His name was Mike but we called him Idaho Joe. He must have been approaching his fortieth year. He must also be dead now, for this was 20 years ago - he was overweight and disabled, mentally, severely. Far beyond the line. Crossed from day one, the very day he arrived. His mother owned a small house in the same community where our cabin sat on the Rappahannock river.
Idaho Joe, 20 years later, 20 years before. I was 14 and Idaho was there and stayed until the day the cabin was sold. An overweight man with a big smile occasionally showing his teeth. He walked the community dirt roads weaving in and throughout the cottages. He wore the same long pants and light jacket all year round carrying a plastic soda bottle full of water. The big one, the two liter bottle. It was an eight mile trek from the cabin community to the closest town. Some days we would see Idaho walking back and forth from the river to town. I never understood how he continued to stay overweight with that much walking. His mother must have fed him well - stuffed him fat in the mornings and the evenings.
You never saw his mother, she hid in her cottage ashamed of her very own production. Idaho not only walked. He talked. He thought my brother was a girl and he used to come a knocking on the screened porch door. He would ask for my brother - was Shelley around? We would sit on the front lawn next to the sea wall and Idaho would say, "why 'ure as purrty as a nurse, 'ure as purrty as a psychiatrist." Because nurses and psychiatrists were all Idaho knew or understood. They were kind to him, they represented his ideal woman.
Once a girlfriend and I were quite cruel. The jelly fish were thick, Idaho decided to jump off the end of the pier into the water. And in our bikinis we laughed and waved, "come on over Idaho." And he walked through the water, through the jelly fish from the end of the pier to the seawall - at least several hundred feet or more. Behind that grin and behind those glittering Idaho eyes, he felt no pain. He smiled the whole way, not feeling one sting, still wearing the same clothing, still carrying the same 2 liter plastic bottle filled with water. Hair parted to one side. Determined he walked through on to his destination of two giggling girls.
Another time, my uncle and his friends built a bonfire and my uncle would sit and strum the guitar while they all got wasted. My uncle decided to offer liquor to Idaho and he took it. He took it hard and drank through the night. After a few hours, his grin and glittering eyes turned into pure cynicism and he turned away and let out a horrifying howl, several times. Bellowing out into the open night sky, under the stars, beside the bonfire, on the beach, next to the river. My uncle said, "well, I'll never do that again."
A third time on my way home from making out with my boyfriend and playing a long round of trivial pursuit, I walked home in the dark. And ahead of me in the distance I saw a black figure sauntering along. I knew the figure well and as we walked past each other, Idaho scared the shit out of me. But once past, I was OK. For I realized he was just heading home back to his mama to be stuffed again by her dinner of all dinners. There was nothing to fear.
My father told me, "Idaho Joe was so cruelly named by a friend of my brother, after he had seen an Indiana Jones movie. Idaho Joe was the most honest, open person I had ever met. Because of his condition he had nothing to hide nor regret. He was not what can sometimes be wrong about the human race; he revealed what was wrong with the rest of us. Sometimes I think of him grinning that mindless grin and I smile for quite a while."
~Emily Loren Moss Ferrell
written at some point this summer
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