tom in the reception line. “Greeted” is perhaps too impersonal a word. We hugged. I looked at him. I saw, in Tom and I, two men that had trod very different paths but had ended up at similar places. Two men who had both experienced spiritual renewals, one in the arms of Jesus, the other in a grove of druids. Two men that had the scars of time and life, but who had kept their sense of humor. Two men who had, time and again, been tested and proven.
Tears welled up in my eyes.
I wrapped my arms around him. “It took you 35 years, Tom,” I said. “But you finally made me cry.”
—
Photo: Appalachian Mountain Club Trail Crew, Fall, circa 1976-77 (courtesy of author)
it only took me five minutes to read this article and i already have tears! thanks for this.