A novel by M. Ernest Johnson
Mr. Ledbetter's
Boots
A 95-year-old Tuskegee Airman sets out to become the oldest person ever to walk the 40 miles to Everest Base Camp. His boots are hiding something.
Seventy-five years ago, an 18-year-old named Raymond put his P-51 Mustang into the Austrian Alps and walked away from it. The escape became legend, and it launched an obsession with mountains that never let go. Now, in open defiance of the laws of aging, he wants to see Everest with his own eyes and reach it on his own two feet.
Hiking beside him through Nepal's Khumbu is Joe Vogler, a young journalist chasing his first real story in social-justice reporting. Joe has no idea that the old man's boots hold a piece of history that will turn the whole trek on its head.
Hardcover · Paperback · Kindle · Serious book. Occasional jokes. Only one yak mishap.
Before you start
This one isn't a
dad-humor book.
If you found your way here from the blog, consider this a courtesy warning.
There are laughs in it, because I cannot seem to help myself. But it is a novel about war, race, memory, and a debt that took seventy-five years to come due. One reader described it as sobering, funny, sad, and eye-opening, which is about as close to the target as I could have hoped for.
If what you want is a middle-aged man falling over at altitude, that book exists, I wrote it, and it is called Doofus Dad Does Everest Base Camp. No hard feelings. Start there instead.
The story
Two men, forty miles,
and one very old secret.
Raymond Ledbetter flew with the Tuskegee Airmen. He was shot down over Austria at eighteen, walked out of the Alps on his own, and spent the next seventy-five years being described in newspaper profiles as a local hero, which is not the same thing as being understood.
At ninety-five he decides he is going to Everest Base Camp. Not to climb it. To stand at the bottom of it and look up, on his own two feet, before the opportunity closes.
Joe Vogler is assigned to write about him. Joe is young, ambitious, and convinced he already knows the shape of the story: inspirational old man does improbable thing. That is not the story.
Somewhere between Lukla and Gorak Shep, over the course of forty miles and a great deal of thin air, the old man's boots turn out to be carrying something that rearranges everything Joe thought he was writing.
A page from the book
Selma, sometime
in the 1970s.
By the 1970s, Raymond’s peculiar habit of climbing faraway mountains had become common knowledge in Selma, if still an oddity. As the only black crop duster/mountain climber that anyone knew or had ever heard of, Raymond was as much discussed in the local cafes and barber shops as was the Selma High School basketball team, which consistently challenged for the district championship. Raymond’s barber, Mr. Singletary, never failed to pepper him with questions while he was captive in the barber’s chair.
“Ray, why in heaven’s name would you want to go to all that trouble to climb a mountain and get nothing out of it?” Mr. Singletary would ask as he trimmed Raymond’s sideburns. The barber shop regulars who sat in the waiting chairs, legs crossed over knees, would murmur their approval of this question.
“Well, Mr. Singletary, it’s just something I like doing,” Raymond would say. “It’s just like how you enjoy carrying your rod and tackle box down to the sandbar every Saturday morning and trying to hook a catfish.”
“But I get something out of that,” Mr. Singletary would argue. “I get dinner in my belly.”
More murmurs of approval from the regulars.
“Well, now, that’s true, that’s true,” Raymond would agree. “But see, mountain climbing feeds my soul just like that ol’ catfish feeds your belly.”
This type of response always annoyed Mr. Singletary. How can a soul be fed? A soul is an airy thing, like steam off a hot cup of coffee, he figured. Steam can’t be fed. A stomach, on the other hand, can certainly be fed. It had to be fed, and he said as much.
“I don’t disagree with that,” Raymond would say. “You can’t feed steam. But I’m not being so literal about this. I mean in terms of happiness, not in terms of dinner. I like a good catfish as much as the next fella, but climbing a mountain makes me happier than eating catfish.”
“But eating catfish is a sight easier than climbing a mountain,” Mr. Singletary would retort, purposely trimming one sideburn slightly shorter in retaliation to Raymond’s illogical comment. For decades, it was rumored that Mr. Singletary would dole out asymmetrical haircuts if he was irked by a comment made by the customer, to the point that Selma men began studying each other’s heads during church service or while standing in line at the movie theater.
“Yes, yes, it’s true that eating catfish is easier than climbing,” Raymond would consent. “Now, don’t be giving me a lopsided haircut just because I’m not as partial to catfish as you!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mr. Singletary would say, adjusting the other sideburn to match while nobody was looking.
And so it would go.
What readers said
Five stars, five times.
★★★★★
"Sobering, funny, sad, eye-opening and perfect."
Sergio A. Ballivian · Amazon
★★★★★
"The characters are immediately engaging and very real."
YvetteG · Amazon
★★★★★
"The reader really feels as if they are along for the trek."
Scott H. · Amazon
★★★★★
"I immediately fell in love with the character of Mr. Ledbetter."
Theresa · Amazon
★★★★★
"Paints a picture with words that draws the reader into the scenes."
Joseph · Amazon
About the byline
Wait, who is
M. Ernest Johnson?
Me. Same guy. Same questionable cardio.
There are roughly 48,000 Mark Johnsons who have written novels, and I have met approximately none of them. Adopting a pen name for fiction seemed like a very clever solution at the time, and it does at least make me findable in a search box. Whether it was worth confusing everyone who already knew me is a question I revisit periodically.
I have written at greater length about the indignity of having a name that 48,000 other people are also using.