| OCR Text |
Show THE ZEPHYR/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2007 fect for a skateboard. At 1:30 am, they make their first and only descent of the concrete cartway. Tom loses control and plows into a three strand barbed wire fence that runs ad- Tom was driving from Los Angeles to Denver in the spring of 1972 and was just coming into Las Vegas when he stopped to pick up two hitchhikers. One hops out in Vegas jacent to it. He hits tangentially. Tom says, “The fence used my body like a cheese grater but the other rides with Tom to St. George where he gets a room for the night. When Wes- for 25 feet. He is shredded from neck to chest. His arms are torn up. The fence has nicked his carotid and he wraps his own t-shirt around it to stop the bleeding. But he’s wearing son wakes up the next morning the guy is still in the car. “He's a rough looking, scary dude,” Tom recalls, but he figured, what the explained that he was going to Denver but the guy told Tom he needed to get to “Look,” Tom explained, you can ride with me to Denver but that’s as far as I’m The Hatchet Man said nothing. Somewhere north of St. George, Tom decided to take a “shortcut” on a Carhartts and according to Tom, “It was those Carhartts that saved my cajones.” Brad takes him to the hospital, where the doctors insist he must have been in a car wreck. They cannot believe anyone on a skateboard can sustain those kinds of injuries. Ultimately he receives 156 “normal” stitches and 80 “fine stitches. And Tom notes ruefully, “I also missed my civil service test.” Next! January 18, 1989. Martin Luther King Day. US 191 between Price and Green River near milepost 54. Tom hits some black ice and loses control of his wife Robin’s Toyota pickup. The truck rolls three times and crushes the roof. The top of the cab is touching the gearshift knob. Tom is unconscious for 45 minutes. When he wakes up, he realizes battery acid is dripping on him, but he’s grateful for the acid because, “I figure that’s what woke me up.” He ends up in the Price hospital-concussion, stitches, cerebral hematoma, temporary loss of sight and hearing.....ho hum. Tom thinks, “I wonder what the wife will say about the truck?” Winter, 1989. Tom’s working at Telluride. It’s a night job maintaining and grooming the ski slopes. Coming down in the dark, he hits another snowmobile parked in the middle of the slope and flies 50 yards through the air, hitting yet another snowmobile. Tom goes through the windshield, across the slope and into a tree. He limps down the hill but with only minor injuries. If only Sonny Bono had Tom’s “luck.” Tom gets a break for a couple of years. Then, 1991. Tom is working at-a toxic waste incinerator, run by the Department of Defense. He is cleaning and adjusting the rods on an electro-static precipitator when somebody accidentally turns on the power. 70,000 volts go through Tom. He gets burns on his knees and his shoes are melt to his feet. Otherwise, he’s okay. Summer 1999. Ridgway, Colorado. Wesson is living, believe it or not, in a shipping container (“until something better comes along.”). He feels an excruciating pain in his back. An ambulance is called and he is hauled away on a stretcher and rushed to Mon- hell. Tom St. Louis. going.” dirt road, though it was only May and the roads were still muddy. They were making their way up a long grade when Tom’s traveling companion yelled, “Stop the car.” Tom kept moving. The man yelled again, “Stop the fucking car!” Tom was more mystified than scared at first. “What is this guy yelling about?” Tom wondered. “Okay...so tell me again Tom, how you can forget to mention the “Hatchet Man?” “Like I said, dude, I’ve had a lot of mishaps.” Suddenly the guy pulled a hatchet from his backpack and said, “You have to the count of three to‘get out. I’m stealing this fucking car!.” According to Wesson, “He began to count. He said, ‘One...Two...’ [had three seconds to think. The next thing I knew we were going at it in the front seat. He was ripping my hair out and we were punching away. We somehow knocked out the windshield but I didn’t even notice until later. I finally grabbed the hatchet out of his hand and was able to shove him out of the car. As I started to drive away, I threw the hatchet over a cliff, which was really stupid because that was all the protection I had. : “I could see the guy running after me and screaming at me!. As I looked back I noticed his backpack and a sleeping bag were still in the back of my VW. I tossed the backpack out the window for him and kept going. I wasn’t worried until I started sliding in the mud. The Hatchet Man was gaining on me. I was scared shitless. Then I heard a loud thump. I didn’t know what the hell it was . I just kept going. I reached back and saw his sleeping bag and so I threw it out the window, but the damn bag went over the cliff. I finally made it to the top of the ridge and I could see him way back there, still screaming and yelling. “Slowly I pulled away and when I thought I'd gone a safe distance I got out to see what the ‘thump’ was I'd heard. I saw that he’d actually thrown his backpack at me and it had hooked on my rear fender. I took it off and kept going.” Tom went about a mile when he came upon some campers, Mormon familes probably, and warned them of the Hatchet Man. “I was all bloody and pretty freaked out so | may have scared them but I just kept telling them there was a mad man up the road and they better get ready for him.” Tom was relieved when he saw several of the campers retrieve high-powered rifles from their trailers and trucks. When he got to Loa, Tom reported the incident to the US Forest Service, “but I don’t think they believed me. So, you know, I just kept on driving. Drove non-stop til I got to Denver.” That would be the end of the story if it weren’t for a strange footnote, delivered 20 years after the fact. Tom was working with his old friend Brad Minor again, in 1993, and met a friend of his from Richfield, Utah, who had worked for years with Search and Res- Tom is unconscious for 45 minutes. When he wakes up, he realizes battery acid is dripping on him, but he’s grateful for the acid because, “T figure that’s what woke me up.” trose. The doctors determine he has a Black Widow bite, and the bite is directly on his spine. A CHP officer races to Delta in his cruiser to get anti-venom. According to Tom, it’s his most painful mishap yet. “They gave me three shots of painkiller and it didn’t even touch it.” Tom says that on the ride to the hospital his grip on the EMT’s arm was so tight, it left an imprint on his arm that stayed for days. Summer 2003. Tom’s walking along 400 North in Moab. A car comes from nowhere and clips Wesson as he scrambles to get out of the way. The side mirror hits him in the back and Wesson crashes into a huge pile of garbage. He brushes himself off and goes on. September 2007. “Okay...so tell me again Tom, how you can forget to mention the “Hatchet Man?” “Like I said, dude, I’ve had a lot of mishaps.” cue. Somehow Tom’s story of the Hatchet Man comes up. The guy from Richfield turns white. “Wait a minute. Was this about 20 years ago?” Tom nods. The Search and Rescue guy shakes his head. “You know, a few years ago, somebody found a skeleton out there, not far from where you said this happened. They somehow ID‘d him and found out he’d been wanted for two murders in Haight-Ashbury, about 20 years ago. | think they said he was from St. Louis.” Tom shuddered. “That’s where this guy said he was headed when I picked him up.” Epilogue for a close call. So what does it all mean? According to Wesson: “It doesn’t mean anything! It just happened. That’s how Life is. What's happened to me is nothing compared to what other people have gone through, you know? Look at the men in World War II and how they suffered, trying to do the right thing and what they went through....On the other hand, I’ve just been out there being crazy. I mean, look at some of this stuff ve done...what would you expect from a guy who once skateboarded the entire length of the Zion Tunnel? And I didn’t get a scratch from that little ride. I believe in weird coincidences and that's it.” But I can’t help but remember what Tom’s mom told him, a long time ago. She said, “Raising you Tom...I don’t think I could do it twice.” Maybe not, but Tom Wesson seems to be living his life as many times as possible, while still keeping a smile on his face and sense of humility in his heart. May our old pal Wesson live 19 more lives. » Finally he tells me the story of the Hatchet Man, of where it all began really. OPEN 24 HOURS ¢ SELF SERVE 588 Kane Creek Bivd. “Bring Your Dirty Laundry.” Sore No More 2 Natural Pain Relieving Ge Country Clean Laundromat & Car Wash Soothing & Penetrating Topical Analgesic Gel Behind McDonalds, Next to the Cinema provides effective relief from _ ° Arthritis - Over-Exerted & Sore Muscles & Promotes Healing with All-Natural Ingredients! Available all over Moab, or Call OPEN 24 HOURS « SELF SERVE 1-800-842-6622 588 Kane Creek Blvd. “Sling Your Mud Our Way.” “Feel Your Soreness Melt Away.” | sorenomore.com |
