The Gospel According to Eft

The Gospel According to Eft and the Thru-Hikers of 2012
Stephanie Haaser
The decision to take a really long hike was made in a moment of anger. I was riding in the
passenger seat of a Jeep that dependably wasted over sixty percent of the driver (my friend), his
earnings. We both had really shitty jobs. I was at my fourth job since moving back to Maryland just
four months ago, but was shirking it in order to PT with young marines at the local recruiting station.
Adam, my friend, had just lost the steady job he'd worked since we'd graduated high school. This was
mostly my fault. I hated myself, all nine people I lived with, and I definitely hated being the on-call
health/beauty stocker for the Harris Teeter chain.
There was also a lack of space in which to move. Whether I was walking to work, running,
racing around parking lots with a generation of vipers or staggering home drunk, it was always the
same two or three streets. And I'd been thinking a lot about the Appalachian Trail, how it entailed 2,200
miles in which to hike up the east coast from Georgia all the way to Maine.
I didn't get this idea off an internet forum or via casual conversation with people who'd heard
about the trail. I'd completed a “section hike” or one small portion of the AT back in 2010, and before
that I'd been camping with friends in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. They'd told me about the
Trail.
I'd wanted to return ever since I'd left it two years ago. The one month I'd spent hiking from
Harpers Ferry, VA to Unionville, NY had been so different, so action-packed, so good for my sense of
self-reliance! I missed racing under the hottest summer rays through fields, mountains, and planks over
marshes, a cattail spear in my hand. I missed the thrill of night hiking, perspiration and breath exhaled
like wisps of smoke in the sharp beam of my flashlight. No other human to be seen for miles and miles.
My old life was now starkly disappointing. I wasn't happy. Gone was my outlet for brazon selfexpression. I now felt hedged in by cul de sacs and expectations. I dealt with the society I thought I
despised by making excellent progress towards full-blown alcoholism. I worked a series of low-paying,
degrading jobs.
I'd graduated from the University of California – Berkeley back in 2009 so everyone expected
me to have a good, steady job in the school system or to go on and become a lawyer. My diploma says
that I have a degree in English. Apparently I met some criteria by taking a certain number of classes in
so many areas. So much for my degree. But my education was intense, mind-stretching, and very
alienating. I couldn't make many friends, though I tried, and I didn't have any fun with modernist
literature. All that I'd read affected me in a profound and often disturbing way. I was in possession of
something too heavy to carry that I couldn't name. Whether I'd been given it or whether I'd stolen it
remains unclear. The point is that I staggered about with it for years until I started writing this book.
O
I spent half my budget for the hike in two days just trying to get to the southern terminus near
Atlanta. The buses I rode were cheap but I wasn't allowed to bust out my sleeping bag and ThermaRest
at the station between commuting days one and two. The Holiday Inn was my coward's alternative to
roughing it with the pimps. In shame I walked through this strange city towards a destination I wouldn't
even appreciate. I had so little money and the room would probably be ridiculous.
“It'll be OK,” I told myself before passing out. “At least I'll be on the trail tomorrow.”
And I did find it (after another, nine hour bus ride...and a $260 cab ride...so much for my fronted
tax return, ha!)
March 23, 11.6 mi
Despite the pack of Newports I'd found in Atlanta I was so grateful to be on Trail that I had an
alright first day. The only other hiker I met at the start was named Running Water. We're given “trail
names” on the AT which supposedly fit our personality somehow, unlike birthnames in that they
actually “mean something.” But in my opinion, if anybody else gets to name you besides yourself, it's
not your name or often just describes a limited misconception. I felt irreconcilably different from every
other person on the planet. I didn't care what Running Water thought his name meant.
“Let us pray,” his mother intoned in an awkward prayer circle I was included in. Indeed.
“Follow the signs!” Whatever, lady. I'm following the white blazes.
“I wonder how much weight I'll lose by the time I'm a 2,000 miler,” said Running Water. But I
knew that wasn't the point. I stepped quickly and soon left him behind.
The plaque marking my start at Amicalola Falls was kind of strange:
THESE HUNDREDS OF STEEL STEPS WERE
CONSTRUCTED BY INMATES AS PART OF A
COMMUNITY PROJECT. WE HOPE YOU APPRECIATE
THE RESULT OF THEIR EFFORTS.
You Can't Win. The one day I missed my Prison Lit seminar I was probably in my apartment
reading that book. According to my best friend that year, Aubrey Panopticon, our disheveled professor
was throwing mini snickers at our peers.
“He even chucked one towards your usual seat – and he didn't look happy.”
Thanks for telling me, man.
I made it up all those stairs with 37 lbs on my back and continued to follow this Georgia trail
marked by the “white blazes,” two-by-four inch strips of white paint which marked every fourth or fifth
tree along the Trail. It was mostly uphill. There were a few cameo convos in the rain but the guy who
really burned me up I couldn't keep pace with.
Jay from Kentucky was only twenty but he looked like a finished work of art. Blonde hair
smooth and straitly tied up at the back, sweet sweat smell with a rapid fire heartbeat underneath...his
chest. He let me drink from his mouthpiece and I kept stopping in order to get more water. He told me
all about his plans for the venture.
“I'm gonna get up really early everyday and do pushups to keep my arms in shape. And then I'll
trail run for a bit before I put the pack on.”
“Some people do crazy mileage on this trail,” I threw in my 2 c's. “Up to thirty miles a day.
Even fifty!”
“Well by the time I get to Rocksylvania I'll definitely be doing fifty miles a day!” Oh really?
After the eight miles from earlier that morning and running with Jay for three, I was wasted.
“Meet me at Hawk Mountain Shelter tonight if you can,” he called back to me through what was
now a downpour. I sat on a large stone and tried to breathe right.
March 24, 13.0 mi
Hiking through Georgia was easy at my own pace. My body just went, somehow effortlessly up
thousand foot climbs. But as the sun would start to set and all the nature around me glowed gold I'd get
very pensive. Sometimes I'd cry. I marked my trend of straight up abandoning something when I didn't
like it. In that moment. I'm not sorry about the jobs but I do think about all the beautiful losers I've ever
lost.
“I'd rather wash ur mom's hair. She can't do it herself, she's just had plastic surgery! I can see the
seams in her face and she lets me drive her Cadillac.” or:
Why'd you trade me at Union Jack's only to “nurture” me in, private? That makes no sense.
Oh, we're human and we live on earth?
I object.
Watch me fly. Ciao, Paolo.
(insert suicide here)
March 25, 12.3 mi
I got caught dancing up Big Cedar Mountain to Chromeo's “Fancy Footwork.” How
embarrassing. The old man forced a smile. Miserable, I subdued myself long enough to pass him as he
headed the opposite direction.
Woods Hole Shelter was already occupied by a black-bearded man, his daughter and their large
tent, so I set up my own (symbol of freedom though piece of shit it may be) outside next to the thick
stone wall of the shelter. There was room enough in my tent for me to stretch out my legs and house my
60 liter pack as well – as long as I lay on the diagonal.
John, the man, threw a “bear bag” line up the limb of a distant tree because he'd read multiple
warnings about bears in the register. A bear bag is basically a rope fastened to a tree designed so that
you can caribeener your edibles up out of reach of bears, off the ground but still away from the trunk.
Bears climb trees but they don't have very long arms. I was too lazy to sling one up myself or to pay
attention to his technique. In five months of hiking and living in the woods, I never threw a single bear
bag.
I almost set the shelter on fire trying to cook dinner with a homemade soda can stove and
alcohol for fuel. Darwin, another hiker, had given me her excess fuel in a pink 12 oz plastic bottle and it
was acting and smelling unusually strong, causing flames to bloom out over the picnic table in a very
alarming way. It was definitely a rough start to the hike. Not that I'd ever used that stove before, or any
portable stove. That had been another donation from a section hiker.
John's daughter Eve lit her own mini campfire in front of the shelter. He had taught her how to
contain it within a ring of small stones in the dust. How perfect. Her white, long hair fell close to the
fire at times but I could tell by her unconcern that she knew what she was doing and had been camping
many times. During dinner I talked to her about her homeschooling. She said she'd start studying Latin
within the year.
“I have a little sister who comes with us into the mountains sometimes,” she said. “She's just a
baby so mommy has to carry her when we walk.”
“You don't look to old yourself,” I said. Eve pretended to ignore this remark. “How old are
you?” I prodded.
“I'm seven.” I liked to think of them all sharing nature together. A real family.
The three of us relaxed by the huge bonfire John had made. The sun went down and every bright
ember was accentuated sharp by the night. I feared for my rain gear (the only long-sleeved layer I'd
brought), so I tried standing away from the heat, making my tired legs move. John guffawed at my
caution, my inappropriate clothing, everything. I scowled and leaned against the wooden “fenceposts”
that had been dragged in from the surrounding forest by hikers more careful than we. I could just tell
John was thinking I wouldn't make it. He walked over and offered me his Nalgene. It was the stiffest
lemonade I'd ever tasted in my life.
I took the cue for caution from Amanda's look when I tried to sneak another greedy sip later on
that evening. So I took it easy, feigning mature adulthood. Everything would be just fine.
“I don't want to brag or anything,” I said, “but I think I've gotten my 'hiker legs' already. I
almost did thirteen miles today!”
“Yeah, OK!” John fairly roared into the night. Then he laughed again, all intimidation, bulk, and
man. “See how you feel when you get to Neels Gap! I have a friend there, owns the supply store, by the
way. He wrote a great book about the AT.”
“Interesting,” I said - though I knew I'd read all I wanted to about this thing.
O
“Stop! STOP IT!” Eve's childvoice woke me up in the middle of the night. There were ten minutes of
silence before John began snoring again. Maybe she was talking to the dog? I didn't sleep very much
after that.
March 26, 10.4 mi
There was a post office at the top of Blood Mountain. I'd heard voices from above and to the
right of the trail and they drew me off course and up. Curling moss, wild with all sorts of shooting
prongs, covered the large slabs of stone I scaled, and the smaller version of the rhododendron bush
swished against my exposed knees. This diversion had taken me into a more covered, private realm
brittle with fragile spindle trees. Everything was minty green with lichen and I appreciated the padding
of leaves underfoot. A minor patch of flat ground then through the bushes and I found myself stepping
out onto the top of the mountain. A hazy view greeted me of surrounding fields and purple mountains. I
found six other hikers communing on the broad, flat surface of the bald. The post office, stone and
really old, was below us.
Moose and Mooch were two women about my age traveling together, recently graduated.
Butcher didn't have a trail name yet, another guy smelled as though he'd been on trail for five months
already, and Starfish was aptly named by Moose because he had a disappearing chin. At least I think
that's what was going through her mind. There was also another man in a blue jacket who introduced
himself as Dingo.
I cocked a hip and munched on some M&Ms I'd snagged in ziplocs from a hiker feed earlier that
day. I'd met Butcher there and hadn't been too impressed, but Moose was clearly one of the ones who
would “make it.” I could picture her slugging out one of her own kind up in Maine. The aptly-named
Mooch was just along for about two weeks, after which Moose would go on alone.
I didn't stop at Neels Gap because it looked like the definition of a tourist trap, at the valley
between two mountain peaks and everything. The socks were pushing twenty, I caught sight of a
Budweiser in the hand of Butcher as he lay in the sun out back and I thought “Socks? Who needs
socks? I don't need socks. I'm good.” After five minutes of civilization I was ready to keep moving. I
hadn't even taken off my pack.
“CV!” A woman's voice called after me. Crap. Was that...? “Coinvolta!” Crap! I forgot I'd told
her my trail name. Sheepishly I hung my head and stared at the dust but didn't turn around or anything.
She stepped to my side and casually threw her arm around my neck. I felt about as much comfort as it's
possible to feel when some tall athletic woman you barely know has you practically in a headlock. I
was scared.
“Do you have everything you need?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
And by “yeah” I mean no, absolutely fucking not. “Three pairs of socks!?” I wish she could
have said to me, I wish she could have known how they were the only part of my trip planning I'd
gotten right. I'd tried. For two years I'd painstakingly gathered to myself all the parts, the gear, that
would make my memories of that section hike become a thru-hike. But despair has been underlying all
my actions for years. I won't make it, I won't...
“Are you sure?” She sqared with me, held me out at arm's length.
“Yeah.” And I left.
O
Levelland Mountain was a very sharp climb out of the Gap but I found a recent register entry
from Jay at Whitley Shelter: “Chaffing is awful! Baby powder doesn't help.”
What?
Regardless of what that meant, I knew he was only one day ahead of me. That meant I could
potentially catch him, grab his face, and kiss it one day soon.
March 27, 12.1 mi
Moose, Mooch, and Butcher caught up with me very easily. It turned out they were all rowers. I
decided to give up on preparing hot meals after I saw Moose's setup. The small tank of fuel and snaked
cord might have been expensive, and maybe it was advanced.
But there is no way to determine these things. It looked heavy, after all, and that's really the
whole point, isn't it? If you take something you have to carry it yourself for thousands of miles. Be
careful, be very careful.
Prioritize: What is necessary on this hike? What will help me?
Realize: I've come such-and-such miles today. Fact.
I slept in my tent again, in front of the shelter, while the crew braved the hard boards and
potential bug bites all together.
Wild snarling and eerie calls kept me awake for about two hours.
“What is that?” I asked whoever was awake on the platform above.
“Probably cyotes,” Butcher said.
“Oh.” I writhed in fear on the ground, unwilling to help myself.
March 28, 8.1 mi
In the morning I set out to follow the girls but they were soon too far ahead, it didn't merit my
straining myself. I took a break from sun and hiking by sitting down and applying some sweet-smelling
sunscreen lotion encased in a green pill box. A woman named Poco a Poco had given it to me. Butcher
found me easily set on the slightest of flat stones, bare legs straightened across the trail, barring the
way.
When I saw him staring, I lifted my chin and proffered a smile, hopefully fetching yet – as I've
come to realize lately – rather wolfish. Yes?
“I walked about two miles an hour faster than I'd planned all the day before yesterday, just to
catch up with you,” he said.
Really?
March 29, 7.4 mi
It turned out that Butcher had gone to Loyola. I have a thing about Jesuits so I let him hang
around and tell me stories about other jocks turned thespian playing in their production of Rocky
Horror Picture show. The images I got from his descriptions were perfect and I began to feel turned on
as I walked. I suggested we make another stop.
But when I leaned towards him with the intent of kissing him, Butcher turned his shoulder to
block me and looked the other direction. My salient pride here became unbearable, because all I could
feel were its barbs and his slight, imagined by me to be nothing but malicious. “How inconvenient!” I
thought. “I spend all my time breaking myself in with this person, and now they won't even make out
with me?” All sensitivity to wavelengths other than those basically of a sexual nature was gone from
me. We walked on together after sharing some chocolate chips and cranberries, but all I felt was
resentment.
We passed a fat woman in a light blue, ill-fitting tank top rummaging in a bush to the side of the
trail. Her stuff was spread out everywhere, just trashed. I couldn't focus on it or realize what it was
because she took up the entire frame. She was just so strange. She greeted us, cigarette hanging limply
out of her mouth, and Butcher returned a curt hello. The woman talked on at great length, swaying
chaotically from side to side, about how she'd gotten a late start that morning.
“My husband's pickin' me up soon at the road. D'you know how to get to that road, that road
around heere? My husband can wait. We've been married a long time. He can wait. Besides, I'm on
drugs.”
I was about to question her further when Butcher murmured at me quickly without turning his
head or looking at me “Let's get out of here.” The seriousness in his tone got me to follow him
immediately. Without thinking about it too much, we just walked away. Walked on through lightlycolored fallen leaves up one gentle rise, then steeply downwards. Past a shuffling zombie figure in
tattered pants with a bright orange plastic square pinned onto his exterior frame pack. Caution. I'll never
forget the sunken tunnels leading to his black, dead eyes. I did look back. His striking, beautiful face. A
demon! I almost fell down the way staring. There was very little footroom for us to pass and he was
dragging himself so slowly that he looked like he was about to collapse, just propped up by his legs.
How long had he been walking?
Without saying anything, Butcher had taken on an official role. He was pleasant, as far as cops
go. He shared his food with me when I said I was hungry and he was smooth sailing, no placating
involved. I knew I owed my safety that day to him, and I don't think there's anything I could have done
that would have ruffled him. Absolutely nothing. So, I got a little frustrated.
Later I was sitting down at Deep Gap Shelter's picnic table with other hikers eating food,
reading someone else's trail journal, and listening to this guy Ryan talk. He was so appealing to me
after that very long, trying day that I actually began to shake and had to cross my arms on top of the
table and my legs under it. He'd been a musician at Peabody he said, sable locks falling into his eyes. I
focused on his red, beautiful, pouting lips telling me he was an adherent of AA. He'd hitched to Helen,
GA “to take pictures.” However little I knew about the area through which we'd been hiking that day,
everyone had told me that Helen was a boozer's paradise in mock German style.
I felt seriously ill. I got up from the table.
“Where are you going?” Ryan asked me, following.
“Hiking.” Get the hell away from me before I...uh...just go.
“At least take my knife!” Butcher actually ran after me with it. What the fuck do I want that
for!? I ran.
“I guess women don't have souls!” Butcher threw this last at my back as I tried to get away. For
awhile I could hear both he and Ryan laughing.
I didn't get a hitch to Hiawassee GA though I don't know what I would've done there anyway at
three in the morning. I settled for a few cigarette butts and the thought that one day I'd find some crazy
mutant hick wandering around here and I'd steal his meth. Or fuck him for it. Our heavenly father
forbid!
Up out of the gap I climbed, scaling mountain after mountain in the cool night air. Finally I
stood still, tired, and breathed deeply in and out for a few minutes. Then I scanned my flashlight around
me.
Huge boulders lay all around, as if they'd been recently thrown there by giants. I was on a
slanting surface with the traveled AT footpath being the only level ground. Pine trees rarely blocked the
path but I remember a few huge ones split in half, spiking out violently near me in the dark. It was
completely silent. Stars, all the stars in the sky, were out. And I could see them.
I felt fine, if remote. This rabble ravine, far away from every human being, was at the lowest
point between two huge mountains. The path I was currently on meandered at the level of the forest
floor as if it were a small brook. If anything did happen, if a giant bear smelled my food and attacked, I
would not be able to defend myself or to get help. But I felt so at home in the dark wild that my
thoughts only temporarily dwelled on danger. I set up my tent directly on the trail as it was the only flat
space I could see, flashlight in my teeth, and I threw in my pack. Unclicked my mat and rolled it out,
and lay down for what would be an untroubled sleep.
March 30, 7.3 mi
A trail runner woke me up in the early morning, skirting deftly around my large tent. I figured I
should probably pack up and get moving.
That day I passed into North Carolina. The mountain directly following the state line was
especially memorable in steepness and color. Really showy, as if the people who had designed that
section of trail were proud of their state. Purple flowers and jurassic ferns looked great mid morning in
the rain. I felt inspired and refreshed.
Bly Gap was a moment of hilarity before the end of the day. A hiker with a sense of humor had
inserted a plastic wedge in the “fingers” of a tree with a lot of personality. I can't describe it in any other
way than that it looked like a portly man vehemently handing out a business card. “Bly Gap!” it read.
Muskrat Creek Shelter was packed because of the storm, which had worsened considerably. I
mean, there were people claiming spaces on the picnic table (only because it was inside), under the
table, on the dirt floor beside the shelter platform, and on the platform there were nine mats rolled out.
Mine was one of the nine. Sure, I could have set up my tent, but...well, no, I couldn't have. I was so
tired, hungry, and wet (with no warm layers on underneath my rain gear and everything being soaked).
All I could do was sit there and watch.
Most everyone was pissed-off and handled it in different ways. Crocodile Dundee, one of those
Alpha Males, was constantly fighting people with his words, eyes, mannerisms, everything. For a
minute I thought he was going to punch another guy (mid twenties, orange shirt) in the face. Gear
discussions can get pretty intense between guys. When it didn't come to blows I was glad, but if it had
I'd have been rooting for the other guy.
It was a community effort to get me to a point where I didn't feel fucked-up. Sasquatch, a really
tall guy from Maine, smoked me out behind the shelter. Voltron, an older man with crazy fencepost
teeth, donated some food to me for tomorrow. I ate the huge protein bar and ramen, raw, right then.
Button, an Englishwoman, helped me pick out what dinner to cook. And a man (I never learned his
name) took it upon himself to begin making my dinner for me. I was thankful and surprised; he just
kind of grabbed it from me. It was just as well, because I would have had no idea how to use his stove.
Everyone I met on the trail had a different type of stove and most of them were homemade.
By this point Squatch was leaning up against a post keeping the roof up, sipping from a nalgene
filled with moonshine, describing some episode of South Park and the meaning, the underlying
importance of...something.
It was an interesting picture.
Passionflower, a tall, buxom blonde, chipped in and talked for about twenty minutes about her
twenty-three mail drops. Vegan. Very special dietary needs. She was also looking forward to a massage
in the next down.
“It is what it is” a true sage said to me at a future date along the trail. I understand this to mean
that there's rarely supposed to be an inspirational message in anything. “Take what you can for
yourself, even if you'll settle for the example I've set for food.” But I couldn't help feeling inspired by
all the people around me. Right then anyway. When I was still cold and hungry it felt pretty terrible.
That night I was smashed up against Sqatch, who smelled like a healthy male who'd been in the
woods for a month straight (godawful) and Spiller, an aspiring Appalachian Trail Conservancy worker
who smelled suspiciously appealing and who moaned invitingly on my other side. I didn't sleep very
well at all.
March 31, 12.5 mi
I was splashing the amply flowing spring water on myself when Croc-o-dile-done-D yelled
down from the trail and surprised me.
“Hey! How are you?”
Dammit. I thought I'd scanned both ways. Where the hell did this guy come from?
“I'm OK,” I replied.
He started down the embankment so I walked up and met him halfway, looking daggers.
“I thought for sure that I was the first one out today,” he said.
Who cares?
OK, seeing as how he's in my face, I'll look.
He's perfect. Mean-looking, a serious face with glinty eyes.
He takes pride in his own body. It doesn't look like that without effort.
“I have to be the first one out in the morning,” he went on. “It's just a thing I have. Gotta be
first.”
“Well, after you then. I'm kind of taking my time here, so...yeah...”
“I'll wait for you at the top!” he announced, for some reason. “But if the view isn't that great, I'll
move on.”
What?
“OK, deal,” I said.
The thousand foot climb (over only three miles) to Standing Indian Mountain felt good after I'd
finished rinsing off. The view was so-so. I kept moving – but not too quickly.
That night there was one of my favorite campsites. The shelter was up the lip of the gradually
rising hill set above a large flat field where most people had set up their tents. A fire was already going
in the middle of the clearing. I walked across the closely-packed, green tufts of grass and sat down next
to Cackles, a blonde in bright shorts, and Wobbles, the guy who'd been gradually provoking Crocodile
Dundee last night. We watched the fire burn in peaceful silence, but I felt positive energy beaming out
of them both. We shared and conserved without moving or speaking, the three of us.
Later on, after everyone else had gone inside their tents, I went back out to the dying embers
because I could not sleep. Crocodile Dundee walked back from taking a piss and found me there.
“You should get a trail name,” he suggested. He looked more like the self advertized by his
name in a wide brimmed leather hat.
“I'll work on it.”
“How about Yogi?” It took me awhile to retrieve what he'd said because his words were
submerged beneath his surface, his picture of strength and vitality. Abrasive. I wanted to grasp his arms,
just touch him all over. Maybe fight him? More awake than ever, stimulated from the miles, the
exertion, and each other, we faced off.
“I dunno...like Yogi Bear?” I sneered.
“No!” cried Wobbles from within his tent, a few yards away. “That name is already taken. Some
famous guy who hikes the PCT.”
“There you have it,” I told him, fighting a delighted smile.
April 1, 15.9 mi
Morning coffee was made and shared over the last burning brands of the fire. Voltron, an man
who must have been fifty at least, told us about the time he'd been dubbed with his trail name.
“I was at a golf course with the same friends I'd had since forever, and we were all drinking,
having a good time. All at once I get this idea to run headlong into the giant waterfall in the middle of
the course. I ran over all the decorative barriers and stuff straight through the thing. I stayed behind the
sheet of water for a minute, feeling stupid, so there was no other way than but to come out with a bang,
so I screamed the first thing that came to mind and jumped back through. 'VOLTRON!'
We all sort of laughed.
I secretly noted how the Italian past participle I'd chosen for my trail name in '10 sounded
similar to “Voltron.” “Coinvolta,” the past participle of the reflexive verb “coinvolgersi” meaning “to
be involved.”
Voltron admitted that he'd had a drinking problem back then, but he'd been sober for fifteen
years. “A drinking problem” was probably an understatement. Voltron just looked like a guy who'd
been drunk for a few decades straight. But now he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Admittedly we were all hiking, but “Hike your own hike!” isn't just a bumper sticker for
tolerance on the back of some amiable's car, years and states away from actually dealing with a bunch
of strangers on a daily basis. It can mean that miracles are attainable. Other states – in the spiritual
sense. Voltron stood up straight, hale and energetic, and I deeply respected the effort it must have took
him to place one sober foot in front of another. I felt it had already been determined that I could never
do this.
I took the cigarette that Wobbles offered me. I'm pretty sure that Cackles was drunk right then.
Maybe more of that moonshine was changing hands. She also took hits from her chiln instead of eating
any breakfast. I steeled myself against the day, eating some of Voltron's m&m's. Kind of nervous.
“So, which one of you was in the army?” I asked. I'd heard Squatch and Cackles talking about
how there were a lot of ex military personnel on the trail. Sticks, a woman who'd stayed in the shelter
last night and who'd given me a tuna packet and some granola bars, had been in the Navy. And there
was someone else somewhere.
“I was.” Wobbles.
“You know,” I said, “I was thinking about joining the army. The marines, actually. The army
wouldn't take me. And-”
“Don't do it,” he stopped me.
“Why not?”
He leveled me with a look but didn't say another word.
Blue eyes. Curling, close beard. Either very calm or sad. I couldn't tell which.
OK then, I won't enlist. I may have gone through some...changes...during the months that it was
in my mind. Illegal body enhancement, eyeball replacement surgery. Something. I'd fallen in love with
Paul.
“GANG RIGHT!” Running as one by the lake through trees in the dark. One arm length's
distance from the person ahead. Feener, the only other girl in the DEP, running next to me, pacing me.
“Just a little farther, Haaser.”
I can sprint, no problem, but when we're talking running for miles in perfect formation after
stepping the entire length of the parking lot in squats followed by bear crawls up steep hills, it's
difficult to keep going.
And afterwards, always more. We squirmed elbow and kicking legs through inches of slimy mud
in the rain that had come on around eight in a downpour. Up the hill on our arms, thrashing our feet
behind us to propel forwards, and back down as fast as we can, because-“DO IT AGAIN!”
We made use of whatever space Columbia could offer us. We grasped tall, metal training bars
with one hand, swinging our bodies into an upward trend as the height increased in jagged increments.
Did 130 degree situps on an angled wooden plank, someone else holding us at the knees. Mad dash (in
perfect formation) through the lakeside dining plaza, where we laughed at the couples eating their
sushi. Our mudslide training had been in someone's back yard. It was supposed to mimic a wet beach
recon. You hustle down on all fours so you don't get shot. And you'd better hope that you're strong
enough to drag your dying friend off that beach along with you if anything goes wrong.
Next day, plank pushups until I dropped to the grass, hoping no one would notice.
“What's your name?” Oh no...
“Haaser, Lance Corporal SIR!”
“WHAT?”
“Ha-”
“Spell it!”
“H-A-A-”
“And hold that plank, what's the matter with you!?”
“Not very much sleep last night, SIR!”
“You've got to be FUCKING KIDDING ME!” he laughed.
Earlier that morning and all that week five of us had gotten up at six to go work out at Fort
Meade for a few hours with our favorite staff sergeant. Following that there was PT three times a week
for three hours. Today was one of those days.
Revenge for my skipping out on football practice beneath a full moon. Towson match coming
up. “I'm not officially DEPed in,” was the excuse I made to myself. The Delayed Entry Program trains
enlisted marines who haven't left yet for boot camp on Paris Island. But the staff sergeants had let me
in on the sly and said I was allowed to trian until they could make an appointment for me to go in and
be declared physically fit. I seemed serious and kept coming back to practice every day.
“Do you have anything else you'd like to tell me?” my recruiting officer asked after I'd filled
out endless paperwork with another officer and handed over my social security card and high school
diploma to somebody else. I felt like I had about four recruiting officers and I was spread out all over
the place. I felt there was so much to tell, so much to ask. I'd been fired from most of the jobs I'd ever
had so I had no real references. I just hadn't put anything down when they'd asked about employment
history. I'd gotten arrested in San Francisco for an anti-military protest while studying at UC-Berkeley.
Now I was about to join the marines. I had a lot of questions.
“Actually yes, I'd like to -”
“Do you have anything else you'd like to tell me?” He cut me off, strongly insinuating that I
shut up.
“No sir.” He smiled. I was in.
This man in particular had done me the favor of ignoring me on my first day when I'd begun to
explain that the army had just turned me away. At their dismal door leading to an unfurnished office
filled with dull office workers, my honesty with the army's recruiting officer about four stints in rehab
(one for cocaine, all the rest for alcohol) branded me as unsuitable. Good thing I didn't tell him about
all the meds I was prescribed and didn't take. But in front of the marine recruiting office there were
about six people in their twenties laughing and smoking, one of them a girl.
“Where are you going?” Feener had called out to me as I walked towards the army recruiting
office.
“I'm going to join the army!” I walked with Adam on the sidewalk towards the door.
“Don't do that, join the marines instead!” she yelled, smiling.
“We're here every day,” one of the guys said.
“I'll come back if the army doesn't take me!” I laughed. I wanted to join the army specifically
because Paul was in the army. But, as it turned out, the online application I'd filled out mentioned
alcohol and that wasn't something the army wanted to hear. So I'd gone back to the marines. They
really wanted me. They wouldn't let me exclude myself. I was in for some of the best months of my life.
But I made a mistake that day in sitting out on football practice. “I'm not exactly sitting out, I'll
just go for a run,” I decided. Very bad idea. I was drawn to the paths encircling the park in the trees. I
pounded the pavement in the dark by the light of the moon. Very bad idea!
When I got back to the linked batter's cage in the field where the rest of the DEP had been
practicing football plays, the Corporal they'd gotten to train us this week was yelling out some
information. My friends stood at attention with their feet evenly spaced, arms crossed behind them. Shy
but wanting to hear what he was saying, I made sure I was within range.
This guy's M.O.S.detail apparently involved desk work and answering some phones, but he
made the strongest members of our group look like idiots. He was fast. Spry as hell. We'd been running
up a hill in our two columns back when the sun had been out. He kept calling out for us to go faster,
that he could tell we weren't pushing ourselves, we were pathetic. Then I saw him out of the corner of
my eye. His voice was so loud that he could at once be everywhere, but then I saw he'd flanked our
columns and was now sprinting at the side of us, to my left. He flew up that hill as if the past few hours
of arduous workout hadn't even happened. I was amazed. I saw him slightly turn his head towards the
lot of us as we all ran. Derisive. Of lethal intelligence. And then he was gone.
He screamed out at us as they stood at attention and I listened creepily. The moon was out on
the football field.
“We're going to make monsters out of every one of you. Even the women!” It was a very
flattering invitation. And it still is.
Being on the Appalachian Trail, while under some degree of duress and extreme weather
conditions, it was actually pretty easy in comparison. You can bet your ass I wasn't drinking or
smoking anything while I was training with the marines. That would have been impossible.
I made the 100 mile mark with Wobbles and Voltron. There was a fire tower at the top of Albert
Mountain so the three of us climbed up it for the view. Voltron filmed with his camera, commenting as
he walked, so I tried to put on some kind of face (just look pretty, please God) when he panned in my
direction. However, when he showed me the brief video he'd just shot, I wasn't caught on camera at all.
Nice! He'd merely said “And here's Stephanie, coming up the tower.” He'd just tilted the angle of the
lens over my head towards the mountains. Without me in the picture I saw the view from the tower,
renewed in the screen before me. Nice.
I was the first to start out again but Spiller caught up with me and we kept pace for a few hours.
Whenever I needed a break we'd sit and talk. Suddenly I felt exhausted. She had the healthy snacks but
I'd been snagging candy from guys. She gave me a protein bar to wake me up and the next few stops
she taught me some yoga poses.
“If we push another 7.4 miles we can make Franklin,” she said. “We could get some dinner and
split a hotel room.” I was stuck in the sun, lazy.
“Uhm, how much d'you think it'll be?” I asked. She called and got the details: Twenty per
person, ten dollar shuttle ride at exactly eight, ten, or two the following day for transportation back to
the Trail. But she seemed concerned about how we were going to get to the hotel tonight, which was
more than ten miles away. Two o'clock had long since passed.
Now, twenty dollars was about one-third of my budget at that point. Besides, I don't like
schedules when I'm on vacation – or at all, these days. The end of that! I'd rather suicide right back
down the mountain I'd just climbed in search of Wobbles' piece of shit eight dollar Rite Aid watch he'd
lost than deal with this situation. I asked her what was the matter with hitch hiking, anyway.
“I'd be afraid!” she said. “You never know who will slow down to pick you up. It's not like you
can choose the person or the car or anything! And then after they do slow down and you see them, what
if it's...I don't even know...”
She couldn't find the words for “backwoods, creepy hick man.” I stared at her and hated life. We
were going opposite directions. “Maybe I should've been a SoBo,” I mused. We were all part of a
crowd of seasonal NoBos who go up the east coast. But there was a smaller group of people who went
down, starting in Maine and ending where we began.
She must have read some dubiousness on my face because she proceeded with evidence.
“You know, there's a guy in a red truck going around this area picking up hikers, then robbing
them at knife point!”
“Oh really?” was all I said. I hated her. I hated her bandana, her potato nose, her shit, her smile.
“Yes. And somebody told me that he had hundreds of naked Barbie dolls piled up in the back
seat!”
God, save me from this idiot.
“My parents want me to be safe,” she went on, “so they gave me this device called a Spot,
which tracks my location as I walk. Most importantly, there's an alert button. If I press it, it lets them
know I'm in danger and it pinpoints my location.”
That. is the creepiest shit. I've ever heard.
“What if we run into that guy while we're trying to hitch hike?” she demanded.
What if the parents of this art major from the University of Wisconsin don't actually care about
her – despite the show of this gift, this fancy device?
What if they actually do “care” so much about her, to the point that they're willing to collar her
like a dog, track her on a satellite GPS, and defend their investment against all natural occurrences?
I didn't want to be thinking about any of this.
“You know,” I said, throwing down my pack, “I'm feeling a little too worn out at this point to
walk seven more miles, and hotels aren't really in my budget – or my plan for this trip.”
“But it's only twenty a person!” she whined.
“I'm OK, Spiller! Seriously. You go on ahead.” Finally she moved on.
I wasn't lying when I told Spiller I was exhausted. My steps were still fluid, but I tried to keep
the momentum of my body gentle on my skeletal system. I shuffled through dead leaves as the trail
wound large and graceful curves between thin, young trees with peeling, curved black bark.
The incline was slight but I decided to take my boots off and rest awhile on a log that was close
to the trail. My socks were slightly damp but I let them dry in the afternoon sun. I laid them, along with
my boots and extracted insoles, on top of the tinsely heat-reflecting side of my unrolled bed mat. I took
sips of water and enjoyed the feel of the sun.
I was rubbing the dead skin out from between my toes when this guy who looked like River
Phoenix hailed me from the trail. Caught completely offguard, I smiled ghoulishly.
“You have a trail name?” I asked.
“Cheez Whiz.”
Ew, that's gross.
“Are you a thru-hiker?” I demanded, condescending after only ten days of hiking myself.
“Yeah.” Taken aback by my rudeness.
Hmmm. Nice lips. I liked his black hair, shaved close to his skull. Stubble at the chin of his
heart-shaped face and full, round cheeks. Tight black t-shirt. With Maui flower print swim trunks on a
red background.
“Well that's great!” I fairly snapped. I looked downwards and fiddled with my bootlaces.
“Where are you headed today, uhm...”
“CV.”
“Seaweed?”
“CV!” He'd caught me into looking back up at him. I was more annoyed than I can possibly
express.
Nice, convex shoulder muscles above a trim torso. I had to wonder what it would be like to rub
the palms of my hands up on either side of his spine, my chest pressing his, feeling those beautiful lips.
“What's that stand for?” he asked me, smiling away. Just beautiful.
“What?”
“What's CV mean?”
“Nothing. Look, I'm trying to focus on something,” I said. I looked back down.
“Whatever.”
He left me sitting there on the log. I pulled out some Shakespearean poems to read, The
Turtledove and the Phoenix among them.
Cancel the sun, nix you out.
Tends towards destruction, but rises from the ashes.
Burn, bitch.
O
The “blue blaze” or side trail to Rock Gap Shelter went straight downhill, so at first I didn't
want to stop there at all. But I heard people talking from afar, decided I may as well stop for the night.
The sun was beginning to set. I felt tired.
After toeing my way down like a mountain goat I found Wobbles, Voltron, Croc, Cackles, and
the new guy Cheez Whiz hanging out and smoking cigarettes. For some reason I felt weirdly jealous of
Cheez Whiz and couldn't sit at the table with him just yet. I walked inside the shelter and drew a wadjet
eye motif on the wall with a pen that was lying around inside, then sat down on a stone wall in front of
the shelter and the picnic table and tried to force myself to relax.
After about five minutes I was ready to keep moving. I couldn't stop my overall momentum. I
announced I'd be heading out and picked up my pack. Wobbles didn't try to stop me but offered to
smoke me out sometime in the future. “Not unless it's crack!” I thought to myself as I waved a
goodbye.
Climbing back up the steep grade leading to the AT didn't sound appealing, so I kept going
downhill past the shelter, longstriding it in the piled leaves, towards a main road I'd spied and heard
from above.
I hitched a great ride from a beautiful blonde mother in a big, black truck. I wanted my own
cigarettes after seeing Wobbles smoke so many, so I joined her on her way to K-Mart.
It was a short trip but a memorable detour. I really enjoyed the view of the mountains from
behind the clean, glass windows of the speeding car. It was different than the scant vistas the trail had
afforded every few miles or so. The North Carolina scenery about the small town of Franklin was
populated with tall trees which only slightly softened the stark crumples in the starched, paper mache
mountains. Everything was enormous. From under tree cover, you couldn't really tell where you were.
My ride and I curved between the mountains, outrunning even the motorcyclists out for the weekend.
She asked me questions about my hike, now and then facing me to glitz a white smile, her soft, short
blonde hair tossing to accentuate her movements.
O
“Your resupply was crazy bread and a pack of Salems?” Cheez Whiz asked in utter disbelief
when I returned triumphant to the shelter within forty-five minutes.
“Yeah.”
“That's the single mother resupply,” he said scathingly.
“Whatever.” I sat down and dipped a breadstick into the plastic bowl of marinara I'd carried
back up to the shelter.
“It's OK, my mom was a single mother,” he tried to amend.
I ate most of the breadsticks and then decided to hike another five miles.
O
Many thoughts of methamphetamine as I walked into the night. Sang a little “Rocket Man,”
watched a bluejay fly and thought about Kentucky Jay.
Where was he? He'd really taken off. Gone, baby, gone. Maybe he was sniffing something when
I met him? That would explain his outstanding attitude. Could be that we'd both just quit smoking at
the time...but I doubt it.
I wanted to flag down a trucker at Winding Stair Gap, but instead I laughed at myself and had a
little epiphany about why the chicken crossed the road.
I camped near a raging river over which I had to feel my way in the dark. Sure, there was a
bridge, but it was on the rustic side. Not much more than a series of bound tree trunks – and only one
side had a wooden railing. But the site I found to camp in was glorious and much appreciated. Even if I
wasn't supposed to be there, I knew I'd be gone before anyone would notice in the morning.
I smoked one of the Salems I'd just bought, set my tent up by the water on a spongy turf of pine
needles, filtered two liters of water for tomorrow, then closed my eyes on the biggest mileage day I'd
had since Springer Mountain, the official start of the Appalachian Trail at the southern terminus,
Georgia.
April 2, 13.7 mi
I woke up thinking about the color orange.
Wobbles' solid shirt, the standing equality slash marks on the rock face the three of us had
passed by in a strait on the way to 100 miles. “I I” in orange spraypaint. Halfway between “caution”
and “stop.” But much more alive than dead? Do anything you want, fulfill your very dreams! Just
cauterize and continue.
I met a hiker, Bam!, who sounded and looked as though he'd been hit in the face with a baseball
bat. “You uh, you missed cinnabuns and oranges back at Winding Stair Gap today!” he said.
Hmn, hard to skin. Would rather have a grapefruit any day.
“Good thing I stocked up on that homemade cake trail magic yesterday,” I said.
It had been very innovative. A pully system with one end tied to a tree which lowered down...a
laundry hamper? A glorified trash can? No, a plastic bin filled to the top with individually wrapped,
fresh baked cakes: chocolate cake with icing to match, vanilla with chocolate topping, marble coffee
cake with crumbs, and banana bread. Courtesy of a former thru-hiker named Ginger Snap. “Trail
magic” is usually an offering of food or drink from locals or other hikers, but on my section hike in
2010 I saw everything from ibuprofin tablets and tampons wrapped in platics bags to coolers full of
beer.
“Oh yeah, that was great,” Bam!said.
“I admit it: I took like two of each,” I said. There had definitely been enough. But I knew it was
bad hiker etiquette.
O
“Too much i' th' sun” at USFS 69, prattling on about Nordic movies to two foreigners. Met with
deadpan sex.
“'Fast Cash.' Ever heard of that movie?” But they didn't know I'd already been to Franklin.
I took some lunch hours at Wayah Bald (5,342 feet) reading Much Ado About Nothing. Wished
they sold collapsible traffic cones at REI so I could temporarily take over a patch of trail I'd like to be
alone in. There's a place for them inside my Ospray Xenon 70 pack in terracotta, bought on
Brokenland Parkway.
“Go Lite” isn't really my motto, despite the flourishes of ultraLite backpacking gear I'd seen all
around me. Mostly guys hike the trail in general, but it's mostly the guys who sport the new, neon,
lightweight designer stuff. It's a conspiracy when they fly by so fine, smelling like day hikers. But who
has the time, money, or will to go into town that often?
I finished my lunch in silence, feeling generally disgusted. Zero-range. Homeless cowgirl. Just
keep going thru the world and act as if you make sense.
O
I caught up with Wobbles and Voltron around what I'm guessing was 3:35. I'd been speeding
since that morning so it was good to sit down among kindred spirits. Wobbles was calm sitting on the
log beside me in windbreaker shorts. His pale thighs were shapely like a woman's. Voltron checked the
guide book to get a hang on where we were, and I suddenly felt the urge to sing:
“I want to be your dashing white knight,
Bum bum!”
I jittered the theme from Bertolucci's 1968 film Partner, shifting my eyes back and forth, very
nervy and intense. But it was alright. They understood.
Wobbles showed me how to roll my own cigarettes. I'd never even rolled my own joints before
so it was good to get the distribution and tightness just the way I wanted. After watching him rolling it
up with a dollar bill then trying a few times myself I had it down. The ends of the paper were tucked in
and no loose tobacco fell out even though I had to light loose brands at the end which stuck out like a
tuft of hair.
A part of me wanted to hike with them, but I didn't want to impinge. Besides, I figured it would
be difficult matching my pace to a man's.
I didn't know this at the time, but traveling with all your ducks in a row isn't necessary on the
Appalachian Trail – and it's not even preferred. I eventually learned all that's really necessary is for the
members of a group to meet back up at the same agreed destination at a specified time. But it took me
awhile to figure this out.
The itinerary for the day made me laugh: “Swinging Lick Gap” was .2 from where I'd begun
that morning, and somebody had changed the “L” on the sign to a “D.” Panther Gap, then “Wayah
Gap,” whatever that meant, followed by “Wine Spring.”
I stopped at an unnamed campsite to get water and, despite the late hour, I decided to night hike
at least a few hours. I felt more comfortable apart from the large group staked out in the fields.
The water filtered through its tube. I hung one of the two liter bags from a branch by its elegant,
snake-eyed snap and laid the other bag on the ground. The gravity did the work for me. I'd seen other
people with their expensive pumps and such, and their quality of water was probably better, but I hated
the effort of having to jack your own water out of a stream pull by pull.
I sang privately to myself as I waited for my water. I would have felt pretty stupid if somebody
had come by and seen me, but there with the waterfall cascading behind me I hopped from rock to rock,
grinning wide and saluting gracefully the surrounding trees with outstretched arms. I felt high.
As I walked on into the night, I praised the beauty of North Carolina. The heavy violet dusk
could fade to black without alarming me. It protected me. I belonged here. My soul was afire with love!
To walk step by step from one end of the east coast to the other wasn't demonstration enough of how
much I loved. I worshiped the world I walked through with everything I had, only hoping to be graced
with more thoughts of how I could be closer to it always. I wound my arms in eurythmic pantomime. I
sang bits of song as they came to me, as I was inspired. It was here, in the now, that I felt free to be
myself. Alone like this it was most real, the most honest representation of what goes on everyday
within the constrains of society. I'm still alone on trains or in classrooms. Why not move myself
through new worlds?
I followed the colors of passion banding together near the tips of the mountains ahead. They
were like slats staining through the trees. The last signs of daylight. I knew that the rare quiet and
absence of color in the night would only invite me further into the midst of powerful, uninhibited joy I
was feeling. I sang:
Call her moonchild,
Dancing in the shallows of a river.
She's a moonchild,
Drifting on the echoes of the hours.
Waving silver wands to the
Night bird's song,
Waiting for the sun on the mountain.
Playing hide and seek
With the ghosts of dawn,
Waiting for the smile of a sun child.
The tree branches overhead were still leafless so the half moon's sheen aided the beam of my
flashlight. But when the trail transitioned from high mountain ridges down to fields of blonde tallgrass I
threw my heavy pack down and stowed my flashlight away. I could do without it altogether due to the
natural brightness from the moon.
I was rushing up a ridge when I heard someone behind me give a loud howl. I identified it at
once as a feigned wolf's cry:
“Ouuuuuuuuooooowh!” Round tone ringing loud and full, like from the throat of a trumpet on a
low note.
Without hesitating I responded with the first thing that came to my lips:
“ai-EEEEEEe!” A highpitched, eerie yodel. I waited for this other night hiker to approach me.
I couldn't see him for his headlamp as he walked closer, stabbing with his trekking poles. He
was tall, really tall, and wore a neon orange shirt. I squinted and tried to look into his face.
“Look what I found,” he said. A second source of light was his camera. Deflected, I saw on the
screen my first salamander, dark purple with membrane-like skin. “Just look at his leg, the way it
angles out from his body like that,” his voice said. The salamander did have strange, rubbery elbows
looping out as if trying to be at a right angle but instead it curved out from the trunk of the body like a
floating life-preservation devise. Its toes were translucent pink. I'd never seen one that close up before.
It was very strange.
By the glow of the screen I tried to look at the man's face. His eyes caught mine in a sideways
swipe of the situation, then he stood up and asked:“You're not part of the Wolf Pack, are you?”
“Uh, no.”
“I could tell by your response to my call. Definitely not a wolf, more like a little hyena. But you
still answered in some way. That's pretty cool.” I was amazed at the danger implied in his physical body
combined with the placating quality of his words. He towered over me and was equipped with titanium
hiking sticks and his words of peace were completely absurd to me. “Pretty cool?” Yes, I supposed it
was. I stood there next to him in the dark, feeling very close to death.
“I don't think most people would have known what to do,” he continued. He here paused and
looked at me awhile. I stood admiring his stature, the lower half of his his finely-angled face with a
clipped beard and a wide, cut cleft in the upper part of his full lips. I couldn't see his eyes. I smiled.
“You're the only other person out here,” he stated. “You're not afraid?”
“No.”
“Well, you really shouldn't do this.”
“Do what?”
“Night hike.”
“But why not?” I raised my voice a little, adamant. “I love it!”
“So do I.” He took a step closer and leaned down, sliding his headlamp on the band around his
head so I could see the sincerity in his eyes. “You see me out here, don't you? I understand. But it's not
really...recommended.”
Why not?
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I'm Thin Timber.” He straightened up again and I couldn't see him anymore. He began to talk
in a very pressed sort of way as if there wasn't much time. “It's very nice to meet you. And I'll night
hike with you anytime you want. We can run to Maine only hiking at night for all I care. Just don't do it
alone.” I was again amazed, and not a little delighted at how forward he was.
“I'm CV,” I told him.
“Seevee? OK.” His whole demeanor seemed to say that he really didn't care what my name was,
that it didn't matter. He hadn't even taken off his pack and clearly wanted to keep moving. But he'd also
said he wanted to hike with me. So I led the way and we continued on.
“So! Today was kind of interesting,” he told me with perfect familiarity as we sped along the
ridge line very fast. Even though I couldn't see his face I didn't mistake the anger in his word
“interesting” as he said it. No, I didn't mistake that much at least. “I hiked fourteen miles in the wrong
direction.”
“How?” I laughed. “You mean you went southbound instead of north?” Close but no cigar.
“No. I was just running through the woods, offtrail.” I really didn't know what to make of that at
the time, so it flew right over my head and I laughed a kind of stock response to something that semed
silly to me. Running offtrail in no direction in particular – for fourteen miles. What an idea!
“Fourteen miles?” I asked. “That's a really long way not to have noticed there weren't any white
blazes.”
“Yes, yes I know!” he said testily.
“You couldn't even see that there was no worn trail? What did you go by?”
“Anyway,” he went on, ignoring my questions, “I got so far into the middle of nowhere that by
the time I noticed I was out of water I didn't know where I was.” “This guy must be completely crazy,”
I thought.
“So...how did you get back?” I asked.
“I called for help with my cell phone and a rescue squad came and everything to bring me water.
They said I was severely dehydrated.”
“Well it's good you had service!” I observed.
“Right!” he said.
After Thin Timber had told me about that incident, we covered the introductory stuff in a swift
five minutes, highstepping over tangling roots and jumping over a serpentine stream where it cut the
trail several times. He said he'd set out for the long journey with his best friend, now offTrail, and
before that he'd worked with trauma patients.
“You know, I had to make sure they didn't raid the refrigerator at night and stuff.”
Ah, so by “trauma” he meant the physical kind. Head injuries. Perfect. “Maybe we'd make a
good couple,” I thought to myself miserably. He could look after me, make sure I didn't do anything
stupid. I'd begun to question the implications of all the brain damage I'd undoubtedly experienced.
Drugs. Spills. I felt practically retarded.
“You should be careful about joining the marines. If you really decide to do that,” he said.
“They have a very high rate of rape for the women who do enlist.”
“By other marines?” I was dismayed.
“Yes.”
I decided he didn't know what he was talking about. I practically hero worshiped the men who'd
trained us and there was nothing about my fellow trainees that would lead me to suspect they could be
capable of something like that, ever. I thought of our early morning PT sessions, how the other few who
formed our group pushed me to be greater with them. Formed their circle around with me in it if I was
off doing pushups by myself. But treating me no differently for being a woman. It had been utopia for
me, really.
Thin Timber said he had just broken up with his girlfriend.
“And then my best friend who I brought out here ditched me. So I guess it's karma,” he said
bitterly.
“He didn't like hiking as much as he thought he would?” I asked, unable to believe that someone
wouldn't instantly experience an immediate, propelling gratitude for the woods capable of lasting six
months, the time necessary for a standard thru-hike.
“We'd planned the trip half a year ago at least,” he said. “Tyler bought all the gear just like I did,
and we planned out our mail drops in advance. Pre-packaged food and everything.” “Mail drops” are
boxes full of food supplies sent to hikers at evenly-spaced intervals throughout the trail, usually by
family members. I've heard of them being sent to post offices, hostels, or even gas stations. I couldn't
motivate my family to do this for me. I hadn't been able to for my section hike in 2010 and I couldn't
manage to do it this time around. And the one person outside my family who maybe would have done
this for me (Adam) I didn't feel comfortable talking to. I had just royally screwed him and our mutual
friend John over before I abruptly left for the trail. I'd pretty much made sure that all bridges in my life
were burned to dust.
“I don't understand,” I said. “Some leave the trail with the explanation that it 'wasn't what they
were expecting.' What the hell were they expecting? It's the woods.”
Little did I know that there are hunters in the woods looking for more than just scenery.
“You have very strong ferimones,” I heard him say from behind me after some time had passed
in silence.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Levels within your body that alert others to you. I can smell them.”
I didn't quite know what to say to this either, so I just laughed.
We came upon a huge bonfire to the right of the trail, thirty feet through the trees.
“Oh, this is them,” Thin Timber said.
“Who?”
“The Wolf Pack.” Sure enough, the sounds of carousing and howls reached our ears. “You want
to go over there?” he asked me. The tenor of his voice suggested that he didn't really want to.
“Sure...” I replied after hesitating. I would have preferred to keep going, just as we were. But it
was too late, we'd been spotted. An isolated, nearer howl and then Thin Timber responded in kind. Two
ambassadors came over to us, drinks in hand.
“Seevee, this is Casanova the Nightwolf, and this is Spam.” I didn't bother to correct Thin
Timber's version of my trail name. I liked the way he slid the two letters into one word.
“Hey, how are ya?” greeted Spam. He was virulently handsome by firelight. Dark, spiked hair
that shone in a healthy gloss about his tan face. Symmetrical features, a good height, and he wore an
incongruously dressy button down shirt. It was an olive green. What color were his eyes?
“Hello!” I replied.
“Want anything to drink?” asked Casanova, a blonde with little, beady eyes wearing pink crocs.
He'd shaved his head into a mohawk and wore a dirty t-shirt with cutoff sleeves. His arms were wellmuscled and he looked like he meant business. He would always seem a little intense and insistent to
me, and I was afraid of him.
“Get the girl a drink!” an old man called from the fireside. There were a lot of people about
drinking booze and relaxing after a long day's hike. Thin Timber rubbed me on the shoulder
reassuringly before going over to catch up with some people he knew.
Casanova showed me where all the trail magic was. The Wolf Pack had done well for
themselves. Our host had set up a tarped pavillion with two tables full of hard liquor and plastic cups.
All the soda and the paltry chip and pretzel stores had been depleted. Most of the bottles of alcohol, of
which there were many, were empty too. But there was definitely more than enough for a latecomer. I
helped myself to half a cupfull of JD, straight.
“So, where are you from?” Cassanova asked me.
“Middling,” I exhaled after gulping down the spirit. “Maryland.”
“Oh nice, so you'll walk through your home state eventually.”
“Yep.” I don't remember where he said he was from. Maybe Colorado. There were a lot of
people on the trail that year from Colorado and from the city of Nashville. “Do you wanna hear a joke
about Maryland?” I asked him.
“Sure.”
“What's the 'MD' in Maryland stand for?”
“I dunno, what?”
“Mason-Dixon line! Ha!” I refilled my own drink with some of the same, cracking up because it
had been a few years since I'd told that joke.
“I don't really see how that's a joke,” Cassanova replied honestly. I thought about this for a
minute and then, able to see his point of view, muttered “I see what you mean,” all the while capable of
holding my own private enjoyment. I made fast work of another drink.
“That's your seat!” The host, a man in his forties wearing cowboy boots, pointed towards an
unoccupied seat right by the fire on top of a cooler.
“Thanks! Don't mind if I do!” I walked over to join the group about the fire. I opened the cooler
to see what was in it and took a beer before sitting down on top of it. “Nobody gets by me, OK?” I let
them all know, pointing. We all laughed.
Rambling, end of day conversations were going on to my left: four twentysomething guys sat in
lawn chairs and didn't move much or notice me. Sparks flew from the bonfire, which blazed as though
it were set for logs for the next hour or three. Tents were behind me and to my right. Their reflective
strips looked like a hundred intersecting road markings leading to chaos.
It turned out that our host knew The Mayor, the proprietor of the only hostel I'd stayed at during
my section hike two years back. I asked the host whatever happened to Bill, Mayor's eighty-nine year
old friend and hostel cook.
“I think Bill went and got remarried.” I laughed goodnaturedly, surprised that I actually had
something to say to this outstanding trail magician regarding mutual friends. I pulled out one of my last
Salems, with some difficulty (not for lack of dexterity but for shady recollection of where I'd put them
in my backpack), then, while I was standing, I got out another beer.
“To the Mayor!” I toasted the memory of him.
“To the Mayor!” rang an enthusiastic chorus in the dark. Cups were raised all around. I took a
great gulp and then set down, thinking of that crazy man, The Mayor. Always trying to get hikers to
stop hiking and chill out for awhile. Selling them beers for .25 cents (“The first one's free!”) out on his
patio with the pullover sun shade, unnecessary for night conferences besides it lending an aura of
secrecy and security. Staying up with us until three talking and smoking, giving excellent advice,
making fun of how skinny all the girls had gotten (especially me with my strict ramen diet and speedpopping habit). Holding Bill back from biting our heads off with his rancid sense of humor and his
jokes, which verged on the edge of being extremely confrontational and intimidating. Yes, the time I'd
spent there had been quite a trip.
“Hey, how are you?” Thin Timber touched me once again on the shoulder. He was back from
wherever he'd been. He leaned down to me so that his face was close to mine.
“I'm feelin' alright,” I slurred. Some guy who was feeling really fantastic yelled out to Thin
Timber from across the fire:
“HEY!! The one you should be concerned about is Sunshine!You know she walked all the way
back to Siler Bald today just looking for you.”
“What?” Thin Timber barely ticked his head towards the speaker.
“It's true,” a heretofore reticent, sweet-smiling girl sitting on the ground about the bonfire said.
“Well, I'm back now!” said Thin Timber. Then, in my direction: “Everyone can calm down...”
O
“Seevee. Pssssst! Seevee!”
“Hmmmm?”
It was later that night. I'd set up my tent near a few trees and Thin Timber had slung up his
hammock right behind me. I guess he knew I was still awake.
“Do you want earplugs?”
“Yeah.” At least a few people near us were snoring away and a few hours ago a couple had been
having some very vocal sex. I felt resentful about my night hike being curtailed. “No schedules, no
people to please” is a very fundamental mantra to me, and for some reason I'd let Thin Timber distract
me. Laying down within hearing distance of snoring people seemed to make about as much sense as
any act of self-abnegation. Ever. Why wait? Ever?
“Here you go.” Thin Timber was at my tent's equivalent of a door, an unzipped flap which left
only a sheer netting layer between myself and the night air. This, when I unzipped it, left nothing
between us but I still couldn't see him completely. I held out my white hand and accepted two purple
earplugs enclosed in a tiny plastic case.
The earplugs were good, I thought, and it was cool they came with a convenient case, but my
avatar was still blazing solo through the woods.
April 3, 11.5 mi
When I woke up early the next morning and unzipped myself to the world, I found hikers eating
pancakes, hikers leisurely feeding the revamped fire with fringe twigs, hikers leading other hikers in
yoga-inspired group stretching. I started off towards the tarp with the intention of figuring out how to
get some breakfast but Thin Timber intercepted me.
“Good morning!” His voice was gentle and invited me to my first really good look at him. He
stood two heads taller than most everyone else and moved in complete possession of his body. It was
the rest of the world that looked awkward by comparison. He had a refined look about him. Probably
refined out of existence. Relegated to the likes of this place or to the old history books. An expressive
face which betrayed volumes of comprehension. He was smart. He probably understood most of what
goes on between people in this horrible world, but instead of becoming completely numb to everything
or seemingly deranged in protest against society (outdated modes of “living” which don't consider or
even really allow for human development in its richest diversity), he'd saved a part of himself for
moments like this. He was open, alive. Very purposeful.
“Hey Thin Timber,” I said. His eyes met mine directly, held me to our relation in the present
moment.
“Why don't you sit in my hammock and I'll see about getting us some breakfast.”
Nice.
“OK,” I said.
I'd never sat in a hammock before, but beyond the initial leap of faith that it would hold my
weight and not turn me over onto the ground, the fabrics felt fine and the suspension was remarkable. I
experimented a bit and every angle I leaned into it the hammock adjusted to support me. I wanted to lay
my length out in it and kind of sneak a private moment, but I didn't want to swing my dirty boots up
into the sling. I satisfied myself with a hard lean to the left from a sitting position. Softest mesh
curtained my face, which I rested against the gathered folds near the top of one side.
Thin Timber reappeared with three petite, blueberry pancakes ribboned with a red berry syrup.
“Thank you!” I took the paper plate in my hands and admired how tasty they looked, even
though I wasn't particularly hungry yet.
“You're a woman. You deserve it!” I heard him say.
I got riled at his choice of words, at everything he'd just said. I couldn't just accept the lovely
scene for what it probably was: an effort to make me feel comfortable. Courtship, even. Perhaps. My
own thoughts as to who I am, what I “deserve,” were forming, faster than ever in 2012, and they
determined my future actions by here coming together, playing things out, evolving. I was unconscious
enough to enjoy my pancakes but there was another part of me that was awake. It disturbed me.
“Pick your poison,” he told me, holding up an odd knife and one spoon. I chose the knife then
regretted my decision. But after I'd successfully hewed off an edge piece of one pancake and balanced
it on top of the width of the plastic knife, I smiled. I tasted. It was pretty good. Thin Timber sat beside
me in the hammock and we split the three pancakes on the plate between the two of us.
O
After a night of very heavy drinking on the weekends, normal people take it easy. Hikers get up
early and put in just as many miles as they'd planned, any day of the week. The only change that day
wasn't in the itinerary, it was in the absence of backpacks. Our honorable host agreed to “slack pack”
all twenty of us or so. We loaded our packs into his truck, which was parked on the nearby state road,
and set off on foot uphill. The Nantahala River was our destination, about ten miles away.
Thin Timber and I walked together on the Trail through a wide meadow, then up the steepening
introduction to the mountain range we'd be crossing that day. It had only been about a mile when he
said he had to stop to filter water. He'd brought along a few plastic water bottles for the two of us and
his filtering pump was in the daypack slung across his shoulders. The whole Wolf Pack apparently had
the same idea and were lingered at the spring which welled right up out of the rocks near the small
wooden shelter. Cold Spring Shelter looked unsuitable for any life but vermin. It was the most common
model (flat bed with three walls and one open side) but it was dusty, cobwebbed, and smelled terrible.
Feeling awkward and unnatural, I found the register and looked for Jay. I recognized his
handwriting from the week before:
If you look hard enough, everything you need can be found
in nature. -Jay
Yeah, except meth.
I closed the register and moved my body to the center of things, wondering what was taking so
long. It looked like Thin Timber was filtering water for everyone.
“I know I'm going to get burned today,” said Atlas, a musician who must have been working on
his beard since before starting the AT. Coarse, frizzy hair covered all of his lower face, his head and
neck, his upper chest.
“Oh well,” I said. “We're all a little burned.”
For some reason almost everyone present laughed uproariously.
“Ain't that the truth!” whooped Damn Yankee, a middle-aged man sporting a yellow-orange curl
on his forehead at the end of his mohawk. He took a long draw on the water bottle Thin Timber had
handed him.
“I believe I brought some sunscreen,” said Cheeks, an Indian girl who'd led the yoga that
morning. Atlas nodded.
Thin Timber, Casanova, Sunshine and I traveled the first part of the day together. They kept
stopping at views, which seemed besides “the point” to me after about the third or fourth. The gentle,
blue mountains all looked exactly the same that day, so I began taking furtive glances at my
companions.
When Sunshine returned my gaze I was overpowered by a feeling of horror. Her face, it was so
radiant in kind-looking symmetry, but her skin looked like it were melting in some places. There were
dark indented patches across which lighter threads of skin stretched. I didn't know how I could have
missed them before. Was I hallucinating?
Eyes down, I thought about the little that Thin Timber had told me about her. She was German,
it had been very difficult for her to get a visa, he “used to give her food and stuff” but that he'd “rather
hike with me.”
Casanova was ahead. I could see the slight raise of his blonde mohawk in the back of his head
bumping up in the middle to his crown. Or was that the natural shape of his skull? The more I stared
the more I could see a little knob at the top of his head. It was like a square mass implanted between his
outer skin and his brain. He turned in profile to readjust his knee brace and I found myself doubting his
species. He was more like the barely-covered hardness of a dinosaur skeleton. His nose, elongated from
his queer, beedy-eyed face, looked like a bone. And the muscles on his arms were so sharp and defined
I imagined they'd feel like cold, smooth rocks. “Cass is very talented,” Thin Timber had let me know.
What could that mean? He's good at eating pussy? No. He'll tear me a new asshole? I broke out in a hot
sweat imagining the possibilities, making sure to rehydrate myself with plenty of water.
After we'd stopped again to reorganize, and Thin Timber had taken a few photos, my hand
jerked out madly and grasped Thin Timber back from following the others. Wait. I was wanting, I felt
the desire to suck on his lips. He bent towards me and we kissed, intertwined, our hands exploring each
other's fabrics and skin. He had a bald patch at the top of his head and I found a single metal bar
piercing through one of his nipples. I opened my eyes a little, kissed the center of his collar bone and
looked down. A pair of red dice barred the ends. We were both shirtless. When had we taken them off?
My longing only had tentative fingers to work with, and the theory that he knew that only made it
worse for me.
“Let's keep going,” he whispered into my ear. Oh that's right, we were hiking. We were outside
together in North Carolina. I had forgotten everything the moment I'd started touching him. He looked
at me and grinned. His thin, straight teeth looked very sharp. “You lead,” he said. It was like a threat. If
I stood there still he'd rip my pink sports bra off and bite my breast, drawing blood. And then I would
die. I could picture my own blood in the cracks between his white teeth. So I ran.
I flew up and jumped down the peaks, skipping steps, fast and effortless. I knew he was behind
me but I couldn't see him. I could feel him though. He moved me. But he wouldn't catch me!
We outstripped the members of the Wolf Pack one by one. Playful, enjoying my body, I threw
my whole momentum forward and faster, swinging my arms to lengthen my stride. Swish, curve, low
crouch to round a bend. My hands traveled up from my knees to my svelte thighs. I couldn't stop from
feeling myself, rounding out my ass with a swift pass from my fingertips as I ran, gestured, danced.
Sunshine saw us pass and threw down her daypack full of first aid materials at us. We zig
zagged down the switchbacks of the mountain watching the pack roll down the middle, stirring up
leaves, getting caught by a small tree and then finally dropping past us.
“What the hell is Sunshine doing?” laughed 30 Pack, a slight curly-haired jokester, as he
stepped aside for the two of us to run past. I looked back up the steep grade to see Sunshine trying to
scramble down the mountainside after her pack, skipping the long sides of the actual Trail. She went
right down the middle.
“Yellow blazing,” I heard Thin Timber say, laughter in his tone. But without a car or a real road
to follow it's called “bushwhacking.”
“That's what she gets for trying to keep up with the Wolf Pack!” Thin Timber went on
derisively, stopping in his tracks to watch her descent.
Did I care about any of this extraneous nonsense?
Absolutely not.
I'm not part of this Wolf Pack, man.
“I'm getting out of here!” I announced. I began to leave. All I had to do was observe Sunshine's
predicament to know that I couldn't trust any of these people.
“What's the matter?” Thin Timber tried to stay me by touching my shoulder, but I whipped
around to face him as though I'd been kicked in the small of the back. A wolfish grin spanned my wild
face. I didn't answer him but motioned for him to go on ahead, my palms upturned in a vehement
sweeping gesture to the Trail before us.
“Are you sure?” Still I said nothing, just stared back at him. As he passed me Thin Timber made
some crack about “Porky Pig.” He strode on slowly, like a long-limbed woman, swinging his neon
green nalgene with the Eagles sticker on it.
There's something in that water!
Just after I realized this, Thin Timber bounded away ahead of us all. I looked down at the water
bottle I'd been carrying. It was empty.
“So that's how he's got them all rallying around him!” I thought. I started running, vying to
catch him once again.
O
“Here's your reward for keeping up with me.” Thin Timber handed me the other half of a
chewed Power Bar. Peanut Butter flavor. My least favorite. I wasn't hungry at all and barely nibbled at
the edges as we took a break in a chalky ravine which served as a road. Thin Timber had stopped and
waited for us and the stragglers came down one by one. I took a seat next to Sunshine on a log and
waited while Thin Timber stepped off to find the spring.
A trail angel drove through Tellico Gap and advised us to get in with him. There was “bad
weather brewin.'” But I knew that I would be walking and just shook my head at him. Cassanova got a
ride out of there with a few others as his knees were bothering him. I don't know where the rest of the
Wolf Pack was. Sunshine and I “rested” side by side. She'd given me a whole pack of keebler crackers,
white cheddar and chives.
I took off my boots and socks, then apologized for the odor.
“Nobody cares,” Sunshine said.
An isolated, perfect truth!
Somebody should have told Kesey's Who Cares Girl. Flailing around in the San Francisco sand
on acid making a fool out of herself. “Who cares? Who cares!?”
Well, unlike a fly on the wall, I can talk to you about the things that I know, about the objective
truth in subjectivity. Nobody cares. I found out. Sunshine told me.
O
The three of us started towards Wesser Bald slowly with Sunshine in the lead. It felt stiff and
unnatural at first to be moving again, but I came up to the episode gradually. The forest around me
burned in bright intensity but all my thoughts were turned inward. I was angry and my anger made me
full.
At the Jump-Up Lookout, Thin Timber wanted to get a picture of the two of us. I smiled
sweetly, close-lipped, eyes slightly guarded by my lids as well, for what I hoped was an overall
attractive effect.
“Come closer, rest your head against my chest,” he said. We took another one. I was startled at
how rapidly his heart was pumping. True, we had just climbed up a sheer rockface, but the flurry of
percussive palpitations I felt against my cheek had more behind it. Being near him was like holding a
frantic bird ready for flight.
I wish I could have focused on his mask for the photo. Maybe I could have read into it. But I
was too distracted by my own image. I was so beautiful that it felt like a sin to know, to look.
The mountains around us had changed dramatically since we'd begun hiking that morning. I felt
the intensity and saw it outside me as well. The Jump-Up (at 4,000 feet above sea level) was a treeless,
panoramic view. There was a jagged, narrow mountain directly in front of us, so huge and real it was
overwhelming, deep chasms on either side of it and a gulf between us and its base. To our left and right
were more rounded, consecutive hills, all covered with trees. I stared at the vision before me, unable to
believe it. It was too big, the world was too big. The afternoon was still clear and our visibility was so
good that we could probably see for 200 miles or more, peak after staggered peak.
Things changed quickly. After about two miles of running down the mountain after Sunshine,
who had disappeared, it began to hail. Distracted with joy, I laughed gratefully and ran faster ahead of
Thin Timber, raising my arms in manic abandon. I couldn't believe any of it.
I skid about a foot on a patch of slick mud, but didn't fall.
“Woah, take it easy!” Thin Timber suggested. “Not so fast.”
The storm came on so quickly that half the sky was still bright day. The quality of light was
remarkable. Dense, dark clouds juxtaposed with strobes of purest, shining light. The hail started out
small but rapidly became ice rocks about an inch in diameter.
Fortunately the Roofus Morgan Shelter was only a few yards down the descending trail.
Freshest green grass and tiny yellow flowers lined the way as we scrambled towards it.
Wobbles and Voltron were the only other two under the structure. Wobbles, Thin Timber and I
shared what I thought was a spliff, but it smelled like strong potpori and hit me like crack. The sound of
the hail on the tin roof was awesome. Frozen where I sat, I watched it all wage inches from my face.
Done.
I'm fucked-up now.
When I could break away and looked to my left and the inside of the shelter, I saw my reflection
in Voltron. Two bright, young things on our inside being productive with something. Water filtering,
sharing, planning. But we were outside, vultures, watching. I smelled Thin Timber's orange, his soaked
polyester and then there was electric blue somewhere over there. And then there was Voltron.
So this is what it means to be high.
In five years of partying in Berkeley, CA I'd never felt this way. The lines, the meth, oxy 80s
melting on tin foil, the liquid, the windowpane, even morphine through a needle – nothing compared.
I couldn't speak so I just leaned, mouth gaping open, forwards towards the downpour, then
against Thin Timber's warm rib cage as he caught me with his arm. He held me to him.
After a few years Thin Timber and I joined back up with the Wolf Pack on US 19 by the
Nantahala. We got our gear from the truck then hitched up the way to a summer cabin one of Damn
Yankee's friends had let him use for the night.
Atlas played the three songs he'd written recently out on the screen porch where we left all our
gear. “I can't stay here” was the refrain of my favorite. Inside, Spam was frying and Casanova was
sauteing. Most people watched something on the TV but I couldn't tell what it was because every time I
looked it was at the adverts.
Thin Timber helped me get an in to take a shower. With thirty some people in one little house
with one bathroom, it wasn't easy. Inside, warm and happy, I thought about how I wasn't contributing
much even to my own shower because I hadn't packed soap of any kind. I rubbed myself with 'Timber's
loofah and enjoyed the hot luxury of water.
Cassanova nearly walked in on me three times. The door didn't lock and I must have taken more
time than I realized. Even if he just wanted to come in and take a crap, I felt threatened. I didn't even
try to go myself, during this long odyssey in the bathroom, even though I needed to badly.
Cheeks was in charge of laundry. She caught me coming out of the bathroom so I awkwardly
thanked her.
“Thanks for adding to the pile!” she said.
Thin Timber scored the two of us a piece of floor in the master bedroom. We'd be the only two
in the room besides Damn Yankee, who would take the bed. But in the mean time we had a closed door
behind which to change into our clean laundry.
Wrapped in a towel, I waited safely for Thin Timber to come back. I sipped from his nalgene
expectantly and smoothed my hair out in front of the mirror. Bronzed from the sun, bright-eyed, my
blonde hair shining even in the indoor, flourescent lighting. I loved myself. I was the most beautiful
person I'd ever seen. I'd felt this way for years but kept it under control by not looking too often in the
mirror. But even when I was just in my body, doing things, I loved myself for my actions. My words. I
am beautiful. What a surprise to appear on the outside as to how you really are inside. To be your own
avatar. How lucky.
He came back in the room, closing the door behind him. I could barely see because I was
burning so bright. Somehow I walked across the room to him, dropping my towel to the floor. “Thin
Timber,” ha! That's a joke right there. I laughed as I felt what he had, eagerly undressing him, but he
could have no reason to take offense.
Instead of resorting to the bed, supine, he gathered me into his arms and bounced me against his
hips, right there. I clasped my arms together over his neck, sucked wet, slick kisses from his mouth. His
hands grasped my ass as he slid in and out of me, and he held all of me against him with such ease, as if
I were a smaller, altogether different species. Evolution fuck.
After we got dressed I went back out to the darkened screen porch to have a few beers and listen
to some more guitar. Spam, who sat beside me in my rocker in what I felt was silent support, only left
my side to retrieve oreos from the kitchen. Oreos which had been bisected, cheddar cheese squares
inserted in the middle, then wrapped together with bacon and fried.
“Here, C.V.” Spam held out a plastic plate full of his creations.
“That's OK, I don't really -”
“Just try one!” His insistence was urgent, so I went ahead and tried one – though it defied all
usual standards of good taste. Once I'd had one, I thought they were pretty good. I tried another.
“You ate what?” Thin Timber said when he came out onto the porch for awhile. “Oh great, that's
just great! And you're smoking more cigarettes too.”
I didn't care. I was having a great time.
Spam told me a story about the bombing of a famous museum which housed works from the
classical period.
“If it were up to me,” he said, “I would have been like, 'Oh no, not those! Anything but those
precious things! Here, destroy some modern art. You'll do the world a favor!'” His flamboyant, actor's
presentation of everything made him impossible to read. Personally, I hoped he was being sarcastic. We
are all of the modern school whether we like it or not. Always on the edge of time. We may as well give
it glory.
Later, when Cheeks had Spam face flat on the floor boards in order to give him a massage, I felt
nervous, party to more than I wanted to be. In a way it looked so right, but I wasn't involved and
therefore it was painful. I'm not really into voyeurism. I was stuck in my chair without a guitar or a
person's hand to hold, so I smoked cigarettes and endured alone, though it was difficult, as most
realizations are.
April 4, 4.4 mi
In the morning we all helped clean up the beer cans, rolled up our mats and reattached them to
our packs, then gloomily stepped outside into the fog. A few idiots wanted to take group photos. I don't
remember who I stood next to or what I looked like but I did have my pack on, ready to hike.
After three or four cameras exchanged through hands for about five photos each, one of the
guys made a jibe about “rotton tomatoes,” thumbing at Sunshine who was all dressed in various shades
of faded red. Admittedly, she did look pretty silly. The red t-shirt didn't at all match the red of her
shorts, and the color didn't flatter her skin tone, her hair, or her figure. But the group voraciousness
towards her annoyed me, even if it was to my social benefit. I was just the temporary upgrade for their
leader, I figured, and I secretly plotted how I'd ditch them all. If you're alone, you are the Alpha. You're
it, you're the island, the country, the determining gaze. What's an Omega? And why would anyone ever
need one on a hike like this?
“We'll probably leave the Wolf Pack in the dust within a few days,” Thin Timber prophesied.
But he didn't deliver any more of the “good water” from that day forth. Instead, as we walked slowly
on, he was full of little fables like the one about Hot Wheels.
“He was a guy who said he needed help. He was low on food and money. So I agreed to give
him some of my resources, you know?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “That was big of you.”
“I thought so too. Anyway, it turned out that he was only using me, that he was a drug addict
trying to support his habit.”
Jesus Christ...
“It was a pretty messed-up experience,” he concluded. “Makes me not want to trust anyone.”
Me too, freak. Maybe if you didn't dose people unawares, their intentions, whatever they were
or could have been, wouldn't be derailed.
“You speak of this...incident...as though it happened a long time ago,” I said. I was frustrated at
having to hike and angry that Thin Timber saw me like this, but I made myself be polite. “When did
you start the trail?”
“March 11th.”
Great. This guy is going to slow me down.
But really, neither of us was more motivating than the other that day. When my resentment
lessened, I listened to him talk about his past job as a youth councilor. That was the job he'd had before
working with the trauma patients. And he helped me swat away the huge, frightening flies whenever we
stopped to take a break. I was a little afraid of Thin Timber, but I still had a level of confidence, even
during my worst days on the trail, that everything would work out in my favor, that nobody would hurt
me. And if they did, oh well.
After we discussed the PCT for an hour, Thin Timber led me down a steep, grassy slope to the
right of the trail. He said he was hoping to find a “blue blaze” section or detour down there but all we
found was spongey, poor turf and a black widow spider.
“That could take out the both of us” he observed, pointing at the spider dangling from a thread.
“Yes, it could,” I lazily agreed. I wasn't on his level, I couldn't talk to him when I was feeling
the weights of the present moment. I appreciated nothing. I noticed nothing. And I didn't care. Thin
Timber said he was going to try and find the blue blaze and wandered off around a bend. He was gone
for a little while. Maybe he really was looking for a blue blaze.
I stepped in human shit while leading our way out of what I thought of as a completely
unnecessary detour. Over the next mile my tenuous grasp on a positive attitude slipped and I didn't feel
like walking with Thin Timber anymore. Incredibly, all that time, we'd only gone a total of three miles.
I blamed him for yesterday and for today. I was too tired to race ahead of him so I opted not to move at
all and patiently wait for him to disappear. This was his fault. I occupied a rock and told him I was
staying. He said he would keep walking and I nodded in stony indifference.
“It's better to keep your legs warmed up and moving in the middle of a climb,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“I'll see you at the top?”
“Uh-huh.”
He continued up the trail, which had gotten quite steep and scarce on footholds. Instead of rock
it was hard-packed, cakey dirt, sloping down in very steep mounds. There was no easier way, even if I
felt like bushwhacking, for the sides of the trail were wild with twisting, prickly brush.
The moon came out while I sat there, I stayed so long on that rock. I admired the jet black
contrast of the naked tree branches compared with the pretty, darkening blue of the sky. But who ever
said that the sky was really that amazing? Maybe it was horrible. Everything a sign of death. It's just
that everyone tells you the earth is precious and beautiful.
I heard the cries of the Wolf Pack down below me, and I grimaced in recognition but remained,
silent and immovable, until they suddenly burst through in a que from the arching bushes and darkness
of the trail below me.
I startled them when they saw me. I'd been sitting there without my flashlight or anything. I
wasn't ready to join them, despite Casanova's invitation, so I waited out their train on my rock for what
I assumed was about forty more minutes.
I barely made it up to Swim Bald I was so exhausted. There I found Thin Timber camped near
the only possible tent spot. I felt as if he were barricading my way or tricking me; the torturous path
only continued straight up after the rare piece of flat ground we currently stood on. I was practically
forced to stay there with him. The Wolf Pack was there too, and they lingered making sport of what
Thin Timber described as “his fire.” Thin Timber came over to me and tried to strike up a conversation.
“They're like little kids. The fire will blaze up all the sticks they can find, and then they'll move
on.”
And that was supposed to be comforting? There was literally nowhere else I could go. I was
fading fast. He'd caught me. Giving voice to my protest would have been a waste of my energy, so
instead I leaned towards the blaze, mouth agape, lidded eyes dull. I didn't respond to Cassanova when
he tried to talk to me. I could tell he was simply unnerved by my playing effigy. One of those idiotic
“questions” which don't seek answers so much as the alleviation of confusion from the asker. “Can I
peg you? Let me try again. Can I peg you now? Do you copy?”
“Are you that tired?” Thin Timber asked me from across the fire.
But I was unresponsive. A stolid, forward, subtle threat. A modern statue with a subtext: STOP.
If a giant thorn could stand up and fly horizontally across the ground separating you from it, then glint
there quietly, right next to you, it would be me in that moment.
Eventually The Pack moved on. Thin Timber stayed and helped me set up my tent.
April 5, 10.0 mi
In the morning I sipped my coffee, cold, made yesterday from soaked hazelnut-flavored
grounds. Thin Timber called Merrell's customer service about his boots. The first thing he said was
“Hello, I'm a thru-hiker and...”
“Her name was Molly,” I put in when he got disconnected. He'd been on speaker.
“Thank you!” He got a free pair of boots delivered to Hot Springs. I didn't know it could be that
easy. “Merrell has really good customer service though,” he told me. “With some brands it's a lot harder
to get stuff for free.”
“Maybe you wouldn't need good customer service if your boots weren't falling apart,” I said. I
felt so secure in my North Face, gortex-lined boots that I didn't anticipate needing another pair at any
point during the 2,000 mile trek.
“OK, feisty!” He came up to me where I teetered on a decaying, felled tree and embraced me,
held me against him. Some of the barrier I'd built up against him in fear crumbled away. He smelled
good and his shirt was very soft. I became calm and quiet there in the span of his arms.
“No cigarettes today unless you really deserve them. We've got to go to work today, OK?”
Whatever you say.
He held me at arm's length to look into my eyes. He looked great in his mauve-dusted
sunglasses, slightly opaque.
“You're a strong girl.”
I was affected by his words at once. My eyes misted over as I looked back at him and I
brimmed with joy and yes, love.
None of the men I'd loved in the past had ever told me this. It was the thing I most wanted to
hear. I'd had a craving, a tragic desire for them all to recognize me, see and know me as I really was:
neither frivolous nor flirty or even pretty, those umbrella words which, tacked onto a woman, obscure
her complex truth.
And for him to tell me! Perhaps it is true that he risked much by doing so. Else why hadn't
anyone told me before? Why didn't they let me in?
But he could see it. At last, he'd found me. We'd crossed paths at the right time or he'd hunted
me for a lifetime in some dream suffering from pronoia.
I accepted what he said and felt it, held it to me like I held him close. I will always remember
that moment.
O
We had a 2,000 foot climb right at the beginning of the day, and I shuffled slowly up every lip
of it. I found solace in conversation. Thin Timber asked me what my parents were like. He told me a
little about his, then I started to feel uncomfortable and, after asking a smattering of periphery
questions, related to but not about family, I changed the subject to physical trauma. Scars, broken
bones, stuff like that.
“There was one really weird accident that happened to me in our old house,” he said. “I got
electrocuted.”
“Really?”
“But when it happened, I saw the electricity as orange stripes racing through me. Little beads of
light went up and down these stripes and cords of light, and then afterwards while I was still in shock, I
saw an angel's head hovering right in front of me, illuminated in the dark. I could see its wings, but not
the rest of its body. It looked like a baby's face.”
“Wow,” I said. “And you didn't pass out or anything from the current?”
“No.”
“Are you Catholic?”
“Yes. My mother's Italian.”
“Maybe the angels were watching after you,” I speculated.
“Maybe.”
“That's a lot cooler than anything I was going to say. I've just had various head injuries.
Doorknobs, cement. Both front and back.”
“Seems like we both had some sense knocked into us, huh?”
“I guess so.” I smiled. I'd turned around to look at him when he'd said this last. I can still
remember the way his lips moved when he said the word “both.” I can hear his voice speaking it.
“You never know what you could have in common with someone,” he then told me.
“Remember that.”
I would remember, but at that time I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me.
The climb continued on. Thin Timber coached me on beneficial things to do when hiking. He'd
had a lot of experience before this and had also planned for this trip very thoroughly.
“When you're about to climb something big, stop and breathe deeply.”
“OK” I wheezed. It did help. It was a very simple action that aided me routinely throughout the
rest of my hike north.
At some point during the climb to Cheoah Bald, Thin Timber wanted to pass me in order to go
faster.
“I'll wait for you at the shelter, OK?”
“Alright,” I said. “I'll be there.” I trusted that it wouldn't be too far ahead; I didn't look at my
own Data Book when traveling with 'Timber. And anyway, I told myself I wouldn't cry about it if we
did get separated. I felt free.
The shelter turned out to be so far away and through such brutal terrain that I hiked until what
was probably close to two am in order to reach it. And my flashlight had run out of batteries. Jacob's
Ladder, the last three miles before the shelter, entailed a series of false summits before resuming a near
vertical course, but I enjoyed myself, taking my time, happily exhausted and singing as I climbed.
I felt so good that at one point I actually lay down in the middle of the trail, arms stretched out
at my sides. Not at all concerned about dirt in my hair or bugs on my body, I relaxed and breathed
deeply, staring up into the vast dome of sky above. Peaceful. Sometimes I talked to myself or reached
out tentatively, trying to pray. It's difficult if you're not in the habit. But it felt right to narrate my inner
thoughts aloud in a buoyant and humorous stream-of-consciousness.
By all appearances, to the uninitiated observer, I would have seemed insane, perhaps
dangerously so. Depressed. But I'm not. I'm manic-depressive. It's a constant suspension of two
extremes fighting in one body. It's rare for one of them to win completely, where there's no shade of the
other lurking in the consciousness. But it's possible. When I'm purely manic it's wonderful. I'd describe
it as the gift of the absolute present. I've never been so depressed where there wasn't at least a hint of
the suspicion that things will work out for me in the end. It's the mania in me that's strong, creative,
action-oriented and despotic. It usually overrules the hysteric, submissive, depressed girl I know is
inside me. But in most moments I can feel so many emotions that the gamut is run, the permutations
are happening, all within me, everyday. “Happy” and “sad” are not words I can use to describe myself
anymore. I definitely had an awareness of all this at the time of my hike, but I didn't really know that I
had manic-depression. I was taking no medication.
The outward signs of hilarious joy and outrageous despair may appear to be the same to a
“stable” person. They'd just term such extreme displays of emotion as madness. Ironically, there is not
much difference between my happiness and my sadness. It's all the same to me, one prolonged
exclamation point going on forever.
When I got to Brown Fork Gap Shelter, over eight miles distant from where Thin Timber and I
had last seen each other, I hoped to wake him in setting up my tent. I admit to wanting to impress him.
Besides, I required the use of his headlamp.
“Hey.” I heard Thin Timber greet me in the dark. I was setting up next to his hammock.
“Hey! You wouldn't believe the effort it took me to make it here to you,” I said.
Thin Timber clicked on his hanging globe light from inside the netting and it slid across its cord
as the equilibrium and weight balance shifted within. His feet elevated as he unzipped near his throat.
There he was, looking back at me. Hello.
April 6, 11.6 mi
That day I compelled Thin Timber to wait for me a total of about five hours, most of it in the
morning. A register entry of his from last night cut my heart to a bloody mess:
Ran the last of today's miles with Peach. We
made excellent time and did Jacob's Ladder
in under 45 minutes! Fontana Dam today
with C.V.
--Thin Timber
All I could do after I'd seen it was wallow in the privacy of my tent. Nevermind the blazing sun
and the heat. I needed to be alone.
“What's wrong?” he asked, but I refused to answer this.
“You deserve to have people in your life.”
I don't think so.
“Whatever has happened in your past, you -” I interrupted him here and said that I wanted to get
moving.
Our paces staggered once again but Thin Timber left me notes weighted down with Slim Jims or
sour Jolly Ranchers. “C.V.: Meet me at Yellow Creek Gap. --Joe, aka Thin Timber” Then later, at the
Gap, I found another one: “I waited for you for over two hours! --Joe” I found his whole business of
note leaving very insulting.
His exact location was never known to me, and I relished my time alone, especially around the
golden, five o'clock hour. Around this time, with the ordinary forest around me, I ascended to a
heightened sense of awareness. Vividness, poignancy, and unspeakable beauty defined the scene. I felt
called to speak, to mutter broken phrases in Italian. I had such strong feelings that I had to do
something, even if it wasn't perfect or worthy of nature. I spoke. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” was a current
theme throughout my ongoing prayer.
I cried for all the sins of my life. In maudlin woe I feared that I was living in sin at that very
moment, that there was nothing I could do to get away from my past, from the devil. That I would
always in some way be contributing towards unnecessary conflict in the world.
Pure golden sun slant lit the forest up to my left. To my right, blue mountain slopes hollowed
out a gentle, tree-filled valley. The light and the dark were both there, playing on each other in a visual
total, and I got to be a part of it. I was walking through the middle, so carefully, very slowly.
“Mi dispiace, mi dispiace.” Many tears ran the full course of my face and collected at my chin.
“Mi dispiace, Dio mio! Mi sento come Giulietta degli Spiriti. Sotto gli alberi raggiungio con la gente
stranaccia. Che confusione, Dio! Non so, ma sembra che non possa andar via da sola cosi. Perche?
Amo, amo. Ma non ne posso piu. Mi dispiace...mi dispiace...”
O
I successfully stopped hiking with Thin Timber for all of three miles. I tried my best to impart
my desire to be alone to him. I wanted to tell him I was jealous of Peach but my pride wouldn't let me
even come close to that confession. I was just miserable at the state of everything. I felt that if I hadn't
ever met Thin Timber in the first place, I wouldn't be feeling any pain. I resented any outside influence
and that's no surprise considering the chaos I already had to deal with.
“I don't want to hike with anyone,” I said simply.
“You can go on pretending that no one is in front of you and that no one is behind you, but we're
still here,” he said.
Clever.
He made me pause. For a full minute I didn't know what to say. Then somehow I made a
beginning. It probably sounded just as irrelevant as his remark to me had seemed, but without the
strength of his rhetoric my remarks (which tried to support my truth) just sounded feeble. I meandered
around verbally, awkwardly searching at great length for evidence as to why he should let me be, and I
finished by defending my right to “hike my own hike.” A nice cliché.
I'd been talking for quite awhile. Ashamed of myself, no conviction about me at all, I looked up
to him, basically begging him to understand.
“Well! That's the best conversation we've ever had,” he said. His subtle sarcasm wasn't lost on
me. But I could think of nothing to say. Mute, all I could do was wait for him to move on.
He was faster than me.
Usurper.
He couldn't walk away from me soon enough.
O
I didn't know what the Great Smokey Mountains were. I just saw a park boundary in my Data
Book and anticipated more of what I'd experienced in Georgia. Perhaps the mountains would be a little
higher than in Georgia, but the terrain would mostly remain the same.
I was wrong.
However, an “ignorance” that is backed by a genuine, devil-may-care abandon isn't something I
consider to be a flaw in my character.
That night I felt a little cooler than usual so I sliced along the toe seams of a pair of woolen
socks with the boxcutter from my last job. I'd brought it as a “lightweight” alternative to a knife. In
other words, I didn't even own a knife. These spliced articles of clothing I slid over my arms. My rain
jacket clung hot and sweaty over my simple polyester tank, so I didn't use it then.
I minced down a steep grade, crossed NC 28, signed myself up as a party of 1 to enter the free
park, and tucked the carbon copy of the registration safe into my Data Book.
I climbed away from the parking lot along 28, vacant except for a white patrol car. I kept
imagining that I was going to be stopped. But then again, who could catch me? In a car or on foot, my
pursuer would be up for a challenge.
I tried to restrain myself from smoking a cigarette within view of that truck, nonetheless. I felt I
was being tracked. I sucked on a Jolly Rancher instead.
Once I made it up the initial climb the path mellowed out. I walked calmly past moonlit
boulders and small fir trees, the first evergreens I remember seeing on the trail. A bird call that was
completely foreign to me sounded to my left. It struck me as odd in the middle of the night. A nocturnal
songbird?
Later I hit a major road and the trail went along its shoulder until everything opened up into
what would have been a great view by day. I couldn't see these Smokey Mountains but I could see a
large, placid, dark glass lake. I stepped up on the walkway beside the plaque explaining … something
… and lit a cigarette, wishing it were a joint.
As soon as I mentally made that wish, a powerboat crossed the lake right in front of me,
headlights swirling. I assumed it was a police boat and so felt nervous and vaguely guilty. I stubbed out
my light behind the rock wall and tried to locate the trail. This was more difficult than usual because it
had made a break when I'd stepped onto this lookout. Who knew where it redirected itself. Was it
through the lookout ledge to the left and into the trees? And where was the camping area?
Finally I saw grills, rusting trash cans, and tents spaced every 50 feet or so on the level surfaces
as I walked down the cement road with which the trail joined. This is where the normal people camped.
The Wolf Pack had taken over Fontana Dam Shelter. I fit right in, crouching by the fire, talking
to Damn Yankee about The Merry Pranksters and some Stephen King novel, trying to avoid Thin
Timber. I'd noticed almost immediately that he was also there. One of the guys got me a beer and we all
tried to unwind, watching “hiker TV” or the fire. When I noticed that nobody was talking except for me
to Damn Yankee I shut up. In silence we watched stuff burn.
Sunshine showed up really drunk. She couldn't even sit up on the bench she sat on. I watched
her quietly, my legs crossed in the dirt, not knowing how she was feeling but watching very intently
because something told me that I would understand one day. Despite my trying to act casual and at
ease, a beer in my hand, her cries were eerie to me and I thought she spied me out of the corner of her
upturned face.
She howled, screamed, and then cooed long sobs. The guys on either side of her seemed fed up
and scanned the present company for sympathy, validation. “Isn't she nuts?” they seemed to say with
their curled lips. I hated them.
Thin Timber had set up his hammock on the railing encircling the tenting area. Several wolves
were asleep inside the shelter. Once again, I'd had no idea it was so late. If the trail hadn't led me down
here I would have just kept going. The only time keeping device I owned was my phone, which I
always kept off.
Despite a few Natty Bo's I still felt a little worried about going through this park alone. The
guys around the fire were talking about new rules specific to the Smokeys and I didn't want to get
fined. Apparently tenting wasn't allowed at all, you had to stay in the shelters. And there were rangers
patrolling to enforce this due to severe weather conditions.
I went up to Thin Timber and audaciously asked him to hike with me again – not a few hours
after I'd made such a strong stance against doing so. He said yes and brushed off the events of that
afternoon as if they couldn't possibly count for more than the present moment.
That night he actually slept with me in my tent, at my request. I felt very uneasy and wanted to
be comforted.
“Seevee,” he whispered into my ear, coddling upper thighs with his fingers.
“What is it?”
“Well, nevermind.”
“No, what? Tell me.” He was silent for quite some time.
“Do you wanna have sex?” It wasn't what I was expecting him to say. With that sort of
hesitation I was expecting him to say “I love you.” But the way we did it, it was more like fighting.
And I lost. He had me pinned from the beginning. On my back, I strained my hips upwards, begging to
be stabbed, but he tortured me instead.
“Ohhhhh, I hate you!” is what he really said.
April 7, 10.3 mi
Thin Timber jacked a headlamp from the shelter box and gave it to me after I learned a valuable
lesson in conservation:
-Oh, you have a pepper to put in with our dinner tonight?
-I can dice it up.
-Hey wait! There's an onion in the hiker box. What if we slice off a few rounds and take them too?
-Wait. If I take a piece out of it, it might never get taken by anyone else who might need it or want it
more than we do!”
I was ready to go hiking.
But Thin Timber was really stretching out the time he spent taking down his hammock. I must
have eaten half a bag of blue diamond almonds by the time he was done twisting the delicate fabrics
together then slinking the outer “snake skin” material over its sheath. Then he sat down beside me at
the picnic table and said he wanted to take a shower.
“Good idea! I'll take one too.” Before I left for the shower stalls he lent me his oversized crocs
to walk in and tossed me the sock he'd ejaculated into the night before.
“Oh, can you rinse that out?” Like a traumatized clown, I walked over to the shower.
I ran into Peach in the bathroom. We eyed each other suspiciously and said nothing. But I noted
her progress in the registers as the months passed on – at first with jealousy, then with admiration.
Thin Timber was still reluctant to leave after showering, so I headed out alone.
“It is what it is.” --Thin Timber
I don't have to be savvy or smart to have a good time on the AT – and that's good, because I'm
really stupid. I'm so stupid, that in the utter absence of common sense, social obligation, and mores,
natural desire is the only impetus of my being, and it informs my actions – often, to my benefit. I do
what behooves me, what is ultimately in my best interest, totally unconsciously.
At the time I didn't realize the seemingly obvious, that the two of them were routing extended
trysts around me, but I ended up acting as though I had caught on and made him pretty jealous “in
return.” More importantly, I would ultimately end up not depending on him or hiking with him. Base
instinct prevails to save me when reason cannot do its job. Base instinct or the will of a power greater
than myself. The will of “God.”
April 8, 2.8 mi
The day before had seen me through a 2,740 foot climb (Doe Knob), a rickety fire tower
viewing, and terse conversation with Thin Timber over lunch.
Enough said.
April 9, 9.2 mi
The mountains began to change as I entered the thick of the Smokies. I couldn't necessarily tell
the difference in the climb (Georgia had been difficult too) but the mountains surrounding the peak or
ridge on which I flew looked more like Colorado's Rocky Mountains or the tall pine-studded sharps in
Northern California. White rock at the top, bare creases and slopes instead of the misty gentle blue
humps. Elevation gains were equal in some parts of Georgia but I'd walked into a different state
entirely.
At the top of a giant bald mountain I'd just scaled I found a waterproof, Rite in the Rain note
with “C.V.” written boldly in pen. A note for me! I stooped down and opened to an ingeniously
compartmentalized rolled cigarette within the folds of the lined paper. Based on the width and make of
it, I knew right away who it was from.
A Smokey (Mountains) treat!
See you down there,
Wobbles
It was the last I ever heard from him. He and Voltron were too fast. But I thoroughly enjoyed the
cigarette, mixed with just enough green to get me high but not stoned or destroyed. And he'd rolled it so
that it went out if I didn't puff too often. He'd seen the way I salvaged cigarettes and smoked them at
intervals. He'd seen me, and here was a gift, just for me.
Revitalized and reinspired, I sauntered down the great mountain I'd just climbed, taking my
time with this one, just enjoying the moment and the spectacular views. It had taken me about five
hours just to get to this height. I savored the rest of my descent.
I finished reading Much Ado About Nothing and left it in a shelter for someone else to read (or
to start a fire with). The text qualified as an ultralite book because the pages were like Bible paper.
I found a very large, thick knit sock with a hole in its toe. Just one sock. The other was probably
still being worn or kept as a backup. Bored, I widened the hole by tearing it, took off my right boot,
then slipped this single gargantuan sock up my leg. It came all the way up to my upper thigh, the tips of
where my shorts dangled. I liked the asymmetrical, pirated look and the weather at this elevation was
getting very, very cold at night. I could use it.
I'd also been aware for quite some time that I was dangerously low on food. I'd entered the Park
without resupplying because I'd descended into it at night. All roads leading to points of resupply
weren't exactly free flowing with cars. And in the morning I figured I'd be hiking with Thin Timber,
that I'd be somehow taken care of. But after listening to a frantic Thin Timber trying to plan out how
the two of us would survive on what he had for the length of the Smokies was enough for me not to
want to be a bother. I'd stopped caring about myself. I'd rather starve than be a burden to anyone or to
even kindly steal what belonged to another person.
It wasn't fair that I was a loser. I'd even admitted to him that I had next to no money.
Realistically, it was probably more than he'd bargained for when he'd approached me at first. “I want to
hike with you, I want to get to know you,” he'd said. But this was impossible. I was heavier than he
could possibly imagine.
I dusted some more of those hiker box almonds with a chicken-flavored ramen packet and
called it a day.
“Don't worry about it,” I told myself as I set my tent up behind the stone shelter, trying not to
beg of the hikers inside. If I didn't want to listen to snoring, I didn't really feel like I had a right to
impinge.
But that night I woke up very hungry. I cuddled around my pack for warmth, though I knew my
twenty degree bag was warm. I worried that those inside the shelter could hear me rustling around, that
I was being rude, that I was offensive in every way.
Eventually I told myself that this was nonsense, that I was crazy for thinking such things. The
shelter was made of stone, after all. There was no way they could hear me.
I climbed out of the tent with the intention of taking a breather and a piss.
I was amazed. Just walking through the grass behind a tree was a fairy tale trip in itself. The
bushes and grass pouffed gently with the wind. Clean, black night. Fine stars. Cold, absolutely silent. I
was in the middle of nowhere. And I didn't realize that this lightness I felt was the beginning of
starvation.
April 10, 8.7 mi
I heard a car go by to my right on the way to Clingman's Dome. Excited, I tore through the
tallgrass up the embankment of a real, paved road. With paint on it and everything! I'd intersected with
civilization.
I hitched a ride with a family of redheads in a minivan. They couldn't have been more safe.
They even had a rainbow peace sign window sticker decoration.
I regaled them with tales of my hiking but they'd already been party to the beauty of the
Smokeys for five days. I stared out the window, amazed at the beauty of the vivid green forest and the
many rivers that gushed along near the road.
Very luckily, they were driving right then to a grocery store in Gatlinberg. An otherwise quiet
child piped up in order to inform me they were having sausages for dinner that night. I hadn't eaten
anything in well over 24 hours, and not well for about a week, and my insides squealed together at this
news.
My trail resupply skills were still developing. I spent more time ogling the new strains of
Budweiser than finding the actual food I needed. In the end I gathered the following into my cart:
-1 giant tub of oatmeal
-a bunch of bananas
-a plastic bag full of Reese's Easter eggs
-1 “valu pak” of brown sugar (for the morning oatmeal)
That was it.
I'd calculated it out awhile ago, that if I ate only ramen for the duration of the trip, two times a
day, I could make it to Maine with the money I had left. But once I saw the bananas it was over. And
they had Marlboros on sale for $3.65 a pack! I bought two of the Marlboro Blacks, knowing that
nothing could stop me from thru-hiking, even being broke less than two weeks in.
“That's all you're getting?” the father asked me as I stood in the cigarette counter's que.
“Yep.” He looked skeptical, which was all well and good, but...what? You gonna donate
something? OK then.
Back in the car, I found my pack still safe inside. The beautiful mother who'd sat in the middle
seat opposite me on the ride over offered to take me back inside the park.
Well, that'll keep me from walking back in and buying a case of beer. Great.
Gatlinberg was an alarming circus to behold after the peace of the woods. It didn't seem to make
any sense amidst the majestic natural beauty of the Smokeys. Boardwalk fried food, a haunted house
attraction, pinball machines, piercing stores, and flashing, gaudy lights were fun to look at – from
inside the car. I knew that if I ever set foot in that place it'd be over. All my money would be spent at
the first sports grill I came across, and I wouldn't be able to go hiking for days. So I was ostensibly
thankful for the ride.
By the time I climbed to the Icewater Spring Shelter everyone was asleep inside and the shelter
was full. Thin Timber was awake on the bottom level though, and he lifted his head to see me when I
pulled the plastic wind screen aside. I just gaped for a few seconds, then quickly turned around and
went about setting up my tent.
April 11, 12.6 mi
The night before had been well below freezing, and with windchill who knows how cold it
actually was. My tent was still staked to the grass but at some point in the night my rainfly had blown
half off. It flapped in the wind, holding on by only two of the four hooks, and my upper mesh dome
capping the tent exposed me to the ruthless wind.
Despite the rainfly issue, I hadn't woken up or been disturbed at all from inside my sleeping bag.
I had my earplugs in.
Oh yeah, Thin Timber had given me those stakes also.
He probably ripped off my fly, the crazy. Just to make sure I wasn't in there with anyone else.
Once I got out of my bag I immediately felt the urgency of my situation. I had to move quickly
in order not to seize up with cold. Very soon my hands didn't have the dexterity to take down my own
tent. I couldn't bend my fingers or straighten them out flat at all. To my horror, they hung useless from
my arms, inert claws.
Finally impatient with my being in the wind, I fumbled with my outer wind jacket shell until my
hands were covered behind the cuffs. Somehow I maneuvered the poles of my tent out of the locks at
each corner. Palming everything clumsily with my now balled fists jammed inside my jacket, I took the
tent down.
“Brrrrhuhuhhrrr!” I let out a trebbling cry as I threw the (thankfully plastic) poles down, folded
up. “Bruh.uh.uh.rrre.rrrheh!” Stoccato nonsense as I kneeled, still without the use of my hands, swift
winds blowing, folding up my tent into thirds.
I rolled it up fast, stuffing the loose tent hurredly into my pack, and dashed out of the wind into
the shelter to blow feeling back into my hands. It was still freezing inside the near vacated stone shelter
so I decided to move on. I really would have had some serious problems if I hadn't made those arm
warmers.
I left without refilling my water bladder at the spring because I couldn't bear the thought of any
water splashing onto my hands when I'd kneel down to fill up my two liters. The thought of sitting still
for however long the water would take to trickle in actually frightened me.
I literally ran from the shelter down the trail, hopping from rock to rock, islands above the
sheath layer of ice which had frozen between them.
The Marlboro blacks sure didn't help my pace, and in that altitude I'm surprised I was able to
hike at all, much less thirteen miles before eight o'clock that evening. I guess it was sheerly because of
the cold. It motivated me to keep moving, first over large flatrock stones piled up everywhere on the
trail. Then slowly uphill, still a stoney path underfoot, but canopied in by a tunnel of fresh-smelling
pines. They were so thick together that it was dark in there. I could smell the sap. Everything about that
day was crip and cool.
Mostly, the going was uphill on the same ridge of the same mountain, all day. To the uninitiated
this may sound like the worst sort of punishment. But to me it just meant that there were mountains that
big within walking distance of my home – and I was on them right then. What joy!
When the sun finally rose above the ranges to my right I lingered on a ledge of strangelycolored flatstones which had chipped off from the grand backing of chisling crumble behind me.
Wonderful colors. Vivid orange bleached by the sun to a chalky matte. I kicked and eroded away the
slates at my feet and just underneath the wet rocks were a rich red. I looked out upon the scene of
successive mountains in the early morning calm. The wind was to my back behind that huge, hollow
alcove I mentioned. I felt calm and relieve. The sun rose steadily over the land of my pilgrimage, the
land of my choosing.
I made tracks getting to Tri-Corner Knob shelter because I didn't detour the .5 (and back) for the
water at Pecks Corner (five miles back). I'd been chain smoking since I sensed a general downward
trend in elevation. Before, I'd tentatively smoke only a half, they were so strong. But they weren't
menthols, i.e. the “strong” quality was just bad. Black lung is what you get in two packs of Marlboro
Blacks or 20 years of coal mining. So I popped my head around the thick plastic flap to the shelter very
thirsty and wheezing like a barbarian.
Stepping inside was just like time travel. To begin with, the plastic curtain reminded me of the
70's or maybe just an oldfashioned car wash, but I can't pick just one decade to sum up the situation I
found behind the curtain.
There was a young man with a wide-brimmed hat and a middle aged couple, Zora and
Handyman, who I'd met the day before. This shelter, as with all the shelters in the Smokeys, was made
completely of stone with a wide bed of wooden plank serving as the sleeping area topped with another
upper tier of wooden space, the second story. There was a dusty, dirt floor and a built-in fireplace by the
door. A large, glass skylight was above.
I staked my place out on the top row near the young man. I wanted to talk with him but he
seemed reticent and rather snobby to judge by his body language. Or perhaps he just appeared that way
with his refined air, finely cut beard, and very nice accent.
“Where are you from, anyway?” I asked.
“Atlanta.”
Well, damn! I could listen to you talk all day.
At first he was only curt with his answers but eventually we were speaking freely. His name was
Hitchcock. I laughingly described to him the plot line of the old movie The Birds, but he'd gotten his
trail name from his own last name and he'd never known the film. He offered me some kale, a
lightweight seaweed he'd thought to carry dry with him in two nalgene bottles. It was wonderfully crisp
and delicious. I like greens and I hadn't had any vegetables at all in nearly a month. I thought it was an
ingenious way to stay healthy while hiking.
I asked him what else he'd brought, and he spread his store out in front of me on his mat. I was
surprised by the heavy fruits like apples. Then I remembered my bananas. I guess we were both willing
to carry that particular kind of weight. It was worth it.
It was so lovely to talk with him after the long day of hiking, and he was very strikingly
handsome. Tall, slight, and graceful. No sudden movements about him, and such ease, as if nothing
were too big of a deal. Auburn hair, so neat.
Later in the evening we both tended to the fire. I gathered wood from outside and he set it up.
We sat there late into the night, building the fire up in silence. Sometimes he'd get down on his chest
near the floor and blow into the embers. That would spark the fire up again for a good twenty minutes.
We didn't talk much then but just enjoyed the warmth and each other.
At one point I went outside the shelter with the intention of smoking a cigarette but a young girl
offered me some buffalo chicken Mountain House dinner. She and her mother had arrived at the shelter
late, apparently. I gladly took her up on her offer. She and her mother had tortillas to wrap the meal in,
and they hadn't been able to finish the packet.
As I ate, and praised them both amply for their kindness, the mother, who wore a very strange,
tassled hat, explained to me that she'd been wanting to go camping for years but that there was never
time, no, never any time at all – and then Katie's classmates were too afraid to stay in the woods for
more than one night.
She offered me some rum and I sipped it straight out of a plastic bottle, savoring the taste as it
went down warm. I asked Katie about the camera she had around her neck.
“It's for a school project. We're taking pictures that show human emotion.”
“Oh! The pictures will be fun to look over when you get them developed. Do you take any of
the mountains, still lifes?”
“No, just people.”
“But you'll remember the wilderness, no doubt.” She looked down at her camera, then back at
me.
“You're a thru-hiker?” Curious, interested.
“Yes.”
“Can I take pictures of you?”
“Yes.”
She got a great one of Hitchcock and me sitting back by the fireplace. He was reaching in
towards the fire to tend to it, filling it in expertly with thin twigs, and I had my head turned over my
shoulder to look at her, a beatific, calm face with a weary smile and thick-lidded eyes.
(here, Stephanie Haaser gets up from the desk in John's Hopkins Hospital where she's been writing out
this novel on unlined printer paper. Her window faces Wolfe Street and the columned entryway of
a grand, white building. SCHOOL OF HYGIENE AND PVBLIC HEALTH. She puts the 82
handwritten pages in a blue folder smattered with blood.)
April 12, 7.7 mi
I said goodbye to everyone at the shelter, made sure to get my water from the convenient
pipeline channeling the spring out of the rock right in front, then we all went our separate ways. We
were all on the same trail but had different paces. Hitchcock left first, I followed, then Katie and her
mother went about their own way too.
That night I nearly lost my temper while trying to get some sleep in the Cosby Knob Shelter. A
father and his boys were heckling with each other and sharing s'mores with the rest of the hikers and I
couldn't get comfortable. Of course I wanted some chocolate. And I love teenage boys. But especially
after it got dark and my earplugs didn't help much, I decided to be proactive and get some sleep
wherever I could. I sat up, hurredly gathered my things together, and stormed out of the place and down
the steep hill in the dark. There was a perfect tenting area down there that I'd seen when I'd come upon
the shelter. I'd been so happy at that time to be the only one around. But the place had sure filled up.
“Damn day hikers!” I thought to myself as I tried to set my tent up as quickly as possible. I was
exhausted. After I was done I thought no more of the screeching children. I didn't waste any more of
my precious energy on anger. I unzipped just enough of the tent flap to roll myself inside. I didn't want
a single bug in my tent!
April 13, 15.1 mi
I woke up and heard some gentle rustlings from inside the tent pitched in front of mine on the
same flat. Reluctant to get up immediately, I turned onto my side in my spacious tent and began the
endless process of organizing my food and gear.
When I heard the sound of a zipper, I likewise unfurled myself to the world to find Gumby in
her tent right across from me.
“Hey C.V.!”
“Well hello!” I replied. “I thought you were with the Wolf Pack.” The thought of Thin Timber
titillated me in a completely inappropriate way now that we'd split up. I didn't want to be anywhere near
him, but I wouldn't have minded knowing his whereabouts. “They're not here, are they?”
“No, they fell behind. They've been hitching into towns, going to restaurants, and getting really
drunk. I kind of got tired of it so I left. Besides, I'm going to meet up with my boyfriend soon when we
get to Tennessee.”
“How long will it be before we get there?” I knew I had a map and that I'd check later, but the
thought of a new state first thing in the morning was too exciting. I was grateful she'd reminded me.
“I think it's about ten miles, but we pass through the northern boundary of the Park today in
eight.”
“Really?” I was ecstatic. I'd hiked through the Smokey Mountains in just seven days.
O
The first few hours maintained the altitude I'd gotten used to. I walked across the highest, open
crests, the sun shining bright even in the early morning. I saw from the highest point for miles around.
Later in the morning I felt slightly sick, upset to my stomach, so I spent a good two hours laying
by the side of the trail in the sun, my matt further padded by the mounds of cushioning tallgrass. A pair
of thru-hikers, a guy and a girl, passed by me and simply smiled, waved a friendly greeting. They
understood. This rest was all part of the process.
The descent out of the Smokeys took me all the second half of the day. At first I was enamored
with the seasonal change; at some point during my descent of over 5,000 feet it became green again.
The Smokeys had offered dips back into fields between mountains where a rare, pink blossomed tree
could be seen, but as the hours passed and I zig zagged down, I realized I'd really walked into spring.
April 14, 5.4 mi
I dallied at every opportunity. A hunger had set into me and I ate just about all I had. I made
bowl after bowl of brown sugared oatmeal. (It didn't help that Thin Timber had given me the bowl I ate
out of.) Perhaps my sweet tooth introduction had carried over from the previous day when I'd snacked
on most of the bag of Reese's eggs. My stomach was sick of sugar but it was still in my system, which
had been broken into the taste of it, so I craved it all the more. I stopped a few times to spork spoonfuls
of plain brown sugar right into my mouth.
I threw down my pack at Brown Gap and searched for my cigarettes. Gumby came along and
we chatted for a bit. She was excited to see her boyfriend (who was a Tennessee local like herself) but
was unsure of how to reach him. Her cell phone hadn't had service for days and all she knew was that
he would be waiting for her around Max Patch.
I lit a Marlboro black and clumsily offered her the use of my cell phone. Then I thought about
this for a second and realized my cell phone was definitely out of range.
“What?” she called back from the hill as she walked on.
“Uh, nothing. Don't worry about it.”
“I'll see you down the way!”
“Have a good time.”
I leaned up against a large rock and twiddled someone's abandoned walking stick in my hands.
Bored, I tried it out, but trudging along with a huge piece of wood felt ridiculous to me. So I went back
to my post of stationary exhaustion. Let the minutes pass. Vaguely wished that someone would come
along.
Not ten minutes later a cavalcade of exterior frame racecars appeared. They swerved to a halt in
the dust a few yards from my rock, hooting and calling happily to each other. There were three in all
but it felt like more. It sounded like about twenty people. There was music from a built-in system along
with the jovial exuberance of men out on a weekend, beers in hand.
I puffed on the cigarette stub seductively, definitely wanting to be a part of this pit stop. At last!
Oh lord, the one with the teenage boy in his car was hot! Light brown hair which was just long enough
to get into his eyes. Friendly, easygoing smile, slight build but tall. I was so drawn to him that I actually
walked right over, slowly, one foot in front of the other. It was that natural – and my confidence isn't
normally overflowing, either.
“Hey girl, you one of those hikers?” the cute one asked, seeing as how I was staring.
“Yeah,” I replied. “But you guys beat my ride, I gotta say.” They laughed appreciatively. I
rapped on the pipe frame and asked them where they'd gotten the cars.
“We built 'em.” Man he had a nice smile! And his jeans fit so well.
“Really? That's amazing!” On second look, of course they'd have to be man made. They were
too individualized and asymmetrical (and probably unsafe) to come out of a factory.
“My name's Josh. And this is Daniel.” The boy shyly looked up at me through his father's
tousling hands. What a beautiful boy! What an awesome thing for them to share together, and in such
scenery. I agreed completely.
Josh offered me a beer and I told them about my hike so far. They seemed impressed because
they'd never spoken to a hiker in depth before. One of Josh's friends felt the weight of my pack and
laughed, bending over, feigning strain.
“You're crazy, girl” was the general verdict. Hmmm, maybe he wasn't just feigning strain.
“You wanna take a ride?” Josh asked me.
Hell yes I wanna take a ride. I smiled and nodded.
“Could I have one of those Marlboro's?” he asked.
Sure. It was my last one but I really didn't care.
Just then a woman pulled up in a truck and Daniel relocated, hefting my pack with him. The
boys introduced the woman as June. She looked me over and nodded a hello. Stoic, careful. Nice,
blowdried, big hair. June. She drove the mother ship to their jets. She noticed my empty pack of
cigarettes and handed me a few Marlboro golds through the window. I got in beside Josh and we were
ready to go.
We flew over the loose rock and screeched around corners, racing the other cars in the broad
lane. The beer cooler was in the back of our car, Josh offered me another, so I reached back and got
another one for each of us.
“You can pick the music if you want.” Josh handed me a folder full of CDs. He had everything
from Christina Aguilera to bluegrass. No house, top 40, or R&B though. I loved this guy!
Distracted, my hands moved to his body. Up his thigh, through his hair, hugged his arm against
my chest. He looked back at me and I smiled in awe. Here was a tanfaced, blue-eyed angel, and he was
all mine, right here, right now.
“I think you should stay for awhile,” Josh told me. My 2,000 mile mission, the one I'd waited to
experience forever, actually didn't compel me to respond to his serious proposal with any excuses. I just
smiled, knew nothing could keep me from the trail for long, but I enjoyed this moment in the sun. A
fast one. Matched me, was just my type.
The boys had been let off and Josh and I returned with Daniel to his driveway. We parked at the
bottom because the driveway was backed up by two Mercedes Benzs. As we walked up to the front
door we passed a few hefty blondes with straightened hair leaning up against the nice cars. I stared at
one of them and she stared back at me with a cow's dumb blankness. It reminded me of the glance I got
from a girl at a club when my friend Paul had been demonstrating how to dance up on her, how I, the
girl, should be dancing.
“You're the whitest girl I know,” he derided me, as if that were something bad. Besides, I love to
dance and I don't feel my expressive medium belongs to any one race but all of them, at different times.
“What?” I laughed it off because we'd been flirting for months now. I liked him.
“Here, I'll show you.” He took me over to a girl, big ass, proper hair, dumb smug look on her
ugly face, and he told her to dance.
It was the most disgusting scene I've ever laid eyes on. I'm not saying the proficiency with which
she moulded her ass into his crotch wasn't stylized and, yes, difficult. I'm saying it made me burn inside
to see him in this light. I knew he was better than this. And so was I.
I was torn away from the mug of the girl with the car (who I could have sworn had big fuzzy
ears to flick away flies) by Josh's hand at my elbow. I turned to him in confusion, lost in my memories
of the past. Who were they? But he just jilted his eyebrows in their direction with a straight pleading
look on his face: don't be like that.
Easy enough. I opened the pretty glass door to his long, one-story house on the vibrant green
lawn and let him into his own house without a twinge of questioning or expectation, a smile on my
face. You see, all the while my mind was on the trail and this wasn't even real life anymore. It couldn't
be because it wasn't my trail life, where I spent the majority of my waking and sleeping hours.
I showered with reckless abandon in the charming glass bathroom. The water ran watery black, I
was so dirty. But I looked so tan and healthy in the fogged up mirror. Alive, free, beautiful. Testing the
towels on my skin, I made sure I wouldn't get them dirty, then dried myself and flipped my hair up into
an Egyptian headdress.
Josh opened the door a crack to ask if I needed anything. I walked over and locked my fingers
behind his neck, caressing his messy brown hair between my fingers, bringing him down to my naked
breasts. Everything smelled alarmingly clean.
“Yes. I need deodorant.” I kissed his face. He really did have the nicest smile. “And...do you
have any conditioner?” I let the towel drop and tossed my hair. It was slightly matted and very dry.
“Nothing like that here,” he said, obviously giving me the look, up and down. Appreciative,
turned-on. I laughed jubilently and backed him up, pressing the door closed between.
I used one of the toothbrushes to clean my teeth then put the bathroom back together. Towels
hung up, no water on the floor. When I walked out into the master bedroom wearing only a towel Josh
asked if I'd like any laundry done before dinner. Dinner? God that sounded good. Very pleased, I gave
him everything I owned and had been wearing. It was grimy, creased with dirt, and I felt proud of its
use. Josh handed me some of Daniel's clothes to pull into: a t-shirt that was baggy on me and
bootlegged jeans. I looked ridiculous with my damaged, frizzy hair and in these clothes but I didn't
care. I had the face of an angel.
On a tentative exploration of the house, I discovered another bathroom with women's products
in it, including conditioner. I palmed some into my hand and raked it through my drying hair.
After Daniel had showered and thrown the towels back on the floor, we all got back in the truck
to drive around for a bit. I got shotgun and enjoyed playing with the radio, watching the town of Grassy
Fork go by. We picked up June and the two men who'd gone racing in the cars with us. Josh pulled over
for every neighbor and exchanged greetings with them, introduced me every time.
“That guy we just talked to,” Josh leaned over and told me, “hits the pipe a little too much.”
“What, like weed?”
“Nope. Crack.”
“Oh, shit.” I took another sip of the Coors in my cupholder. I was feeling slightly buzzed at this
point and down for whatever. But no crack. I was pretty satisfied with how the day was developing.
June wanted to go to the top of the hill for some homemade wine. Apparently a local made his
own, served over ice.
“Wait'll you taste it!” she yelled from behind me. The music blared as we swerved up the long
driveway to the very top. There was an old wooden house, dark and weathered white in the cracks, with
a porch running along its length. Pots and pans hung from the beams outside. Nobody even bothered
getting out. Josh just honked the horn and screamed.
“Jerry! Heeeey, JEERY!” Next thing I knew there was a bearded man in worn overalls, no shirt
of shoes, handing plastic cups full of a pink liquid through the window. June made sure mine was only
half full. (“She knows how strong it is alright!” Josh warned me.) Iced wine. It was like crushed
blueberries, concentrated raspberries, more sweet than tart. Delicious. “Hey, hey, take your time with
that,” Josh said when he noticed how much I'd drunk in my first sip. So I put it down for awhile and got
him to give me a cigarette instead.
The music blared, we were about to merge onto the highway, but Josh lurched to a stop when he
saw a man he knew with his two little boys. I giggled from the front seat, I'd managed to save my drink.
I saw blonde, messy hair on the boys. They stood beside a delapidated, rusty tractor parked in the
median of the road. I had no idea what it was doing there, if they'd been fixing it or what. The man and
Josh exchanged friendly greetings and then we were on our way – with a pit stop for more beer first.
The gas station had a drive thru service with a beautiful, sleek-haired girl wearing a red tank top
showing off the glowing skin around her breasts and shoulders. She handed us two 30-packs of Coors,
two packs of Marlboro golds, and two Nos energy drinks for Daniel, grape flavored. Something for
everyone.
“Whose girl are you?” Josh wanted to know of the teller. As she told him, then pointed towards
the vague direction of her house, I was definitely jealous. She was so beautiful, bold. A sparkling
piercing dazzled me in her upper lip as she spoke. Here, there seemed to be complete freedom of
information, without any fear of consequences. I just smiled and tried to fit in, when really there
couldn't have been anyone more confused or unganily than I really was, underneath my mask of
drunkenness. Either Josh could sense my doubt or he was always so generous but he tossed me one of
the packs and lit my cigarette for me. I thanked him, easing my shoulders back a bit, trying not to pout.
I finished off the rest of that wine.
As we drove on towards dinner, the sun melted into all my favorite colors ahead of me as the
metal sidings and the car itself protected me. There was no sense of moving forward, just of everything
in the world fading fast on both sides as I sat completely still in a chair. The carseat was warm and
comfortable.
At the steakhouse I got made fun of for ordering chicken, but that's what I'd been craving. I got
ribs on the side as a sort of apology but couldn't even finish them because Daniel and I had eaten so
much of the bread and butter. Besides, my stomach had shrunk in the Smokey Mountains.
We spent most of our time talking, though I can't recall exactly about what. I sat between Josh
and Daniel on one bench, June across from me in the booth with the two men, relations unknown. At
some point I ordered a Budweiser but Josh had to draw the line at that and ordered a Coors for me. Our
pregnant waitress discussed her due date with the table as I forked up Josh's ranch salad. I hate ranch.
She looked like she was about ready to have the baby either that day or tomorrow.
It was hard to get back into the truck again, I remember. Not because I was drunk but because I
was so full. It was unusual. And the truck was so high up. As we sped back towards Grassy Fork, Josh
said that he was beginning to think I was an alcoholic.
“Are you an alcoholic?” Beer in his hand, he turned to me from the wheel and asked me.
“Well, probably,” I answered, knowing full well that I definitely am. I'm too awkward in public
without it, but when I drink it's to the bitter ends. I couldn't just enjoy going kyacking with my friends
outside of PT sessions or doing anything else like a normal person. If I wasn't working out or scheming
different sexual scenerios (which never came to fruition anyway) I didn't know what to do with myself.
Drinking was the only solution, a solution propagated by Feener, the people I'd lived with back before
my hike, everybody.
“I'm buying you some fireball whiskey,” Feener leaned in and told me. I caved immediately,
grinned at her in grateful assent, even though I'd just told her an hour ago “I don't drink.”
Yeah right! You do now! Besides, you look so stiff. You can't even dance or have a good time.
“She has a point, a very good one,” I thought to myself as I watched her deftly place an order
in under a minute. All she did was yell out the name of the bartender, who I guess she knew, and we had
drinks in front of us.
Then shit got weird.
Now Feener can handle anything. She's like me in that she doesn't have a car, we're both
college graduates, and women, the only women who PT four times a week in Columbia. But the
relation pretty much ends there. She gets around. Socially. Where it matters. She forges meaningful,
useful connections, (works three jobs), and whenever she can't get a ride to PT she walks along the
highways for over two hours just to be there. She was my hero from the moment I met her.
About four or five shots later the two of us were still at the bar, staring at each other. I was
listening to her talk about work, how stressful it was. She looked so beautiful. Her animated face was
so bright as she spoke to me with shining, lively eyes. Pink lips. Face dotted with freckles. She had her
red curly hair up in a loose bun and her black and white shirt was draped loosely across her shoulders.
It was one of the first times I'd ever really dared to look at her. Really look. Sure, we'd gotten clean
undressed right in front of each other a few times in the women's restroom after running around in the
rain, but this was different. I didn't feel on her level or on anyone's level anymore. All I could do was
observe, love, and pine. Once again I was frozen.
A herd of pressing human bodies ran into Feener like a moving wall. Stunned, I sat on my stool
unable to fathom how one minute she'd been sitting there and the next she was gone. She'd been thrown
off her seat down onto the ground, under the trampling feet of some very heavy, fighting black women.
“Watch out – or you'll get it.” Theus had clearly told me to cut it out from all the way across the
room. I'd been dancing in the wrong section in the wrong way earlier and I knew that. But I didn't stop.
I can still picture him, standing a head taller than everyone else, telling me. But I wouldn't listen.
“You look like a clown when you dance!!” Paul's brother Luke had almost pushed me. He was
really drunk, hurt and angry that I wouldn't dance with him. I only wanted to dance with Paul.
“What the fuck?” Grant and Komarov had found us. They helped Feener up off the ground. She
was alright but bleeding from the knee. She was worried she wouldn't be able to be shipped out next
week because of her open cut. Apparently there's some rule against that. And she'd already waited two
years. It had been two years of red tape and the neutralizing out of visible tattoos. That one little cut
made a very tough girl nervous. Grant dipped out through the throng to go get some napkins. I
definitely felt safer with Komarov standing there. He was the strongest guy in our group about to be
government property and he definitely could break somebody's arm if there was any more trouble. But
hadn't Paul pointed to a suspicious-looking duffle bag on the dance floor? Nobody bothered to search
that? All of us could be dead, no matter how strong we were, if one person had a gun or three. None of
our lives would matter. The things we'd aspired to, done.
NO:
-beggars,
-thieves, or
-women of ill repute
Paul had shown me the sign on the wall. He stood right under it facing me so that I'd have no
choice but to see it. Eventually. He waited there a long time for me to stop staring at him and move my
eyes upwards to read what it said. After I finally did I understood and felt sheepishly afraid. But after a
few more drinks somewhere both my fear and all the signs were blissfully forgotten. I was dancing with
myself and I didn't give a fuck. Feener, Grant, and Komarov were with me. We formed our own circle.
“Are you leaving with us or are you staying?” It was Paul. He'd driven me here, along with
Theus and Luke and Bianca. I'd said I wanted to go and we'd come. I don't think any of them really
wanted to. Even I didn't want to go after they'd dressed me down, after he made me sit in the back. I
wanted to be up there with him. But it hadn't worked out that way.
“I'm gonna stay with my friends,” I told him, gesturing over my shoulder. Paul stiffened, drew
himself up, looked behind me at them, and said:
“She's your bitch!” When he said it he made some kind of hand gesture. He pointed at them
with a two-pronged claw, his index and middle finger stretched. Then he turned around and left.
What the fuck?
I felt like I'd been traded. Somebody at the beginning of time or whenever things had started to
go downhill had traded a chance to be with me for some strategic move of power. There was something
very wrong here, with all of this. I was very angry.
“Oh, but so many people are alcoholics, and is it the person or in fact everything else that's
actually the problem?” I addressed this last to the windshield in front of me, tapered it off really nice
until I hid my voice in the music. There'd been silence, my voice, and now there would be more music.
The freaking Verve. Whatever comes.
Blackout.
Back in! We're in front of June's house, the men go with her. There are little dogs yapping
around outside her house and I fall out of the front seat to pet them.
In again! “How do you get this thing wet?” Josh acts like he's never fucked a pussy before. He
did say I stole Daniel's space in the bed, but I hate it when guys play dumb.
“I don't know.” About an hour later I stagger around in the dark, find the bathroom and
thankfully throw up all the alcohol I've drank that day. My body will be able to function tomorrow.
“Ugh, Outback!” Josh laughs from the bedroom. Good one.
April 15, 3.5 mi
The next morning I walked into the living room to find Daniel passed out on the couch in front
of the TV. He looked so cute with his mouth open, chin thrown forward on a pillow.
I took a look at what was on TV and gathered it was some skater show. I went to the kitchen,
found some Doritos, opened a few plastic easter eggs worth of pastel-wrapped kit kats, then sat down
side saddle like on a comfortable leather chair next to the couch on which Daniel slept. My legs are too
short to hit the ground.
I woke Daniel up with my laughing. The show, which was some sort of “Jackass” ripoff, was
pretty hilarious.
“Oh, goodmorning,” I said apologetically.
“Mrrrmph.” That was all the recognition I got.
“You lazy brats!” Josh was up and stood in the hallway. Clean white t-shit and he'd slipped on
some plaid boxers. He looked good. Very disarming. He tiredly walked over to the couch, swatted
Daniel's limbs out of the way, then leaned on his son with all his weight in morning greeting.
“I'm groggy as hell.”
“Dad!” Daniel was awake now. “Moooove!” He squirmed under the weight and laughed. They
shoved and elbowed each other around a bit, negotiating space on the couch.
“And how are you?” Josh asked me.
“I feel fine.”
“If you woke up you're doing better than me, I can't party like that anymore. I'm too old.”
“Yeah right,” I laughed. “How old are you?”
“Forty-three.” I'd thought he was no more than thirty based on his slight, fit build. I eventually
decided that his age was irrelevant or sublimely stilled in what I'd recently started to recognize as the
alcoholic way. Skin and bone, seductive demons.
“Do you want anything besides Doritos and candy for breakfast?” Josh asked.
“Not really. This is hiker dream fare.”
“No, no, that's not right. I'll find something. We have, uh...” -”Nothing!” Daniel interjected “We've got to have something.”
He made us hotdogs on the porch grill, slightly charred, and Daniel warmed up to me because I
kept cracking up watching his show.
“You've never seen this show before?” Total disbelief in his voice.
“Not really. I don't watch TV much.”
“Freak.”
Daniel's mother stopped by for a bit with her boyfriend and dropped off a five-year old girl
named Kyleigh. Her mother wasn't able to take care of her. Josh told me she was the child from another
marriage, also ended at this point.
I'm very imaginative and can engage children easily, but it's only about the present moment for
me. In awhile I knew I'd be gone.
I played with her for hours, but I soon tired of her repetitive requests to say the same things, to
put the toy stethoscope to her heart and listen. I had an obsession within me to see more. Nothing about
thru-hiking, about walking over two thousand miles across fourteen states, is natural. Believe me, I
realize that. But I am a thru-hiker.
“I don't understand you,” Josh said to me sadly.
That's OK.
I finished my second bottle of Bud and put on my pack. Josh's eyes twinkled as he grabbed the
glass from me and threw it in the back of his truck. He kissed me good, we held each other for awhile,
then he was waving goodbye to me through his car window as I climbed up away from the dusty road
into the trees.
O
I wasn't relieved at first to be back on the trail. I'd been loaded down with extra pounds of Little
Debbie cakes, peanut butter, and Easter candy from Josh's kitchen. I'd also foolishly accepted a large
dispenser of hand sanitizer and a heavy cotton sweatshirt from Daniel.
Lazy, in limbo between everything being handed to me in the passenger seat of a pickup and
then the Appalachian Trail, where I had to carry my own shelter and food in a now 41 lb pack, I caved
and made an easy mistake: I unpacked the black Addidas sweatshirt and the stupid tub of liquid and left
them on a log.
I hadn't littered much heretofore (and “littering,” not donating, what they call it out there)
mainly because I felt so guilty about all the ramen packages I'd hurdled into the woods during my one
month section hike in 2010. I'd been hyped up day and night on the strongest dose of a poorman's
Dexadrine called Vyvanse, racing across the plains of New York like a displaced cheetah, stopping only
to grudgingly wait for unheated water to soften the noodles, “broken up for more surface area, access” I
told myself. The only food I could afford to carry with me during most of that month, the noodles I
prepared in their own packaging, slobbering them up into my face when I was done, no utensils.
And I still didn't have many things this time around, but I swear you pick up a plastic spork and
you make a bid for having a conscience. Although I was temporarily weary, I knew that regret was far
heavier to carry than any material thing. For example: upon seeing a candy wrapper on the Trail one
day, Thin Timber had picked it up and brusquely stowed it away in one of those ingenious side pockets
he had on his pack. “That disgusts me!” he sighed. “I mean, one person on the edge of being a slob
could see that and think it's OK to be a litter bug the rest of the way.” True, true.
“Hey!” A male voice yelled from behind. “Hey, uh...excuse me!”
“Yeah?” I turned around, drunkenly switching feet out from underneath me as the front half of
my boots rebalanced on the same strategic rock jutting out slightly from the otherwise incessant upward
slide of this Godforsaken mountain.
“Did you just leave a sweater and some hand sanitizer back there?” The speaker was (you
guessed it) a bearded man followed by another, and he was actually taking me to task here. I threw back
something lighthearted about how “someone else might need them” and I let the two pass me.
These items were worth zero (negative, actually) on the trail, and I knew it. Cotton, while warm
and comforting, doesn't dry easily and is very heavy. And hand sanitizer? If eating fowls with their
hands is good enough for the Gentiles, the hiker I aspire to be would just deal.
When I saw the sign that said it was .6 mi to the top of Max Patch, I was frustrated and worn
out. I decided to take a break. I was in no hurry and rarely felt any pressure to do more mileage than my
body walked naturally. I sat on the rare wooden steps and caught my breath until Spam from the Wolf
Pack showed up and sat beside me. We warmed up for awhile talking about theatre until Spam asked:
“So what's going on with you and Thin Timber?” He raised his expressive eyebrows and leveled
with me by turning towards me. Even though it didn't occur to me that there could have been missives
sent by others looking through Spam's eyes, I was still tactful and kept my guard up.
“I don't know. I just got a feeling we didn't jive.” It was true. By this time it had dawned on me
that the slanted eye glare thrown at me by Peach at Fontana Dam might have actually meant something.
Whereas my facial expressions rarely reflect upon the present situation or company, other people are
purposeful and keen.
“Yeah, Thin Timber is a bit of a control freak,” said Spam.
“Why do you say that?”
“Classic Thin Timber, OK: he'll tell everyone at the campsite that we need to gather firewood,
then he'll sit in his hammock and watch everyone else do it without helping.” I thought of that strange
laugh he'd extinguish a cackling mob with sometimes. It didn't seem to come from the same place as his
speaking voice. Maybe he really was just an asshole.
“Where were you this whole time?” Spam delicately raised a splay of tan fingers to the side of
his face. I felt more comfortable due to his own ease of movements and charm. I couldn't help but to
brag at least a little.
“Oh it was a great time, tried homemade wine and everything! Delicious. Went out with some
locals for awhile.”
“Tony Hawk?”
“What?”
“Your sweater, C.V.”
“Oh, I got this at the house from somebody's son. Hey, do you want to keep moving? I can't
believe it's another .6. I just want to be at the top.”
“Why not?”
He moved far ahead in the flat stretch before the hill. Brittle trees arched over me and the
leaning piles of golden tallgrass could be seen to form a bumpy surface for miles on the left and the
right. As I trekked up the large green hill I heard Spam trying to carry on a cellphone conversation.
“Can you hear me? Now? Yes. I'm on Max Patch now in Tennessee. Yes. Oh, hey C.V.” Feeling
awkward, I threw out a “Hey, what's going on?” before realizing his was one of those interjected
“hey's,” he was on the phone, and I had just as well not have said anything. It's not like he would
respond. “I'm retarded,” I thought to myself as I passed him. “Oh, C.V.is a girl on the trail, another
hiker,” I could hear Spam relating as I made the crest of the hill.
I was delighted to find the perfect area for my rest. Max Patch was more than the name given to
the summit, for the whole top of the large hill was a vast flat space. The view was the best I'd seen so
far, with a full spectrum of rainbow colors, from the green and purple hues of the hills in the distance to
the vibrant reds and oranges and yellows of fall foliage which could be seen on clusters of trees far
below in the valley. The farmland was sparsely populated with a few farmhouses. The remnants of old
wooden gates had been erected at one end leading off to another, unknown trail.
Thankful for the whole of it, unsure of where to sit down, I kept walking about taking in Max
Patch from different angles. I curved my way about the edge of the flat circle, then threw my pack
down and leaned up against it. I got a beer out of my pack's top compartment and cracked it open.
After some minutes I heard happy screaming behind me.
“Gumby! Hey Gumby, over here!” Spam had made the hill and Gumby had come back from
visiting with her local boyfriend. I guessed that's who she had with her. Even from far away I could see
her steady smile, the bright green Northface shirt she always wore.
“The hills are aliiiive, with the sound of music – AhhhhuhahAAAHHHHH!!” Spam twirled as
he sang in operatic abandon, arms stretched out in a strange Maria. He immediately reduced me to wild
laughter. I hugged my pack to me for support as I rocked back and forth.
“That's good, that's really good!” I managed to call, tears coming from my eyes.
“Stop it, Spam,” Gumby met him in the center and caught him by the shoulders. And, in a stage
whisper: “You'll scare the little kids!”
“I don't see any little kids around heeere!” he shouted and panned to each side of our company.
“Right over there, look.” Gumby pointed to the far side of the flat from us. Sure enough, there
was not so much a family as a portrait of a family scene being painted over there where the sun still
shone brightly. The mother was dolling out water or tea or something to the two small children. She
wore a large sunhat, father sat across from her, and the two children (I imagined there was one boy and
one girl) sat peacefully and upright waiting for their portions.
“No shit?” Spam turned his back on the pastoral scene and sat down where he was. The four of
us relocated to the center where he sat and lay in the tufty grass, sharing whatever we had. Gummi
worms, Marlboro blacks, sympathetic looks. Spam told a long and entertaining story about being lost in
Berlin and how he ended up being in the throng of a moving protest. He'd had no clue what it was about
but got carried away with marching movements and shouting “Nein! Nein! Nein!”
“Can I die now?” Mattress Pad, the fabled last member of the Wolf Pack, had joined us. He'd
been struggling to keep up most of the way and I'd seen countless scrawled notes from Atlas telling him
to catch up. He collapsed into our circle, his long black hair blowing in the wind, a perpetually strange
triangle smile splitting his face. What he'd said didn't so much as lend a sullen air to our company (for it
was there, implied, all the while) but rather tore down the ridiculous facade of having a good time.
“Oh, c'mon, it can't be that bad,” Spam advised. He sat balanced on the balls of his feet in a
squat, elbows resting on his legs. His posture waited for the truth to be spoken, he was going to draw it
out of him with the contrary nature of his words. “Cheer up.”
“I don't feel like it,” Mattress Pad answered simply. Quiet and peaceful, he stared at the ground
for a good two minutes before looking up. His eyes fairly shone. I stared in wonder. After all, wasn't
this the voice of reason? A prophet to our mere philosophies. The truth had already been told, Mattress
Pad had just told us. We were all a bunch of idiots.
Spam produced a plastic bottle of peppermint snapps and threw it over to where Mattress Pad
lay, but he just picked it up and, with a disgusted look, tossed it right back. Spam sighed and with little
hesitation dished it across the circle at me. I remember well the slits his eyes made and how he didn't
look at me directly but instead pushed at an object which would presumably have a domino effect on
the other objects and we could get this party started already. Drink up, hiker trash. “Jesus,” I thought,
“This is the perfect time to take a drink.”
The overall tenor of our party did change but I remained silent. Saw people come and go with
little interest in what they said. The bottle of horrible-tasting stuff got passed around until it was gone
and soon Spam stood up to rally us onwards towards wherever we thought we were going. Gumby and
her quiet boyfriend said their farewells and walked back to his car in the parking lot. Squatch, who had
shown up for only ten minutes, was off at a pace which is difficult for anyone without his long legs to
match, so I followed Spam and Mattress Pad down the hill towards the AT on the other side.
“High on the hill was a lonely goat ho leighee yodelehee yodelei HEE-WHOOO!” Spam was at
it again, piping up in a happy melody which was totally absurd. “He yodelled back to the loney goat ho
yedlee yodeleihee yodulooo!”
I wondered why Mattress Pad would follow that madman, or follow anyone for that matter. An
unspeakable heaviness overcame me. It might have been strong aversion, it might have been empathy.
Whatever it was, it sent me veering off onto an unmarked trail to the left without a word. Panting, I set
up my tent out of view of the trail, got inside, and there remained for four days.
April 16, 0.0 mi
I woke up late to the sun casting irregular, swaying patterns on the thin green layer of fabric
above me. My purple polka dotted sleeping bag was comfortable, despite how I'd begun to hate the way
it reminded me of Dino. I hardly moved all day except to turn over onto my stomach in order to
prolong my sleep and stay in the womb. I had about a liter and a half of water left so I didn't even go in
search for a source, though I really should have. The amount of alcohol I'd consumed in the past few
days was unusual even for me. There had been diversity, even exposure to something completely new
like the iced wine. I was severely dehydrated.
I didn't know what time it was. The fast-paced events in Grassy Fork had left little time for me
to think of calling my mother, and I didn't have too many friends I was on speaking terms with anyway.
A steady rain had begun to fall. Too lazy to make dinner, I ate three fudge rounds and went back to
sleep.
April 17, 0.0 mi
Rain all day. I'd woken up in the dark around three because I'd slept so much the day before and
couldn't get back to peace. I was sheltered from the wind because I'd pitched well into the trees so I had
no reason to move or actually see what was going on around me. I lay catatonic in the dark for hours,
thinking about nothing most of the time. The rain drowned out my thoughts.
When I did think it was about strains of melody and lyrics from the Sondheim musical “Into the
Woods.” I delved into the meaning of them so much that I fancied I understood Cinderella's song
(which I'd sung onstage years ago) in a way that only the mature could. Alone in the dark without even
a hint of what time it really was – or what day – my lips moved to the music in my mind, every once
and awhile grimacing in recognition.
When there was gray light enough to see about the world inside of my tent, I noticed that it
wasn't completely waterproof. There were puddles about three inches in diameter wherever the old road
I'd pitched upon was uneven and dipped down slightly. And worst of all the fuzziest, fluffiest, most
important part of my down sleeping bag, the encased bit at the end where I keep my naked toes, had
gotten wet.
Considering that this was the first time in my hike when these ominous things occurred, I
showed a surprising lack of concern. I had nothing I could spare to wipe the puddles up (which would
only come back again), so I let them be. I made sure all of my sleeping bag lay on the ThermaRest,
which acted as a foam barrier between the wet, coarse plastic that was my tent floor and Dino. Then I
shut my eyes and listened to the rain until I fell back asleep.
April 18, 0.0 mi
I'd eaten so many Little Debbie cakes and moved so little that of course I felt terrible. I didn't
draw the normal conclusion as to why. “The Wolf Pack has poisoned me!” I moaned. Or I'd been
bewitched by the singular look in Mattress Pad's eyes, though I didn't think of him then.
I slowly eliminated things from the equation. “If I'm going to try anything new,” I thought, “it'll
be the sloughing off of effects.” I let my cigarettes sit exposed in the rain until they were soaked. I
perversely ate all the rest of my food, a vast quantity of little else other than sugar and who knows what
other chemicals, in order not to have it anymore. I'd run out of water sometime yesterday, but I dreaded
going outside for some reason.
Eventually though, the salt in the entire jar of Jiffy I'd eaten left me parched and miserable. I'd
been fiending for the sugar I tasted in the first lick but of course there were other ingredients. I felt
seriously ill. I needed water but had no idea how far I'd have to walk in order to find it.
A tear slid down my face, followed by many others. I thought about the warm house back in
Maryland where I'd lived with other people my own age. Some of them I'd gotten close with and we
were almost friends. I thought about them now. Making coffee for Bianca in the mornings before we
left for work, sitting across the table from Luke and his friend at three am just talking and trying to
keep it together. Luke's older brother Paul who I missed the most.
Suddenly I remembered something he always said: “Drink more water.” Whether we'd come
back from a run or I was just feeling depressed, he always proscribed the same remedy, sometimes
along with other positive affirmations that would seem too good to be true coming from any other
person but him. But I believed Paul.
I unzipped myself from my wet sleeping bag and tent, cursing myself for not bringing camp
shoes easier to slip into than my boots, but putting them on anyway. I carried my Camelbak and water
bottle with me as I walked the eight yards round the bend back to the Appalachian Trail.
I found a stream in under two minutes. It crossed the trail after it fell clear from up the way in a
cascade between rocks in a delve of the hills. Relieved, I filled up in order to filter back at the tent.
“I will leave as soon as possible,” I promised myself. But first I'd have a look around Max
Patch. The outside world in general looked great to me in its vastness and light. The bare trees pinioned
upright everywhere in the gentle gradations of sloping land. I had a desire to walk right through them
up the other side of the hill, so I did, after leaving my water system hanging from a branch.
I set out up the hill right from where I stood, without bothering to go back to the AT's
meandering route. My progress was slow and I breathed heavily but I felt possessed of a new
awareness. This was a misty view of nature that I hadn't seen yet, or at least not since I was a little girl
visiting her domain at the creek below Dasher Farm on a day after the rains or when it was just about to
start.
After the uphill slope through the trees, the bare grass fields at the top seemed an ancient heath
with long, green grass, where I could barely see a few steps ahead of me for the visible clouds of grey. I
imagined that I was in Ireland walking to visit a grave somewhere. Looking back, the lowlands were in
mist but I could still see the beautiful fall colors of the full trees from this height. But only in patches.
The walls of low clouds would come swiftly, moving horizontally across the hills.
I followed the AT back down because the clouds were coming in too thick to see much of
anything. At the very crest of the hill I could barely see ten paces ahead of my feet. My loosed hair
whipped around my face in the wind and it began to rain again. I followed the solitary wooden posts
blazed with our white stripes back down the ridge and into the trees. Glad for my raingear, I put up my
hood and zipped everything up. Arm pits, frontline, side pockets. This jacket even had dainty little
plastic closures hanging at my temples in order to restrict the small elastic cords framing my face. I
discovered a little bill that popped out around my forehead in order to better protect me from falling
rain and wind.
On the way down I met another Northbound hiker named Float. He walked easily and slowly
without a rain jacket on and he had no hiking poles.
“How are you today?” he asked.
“I'm fine. Just went up the hill to see the view again.”
“Yeah, it's too cloudy to see anything, kind of wish I'd gotten here on a clear day, but I'm not too
worried about it.” He said he was headed on to the next shelter. “It's not too far, you should try and
come too.”
“Maybe I will,” I said, though I was thinking of waiting for the rain to clear. In parting, he
offered me the bag of candy he'd been holding and eating out of as he walked. Sour rings and sweet
things.
“Thanks!” I smiled as I took a few.
April 19, 13.2 mi
The ostensible reason for my staying another night was the rain, but the truth is that I was still
loath to show myself and engage with other people while I was still in what I considered to be a
delicate state. I am naturally desultory in nature, so I know that after my extended leaves of absence it
is difficult for me to make it back to the society of people. I was to exchange isolation and comaraderie,
one for the other, many times.
It was close to noon that day but I was still getting organized. The sun had come out and there
was no rain. I greeted a blonde girl I recognized walking with a bounding, happy dog. She was by the
same stream where I'd gathered water yesterday.
“Hello Yeti!” I called. “Where are you coming from today?”
“A campsite just before Groundhog Creek shelter.”
“Isn't that about seven miles from here?” I asked in disbelief.
“That's right! I'm feeling good today, today is good. And I just got my dog back, she had a leg
injury awhile ago and I was kinda bummed about that.” The dog was currently ripping up the steep side
of the hill ahead through the leaves, its powerful stride kicking up dirt and small sticks.
“She seems to be alright now!” I laughed.
“He. And yes, I'm relieved. Of course I couldn't have him through the Smokeys. They don't
allow dogs in the Park. But he had problems way back in Georgia. He motivates my pace, so I feel back
on track again now that he's better.”
“That's good,” I said, happy that one more female hiker was out on the trail again.
Yeti smiled and waved goodbye before advising me to get going soon. It was the motivation I
needed to pack up quickly and head to the next shelter. Float had said it wasn't too far.
O
Into the woods to sell the cowInto the woods to get the moneyInto the woods to lift the spellTo make the potionTo go to the FestivalInto the woods to Grandmother's house...
Into the woods to Grandmother's house...
Into the woods,
Then out of the woods,
And home before dark!
-Coinvolta
I finished penning my register entry and turned back to the two young men, the boys with dogs,
occupying the small Roaring Fork Shelter. One of the dogs was a beautiful animal, a grey and white
husky, who his owner Jonah had allowed to sniff about the shelter without a leash. The other dog, a
close-haired golden lab, was tied on a generous leash from a wooden peg inside. She sat calmly beside
Mud, the other shelter occupant who was getting quietly stoned.
The huskey got into their lunch, a very common cheddar broccoli rice pasta side, and Jonah
lifted him entirely off his four feet by the use of a back strap attached to the dog's harness.
“No!” Jonah told him in a drawn out, open “oh,” still holding the dog in mid air, his legs
remaining perfectly straight and still. Only the dog's mouth moved, opened to pant and show his
magnificent white teeth and healthy tongue. I walked closer and palmed the soft fur of his ears.
“The ladies love him,” Jonah laughed. “And they were going to put him down, too.” By 'they' I
inferred he meant the powers that be.
“Really?”
“Yep. I saved him. He was causing all sorts of chaos at the pound. You're looking at a dog who's
jumped over fences, dug his way out beneath them too, even opened doors with his paws.”
“I can see why that'd be inconvenient,” I said. “But kill him?”
“Oh yeah.” Jonah leaned to the side and stretched out for his titanium pot, which served as a
bowl for both he and Mud. He looked to me like the spikey-haired, wild Thom Yorke photo I'd seen on
the cover of Rolling Stone years ago. His shock of golden hair was mussed up straight at odd angles
about his head. His sharp, forward nose gave him the look of having a carnival mask on over his real
skin, and his general comedic mien lent to this illusion.
“Yeah, they were done with his ass. But I'd rather hike with him than, say, a girl.” His eyes
darted out to me from beneath his blonde brow, making sure I wouldn't take offense. “There's no
bitching and he's always ready to go.” At this Mud shook his head, laughing. He too looked my way
through bloodshot eyes and I got the message of “That's fucked-up, man” without words. With all the
smoke hazing under the roof, I could feel myself getting high just standing near.
“What's your trail name mean?” I asked Jonah. He proceeded to tell a really long story,
something to do with his Mom and car insurance, like a joke. But I didn't get it and now can't remember
the particulars. They were biblical though.
“So, why did you decide to hike the trail?” I asked either of them.
“Ha! Nothing better to do I guess,” said Jonah. “And it's cheaper to live out here than in society.
And my folks were getting on me. My mom's real religious and eventually I couldn't stand it. So I
picked up this fellow here, ordered my food in bulk over the internet, and left.” He finished rolling a
cigarette, licked the edge with a pink, darting tongue, then lit it. He turned his eyes back on me as he
puffed.
“But I'd nearly given up on this too. Some guy who put money on my card – I did some work
for him-” and with this he shifted his gaze away to the side, “took the money back off, without letting
me know ahead of time or anything. So I was broke, done! But I came back after pawning basically
everything I own.” I was impressed and told him so.
“Yeah, I wasn't going to let that stop me. Besides, who wants to eat two cliff bars a day back in
the real world? That's what I'd spent all my real money on, and they'd just keep coming. I mean, there's
my food stamps, but still. Variety, people. Key.”
“What are you going to do after this?” I was trying to get Mud to say something but he just
shook his head and shrugged.
“Shit, I'll probably keep going until I hit Canada,” Jonah continued. “Mud just told me about the
Long Trail, which is an older part of the AT.”
“That's the name of a really good IPA,” I remembered out loud.
“I hiked the Long Trail in a hurricane,” Mud offered, looking up at me very gentle. Distracting,
considering the content of what he'd said.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I was in Vermont last year when it hit, and they even got people out of there with
helicopters it was starting to get so bad. But I avoided everyone and me and Kali here managed to
survive. It was a lot of fun.”
“Yeah, that sounds epic,” said Jonah. “Or maybe I'll do the Continental Divide Trail,” he
continued, still ruminating on his future. “I've done parts of it, and I live in Colorado. So.”
“I've heard you need ice picks,” I said. Mud passed the bowl to Jonah and he took a hit.
“Yeah.” He exhaled a long channel of smoke. “But anything's better than being on the radar for
me right now. I'm kind of in debt.”
“You're not going to be able to do what you said,” Mud told Jonah with a vague smile.
“Remember what you said?”
“No, look: if I disappear for the next seven years, they can't call me on my medical bills. No cell
phone conversations, nothing for the next seven years. It all goes back to zero.”
“What?” This sounded like totally incorrect.
“I've looked into all of it, it's true!” Jonah handed the bowl up to me but I declined. I already felt
stoned and this was to be my first attempt at hiking in five days. I told them as much. After a few more
minutes I hoisted my pack back on and prepared to leave.
“See you later,” Mud said, looking up at me like, Are you sure you want to leave? Staring at
him, I vaguely wondered what he looked like without facial hair, but it was a nice beard which rounded
out the lower half of his face. It was just nice.
I got lost trying to find my way out of there. The blue blaze trail I thought I'd come in on was
probably the long-routed way to water or the privy. Backtracking and in front of the shelter again, I felt
four pairs of eyes watching my progress.
O
The lower fields surrounding Max Patch were incredibly beautiful. I was glad to be on my way,
and through such blooming scenery! “If only I'd gone a little further that day, I needn't have wasted four
days feeling so depressed,” I thought to myself as I made my way through the farm. Rhododendron
tunnelways and wet silk, dropping flowers of pink petelling the road. The AT meandered most of that
morning through low-level fields and streams. I saw healthy, redcoated cows grazing just feet away
from where I walked. Just passing through.
When the sun finally came out, I gave myself a break in a grand level opening at the top of a
hill. I could see where the trail led back into the trees and up, and I wanted to catch some sun while
drying my down sleeping bag at the same time. “Never get a down bag wet – ever!” is what everyone
had told me, the salespeople at REI and fellow hikers both, but knowing me and my personal habits,
combined with the tent I had to work with, perfection was unrealistic. So I did the best that I could
while also giving in to my desire to be lazy.
I lay out on my matt, just soaking up the strong sunshine. I raised myself on bronzed arms every
once and awhile to fluff my bag which lay beside me in the prickly grass. To my surprise, this process
worked pretty well. The toesack at the bottom still had a few clumps in it but the whole bag felt lighter.
The purple surface was dried crispy and the bag hadn't lost much of its fluffiness. I'd been sure to
rumble and puff it good, whenever I remembered. I'd gotten a great tan and finished the third act of
Comedy of Errors. Then I was on my way.
April 20, 12.2 mi
I woke up in the night several times to hear groups of people night hiking into Hot Springs, the
next “trail town” or rare point at which the AT crossed back into civilization. At dawn I took down my
tent quickly. The rosy promise of this dawn was more than my failures of yesterday, I felt.
With no stove, I'd actually tried to soften up some hard macaroni by letting it sit in water
overnight. This was a disaster that I now, the morning after, decided was uneatable. Ideally I wouldn't
have ignored the alarm on my cell phone set to one hour after I immersed them in my plastic bowl. Five
or so hours after I'd soaked them they were all blended together in a sick paste.
I knew I wasn't supposed to leave any trace of my being there, but I couldn't eat them, even with
the added granules of cheese seasoning. In the end I decided to hide them in the fire ring underneath
some innocent-looking cardboard of the box and about an inch of ash. Very bad hiker karma.
The long descent to Hot Springs had just begun. I expected every cluster of buildings I saw from
a distance to be the town, but the trail just wound on and on. I had intentions of getting there early in
the day, scoping things out, and maybe snagging some food from the hiker box in the hostel. I wouldn't
waste money on the famous diner, I decided. But I anticipated it would be nice and comforting to be in
town nonetheless.
I heard Hot Springs before I saw it. An unearthly humming noise of factory commerce rose up
from the valley below me along with white clouds of smoke. As I zig zagged closer down to it I could
hear cows lowing – but no people. For some reason I'd expected laughter, yelling. Something. But I
now inexplicably dreaded what I'd been looking forward to for the past two days. Materials, industry.
Down a too-severe packed earth slope that I figured was probably lining some local doctor's
pocket, and I was in town. A forlorn wooden plaque announced it as so, even though I'd just walked
through somebody's backyard next to a plastic swing set. I walked down the street disoriented. I saw no
other hikers and my general impression was that I'd somehow arrived on the wrong day. This couldn't
be it. This was a dump.
I sought refuge in the diner and wasted a lot of money on an overpriced glass of milk and two
slices of pie, one key lime and one “French silk.” I was so nervy in the diner that I could barely eat my
meal. I spent my time dipping back in and out from the bathroom, wishing I'd sat facing the wall and
not the obviously poor locals out for a day with their ugly children.
“I'm a terrible hiker,” I thought to myself. “I should be over there talking it up. Exploring.” The
pie crust I was eating was stale, like the pie had been sitting there for two decades. “I could at least
have smiled or something.” But I had nothing to give except my money. I felt so sore about the whole
experience I tipped the waitress $5 even though she hadn't really done anything but cursorily bring me
my food late at her own convenience.
Lugging my pack back on the street I felt like a freak. I saw some twenty year olds leaning up
against the old stone railings beside the main road and wanted to talk to them. Maybe they were bored
just like me. But I felt so exhausted and full of regret that I couldn't walk ten feet over to where they
were congregated.
There seemed to be literally nothing I was capable of doing other than spending money. I
contented myself with the novel pork-flavored ramen packets I found in a convenience store and some
crap at the dollor store that made no sense. Canned asperagus? I had no way of opening it much less
carrying it, but I hauled all of it out of there and up a hill. It was all I knew how to do.
A smiling man in a leather “hiker skirt” rounded the bend behind me, came closer, and asked if I
needed any help.
“No, I'm good,” I managed. I felt frozen, offset.
“You sure?” He lad a black leather cowboy hat to match his skirt.
“Yeah!” I kept struggling, swinging the plastic ties around my purple puffy fingers.
“My name's Yukon!” he yelled after me. I guess I'd stopped him in his tracks.
“C.V.”
“What?” But I was tired of introducing myself. Tired of my stupid name.
Right when I made it within view of the hostel, my stomach churned and stretched in a very
unnerving way. All that bad dairy on an unaccustomed stomach was starting to feel pressingly bad.
Like, urgent diarrhea. I didn't want to just barge into the hostel and have my taking an epic, very loud
shit be my way of welcome so I dropped my pack and goods on the lawn and tried to run back into the
woods. But the stone steps I limped down, moaning in pain, only proffered a triangular shaped section
of woods, well within view of the road.
I didn't even care. I pulled down my pants and tried to let one rip but I couldn't. There was
something seriously wrong with me. Stabbing pains gutted my lower, bloated stomach. I couldn't get it
out.
“Ahhhhck!” I cried out, crippled in pain. “Uhhhgh-uh-” I gave up and collapsed in the dead
leaves, my ass hanging out, skimpy shorts around my ankles. “Oh God! Oh God save me.” Sideways, it
all finally came out in spurts. Wet, long streams of liquid, and lots of very painful gas. I just lay there
letting it pass for about ten minutes, my head indenting part of a rotted, web-infested log I'd tried to
lean against for support. “Oh God. Oh, thank God.”
I know people passed me and saw me like that. I wasn't too far from the stone path over a pile of
leaves and behind like three trees. One guy laughed and I wholeheartedly agreed with him. On the other
side of the situation I thought it was pretty hilarious.
But instead of learning from my (many) mistakes of the day/trip/life, my dumb ass continued to
shy away from any help from anyone. Some toilet paper, inquiries on how I'd possibly caught a waterborne illness like the infamous giardia, maybe some fucking weed on 4 fuckin' 20? I didn't consider any
of these things. I just picked up where I left off, wound my way back down the road. Found a nice river.
There were people lining up all along it with tents, bonfires, booze. Everything. I didn't see it. I was like
a zombie. I pitched my tent at the very end of the line, just beyond some stragglers who'd come to the
party by the river late like I had. Throw you and yourself in there, wake up, repeat. Wake up, repeat.
Wake up. Repeat.
O
In the dead of night I was awake again. A dissatisfied spirit wouldn't let me sleep, so without
thought to waking the person along the river to my right, I clumsily took my tent down in the dark by
aid of my flashlight's beam. I'd just bought new, lithium double A's. Thin Timber had said the lithium
batteries were actually worth the money. And then I did do a lot of night hiking, it seemed.
Everything away, I walked the foggy, sandy path back to Lover's Leap Rock and found the town
deserted in the orange glow of streetlamps. I passed a boating house and saw the vestiges of a good
time in cardboard cases and bottles that filled the giant trashcans full. All the people were upstairs
asleep in the loft. One of them hadn't made it and was sprawled out on the lawn on his back.
It was a steep climb out of Hot Springs but much more beautiful by night and in my solitude.
The town wasn't as small as I'd guessed it was, and now I could really see everything that merited a
light in the valley below. Like so many orange jewels they burned. From the river I could see where
someone had arranged the shape of a pentagram in tiki torches or some other source of fire. I didn't
know what it meant and turned my attention back to the task at hand: climbing a cliff face in the dark
with one free hand.
I was lost for about thirty straight minutes on the giant rocky overlook of the mountain. I
couldn't find the trail no matter which way I struggled up. It was all pine trees and brambles. The trail
couldn't have possibly went any of the directions I tried. I knew this and believed in them still. I tried
each of them multiple times, tired of feeling so exposed on the precipice when what I really wanted to
do was jump down and have an end to everything. “Does everyone have these thoughts at such
junctures – or is it just me?” Then, reflecting on the name, Lover's Leap, I reasoned that even if I'd had
a lover with me, someone who'd sounded out my soul, it wouldn't be enough.
Eventually I found the next white blaze. I don't know how I missed it but I'm sure I put on quite
a show of strobe lights from the top. To anyone awake down there – or even on the opposite mountain,
hiking in – I would have looked like a fool. Back into the isolation and safety of the woods I went. At
last, I took my ground for the night hike.
It might not make that much sense to a lot of people, but I loved the tenebrous, intensified world
I could pass through unquestioned and unseen. I never tired of it. I had no iPod, no distractions, and
needed none. The woods were infinitely variable in their smells, type of tree, footing, and climb. But I
will say that they always looked better at night, somehow implying grander scales when I couldn't see
them beyond the small scope of my light. I was in survival mode, just me and that light, and it felt so
good.
The timely spring I ran across when I was just starting to get desperate for water couldn't have
offered a better taste. I remember everything about it. I must have drank a whole liter at the source,
sitting on a cube of stone. The water ran so cool and pure out of the rocks, welling up in a small indent
of the granules of sand. I had to be perfectly smooth and gentle with whatever I put into the pool in
order to catch it or else the water running in would be dirty. I could see my breath the temperature was
so cool up in the mountains, but it was the most refreshing feeling. To be truly alive, to go where I
pleased. I was a dragon of the dawn.
I raced on into the morning. Passed a stone grotto with a great, shallow pond across which the
trail ran on top of the dam. Sheer drop to my right, a cascading height of waterfall. Still, inky black
water to my left.
Before the sun rose over the hills I watched its rosy dawn touch the fields of a grouse farm. A
wooden sign commemorated the place as a feral breeding ground for many species of turkey and wild
fowl. It was lovely below a sky of pastel hues. Through the fields, across roads of cakey white in the
dim, then out open into a glen wet with dew. It had only been four miles or so since I'd left Hot Springs,
but I felt a few worlds had passed under my toes.
April 21, 10.4 mi
This next day was a fanciful dream during which I didn't see a soul. It bode rain all day which
never fell and though water sources were scarce I enjoyed my time.
April 22, 4.2 mi
With no water for miles I was desperate to get to the source at Little Laurel Shelter. The heavy
rain finally fell all around me and though I could see and feel the wetness I had no way of collecting it
into my mouth. It was maddening.
I met another northbounder called Byline who passed me but rallied my spirits to go that much
further to the next shelter. No wonder I was exhausted. I never really make up for lost sleep after a
night hike. When the sun shines in my face the next day I just get up and go.
Readjusting to the society of others after a stolen respite was difficult in such close quarters as
Little Laurel afforded. To make matters worse there were “day hikers” afoot, still bragging about the
novelty of their gear. Smelling fresh and looking sophisticated in very expensive-looking outfits. I got
out my sleeping bag and pretended to go to sleep.
April 23, 6.8 mi
I woke up to find that it had snowed overnight. A generous coating of white clung to and
accentuated every upstanding root, every twig on every branch of the trees. How wondrous! I could see
it out of one eye from where I lay on my side. But I didn't move out of some absurd fear that anyone
should know I was awake.
I soon gathered through sound and movement cues that there was only one person left in the
shelter with me, a man. He lay beside me on his similarly rolled-out matt. Quiet, unobtrusive, but very
much still there all the same. I snuck a look at him to find that he was very beautiful. Fit, as is the
standard of hikers who've made it this far, and happily long-limbed propped up against the wall at my
side. But with such elegant hands! I wish I could aptly describe the gentle paring of his nails. They
were all evenly rounded and clean, and on such slender, artist's hands! For such hands I'd bear children,
just hoping they'd tend towards their father in all things.
He never disturbed me, only silently supported me as the snow fell. I believe he was reading. By
the time one more man showed up for his lunch break my man still didn't converse much. He seemed
out of sorts around others as well. He barely showed interest in the other, gigantically German visitor to
the shelter.
But when another, younger man arrived I decided it was high time to at least make efforts
towards movement. But when I got out of my sleeping bag I was unpleasantly forced back therein due
to the bite of the freeze.
“Oh HELL!” I blew out my windpipes in exclamation, drawing all the attention to myself
inadvertently. Three pairs of eyes watched me fumble back into my bag. Since they were all men I
didn't feel uncomfortable, just stupid perhaps for not testing the water first.
“You there. Hey.” The most recent arrival to the shelter addressed me and I looked up from
warming my hands. “You'll freeze in that outfit.”
“If I've survived the Smokeys in no more than this, I'll be fine!” I quipped.
“Oh! So you're a thru-hiker then?” The speaker sent an amused look about the place, its living
and its inanimate objects, through strangely huge eyes. When he'd finished his survey he didn't end on
me but instead upon the upper right hand corner of the “room.”
“Of course I am! You couldn't tell that!?” I demanded.
His eyes snapped back on me and I felt the full force of his stare. Smoke curled from the rolled
cigarette in his hand, held up beside his face so he wouldn't miss a single draw. He took a deep drag,
exhaled, and with his smoke he said:
“Yeah. I could tell.” When he opened his mouth to tell me, he cocked his head slightly to the
side and back, his pupils rolling forward to follow me. It was extremely eerie and whatmore he
reminded me of a skeleton the way he smiled. Perfect teeth, even teeth, like the model of a class. A
skeleton hanging somewhere except it had snatched skin and run off with it.
“Ha-ha-ha!” And then his laugh was strange too. The mocking of the laugh itself, as if to say
“Who would ever laugh at such a thing right now – or at anything?” With each “ha” he jerked his head
a little more, back with the chin jutting out. Like a malevolent Halloween caricature.
“Who are you?” I asked him.
“The name's Knoxville.”
“Knoxville?”
“You may call me Knoxville.”
“What's that mean?” the scary, beefy German asked. Knoxville was offputting certainly, but I
preferred his brand of unsettling to this foreigner, more a pedophile than a thru-hiker, just judging by
looks and mannerism. Besides, he was old. As if he'd read my scorn, Knoxville turned on the guy.
“Oh, you wouldn't get it. It's from an American movie. Jackass.”
“What?” The German stuffed his cold hands into his pockets, offended. But Knoxville just
laughed his laugh again, as if somebody had pulled his voice box spring.
“I'm Swiss but I bet I can guess at your meaning,” said my otherwise silent companion from the
night before. Knoxville.
Now, I'm American and I still didn't get it.
“Somebody on trail told me that I looked like Johnny Knoxville once,” he told me. But this
must have been a lie. He didn't look anything like Johnny Knoxville.
The conversation turned to women and how they drive one crazy. I participated with my
eyebrows from the warmth of my sleeping bag.
At one point I really would have liked to participate but didn't. It's like I didn't feel I had the
right to, based on my indisputable actions racked up against me in the past.
“There's nothing like a woman that'll drive you beyond crazy,” the German said to the others,
who had both warmed up to the topic at this point and were nodding or grinning their assent. “It gets
inside you, you don't know what to do. It's like a sweet type of sickness. They're tricksters, all!”
This really made me writhe. I knew how I felt about men. How they'd let me down. Led me on.
And yet the world would have it that I was on the side of the tempters, the kniving ones. When I felt so
strongly that I was simply led by the nose of my desire, here, there, or away, because of a man.
“Yeah right!” My physiognomy spoke for me as I finally got out of my cocoon. “Yeah, right!” A
mime play calling all my limbs to serve, the message hopefully spelled out by my half apologetic
grimace, my askance glares. I really hope they got it.
After the company lapsed back into silence I began weighing my options aloud.
“I can either stay another night here or...well, what are you all doing?”
“I'm probably staying another night. I'm still lazy from town food in Hot Springs” said the
Swiss. But I was mostly interested in Knoxville and now turned towards him, hoping he'd tell me
without my having to ask again.
“I'm going on,” he said.
Then that's what I'm doing.
As I prepared to go walk through the snow I listened to the German and the Swiss, who'd
decided to keep each other company in the shelter, trade woes and stories.
“My socks are frozen! Have you ever had to put on wet boots and socks that are actually stiff
with frost? If I had dry boots like you I'd be off, but not today.”
“Did you relax in Hot Springs?”
“Oh sure, it was alright.”
“Not everything you expected it to be?”
“Sure, I mean, I travel all this way to America, and here I am, and it's just not what it was
advertized to be. It's not what I expected.”
“They just had a documentary come out in Germany. Lots of Germans on the trail.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes! I've met...I think...” The German paused to consider the tally. “Six, I think. Sunshine, the
girl. Have you met her? Then there's a whole group traveling together, just started awhile ago, moving
very fast. Sonic, Riff Ralph, Pain, and BaBer Pfeunig. Hey! Funny story! Did you know that when the
Germans were in Hot Springs and sick during the war, they said they never wanted to leave or even get
well again because the Hot Springs made them feel so good. The treatment is better than the cure. Ha
ha!”
“Fuck!” I expostulated into the frigid air, cutting over the banal friendliness of the conversation.
“It's so fucking freezing!” My hands had gone numb in the process of getting my gear together and
even the little water in my Camelbak had frozen.
Knoxville had been watching me keenly, I was aware. The cold didn't seem to bother him for he
stood straight and didn't shiver as he smoked his thick rollies. His cigarettes were about the same size
as the ones Wobbles had rolled for me, but he smoked one after another, barely phased.
“Do you want some tea?” Knoxville asked. Warm breath curled delicately around his mustache.
He looked like an evil colonial landlord or a Confederate soldier. So wiry thin and wild yet somehow
very...proper.
“Sure.” It sounded like a great idea.
“You have a cup, right?”
“Yes. Well, just a bowl, actually.” He raised his eyebrows at this, more out of amusement than
criticism.
“There's traces of ramen noodles in the tea, just tellin' ya.”
If I were in any other circumstance I would have laughed. Oh, the quaint stories I was
acquiring! But as it was I was quietly grateful for any extra calories.
The two foreigners had finally shut up and were watching Knoxville pour hot tea into my
orange plastic bowl. There was indeed a greasy sheen like oil on the surface and stray bits of noodle at
the bottom, but I've never tasted better tea in my life. I drank it up avidly then went about my business
preparing for departure, but for the first time I felt my poverty. This was no vacation. I'd had nowhere
else to go.
After I'd gotten my water and visited the privy, I hopped back up on the floorboards of the
shelter, went back into my corner and shivered. With my denial stripped away it was a grim picture.
This was all there was. For all my efforts I was barely getting by. I could carry everything that I could
lay claim to “own,” and even these items, the $400 pack, the $100 water filtration system, I'd only
acquired through thievery and prostitution. The money I'd worked for legally, the $400 from the tax
return, was almost gone and I was still in Tennessee. I'd wasted most of it. That was a fact.
The surface, all this hiking, was just an illusion. I was just another alligator in the New York
sewers who'd been flushed down the toilet. Nevermind how I'd arrived there. I was definitely screwed.
All I could do was wait for Benny Profane to come blow my brains out. Nevermind that Benny himself
preferred the sewers to the streets above with their gaudy lights and women's eyes like black holes.
He'd kill me just the same. It was his job. The makeshift arm band he wears reads ALLIGATOR
PATROL in neon green and I know what it means.
“This is gonna suck.” I talked to myself, getting ready to go out into it. Then I just decided that
now was as good a time as any. Actually, the more I hesitated the worse off I'd be. So I lugged my pack
on and jumped down from the platform.
“Thanks for the tea,” I saluted Knoxville, and meant it.
April 24, 9.1 mi
Early in the morning when everyone in the shelter was still asleep I lay next to my Swiss
watchman from yesterday, wide awake and yearning for a kiss from him. We were very close, I could
feel him whenever he moved. I wanted out of my sleeping bag and into his. We could unzip? Both?
Ahh, I pined and arched my back over the one creaking board in the shelter platform. I wanted to feel
his hard cock between my ass cheeks, pressing against the small of my back. I'd whimper a private note
that only he could hear if his wan, handsome, tired face exhaled warm breaths at my neck. There's no
one else I need. This moment. You're so beautiful...
Push.
Push.
…
I waited for another but it never came. Behind me, somehow facing me all the time through my
several ridiculous contortions, invisible in the dark and under covers I assumed (I never presumed to
look at him), the man I desired touched me. Twice. With a long and precise finger, somehow free of the
constraints of his sleeping bag and – inexplicably – he was inside mine too.
He'd pressed where I wanted him. Once on my lower spine,
(I wish she was my spy'n
I'd set it straight
All the time)
then again, lower, moving towards my asshole.
…
He never touched me again but lay still after this as if asleep.
“Touch, touch, go!” I thought. Yes!
But he lay still, and I was too horrified by the strength of my desire to actually instigate
anything. I lay awake for another hour trying not to make any noise, trying to remember the ordering
sequence, top to bottom, of traffic lights.
O
I'd been munching on the same bag of White Cheddar Cheez-Its since Hot Springs so I spent
most of the morning vying for alternatives among the other hikers. Most people, about eight or nine of
them, were busy packing and had already eaten breakfast. The rest sat at the picnic table with their
food, opting to take their time. So it was between an old man and a newly married young woman with
dark hair that I chose to sit down, pretending to listen to the conversation but really just salivating at
the thought of their food.
The young woman, Alien, was from Mexico originally. She seemed bored of married life
prematurely. It had only been eighteen months.
“So, what does your husband think of your going off like this for six months without him?”
asked a bandana'd blonde leisurely munching on pricey dried fruit. It looked great.
“He doesn't care at all,” said Alien with a scoff. “And I could use the time alone. Besides, he
isn't into this type of thing.” If I were to guess I'd say she was relieved that he wasn't into hiking, or
she'd even selected long distance hiking from a list of things her husband would never do.
“Hmmmm,” noted the blonde. I tried to gauge her reaction and couldn't. Everything seemed
very fake and wrong. Giant Squatch sat across from me eating macaroni and cheese. The men were
down to dinners it seemed. The old man quietly ate ramen noodles. Even this looked like delicious
breakfast food.
A boistrous, smiling vixen of a girl named Legs showed up to the table, fresh from walking and
looking for snacks. She would have been very pretty if it hadn't been for the scrunched look to her
impish face.
“Oh my God, I am desperate for snacks, does anybody have any?” she asked, looking from one
of us to the other. “I have plenty of dinners, breakfast bars, y'know. But I'm absolutely out of snacks.”
The old man gave her some stuff, I saw peanuts and something else that was probably better than what
I had, and then she walked away.
Trying to break myself of the bad habit of begging, I forced myself to move back into the
shelter. A younger, happier crowd I'd somehow missed was drying their sweaty socks by the coals of
the fireplace. Byline roasted his on sticks like hot dogs while the others, a guy in a turban and a girl
who were still laying beside each other on the platform, waved theirs to air them now and again. But
they too were talking about food!
“I ate like three snickers yesterday, I keep finding wrappers in my pockets,” said Byline.
“Uh-oh, son's got issues!” laughed the girl. I tried to “get in on their conversation” by asking
Byline what his name meant.
“So, are you like...bisexual or something?” He looked up at me like I was an idiot.
“No!” He really did look like Beck. From the Modern Guilt cover. Long hair, he had the hat and
everything.
“So...what does it mean?” I couldn't have cared less at this point.
“I was a journalist for this one paper before I lost my job,” he said curtly, turning back to the
fire.
“Oh that's really cool!” I said. I'd always wanted to be a journalist. “But I still don't understand
what that has to do with your name.”
“Byline, you know, where you sign your name at the end of the article.”
“Oh.”
I think I asked Byline for a snickers at some point later on. It was an interjected question that I
almost blocked out of my memory it was so painful, and then he denied me too. I definitely would have
remembered it if I'd gotten it. But I don't remember the specifics of how he said no to me. “So you're
just a total dick then?” I mentally frothed in anger. “Why would you be telling us about your goddamn
snickers if there wasn't a point of some-”
“Oh FUCK!” I said this last out loud because Byline had caught his dirty sock on fire and in an
effort to wave it out he'd thrown a few good-sized embers my way and onto the crotch of my rain pants.
They almost melted through. Almost. I looked up at him like “Oh man, you almost fucked up!” They
were the only full-length layer I had for my legs.
“Sorry, I'm so sorry!” He seemed genuine enough. Besides, why would he light his own socks
on fire in order to get at me. Calm down.
But I was just done, before the day had even begun. At the point the embers had hit me I'd been
on the verge of recalling the last time I'd had a snickers. “Oh that's right,” I remembered bitterly. “Thin
Timber split one with me. He wouldn't even give me the whole thing!”
It had been such a hard day. I'd cried. I kept stopping, one of the last times to mix water with a
packet of ramen seasoning in a ziploc bag. The blue diamond almonds were long gone.
“Do you...need some time alone?” he'd asked, staring at the scene of my drinking out of a
plastic bag. I assumed he was totally disgusted with me.
“Yes.” I'd subconsciously been mulling over the Peach situation in my mind and I was acting
out, subjecting myself to misery by being completely absurd. He turned to leave.
“Wait!” I cried out desperately. Thin Timber looked back at me, eyebrows raised beneath his
skull cap. “Can I have a snickers?” I asked. I'd seen it in his food bag earlier that day. I knew he had
one.
Thin Timber sighed, walked back over to me, put his pack on the ground-he was taking his
goddamned time about answering me-put his hand on my shoulder, and said:
“I'll split one with you.”
WHAT!? Why can't you just give me the whole thing? I'm obviously having a difficult time here.
Have some pity, you tyrant!
All during my hike, I never quite forgave him for this.
Back in the present moment, I made sure my pants really weren't on fire and turned to stalk out
of the place. Done!
But as I walked across the dusty floor I saw the Swiss guy sitting quietly in the corner of the
platform by himself. Finding out he'd been there the whole time sort of startled me, if pleasantly.
Bemused at his symmetry I stopped in my tracks and smiled.
“What's your name?” He muttered something I couldn't understand, two words, the first one
sounding like “Chaz.” But that couldn't be it.
“What?”
“Chez Eleven!” he fairly barked at me. Chaz Eleven? No. Chaise Eleven? I never did
understand what he said. Anyway, he definitely didn't want to talk to me.
“What's wrong with these people?” I fumed privately as I walked out of the shelter again,
having accomplished less than nothing. “That's the last time I deal with hikers. Teases. Bullies. I can't
stand it. I'm much better off alone, content even. I do enjoy hiking. It's just hard to remember that with
all these people around.”
Pack on, I took one look into the outside fire pit for cigarette butts and spied a familiar looking
tea bag instead. I identified it by the pink rose emblem on the tag. Knoxville. How had he passed me?
When?
“Alright motherfucker,” I said aloud staring into the ash, a manic grin splitting my face. “You're
next.” Feeling violent and turned on, I pursued the image of Knoxville. He interested me.
O
The first mile was a climb of six hundred feet up to 4,750 feet above sea level, the latter portion
of which was veined with snow. The roots on the ground, the bare twigs on the outer limits of trees,
were accentuated with two inches of white relief. My vision bounced up and down as I hiked, and in
the cold, with all the steam coming off my breath, I felt like I was an astronaut encased in a giant
protective suit. These elements weren't actually touching me, I couldn't feel, and my vision was
impaired.
While my body went autopilot my mind scathingly asked the universe a question: was I in North
Carolina or Tennessee? You see, we'd been tracing the border of these two states for the last seventy
miles since the Smokeys, crossing over from one to the other unbeknownst perhaps in the middle of the
night or perhaps within the last five steps. For a hiker this is absolutely maddening because the overall
thing we like to be able to count on is our linear progress in numbers, yes, but the actual states (we feel)
should be discernible segments as well.
I felt done with North Carolina. It would have been great to be able to say I'd walked through it.
The entirety of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park had been 72.9 miles. With all I'd been
through there it was inconceivable to me that it should go on. My crazy fingers at Icewater Spring
Shelter, Wobbles' note and the rocky mountain high, my straining for existence against Thin Timber, all
that had been North Carolina. And then there had been the ninety miles before I'd even entered the
Smokeys – all North Carolina!
What had I done in that time? I couldn't remember. The potbellied tree offering me the Bly Gap
business card had been right after I'd crossed over from Georgia, but in those ninety miles I couldn't
think of a single person I'd met or a train of though I'd had, though I'd been keeping detailed notes.
My Data Book was a bit skimpy and uninformative as to things external to myself, however.
Every once and awhile it would mention a main road like U.S. 74 after which it would state the town,
Wesser, N.C., but state roads were more illusive in my manual and didn't even disclose which state they
were in. “S.R. 1242” could mean either and my guide didn't include maps. I knew we were switching.
I'd heard that from other hikers. But Allen Gap awhile back had read N.C. 208, Tenn. 70 (2,234'). How
could it be both at the same time?
Two miles after I crested the first climb of the day I walked back suddenly into the thick of the
forest. We were still at a high elevation, I could tell, for it was cold, but the close of the trees blocked all
wind and most noise. The trees were thin and dark wooded. They looked as though both their bark and
their insides would be difficult to whittle or cut. I walked carefully among them, not wanting to startle
any cawing birds or scatter stones. I enjoyed the frosty peace.
Then the tree count started to drop around me and I knew I was coming towards a clearing. I
kept the momentum going but felt regretful of the lost cover, especially when I saw something ahead
lying in the grass that was so gaudy florescent I knew it was foreign. Nothing that many different colors
so close together exists in the woods.
Before I could see what it was I noticed a little lawn flag flapping in the air held up by a wire
square. It flapped the way a pliable plastic doggie door flaps when the dog comes home. I went closer.
WELCOME FRIENDS
The print was a picture of a raccoon with the words written below. I found it a very strange choice of
animal.
The too bright colors was a bed of fake flowers hedging two gravestones. It began to snow just
when I saw them. I walked closer still and read the inscription about a Civil War time family whose
sons, returning home from the fight, were killed by the enemy on their own land. This made me feel a
certain way. I tried to get the imagery out of my head and couldn't so I decided just to keep going.
At Flint Mountain Shelter I stopped for water and a rest. I felt drained and sad. I hadn't seen
anybody since I'd started hiking that afternoon, though there were many still at the shelter. I'd especially
expected Squatch to catch up at some point. I just assumed he was a seriously fast hiker because he
looked it. I turned the pages of the register to find that Squatch had been here yesterday. “Looking for
weed” was all he'd written, then signed his name next to a ballooning drawing of a pot leaf. I closed the
book and watched the snow.
A lone figure made its way towards the shelter coming from the south. I mutely watched him
come from a long way off. I felt like I watched him for a long time. When he got near I could see that,
now and again, he'd raise something to his mouth and suck on it. It was a purple popsicle. Where had he
gotten that? GoLite was his motto based on his small pack and fine clothes. He looked all heated up and
very angry, a foil to my current calm.
“Where's the register?” he asked me. I threw it at him across the table.
“Wasn't that stretch after Hurricane Gap really nice?” I asked him, just to piss him off.
“Oh yeah!” he reeled back and threw his face up towards the sky. “It was everything I could
have asked for.” He threw the register back at me after looking quickly at the last page, then proceeded
to ignore me as he searched in his side pockets for a candy bar. It was as though he'd forgotten I existed.
I just felt broken, so dejected that my one line of badass was all I had. I couldn't handle this.
There was something wrong here.
I picked up my plastic bag of Cheez-It crumbs I'd wound closed with a thick hair tie and got up
from the table. I was in complete despair.
His grey eyes looked towards me, like “Where do you think you're going, exactly?” but when he
saw I was serious about leaving I caught an apology there.
“I agree,” I sent my soul into his eyes with a look and I know he understood. He didn't say
anything as I walked away.
O
Nearing Devil's Fork Gap I experienced very strong pangs of hunger but I knew I'd be too afraid
to pull off my hitching tryst at the road. I wasn't afraid of the name; the ominous factor would have
helped me out if I were in any other state of mind than the singular one I was in. It's just that I was
definitely off my game. I was a sham. I lugged my giant, bright orange pack which really belonged in
the Continental Divide somewhere, and my tent rainfly I'd tied outside my pack in lieu of a pack cover
trailed one long, black bungee cord out the back with a hook in the end. Like a tail, yeah.
It wasn't my fault. I felt the eyes on me which I knew I could never put out, not all of them. And
I was angry at the setup.
Rector Laurel Road was too much. “Big Butt Mountain” and now the descent into this? I threw
my pack down in the way and found my Cheez-Its. I tried to look as defiant as possible while munching
the crumbs but it wasn't working out. Whenever I bent over to look for more food in my pack a
cacophony of chickens and hounds would begin. The sounds came from a farm to my right.
“Just because I like it from behind does not mean I like it in the ass!” I tried to broadcast my
thoughts. “That shit is painful.” Upon finishing my thought (“That shit is painful. Period.”) I felt better,
simply because I'd been able to picture the words like tangible things. They were real. It's just that they
were in my mind.
I disdainfully descended through blanched-out piles of leaves. I stretched my legs and felt the
power in my thighs supporting me, lifting me and my pack up the next hill on the other side. I mutely
stood aside rather than have any interaction whatsoever with either Button or Loops, British teacher and
retired Coast Guard. But Loops, the guy, had to pry.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?” I felt like his horrible little bearded face was too
close. I didn't want to see him. I hated him.
“Oh, y'know, I'm just hiking, man,” I said, making myself put on an affable smile. Finally they
left me alone and went on, but just to be sure I wouldn't run into them again I waited for what I deemed
to be several minutes, maybe fifteen. Tapping my foot. And just when I felt it was seemly, I yelled out
in a rage:
“Leave me alone, you cop!!”
I heard female tittering just up the lip of the hill. And I turned and I saw Button. She was hiking
away from me, not ten paces ahead. Loops was ahead of her.
April 25, 14.8 mi
I woke early that morning around nine after a very good sleep. I slid the two black poles out of
my simple tent, watched it collapse, and thought about how poorly I'd treated that guy Cheez Whiz
when I'd first met him. Just because someone is attractive doesn't mean they know it and hence can see
through any and all brusque confrontery to its origin, cowardice.
“If I see him again, I vow it will go differently,” I thought. “But what if I run into him when I'm
mad or something, on top of being already afraid and a little in awe? It'll just appear to be more of the
same and that I'm a hateful person. But actions, actions. But the entire world of actions is an accidental
circus, anyway! I don't owe anyone anything.”
Thus settled in my mind I folded the giant, coarse underside of the tent in on itself in thirds, the
way Thin Timber had taught me. I got down on my knees and pushed the air out of it with the length of
my body, arms stretched and leading the process ahead of me like those of a cat or the Sphinx. I
patiently lay there until I'd flattened the tent completely. If there was any air left in there at all, after
being rolled up it wouldn't fit so nicely into the orange bag with a drawstring that Butcher had given
me. “Yes, it's true!” I mused. “None of us are saints.”
Sprawled there with my toes pointed and my arms holding me up at right angles, I did
something that I love to do. I thought about 'Timber. His voice that I could pick out of a thousand
voices, his red lips and the shape they made when he was speaking. His dependable, honorable actions
laced with rude irony or ignorant condescension.
“I don't mean to be a dick or anything,” he'd prefaced one of his favors, “But I've never done
this for anyone.”
Welliday, I'll remember everything you say.
I was glad of my ability to keep loved ones with me always. Grateful to be able to love.
O
I scrambled over the dry, loose slate rock of the ledge looking down on the highway and
considered my options. I was out of food. But this was a good opportunity to hitch a ride into town to a
grocery store. I'd spend money on it. I had the utmost confidence that I'd make it to Maine.
For a good stretch I had to walk along the median in the sun, but I was in good spirits and in no
hurry. I leaned against the hot metal railing and lazily held my hand out. I laughed when I realized that
if an eighteen wheeler railed by and killed me that'd be just fine.
I looked across the street from where I was standing to see a police station. So I moved on down
the line, across the yellows, along the white. Hoping for a little “yellow blaze” action. I was no purist
who said one must never use the convenience of cars to skip sections of trail (this is where the term
“yellow blaze” comes from). I'd certainly come close to that, my own approximation of the ideal, but I
really wouldn't mind if my ride could spare me two, three miles of hiking here and there.
I saw a BMW slow, then pull over ahead of me. A beautiful girl in great bluejeans got out of the
passenger side and began loading stuff from the side of the car into the trunk. I walked over, beamed
my hello, thanked her and the driver profusely for stopping.
“Where are you headed?” she asked, smiling in kind.
“Oh, I heard there was a grocery store about 3.2 miles east. Straight ahead, that is. My book
says-”
“No, no!” she laughed in a high tenor, her dangling earrings reflecting the light. “I mean where
are you coming from? Where are you going?” My God she was pretty.
“I started about an hour away from Atlanta and kept walking north through the mountains,” I
told her.
“What, are you serious? That's amazing! Atlanta Georgia?”
“Yeah.” Seeing her reaction like that I felt better about my whole hike.
“Hey Jason!” She leaned towards the car window. “This girl came from Georgia!”
I got in, listened to some country music, enjoyed the air conditioning, and ate fresh grapes and
pineapple that they offered me in plastic containers. They were heading down to see a band play at a
bar somewhere so they'd packed lots of stuff for the road trip. Their having the fruit was a happy
coincidence because it wasn't stuff I could carry or that would keep on trail. In the moment, I enjoyed
it.
Sure enough, there was an Ingles not too far down the highway. We pulled up in the parking lot
and Jason helped me on with my pack, remarking about the weight of it.
“We were scared to pick you up at first,” the girl told me, still smiling away.
“Oh? Why?” Why anybody would be afraid of little, unassuming me was beyond my
comprehension.
“Oh, you know...” she trailed off. Then she looked up at Jason, gestured frantically with her
hands, but he was no help. He just observed behind his shades. “You know, like that movie Monster?”
“With Charlese Theron, right!” I remembered.
“Yeah, well, she killed all those people – and it was based on a real story!” She smiled. He
smiled. We all smiled in the parking lot outside of the Ingles.
If you people are waiting for me to kill you, it's not going to happen today.
After some chilled Snapple iced tea and a warmhearted goodbye, I walked into that Ingles and
treated myself to fresh baked cookies, organic carrots, a loaf of sourdough, another jar of peanut butter,
one giant snickers bar, an almond joy, and a mounds.
Luckily I had enough on my debit card to cover the purchase. I didn't know what my balance
was, exactly, but it couldn't have been much at that point. However, a new optimistic and carefree
philosophy was what I was living by, wherein everything would work out. Somehow, some way.
Carrying food with you while hiking was perhaps a needless insurance.
I even spared myself 6.5 miles out of my total of 15 in hitching a ride with an older man right
out of the parking lot. I was walking back towards the road intent on hitching back to my original spot
when he pulled up beside me with the words “I know you, you're an AT hiker. Get in!” It sounded good
to me.
The man continually smoked cigarettes and had a few cases of boxed wine in the back along
with some doughnuts he'd just bought. He offered me a smoke but for some reason I said no.
“You sure?” he rattled. It sounded as though his vocal chords were rotting.
“Yeah, I'm good. So, do you live around here?” I asked, hoping for my yellow blaze.
“Yep. I'm up in a gated community on the mountain.”
“Is that anywhere near....uhmm...hold on.” I checked out my Data Book. “Big Bald? Does that
sound familiar?”
“Oh yeahr, that's right up therrhe, see?” His r's were the definition of gutteral and I could just
picture phlegm like rolling around inside of him. “See it?” He pointed out the window but I couldn't see
any mountain in particular which stood out from the others. It was the usual morass of purple peaks all
clumped together. “Hey, do you want a ride up there? To Big Bald?”
“Sure! That would do me a big favor.” He told me he'd have to stop at his house first. I said that
was just fine.
He was familiar with hikers so I questioned him about his job. He was retired Air Force and
bitter about it. He said that he'd spent all his time training for something that had ended up being
obsolete so he'd had to extend the time he spent “bullshitting around” as he called it. Before he'd even
made the real money.
His house was something straight out of the 1960's. Dark wooded panels and asymmetrical
architecture. The driveway was so long and ill-tended that it took a few revvs just to get his truck up
there.
“I should really do something about those ditches one day,” he rattled.
“I could do it for you right now. Got any spare gravel?” I asked, hoping for a bit of spare cash.
“No, no...no,” he laughed. “That's alright.” I pushed the issue but he just shook his head.
He wouldn't let me inside his house but he charged my cell phone at my request for the few
minutes while he put his groceries inside. The whole situation was very strange. The man seemed more
nervy and less sure of himself outside of his car – even though I'd been in there with him the whole
time.
“You surrhe you don't want a smoke?” he asked me on one of his trips back. He wouldn't even
let me carry his groceries.
“No, seriously, I'm good. Trying to quit.”
“Ha!” He thought that was really funny and I kind of agreed with him.
“Hey. Hey, uh...do you have any spare food?” I asked, the hoarding instinct right back with me,
even after my breakthrough about a carefree utopia within my grasp. The fear had gotten hold of me
again. On top of that I felt badly because he seemed to resent me or something at this point. I was
definitely intruding.
Still sitting shotgun, I opened the cardboard box of cookies and ate one. Its softness was
comforting. It was fresh, sugarcookie, with three pastel m&m's forming a triad. I zoned out.
The guy came back again. I realized I hadn't even asked for his name. But then, he hadn't asked
for mine. He handed me my cell phone and charger cord back and I stuffed it in the top of my pack or
“brain” as they call it. It's an altogether separate compartment you have to lace and buckle in. It sits
right on top of the rest of the long, one bodied main compartment. There are side pockets which are
supposedly rain proof on the side of mine, but I store most stuff in the top where it's accessible. But it's
a chore to snap and in, taut with the strings, multiple times a day. Always tightening it. “You've got to
get rid of your brain” more than one hiker informed me. But I hadn't quite given it up. Besides, where
would I put it? Nobody else would want it either. Brains weren't really in fashion. And I hadn't thought
about it when I'd been near a trash can. I didn't think of it now either.
Winding back up through the gated community I noticed there was a post crowned with what
looked like an observation tower where there were people actually on staff to survey the traffic below.
My ride waved the man at the window an OK and on we drove. I guess the guard on duty or whoever
he was knew everyone in the community by sight. But what if I'd just had a gun pointed at his balls, out
of sight? What then?
We parked at a brown paint-slathered metal gate, beyond which he couldn't take me anymore. I
could tell he felt more comfortable with me now that we were away from his home. He really felt badly
he couldn't drive me all the way to the top of Big Bald. We got out of the car and he assured me,
gesturing with his cigarette,
“The top is not that much further up. You're basically here. I got youhr as far as I could.”
“No, thank you! Seriously, you spared me about six miles. I'll take that any day.”
“Yehhp. And this last six miles is a stretch you really won't miss. Just straight up, basically.”
“Yeah,” I said. Then, just to play devil's advocate: “But what if it's really beautiful or
something? What if I'd been in one of those open moods and it proved really rewarding and all.”
“I'm sure I dunno,” he said. We stared at each other. “I'm an old man. I always drive up here,
never walk. I'll go to the Bald to drink some wine every once and awhile, but I always take the truck.
It's like an extension of me, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“Plus I've had a quadruple bypass surgery just recently.”
“What the heck is that?” I asked. I'd heard of it but never gathered the meaning.
“It's in your heart, they enter it at all sides, all four valves. A surgery to keep your heart from
stopping.”
“Oh my God!” I seized up just thinking about the unnaturalness of it all. Knives and incisions in
your most tender core of places. A living, pulsating mess when out in the open.
I have such a visceral fear of blood that I'd actually passed out in middle school when we were
only talking about the circulatory system. I'd excused myself abruptly to go to the bathroom, to not hear
what the teacher was saying, but patches of my vision had started blacking out even though my eyes
were wide open on the waxed hallway before me. I fell there and someone had to find me, wake me up.
“Are you ok?” the guy laughed sadistically.
“Yeah. I'm good.” After a few more minutes of shooting the shit I heaved my pack back on. It
was considerably heavier due to two cans of Campbell soup he'd given me which I'd been too
embarrassed to refuse. He hadn't wanted to give them to me in the first place. I waved goodbye and
walked up the slight incline of the road, hoping to find the trail soon. I felt a little nervous about being
so far removed from it, as if once lost I'd never find it again or something.
But I did find it. Sighing a huge sigh of relief that felt pretty fake even to me (but who else was
watching?), I set about having a picnic in the field in the wake of a looming mountain which I guessed
was Big Bald. I was already so high up that I could see for miles around. All the other peaks were
displayed to my right and the city lights had just begun to gleam in the hazy gloom of the early
evening. Big Bald was just in front of me, and there were tangled, unfriendly woods to the left. At my
back was a slight lip of hill where the AT had come from, and going north it headed straight up Big
Bald. What a surprise.
Later that evening, from within the peace of my tent, I heard a winded man exclaim:
“Oh God! You've got to be kidding me! I am not climbing that!”
Well then, what are you doing here?
“I'm staying here too,” I heard another, drawling voice reply to the first. “I feel really sick.”
Goddamn it!
“I mean, I'm going on to the shelter,” the first guy informed him. I could tell he was so
halfhearted about everything at this point that he was sorry he couldn't offer better comfort but he
couldn't stop at this point. His voice said it all.
But I didn't care. I was just pissed I wouldn't have this spot to myself for the evening. That other
guy, the sick one, was staying. If you didn't have any material things to give me, I didn't want you to be
near me. And then, sometimes even if you did have something, I couldn't rise to the strain of human
relations for a long enough allotment of time. I didn't know it but my heart was rotting too.
The guy who stayed kept bothering me. Making sure I had cell phone reception and everything
(I didn't) in case, I quote, “I die or something.” All this time I never saw him. I only heard him as an ill
voice coming from the valley side around the footpath of the trail.
And then he began to wretch. Very loudly.
“Well,” he yelled out to me in the dark. “I just threw up in my tent!”
Ew.
“Are you okay?” I yelled back, faking my concern.
“Absolutely not!” If he'd had a face, I would have put a wet smile on it just then. Was that...a
sense of humor? At a time like this? Who was this weirdo?
Oh God, I can't believe this! Stuck here with this freak. He'll probably snore, too...
Indeed, he woke me up twice in the middle of the night. Once from his hacking sounds and a
second time to tell me to “come out and look at the sky.”
Oh, of all the things!
“I'm really tired, I'm just gonna stay in my tent, ok?” Annoyance had slipped into my voice.
“Well, so am I, but...” His voice trailed off and I thought he'd ended. “Yeah.” I heard him say.
What was he doing? Was he outside his tent or in? I began to feel creeped out. “I'll see you in the
morning. Hopefully!” he threw this last out, then I heard him unzip his tent, get inside, and make no
more noise.
April 26, 17.8 mi
I woke up in terror. The wind was blowing all four walls of my tent inwards on itself so that I
could barely breathe and I could feel no space that wasn't collapsing in, encasing me. I heard the
amazing roar of the storm all around me and the fibrous snapings of my cheap tent poles as they bent
above me. Even though I lay on the ground, I was buffeted back and forth on my matt, which I felt was
very wet. My thrown out hand somehow passed over my flashlight, which had been tossed to the
ground from its usual space above my head in the webbing. I turned the nozzle at the end and focused it
into a finite point. I could see.
It was like waking up in a sinking sail boat. Water was coming in fast, I didn't understand from
where. In fact I sloshed about in almost three inches of water with every movement I made. My first
thought was to save my food, mainly keep my precious bread from getting wet, but although it was
relatively safe in its plastic wrap with the twist tie there was nowhere safe to put it. My pack was
soaked, I'd left it open, and all the muddy water flooding my tent had entered it as well making it heavy
and turning it a blood red color.
“Oh no! Oh no!” I muttered aloud, shaking with fear.
An assault of wind gail blew in on the side of me, the strongest yet, and I cried out as I splashed
to the floor, dropping my flashlight somewhere in the water.
I struggled to sit up, but didn't know what to do next. Go outside? Abandon my tent? Or would
it be even worse out there? Of course it would.
A very close beam of lightening lit up my plight in a stark strobe light.
“AHHHhhh!” I wailed, so afraid that I was beyond reason. Catatonic. I couldn't move.
My fumbling hands grabbed for the candy bars and I unwrapped and ate one after the other. I
couldn't do anything else.
Are you hungry now, bitch?
“Oh fuck! FUCK!” I tottered over the edge of sanity right then. I'd been dancing along a cliff
face recently, trying to enjoy the darkness of my nightmares, of my madness. But in that moment I felt,
not fear of dying, but fear of being.
“Oh. Uh-uh-oh. Oh!” My inhales and exhales wracked my skeleton. I couldn't stop jerking
about involuntarily. “I should have – oh! I shouldn't have. Oh fuck!”
Then the thought of the ambivalent encounter I'd just had with the older man, how it was
completely painful – pointless – sickened me.
“Ohhh! Oh my God!” I cried, rocking forward and back in spasmatic thrills. “I should have
smoked that cigarette!”
After awhile I got a grip on myself and decided I had to do something. Staying in the tent was
not an option. I had to get out of there and keep hiking. But with all my clothes and equipment soaked
(my down sleeping bag was now a very heavy sop of feathers) I didn't see how that was possible. In
that moment.
I knew what I had to do. I'd just have to get out, wring my sleeping bag free of excess moisture,
stuff my food and my tent in my pack without worrying about the order of things too much, and get the
hell off the mountain.
But I felt I needed outside motivation. I needed someone to tell me what to do or how to begin. I
was shaken by the last twenty minutes or so, so I decided to check in with the other human being who'd
camped near me last night. Seeing as how he could talk back to me. Seeing as how he was there.
I managed to get out of my tent and stagger into the wind. It was dark outside but I couldn't tell
whether this was because of the storm or because it was still night. I looked up and the sky looked steel
grey and very close. The rain came from every direction. It was the worst possible place I could have
camped. I saw that now.
I saw the sick man's green domed tent about ten feet ahead of me. So he was still there. The tent
was low to the ground and staked out well. This fact fueled my unreasoning hate of him. It wasn't just
him, it was everything.
I didn't want to ask for help but I approached his tent anyway.
“Are you...alive?” I yelled out to him through the wind. Bad choice of words. God, I hated
myself. I hated this. I wanted to burn something.
For a minute I didn't hear any response.
“Yeah. I'm holding in here.”
“My uh....my tent's destroyed,” I told him, well aware of how little he should care for this. “I
don't know what to do, and I-”
He unzipped a fraction of his tent flap near his face. I saw two eyes and a blue hat look back at
me. He was lying down.
“Well, how bad is it? Where is it?” he asked me. I moved aside and pointed to my tent and then
he understood my problem.
I didn't want to be standing there in my short shorts in front of this stranger. But I did it anyway.
And it got worse.
“Well, what are you going to do about it?” he asked me. A good question. I stepped closer.
“I don't think we should stay here,” I said, employing the 'we' in a kind of hinting, hopeful way.
His eyes were a little wide in his head but he looked well enough. Please...please, get me out of here.
“Well...geez...” He seemed hard-pressed for anything to say. But he thought about it, unzipped
his tent a little more, really looked at how bad off my tent was, squinting through the darkness at it
awhile, then said:
“You have two options, OK?”
“Okay.” I was listening.
“You can walk to the nearest shelter, which is about one mile away – leave your stuff, it won't
make any sense to carry it right now – and ask anybody there for help. Or I could try and help you.”
“One mile?” I asked, crestfallen. I was hoping it would be a lot closer than that. Maybe a “blue
blaze” section or side trail to the left and through the trees, a trek that wouldn't involve climbing that
horrible-looking mountain ahead of us at all. “So it's up that next mountain and on?”
“Yeah, that's right,” he told me.
“Could you help me?” I pleaded. He looked back at me, and across that short distance between
us I didn't, I couldn't register anything other than my own misery. I cared nothing for his sickness or for
him. I was blind.
“Yes I'll help you.” He said it without hesitation. I smiled my gratitude. “OK the first thing
you'll need to do is change clothes. Are they wet underneath your rain gear or were you able to put on
your outer layer before you went outside?”
“I don't have anything else,” I managed.
“What do you mean?” he asked. I just stared back at him, confused in turn. “You mean you're
wearing everything you have under your rain gear and it's wet?” he guessed, trying to draw it out of me.
“Yeah,” I said. He was not amused, just flabbergasted. This didn't help our situation.
“No, no, that's no good. What you need is an absolutely dry layer between you and your rain
gear at all times, but especially in the cold. Or else you'll get hypothermia.” He told me all this without
looking away, quite serious.
“Okay.”
He sighed his annoyance but otherwise kept my eyes to let me know he was there, that it was
okay.
“I have an extra layer you can wear for now. You'll have to come in and change into it though.
Your tent's not an option and if you were to change outside, if even a part of the sleeve gets wet, it'll do
you no good.”
“Okay.”
“How are you feeling?” he asked. I just stared back at him, like What do you expect? “Did you
walk over here alright? Without stumbling or anything? What's your pulse like?”
“I...I dunno,” I laughed. The questions seemed silly at a time like this. “Why?”
“Because you might have hypothermia. Feel your pulse,” he told me. “And try to tell me how
many times it beats starting...” he broke eye contact to look down and and tap his watch. “Now. Start
counting now.”
Feeling stupid, I squeezed my wrist but couldn't feel anything. My fingers were numb.
“I uh, I can't do this right now,” I told him.
“Can you come inside?” he asked me.
“Yeah.” I staggered towards his “door.”
“Woah, wait!” I stopped. “This is going to be a process, OK? The environment in here has to be
absolutely dry or else it's not going to be a safe base for us to plan from. OK? I have a vestibule and
you can take off your rain gear at least in there. You'll have to leave it outside.”
He motioned for me to come closer and I saw what he was talking about. The green of his tent,
it's outer shell, was just the rain fly. In between it and the net of the inside dome there was about a foot
of grass for me to prepare in. I ducked under the green and crawled, feeling surprisingly dry grass under
my palms. I managed to be off with my rain gear but it took me awhile.
“OK good,” he said. “Now you're ready to come in. You can sit on my mat, just so that you don't
get anything else wet.” He'd pushed his sleeping bag far aside at the other end of the round tent and I
saw where I could crawl onto his mat and have enough room. I entered.
Sitting up on the mat, crosslegged, I looked up at him sheepishly.
“Thank you,” I told him.
“It's alright.” I found him to be a round-nosed man in his mid thirties. Blue knit cap, matching
coat. Shorts that were grey like mine. We both sat crosslegged facing each other. The tent was
surprisingly roomy and we could sit up without much trouble.
After he felt my pulse against his timer he told me that I'd be alright. As he made me some
Starbucks Via instant coffee, he talked to me.
“It's the way things work out here. You see someone in trouble, you help them.”
I felt like a total piece of shit. Watched the water gently simmer to a boil in the vestibule.
“Uhm...I thought you threw up in your tent?” It was all I could think of to say. Another bad line.
“I did!” he laughed. “But I cleaned it up.”
Oh.
I looked around the tent and it was spotless.
“Have you...erm...done lots of hiking before, then?”
“I guess,” he said, pouring out the coffee.
“Where?”
“New Zealand, Australia, parts of the Continental Divide Trail.”
“The Continental Divide trail? Really?” I asked, fascinated.
“Yeah, I'm from Colorado. It seemed to make sense at the time.”
“You liked it? It was beautiful, like this?” He shifted me a strange look, like You're crazy. But
something in his facial expression allowed me to recognize him. “Oh! I know you! You're Dingo. I met
you on Blood Mountain.”
“Yeah, that's right. I remembered you too after awhile. You look different.”
“Changed already?” I laughed, happy I'd gotten it right. “But anyway, I remember you talking
about Colorado, how the Rocky Mountains were so much more awesome than these rolling hills.”
“I didn't say that!” He pointed a finger at me and shook it back and forth. “I did not.”
“Yeah, but I could read you loud and clear,” I joked. “You said something like 'This is different
from Colorado' but you hate this. Just like everybody else! Nobody sees the...the unparalleled beauty of
Appalachian, man. I believe in it. Very strongly. There's nowhere else on earth I'd rather be than here.”
“Okay, I believe you.” He smiled. I gratefully took a sip of my coffee. I was having a great time.
“So, how did you get your trail name?” I was thinking and speaking a mile a minute ever since
I'd had the coffee. It had been awhile.
Dingo explained to me how he'd been scheduled to present at some white collar business
meeting in Australia, but that he'd been running late. “Well, I guess the dingos got 'im!” cracked a good
friend of his. He'd been told of this later, after he'd finally arrived.
“And that's how I got my trail name” he concluded.
“That's it?” I was almost disappointed.
“Yeah!” he said, mock defensive. “What's your name mean, huh? It's a collection of letters,
right? C.-Span? C.-Something? Is it an acronym?”
“It's C.V.” I corrected him.
“And?” he prodded.
“I don't really like to talk about it.” I looked down, mock tragic. It was like I was talking about
someone who had died, but I didn't actually care.
I looked back up to see this look on his face. His round, luminescent orbs of eyes had lidded
down to their equivalent of fog lights. Are you serious? I just saved your ass and you're not even going
to tell me your name?
“Okay! Okay I'll tell you. But nobody else. I picked my own name. I know you're not supposed
to do that, but I did. It stands for Coinvolta, the name I used during my section hike in '10. It's the past
participle of the reflexive Italian verb “coinvolgersi” which means “to be involved.”
“So...to have been involved?”
“Right!”
He then proceeded to ask me something about the Italian language which I couldn't answer.
He'd been to Italy and wanted to clear something up or refresh his memory. I couldn't do it, even though
I'd practically minored in Italian. It felt like a long time ago.
“Yeah, well, it's more about the sound than anything,” I continued on. “Coinvolta. It's probably
my favorite word I ever ran across. But that's a very long, uninteresting story for a trail name, so I
abbreviated it to C.V.”
“Alright, that's valid,” he said.
He encouraged me, once I'd warmed up with the coffee, to change clothes. He offered me a
black thermal top of his which had been safely stowed away in a ziploc bag. “We're basically the same
size. Or thereabouts. It should work.” I thanked him and felt the material. It was really light and soft.
Dry.
He turned his back and I slipped out of my soaking wet, yellow polyester tank and took off my
pink sports bra too. The bra looked as though it had seen better days, but I actually considered it an
invaluable part of my wardrobe. It dried pretty easily and was very comfortable. I'd made all sorts of
slashes in it to allow for greater freedom of movement. It was personalized and tested. I set it and the
yellow top outside in the vestibule. Deodorant, a whole solid of a man's brand, was one of the luxury
items I'd carried with me in 2010 and carried with me now. So I didn't smell too bad.
I was wondering what we should do. I wanted to hike but didn't want to impinge any further
than I already had, and now I didn't want to go alone.
“How are you feeling, Dingo?”
“Not perfect, but definitely better than yesterday.”
“What do you think happened to you?”
“It was probably water-borne sickness.” He just shrugged it off as if nothing bad had even
happened yesterday. I liked that. “Why, do you think we should leave?” Yes.
“I mean, what if it gets worse?” I argued. I wanted to hike with him.
“Do I look alright? Do I still look sick?” he asked.
“I think you'll be just fine!” I laughed thinking of him hiking in the Continental Divide. This
was probably easy stuff compared to all that.
So we mutually decided to get the heck out of dodge. I put my rain coat, which had dried in the
grass of the vestibule during our prolonged coffee hour, over his dry layer but left my rain pants off.
They were pretty useless as anything other than rain gear because when hiking, with bare skin
underneath, all they did was restrict my movement and make me feel all hot and sticky. And yet as an
extra layer for preserving body heat in the cold they were practically useless as well. I stuffed them
willy-nilly into my soaking pack with everything else.
I was ready to go in about five minutes. Dingo took a bit longer, naturally, because all his stuff
was still in the pristine state of being worth saving. But soon we were on our way.
Hiking with him that day was ardurous but it taught me a lot about myself. He never explicitly
taught me anything, but one time he returned my confidence in him by saying something to the effect of
“You've got this” when that was all I needed to hear. My knees were definitely suffering from having to
carry a wet sleeping bag and all my wet gear. I can't imagine how many pounds it actually was and I
don't care to. The adrenaline kept me moving. At bad moments we'd stop, he'd share some sesame rice
cracker wasabe mix with me, and then we'd keep going.
For seven miles we climbed down the gigantic mountain Big Bald had been the top of. My
going was difficult but Dingo readjusted the velcro pads along the spine of my pack to allow for more
length and flexibility for the straps at the top. It was the real beginning of my learning how to use my
pack to best advantage. And this happened well into my hike.
In the mists we passed by huge structures of rockface, wove in and out of tunnels. My feet slid
out from under me in droves of greasy, black mud the storm had left. We'd passed by the shelter ages
ago to regroup and I offered him a banana. There had been nobody else there and no entries in the
register. I was really glad I hadn't forded on alone only to find no one to help me.
Dingo told me stories about his hiking adventures in Tibet. We were on the topic of smoking
cigarettes, he encouraged me to quit, then he told me that the only time he'd ever smoked tobacco was
when he was practically forced to in a Tibetan jail. There was some negotiation going on, he'd been
offered a sickeningly strong rolled cigarette when it would've been poor form to refuse it, and he'd
nearly passed out from the head rush.
The last mile or two was gorgeous. Still downhill, I had to watch my footing, but the slick mud
had changed to light-colored pebbles and sand. The trees were magnificent, upright wonders with
sharp, sepia bark strips which looked as though they were pasted on like so many vertical, jagged
dragon's teeth. In complete wonder, I fell silent. We walked on together, peaceful pilgrims of the wild.
When we finally reached the road at Spivey Gap we'd descended a total of 1,316 feet. The trees
had covered us from most of the storm while we were hiking, and now we found the weather not nearly
as ominous as it had been. We stood at the road waiting for cars in order to hitch to town. There weren't
many.
An old man named Pops showed up, heading north, and he stopped with us awhile, “Just to keep
us company.” Man, he could talk! He probably talked for about two hours straight about all sundry sorts
of things. He was planning on writing a book about it all. He'd driven a bus all over the country with his
wife for ten years straight during the sixties. He had five children who were all geniuses in their fields.
He'd been in the army, himself, when he was there age. Not much success at it. In fact, he'd been kicked
out. He explained all his antics in detail. I listened to them all, delighted, as Dingo wandered up and
down the road trying to get service on his phone. Nobody really had a plan.
An entire family of hikers, the first I'd seen, also showed. The very handsome father,
surprisingly young considering the age of his eldest boy, introduced them all as the Rainwaters. I guess
they'd chosen their own name too. For Pops this meant more people to talk to, so we all listened in our
several ways. The smiling, plump mother wiped the mud off her nine year old's knees. The seventeen
year old slipped me sly looks and piece after piece of candy. I don't think anybody was looking forward
to more hiking after what we'd just been through, so we kept each other company in this way for quite
some time.
Dingo came back with the information that a Miss Janet was coming to save us. This news
roused the rest of the company to high spirits. Apparently they'd met her before. They described her as
a “Trail Angel” or someone that selflessly went to extreme lengths to help hikers all along the trail.
She'd take us into town.
Dingo turned to me and told me he was going to keep hiking, but that maybe he'd see me further
along down the trail.
What, you're going to leave me now?
I had no right to keep him, nobody has that right. It was an irrational hypocrisy for I both
wanted him with me until Katahdin, the northern mountain terminus of the trail, and also knew I
preferred to hike alone. In parting he gave me twenty dollars with the hope I'd be able to dry out my
stuff and stay somewhere in town. I thanked him again and he left.
Pops, the Rainwaters, and I waited a long time by that road. All of us needed to go into town.
We calculated that we'd yellow blaze about ten miles. I felt vaguely guilty about having done it so much
recently, but I knew there'd be plenty of hiking ahead.
Yukon, the built bearded man with the leather hat, showed up with two other tall, strapping men.
They saluted Pops and they all squared off for awhile, swapping stories. I learned that all three young
men had been marines. I hovered shyly outside the circle, not saying anything, trying to keep it covered
up and ambiguous in my hooded rain jacket, but inside I burned with desire for all three. The rain ran
down from my nose to my full, pink lips. I kept my hands in my pockets. But my eyes admired, feasted,
would clasp just by a look. It was really getting to that point where I needed to take care of something.
I kept my hands pressed together, prayer style, in my lap all the way to town. Four of us were in
the back of Miss Janet's maroon-colored Cadillac which she called the Bounce Box. The ceiling lining
was torn in several places and it waved back and forth like so many curtains as we cut the close curves
through the rocks on the way to Erwin, Tennessee. I sat next to Mr. Rainwater and stared at my thighs.
When we pulled up at the Holiday Inn, Miss Janet assured me everything would be alright. I
could just go into room 105, here's the key, I could stay if I liked, but wouldn't I like to stop at the
Walmart after a shower? Perhaps a laundromat?
“There's nobody in the room at the moment,” she assured me. “So you can have it to yourself
for about an hour. I've dropped off three of the boys that are staying there, all hikers of course, at a
restaurant, so they'll be there awhile. What do you think you'd like to do for tonight?”
“I'll stay if I can!” I replied gratefully. A hot shower and a clean bed sounded heavenly just now.
And to have all my clothes washed? That would be the first time since I'd begun hiking. Not to mention
my sleeping bag. I was ecstatic.
I found the room full of hiker's things. Trekking poles, three sets, several mail boxes full of
food, three packs in the corners. I smiled and wondered what they were like, where they were from, as I
set about putting my own filthy, lumbering orange pack next to a lightweight Osprey, gray. With all the
wealth around me it was difficult not to take a cliff bar or two for myself, hide it in my pack for later or
something. But I would never do that. I'm not a thief. I reassured myself that I'd be taken care of later. I
had that twenty bucks, that was certainly a score! We'd go to Walmart, I'd stock up, dry my things...it
would all work out. I believed.
Peeling my wet clothes off in the bathroom I noticed all sorts of brown flecks all over my body
like so many tiny freckles. I was covered from head to toe with dirt, small pieces of wood, and sand.
The water ran black, once again, in the shower. It was the second one I'd had in a little over a
month. One brief go over with lather from the shampoo all over my body wasn't enough, I discovered. I
had to rub off excess skin and grime by scrubbing hard with a hand towel. No, this was not the time for
masturbation, I reasoned – even though I had the room to myself. Many such seeming “perfect
opportunities” are wasted on me. The truth is I never really learned how. I got much more pleasure out
of blow drying my hair after I was all clean.
Walmart to Wendy's to the laundromat. It was heaven! My twenty bucks went a long way in
ramen noodles, a philly cheese steak, an entire half gallon of cookie dough ice cream, and a spicy
chicken sandwich, with enough quarters left over for a multiple round of attempts at getting my bag
dry. Miss Janet dropped me and another hiker named Rusty off at the place with a set of six colorful
tennis balls. She told us each to put three of them in there with our bags in order that they should
bounce back to their full fluff. I was to learn the actual resillience of down bags, despite every warning
hikers had given me. Though it did take a few cycles. A lot of hiker wisdom is like that; it prepares you
for the worst which never happens, or it doesn't inform you at all as to the difficulty of what's actually
up ahead.
I sat in the laundromat for hours with Rusty enjoying my sandwich and fries. We were both
drinking beer from a six pack he'd bought and he told me about the vacations he'd been on to Ireland
and Scotland and the middle east after he'd retired from the army. He said he was a green beret.
“What does that mean?” I knew my friend Paul had been one as well.
Rusty avoided answering my question directly. Deftly, he directed my attention somewhere else.
Photos, he played music for me on his phone, he told me he was tired of hikng.
“You know,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “This one time I was in the middle of the desert
with four of my friends. We were trying to negotiate a taxi fare and my friends said we were getting
ripped off. My best friend broke the window of the cab trying to get at the guy driving, and he did. He
must have got his nose broken. He just wouldn't stop.”
I wasn't sure what to say so I didn't say anything. I just looked back at him, trying to support
him any way I could. I could tell that the event had affected him a lot.
He said he'd go back home soon to his family to take over a business venture for his father, who
was badly in need of help.
“See, I don't have anything to go back to,” I told him. “It's weird. I might leave, or I might not
like the trail as much as I do, if I felt like I had a purpose back home.”
“Yeah, that's how a lot of people feel,” he said.
For awhile we just listened to the sound of the tennis balls bouncing in the wash.
O
Back at the hotel I found the three guys already in bed watching TV. I slipped in next to the solo
hiker at the bed farthest away from the door, happy and drunk and glad to be in warm, clean clothes.
For awhile I couldn't help but prattle on about this and that. The one who conversed with me the most
was actually facing away from everybody, staring at the wall on the far end. Somehow we got to talking
about a hiker named AWOL who had written a very disparaging book about his thru-hike experience as
well as a vastly popular guide book designed to aid in thru-hiking complete with maps and an elevation
chart. I'd seen this strange book before. Everybody seemed to have it. It was bright green, and when
you opened it it was full of irregular heartbeats, the visual data of what we hiked everyday. Sometimes
it would flatline only to raise abruptly again in a series of peaks or slumping rounds. It was something I
didn't completely understand, and so I said it fascinated me.
“Lies, it's all lies!” moaned my faceless conversant.
“What do you mean?” I laughed.
“Liiiiieeeees!”
I let it go. I got up once to eat more ice cream and turn off the lights. We all slept well that night
on well-deserved, soft beds.
April 27, 2.5 mi
Later the next morning Orion, one of the hikers who'd slept in the other bed, came back into the
room to find me and the hiker I'd shared a bed with completely naked and in the middle of fooling
around.
“Oh!” he said in surprise, then turned around and went back out.
I was slightly embarrassed, but so enthralled by the warm, strong body next to me that I fell
back in with him almost instantly. Laughing, rocking. Turned on, my cunt dripping wet, I felt him up
with my mouth and with my hands. He was so healthy and strong! Such smooth, brown skin and
crisped, scratchy beard. The loveliest textures, smells, possible.
I found a tattoo on his hip stretching out ghostly grey with fine lines onto his stomach. It looked
like a bearded man whose lower body was a column from antiquity.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It's a demon,” he replied. “Come here,” he breathed into my ear. “Sit on my face.”
O
From one feast to another, my mate and I then went to eat the ample continental breakfast in the
hotel lobby, replete with biscuits and gravy, bacon, eggs, bagels, toast, and jams. To begin I just
selected some cereal and a yogurt. He only took a little coffee, saying he wasn't hungry.
“Hello, roommates.” The fourth hiker, the one who'd faced the wall while speaking with me the
night before, descended upon our party and took the seat opposite me. He was my age, all dressed in
cotton grey, but was already balding. He looked a little like Dr. Strangelove. He'd brought a newspaper
with him and set it down at his place. There was this unstated air of maturity about him, and the way
he'd rumbled the word “roommates,” rather low and implying, made me smile like a naughty child. But
a favored child, one who wasn't in too much trouble. My companion, however, felt uneasy and soon left
the table.
I decided it was time for a more thorough breakfast.
“I'm going to get some eggs and things,” I said. “Would you like to have breakfast with me?”
“Yes.” The way he looked at me was classic. Bemused. We both got up and got our first course
of warm food.
I sat down to the most free, easy-going, and intelligent conversation I've had in years. It was a
delight from start to finish. Varied banter over warm biscuits, hot chocolate, more coffee. I kept getting
up for more and more food, prolonging the time we spent there.
You can do a lot of things for a woman, but ah, can you talk with her?
It was the best breakfast.
April 28, 6.9 mi
Momento Mori hiking up to the Beauty Spot. A dead butterfly in the road. Wings torn, hollow
husk of body eaten away by ants and rolling in the dirt. One hole looked fairly like burn detail. In an
instant, I imagined all sorts of horrible things that had happened to its dead body.
But I am alive! I have a beauty spot on my youthful cheek.
“Who wants to be alive
when you're twenty-five?”
I felt the darkness inside me but knew I was in the warm sun. The sky had changed to perfect
blue with benign, white clouds and I walked upwards on the trail in between a sloping hillside of
rambling roots.
April 29, 9.0 mi
I made my own camp atop a hill many yards from the trail. The turf was a bed of fallen leaves. I
knew I'd be comfortable inside my tent, which I aired out while waiting for my ramen to soften.
Watched a camoflage butterfly open its wings to a secret spectacle of vibrant orange and yellow.
“She is wide open!” Something Josh had said about his spastic daughter, twirling in a pink tutu
on the wooden deck while we'd smoked our cigarettes in the sun. A note of worry in his voice. “Now
what am I supposed to do about that?” he could have said.
I learned nothing. I enjoyed everything.
April 30, 9.2 mi
I watched an entire sunrise, laying in my tent with the flap open. It was a symphony of color and
movement that I know I'll never forget. It began with the bleak, grey dawn hue of the skies just across
from me above the mountain ranges. Then the wind brought the tinglings of the twigs and the twirling
of the leaves on the outer boughs of the black trees to a crescendo. In anticipation I lay quite still. More
light, swathes of different color. Purple. Pink. Then the piercing, altogether different quality of light
from the first rays of the sun. The original source of it all.
Before I left that spot, I found a small plastic sign with the type NORTH CAROLINA GAME
LANDS and the word “Wildlife” written in cursive in the middle.
“Back in North Carolina again? Are you serious?” I thought.
I kept the thing as my own momento.
O
The morning's clear skies were soon blocked by menacing clouds. In the afternoon I picked my
way up and down the ridges through the mist in relative darkness. The empty valley basins whose hill
peaks I could barely make out on the other side offered choice views. Sometimes the hiding sun would
send down isolated beams of light, favoring this ordinary tree clump, that open field of green.
I was walking on sacred ground, respected by me and those unmet, unknown others who I knew
felt the same way I did. Maybe they'd lived before me and now were dead, and that's why I had to
wander alone. Maybe they are the people it's not possible to close company with at all. You meet them
suddenly, are struck by the vivid impression that you could be soul mates, that you should wander this
earth through to the end with them, only to find out they're going to go home and stick a needle in their
arm. You see their sickness, relate to it, and therefore there's nothing more to be said. Nothing you can
do for each other. And yet you think of them repetitively, obsessively, when they are not around (which
is most of the time). You miss them for life.
It started to rain. At some climbs it was snow. I struggled with my rain gear, stopping at
intervals either to put it back on or to impatiently peel it off my sweaty skin. No way to get used to the
temperature differences I felt, so I'd stop every once and awhile and try to tweak it. Weight distribution
inside the pack. The slackness of this or that strap. Catamite stylin' with my hood up, the gentle curve
of my upturned nose, and my blue eyes staring wide out of my face in accusation and disgust. The
1980's with my hair let down, my cutoff sock arm warmers making an outfit with my grey Nike shorts.
Whatever I tried, it never worked for very long.
Eventually I tired of the day and just wanted to go to sleep. I spied a flat space on a side road
below the ridge of the trail I was walking on at that time, so I blazed straight down there. “No yellow
blaze, there's no car,” I thought. “No proper blue blaze, no paint markings on the trees.” It is what it is.
This side road was within view of a paved road. As I passed close to it I caught sight of a red
pickup driving by. I thought about what that girl Spiller had said about the local who robbed hikers at
knifepoint. Didn't she say he drove a red pickup? A guy in a vehicle could make it up from the Georgia
line or wherever I'd first heard about it, no problem. The locals had kept quiet, I'd heard. They knew
him and defended him with silence against the police when they'd came knocking. But maybe he'd
moved outwards from his community and had begun to poach in other areas along the trail. Farther
north. Just to give them the lie, like.
Despite feeling a little uneasy about the truck and them having seen me turn onto the side road
from the trail, I walked along its flat length until I found a decent spot without potholes. I set up my
tent in under five minutes, feeling pressured by the mounting wind and threatening downpour all the
while, looking up now and again to try and see if there was decent tree cover above me, if there were
any limbs that looked like they'd fall. In the end I just said “Fuck it,” threw everything in, and hoped
for the best.
I called my ex boyfriend as the sun went down because I felt lonely and a bit unnerved. I had
cell phone reception, which was rare, and I saw he'd left a message for me awhile back.
“You didn't enlist, did you?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “I decided to do this instead.”
“What's this?”
“Trek to Katahdin, what else?”
“You're doin' that, Stephanie? Well good. I just wanted to make sure you weren't like in
Afghanistan or something,” he laughed.
“No such luck.”
After a few more minutes my fear became apparent even to me. It was coming out all over the
place, in my voice, the spastic things that I said, everything. I was tired of talking. I made some excuse
to hang up with him and did.
After I'd talked to my ex I called an old sugar daddy who'd turned me out at the age of eighteen,
back when I'd been a freshman at Berkeley. He picked up at the second ring, even though it had been
years since I'd stopped seeing him or answering his e-mails. We had a very pleasant conversation.
Whatever his biases for over indulgence in lewd sex and pure cocaine, the guy has a great taste in
music. He was an integral part of my education.
“I'm in a meeting but I stepped out just to talk to you, Steph,” his distinct, familiar voice told
me. “Where are you? Are you alright?”
“Well Tom, right now I'm in the middle of the woods in a tent,” I laughed.
“Are you still in Maryland?”
“Hell no! Had to get out of there. I think I'm in Tennessee. But it could be North Carolina.” I
suddenly felt small and pathetic. How little progress I'd made, really. He knew me. “I'm really not sure
where I am,” I told him. “But I'm hiking the Appalachian Trail.”
“You're not hiking in heels, are you?”
“No, you idiot.”
I heard him sigh.
“Why aren't you teaching in Italy?”
“I dunno.”
“I love Italy. I could get you a nice little apartment there. I could visit you every few months.”
“No.”
“Well!” He exhaled hard into the phone, then I heard him stammer the way he does, searching
for the words. “Well, I um. I...” What? “I hope you find what you're looking for out there, whatever it
is. But call me if you need anything, alright Steph?” We hung up.
That night I spent several hours reading Titus Andronicus. Alone in my tent with my flashlight, I
cast full scenes in my mind's eye. Katherine, the genius I'd been suspended back in high school for
kissing, who was now graduating from Harvard Law School, was queen of the goths. “Andronicus.”
Makes me think of Stephen Hero, how he would set himself apart from, indeed above, the “superficial
fray.” She'd written that in a blog post once. Androgynous Angel. Short hair glued into spikes. An
obsession with Johnny Depp. “Why does he always go for the waifs?” she'd rail at me. I don't know,
Katherine. I don't know.
I grinned at the confrontation between her sons.
[Enter DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, braving]
DEMETRIUS: Chiron, thy years want wit, thy wit wants edge,
And manners, to intrude where I am graced;
And may, for aught thou know'st, affected be.
CHIRON: Demetrius, thou dost over-ween in all;
And so in this, to bear me down with braves.
'Tis not the difference of a year or two
Makes me less gracious or thee more fortunate:
I am as able and as fit as thou
To serve, and to deserve my mistress' grace;
And that my sword upon thee shall approve,
And plead my passions for Lavinia's love.
AARON: [Aside] Clubs, clubs! these lovers will not keep
the peace.
DEMETRIUS: Why, boy, although our mother, unadvised,
Gave you a dancing-rapier by your side,
Are you so desperate grown, to threat your friends?
Go to; have your lath glued within your sheath
Till you know better how to handle it.
CHIRON: Meanwhile, sir, with the little skill I have,
Full well shalt thou perceive how much I dare.
Etc, etc.
But when it came to the rape of Titus' daughter, my eyes widened at the knowledge that there
were worse things than death. They'd cut her hands off. Ripped out her tongue. Then the tragedy was
heightened to that horrific level where things almost seem comedic. Definitely absurd.
I was shocked. I gasped aloud as they kept asking her to “tell them what was wrong,” to “show
them” somehow. She's moving her stumps up and down, bleeding from the mouth.
Then I looked askance from the page at my own hands. My slit toed socks, my SmartWool arm
warmers, made me start so violently that I jerked upright in my tent, throwing the text away from me.
In a way, it looked like my hands were stumps. They'd been cut off at the wrists.
“My tongue must be next,” I whispered to myself. All my senses heightened, I could feel the
violent world outside all from inside my tent. I knew what was going on. I'd known it since I'd taken
that Modern Poetry course. Philomela. Jug, jug, Tereau! Pretty, pretty bird. Squawk!
Just then a dog began to bark. I was being hunted! I wasn't welcome here.
I felt that something terrible would happen to me if I remained there much longer. The locals
and the hikers, they wanted me out of the woods. I could sense it. My professors had singled me out,
poured it into me with lascivious eyes, well-like eyes meeting them back. And then, full and beaming,
shining and screaming “Help me!” at my peers, answered only by their inscrutable static glares at the
superficial gates.
I am a church, a beautiful building. Come to worship inside me, come! I stand, beckon the two
boys to me from the way. I'm on my hillside in the sun. My skin is bronzed, my coat is thrown on the
grass where I was recently laying down reading a book for class. Come and meet me!
They come. They both are smiling.
One Jasper, the one I “know” and beckon to, but I would fain catch his friend, one Gregory
Nazarin.
“What are you guys doing?” I asked Gregory. His liscio, lisci black hair moved. It was angled
down towards his sharp chin beneath a black fedora. But his black eyes never moved. They were
immobile. Static.
“Smoking crack!” Gregory announced.
What?
Gregory just stared at me. Embarrassed, I broke the gaze and asked Jasper about poetry he'd
written for the Cloyne Co-Op magazine. Mock Milton. Very clever, etc. but I wanted Gregory Nazarin
to talk to me. I shone in radiance for him that day, but he barely acknowledged me. In fact, after the
guy I'd been lazily talking to before this tried to join in on our triad, Gregory suddenly spoke to Jasper
and said “Come on, let's get out of here.”
No! Wait!
In anguish I watched the two of them walk away. It was the first time I'd gotten up the courage
to hail Gregory Nazarin.
--I tried again about two months later. All this time we'd been in class together, a small senior
seminar on James Joyce, but we never spoke. I was aware of him always, but something had gone
terribly wrong in the dynamics of our class. I'd fallen madly in love with Gregory Nazarin. To add to
my offenses I was only a junior and a woman.
They tortured me.
I fought back. Sometimes I'd leave class satisfied that I'd said the right thing in our no rules
warzone, but one day left me hungry for more. I saw Gregory Nazarin standing in the courtyard. His
coterie of cuties encircling him. All young, long-limbed men. It really drove me crazy to see them
standing there. So perfect, so unaware of me. Social, happy, and free.
I crouched and peered through the branches of the tree I hid behind. They were laughing. I
darted closer, behind another tree, and Gregory Nazarin (who misses nothing) arched his back at my
presence and antics. Preened like a bird. Pretended not to see the lioness hunting at its game.
Smoking at the mouth, dumbfounded by attraction and hunger, I stalked across the courtyard to
them in my thong sandals and hand-me-down skirt. I didn't even choose to walk up to them. I was
drawn.
They all had noticed me by the time I was three yards away. There were a couple of them, maybe
four, besides Gregory Nazarin. They stopped talking and all looked at me. I looked at Gregory Nazarin.
The third Apostle is Gregory Nazarin. Gregory Nazarin is the third Apostle.
“Give me your child!” I would commune with my eyes.
“No,” he would have replied – if either of us had said anything.
“What!” I finally broke the silence. “You're not even speaking to me today?” He just stared
back at me, blankly. He really wasn't going to talk to me.
Jasper was talking. I didn't hear a word he said.
“I'm going to go to Andronico's,” said a curly-haird one.
Yeah, you do that, Angel.
The baying of that dog, a big one by the sound of it, brought me back to the present. I'd rather
flee than fight, I decided. Was I in somebody's backyard? Were there really hunters out with their dog at
this time of night?
I didn't want to know. Despite the heavy rain and mud sticking to my tent, I shoved it all,
everything I owned, into my pack once again, and shining my little flashlight's beam ahead of me I
made towards the road.
I saw a sign post where the AT met this road but I never read it. All I saw was an unused tampon
laying unwrapped in the dirt at its base. It seemed an ill omen as it was the brand I'd brought with me.
O.B. The kind without applicators. Didn't make sense on the trail at all. I felt dirty, paranoid just
looking at it. Where had it come from?
I consulted my Data Book. I was at “Hughes Gap,” 4,040 feet.
I'll hew your hands off, bitch!
Oh God! Save my stupid soul! I'll never make any mistakes again, if only you get me out of this
alive!
I hiked off down the road at a dash. I figured it would be better to be near a public road in the
event that the collective hiker community decided to try and kill me.
“Tom? Hello. Can you hear me?” I tried to reach him again on my cell as the paved road
continued downwards, but the reception was shoddy at best. Mostly I just wanted the comfort of a
human voice. “Can you tell me if there's really a hotel two miles east down this road? It's called Hughes
Gap and I'm in Tennessee.” He paused.
“Yeah, it looks like there's a Bates Motel.”
“Okay thanks!” Shortly after this I lost reception again. Spiraled downwards completely out of
range. Walked at least three or four miles through several neighborhoods with very nice, broad streams
running through their front yards, but I found no motel or even a main intersection with signs.
In order to cover up my disappointment, I made myself observe how unique all the houses were
which I passed. Not only did they have rivers running through their yards like iDEATH but all the glass
lawn baubles you can imagine, all the ferns, wavy plants and flowers. All the specially-crafted lawn
chairs were there. And if the houses around you didn't fit your price range, you just built one to suit
your own, apparently; your standard suburban household, built hastily and with mind for more room,
stood right next to a log cabin. It was all terribly interesting to me as I walked down that sleek, wet
road.
A Cadillac drove past, slowed down, and I heard the click of an electric lock going undone
inside, but it was too weird for me to do anything about it. Besides, I couldn't even see inside the
vehicle.
That's when the young couple found me. They pulled up in front and their bumper sticker said
“iBored.” Intrigued, I walked over to the rolled down window on the driver's side. A young woman with
brown hair was staring back at me. I can't remember her face. They were going home, they said. Could
they give me a ride? I said sure, I was looking for the Bates Motel, but they didn't know anything about
that. They recommended the Greasy Spoon Hostel which was right around there. In fact, they'd just
taken another hiker there, a girl. They could take me too, no problem. But it all sounded sketchy to me.
“I can't go there,” I told them.
“Why not? They have Ben and Jerry's ice cream in the fridge!” But I just stared at them,
thinking that this couldn't be the real world. If it were, I'd almost certainly be dead by this point. “OK
well why don't you come home with us? We can set you up for the night.”
“Sure.” I got in the back.
When we arrived at the house one of their two dogs made me very uncomfortable. It had a
mammoth, forward pointing thick head with a broad brow. Its skeleton would have made no sense.
Short little legs, and pinprick black eyes that looked as though they were just the threads and hole left
over from when its eyeballs had been ripped out of the sockets.
She let me tend to my online forums in the living room from her laptop. I don't remember her
name, or his. But a glance at John, Dear told me that he “wasn't all there.” Shifty eyes, a grin that
seemed out of place. Quiet, friendly, but somehow potentially destructive. He looked strong, kind of
scary. But I knew he would never hurt anyone. All this I knew in a glance, peeping up from what I was
doing on the laptop covering my thighs. He was like a lot of males in America today.
I asked her questions about her life and found out that she's a social worker. She teaches children
in the school system with special needs. I thought that was pretty perfect.
She told me all about their unusual home. It had been left to her from a grandmother who had
died. All the pannelling, which she was very proud of, was original 1970's wood.
“Half of the house is actually empty. We never use it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“There used to be a lot more people living here, but it was ransacked and everything was taken
out years ago and nothing's left on that side. But this side was kept just as it was with the same couches
and everything.”
“That's interesting,” I said. I wanted to see the other side. I wouldn't get to until a few days later.
They set me up to sleep in a furnished room, albeit a room with lots of old stuff in it. It looked
like children had lived here and college goers had studied. And now it was mine, just for the night. The
bed was very comfortable and I fell asleep almost immediately.
May 1, 4.1 mi
The next day I gained 2,245 feet of elevation in just four miles. The banana and coca-cola I'd
had for breakfast had helped me out but I was also a seasoned hiker at this point. Nothing phased me at
all – except the beauty. I hadn't quite gotten used to that yet, and I'm proud to say that I never did. It was
very easy to transcend my body while it yet moved at a very strenuous pace. I also quieted my mind and
could become as floating eyes only. It was a pleasure because it was easy. If I'd been better informed, if
I'd actually calculated it out or somehow known that I was gaining 2,245 feet of elevation in four miles,
I would have been miserable.
I was miserable enough without knowing these details. I ate in a way that felt compulsive, out of
control. Even for a hiker burning thousands upon thousands of calories a day, that day was not one of
my best in terms of eating choices. It had started with the coca-cola, really. It was all downhill from
there when I should have been high-flying naturally. I ate an entire ream of pepperonis I'd purchased
back at the Ingles and I think they were going bad. I used that as an excuse to devour them all right
then, but it didn't make much sense. I wasn't even really that hungry. I was just sad. Everything around
me was so beautiful and I was such a mess. People only made everything worse. How unlucky to be a
human!
Desperate to get out of myself, to change my horror to something more appropriately
harmonious with the environment, I switched out the orange grease I'd eaten for a tiny, bright orange
salamander. It was the first of its kind that I'd seen so of course I was surprised and delighted at its
unusual, neon hue. It was right in the middle of the trail, crawling slowly. Its tail curled back and forth.
Its arms were loosely bent out at an odd angle from the trunk of its body.
Feeling desperate still I kneeled to the ground. I needed a closer look. I remember wanting to be
it, to just disappear and live the rest of my days out through its eyes, for I loved it so well. As if to
reward my efforts, the creature was found to be completely, ornately wondrous. It was adorned with
several features I hadn't noticed at first from farther away. Luminescent dots lined its back in parallel
lines. It's “skin” was a series of smaller such dots, closer together. That neon orange color looked so
strange out here where everything else was green or brown. I don't remember its eyes though. Perhaps I
was hypnotized.
I laid my hand in front of it, an offering, and the salamander took that road straight onto my
hand, crawling further into my palm. I petted it with the index finger of my other hand, feigning
happiness. Sometimes it would curl upon itself, flexing its back muscles to bend itself into a crescent
this or that way. But mostly it just climbed all over my hand. I even let it walk up my left arm a ways.
I don't know how long I spent holding the salamander, but it must have been a long time. I was
sad to let it go. But I never really could. A part of me, a big part, is still standing there. One foot in one
state, the other foot in another. Holding that orange salamander. It has to be that way because many of
the events that followed that moment were traumatic. So were a majority of the events that came before.
I didn't know how high up I was and the sun's presence delayed the imminent fact of how cold it
would be that night. Without a care, I went to go get my water from the spring next to the shelter. I was
barefoot, still sweating with exertion from the climb, and my limbs were warmed up, feeling stretched
and lithe.
After I got back to the shelter from getting water, however, I did a few things I normally didn't
do while hiking. I drank two full liters of water in one sitting, then just decided it was time for bed. I
felt tired and didn't think about it that much. It was only about three o'clock. I excused myself mutely
from the gathering of two older gentlemen at the campfire. None of us had exchanged any words. I got
out my polka dotted sleeping bag, unrolled my mat, and lay down in the vacant wooden shelter without
a door. I tried to sleep but couldn't. I lay there about an hour.
Suddenly I heard a great commotion of people arriving at Roan High Knob Shelter. That's where
I was. I lay still inside, not wanting to talk to anyone.
“What's in here? Bullshit?”
That was Thin Timber's voice! I quivered a little at his presence, what he'd said, and how he'd
said it. I wanted to hide somewhere, anywhere not to shake like this in public. Was he still there? I lay
on my stomach with the main meat of me below my waist exposed, vulnerable. I tried to quell
everything, mind over matter. I told myself he didn't mean it. That he would neither hurt nor hate me.
This was just a veiled complement, that's what it had to be! He'd just come to see how I was doing. He'd
known I was here and he'd come. But he'd frozen me inside my recognizable cocoon. My mind could
not convince away the primal fear my body alerted me to.
But I took courage, perhaps foolishly, when I heard his voice telling everyone to go ahead
without him, that he'd catch up with them soon. Maybe I would go out and see him, even though we'd
been bad together.
“I'm not a little kid!” I'd screamed at him once, in a voice that I hated, at a personal nadir of
mine when a little kid is exactly what I'd felt like.
“You're not my girlfriend, you know,” he'd told me at a later point, when that was exactly what I
thought I wanted to be. I'd offered to duct tape his boots for him or something. I'd referred to him as
“T.T.” in public, which is really just laughably stupid. “You're not my girlfriend, you know.” Well then
what am I?
Even if I wouldn't be his pet or his whore or his girlfriend or his anything, at least I could be a
person who knew him on some level without shame or fear of the past. I had a right to be here. Thus I
reasoned in my mind.
My death wish didn't want any company to agitate it further. There was nothing anyone on this
earth could do to help me, however smart they were, however they provoked me onwards towards life,
more life. The only human being I'd come to value and trust was myself. (Nevertheless, I got up and
went outside.)
He pretended to pay me no mind by pacing about the place. Rearranging his gear was something
he always did and I knew it could take hours. I wanted badly to interrupt him but couldn't think of
anything to say or of anything that was more worthwhile.
He looked terrible. Glinty-flint, furious eyes thrown back over his shoulder at no one. He had
his orange shirt half off, readjusting a giant back brace. It would have been funny if I didn't know him.
The brace was very tight and with how emaciated he'd become, it looked like he was wearing a corset. I
tried to focus on his bacne rather than count his prominent ribs. “Eat something, you idiot!” I wanted to
say. “How hard can it be? For you?” But I offered him ibuprofen instead. A whole handful.
I don't remember anything about the small talk we spoke at this point. But I do recall a
significant pause where he was just kind of waiting for me. Looking at me.
“Save me!” he would have said if he wasn't so proud.
“No,” I would have replied – if either of us had said anything.
He left. I sat back down on the bench near the fire pit where the old guy was trying to light a
fire. Waiting it out. I made myself sit there a long time.
Then suddenly I sprang to my bare feet, ran down the hill towards the trail on top of the bed of
pine needles, carefully but quickly stepping on any of the round, cool stones. Would I make it? Would
I?
I called out his name, Joe, twice. But he didn't come back. I was glad he didn't come back.
I went back to that bench, cried a lot until the snot ran down my face. I thought of him running
blindly through the woods for fourteen miles in the wrong direction, and what he'd said about the black
widow spider, how it could kill us both.
“You never know what you could have in common with someone.” Indeed.
Still I sat there at that bench, but eventually I did feel better, if tired. I watched more and more
hikers complete the difficult trek up to the shelter. The fire finally got going. My eyes were drawn in
particular to an orange shirt. He'd just come up the mountain wearing it. A young man with dark, curly
hair, plastered sweaty about his temples. His arms were held out, fingers wide, as if to steady himself
from vertigo. No hiking sticks. No clothes except for that orange shirt and some shorts. He looked like
he'd probably lost some weight on the trail but the softness that remained about his stomach and in his
arms sort of became him. He was smiling, panting.
“Wow!” he exclaimed to our gloomy gathering. “Wow. That was tough, I've gotta say!” He was
met with stony silence on all sides but I was actually pretty amused. He seemed as though he'd come
from a different place entirely. Another trail. A happier one. Maybe that was the way I looked to other
people when they caught me in the middle of enjoying myself. Without hiking sticks, just kind of
casually walking through the woods, as though it were my first day. As though I were a day hiker.
I began to feel unusually tired so I went back inside to my matt. By this time the other hikers
had staked out their places with their rolled out, variously colored sleeping bags, but everyone was still
outside. I didn't at all mind missing out on another standard evening about camp. I was neither curious
nor willing. It was definitely time for this day to end.
But it didn't end. It had just begun, in fact. And the greater part of my expenditure of energy was
yet to come.
O
I woke up freezing. Even though I had all my clothes on, my raingear too, and my sleeping bag
about me, there was something searing about this level of cold – even though there was no wind. My
breath was shallow and pained. I felt faint and very sick. I couldn't move. I didn't shake. But this was
the first time in my life when I thought I could be dying.
“Why am I so attracted to neon shit?” I thought. “That's poison! It looks like that for a reason.
All the other creatures in the food chain, even all the humans at the top of it know to stay away.” I
thought about reef fish with visible spines, speckled spiders. Swingers in solid, chalk white pumps.
Pointy mustaches. The black, soulless eyes of sharks or birds. “If I am really so stupid, I deserve to
die.”
I cursed my wretched life, my derailed dreams. I'd been poisoned. There was no escaping it.
And now I was going to die without explanation, just as friendless as I'd been born.
I tried to stay strong - “Be quiet now, and it'll all be over soon” - and I began to seal up all over.
My eyes shut. I didn't rouse myself by stirring. I didn't test any of my senses to see if they were still
there. I gave up. I just lay there in the dark, wishing my mind would cloud over, go out in patches like
my vision had that one day when we'd been discussing life's blood.
But my mind wouldn't let me go. It should have been easy, it seemed the most natural thing in
the world, for my body was primed for death. But my mind leapt in a last throe of fear. I couldn't die. I
had to do something.
I called out for help but there was no one about. They were all outside. “Pointedly, perhaps,” I
rued this moment angrily. I didn't want to be doing any of this. I cried out for help again.
A girl's voice answered above me. She'd taken “pity.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Help me!” I begged. I discovered that I could not, in fact, see. I felt like I was drowning. I
could barely make out the light of her headlamp, a pink amoeba. It was back to the womb. No eyes and
no control. “Help me, please!”
Ministering hands moved over my body. They shook me, told me to do things, undressed my
limp body. I felt wet all over from sweat and I'd partly relieved my bladder in my sleeping bag. The
voices kept telling me to do something but I couldn't understand them.
“Go outside and pee!” a male voice finally got through to my ears.
“Why?” the female voice asked.
“Because, that's what you're supposed to do.”
“Oh.”
They raised me up and I somehow staggered outside, completely naked. There were people
gathered at the fire, I could hear them. I careened away from the light and against the wall of the shelter.
Steadying myself, I took a piss right there, then plodded back inside. They'd made a bed for me out of
their sleeping bags. They guided me down to a collapse.
“Try to come outside to the fire,” he advised me.
“I can't!” I told him. I didn't know where my clothes were and I'd had enough of the cold when
I'd been out there just a second ago.
“It's in your best interest to come out there with everybody. You'll be alright.” But I couldn't go.
I just lay there, helpless, unable to do anything for myself, unable to die.
Both of their warm bodies nursed me back to health all night. Delirious with fatigue, I tried to
hide myself in flesh. I put my mouth over whatever was presented to it. Water! Nipples. The spicy,
curling hairs of a cunt. I lost myself.
“You want my cock?” I heard him ask me. “Do you want it?” I did. I wanted it inside my own
warmth, I was fervent with desire now and longing and pain. Life. But he blew his load in my mouth
instead. Forced to swallow, I nearly choked on it. But I didn't want to make a noise. All the other hikers
were sleeping around us.
After it was all over, I lay in the middle of them. Warm, yes, but with a pulsing, raging headache
the way it buzzes on bad, methed-out ecstacy. Trashed. Unable to sleep. I lay there for hours.
May 2, 7.3 mi
In the morning I woke up warm underneath a blue down comforter in between two bodies. The
guy had the span of my back wrapped around by his own form. My knees bent over his knees where he
tucked around me. I could feel his warm breath. And there was a girl, a bare-breasted, delicate redhead.
She lay beside me, head turned my way, eyes still closed. Her face was sharp because of her fine nose
and she was very pretty. Her arm, her hip and thigh, the very cold toes of one foot, were pressed against
me. I lay still and, our heads covered with the large sleeping bag, we slept on for a few more hours
while everyone else in the shelter packed up and left.
When the girl finally stirred I came to and so did he. She unabashedly smiled at me, sat up, and
went about putting her things together for the day's hike, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
I watched her change into a long hiking skirt and tank top, an unusually nice getup for hiking. She wore
her hair down too, a carefree feminine alternative to all the pony tails I'd seen on other girls when they
rarely turned up. I wore mine twisted into a braid in the front, then curtly tied back in a bun to keep all
the baby hairs which frame my face under control. Normally I looked like a Swedish masseuse. But this
morning I probably woke up looking a little “tossed.” My hand felt my head, my flyaways sticking
straight up in most places. I modestly drew the blanket up around my breasts because I felt pretty
awkward.
“Drink this,” the girl offered me a nalgene. Despite my misgivings I took a generous sip. “How
are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“That's good.” Then she turned back to collecting her things.
I turned around and found the guy to be the one in the orange shirt from yesterday, the one
who'd burst in upon the scene with such energy after climbing. I was glad it was him. But I still felt
uncomfortable. Was I indebted to them now? Who were they? Were this guy and girl together? We'd
collectively blown over all the preliminary questions. But they seemed so casual about everything that I
began to relax. I dropped the blanket and got dressed.
The girl headed out as soon as she was done packing. With a friendly salute of her hand, she
stepped out the door. The guy lingered and I caught him watching me as I slipped my shorts on. He
made some appreciative comments about the curves of my thighs and ass, and I inadvertently basked in
his praise by swaying upright, aware of my allure, whereas I just could have stood up like a normal
person, I suppose.
Before I realized what was happening, he'd crossed the floor over to me, taken me into his arms
and back onto the floor. He lay on top of me, pulling my shorts which I'd just pulled up back down
around my knees. He entered me then and I exhaled. Relief? Satiated desire? Not exactly. Especially
after a few minutes of his sliding in and out, so easily, with no dymanics, so very casually, I was just
bored and wanted it to be over.
“You have very beautiful eyes.” I found this small talk very strange.
I prefer yours, actually. They're nice. But I wish you'd get off of me.
Finally he did, spurting into a handful of newspaper that was beside us on the shelter floor. I felt
like I was worse than an animal. Sure it was a score to get laid and to even be alive, but I didn't feel
grateful. I just felt indifferent, frozen to everything. Numb. I stared at the ground, my discontent making
me lazy.
“I'm Firestarter by the way,” he told me as he gathered his cooking utensils off the windowsill.
“C.V.,” I said.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“So, do you think you're alright to hike now?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I answered. It was true. I didn't feel sick any longer and the water the girl had given me
even eased my headache and the after-effects of a long night, a little bit. The only cure for poison is
more poison? I glared at his neon orange shirt in disbelief. I felt like the the ball in a baseball game. But
nonetheless I thanked him for saving my life and asked who the girl had been.
“That's Bushwhacker. We're both from Nashville.” He drew up his pack and swung into his
shoulder straps. It was unusually large. Maybe a lot of her stuff was in there as well? “She's a cool girl,
I hope you get to talk to her.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, see you on down the trail?”
“Yeah, see ya.”
After he left and I was alone in the shelter, sitting on the dusty floor, there was this dazed shock
about me, like What was that?
And what an exit for Thin Timber, too!
“You won't be with me? Then you can freeze to death!”
I just hated the incompetent, weakling role I'd been assigned in the minds of everybody else. I
thrived on my own because I was out of their range. Out there, I couldn't perceive their
misapprehension of me. Nor did it matter. It was just me and the limitless space. The starscape that
went on forever, riddled in the black heavens above me. The icicled dirt forming tiers and little cities,
detailed, inch thick layers of vertical fangs which I crunched underfoot. And when the sun rose it would
be a different world, a truly different place than I'd been the day before or any day before that. There
was no predicting nature. But people were always predictably bad. “Hell is other people.” Another
tenant from modernism there for you. “Take it or leave it!” As if you can choose to receive or not to
receive reality once you've been dosed.
So I finished reading One Hundred Years of Solitude awhile ago, and I guess the joke is on me.
But now I get to decide whether I want to die with my face to a wall.
I am walking to work. I am late. I am freezing.
I am staring at somebody else's food but I haven't put it together yet. I huddle close to the warm
glow of the lights, the lights which warm the nuggets and all the fries, because the shirt I'm wearing is
frozen stiff. Painfully melting against my bare skin. I took it out of the dryer too soon because I was
late. I am freezing. The drive thru window keeps opening and shutting. The shirt froze in all the wind on
the stupid coat hanger that I carried it with. I showed up to work looking like a loon.
The job I have isn't as easy as it looks. We see hundreds of people during the week. There is ice
to be hauled, pieces of equipment to be degreased with a purple solution, and grime and hair, which
needs to be wiped off the toilets with a solution in a red bottle, before closing. That purple stuff really
eats away at any blisters that may exist from sweeping. One of the women I work with tells me to wear
gloves, but I don't see the point. The sink is deep enough to hold a lot of water, and when washing other
dishes at the same time the solution and water get under the gloves.
Thirty minutes of Spanish a day was too much for me to handle. I tried that for about a month,
naively thinking I'd use it to communicate at work. What happens now is I listen for the precious
inflection. I stare at the fries and the nuggets under the lights, pretending to zone out but actually
witnessing the daily phenomena of social hierarchies.
“Be quiet, Cristina,” says Adele. “Be quiet!” It was all terribly interesting to me.
It's just me and the women today because Adele is managing. They are talking, laughing,
screaming with joy and I creepily listen. Cristina's younger, wears make-up to work every day. She's
only had three kids. Rosalva has had ten children and has also been working at Wendy's for ten years.
She always gets to talk.
I had to do a research project recently about the Official Language debate. Not only should
English not be made the official language, but public schools should be taught in Spanish in certain
areas, is the radical conclusion I came to. It's a matter of autogenesis. As long as people aren't
inducted into academia with the message that their language is “wrong,” then “everything will work
out.”
Of course the learning of English is necessary. Debora just turned 18 and is the only other
worker under 40. I can see how learning English has impacted her life.
Rosalva's daughter Stephanie often comes to the restaurant with her little brother. I think they're
waiting for someone to pick them up after school. In a rare moment of bravery, I ask Rosalva how her
kids are doing. It's small talk, and God! I can't do it! I rarely can do it. I'm going to die.
“The other day, she tell me. When she want to watch a TV program and I say no. Listen,
Stephanie tell me.” Rosalva is talking to me about her daughter. “She tell me, 'Mama, it's a free
country!' and I slap her across the face.”
“Oh my God!”
“Yes.” Now Stephanie needs dental work.
“Do you think it is? A free country?” I ask.
“I don't know, that may be. But I'm her mother.”
“Yes.” I think TV is more dangerous than drugs.
But the point is that there's something wrong. I can't work. Can't go to school. The teacher's a
fool. The preacher's a jerk.
<<Awww, that's too bad. Violence, violence, it's the only thing that'll make you see sense!>>
“If you want to talk with us, you have to learn Spanish,” Rosalva told me at first. But when I
tried to speak Spanish to her after my month of dutiful practice, I couldn't bear her sarcastic responses.
She's very smart. She owns the place.
“O, Dios mio!” she's always saying. Odio mio. Or just simply: “Dios.” I love her inflection. I'd
hate me, too. I'm there because I crashed a car. She's there because she has bills to pay.
The Spanish was making me compromise my Italian, anyway.
Sometimes I hope and think it's a generation thing. Debora, the eighteen year old, likes me conditionally. When it's just the two of us drinking coffee or drinking beer after I've bought it for her
and convinced her to stand out back with me on our breaks, it's all good. But her grandmother works
there too. I don't know.
My own few friends from the community college are iffy with me as well. They educate me, I like
their taste in movies and music, but they pretend to sign off whenever the conversation gets to real,
whenever I ask questions about politics or sex. It was mostly the same way at Cal. I never made friends
and instead went hard with a few lovers in between studying and copping and writhing around in the
backs of classrooms, hating most of what my professors told me.
“Whoever would have thought the man could play piano!” exclaimed my Proust professor once
in the middle of some pre class chat with simpering idiots. “He has the hands of a peasant!” All the
well-dressed gentlemen laughed. I writhed in my chair, smirking, violent.
I'm young enough to change, I think. I could get a grip and talk to people. But why did it take
me so long to figure out that Aureliano and his whole family are dried out old oak trees? Isolated,
proud, and crazy. That part about eating dirt really destroyed me. This is what I mean about literature.
But now I don't even have literature. I work at Wendy's.
It is difficult working in a service position. Customers are always asking you to “describe the
spicy chicken fillet” before ordering chicken nuggets. I work up front a lot because I can speak English,
and this is the hardest position. I'd much rather be back there smashing meat patties, even though the
grease from the wet grill flips up and burns the arms often.
I miss the beautiful pair of men who came to the place after high school football games. The
first one came on so strong, giving me the eye, “I'd like a sprite,” like he wanted me to react in front of
his friend, unfortunately less beautiful and knows it. Maybe I made too much of a show of being
indifferent, even hostile – then later, giving in a little with a smile to his presence. The most likely
explanation is that there is no connection, there is no communication in the events. But I like to pretend
there's something.
Some people pretend you've got their order wrong in order to get free food. You'd be surprised
at how often this happens. But sometimes a guy with a red hat comes in and tells me, genuinely, to have
a nice day. It's a very simple gesture, but in the frenetic environment of the day it means a lot to me. I'd
marry such a man if I were thirty! I pretend he's Thomas Pynchon come to visit me. To love literature is
a funny thing. Antagonistic Acculturation with everything.
I descended in the late afternoon the way I was led by the blazes. The sun was still out. It was
daytime. But when I saw the scale of Overmountain Shelter I couldn't get up the motivation to hike
further that day. It was nice, just so picturesque: an old giant, red barn with a black-painted domed roof.
“Photo ready” with the view of an unusually steep mountainside in the background. If there had been
any cameras. I'm sure there were, but they weren't something I carried with me personally. I didn't
believe in them. I saw hikers sitting on the picnic bench outside and resting against the raised platforms
which the roof of the barn covered overhead and on one of the four vertical sides at least. Everything
was pretty out in the open.
Not feeling particularly glad for company or resentful at my lack of solitude (though leaning
towards the latter - “They all probably have cameras on their fancy phones”), I sat down in their midst.
Firestarter and Bushwhacker were there hanging up their packs from ropes nailed to the ceiling. These
ropes, pretty standard in shelters, have their ends tied to old tuna cans or a stick in order to hang the
pack strap up. A handsome blonde without his shirt off, another beautiful body (so what?) was showing
off for everyone except the person he was talking to, a redheaded girl dressed all in khaki. She wasn't
paying attention to him anyway but was reading some magazine. Where had she gotten a magazine?
River Phoenix was there too, sitting right across the table from the seat I'd happened to sit down
in. I discovered him there looking at me, along with all the locations of the others and their identities,
only after I sat down and, after about two minutes, raised my head.
Too bad for Cheez Whiz that I was in another foul mood. I knew that I'd promised myself to be
nicer to him, if we should ever meet again, but now here he was and I couldn't even make up anything
nice to say to the guy. All the “making up” I had in me had gone towards fabricating some imaginary
reason why I owed him an apology. What the fuck had I been thinking?
“What are you staring at?” I snapped. Cheez Whiz's eyelids lowered over his eyes and I hated
how they contributed towards his impudence. He reminded me of my ex, who thought he was fucking
T-Rex in his skintight jeans and curly hair he was just dying to grow out and upstage me with. Percocetpopping, scheming fuck. Would rail at me about drinking just because my addiction was more obvious.
When he was fucked-up the entire time! When I'd gone through an oxycontin phase but had really just
graduated to alcohol, that's all.
“Nothin',” said Cheez Whiz. I went back to staring at the table.
I saw a blue sharpie on the table and grabbed it.
“Hey, can I use this?” I asked the general congregation. Nobody answered me. “Yo!” I yelled
out, finding myself standing up and holding out the pen in an outstretched hand. “Can I use this?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever!” Cheez Whiz told me, like trying to quiet me down. Like he had a
headache or something.
“Was I talking to you?” I shut him up with a venimous look then continued to try and make eye
contact with the owner of the pen. “Whose is this?”
“It's mine,” said the blonde, finally. He looked a little uncertain if it were quite right to talk to
me.
“Can I use it?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Well! Alright then.” I sat down and uncapped it, put the cap back around the end of the pen
making it longer. I took my shirt off. I splayed my yellow shirt out flat on the table, my Data Book
inserted into the middle so the ink wouldn't run through. I began to draw on my shirt. Personalizing it. I
drew three pointy ribs on the left side, over where my real ones would be. I thought they looked great.
From then on, I wasn't as pleased with the designs I drew. I looked down at the overall effect. There
was a tiny spade above my right breast, a wadjet eye in the middle and and my name in a cartoche to
the side to go with it. A diamond. It was all just meaningless shit after those first three righteous ribs.
Shit to show off, “as if everybody doesn't already know what a cartouche is,” or shit to bring into
existence just because I was bored. And that's the worst kind of shit.
Disappointed in myself, I finished with an opium reed topped with one of the bulbous, crusty
pods. The top was open. Maybe to other people it looked like a flower. But I knew it was an opium pod.
This drawing opened up just under where my left breast would begin. In order to differentiate between
the pod and the opium flower, I threw one of them in there as well. A big, fluffy, happy one like the
motifs riddling the bases of all the light fixtures outside Doe Library. Athena had looked down on me
then. Her cast bust looked down from the awesome main door. She'd looked down on me and all the
flowers. And everybody else.
With my shirt out on the table in front of me it looked so small, like it really belonged to a child.
This was my shirt, it fit me, but it was so small. I probably could have broken my real ribs with a good
kick if only I'd been outside myself. I was appalled at how weak I really must be.
“Those are really cool drawings!” Cheez Whiz noted from across the table, all my malice either
forgotten or ignored.
“Thanks.” I tried to keep drawing, tried to find the place where I'd left off, and couldn't. He'd
distracted me again. Praise Athena he let me be, however. He turned around in his seat and made efforts
to get a conversation started with all the others. He just let me be.
“I know you, you're Firestarter and...Bushwhacker? Yep. And you are?”
“Sonshine and Firefox,” I heard a male voice say. I presumed it was the hot bod blonde.
“Oh man, there's a lot of trail names with the word 'fire' in it!” he laughed an innocent laugh.
“Speaking of which....I am going to roll this spliff...and set fire to it.” I saw his hands working over
there. I hadn't noticed the small pile of shredded weed on the table. I hadn't noticed anything.
“How old are you?” I demanded of Cheez Whiz.
“Seventeen.”
Jesus Christ! What the fuck is this, the children's crusade?
“I didn't know,” was all I could say aloud. He looked so manly, so mature. I definitely could
have fucked him somewhere down the line if I hadn't known that. If he hadn't opened his mouth. He
sounded so immature. All of them, in fact, seemed so immature.
“You'll never guess what my aunt sent me in my last mail drop,” I heard his voice continue. I
drew a few triangles down at the hem of my shirt. “I think it's dog food, seriously.”
Bam! A green packet, the kind of packet they put single-serving tuna in, was on the table. I
guess Cheez Whiz had thrown it there for dramatic effect. He picked it up and opened it. I watched his
hands open it. Immediately a rancid smell of condensed things reached me and Sonshine, the only other
that stood near.
“Gross, man!” gagged Sonshine. I even looked up to see him spazz off the table in a half
handstand, reeling away from the smell of it.
“Look, just look!” Cheez Whiz laughed, motioning for me to pay attention, laughing eyes alive
and well across the table from me. Trying to include me. I loved him.
He spilled out a few little moist nuggets onto the picnic table. They looked like vienna sausages.
I'd stocked them in the grocery store I used to work at. Somebody bought them if it wasn't me. I kept
having to restock them. That's the only reason why I knew what a vienna sausage was.
I reached out and took one up between my index finger and thumb. Ate it.
“It tastes like chicken broth,” I told them. “Not too bad.”
“Ew, man, gross!” exclaimed Sonshine. “I can't believe you ate that!” Cheez Whiz also looked
back at me aghast, like he actually would have prevented me from eating it if that's what he'd known I
was going to do.
“What?” I shrugged. “I was hungry.”
“Well you're not getting the rest of these!” Cheez Whiz said. “It's dog food.”
ORLY!?
I got up again, offended and wretched, and relegated myself to the back of the barn. It was a
halfhearted kind of exploring. There was a ladder going up to a loft but I just climbed the first two
rungs and looked up before stepping down. There was a courseway through the middle of the barn
where tractors could have driven or where farmers could have unloaded things. I wondered who owned
the land. Probably the government. I remember reading somewhere that the Appalachian Trail is over
ninety-five percent “public lands” while there are a few snippets which pass through private farms and
other property.
When I came back out through the doorway to the view of the mountains and the outside of the
barn, Bushwhacker gently called me over to her.
“Look what I found, C.V.” I came closer, staring into her hands. She held a blind, baby mouse. It
was barely moving. It looked as though it definitely shouldn't have been away from its mother.
“Where did you find that?” I asked.
“It crawled out from under these boards. I think it was abandoned.” We both stared at the little
thing then I looked up at her. She met my gaze and smiled a very pretty, weary smile.
We talked about Nashville, mostly. I had a lot of questions. Then I found out she played the
fiddle.
“I play in a band with Firestarter and his friends,” she said.
Firestarter jumped up onto the platform, simple and smiling away for no reason. He ducked
down to us and interjected that “she was really good.”
“Oh, go get some firewood!” Bushwhacker dismissed him. “I'm trying to talk to C.V.and we're
all freezing.” After he slunk away, the equivalent of domestic in our tour of the wilderness, I laughed
wholeheartedly at her display of power. I really wished I could have seen her play the fiddle. I imagined
it would be like watching a hypnotizing asp play the fiddle. With her sharp nose, thin lips, and slitted
grey eyes she looked keen and menacing as a snake. Her red hair had a buoyant puff to it, down about
her thin shoulders at her collar bone, which accentuated her meanness of build, all her angles and hard
lines. She sat crosslegged on the platform staring critically at everybody. Across the way the other
redhead on the platform opposite, Firefox, mirrored her in silence. Still reading her magazine, even
though it was now pretty dark.
“We need more wood for this fire, it's not big enough!” Bushwhacker called out to Firestarter.
Without a word he lumbered off for more. Bushwhacker turned her gaze on me and asked me if I'd like
any dinner.
“Oh, I couldn't take anything from you,” I told her.
“Well at least let me make it for you then?” Maybe she'd heard I didn't have a stove.
“Sure.” I rummaged in my pack, which was still on the ground, for my green food bag. It was
full of ramen noodles from Hot Springs and little else. I blindly handed her one, going cavalier about
the flavor, whereas normally the flavor I pick is the most important decision I make that day. It was
pork.
“This is it?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay!” She looked down, rummaged about in business, and I could tell she disapproved but
that she wouldn't offend me by offering anything else or saying anything about it. She heated the water
for me, mixed in my noodles, added the seasoning. When she asked me for my bowl I remember being
really embarrassed because it stunk of congealed seasoning and I hadn't cleaned it out. The dirty cling
of saturated fats and oils on the inside of my bowl made me think twice about putting it into my body in
the first place, but only for a moment. I just cleaned out my bowl with a tissue – Bushwhacker had even
brought facial tissues with them – and handed it to her, trying to be seemly. But there was something in
the back of my mind that said “Who cares? We're in the middle of the woods.”
Even though Cheez Whiz was on the other platorm with Sonshine and Firefox he spent a lot of
time making his own dinner right in front of my face as though he wanted me to watch him. I glowered
as he poured some tasty-looking miso soup mix into his own boiling water. He then completed the meal
with whole wheat crackers. Yeah, he had a point, and yeah, I could have “made better choices” in Hot
Springs for the exact same amount of money I'd spent (or less) but for all the details against me I could
see the overall futility of everything. With all his educational antics Cheez Whiz only succeeded in
pissing me off.
I felt seriously ill after I ate the ramen. My sodium intake must have been through the roof.
Ramen for lunch and dinner, dwindling oatmeal stores and raw sugar for breakfast. Ugh! I lay down
where I was and couldn't get up.
“You should probably hang your pack up, C.V.” said Cheez Whiz from somewhere close to our
platform.
“Quiet, boy!” I wanted to yell but didn't have the energy. I also wasn't really that rude.
“You don't want any mice to bite through it,” he went on.
Then I recalled something from the first night I'd been on the trail. After that two hundred and
sixty dollar cab ride, for which I'd argued drunkenly with the driver, I'd slept in a very misleading
preview for the AT shelters with that dope Running Water. It was all screened in, like a little house.
“We'll be safe in here,” Running Water had said. A mouse had run across my face in the middle of the
night. I hadn't screamed, I'd simply flinched. I hadn't wanted to wake Running Water, dope though he
was.
Back in the present, sick to my weary stomach, I laughed aloud. How far I'd come on so little,
with so little to work with! Here I was walking across the east coast, just like I'd always dreamed, just
about as useless to society as it's possible to be. No job, no real money to spend, not having babies,
none of that. Just out here on my own, destroying my top-of-the-line body one step at a time. It was the
ultimate fuck you.
I hacked up some salty phlegm then drew out some snot from my nasal cavity, further winnowed
out over the years by cocaine. I could picture what these gobs looked like as I doled them around inside
my mouth with my tongue. Like mucous clouds, cotton candy spider eggs of familiar discharge, the
atoms all packed together closely in the middle but slippery and gooey on the outside. Tasty. I
swallowed them, too lazy to sit up.
“Hey!” Bushwhacker's voice called out.
“What?” I was the only one who answered her.
“The mouse has gone,” she said. “I put it back on the ground to kind of shield it from the wind,
but I guess it found the will to walk.”
Of course that's what happened.
“Oh,” someone said.
May 3, 9.4 mi
When I woke up Firestarter was on top of Bushwhacker. I stared at the dull reenactment of what
I'd experienced with him at the last shelter, right next to me. He casually fucked her without fervor and
she smiled at him awkwardly. It was pretty terrible because I felt like I should be helping to kiss her or
him or just to make myself useful somehow. But I just stared.
Before we all left Bushwhacker went out with Cheez Whiz to find water and neither of them
came back.
“I guess we should just start without her,” Firestarter mused. He handed me a giant stick he'd
found in the woods the previous day. “I think this'll really take a lot of the weight off your joints. I
found it for you.”
“My joints don't hurt,” I said.
“Suit yourself.” He laid it on the edge of the shelter. “Maybe somebody else who doesn't have
hiking sticks will take it up.” I thought about it.
“Well, I'll try it for today.”
“It takes practice but it's worth it.” He handed the stick back to me. We set out to hike together.
The first few hours of the day we went downwards through an awning of black, twisted trees.
The rich mud underfoot was also black. The grass was scarce. I led the way hopping from stone to
stone, through various switchbacks in the mountain, zigzagging down. I could tell Firestarter was still
with me, though I never looked behind me, because we were keeping a conversation.
“So what did you do back in Maryland?” he asked.
“Nothing much. After I graduated I worked various jobs at restaurants or spas. I'd drink most
every night.”
“Well that's no good.”
“Yeah.” Then, turning the conversation around, I asked him some questions about Bushwhacker.
After having loved them both at once, having their hands and bodies literally all over mine, I missed the
third of us that was now gone. It was the beginning of a strange dynamic whereby I was never actually
satisfied but pulled in two directions at once towards new, near ecstasies. The threesome relationship
involves all the senses, continues on even when you're not all fucking together, continues even when
one of the parties isn't present. I was aware of her, and so I asked.
“She's a cool girl,” he repeated himself. “She doesn't really let me make love to her too often the
normal way, but she's fucked me with a strap on a few times.” Now this was new information!
“Really?” I asked, a wave of gratitude overcoming me that such things were possible, that they
actually happened in real life. “But then what happened this morning?” I demanded. It had really just
looked wrong.
“I dunno, I guess she heard about me and you at Icewater Spring and felt like she didn't want to
keep herself from me in that way. She is my girlfriend, after all.”
Do you ever get the feeling that you're going the wrong way, despite how deep inside you know
that it's killing you? Here I was, going down, like a lone southbounder on the AT when everyone else
seemed to be going up, seemed to know what they were about. And now I was taking others down with
me. Just by being alive I exacerbated the world around me. I hated myself.
We walked through an open field. The sun was out, whifs of white clouds in the sky. Underfoot
the dry grass crunched and prickled our boots. We were headed towards two domed, blonde mountains,
Big Hump and Little Hump. They reminded me of the golden hills in California that I used to climb
behind the University on my days off or when I just wanted to take a trip.
“We're making really good time!” said Firestarter behind me.
“You're not worried about Bushwhacker?” I asked.
“No, she'll turn up. When she feels like it she'll turn up.”
“Okay.”
“You're really fast, C.V.” Here I stopped and turned around, scrutinized him for benign lies.
“Really?”
“Yeah, you're really fast. I don't think I can keep up with you.” I thought this was pretty funny
because he was a full grown man and I was basically running on empty. I laughed at him.
“What?” he demanded, fully knowing “what.” I however still felt very confused. To look at him
here and now he was very, well, harmless. He kept on smiling and the black hairs of his beard kept on
curling just like the curly hairs on his head and his eyes sparkled a friendly sparkle. But he was the
same person capable of using me. I'd used them too in a way, like a parasite would, but the way he'd
used me had set me back quite a ways across the board of development. “When you've got nothin' you
got nothin' to lose” is a lie. You can one day find yourself in a body without a face. I've been there, so
I'm just telling you.
“Nothing,” I smiled back at him.
“How heavy is your pack?” he asked.
“I don't know.”
Here he backed away from me, his hands interlaced behind his head, cradling it, still that light
shining out through his face.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. Just use that stick, okay?”
“Okay.” I turned to leave him, but his voice caught me on the way up the hill:
“Wait for me at the top, C.V.!”
“Okay!” I yelled back over my shoulder.
“And watch out for the bulls!”
What? I didn't see any bulls on the mountain – and I would have been able to see them from a
long way off because it was treeless.
When I got to the top I surveyed the land around me, pleased with this tangible reward of my
progress. Firestarter was a tiny pinprick, slowing moving its way across the lower half of the mountain.
This mountain was enormous! It hadn't looked so from far away, they never do, but from the top I could
tell. By looking at Firestarter the black dot I could gauge the size of the mountain I'd just climbed in a
few minutes as if it'd been downhill. It now made very little difference to my body whether I went
downhill or up. I sat on a large slab table of stone in the whipping wind. After a few minutes I had to
put on my windbreaker and arm warmers. I didn't feel like waiting for him but I did. I said I would.
When Firestarter made it up and climbed over the wooden fence at the top like I had, I sat there
waiting for him to come up to me. He came, panting, then threw his pack down beside mine.
“Time for a break!” he laughed.
“Yeah,” I said.
After he caught his breath he remained standing. He looked like he was about to tell me
something serious, so I waited for it.
“Listen C.V., if you're going to hike with us, there's something you should know.”
“What?”
“Me and Bushwhacker, we both have herpes.” His voicebox delivered this message in just the
right, caring tenor.
“So do I,” I answered him plainly.
“Haha!” He actually laughed.
“I appreciate your telling me, really. I've told my lovers in the past that I have it.”
This was a lie.
“Lies, it's all lies!
Liiiiieeeees!”
I'd never told anybody because I've never experienced an outbreak. It was just in my blood or
something. A halfway house I was living in at Bel Air had told me to do blood work at Patient First and
they'd called back and told me I had it. That was embarrassing to have to explain to the nosy girls I
lived with.
I knew exactly where I'd gotten it, too. I'd relapsed at a bar called The Raven in Baltimore. I'd
seen the neon lights from the bus I was riding on at the time, then just decided to get off. I hung around
outside with no ID, no money in my pockets, like “Who wants to buy me a drink?” but all they had
inside was Bud and Bud Light. No IPA. What a bad relapse!
Actually, this is also a lie. I told Paul I “might have herpes” when I found a white little boil on
the inside of my mouth. I didn't want anything to mar his lips, though I loved it when we kissed,
forgetting time together in the kitchen. Pressed up against the sink with all the windows black, who
wants to see outside? Who wants to be anywhere but here? One of his strong arms was around my
waist, the other held me tight to him across my back. My hands were up under his shirt feeling his abs,
his skin was so smooth! He was hairless, carved, supple, and young.
Then we got interrupted. A few of his younger brother's friends opened the screen door to the
porch behind us. Paul pulled away from me. They all came in, surly. One of them threw a plastic cup
into the sink. Then they disappeared downstairs.
I wasn't upset that I embarrassed him. When you're in love you don't care about petty things like
that – though it's those petty things you'll pay for later on. I loved him unselfishly. I didn't want any
herpes on his lips from kissing me.
He wasn't upset either. We still went running together in the middle of the night in the rain. We
slowed down on fucking each other in his black hole room in the basement though. He'd painted the
leaking pipes overhead a neon green. He'd still coax me into his room at night whenever Bianca was
fucking her boy toy in the room we shared. She paid most of the rent, I was barely getting by.
“C'mere, I want to show you something,” he' say to me. I was outside in the common area
watching other people play Halo.
“Is it your dick?” a few of the guys laughed. I didn't listen to them. They didn't matter at all. I
followed Paul into his room and we watched Cowboy Bebop episodes and ate almonds all night, then
slept side by side on his black futon.
But I left in the middle of the night. I felt uncomfortable, something inside me wouldn't keep
still! I kept turning and turning, and I didn't want to wake him up.
“I don't want to keep you awake. And we both have work tomorrow,” I whispered to him in the
dark.
“You're making things up, you're not bothering me,” he assured me.
But there was still something wrong. I left.
I needn't have kept from kissing him though. It turned out that the tiny white dot on the inside of
my lip had been from eating too many grapefruits.
Firestarter seemed greatly relieved.
“We take medicine for ours to prevent outbreaks,” he said. “We brought some along with us.”
“Yeah, can't you only give it to someone if you currently have a, an...outbreak?” I asked.
“I think that's right, yeah.”
“'Cause that's what I thought.” He paused and looked down, then looked up at me again.
“Actually, I couldn't stay for sure,” he confessed.
“Me neither,” I agreed.
O
We paused for rest at the Doll Flats. The name made me think of my least-favorite exercise from
when I'd trained with the marines. “Hello Dolly's” involved lying on your back with your hands under
your butt supporting your back, palms down, then swinging your legs out and back in, again and again,
about half a foot off the ground. “Hello Dolly's, that's really hilarious,” I thought at the time.
Firestarter brought me back to the present by pointing out the fallen half of a split tree. Its trunk
had cracked mid length leaving a giant shard pointing up to the sky with the broken half barely attached
and the top of the tree on the ground. Around the giant spike at the top there was a garlend of neon
orange caution tape. It looked ridiculous, like “Of course it's down. Why draw notice to it?” I laughed at
the effort it would have taken to put the tape up there, not understanding the point.
Bushwhacker and Cheez Whiz showed up. My relief at having Bushwhacker returned to us was
compounded with jealousy over the mystery of where the two of them had been.
“Look at this picture!” Bushwhacker pulled out her camera as we all sat there on a flat stone
slab. “We took it when we were trying to find our way back to the trail.” I looked and saw a picture of
Cheez Whiz kneeling down to the ground giving the finger to a thin little snake in the grass. In it I saw
the story of River Phoenix telling the devil to fuck off. I laughed happily and Bushwhacker handed me
a bag of fresh trail mix. There was dried fruit in the mix and it was very good. I thanked her.
O
But at night my illusive sickness returned. I was alright, I was with Bushwhacker and Firestarter
in their large blue tent under their warm blue sleeping bag between their warm bodies but I felt aches
and pains that were so strong they reminded me of opiate withdrawal.
“I need some drugs. Why won't you give me the drugs?” I railed.
“C.V.what are you talking about?” asked Bushwhacker. “Don't say that.” But I knew she was in
on it. They all were. They were all getting paid to prolong my misery, to feed me treats one minute then
let me down the next. All I wanted to do was die.
“Leave me alone, that stings!” I yelled. She was rubbing Icy Hot into my joints or something. I
became party to the unique sensation of being burned alive as well as being sprayed with a magic
blowtorch whose element is actually a powerful chill. “When does the Ice get to the Hot part?” I said
scathingly. She stopped touching me and just went back to laying down with me. I felt evil and beaten. I
couldn't even be nice to the people who were trying to “help me.”
But I knew they weren't really helping me at all. It was all a fantastic circus – and I wasn't even
getting paid for being the star.
“I need some heroin!” I moaned.
“C.V.you're scaring me!” Then she said: “I'm going to call your mother!” Undeterred, I
explained:
“This is withdrawal without ever being high. This isn't right. It's not supposed to be this way!” I
was actually crying at this point the aches in my back were so pronounced. I couldn't get comfortable
no matter which way I lay. On my side, it burned. On my back, it burned. I was restless, feverish,
wanted out of my skin. “I was just here, oh! I was just here,” I sobbed.
I thought back to the miserable two weeks I'd endured in my friend Adam's bed in November,
withdrawing from the percocets and the T-Rex back in Delaware. Adam had tried to get me out of that
abusive relationship three times before I finally got serious. And a full week after I'd been free of
Delaware, after I'd gotten a job and moved into that house with all those young people including
Bianca, Luke, Paul, Brian, Alex, and Heather, they all saw me go into withdrawal.
I lost my waitressing job because I started dipping out into the women's room multiple times a
shift to inexplicably change my clothes over and over again. First I was hot, then I was cold. Then I'd
be sweating again. I was rail thin and I'd shiver from the power of the overhead fans. I snuck cups of
disgusting, cold coffee from the machines. Anything to keep me motivated to stay. Miserable, I carried
little trays full of taster-sized beer to obnoxious patrons who talked down to their wives about trying to
order wine at a steakhouse.
I'd walked home from that terrible shift somehow. It was the same two or three streets, the same
turns I'd become familiar with during my other attempts at working there in December, January,
February, and the first part of March. Adam had taken pity on me. Adam was so kind. He was the only
friend I had left. I lay in his bed next to him hating myself. We'd never been intimate sexually and never
would so the situation wasn't the best for me. But anything was better than T-Rex.
Finally Bianca made an opening with me when she noticed all I did was take baths. I'd draw the
scalding water, sit in it for a few minutes, then have to drain it and do it again. She came inside the
bathroom, the bathroom I would grow to love and clean as my own in the happier months that followed.
“What's wrong, Stephanie?” she asked. I was naked. I told her. She didn't judge. She and Luke
made a few calls then came back with a suboxone strip. I let it dissolve on my tongue and slept OK that
night.
Then I withdrew from the suboxone. It was living hell. It never seemed to end.
“What have you been giving me, you bastards!?” I screamed out at the powers that be. The
cameras. The sentient ones behind the cameras running the show. God, Satan, whoever it was they were
winning. I was their pawn and I'd never had free will. My life was a fucking joke to them and I knew it.
I was so angry I could have killed someone but instead I let Bushwhacker feed me garlic hummas. It
was very good.
“That was just what I needed,” I told her. But I got Firestarter to find me a snicers later. These
both together really were just what I needed. My resillient body healed again. We all made love again.
That night I renamed Firestarter. I could do this without actually changing his name.
“She thinks your name is Firestarter because you retrieve firewood, but I know what it really
means,” I thought to myself in the quiet before sleep. “It is your voice. Your voice is so sexy and slutty
when you moan it turns me on. It burns me up. And I know you like me too, I know you see me. I
made you moan when I played with myself. I made you do it. It was me. It was me.”
May 4, infinity (off trail)
We'd camped in the middle of a flat lawn outside a hostel. The grass had been trimmed and it all
looked very unnatural. It had been cheaper than an actual bed inside the glorified barn that was the
hostel – and it had definitely been cheaper than the rooms inside the lavish mansion on a hill. Farm
animals grazed all day and there was even a river running through it. I remember trying my legs out in
the morning, without my pack on, without carrying anything, and I felt like I'd been clubbed the night
before. My joints didn't feel right. I remember that the slight incline of the pavement drive leading up
and out of the establishment felt like a dangerous push. I was really flirting with danger here – and all I
was doing was walking up a driveway.
I'd told Firestarter and Bushwhacker yesterday that I didn't have any money. That had been
another reason why we'd camped on the grass outside. I felt badly about taking things from them but
they were so generous it was hard to say no. All day they shared with me as we sat outside listening to
other hikers play guitar on the porch. They even snuck me snacks as we did chores together inside the
house. The three of us fucked on the bed inside that we were supposed to be making behind a curtain
separating us from the rest of the group. Then Firestarter used his amazing voice in another way. He
sang to the two of us, to anybody who could hear, and played guitar accompaniment very well.
Bushwhacker joined in when Firestarter began playing a song they had written together.
“You can't be happy all of the time,
You can't be happy all of the time!” was the refrain.
I can still picture Bushwhacker looking into my face and smiling as she sang. Afterwards she
fed me spoonfuls of cookie dough ice cream.
But it was wrong, something was terribly wrong. No one understood. Not having any money
was just the apparent reason, the reason everybody would point to. It was the excuse I myself used
when I tried later that day to leave them, to leave everybody. But it wasn't the real reason.
“Oh, I'm a burden,” I began to thinking as the three of us walked on down the road to the Dollar
Store after having eaten more ice cream and hush puppies and sandwiches at the local Diner. Well, I'd
only eaten an ice cream cone. I wouldn't let them get me anything else. I felt guilty and self-conscious
and miserable. I didn't trust anyone or anything.
CLOUDLAND ELEMENTARY
So that's where we are? Cloudland? Makes sense to me. As we walked along I looked to my
right at the block lettering sign on the hillside. But hadn't my Data Book said we were in Roan
Mountain, Tennessee? Hadn't we been in Roan Mountain days ago? Wasn't I just here?
I tried to leave. I backed out of the dollar general, left them to their findings, went back onto the
road and stuck out my thumb. I didn't want to hike anymore. I didn't want to know the two of them, or
anyone. I left without explanation. My pack and everything I owned was still hanging on a nail outside
of the hostel.
A black car with boxlike, wide windows pulled over onto the shoulder a stretch ahead of me. I
walked up to the passenger side, unexcited, unhurried. I looked inside and a man with a face like a
smooth-skinned raptor looked back at me out of slit, iced bright eyes. He cocked his head at an angle
and leaned towards me.
“How are you?” Inside his mouth I thought there might be pointed fangs to match the virulence
of his face but I couldn't see well enough to prove my theory.
“I'm alright,” I said. I got in and slammed the door shut. He turned his head towards the road
and veered back out into traffic. I relaxed against the seat, just relieved not to be walking. My legs
ached, down to the core of my bones. I felt feverish.
“You never know what you could have in common with someone.”
What is it, Thin Timber? We both have siphilis? “Surprise?”
I could no longer stand how I was feeling. I closed my eyes.
“Where are you going?” the driver asked me.
“Anywhere. I don't care,” I replied.
“You look like a hiker.” I guess I did, with all the dirt on my skin, frazzled hair let down onto
my skinny shoulders. Skin-tight, faded pastel surfing top with holes in the back from where the pack
had worn it down. Hairy legs, big spikey boots and orange-striped, skimpy shorts. I put my boot up on
the dash board.
“Where are you going?” I asked. I looked over at him. He kind of looked like Mickey Knox
from the movie Natural Born Killers. “At last, I've found my true love,” I thought. But he went on to
say:
“I'm not sure, really.” He had a bit of an accent, but he spoke in a low, flatlining tone where I
couldn't really tell most of the time. “I might go out to Colorado 'n do some contract jobs for building
stages.” He lit a cigarette. “You like music?” He whipped his face towards me again. I'd been staring.
That unusual, prehistoric-looking face! I couldn't get over it. It was like a razor blade. He looked crazy.
“I like music,” I said.
“We could getchur an iPod, you could come along wit me. I could get you a job checking people
in for the concerts. You wouldn't even have to do anything, just listen to music all day, stand there with
a clip board and mark people off. There would be a lot of them though.” This went right over my head.
“Yeah, that sounds alright. Anything other than what I've been doing. It's not exactly working
out.”
“Why not?” he asked me. Then he shifted the pack of cigarettes towards me. It had been
somewhere, he'd picked them up quickly, and now they were in my face. “You want a cigarette?” I took
one. Lit it up with his lighter I found in the cup holder between us.
“I'm broke,” I said. I told him this long, sad rendition of my hike as it had happened so far. But
what I should have said, very simply, is that I'm socially retarded.
“I knew yeh was a hiker!” he laughed a barking laugh. I should have been afraid. “Actually,”
said, “Actually I wasn't sure. See, most of the hikers I pick up are...whatchacall'ems. Southbounders.”
“Oh, so you know all about us then?” Like happy, for some goddamn reason.
“Yeah.”
“Alright! Great!” I rolled down the window, flicked my cigarette, took my boot up off the
dashboard and breathed deeply, closing my eyes again. “Ahhhhh....” I sighed for no reason at all.
He let me know he had to go do something. I said that was just fine. We pulled up to an auto
repair shop. White-painted, stone front, an entrance to a garage, and some rubble lying in the driveway.
We parked. My ride got out and two men came out to meet him. I stayed in the car because I didn't
know what else to do and nobody had told me to do differently. But privately I made jokes to myself
about “auto repairs.”
“Ha ha ha!” I laughed, exhaling smoke and flicking my cigarette. I waited.
The guy came back and then we drove on to a gas station. He got out and went in and I watched
a bearded man in blue jeans buck and shuffle his way across my line of sight. He walked leisurely,
leaning forwards with one shoulder then the next. Right anda left. Right anda left. He had a feather
duster sticking out the back of his pants, slid through the belt loop.
My ride came back with a case of beer and another pack of cigarettes. He took a beer out, put
the case near my feet. I took a beer out as well and cracked it. Not Coors but Busch. Regular, no lite. I
liked that.
“I didn't say you could have one,” he tried to menace me but I shrugged it off. I looked at him
like, Are you serious? He shrugged his shoulders in turn to mimic me, even dipped his hands up
towards the ceiling abruptly. I didn't care. Nobody cares. We backed out of that place and drove on.
“Hey, I gotta stop somewhere else, to get some weed,” he told me.
“Well that's fine,” I said, though I was getting more ambitious by the minute. What I really
wanted was some meth. It's what I'd been craving for the past three hundred thirty-nine point two miles.
Ever since that idiot cop Butcher had drawn his knife on me, after he and Ryan had laughed me out
back into the woods, I'd wanted to get high in the worst way. Nothing else would do. No teases, no false
starts, I just wanted to be high. For a long time. But I waited patiently to “pop the question.” You never
can be too careful about these things. You don't know who you could be talking to.
The fact was that I really didn't know who I was talking to. We waited in his car with each other
as the sun set. We were in somebody's front lawn. We'd driven right up onto the grass. All the onedecker houses around us looked abandoned.
“I used to cut grass for the boys around here,” he told me.
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah. Now they cut for me. It gives them something to do. I really think that they wouldn't do
anything if they didn't cut grass. They'd just stay in their houses all day, never come out. I'm doing them
a favor.” He crumpled up his empty beer can in his hands and threw it out the window onto the lawn. I
cackled an inappropriate laugh. He was so unlike a hiker. I liked him.
“Everybody here, everybody in this whole town is into meth,” he told me.
Excellent.
“What's wrong with that?” I just asked him.
“It's bad, it's just nasty!” he exclaimed. “Nasty nasty. I smoke weed myself. You smoke weed?”
“Yeah,” I said.
We sat there a long time with the sun in our faces on that hill. Everything, the tops of the houses,
the gentle gradations of green hills, all the trash lying around on the lawns, everything was swathed in
gold from the sun. I felt peaceful in that moment. I accepted my fate, whatever it was to be. I cracked
open another beer and turned a full-lipped, quiet smile on this man.
Then I don't really remember what happened. We somehow got weed but I don't remember how.
I remember him talking on his cell phone, I remember us waiting, but I don't remember seeing any
other people on the hill. In any event, we next were driving up an offroad up a steep hill in the car.
“I know a spot we can smoke,” he told me. I looked at him and saw him again. He looked
excited, a little more lively now – or maybe it was just the jumbled rocks we were trying to rear over on
the crazy road. He leaned forward and gripped the steering wheel. I lay back and let it happen. Waiting
for the car to flip over backwards and have the laughing attack of my life. But that didn't happen. We
branched off that offroad and up another trail, up further into the rocky hills and behind some bushes.
“Nobody can see us here,” he told me. I believed him. It was Cloudland.
He got out of the truck and I followed him. He put down the bed in the back and we sat on the
end letting our legs dangle. We smoked a huge joint, just passing it back and forth, and I don't
remember what we talked about. I kissed him, I think. But I'm really not sure. After awhile my
motormouth got going and in order to stop me he asked me:
“You think you're funny, don't you?” Then I froze up, stopped talking, and got all paranoid. I
moved my eyes in my head without moving my face, trying to get a look at him out of the corner of my
eye. Something must have been wrong with my looker because I can't remember what he looked like.
What he was wearing, how tall he was relative to me, what his hair looked like or even if he had any
hair. All I can remember is his face from the rare times when he'd look at me intensely. Most of the time
we spent together we were facing the same way, looking at the same scenery, so it didn't seem to matter.
He helped me out of my frozen place by getting me another beer. I cracked it, took a sip, and
then could move again at least. I jumped off of the back of the truck. Or maybe I lay down first and
then jumped off the back. Maybe I jumped off the back and then got back in and lay down. It doesn't
really matter.
In any event, we both somehow got back in the truck. When I came to we were facing the same
way beside each other. It was now dark and the dashboard was full of black nothingness. I grinned.
“You ready to go?” he asked me.
“Yeah,” I told him. He turned on the overhead light in order to search for something in the car
and I noticed that I held a business card in my hands. “Ritchie Caraway” was the name on the card. I
didn't think about it at all. I let it fall to the floor.
We catapulted out of there, down the hill, and only afterwards did he remember to turn on his
lights. Suddenly we could see and it was painful. I shut my eyes.
We pulled up to a bakery but the bakery was closed. The lights were still on and there were three
young boys in there with aprons on and white, starched hats. One of them, the one I found myself
staring at (I'd somehow gotten inside) was very beautiful. He swept the floor that we were all standing
on. They all looked up at me. And I froze. I couldn't do a single thing. I knew what I was supposed to
do, I did know it, and worst of all I really wanted to do it and still couldn't. We left. From then on, since
the time I'd frozen and on, it was a highly-publicized tour of shame.
We drove up to another speciously closed store, got out, the same thing happened. I just stood
there. I can't remember anything about the people in there or where we were but I remember it
happening to me. I couldn't do anything to help myself. It was torture.
The third place we drove up to was a Subway. The anomaly with this place was that there was a
girl in there, a redhead, with long flat hair trailing out the back as she walked across my view from
where we still sat in the car. She worked there, she had her uniform on. We got out of the car like before
(I didn't have free will at this point) but she yelled at us through the glass that they were closed. I was
relieved they were closed. If this had happened with anybody I would have wanted it to be with those
cute boys in the bakery. They'd been ideal! But now it was too late. Everybody in the whole town was
closed. Now I'd never get my meth.
We got back into the car, started it up, and drove on but now I was completely defeated.
Whereas before I hadn't looked at Ritchie “by choice,” out of a general unconcern for the way he
looked and the knowledge that looking at him wouldn't change the way things were going, now I
couldn't look at him even if I wanted to. If it had been my choice to look at him, which it was, I couldn't
have done it, and didn't. I was a sham. My tail trailed out the back.
We pulled up to this dark house back in the residential area. Two guys were sitting on the porch
smoking and looking at a laptop. The light from the screen was the only light that was on in the whole
block. As I walked up to them I took a little heart in that I was beautiful. Why couldn't I be confident? I
loosened up – or acted like I was – walking slower, aiming for eye contact, aware of my legs and their
naked sheen against the black air all around me. They glowed like the laptop. I was artificial too.
Cyborg actually.
I leaned up on the chair of the one guy holding the laptop. He didn't look up at me but I tried to
get his attention by accosting his personal space with my cleavage. I still had enough curve to me to be
graced with pretty great, big tits. Even after all that hiking. I felt like taking my shirt off right there and
I let all present know this by snaking my hand up under my shirt hungrily, raking it across my stomach.
My lips pouted dumbly. I hoped I looked just like deadpan sex. Lidded eyelids, glazed expression.
Beatific cow. I want you to fuck me.
Ritchie was going on about something. He stood behind me but I didn't pay attention to a word
he said. After I didn't get the reaction I was looking for in the two men I looked at the screen. It was a
bunch of neon, swirling, squiggly worms to me. I stood up and put my hands on my hips like Why
won't anyone fuck me?
Ritchie took me by the arm and led me into the house. I had no choice but to follow him. We
walked through a living room and a kitchen and into a bathroom. The light was on. Ritchie unbuckled
his belt and let pants fall. His skin was supple and tan all over as if he secretly lived naked in a parallel
universe and got his tans there all the time. I wanted the key to this universe. I stood there mutely as I
watched him move. He stepped away from me sideways, took his cock into his hands, and began to piss
into the toilet. I can't remember what his cock looked like. I can only see the lisson quality of his body
as an overall feature. It had to have been manufactured. It was perfect. The muscle tone in his legs and
ass made him look like a fighter, just naturally. He didn't have to work out, he didn't have to lift weights
or spastically run around or anything. He was a man. He was cut, seductive, clean, and smooth. He
looked really different with his pants down. I wanted to see the rest. The top.
He turned to me without flushing the toilet and levelled me with that searing stare. You know
what's next?
“Not here,” I shook my head, so turned on it could have been anywhere but I was now ashamed
of my own body. It was old news, my breasts had stretch marks if you looked close enough from when
I'd lost weight rapidly from cocaine use then gained it all back and then some. My hips were too wide. I
was uneven. I was not him.
He reached out suddenly and gripped the fat of my upper arms which were still and straight at
my sides. Useless. If he was trying to scare me it wasn't working. I just looked back at his masklike face
with its protruding, high cheekbones and curving, sharp diamond nose. I smiled a stupid smile.
Then he got so close I couldn't see him anymore, I could only feel him. His raging hardon
against my stomach. Flesh against flesh. Somehow my shirt was gone. I was free. He rudely palmed my
breasts, a handfull for each hand, and he kissed the nape of my neck harder than I've ever been kissed,
kind of gnawing at the top of my spine.
“Uhhhh, uh-huhnmm,” I moaned involuntarily, but as if to quiet me he bit me very hard at the
muscles which drape over towards my shoulders.
“Ahhh!” I yelped. Then no more. He pulled me, led me towards a dark room. As my thin thighs
swished back and forth with the moving I could feel myself slick, sopping wet. I would have dripped
onto the floor if I hadn't been wearing any pants. I was primed for fucking.
He picked me up completely off my feet and whisked me around until my head spun. I gave
whatever control I thought I had up to him. He could dash me against the wall. He could pull out a knife
and stab it into my gut. A crew of one hundred bikers could have showed up, his call, and those strange
men could have fucked every hole in my body until I was dead like in The Baby of Macon.
But he didn't do it. He threw me onto the bed instead. It was a water bed, and my body
pleasantly rocked on the waves but my mind rebelled. My mind was elsewhere. I laughed – at him. I
dared to laugh the laugh which is the most rare. It naysays death, it welcomes every danger. Disdain is
the most human emotion because it is the most intelligent. It doesn't even want everything that it has,
everything that it could gain, because it's too good for any conception of the universe. Whatever has
been tried before is a mockery of true human nature. The only human being alive in the world laughed.
It was me.
He pounced on top of me. In retaliation, I felt up his wonderful ass. I loved his ass so much! If
I'd had a dick there would have been a point to fighting him, to try and get on top myself, because then
if I won I could fuck him like I wanted to. No fear or distaste could make him soft at my trainwreck of
desire crashing towards him. If I were the stronger of us two, from training, from effort, from my
willpower, I'd then pin him there and fuck him. In and out, as he gave way to me, as he spared himself
the further pain of resisting me by relaxing his muscles. He'd better fucking relax because I don't know
how to. Slow down? What is that?
He entered into me easily, smootly. I exhaled at the familiar pleasure of being fucked and my
thighs went loose, able to be bantered about by his frenetic thrusting and movement. Bang bang! Smack
smack! I was impressed. Then:
Everything got very sharp. Razorblades stretched out of the head of his cock and cut me inside.
The way he was moving let me know that he knew he was hurting me. Deliberately. Like, You fucked
up! I could kill you for that. This was a different type of fucking than I'd ever known. There was some
part of my own body that he knew about and I didn't, like a rib cage but just down there. He broke my
ribs.
“Uhhhe!” I breathed in, primal and immediate in my terror. I was present now alright. I was
afraid. Where am I? He could kill me. I'm in the house of two strange men who are staring at a
computer right outside on the porch. I'm at their house. This man on top of me, whoever he is, could
really kill me, if he wanted to.
With another forceful thrust he dug into me and leaned down at me close. Then I heard the
sound of his mangled breath. His fangs were near my throat, his mouth's opening was close enough to
my ear for me to hear his breathing. I could tell that things inside him had already begun to decay.
Stripped lungs and strewn-about threads of viscous softflesh were inside. They rattled like death, so
close to me. His body, so perfect on the outside, was human on the inside.
After a few more minutes of fucking me, not as hard now after that vicious point well made, he
withdrew a little, rolled up to a sitting position on the waterbed.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, simply.
“Yeah,” I told him. And that was the end of it.
We got up, put our clothes back on in the dark. Then he flicked the light on for some reason just
as we were about to leave the strange bedroom. I didn't look at him directly but I communicated with
my face at the floor, with my general demeanor: “Was that really necessary? I mean...c'mon.” Not
resentful, just tired.
We walked into the living room where a third, fatter man was watching TV with one of the other
guys from outside. The one with the laptop was still on the porch. Nothing could have moved that guy.
I exchanged pleasantries with the men, asked them how they were and all that. I think they told
me a little bit about their days but I don't really remember. I just remember feeling happy for some
reason. There was a slight intimation (if only in my mind) that I could fuck the fat man too if I wanted
to. But I didn't want to. And that was the end of it.
Me and Ritchie walked out of the house, past the weirdo on the porch. Ritchie called out some
kind of farewell to him but I don't remember what it was. Then we got into the truck and backed out
onto the road.
We raced on the near empty roads until my visual cues turned into a jetting blur. I found the
cigarettes in the cupholder next to me, right where they'd been, and I found a lighter under my ass on
the seat. I lit up. Ritchie put something on the radio but I don't remember what it was. I just remember it
was good.
We veered off suddenly onto an old country road. If I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt I
probably would have slammed into Ritchie or gone straight out his window on the other side of the car.
Delighted, I let out a shout and we climbed up this old road all the way to the top. We were back in the
trees. It was spooky up here but now I had a mate. We had a car. And nothing would happen to us. What
could possibly happen to us? See?
There was another truck waiting dark at the communing of these dirt roads. Ritchie roared up to
them, it was this guy in a truck and his woman. All our windows were down and the bugs blared their
music like static in the night. I listened to the bugs and they practically blew out my ear drums. I tried to
relax as my sound and vision vamped black nothingness. It was like a pulse. And when I blinked, there
was another pulse. Vamp. I was perfectly quiet, just trying to take it all in.
The men were speaking in tongues. Eventually the static died down enough for me to tell. It was
gibberish. It didn't make any sense. I marveled at its absurdity. The arrangements and repetitions of
syllables were entirely foreign. It was like a code.
But after awhile I got impatient and looked over into the other car at the man inside. What were
they going on about, anyway? Was I supposed to fuck this guy? Where did the woman come into this?
Who were they? What the hell was going on? I asked all these questions with a look at the stranger who
was very handsome under the brim of his cap there in his car in the dark. He was an amazing secret
sitting there.
I'm glad I stole a look, that I dared to, because after I did they gave me what I'd been wanting
the whole time. Ritchie took something through the window then messed with something in his lap
where I couldn't see. Then he told me to hold a familiar-looking CD case with two precious white lines
drawn down its center. Two seams of perfection. At last!
He snorted one of them up as I held the case for him. Then he handed me something to snort
mine up with, a little tube like a straw but I'm not sure that's what it was, and he held it the case for me.
I ingested up through my right nostril, the one that's been winnowed away inside from cocaine. But this
was the real shit, this burned. I yipped my standard little exclamation point that I do every time I do a
line or take a shot.
“Yip!” And I twisted my head on my neck in a little shake. That's good shit! It was meth.
And then Ritchie was telling me to smoke something off of tin foil. It was a white goo. It was
more. I inhaled it and held the smoke inside my lungs the way I held in vaporized oxycontin pills. I sat
back even though it hadn't hit me yet. I sat back and watched him take a hit, the fire from his lighter
lighting up his predator's face. Vamp. And then all my tingling fibers illuminated and blazed out their
wormy little ways all to their fingertips inside me. Alive!
“Whoooo! YEAH!” I yipped out into the night, really loud. I had to dance but I was sitting down
so I just jangled my arms back and forth and bumped my knees. This was it!
Ritchie offered me the rest and I took it gladly. He lit the flame for me underneath and I caught
all the last traces of cloud which whisped up from nothing, from the little wet chalk on the foil. I reeled
back in my seat, grin splitting my face.
Thankfully I didn't have to say anything, Ritchie read my mind. He knew I wanted to move out
of there so we did. He waved goodbye to the man and the woman in the other car and we were on our
way. Down the hill we barrelled in the dark. I couldn't tell now if the headlights were on or off, if I even
had my eyes open or not, because when I closed them there was the same electric storm waging
pleasantly over everything I surveyed. But I knew he was there. He was right there next to me, keeping
me company. My pilot, my lover. Everything was going to be alright.
“You wanna get some McDonald's?” he asked me.
What?
It seemed like a crazy question to break the silence with, but I said Yeah sure, and we were
suddenly at a drive-thru.
“What d'you want?” asked sharpface.
After a brief survey of the menu. I discovered, disappointed, that I could indeed still see.
“I want some cookies. That's it.”
“Cookies? Ha!” He seemed to think this was really funny. “Yer crazy.”
I'm crazy? I'm crazy!? You leave me alone with that “crazy,” you crazy fuck.
“You don't want anything else?” he prodded.
“No,” I said. So we pulled around to whatever window and waited for my cookies and whatever
he ordered.
But they got my order wrong. There were no cookies. Instead he got what he wanted (I think)
and my order was a sandwich and some fries.
“That's not cookies,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but I'll just eat it. Whatever,” I said. And then he flipped out.
“They got yer order wrong and yer just gonna eat whatever they gave through the window?” he
demanded.
This was a really good point.
But by the time I'd seen the fries it was all over. I really wanted them now. Cookies? That had
been pretty stupid. At a time like this. Whatever.
“It's fine, I want this,” I said.
Ritchie gave me this look like, I can't believe you, idiot! But he honored my request and off we
drove again.
Now, there must have been something in those french fries. They gave me hooves where I used
to have hands. I seized up in the worst way. Not for lack of food, which is bad, or lack of drugs, which
is worse, but for the addition of something that wasn't wanted or needed – which is death. I literally had
hooves. I became a cow. Terrified, I tried to move my neck. We were speeding along at the speed of
light and I couldn't even move an inch. I could see, I was thankful for that, but I couldn't move my
hands. They were held up at my sides like a petrified cow carcass with hooves on the end. “Goddamnit,
I'm here again!” I thought. “I was just here. I was just here. Fucking amoeba strips of nonsense. He
showed me, deadpan, except for a few rare sniggers of laughter, a few things like death. He let me
know that life was shit. That I was in a beanery, the Universities were the beaneries, yet it was a
challenge. Yet I had lost. I'd lost! Here I was, frozen and blasted with emotional pain. Useless. Inept.
Unable to learn. I could just absorb the way I'd absorbed the poison from that orange newt. My
curiosity bought me nothing. I was broke, alone, and unable to learn! I learned, but I couldn't act
differently. I knew everything, but I could use none of it. I was a prisoner, fettered to this obscenely
beautiful, perfect body that didn't make any sense. And all I'd wanted to do was fuck him with it.
Knocked at his office hours multiple times wanted to suck his cock with my mouth. Nevermind how
old it was, I knew who he was. He was my teacher. Not my friend, but my teacher. He taught me about
how if you eat grease, you'll get pimples. He taught me everything. He told me how beautiful and rare
my little ears were when I wore my hair up. He noticed when I parred my nails. He reminded me that
the word “par” exists. He taught me other things that I really can't talk about. You'd have to read the
sources for yourself, that's the best recommendation I can give you. I really want you to do it.
It was worth being baptized in a wake of fire. In fury and hate. Love. The extreme kind of
education. There's nothing middling about it, though we're all sort of middle class. The only really rich
people I knew, one of them, they stay hidden in Sausolito. But me and the other middle class kids sat in
Dwinelle Hall in that shitty ass basement and learned sundry things. I became an artist. He fed us snuff.
I was the only one that gave it a go though. I was the only other one in the fucking room. I am his pupil!
None of you sinful idiots were even listening! His name is John Bishop and he baptized me in fire. I'll
tell you that, I'll just tell you.
“Goddamnit, I'm frozen again!” I let him know.
“Herre, getchurre a cigarette.” It was in my hand. He lit it for me.
I woke up. Again. We were still on the highway. Vamp. I clicked my eyes open and shut like a
camera. Control. Click! I saw a motorcycle train ahead of us on the road. Click. Now I was in darkness.
Control. No wormy lines. Anger. Anger is nothingness. Anger helps you. I seeethed. Click!
When I opened my eyes again, all was full of love again, I could help people, I could be a
carrier of death. In my mind, I really did fuck them all. The fat guy at the house who I'd talked jovially
with while standing up, stiff and crazy. I wish I'd sat on his lap and bounced around a bit, just for the
fun of it, I really wish I had. My ass cheeks would smack against his and he'd know that I was carrying
death or would be very soon. Then I'd walk into the next room and there'd be more of them. They'd
ravage my body in sundry ways. The Jesuit monks or whoever in the temple or wherever sodomizing
Justine all over again. The double flame includes eroticism. There's love, and then there's eroticism. I'd
kill them all by loving them. I'd be a carrier, I'd be The One, and they'd all willingly partake in their
own death.
I carried it, riding in that car beside him. In the train of motorcyclists leading our way like
banners going up of red brake lights. But go! Go on. Nothing will ever stop us. We blazed new trails
through the black night like a knife. As one, we rode on. We rode on to our common death.
O
He took me home. The car lights didn't go on after he'd already opened the door and we were in
his driveway. It was just as well, I was enjoying the heightening of my senses. With subtraction came
more. I marveled at the gravel under my foot as I stepped outside into the verdant thick of the night. My
exhale was a million little particles spewing out warm. I breathed in. Walked around to the front of his
house.
Stone steps led me up to a secretive porch. Everything was so dark I had to pry the scene open
with my eyes, piecemeal. What's there? Some hedges crusty with pine. What's there? The door. Ritchie
swung it open on its hinges. No key.
The first thing I thought upon entering that house was, “Who could live here?” It was trashed in
a way that was kind of amazing. In order to step inside we stepped over all the stuff on the floor, mostly
clothes accentuated with tinselly bits of foil shining like coals in the dark piles. Stuff had been spilled
over, stepped on, and branded underfoot for many years it looked like. We were ankle deep in it all from
the beginning, and it only piled up to greater heights on the edges of this room, the TV room. At least he
had a TV. Maybe he did live here.
The ceiling was the floor. Orange and white linolium tiles that belonged on some cartoon
kitchen floor made up the ceiling, pockmarked and thick. The whole room had an orage glow to it
because of this ceiling. This was the house of inBOIL, the parallel universe underside to all normal
houses with their 70's wood pannelling. I'd found the other side.
On the wall opposite the set there was a lurid, orange-inspired wall tapestry of a few dogs
playing cards. The round eyeballs of the biggest dog were drooping to a low of about one foot. They
were oblong orbs staring back at me. I wondered how Ritchie could sleep in that house with those eyes
always staring at him out from the wall. Tennessee T. That was the team the dogs represented in their
colors. Somewhere Richard Brautigan had died in this house. Maybe he was under all the piles of trash
heaped up. His body was in here somewhere too. “If I only had a body,” isn't a line from the Wizard of
Oz. Who would want that?
This house was crazy but I just accepted it after all that had happened that evening. If he lived
here that was fine. More for me to see and know. I walked back out into the darkfur porch in order to
smoke a cigarette but Ritchie called me back.
“Wherre you goin'?”
“I'm gonna smoke a cigarette.”
“You can smoke in here.”
Oh. Well, yeah.
“Thanks,” I said simply. I found a chewed-up lighter on the coffee table in front of the set and lit
up the cigarette I was holding in my hand. I don't remember how it got there. Everything seemed very
funny to me right then as if I were party to a cosmic joke. I exhaled, smiled, and reached my arms out to
him.
He came in to me and we kissed, took our clothes off and made love again. We angled against
the couch without actually reclining. We rocked back and forth on each other until it felt better again.
His body was so smooth, I wondered how he kept it that way. His ass was like a machine, perfect orbs
of synthetics, but there was nothing else about him to make me assume he wasn't human.
The rest of the night is a blur of activity. I guess he was into meth after all, just like everybody
else in the town. Maybe inBOIL extended into all the homes like he said. All of Cloudland was inBOIL.
His house was certainly tempered by it to the heights of insantiy. Keep it just right so we don't all lose
it. Don't let us down. Don't drop us or let us fall, ever. “I smoke weed myself” had to have been a lie by
omission. Selfishly I was glad it was a lie. This part of the evening had certainly gone my way. And he
used it like a champion too, he got a lot of shit done. He kept painting things like old crusted clothes on
the floor. Personalizing them. I loved the way he had to keep busy. It was childish and painful and
wonderful.
“You should slow down with that stuff,” he suggested after I found the foil again to take another
hit. I must have been shaking.
“Okay,” I said. But I probably took an extra big hit so I wouldn't have to be without it for long
after I'd pretend to listen to him. I was an initiate, nothing could happen to me. What could happen?
See?
Ritchie was digging around, face down to the floor, ass up. He was looking for something. But
all this time I sat there on the couch with whatever was in my hand, I couldn't help but think that he was
just begging for me to fuck him in the ass with something. Maybe I could have found a dick in there in
the rubble if I'd searched long enough. He wanted it! Just look at his body! He looked pained, like he
wanted relief that I could give him – but I wasn't sure. That's a pretty serious thing to be unsure about,
and what if I'd run up behind him, caressed him, spooned his body with my own, and it was a mistake?
That could be a pretty serious mistake to make with someone you don't know that well in the middle of
inBOIL, Tennessee.
He was still naked. And then he was clothed. He wore a shirt which said D.A.R.E.to keep kids
off drugs!and he had a hat on too, some glasses maybe. “Who do you think you are, Johnny Depp?” I
thought. And then I felt stupid for having the thought, that it was even there in my mind. He kind of
looked like Johnny Depp in the way that he was handsome and all handsome men kind of look like
Johnny Depp. But he was better than Johnny Depp or Hunter Thompson or any of them because he
wasn't an actor. This was actually happening and I was party to it all. We were having a party.
He let me help myself to everything. Pointed out that there were beers in the fridge. More Busch
with the rainbow over the logo on the can. He brought me one. I didn't even have to get up. He
produced cigarettes from various places around the house. He ran all around the place, sometimes
disappearing, often times just there in that same room with me four hours. Showing me his handiwork.
Then he was gone again. All this while I hadn't left the couch. It was like a tour from a bus and I didn't
have to do anything. I wondered if he could show me the rest of the house without my having to move.
But I wasn't frozen now. I hadn't felt frozen since I'd entered the house. I was pretty content. And then
we smoked some weed.
“You wanna have a bonfire?”
“I was gonna...explore the rest of the house.” We sat together side by side on the couch. The TV
wasn't on. We were in semi-darkness. I don't know where the light came from. Maybe it was from
inside the kitchen.
“You can have plenty o' time for that!” he heckled. “C'mon!” He bounded up. “Guess I should
put on some clothes.”
“Not if you don't want to. It's your house, it's your land. I love it!” I wanted to add “It's inBOIL”
but he wouldn't have understood, the way I'd never say the word 'impinge' in front of him as in “I don't
want to impinge by smoking a cigarette...in your badass house which is perfect for smoking cigarettes
in.” See, there was nothing to be said other than please and thank you. He made it very easy to be
polite. Actually, I never even had to say please.
I still had my clothes on from one of the episodes where we were clothed. It was that kind of
episode. So I followed him outside and down the stone steps. I don't think I was wearing shoes but I felt
no cold on my feet. Ritchie was already all the way down there at the great fire pit. I hadn't seen it
before. It was a giant crater in the middle of his lawn, like a sign to aliens that what was within wouldn't
be normal though the outsides of he house looked very proper-like. Yeah, positively proper.
I turned around. I was beside Ritchie on the ground. The house was the epitome of upstanding.
All its outsides were perfect. I'd love to live there, for example. But the inside! The inside made me
want to live there even more (in an unusual way) but in the normal way it would have been a deterrent
to anyone. I thought of the state of Ritchie's lungs, how he was rotting inside, and it felt true to form.
Incredibly honest. There was the front to keep people from bothering you, and the inside where all the
destructive action happened and nobody could tell you differently. This was a magical place. I belonged
here.
Everything was ready for the bonfire. There was no newspaper or anything but he had gallons of
lighter fluid. He doused the giant stump and all the surrounding branches thrown haphazard on the
crater with lighter fluid or gasoline or whatever it was. My sense of smell was eroded out of me at the
moment. It had been burned out and I couldn't even smell the gasoline.
Then it came to me: I really needed to take a shit. I walked back towards the house but he
stopped me once again.
“Wherre you goin'?”
“I need to take a shit.”
“There's no bathroom in there.”
“What?”
“There's no bathroom in the house.”
“Okay.”
“You can go outside.”
No bathroom in the house? What kind of a house doesn't have a bathroom?
But I didn't ask any questions. Just wandered off towards the bushes hedging the house. They
were tall and their tops tickled the roof of the secretive den of his porch. I crouched, facing the crater,
off to the right of the first pronged hedge, making sure not to scrape my ass against its prickly
crustiness. I let go and eased out.
And then I saw Him. He had ribbons of fire playing from his fingers. I don't have words to
describe it other than that it was deft, artistic. Prometheus. I crouched there taking my shit and he
became a god. He was showing me the playful skill of his creation. This entire evening, all the
opportunities there were to be had, had come from him. He was a magician. He was dangerous. Not to
be trusted, but if you tried to turn away you'd be making a mistake. He was Saint Eft alive in the fire.
A miracle! I hushed in awe on the ground taking my time. I wanted the vision to last forever.
He'd cut through the dark, through the vagueries, all of it. And here he was before me, tending to the
great fire. Upright, lithe, muscled and bright. Heaping life and death in one go onto the mound of
brands. Dancing. He darted here and there. This was a celebration! I was there to see. I will never forget
this moment as long as I live. And even after, it'll be burned into my eyes, dispelled into this universe
and parallel universes I don't even know about. Saint Eft showed me his true self.
And then it was over. I couldn't see him anymore. Not as clearly, not in that dimension of
realness. Everything clouded over again.
I finished taking my shit, wiped with some transitioned leaves, crinkly with experience, and then
I stood up, pulling my little nike shorts back on. I walked my novice ass all the way back over there
through the beautiful night. I was grateful, inspired. I wanted to be near him.
I couldn't seem to catch his eye even though I must have been looking straight at him. I just
stood there, amazed, next to the heat of the bonfire. We stood next to each other sometimes and
sometimes I couldn't see his body at all. The vestiges of him were sometimes visible, sometimes not.
His body. But I'd just seen his soul.
“Oh God, it's beautiful!” I said, deflected to the core of the fire. He didn't answer me, but that
was just as well. There was nothing to say. Overhead the stars were witness. Everything would have
been darkness without His light. The blazing centers of the world were transferred right here, were
displayed openly out here in this lawn below the stars. Love? What is that? It's a simplification, surely. I
say it is. It's a mere description, a denumont from the heights of the actual story. This is a parallel
universe. You can't describe it with words. Everything you do is impure. It is wise simply to be. Watch.
“You want some of this?” Ritchie handed me a bub, a rubber nipple with an igniter at the other
end where I was to put the lighter. I knew that much. What it was exactly I do not know. I've never run
across a chiln or a bowl that was like that. I lit up and spiraled back mentally to the days when there
was fear. The days when we were born.
What a strange thing, to be still alive! But this was the end, this was where it would all end. This
was me, beyond recall, out in Tennessee, this was the end. I ceased to exist there on the lawn, though I
was still standing. I negated myself and it was a tragedy – to me. I felt it keenly and I reeled. My
universe stretched out like branches in a spasm of light but I wasn't looking for help. It was just the
opposite. I needed room! I needed space in which to die. That's why I'd come here after all. But now it
was all over. Now I was dying and there wouldn't be anything anymore. It was done.
I drifted back towards consciousness painfully and slowly. I was now sitting down beside the
fire on a large branch acting as a bench. My world hadn't ended.
We were out there a few more hours, Ritchie feeding the fire and me just sitting there, mouth
agape, high as hell. When we went back inside Ritchie showed me the other side of the house. This was
the unlived side. Nothing was here. The bathroom didn't work, the floors weren't finished, it was dusty
and exposed and abandoned.inBOIL.
I slept on the abandoned side of the house.
HEAVEN
There were plastic rainbow letters on the door of the room where he put me to bed. I didn't ask
any questions, but was vaguely aware that I'd died and now I got to go to heaven. That was nice.
Ritchie lay on the bed beside me after I got all tucked in. I fell asleep with him there but
sometime during the night he left for his own bed. So ends one of the strangest days since Springer.
May 5, 0.0mi
Today I failed. It was a test, and I failed.
I woke up in HEAVEN and I was alone. The sunlight shone through the glass windowpane and
for awhile I lolled around, comfortable and glad to not be on trail. The bed was paisley-flowered,
bright, and clean. It was a marked difference from the rest of the house. I got up and found that the
dressers were full of clothes, little girl's clothes. They looked like they'd fit me perfectly except for the
pants would have been too short.
There was a bathroom inside the house but there was no plumbing or running water in there.
There was just a ripped-out toilet, a ripped-out sink, and steel fixtures everywhere. Caked drywall and
dust littered the place inches thick. I sat on the hole that served as a toilet. There was a little stillwater
below. I tinkled some piss down there just to add to things. I knew I wasn't supposed to but didn't want
to go outside to take a piss. I listened to my water make sounds on the water below.
Ritchie was in the kitchen. He looked great in athletic gear and seemed excited.
“I'm gonna go play T-Ball,” he told me.
“Can I come?” I asked. He looked at me with great reservation like he couldn't believe I just
asked him that. Of course I couldn't come.
“Well, I'm leavin' right now, so...” he looked down at me where I stood, letting me know I wasn't
ready. I wasn't fit to play T-Ball, not looking like this. I thought this was more because I was a girl than
anything. The fact that I didn't have shoes on or any clean clothes was secondary.
“Alright, I see your point,” I confessed. But I really wanted to go with him. I was jealous. TBall. I didn't even know what that was but it sounded cool. Maybe if I concentrated really hard I could
still go with him in spirit. Maybe I was the ball in T-Ball. Maybe they were all playing me, whacking
me from one base to the other. Maybe I was the game.
“I got you some Dr. Pepper and some more beer,” said Ritchie. “You can stay here today or do
whatever you want. But you're gonna have to look for a job if you stay here long.”
“I'll get to it,” I promised him.
“Yeah, well you think on that. Alright! I'm outta here.” He stepped over all the trash on the
kitchen floor and left out through the back door in the kitchen. But he popped his head back around
inside after he'd stepped out to tell me this: “Oh yeah, there's more of that stuff on the coffee table. You
can have it.”
“Thanks.” He left.
I walked over all the paper the rags the old clothes stiff with age or dirt or whatever and the
pieces of wood all the way over to the coffee table. He'd left me a generous gob of the white liquid
alright, right on a flat piece of tin foil. He'd taken the first hit. It had melted and recongealed towards
the end. I took a hit myself, held in the fumes, then breathed out to start my day. If only every day could
be like this.
I didn't think of any of my friends back on trail. I didn't think about anything. I watched TV and
smoked methamphetamine the whole first half of the day. There was a lot of drug on that foil and I kept
smoking it and then time began to get disjointed. Today began to blend with the day after until I wasn't
sure what day it was.
I cleaned Ritchie's whole house. I masturbated (successfully) for the first time in years while
laying on his couch and watching TV. Ritchie was there at that point, passed out on heroin. I'd found his
spoon on the top shelf of the kitchen along with a needle while I'd been cleaning. I didn't want any of
that though. Later on, when Ritchie was gone again, I looked at pictures of tattooed ladies. Then Ritchie
was back again.
“That looks like Jessica,” he told me.
“Who's that?”
“My ex wife.”
“Oh.”
“She was really beautiful.”
“Yeah.” A dyed redhead.
I masturbated some more while sitting on top of Ritchie's washing machine. It spun and frothed
madly, bucking underneath me, and my whole body shook. I was doing a load of his clothes. He'd told
me to hang everything up after I was done. I'd agreed to do it but I can't remember why. It was more
just something to do than any reason for doing it. I just wanted to get all that stuff up off the floor. I
also wanted to explore the trash and see just what kind of person he was.
I failed because of the cleaning. I failed because I shouldn't have been doing any of that in the
first place. I had no business doing it. I failed because I didn't go outside when I should have. There was
going to be a party for the end of the world, and if only I'd gone out of the house into the night I would
have participated. I could have been the catalyst for the end of the world. There would have been
anarchy, flames, destruction. The end. But I didn't go outside. I stayed inside with all the trash,
organizing it for no reason. And the end of the world happened without me. It was a parallel universe I
didn't get to participate in. To this day I'm disappointed with myself. If I'd only gone outside, everything
would have been different. I'd have met my clan of young, angry people. We would have ridden over
the world, ravaged it, taken over. But it didn't happen. Nothing happened. I didn't go outside.
May 6, 0.0 mi
There were consequences for my inaction. Ritchie became a monitored slave. They gave him a
helmet at his work and it was so high tech and shiny and big and unpersonalized that I felt sorry just
looking at it. It hadn't been like his old welding helmet at all. I knew it was my fault he'd gotten this
new one.
There were other consequences but these happened to me much later. For now I was left with
the signs of things that had changed since my inability to join the rest of the world. The orange flames
that Ritchie had spray painted above the back door he turned to blue and green. He just painted right
over them. I knew this was also my fault. I'd quelled the fire. I'd put it out. He'd started it and I couldn't
do one goddamn thing right. I couldn't even keep it going. I'd let it out. I'd let him down. Now he was
being promoted and it was all my fault. D'you think he wanted that? No sir, not at all! You bet your ass
he would have been content to go on as he'd been – but with me, with my help. Instead I'd cleaned his
house. D'you think he wanted that. No sir. We were respectable people now, branded by the Chinese as
breeding animals. He couldn't see now, his vision was lost. He had to wear a mask whereas before he
could see. And I was even stupider than I'd been before. What a waste! We could have ruled the world.
We could have been anarchists. But what had I done? I'd done his laundry.
He brought his kids over for me to play with. Heaven and two boys. At first I was disappointed.
“This is too much,” I thought. “I know I'm a loser and I didn't make it, but do you really have to rub it
in that I can't do anything?” But soon I had so much fun playing with those children that it didn't feel
like a defeat, not really.
Heaven was very inspiring. She was tan with shiny brown hair pulled back into a pony tail and I
think she had a Dora the Explorer t-shirt on. It was pink and blue and green. She didn't let anyone bully
her or her little brother – specifically the other boy, the spastic one. They were all a little spastic, but
this other boy was a brute. There's no other word for it. He was violent, just out of control. Kept
throwing things with his words, using his body language to intimidate.
“Oh, shut up!” Heaven would dismiss him. She wasn't afraid. I tried to take her cue for
confidence but I would have been completely lost without her.
“Is daddy in here? Is daddy in here?” The littler boy, the blonde, who must have been about four,
ran the entire span of the house back and forth looking for daddy. He screamed in a way that didn't feel
real. The things he said, the way he said them, none of it felt real to me. It was like some kind of
nightmare.
I taught them all how to play darts. They loved this and got really good at it. It brought us
together in a pretty ingenious way. For once they were focused on something else other than killing me.
We had a great time.
Daddy was outside starting another bonfire. He was trying to make the best of things. D'you
think he wanted to stay at home with a bunch of little kids and roast marshmellows and hot dogs?
Probably not. He was probably really angry with me. But we all made the best of things. The hot dogs
tasted pretty good. I like them burnt.
“I like you,” Heaven let me know. “And I don't like a lot of people.” We were all sitting outside
at this point. There was a picnic table I hadn't noticed before and me and Heaven were sitting on it.
Maybe it had been dropped from the sky the day before when I wasn't looking.
“Thank you,” I told her. “I like you too. You don't let anyone bully you.”
“Of course not!” she laughed. “That would be pretty pointless, wouldn't it?” I wish I had her
spunk. I watched her the rest of the evening, really closely, like trying to gain her secret. I wanted to be
her. She's the first girl I've wanted to be in a long time. I don't like women so most of the people I
idolize are men but she even had the men beat. Nobody could get past her.
Ritchie was sharpening everybody's hot dog sticks with a knife. Ritchie burst through the door
with his children and the bags of marshmellows. Ritchie dumped a rotted log onto the fire and it
extinguished things immediately.
“It'll take forever for that thing to burn!” he said. And I knew he was talking about me. It was
my fault.
There was prolesec and another drug, a toxic one, in his kitchen. I'd been snooping around while
cleaning. I read the label of the second one and it was for deteriorating lungs. He'd really torn up his
body from methamphetamine use.
“Will you be here tomorrow?” Heaven asked me.
“Yes,” I told her. But I was lying.
There were horses on the hill of the farm opposite Ritchie's house. They were the most beautiful
things I'd ever seen, always swishing their tails, and when they moved they were seductive. The horses
were trying to turn me on with the way they walked. The sun shone and the roan horses walked on the
runway of their happy land.
“So, how does a girl make a little money around here?” Ritchie had brought over a really
handsome man. I wanted him to be the one, I wanted to make some money off him. I wanted Ritchie to
be my pimp.
Ritchie took a step back. The three of us were on the porch, and he was really angry now or just
amused or something.
“You know!” he told us both. “You know, this is my brother!”
Oh.
“I tried to get her into tricking. I tried my best. Just the other night. And she froze,” he told his
brother. It wasn't his fault. I was the biggest idiot on the planet. But Ritchie didn't kill me. He didn't hurt
me. I still had some inherent value. I see that now. But I didn't see it then.
Ritchie was powerwashing a car for one of his neighbors. I was hanging all his clean landry on
the line out back in the sun. I trembled with the effort and I thought it was funny how some of the
clothes were stained with sharpie explosions or paint or dirt even though they'd been washed. I hung up
his underwear too. And all the socks. There were only so many clothes pins.
I walked over to where he was washing the car. Some kids were on the porch of the house but
they went away when they saw me. I probably looked a fright. My blonde hair was so scraggly it was
stiff, sticking up from my head in sections. I shivered with passion even though I was warm and it was
the middle of the day. I shone like St. Matthew as depicted in the Ebbo Gospels. I am that painting.
“Ahhhh!” I cried and jumped back a few feet. Ritchie had sprayed me with the power hose. I
laughed myself out of the situation, knowing full well that he could have killed me if he'd wanted. But
he'd decided not to.
O
“Well, I guess I'm gonna go back to the trail,” I told Ritchie. He took a step back.
“Alright!” he expostulated. “Alright!” he said again.
I hope he didn't take it personally. Couldn't he see for himself that I wasn't fit for anything? I'd
failed. I'd failed.
“Do you need to make any calls to your family or anything?” He offered me his cell phone. I
was pretending not to have one when the truth was I really didn't. It was lying uncharged in my pack,
which was back at the hostel. I really didn't have anything now except my boots.
“No,” I told him. I didn't want to call anybody. I kind of wanted to call my sugar daddy but I
was ashamed. Ashamed, in front of Ritchie, which was kind of ridiculous. Actually, I think I did call
Tom from Ritchie's flip phone but Tom didn't answer. I was glad he didn't answer.
“You got your boots?” he asked me.
“Where are they?” I asked him. Ritchie went to go find them and I thought about how really
screwed I'd be if my boots couldn't be found. I had no money to replace them with and without boots I
couldn't walk the trail. Then I really would have a problem.
Ritchie found my boots in his truck. Why I'd taken them off in there I can't remember. I found
my socks in HEAVEN and then we were ready to go.
But as I was passing my reflection in a floor-length mirror I stopped. I turned around and looked
at myself. I was so beautiful! My grey-blue eyes shone out of my face. I was tan, healthy, strong.
Everything about me, my face, my body, everything, was perfect. I saw this, absorbed it, and then
moved on.
Ritchie took me to his parents house so that I could take a shower. They had the house out back
of his. I guess he hadn't moved too far away from home.
But the inside of their house was perfect. I doubted whether they ever went inside his house, if
they even knew the state of it.
“Just ignore my mother, she's bipolar.”
You're bipolar.
The shower was one of the best I've ever taken because of all the sweet-smelling, foreign,
expensive bath products. And when I came out of the shower I had a banana. I ate it in the kitchen with
his mother. I'd taken it up without asking but she just stared at me. Ritchie's dad was in the nicelyfurnished living room reading the paper.
“Can I have this?” I asked her about the banana. I'd already taken it up into my hand. She
nodded “yes.” It was a really great banana. They're good for the joints, you know.
Ritchie and I got back in his truck and we were about to leave the place for good. I didn't think
too much about it. I was sad, but also excited to get back to the trail. I hoped my pack would still be
there hanging on that nail outside the barn. He'd brought me along a Dr. Pepper and I sipped it as we
drove on down the hill.
He stopped for gas and there were a bunch of hikers, guys, outside the joint.
“Hey guys!” I saluted them with my drink, and a few of them walked over to me.
“Are you a hiker?” they asked.
“You bet.”
“Could you give us a lift?”
“Where are you headed?”
“Back to the hostel. We walked over here but we're tired.”
“Yeah, sure!” I replied. “Hey Ritchie! Ritchie, can we give these boys a ride?” He'd just walked
out of the store and looked at them all then looked at me.
“Sure, hop in the back!” he said. They all got in. “Here, I want to give you this,” Ritchie said to
me when we were all in the truck. It was a $20 bill. I was kind of angry it wasn't more and kind of
flattered and kind of embarrassed lest the other hikers should see. I folded it up into a tiny square and
hid it in my palm.
“Thanks!” And I meant it.
One of the boys in back yelled at him through the window how to get to the hostel. I didn't
know. Ritchie dropped us off right in front of the place after we'd turned down the long driveway. Then
he waved goodbye to me, I got out, and he rolled back up out of the driveway. And that was the end of
it.
They found my pack, the house matron had kept it safe in the house. Apparently the police had
been called. They'd seen me get into the car with a man and everybody had been really worried. But I
was back now, I was safe, and I said I didn't care to explain. All the hikers and the people that owned
the hostel let me be. They said I could stay the night for free inside the barn refurbished as a house. I
said that was just fine.
That night we all weathered the rain up in the loft in the dark watching a VHS of The Thing.
Some hikers played cards. Some of us lay on the pull-out couch. I tried to do both and kind of failed,
wandered listless about the place drinking water. Not speaking. Nobody spoke.
At one point I tried to use the bathroom but couldn't find the light switch so I just sat on the
toilet in the dark for a long time. I couldn't go pee, I was too nervous, so I just sat there. But other
people were trying to get in. It was all very awkward.
“The light switch is on the wall!” somebody yelled into me.
Oh thanks, seriously. Thanks! As if I would want to waste any brainpower trying to figure out
where the light switch is. I mean, seriously.
I sat there for a little while more. At least their friendly voice helped me take a piss. Then I got
out of there.
“Yeah, here it is,” I hiker showed me. It really was just on the wall but in a place where I
couldn't see.
“Thanks,” said. Then I migrated back to lying on my side on the bed. I was glad I'd somehow
snagged a spot for the night. A few people were on the floor.
Headlamps strobed about the small room. It was like cabin fever except the water and electricity
still worked. The tenor of the movie got us all feeling very creepy and close.
“I spoon people in my sleep, I hope you don't mind,” said the guy next to me. I let him know I
did mind by the expression on my face.
You'd better not try anything with me.
The rest of the evening passed easy enough. One time I felt a little scared. Maybe it was the
movie or just the spooky shadows on people's faces as they were playing cards. I looked all around me,
stretched my neck to either side to really see what was going on. Nothing was going on. I lay back
down and tried to sleep.
I hated the movie too. The Thing is just some all-ingenious way of saying that vaginas are
disgusting. I didn't really appreciate that as I lay there in the quiet. I hated the handsome male lead too
because T-Rex had loved him so much. That was the first time I'd seen the movie, with T-Rex. What a
fag! What kind of movie was this, anyway? Women don't mutate to imitate men. That's kind of
impossible. And if anybody was in danger here it was me, not them. Men were the thing. And that's the
truth.
“Hey C.V., they've got a really nice, big breakfast up at the house tomorrow,” said the guy on the
other side of me. He faced me as we lay there. I remembered he'd said his name was Rooster.
“Shut up!” I wanted to say, but didn't. Instead I asked how much it would cost me.
“I think it's only nine dollars,” said Rooster. “Hey Tree Piper!” Rooster sat up and called out to
one of the guys playing cards. “Isn't the breakfast tomorrow just nine dollars?”
“At nine-thirty,” Tree Piper confirmed.
“Oh,” I said, loosening up. That wasn't so bad. “Maybe I'll go in for it then.”
“Yeah, sure, you should come.”
“Will you wake me up in the morning?” I asked Rooster.
“Sure.”
“Thanks.”
We lay down again and this time we both got some sleep.
May 7, 8.8 mi
Now, that breakfast was too good! First of all, we all ate in an ornate, country hall with wide
windows and china and sparkly silverware. The news hummed but gently on the TV, we all talked and
shared our dreams about the journey ahead, and everything was set up before we'd even come in.
The food was too amazing. Entire tables full of homemade biscuits and gravy, quiche, eggs in all
ways, fruit cakes, fresh-cut strawberries, rich desserts topped with whipped cream.
I sat at a table with Tree Piper. He'd sort of been watching out for me that morning. I don't know
if I looked confused or what but after my dip off trail into infinity it felt alright to have someone
remember when breakfast was and where we should go and all. We sat down next to an older guy who
talked the whole time. Mesmerized by the food, I kept eating and eating. At one point I got up for more.
“I think we should get out of here,” said Tree Piper eventually. I couldn't believe he'd say
something like that! Look at all the food we could eat! We'd paid for it after all. But I could tell he was
serious and I listened to him. We got up.
“You think we should stop eating and leave?” I asked, just to make sure.
“Yeah,” he said simply.
“Okay.” We got out of there. Tree Piper had hardly eaten anything.
O
“What happens on the third floor stays on the third floor.”
A private enclave of young souls formed outside the barn in the mist. We'd migrated down from
playing guitar (I wouldn't sing, I couldn't), down the splintered steps, and suddenly it was all gloomy
and sad. I stood with two young men, Tree Piper and another fellow, blonde. And we stood by each
other in a moment of separateness. A mutual sigh was shared.
I shyly looked up into the eyes of Tree Piper's friend.
“I'm Rooster,” he told me. He smiled affably. He was gently stoned and curls of smoke whisped
out around his pale face. He had matted, messy blonde dreadlocks and he wore no shirt. Swimming
trunks, what's with the swimming trunks and guys out here? Don't they know that fabric doesn't wick
moisture?
“Do you want some of this?” he asked me slowly, handing me the small pipe.
“Sure.” I tasted the charred warmth of a hit, feeling like a dragon, hoping I wouldn't get
paranoid like I've gotten every time I've smoked pot since leaving the California supply. In anticipation
of nerves I looked down.
It had been a difficult night, the last. I'd passed it in a kind of zone of denial, the risidual effects
of a crazy weekend propelling me into the present which I couldn't even notice until later, until now. It
had been terrible. I could have died. I'd felt like a refugee in the dark (I think the power had been out)
and as the headlamps over the table had played cards I'd been forced to watch the fucking Thing and
none of it felt right.
Suddenly Rooster's voice brought me back to the present:
“We heard about what happened with you.”
I looked up, nonplussed. What had happened?
“We think it's really cool.” He was smiling, still gentle, young, but enthusiastically amused.
“Those people you were with want to call you 'Amber Alert.'”
“What?” Now I laughed. Was this my trail name? I didn't think so. I'd chosen my own. I didn't
even ask what Amber Alert meant.
“They – well, the girl – called your mom and everything.”
“Oh, great!” My frustration gave me license to be loose again. I freely arched my back and
swung my hands up over my head, clasping them, shuffled my feet. “That's just great. I mean...why
would she do that?”
“I really dunno.” Rooster shook his head, averting his gaze. The outside light around us grew a
few shades darker. Tic, tic, by degrees the weather was getting shifty. But we stood there together, the
three of us strong.
“She did leave her pack and everything,” Tree Piper noted. He hadn't said anything before now
and he talked to Rooster about me as though I weren't there. Not ignoring me or leaving me out; it was
obvious we were in the triad and we stood there, but they were conferring about something I didn't
understand. Everything felt very much for me as though it had been delayed. I stood there, recording it
all with my glassy, wide eyes. It would have made no difference to me if I were here or there, eating a
bangin' banquet of unexpected richness in a bright hall or back in the flop house with Ritchie. Why had
I left? I couldn't remember.
I guess it was because I felt like I wasn't good at anything. I couldn't commit to any lifestyle for
very long. I got bored of my incompetence and wandered away. Couldn't be a money-making whore,
couldn't save my skin for shit, couldn't be really productive about anything even when my life depended
on it. I didn't want to hurt the kids by drawing out the period of our togetherness for very long because I
knew it would be a pretty bad mark against me when I inevitably would wander in my mind, get
complacent. Hurt people.
“Here.” Rooster held out a single black and red hiking stick. The teardrop-shaped hand harness
was worn at the top near the little crook of it where there were all the little grooves for a gripping hand.
He'd traveled with it a long time.
“I can have it?” I was delighted, shocked! Hiking sticks make all the difference in a journey.
Everyone had told me that. And though I hadn't had sufficient time to practice with any because I didn't
buy them, I felt very encouraged by my first one being a gift. I would figure it out.
But didn't he need it? I guess not. Maybe he was leaving trail. I never asked.
Later that day Tree Piper suggested that I start back on the trail with him. I accepted the
invitation and we prepared to leave. Rooster had gone on ahead.
And so I figured out I could walk again.
O
“What happens on the third floor stays on the third floor.”
I walked with Tree Piper, stepping along the same path, but our minds communed at a higher
level unbeknownst even to us. I didn't have access to all that, nor would I have wanted it. All I knew
was that we were walking.
Neon ferns pronged up in tendrils near the edges at our heels, formed vast floors of pouffing
green on either side. A sea of brightest green. It was so much better than ordinary grass. The black tree
trunks were sentinels extending upwards, and if I'd looked up they'd be there, arching overhead in a
canopy. But I didn't look up. I had to watch and look before me. Besides, I knew what they were. I
knew they marked our progress. I knew their tops and their roots by heart. The welcome mists still
pervaded everything. It was quiet except for our steps.
Reality that day became to me as a series of images, almost still lifes, with no motion in
between.
The sun came out. Awe! We were again in the open. The mountains were visible again. We
stopped in time. The parched earth beneath us which we sat on was dry as straw. Was I eating? No, I
was being. I was overjoyed with the perfect scene around us. I captured it. Click. The bright, constant
beam of the sun shone so intensely that I thought it was very brave. My soul swelled up and laughed
within me but I was perfectly still, in that moment. Everything was here! It went on and on, astounding
detail. The limitless bunches of leaves on the boughs which were on all the sentinels standing on every
mountain and it was everywhere. I could see it.
Then: click!
Tree Piper, ahead of me, arms spread wide as though to welcome the world. An open field
before us. He'd just walked out of the shade and into the light. I watched but didn't understand then
what I understand now. “He looks like Christ,” I thought derisively.
Click!
Paul closed the refrigerator door and the suction made a smart noise. He turned to me, jumping
in front of the machine, trying to prevent me from reaching inside. He was quick and lively, countering
every move I made. I really enjoyed it whenever we ended up together in the kitchen.
“Let me!” I laughed, one of my hands grabbing on the lower part of his sinewed arm. “Move!”
Mock furious. I seriously did want some milk and grapes. Me and Adam had run out of everything. I'd
eaten all the good stuff and Adam had his pasta and hot pockets still left. But Paul seriously didn't want
me to have any. We were all pretty broke here.
“Haha!” He fended off my hand with a swift smack and darted in at my sides to poke and tickle
me.
“STOP IT!!” I fairly screamed, disturbing everyone playing video games. “You!” I'd gotten
away, now pointed at him. “You...you asshole!” Doubled over in laughter as he savored a grape,
standing there for my benefit and torment, shirtless. Bright eyes laughing at me.
Click!
There he was, in front of me. I could see him through the kitchen window. Completely naked, he
stood outside in the yard, arms spread wide, every precious finger static with energy. Wow.
O
Sometimes it happens that I pass into another dimension. The universe is riddled with detail:
little worlds, separate and unique and plentiful, all can be found on Earth. During my hike I passed
through countless worlds. Some of them are invisible, emotional states. And others are physical
possibilities that you merely have to move yourself into. Find.
You can make use of your mistakes when you fall. “Genius makes no mistakes” and all. But it's
much more pleasurable to be led somewhere unexpected by a friend who might have a bit more of an
idea of what they're about.
That day Tree Piper and I climbed a waterfall. I never would have known it was there if he
hadn't pointed to the detour printed in his guide. We made tracks over the roots down the blue blaze
towards the roaring sound of frothing water.
It was a tall one, about sixty yards high, falling always down but seemingly in jagged slants
influenced by protruding boulders all the way up. It was a huge cliffside with hardy trees growing out
of it sideways, loud dark green moss sprouting out of the stones. At the bottom there was a wide pool,
beside which stood two women. Tree Piper and I came closer and I felt shy, reluctant to be broken into
more people right now – even though I recognized both of them.
Sticks, the tanned a sturdy-looking woman who'd been in the Navy, looked like an Indian chief
with her hair fiercely pulled back like that. She had keen light eyes that seemed to follow me, so I went
about a show of producing something from my bag to eat.
“Lovely day, isn't it?” Cackles was there too, her ruddy face clipped up at the sides into a grin.
She swayed confidently on her long legs. She was like a modern statue in neon. She could probably
withstand anything.
“We're gonna climb that waterfall,” Tree Piper told the two of them.
“Good idea!” Cackles assented, nodding. “It's a long way up-” she waved her entire arm up at
the falls, “but I'm sure you'll be fine.”
I didn't question myself when the both of them seemed so confident. Tree Piper was already
taking off his shoes.
I followed his example and left my boots and moist socks at the edge of our level plateau of
packed dirt. We all four were there for the time being. Sticks was still staring at me. I could see this
from the slight of my turned head as I bent down to rearrange my socks within my boots. When I
straightened up, I decided to look her back in the eye. I didn't like being stared at.
“I see you, CV,” she said. I didn't like that either. Her arms were crossed and her stolid
expression didn't change at all when she said it.
I nodded, not knowing what to say to that, and turned to the task at hand.
Tree Piper and I climbed variously, just as we'd taken different routes across the basin of water
at the fall's feet. We didn't climb straight up the waterfall, that would have been impossible, but at its
vertical edge, grasping now this swaying branch (hoping it wouldn't be uprooted) and now scraping for
a hold at wet crags in the massive slabs of dark rock. I avoided moss. I didn't know what was under it.
I gained confidence and momentum quickly. My legs elevated me from a squatting step to a
standing reach every other foot, one after the other. It wasn't regular or predictable, and by no means
easy, but I'd forgotten my fears a long time ago and now adapted to judging the materials before me
quickly in terms of how likely they would be to hold, to help me.
Sometimes I was so close to the waterfall that the spray got me wet. Sometimes I was in the
thick of the vertical forest. That's just the way my climb went. I was unaware of what Tree Piper was
doing ahead of me, but I knew he'd be at the top.
“This is great!” I called out to him. I held a supple tree branch fast in my hands and my body
swayed as it swayed. My hair, growing in thick and healthy at the roots, a different color from the
blonde ends, was a moving halo about my head. How grateful I was to have found this place!
“Yeah, it is.” There he was, way up ahead. I could see his face, long-bearded for one who looked
so young, with long brown curls falling about his shoulders. I climbed on. We scaled the entire falls in
under a few minutes.
At the top there was an odd channel of largely still water which would later curve out into the
open to drop. Tree Piper sat on a large, smooth stone at the far end of this pool. I waded right through
the middle of the water, which came up to my stomach, and pulled myself up to a seat next to him on
the stone, laughing with exhileration. Suddenly I had the urge to run my hands through his hair, so I
leaned towards him, hand outstretched, but he slowly maneuvered out of my range. One second he was
sitting next to me, and then next he wasn't. He was still sitting, calm as ever, but now he just wasn't
beside me. He looked back at me, beatific. Serene. I let my hand fall to my wet thigh. I was heavy with
water but still thrilled at what we'd just done. I decided not to worry about my mistake and turned about
me to find a path to an overlook.
I parted the brush at the farthest point it was safest to stand on and beheld the rush of the bulging
water tossed so swiftly over the edge into rivulets of white. Down it all went with a fantastic static. It
was so loud that when I cried out for Tree Piper to come look I couldn't even hear my own voice. I felt
the vibrations within my throat and that was all.
I picked my way delicately back the way I'd come, toeing on top of stones and grating through
the wonderful watery pockets of sand. I met back up with Tree Piper, who'd just gotten back from the
environs to the left of the large pool. I don't know if it went up again or what he found. But we were
both ready to go back. Without a word, we began to try and undo the complex, braided pattern of
movement we'd just completed so quickly. This was much more difficult. Falling, going down,
whatever you want to call it, it's really hard.
The going was slow by necessity and I didn't like feeling so slow and, well, cautious. Sometimes
I'd have to slide down on my back to avoid thick trunks of trees. I squeezed myself through, wondering
where they'd been before on the ascent. I got a good scrape on my back through the thin fabric of my
yellow shirt, and various nicks on my knees. But I never lost a hold or went sprawling or anything.
Back at the turf, Tree Piper found his shirt to wipe off his feet and I sat by the tree where my
shoes were just waiting for them to dry. I felt peaceful and quiet.
The rest of our journey that day was marked by hunger for me. Once again I'd run out of food
and it preoccupied my mind to an uncomfortable degree. My stomach couldn't have wanted that much
after such a luscious breakfast, but I felt all empty again as though the quantity had left a bigger hole
than was there to begin with. Tree Piper reluctantly gave me some cheesy crackers, a pack of four,
which I ate quickly and greedily, but that just made it worse. I could sense that he just wanted me to get
over it, which seemed all opposed to what I was used to. Hadn't we, after all, just completed a feat
requiring a great deal of energy? Didn't I deserve to eat if I wanted – and not to feel badly about it?
It's a good thing we ran into Rooster because I was feeling sort of resentful. His presence reset
the tone back to our mutual past this morning, the alliance triad back outside at the hostel, so I soon
forgot the bad frame of mind I'd just been in.
We came across a caving old barn and went inside to have a look at the handiwork. Someone
had built this by hand for himself years ago, and now here it was. And here we were. The dust was thick
and it smelled of spores but I could make out a place where a few hikers had spent the night recently. I
pointed and they both nodded.
We walked on, now with Rooster in the lead, me following him, and Tree Piper last. The sun set
and our path grew thankfully less strenuous, flatter, and eventually we walked right into Mountaineer
Shelter.
The structure of this shelter made me proud to behold it. It was modern in all the wonderfully
asymmetrical, nonsensical ways of the natural progression of things. It was my contemporary in a way
that the old barn could never be. They both admittedly existed but this place was just on the same plane
as we were. It wasn't sad.
Immediately the three of us threw down our loads from off our shoulders. We each found our
favorite place to recline. There were two other men at the floor level of the shelter stringing things up
from the pegs at the front. Water, food, drying bandanas. Greetings were shared and we were all glad to
have made it.
The shelter had three floors. One of the men told me that it had been built by a trail angel named
Bob Peoples, who also owned a free hostel called Kincora up ahead. After examining the place I
decided that he was a genius. Step ladders were placed in a convolution spiraling towards the top floor.
First there was the set of the stairs leading up from the fire ring onto the floor platform, then at an angle
wound to the right were the surprisingly slim and narrow rungs leading to the second, smaller platform
that was floor two. Then, twisted tighter in and hidden from view altogether from the outside was a set
of rungs leading up to a private chamber, an attic of sorts, with a coned roof and room enough for just
one or two persons.
I saw something that looked like a thick, irregular beam at the back of the third floor and hoisted
myself up there to see better for the plastic skylight built in behind it. The sun was in my face. It was a
bear, etched into the wood in standing guise like a totem. I smiled there in the dim, once again face to
face with my alma mater.
“Hey there,” I spoke, facing the thing intently. This was definitely where I'd be sleeping tonight.
Regardless of what this bear symbolized to others who perhaps had encountered elusive black bears
known to these parts, that bear for me was a big one. A grizzly. A golden, towering terror of wrath and
power.
“CV!” One of my party called out to me from below. Rooster, I think. “C'mon down, we're
making dinner!”
“Right!” I barked back. “Right.” Never taking my eye of that freaking bear. “I'm coming.” With
difficulty I broke the gaze, jumped down the full length of the rungs onto the first tier then the next. I
felt no shocks in my knees even though I'd walked over ten miles through the mountains every day for
two months. Without pain or care to what had been, or even to the more pertinent issue of what would
happen to my body in the future, I joined my contemporaries at the fire.
It was a full, silent yet pregnant meal. Many emotions and ideas came over me and just as
suddenly departed. I donated one of my last ramen to the cause, Tree Piper cooked, and Rooster rolled
his cigarettes and smoked. We were very easy together, enjoyed the dance of the fire pronounced
against the growing darkness. We weren't exactly the people to feel too motivated about anything,
anything other than exactly this, right where we were.
Rooster handed me his pack of loose-leaf Top tobacco and I rolled one.
“There's a bear up there,” I told them, throwing back a thumb at the shelter.
“Yep.” Rooster just smiled at me and smoked at the thin paper. No matter what I could've said, if
I'd said that there was treasure up there, pure gold, or an army of thousands about to overtake us just
over the next ridge, his reaction probably would have been the same.
Tree Piper had finished making the meal and we all had some on tortillas. We ate, now and then
throwing a brand into the fire to keep it going.
“Hey, thanks for dinner,” I told Tree Piper.
“Peace, man,” he said to me.
Well, yeah. Yeah.
I thought about that for the next hour while Tree Piper played on a wooden instrument he'd had
since the beginning. It was wooden like the pentatonic flute I used to play but the sound was deeper,
lower, and very old.
I peered out, shifty-eyed, from beneath my fitted hood. I'd put on my wind breaker and only my
slightly elongated nose with the little bulb at the end was visible beneath the visor. With my hair hidden
I felt better about things right now. The hair on your head, how you wear it, if you cut it, can be a very
powerful thing, and mine was getting stronger. I didn't want to deal with it right now.
I'd found my power pose, one leg folded under me and the other crossed over it all the way and
extended. My thighs were stacked and the outstretched limb pointed its bare toes.
Rooster and Tree Piper were talking about salamanders. They'd seen several different kinds so
far and they were describing them. Where they'd seen them, what their colors were. I thought to myself:
“I feel really strange about my salamander. I know it's magic. I think it wants to kill me. But it
hasn't. Wherever I feel it now, since I was initially taken in by it on the ground before Roan High Knob,
it lets me know I'm within its power but it doesn't strike. I know what's over me alright. I don't have to
look up or ask too many questions. That man Ritchie was that salamander. It found me just two days
later (*check this fact) and took me for a ride. That's kind of scary.
That man! He wasn't human, I know it. Oh, his face! Angled intently at me from the first. Faster.
Smarter. Evolved out of humanity and into something else. He was pure fire, he was violence. He was a
saint but not of any of the mild orders I could think of. Saint Eft.
Just before we turned in, Tree Piper climbed up to the third floor and lay his mat next to mine.
That was fine, I guess there wasn't enough room what with three people on floor two, but my
conscience cut me about the near kiss.
I poked at the soggy second pack of ramen I'd left in my bowl with water about two hours ago.
It was ready so I ate it, sitting up framed by that weird sloped ceiling, a strange boy laying next to me,
turned away under his sleeping bag.
“What happens on the third floor stays on the third floor.” I can tell you that because nothing
happened. We slept, like children of God.
May 8, 15.6 mi
The next day I was the last to wake up. When I finally came down I found everyone gone except
Tree Piper. He'd waited for me.
“You want to try and pull fifteen miles today?” was his first question. He stood on the porch
tying his rolled mat into a bundle with two black shoe strings. I stared back at him. I noticed a similar
dark cord at his throat, from which dangled a wooden cross.
“Why not?” I shrugged, wishing Rooster were still here so I could bum a smoke. The last time
I'd done fifteen in a day had been about a month ago, and more than half of it had been downhill out of
the Smokies. But I wasn't too worried about it, I had faith, yes. We'd just have to push for Kincora, that
was all.
The terrain that day was mostly flat, which helped. We spoke little but still I enjoyed the
presence of another soul. The weather was good and I began to employ my hiking stick to actually help
me, not just routinely stab it at my sides. Sometimes if we were going uphill I would have it going in a
rowing motion, one step the stick would be on my left side then for the next I'd row it over to my right.
Downhill I just poked it out in front of me, helping to break my descent. I held it pummelled before me
in both palms. Walking straight through sunny fields I amused myself by holding it like a sort of cane,
dandying it around in a weird promenade or emphasizing little skipped side steps with it held
horizontally in both hands (all of this behind Tree Piper so he wouldn't think any particular thing about
me).
I really should have been a street performer. Give me some tap shoes, a thin wooden square to
sound on, and my hiking stick. I own any costume you can think of and know all the best music. But I
would never have made any money, no matter where I happened to be. I know this. I enjoy myself too
much. It isn't work if you have real passion behind it, is it? No, you're just “fucking around.” Who
would pay somebody to do that? That's not very amusing.
I cast about in my mind for something to think about. The body was autopilot, the body would
be fine I was sure. For me, soul is inseparable from mind.
How did I get here?
I'll tell you how I got here.
It all started by taking a capsuled drug on a beach in 2004. My boyfriend Will and his
contemporaries had agreed to let me come on the trip – even though Will had broken up with me some
days before we left.
The way we handled the grocery store provisions experience for the trip back then reminds me
of the way my resupplies go today – except that Will had his mom's credit card, and he didn't exactly
hold back. We'd gone in there, most of them stoned and some paranoid, and me a nonsmoker, a “neverwould-ever” drug user in fact, but just blazing the reincarnation of some Merry Prankster waiting to
happen. I wasn't a good girl, I was a passionate girl, and there's a big difference between types even
though they both get the same great high school grades. I always dressed like I had my own gang; neon
colors and articles somehow classically arranged for the one constant theme of unabashed sexiness.
And now I was part of a gang. I just didn't know it yet.
“I just wanna get the fuck out of here, so everybody focus on a different thing we thought about
earlier!” Will the frontman advised us all. They were in a band called Oriental Carpet whose modern
music I loved. Will sang and played a sharp-looking dark blue Parker guitar that looked like a shark.
Toby played keyboard and synthesizers, his older brother (absent) played a telecaster but was about to
get kicked out of the band, my friend Eric from high school really had been kicked out of their band for
being too straightedge to be replaced by an intimidating monster drummer of proficiency from JMU,
Shaman Jonathan played bass, the piano, and sometimes trumpet. Jake, who was just visiting the east
coast for awhile, played guitar and had brought his in order to practice with the band.
Will grabbed loaves of bread off the shelves indiscriminately, mock panic, and threw them into
the cart.
“Hey man,” said Shaman Jonathan, stepping with unusual hurry in his perpetual sandals up
beside the cart and pulling out a loaf of wonder bread, holding it up. “Do we really have to eat this
shit? We're going to be there for at least two nights.”
“Well,” Will wielded his torso around, twisting his height and broad shoulders, long thick hair
swerving into his face, “Well, haha! I don't know, man.” He shrugged and began his genuine, extremely
likeable laugh. Kind of stuttering almost, bursts of emotion, but a smile on his face. All the while he
pulled the cart frantically behind him. We rounded the bend and made it to another isle.
“It probably makes no difference, actually,” Jonathan said when we were halfway down this
isle. Isle number five. Patron of lost causes. Maybe I was the only one to hear him say this. Will
dragged the cart. Jake sauntered slowly behind Will, hands in his pockets, turning to look at the items
on the shelves with his usual air of disdain. I looked around for Toby but we'd lost him. He'd veered off
of us back at the display islands with the toxic pastries and gone in search of some meat.
“Okay, where's the list?” Will tracked back to me and Shaman Jonathan. “I can't remember a
single thing we wrote down. Do you have it?”
“Here.” Jonathan pulled it out of his pocket and handed it, still folded up, at Will.
“Thanks asshole,” said Will, glaring mock indignation. This is what was on the list:
-5 packages of sandwich buns
-1 pineapple
-1 jar of olive oil
-1 bottle of 40% DEET bug spray
-2 boxes of Mexican rice
-3 jalapino peppers
-1 apple
-2 grapefruits
-1 gallon of milk
-3 oranges
-1 lb muenster cheese
-1 lb sliced chicken
-12 bars of chocolate
-1 bag of marshmellows
-10 Italian sausages
-1 package of sushi
-2 bottles of exotic teardrop-shape
-1 gallon of orange juice
-2 packages of bacon
-1 variety pack of oatmeal
-1 can of cashews
-oatmeal cookies
That was it.
Everyone of our party got their own crazy thing, and it all made perfect sense to us. The apple
and the grapefruits had been my idea, and my mom had even given me five dollars to help out (though
she hated Will and all of his contemporaries), but upon now seeing the rest of the list I laughed.
Everything was so hilarious.
“What is it?” Will asked me.
Oh, it was just that I was about to do drugs for the first time in my entire life, a think I never
foresaw happening, and the guy I loved more than anyone in the world, even more than anyone in my
family, he'd just broken up with me. And now was asking me this question.
“It's nothing.” I waved a hand in front of my face and looked down, grinning.
It was the weirdest shopping trip I've ever been on because my heart was broken and everyone
seemed to make light of it, including me. I'd dated Will for the second half of my junior year and now
everything was falling apart in public in some cheesily-lit grocery store. I'd hung out with the rest of the
band members for just as long, asking them questions, absorbing their diverse and lifechangeingly
good music. Driving onto soccer fields at night to park while they smoked pot and I sat there in the
back. One time we'd gotten caught by a policeman and I'd mouthed off at him. The cop let us go but
Will told me not to do that. It must have been obvious they were smoking weed. I guess I never could
get over the idea of my innocence, even in years to come when it was me specifically they were
concerned with.
I'd also been subjected recently to Jake's relentless questions about my life and who I was as a
person. Jake had been Will's best friend back when Will had still lived with his family in California, and
now he'd come to the east coast to torture us all with his antagonistic intelligence. Before California
Jake had lived in Japan, and he'd tell you in a second that the educational system out there far
surpassed anything in America. We all accepted this as so, or at least I did, based on the way he'd talk.
He was half Japanese, tall and slim with good skin. Bratty smirk on his face. And the shoulder-length
black lazy hair which had earned him the name “Surfer Boy” with the drummer (not present for this
venture).
Sure, everyone in the group had their tensions with others. Shaman Jonathan didn't like the
drummer, would even openly disrespect him (when he wasn't around) for being a gross, thieving, foulmouthed powerhouse of madness. The drummer didn't like Surfer Boy. But Surfer Boy, or, as I like to
call him, “Satan,” really hated me. And when I say “hate” I mean actual, active hatred. He never once
gave me a chance even though I thought we had a lot in common. Will had come around to Satan's
influence in the matter of my character, that I just didn't make any sense for him at all. For a long time
Will had been trying to get me to smoke pot with him – or at least for me to stop giving him excessive
shit about it every time he'd light up – but his frustrations with me culminated when Satan arrived on
the coast.
After the breakup I decided “to be open minded” and try the hallucinogens Satan specialized in.
He'd dosed everyone else in the group with pleasure. He was generous. Nobody could find these drugs
anywhere else. He'd ordered them off of an underground online website called BioTech. He had his
fingers to the pulse of both drug culture and politics and he knew these drugs, classified as “research
chemicals” due to their largely untested newness, would soon be officially illegal and off the market. So
he'd bought them in stock, most of them in fact. They had crazy names like 2C-D, 2C-I, 2C-E, a whole
string of 2C's, 4-HO-DiPT, AMT, etc. Chemists had taken things far beyond known substances like X to
create a panoply of new drugs that mixed the qualities of X (a phynylthylamine) with LSD, mushrooms,
or even DMT (tryptamines). And now I was about to try one from each category for my first experience
in getting high, even before smoking pot.
We swerved in and out of isles, gathering up everything on the list. Every once and awhile Satan
would turn to no one in particular and expostulate “What's going on?!” “I feel like none of us belong
here at the Giant,” or: “This is truly the most terrible song I've ever heard.” I became conscious of the
cheesy mood music blaring from speakers up high in the ceiling. Again I laughed.
Will got nitpicky about the list and its being carried out correctly.
“You guys don't understand! If we don't get this right, if we forget something, we'll just have to
go without it. We're not going to leave the campsite once we get there – for anything.” Will always
walked ahead with the cart, looking for lighter fluid, now candles. Stuff that wasn't even on the list.
Shaman Jonathan shook his head and laughed a kind of spiteful laugh. “He's like an old
woman,” he remarked. But I thought Will looked great. I spent time to admire his body as he walked
down the isles, swishing his ass like a runway model. I didn't say anything though, and I tried not to
make any physical contact. I thought that if I treated him differently than any of the others (maybe
slightly more familiarity and understanding, but nothing to make it weird to have me around) I might be
able to stay friends with all of them through the year. That was what I really wanted. Maybe my time
had come.
Shaman Jonathan told me he'd bring me the next Don Juan book after we got back from the
beach. I thanked him. The two of us sat outside Will's house crossleged on the concrete. Jonathan
always preferred sitting down to standing. I think he was a big part of why the entire band played
sitting down. They always had all the lights off too. Toby was at the highest elevation on the necessary
seat (an old felt ottomon) needed to play the Rhodes keyboard, my favorite instrument in the world
except for the French synthesizer called a martinot which he also played. In my privacy I referred to
Toby as the Rhodes Doctor.
Jonathan and I talked about the first installment by Carlos Castaneda for a few minutes, then I
told him about my plan to try some of Jake's drugs. I explained that I had thought about it a lot, and
that I had a lot to figure out before I went to college.
“I think it's possible for me to find a way to be free, and to be at school at the same time.”
“Oh yeah, definitely,” he said. I liked how he agreed with me. I felt relaxed with him, looked
down at the pavement then up at the tall trees surrounding the driveway. It was summer and everything
smelled like honeysuckle.
Will came out from around back to see what we were doing.
“Did you bring the graham crackers?” he asked me. I'd forgotten all about them. “They weren't
in the stuff we brought inside.”
“Uh, no.”
I felt like shit; that was the one thing I was supposed to bring for this trip. Shit.
The whole operation of my getting ready for this trip was very last minute. I grabbed the most
random stuff before running down the stairs, slamming the door behind me. When we all were finally in
the car, Jake could see into my bag which included a tiara, a neon orange dress, a rainbow bathing
suit, only one pair of pants, one shirt, underwear, and crocheting work for a blanket I'd begun freshman
year and never finished.
“What – what are you doing? You are so weird!” said Jake. He made me list off the items I'd
brought and then he said it again: “You are so weird! You brought that stuff, but you only have one pair
of pants?”
“Yeah. I'm making a blanket.”
“Actually, that's really good,” said Will, inspecting my handiwork from the driver's seat. His
saying that made me feel nice, and more at ease with the group somehow.
“I learned how to do this at my old school.”
“Shit, man, we learned nothing like that back at the school Will and me used to go to! I took a
cooking class, and I didn't even learn how to cook. You were in the period before me, right Will?”
“Yeah. I took my whole table down with me,” Will remembered. “I think I made everyone crazy.
I'd just go into school high on acid, and just laugh all the time. I'd point at the teacher too.”
“Point? What the fuck?” Jake laughed. “Haha yeah, she always seemed pissed off after your
class.”
Will put the Saab in gear and we were on our way. He had a headache so for the first half of the
way we didn't listen to any music.
“Okay guys, let's play the silent game. You guys ever play that? Silent game starting...NOW!”
“Fuck you,” said Toby.
“You lost.”
“Fuck me.”
--Jonathan and Toby kept switching drivers in the middle of the highway, whenever there was the
slightest lull in traffic. They adroitly switched like monkeys or something, and their graceful movements
really made me want to appreciate youth and good health. At one point I climbed out and on top of the
car, gripping the bike railings, and screamed as the wind whipped my hair cruising down smalltown
streets.
The rest of the time I held amiable conversation with Jake (we were practically sitting on top of
each other, so it wasn't hard), and I felt like less of the nag they made me feel I was. I tried to just let
jokes about drugs go, instead of withdrawing into my frequently-visted shell of disapproval.
I was looking forward to getting out and walking around. Will was very quiet during the ride.
He was now in the passenger seat, but every once and awhile he'd reach back and look at me or put his
hand on my knee, as if suddenly remembering I was there. I wondered where his thoughts were.
Natalie called his cell. I knew it was she even before Jonathan's half question half statement:
“Natalie.”
I heard her voice. She sounded so...girly, or something. I would have expected her to sound
more mature. I think Will said she was from Iran or something crazy. Phone reception was bad, so they
got disconnected. “Oh well, whatever,” said Will, quietly, but she called back.
“I think I ran over a cat,” I heard her say.
“Oh, really?” Something in Will's voice bugged me. He just seemed like he cared so much. They
do seem to talk to each other a lot on the phone even though they'd broken up months ago.
We arrived, and there was horse shit all over our campsite. It was pretty funny, actually. There
were wild horses everywhere! I wanted to pitch tent in the brambles, in a small clearing, but nobody
listened to me, so we camped on top of the horse shit.
Will seemed distant. He wouldn't even go near me; I'd walk towards him, he'd shuffle away.
“I feel invincible,” he said. “That drug that Jake gave me last week made me feel productive
and smart. I think I can do anything I want. I'm just going to do what I want to from now on, and just
not care...” His voice carried off as he turned this way and that, unpacking things. The only time he
went near me was when I reminded him of Natalie. I somehow brought up my trip to the emergency
room.
“Why didn't you tell me about that?” asked Will, putting his arm over my shoulders, all
concern. I had told him about it, I was sure.
“I probably told you in a not-so-serious matter. I didn't really try to kill myself or anything.”
“Do you ever get overwhelmed like that – still?” asked Jake. Everyone was listening to me now,
now that I had a problem. Before in the car during the drug conversation, I hadn't gotten in a single
word.
“Sometimes,” I answered.
“You should stop acting,” said Jake. “I think you do it more than you realize it.”
“You really don't like school as much as you say,” said Will. “You sound like you hate it, even!
And your friends...? They're not like you at all. I mean...laser tag? They seem like the exact opposite of
you.”
“So is everyone else!” I exploded. “Sometimes I feel so lonely – like an alien. I don't really fit in
anywhere, see? Not even here.”
I looked around at them, waiting to let that sink in.
“I act like I love math and school in order to fit in with my friends. We both work hard in school,
but...we're so different sometimes in what we love and especially in what we think.”
“You should let it all go,” said Jake, quietly. All of a sudden, he was caring. His eyes were on
me, only me, and his advise seemed to be coming out of his very soul through his dark eyes. He
understood me.
“You don't have to put up an act. You shouldn't, because you'll then alienate in turn all those
who could maybe relate to you.”
“Yeah, but they think I'm a snob just because I do my work.” When I said 'they' I meant the
band and even him, a hypocritical person to be giving me shit about academic passion. I knew he
understood me! “They have a preconceived notion of my bitchiness.”
“You just seem stuck up at times,” said Will. “You're not, but you seem it, sometimes.”
“Really?” I laughed. “It's that obvious?”
“Even...even in the way you talk – your tone of voice,” said Jake.
I had honestly never thought of these things in an in-depth way, like they mattered. They're
important things, but I only now realized that this is true.
I guess they could tell by my growing quiet that I'd heard what they'd said, because they moved
onto Jake as the new subject. None of them agreed with his decision to go to college, but Jake defended
himself and his choice.
“You only accuse me because you guys are completely biased towards hating college!” he said.
“I do feel bad about myself around you guys sometimes, just because I want to go too,” I
backed him up. “You don't respect what I'm going for, and it never occurs to you that, while it may not
have been right for you, it's right for me – and I don't think going to college makes me a conformist
loser, who 'contributes towards the end of the world' like you say.”
“Yeah, so we go to college. So what? You just have to, these days, in order to get anything
done.”
“Yeah? Well that's what I hate about it,” said Will, gruffly. “I hate that I have to go to college
and graduate – do all this shit – for anyone to respect me. People think I'm an idiot because I don't
go.”
“Do you look down on us for going?”
“No, Steph, I don't...not really. It's what you want. You are sort of going along with things.” I
scowled. “But it's all that can be done. Everyone has to do it. Me and Jonathan are just losers who
aren't contributing to society very much.” The two of them laughed at this. Gaining confidence from
Jonathan, Will jabbed out at Jake: “You're just doing what your parents tell you to do.”
“Oh, am I an idiot because I have an opinion that doesn't agree with yours?” Jake here
employed a very cloying, drawn-out “I'm so sorry” voice. He wasn't sorry at all. He was my hero right
then. I'd have to remember that comeback.
The whole idea of taking psychedelic drugs in the first place was only appealing to me because
of Jake. Jonathan, Toby, and Will may have said the same things to me, but they're only convincing
coming from a college-bound person whose goals are more like mine. “Jake is obviously still mature,
stable, and intelligent after using drugs for years,” I told myself.
I did like the idea of letting down the barriers, and seeing life – my life – “how it really is.” I
liked the thought of that intellectual experience, and I really thought it could help me figure out who I
was, aside from all the games. Help me figure out what I wanted.
But then...is that really what I want, or just what the drug makes my mind think that it wants?
There was no way of knowing. That was the answer. Nobody knew anything. I decided to go for
the “objectivity through subjectivity” thing, and see what happened. Since I'd met them all, my world
had changed, beginning with...the music I listened to.
Radiohead B Sides began to play from inside the van. Jonathan had put on one of the CDs he'd
mixed.
“Where did you find this, Jonathan? I've never even heard this song before,” said Will. Neither
had I, but I recognized the band alright. They'd been my favorite for years, ever since freshman year
when I'd first heard Will play the guitar at our high school coffee house. I'd asked his pretty cousin,
who was in an acting class of mine, what music he listened to usually, and she told me that he mostly
listened to Radiohead. My interest in Will gave me the ears to really listen to Amnesiac, not an
accessible CD by any means, especially to someone listening to the Jock Jams soundtrack as they walk
to school. But I lovingly heard out every track, bought OK Computer and Kid A and The Bends. Kid A
was still too weird for me. It took me another year before I heard what they heard in the seeming chaos
of that incredible masterpiece.
Each band member had their favorite artists, and I got introduced to them all. Will, Shaman
Jonathan, The Rhodes Doctor and the drummer took turns playing out albums in full as we'd all drive
around together at night. They took turns driving too but usually we were all in Jonathan's little red
manual civic. We did that a lot over the summer.
Will worshipped Radiohead, mostly because of Jake. He also liked Portishead, Beck, Amon
Tobin, a French band called AIR, and of course The Beatles. Toby was into My Bloody Valentine,
Bjork, Mos Def, and Quasimoto. I associated King Crimson, Miles Davis, Blur, and Coldplay with
Jonathan. All I knew about the drummer (he was new to the band) was that he liked Aphex Twin.
Anybody is entitled to their opinion on the adverse effects of drugs or any other opinion, but I will
boldly say that any loss my life has suffered because of the use of drugs (grad school, a real job, a
family, children, even independence, sobriety) is worth it – as long as I got to hear that music. I
literally cannot conceive a life, even a successful one, inspired by tunes whose base trunk or beginning
was just Jock Jams, Guster, Outkast, Missy Elliot, and techno.
I felt pretty hot in my bathing suit while walking to the tent to get ready. We decided to take the
drugs before we left, then walk to the beach with the raft and all the rest of our shit.
Will was naturally the first one to dose up.
“I'm probably going to trip so hard,” he laughed. That wild, hollow look in his eye and smile
which makes him look quite insane. Will had 25mg of 2C-E (some acid-like substance that apparently is
pretty nuts), and the normal dose is about 15mg. Toby took 20mg of 2C-E, and Jake took another 20,
while Jonathan and I had both elected for 2C-D – a “smart drug” that...well, I can't even really explain
what it did.
I held my capsule in my hand, looking at it. My adrenaline was pumping, and my nerves felt
twitchy. I told this to Will.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” He looked at me, all craziness gone.
“Yes. But thanks for asking.” I swallowed it.
I helped Will carry the crazy raft to the beach. The entire shoreline looked amazing – genuinely
(the drug wasn't supposed to kick in until about an hour). I immediately threw myself into the waves,
not really thinking about the fact that I only had one pair of pants. I swam out really far, rode the raft
out into the waves with Jonathan, and generally made a nusance of myself, talking incessantly, as I
waited for the drug to kick in.
I didn't know where to sit, whether to go off on my own or to stay with them (be part of the
group) – and then, if I did stay with them, who would I talk to? I wanted to be around Will, but he was
really going through some weirdness. He was lying on the sand on his stomach, looking nauseated.
For some reason, I felt like the positive reinforcement I'd received from the breakup (weird, ain't
it?) had never happened. I began to get really paranoid and really insecure. I didn't know what to do. I
felt babyish and annoying, always hanging around Will, so I took my CD player and went for a walk.
Things got weird.
It didn't freak me out. It felt...normal, just...different. It all made perfect sense, and a beatific
grin donned my face as I trudged through the dunes. Sand felt thicker. Sand was pretty fuckin' amazing.
I couldn't hear very well, and music didn't sound any cooler than usual, but I could feel and...taste
every single fiber of an object. My thoughts were coherent, and they didn't go all crazy and out of
control. I was in control. It felt good, just not amazing. I kept waiting for the climax, but it never came.
I kept waiting for me to turn around and for the ocean to be different somehow, but all tha was different
was slight, multicolored auras surrounding things, always shifting. And even those went away after the
first hour or so.
This one bird looked huge. HUGE! It blew my mind. I was also very full of emotion, like I
wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.
I sat next to Jonathan in the sand and just...sat there. Will, Jake, and Toby were freaking out,
very talkative, behind us, but Jonathan and I just thought about things.
“Do you feel really different from them?” he asked me.
“Sometimes, yeah.”
I paused, and I really felt like the entire world was...me. It was all up to me.
“I think I'm different from everyone else in the world,” I said, quietly.
“Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be,” he said.
He was absolutely right. I was relieved. Who gave a shit, anyway?
Shaman Jonathan is apostle number five.
“We're on the moon!” I heard Will yell.
“What's that yellow flag doing there?” asked Toby.
“It probably...means something,” said Will.
I buried my feet in the sand (oh, the glorious sand!) and made a sand angel.
“I've found my spot – like Don Juan,” mused Jake.
“Stephanie looks like she's found her spot!” someone said. I had indeed.
“Are you OK?” asked Will.
I pretended not to hear him.
“Stephanie. Stephanie!” I gently turned my head towards him. He stared at me, worredly, then
laughe uncomfortably. “What are you guys doing?” Will had directed his question at Jonathan and me,
who were sitting in the sand, staring off intently out to sea. My fingertips met, and two tears were on my
face. “You're just sitting there like monks or something, like you're praying.”
When night fell, I think the guys on 2C-E all went crazy. Mosquitos were slowly eating us alive,
and we were running – literally – in no particular direction, carrying a raft.
“Which way is it?”
“Oh GOD! FUCK! These mosquitos, man!”
“Man, everything is mosquitos, sand, and DEET.” (DEET is the ingredient in bug spray that
works but that also causes cancer).
“Are we at war? Seriously, this is like Vietnam or something,” said Jake.
We dropped stuff off at the campsite, only to return to the beach an hour later. It was late, but
nobody was exactly tired. We made a fire at the beach and made s'mores. It had been a good day. The
hour we'd spent at the campsite had been absolutely ridiculous, and we all laughed about it.
We were all on drugs, and we were flipping out because of the mosquitos. My bathing suit
bottom fell apart, Toby threw tea all over the car, I had no pants after I'd walked into the beach with
them, and Will looked unbelievably cracked out.
“What the fuck are we doing? We have a lot we need to accomplish here. Let's make a list!”
Will made the following list before collapsing into hysterics / disgust:
1)clean clothes
2)escape mosquitos
3)kill all sand
We also discussed my weird encounter with the ponies of Asateague Island. Four of them had
walked towards me, all in a line, and I'd left the group to go and meet them. I pet each of them in turn,
and looked into all those deep brown eyes. It was so weird how they'd all paused before walking by me.
I'd walked back to the group, and they'd all been weirded out.
“Wow...that was amazing,” somebody said.
“Did you talk to them?” asked Jake. I couldn't tell if he was being serious or not, so I just
nodded, dead serious. I thought that would freak him out. Apparently it did.
“I think you really messed with my trip for a moment there, Stephanie. That thing with the
horses...man. You know, I thought I had you all figured out, but then you did drugs, and now I think I
may have been completely wrong, just gotten you all wrong. You're really weird.”
“Yeah,” said Will quietly.
“You agree with that?” asked Jonathan.
“Oh yeah, well I always knew she was crazy.” It was said in the most affectionate way possible.
Later on that night, I decided I would sleep in the car instead of the tent with everyone else. Will
came in to try and convince me to move into the tent, but I resisted. I was comfortable.
I guess that's the first time I noticed the balance of things switching; it appears as though Will
regrets the breakup more than I do. Now that I've changed (been relaxed around his friends – my
friends – enough to conceivably have me around, and tried the drug that gave me that relaxation) he
sees something in me that he wants. He sees my core nature that he always was attracted to, and now
this new freedom in me. I don't care, so he cares, and on and on the twisted thing spins. Lope is a many
cursed thing – with a twisted sense of humor.
“You might suffocate in here.”
“I'll take the chance.”
“Can I ask...why you want to sleep in here instead of in the tent?”
“I'm comfortable here.”
“I guess that's a good reason,” he laughed. “Did you have fun today with 2C-D?”
“Yes, I did. I think I learned – or uncovered, relearned, rather – a lot of things about myself. I'd
forgotten who I was.”
I knew that my statement, which produced a glow of admiration in his eyes, was the result of my
breaking up with Will – not 2C-D. 2C-D had been fun, quirky, and weird, but not enlightening. I think I
was too conscious (and too capable of altering my thoughts / actions to meet some sort of standard) for
it to be enlightening.
“How was your trip?” I asked.
“Oh, pretty cool. I came to realize a lot of stuff.” I didn't ask him to elaborate, but after the
silence he proceeded anyway. “This has been such a crazy time for me. I'm – I'm sorry for being such
an asshole when we were going out.”
Amazing. He realized he'd been an ass? Since when?
“That's okay.” I didn't turn around to face him, but my voice was kind.
“No, it's not, really.”
“Well, there's no reason to dwell on it, in any event.”
“Well, I'll leave you alone. You sure you don't want to come into the tent?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Okay. Well then you have to promise me you won't suffocate, okay? Promise.”
“It's a deal.”
He left me, but came back into the car five minutes later.
“Uh, we've decided that you really have to come out of the car. We think it could be dangerous.”
I finally agreed to go in, if only to finally get some sleep.
“Can I borrow some of your pants to sleep in? I feel kind of weird and naked without pants.”
“It's not like that's anything new to me,” he said, slyly. I didn't laugh or comment, so he said
“But yeah, you can wear some of mine.”
Whatever, asshole.
I tried to sleep in between Jake and Jonathan, where there was the most space.
“You can sleep over here next to me, Stephanie,” said Will. “Jake, move a little, ok?”
How weird. I took the space, but put my head at the opposite side of the tent and pretended to
fall asleep rather quickly.
I didn't get to sleep, because Jake and Will talked for hours. I think they were still a little high
from the 2C-E.
“I'm really jealous of Stephanie right now,” I heard Jake say.
“Because she can sleep anywhere?” asked Jonathan.
“Yeah! She's been asleep forever. She's crazy.”
“It's really true that she can sleep anywhere,” said Will. “I'm glad we got her out of the car,
though. I'd feel really bad if something happened to her. If there wasn't enough room in the tent, I would
have slept in the car. I deserve to die much more than Stephanie does.”
“Yeah,” agreed Toby.
“Fuck you guys,” Will laughed.
Will finally shut up and I finally slept, but I woke up again when I saw the sun rising and when
it got really hot inside the tent.
Will woke everyone else up when he decided he wanted to go watch the sunrise on the beach.
Toby went with him.
“Do you want to come with us, Stephanie?” he whispered.
“I'm pretty tired,” I muttered.
“You sure? Well, okay.”
After they left, Jonathan and I moved into the car to sleep. We were both really tired and didn't
want anyone to bother us.
Taking a shower felt really awesome. I felt 100 times better. The others weren't doing so well,
however.
“I can't spend another night like that,” said a worn-out Jonathan. “It's too much.”
“I don't think I slept at all,” said poor Toby.
“This fucking sucks!” said Jake.
“It's not so bad,” I said, truthfully. “I'm pretty glad we're here, even if last night was a little
insane.”
“You just always try to make a positive situation out of everything, Stephanie, even if it sucks,”
said Will.
“Not true! I told you I was bored the last day of the second Shenandoah camping trip, didn't I?
Toby and I both made you drive home one day early.”
“Oh, right. Well, I feel like...terrible.” He really did look miserable, like a giant, unshaven
gladiator after a fight that he just barely won.
“YOU feel 'like, terrible'? You kept us up all night! Go make us some breakfast,” said Jake.
“I really can't cook food right now,” moaned Will.
“You're a piece of shit.”
Throughout the hours and hours it took us to get ready to go to the beach, I stayed pleasant. I
helped bring wood, shake out sleeping bags, and I did it all in my ridiculous hippie outfit of Will's huge
pants (the red courdoroy), black boots, a string bikini bathing suit top, hoop earrings, and a fancy prom
shawl I used as a headdress.
We ended up using my original idea and moving the tent into the shade. I really thought that
would be a lot better. After Will and I did that, I proceeded to lie around on the pavement. Everyone
else followed suit.
“I'm going to go back to school Monday,” I thought out loud. “Haha I'm going to be so weird!
I'll go back with dark hair, this relaxed mien, psychedelic drug experience, and a crazy personality.”
“You were always pretty weird,” said Will.
“Right, but this...I feel even more different now.”
“We look like a bunch of white trash!” exploaded Jake. “Why are we putting ourselves through
this misery? We should just leave.” Jonathan and I wanted to stay, but everyone else wanted to leave.
“What? I think you guys are crazy,” I said. “This is cool.”
“Yeah,” said Toby. “I thought last night was awesome. I didn't experience any of the
terribleness, just the funniness.”
We finally got to the beach around 2pm, and they'd all decided to stay another night. Yes!
Will and I went out in the raft. It was really crazy; we got slammed by the waves multiple times.
I think that was sort of the point.
When in the raft, I made no attempt for conversation, and only said things when I really wanted
to. Nothing superfluous, and I liked it. Silence is nice.
I went back on the beach to tan and to rest. We all talked of the possibility of taking the rest of
the drugs on Friday.
“I don't know if I want to do it – I feel pretty sick and sleep-deprived,” said Will.
“Oh, really? Well, I don't know if I'll do it either. I don't want to be the only one high. I might be
really annoying.”
Jonathan raissed his eyebrows. “Nah, you won't be. You'll probably get high with us many many
times. We won't be annoyed.”
“Besides, you're not that annoying normally, so I don't think you would be,” reasoned Will.
Frankly, I was a little scared. 2C-D had been very mild – more mild than I'd ever expected. I felt
like the same person, capable of going back to school and dealing with things as normal, but would the
tryptamine change me? Was I foolish to want to rush into another drug like that? But oh, I wanted to do
it...and I wanted it to freak me out.
It was getting late, so we decided to build a campfire and cook some food on the beach. Nobody
wanted to go back to our crappy campsite – besides, we were practically alone on the beach, and the
atmosphere was breathtaking.
I wrote in my diary as the sun set.
“May I ask what that is?” asked Jake.
“It's a sort of a diary, I guess. It's a tool to keep me sane. I've kept one since 3rd grade.”
Jake looked at me as though fascinated. “You're crazy.”
“What do you write about? She's probably writing about us...that's weird,” said Will.
“It's not even about you guys, most of the time. It's about what I see, and what changes me. For
example, I'm still writing about the 2C-D yesterday, and I'm not even done yet. I haven't gotten to
today.”
“What's there to say about today? Today sucked!”
Oh, I'll find something to say, lol.
I had to stop writing when the sun went down. “You don't have to stop writing in your book,”
said Will. “I don't mind – you should.” I explained that it was the lack of sun. I wonder if he would
have told me to keep writing if he didn't know I was writing about the events of that day in the first
place. Will went to get more wood.
“So, what do you want to study in college? Law, right?” asked Jake.
“Yeah, or Egyptology. That's the reason why I wanted to go to Brown for awhile. They have an
excellent department, and 5 classes in hydroglyphics alone!” We then talked of next summer.
“I have an internship next summer,” he said.
“I somehow knew you did, without asking.”
“Yeah, it should be alright.”
“I wish you lived here in MD. I like you a lot. You're a cool guy.”
It was really nice to have someone around who went to college. I felt a kinship with him or
something.
The horses came while Will and Jonathan were cooking sausages and hamburgers. Three of
them came up behind Jonathan, startled him, and made him drop a sausage into the sand. He just
washed it off in the ocean and continued to cook it.
“I'll take that one,” he said, after Will freaked out. “I don't really care that much.”
“Hey Stephanie, why don't you go talk to the horses and ask them to leave us alone?” smirked
Will.
“Fuck you,” I laughed.
“No, I'm serious. Maybe you could...who knows these things...” he trailed off.
--I decided to sleep on the beach. We weren't sure I was allowed, and there were no dry towels,
but I thought it would be nice. Secretly, I didn't want to have to deal with people talking while I was
trying to get some shut-eye. Everyone left to go back to the tent except Will who went to get ice. Will
said he'd be back to sit on the beach with me for awhile before going off to bed.
I tended to the fire until I grew exhausted and had to lie down. Almost 100 minutes later, Will
returned.
“Were you asleep? Sorry I took so long – I had to go to Ocean City to get the ice.”
“I wasn't asleep, not yet. I've just been thinking and looking at things.”
It was a spectacular night. We both sat in beach chairs and watched the stars. There were so
many...
The moon hung low in the sky, orange.
Will complained about the drummer, then we talked about 2C-D again.
“I suppose you won't tell your friends about this?”
“Actually, I think I will. I wouldn't feel right about covering up such a big thing about myself.”
I thought about my best friend Stan getting drunk (and getting a black eye), about Nick having
tried pot once, and about Chris saying he wanted to try pot. There might be hope for them yet, in terms
of understanding the real me, but I have to be honest.
“I honestly don't think they'll get it,” said Will.
“I have to try. I do like them a lot.”
“Speaking of friends, you seem to feel really comfortable around mine. It's only been one day,
and yet...you're different.”
“I am different. I have the same goals and the same desires, but the way I'll go about getting
them has entirely changed. Entirely. I feel more...calm, like I have everything figured out. I'll be alright
this year, if I concentrate.”
“Your anxiety seems gone.”
“Yeah. I don't think it would be possible for me to be anxious – overly, at least – about the
things I have been recently,” I laughed. Well, it wouldn't be possible for me to show him that weakness
if it ever did come up. It would no longer be important. It's none of his concern, now.
“Do I seem different, too?” he asked, staring into the fire.
“Yes,” I replied, simply, regarding a matter that was anything but simple. He'd strayed away
from me. I'd lost him to other things. He'd changed. I'd changed. Now I'd changed again. Had he?
Which “different” was he referring to? I'd decided to refer to the first change, because that was
concrete, unforgiving, but tactual.
He asked an odd question: “Do you think that this change in me has been good or bad?”
“I couldn't possibly begin to know how to answer that question.”
“Why?”
“Well...when we were going out -”
Had it really only been days – hours – ago?
“-my relationship to you was very different than it is now. Where the change may have been
negative then, because you became more anxious and more involved in music than in me, and I wanted
to spend time with you, share you-”
(I raised my hands up, as if to trivialize my sentiments of yester-hour, as if they didn't matter at
all now, and as though I could never care that way again)
“-now it's different, because I don't have to worry myself about those things. I'm your friend. I'm
glad for you and your dedication. I hope you can become more dedicated. It doesn't really matter
anymore, see? So that's why I can't really answer you in a complete manner.”
Later, after a silence, he asked me if I was doing the tryptamine tomorrow. I really wanted to. I
also wanted to take a lot of it. I wanted it to really work for me. I wanted to see things. Will still wasn't
sure if he wanted to take it.
“You should take it with me.”
“I probably will. However, I'm afraid the 2C-E is too like the tryptamine. Maybe I'll waste it.
Also, I don't think you quite know what you're in for. 2C-D is mild, and it's euphoric. You feel
good while you're on it. This next drug might make you miserable, like the three of us were yesterday.”
“I'll take that chance.”
“You should really memorize how you feel right now – keep it in you, and don't let the stuff
you've learned fade, even in the face of the tryptamine.”
“I will.”
I was nervous about it, but I projected an image of certainty. I was afraid he wouldn't give me
the drugs at all if he sensed any hesitation.
I helped him carry the beach chairs back to Toby's van, then I turned to leave for My Spot.
“Hey Stephanie!” he called out after me. I turned. “Be careful.” I wasn't too worried about it. I
just wanted to sleep.
I slept until about 9am the next morning. I remember being quite comfortable, even though
everything was damp and sandy, and I had on a huge sweater and long pants in 85 degree weather.
Jonathan and Toby woke me up when they set up their beach equipment around me. They'd gotten up
early and wanted to go swimming. Jonathan had even brought Will's brother's surf board (the one we
were terrified of breaking the entire trip).
I decided to go for a walk. Toby let me borrow his headphones, as mine are broken, and I
headed out for she shore for a nice walk in the sun. I made sure to wear a lot of sunscreen. I didn't want
my gorgeous tan to turn into a burn. I walked quite a ways to the right of our camp, then turned back. I
remember thinking I wouldn't have gone away like that, had Will been up. I wouldn't have wanted him
to think that I was being antisocial.
I ended up walking so far on the way back that I missed our campsite and ended up all the way
in the state park – we'd originally been camped in the national park. I'd been about three miles off. A
nice ranger drove me to the parking lot where Toby's van was parked (thank God they were still there!),
and I rejoined Jonathan and Toby. Will and Jake had only just woken up, and they weren't even on the
beach yet. Toby informed me that they'd been arguing up a storm – cursing at each other and whatnot –
when he'd come to pick them up. They were now in the bathrooms changing.
“They must be pretty tired of each other. Jake has been here a long time. Jake is a cool guy, but
I can't imagine being with any of my friends 24/7, for weeks at a time. I'd go crazy.”
“Yeah, Jake is a cool guy. Too bad he doesn't like us too much,” said Jonathan.
“What do you mean? I'm sure he does. I just don't think he cares for camping. If he did, I think
he'd have to like this. This is pretty cool.”
“Yeah.”
Will and Jake finally showed up, one walking stubbornly ahead of the other. It was going to be
another long day.
I announced I was going to make a sandwich (“I should eat at least one meal before...things
begin”), and Will followed me to the van after I'd made it. I'd had a candy bar, and that had filled me
up, (I know – I'm so unhealthy!) so I'd only been picking at my sandwich.
“Stephanie, that's really, really bad. You can't even eat one meal without feeling nauseous!? You
used to be able to, I remember. You need to work on this – you have to eat. Finish that sandwich.”
“No! If I do, I'll be really sick. I sort of didn't want to eat anything today, so as to have a clear
stomach when I take the drug.”
“You'll be nauseated either way, so you might as well eat. Besides, tripping takes up a lot of
energy. You've got to have something to go on.”
“I'll work on it, Will. Promise.”
“Okay,” he said, but he only went right back into it. “I'm going to have my mom talk to you and
scare you into eating. She knows a lot about health.
You need to start thinking about the future. Think about things instead of just going with your
emotions, like, 'Oh I don't want to eat right now – that wouldn't be good.'
It's like that guy Ken Kesey said: you've got to live in the 'now.'”
His last sentence completely went against his argument, but I was impressed he'd remembered
what I'd told him about Ken Kesey. “I always listen to you,” Will had said, months ago, during the
second Shenandoah trip. He probably had, back then. What had happened? I wonder how much of it
was my psycho fault, and how much of it was just his being an asshole.
“Well...I'll stop bothering you now,” he conceded, looking down.
Jake had made his way to the van, and the other two straggled behind him. Jonathan looks
really good without his shirt on. He's well-muscled and tan. He's my height with perceptive, gentle blue
eyes. His lips mark him out. They're thin but drawn at interesting angles with a cleft in the middle. I'd
liked his slightly matted brown hair long, but now decided that he looked alright shaved too. His
smooth skin glowed all over. Toby is overweight and asian, so he doesnt' do it for me. Plus, Toby got
burned really really badly. I still don't understand how Monaca could have had sex with or been
attracted to Toby, but then again I suppose that's what people said about me and Will.
“Can someone pass me the sunscreen?” asked a haggard Jake.
“Toby, don't lean up against the surf board like that! My brother's gonna make me pay 300
dollars if I mess it up.”
“Can you pass me the sunscreen?”
“Your brother is really -”
“-annoying? I think he's annoying, Will.”
“Please give me the sunscreen!”
“Yeah, but it's pretty fucked-up how I let a nick get in it already. I should have been more
careful with it. My dad will probably be like-”
“Give me the fucking sunscreen, you piece of shit!!!”
“Dude, calm down!” said Will. “Here.”
Jake grabbed the bottle and stalked to the back of the van. Toby and I laughed silently to each
other.
“You really don't care about anyone except yourself, Will,” Jake called out. “You're such a
piece of shit.”
“Well, okay. I know that I can be.”
“You should start caring.”
“You're just pissed off because you're not liking the camping trip. Stop being such a girl.”
“Hey! I'm a girl, and I'm diggin' this trip.”
“Yeah, well, you're a weird Girl.”
I laughed. “It's true.”
“It also takes you fuckin' forever to do things,” Josh continued. “We wasted hours this morning,
all so you could smoke pot to get over your stupid problems. You're so lazy, and you bitch about shit all
the-”
“Actually, I think we've all been complaining this trip,” I put in.
“Yeah, complaining is cool,” said Toby.
Josh turned to me. “I don't think I've ever heard you complain. Ever. God, that's really weird.
You're weird.”
“I've heard her complain before,” said Will. Haha he'd just heard me complain over my
stomach a few minutes ago.
“Yeah, but that's different,” said Toby. Different? I wonder what he meant by that.
“Different...” what an exciting word. I'm different from the way I was before. I'm a dynamic
figure, changing all the time. My core stays the same, however. I still take my sandwiches apart before
eating them, I still think guitars are sexy, I still love Anne McCaffrey books.
I sat there with this motley crew, picking at my sandwich, and feeling at home. Little did I know
that my life was about to change yet again.
We all finished our meals, and then Will brought out the drugs. It was called 4-AcO-MiPT, and
it had been lovingly packaged in an empty cigarette case with “Steffi” scrawled on the front in sharpie
marker.
I held the capsule in my hand, and my stomach danced. Here it was, my second drug. 2C-D had
been mildly entertaining, but this was supposed to completely fuck me up – if all went well.
Will had taken 20mg of this stuff when he first tried it, and he'd claimed that it had driven him
insane, but I kind of wanted Jake's dose – the 24mg. He expressed no interest in doing drugs that
evening.
“Can I take the 24mg?” I asked Jake.
He threw up his hands defensively. “I'm not even going to touch this one!”
“You might as well give it to her,” said Will.
Good old 37.
There were three capsules altogether. Will nearly did 32 mg of the tryptamine, but he sprinkled a
little of his into my 24mg and Toby's 20mg. At least I think that's what happened. I stepped back from
the van in order to fix my headdress, leaving this task to the professionals.
A few familes passed by us. Us. The strange and threatening Us. I was looking particularly
fantastic and in-character with my tight, bright, patterned orange dress, combat boots, a headdress
with dangles on the sides, a hemp headband, and my snail mood ring that I'd stolen from Fells Point
just after my Bates interview. Will had on his favorite (and my favorite) tie dye shirt, and frankly all of
them looked a little crazy with their long hair – save Jonathan, who is bald these days.
“We look like a bunch of shady weirdos!”
“Yeah, especially you,” laughed Jake. “Well, at least you don't have on Will's pants anymore.”
I swallowed the capsule along with club soda, forgetting to suck on it. Toby also forgot, but Will
tongued the thing until it practically dissolved. “At least Toby and I will come up around the same
time,” I thought.
A mere ten minutes later:
“Man, this is bad. I'm already starting to feel the effects of the drug. I'm, like, twitching.” I
wondered how much Will had taken. I wondered how much I'd taken, for that matter. It's funny how
much you think you care about these thing – long term, short term, seratonin depletion, flashbacks –
and then when you're confronted with that capsule, you just want to fly. I went online (erowid.org,
baby) and researched each drug, but learned surprisingly little. I really had no idea what I was in for.
It was 6:30pm.
For an hour, I helped lug wood to our campfire on the beach. Will was sitting in a beach chair,
looking very serious. “I took way too much of this. I can feel it.”
“Oh, c'mon, I'm sure you'll be-”
“So did you. I can't explain how bad this is. Jake, can I die from this drug?”
“No. You ask that every time.”
“If something bad happens to me, it'll be my own miserable thought. You just gave me what I
wanted. I'll deal with whatever comes my way,” I said, calm as a cucumber.
“I think she'll be fine,” said Jonathan.
Good old 38.
A kind of perverse joy overtook me as I walked back to the parking lot. I fancied I was in a
movie (my life is better than a movie, these days) and that a friend of mine, David, was watching the
proceedings. I sang to the sun, and grinned, madly.
“We are so fucked,” I chuckled. Hopefully this would be insane.
I spent my time singing songs in the parking lot until 8:30. I was waiting to come up, but I didn't
feel anything happening to me – not even a tooth tingling, like the one before my 2C-D trip began. I
couldn't wait for Jake and Toby to get back with the sodas, so that I could be one with Toby. We could
navigate each other, as we'd probably be in a similar place. However, to my dismay, Toby was already
tripping when he returned. Jake said it had started while he was in the store.
It did make sense; it had almost been two hours since we'd taken them. But then...what was up
with me? I felt stone cold normal.
Around 9:30 I began to lose my patience. “What the fuck is wrong with me? Why isn't this
working?”
“I think you're crazy,” said Josh, to nobody's surprise. “I think you think about things too much.
I've never ever heard of this happening, but it seems as though your mind can block the drug.”
“You just seem so stressed out all the time,” said Will. “Depressed, almost. I mean, there are
times for doing things – playing chess, having deep discussions, going places, but there are other times
to just sit and do nothing. I invite you over because I want you to do nothing with us – it's what we do,
and it's cool – but I don't think you're letting yourself go, to just relax.”
“You're right. I'm sorry...” I felt a tear grow in the corner of my eye, and I practically clawed it
out of my eye. That tear proved him right. I was testimony to the fact that I was not the happy little
golden girl I made out to be. It seems I can act at it so well, but then it all goes to pieces.
“You know what it could also be? You've been trained to think all the tie because you go to
school,” said Will.
Oh, for fuck's sake! He was just trying to look for some kind of reason as to why the completely
unexpected had happened – an uncool reason, so as to toss away its significance.
“That's really just...not it at all, Will,”I said scathingly. “It has nothing to do with school. The
fact remains that it's been three hours, and I should, according to chemistry, be feeling SOMETHING!
There's no explanation for this.”
Will said something completely inane like, “Everything is chemistry, though.”
“Maybe I'm really messed-up.” I plopped down in the chair. “I can't even take drugs like a
normal person! What the hell, man?”
“I think it might have to do with that weird school you went to. Your thought process...or
something.”
“Maybe you're just really hardcore,” offered Jonathan.
Toby had been staring at my hand. I'd drawn a bunch of crazy designs on it, because I was
bored. Trippy designs, to go along with my “head costume.”
“I think you're fucked-up,” laughed Toby, pointing to my palm.
“No, she's not. I can tell.”
“Maybe drugs...don't work on you. Which is insane,” said Jake.
“Yeah, she's like above them,” said Will.
This was ridiculous! I went to the car to get my sweater. I felt the same all the way there and
back. “I'm not sure drugs exist at all,” I concluded.
“What!?” everyone exploded. It was like telling a bunch of religious zealots that God doesn't
exist.
“I think that it's so influenced by the other people you think are getting high with you. For
example, Will and Toby look completely normal to me, because nothing crazy is happening. Will is
cooking food, they're both eating when they swore they'd never be able to stomach anything on drugs,
and these are supposedly higher doses than yesterday!” I was angry.
“No, drugs definitely exist,” cautioned Jake.
“I'm really not so sure. It's even possible that I wasn't high on Monday! The conclusions I drew
could have been a product of my normal though process. I didn't get any visuals...”
“No, wait, you were definitely high Monday,” said Jonathan. He was right. The sand...yeah, I
had been, but...what the fuck!?
“Are you sure you're tripping, Toby?”
“Oh yeah, I have been forever.”
“You're positive? How about you, Will?” Will nodded.
“Yeah,” he said, quietly, as though he hadn't wanted to tell me.
“I'm a freak,” I said to the moon.
“Just shut up for a minute and stop thinking!” said Jake.
I got up, slamming my hands against the arm rests, and walked 20 paces away from the fire.
“Stephanie, Stephanie!” Will had run after me. “OK, so I really don't know why this is
happening, but I think it might be related to you not being able to have an orgasm.”
What? Interesting...
“Don't worry. Just try to clear your mind of everything and just look. Look over there, and
meditate for awhile.”
Meditate I did. I must have stared at the moon's reflection on the water for half an hour before I
gave up. I walked back to the campfire, sat on the cooler, and prepared to sulk.
“Anything?” asked someone.
“No. I wish I'd brought my book down here so that I'd have something to do,” I laughed bitterly.
“Yeah...I don't even know what to say about you,” laughed Toby. I was jealous of his
contentment. He wasn't the one with the amazing mind or whatever. God, this sucked. I sank into
silence, stared at the coals, and gave up.
Almost fifteen minutes later, my teeth began to tingle – or was that my imagination? I didn't say
anything, just in case it was a false alarm, but I spent all my energy willing it to be real, to be the
beginning of the trip. Doubt still filled my heart, as it had been over three hours, and it seemed pretty
unlikely anything woud happen now that hadn't happened in the first hour or so.
Little did I know that I was about to get my ass kicked.
“Anything yet?” asked Jonathan. “Do you see any color patterns?”
“No,” I replied, honestly.
“You seemed quiet, like you might have been getting into it.”
“Well, before I was just a little depressed,” I laughed.
“Yeah, I thought that was it,” said Will.
“But, uh, my teeth tingle.” Everyone shut up and stared at me. I stared at the Italian sausages
on the grille. Had one of them just moved about an inch – or was that just me? I wanted to ask, but
didn't. I concentrated on how I felt. My heart rate quickened and I felt speedy, but I couldn't tell if that
was my body's reaction to anticipation or if it was really the drug.
I knew it was the drug when I saw Will's skin rotting off. I gasped and turned away in terror. It
had probably been a trick of the light.
“I think you're feeling it, now,” said Jonathan. “You look like you are.” There were mutterings
of “unbelievable” and “I've never heard of a trip taking this long to begin!” as I reexamined my
surroundings. It was like Holloween. Something in the fire frightened me, and I jumped out of my chair
into the sand. After discovering that it had been nothing, I sat down again, feeling rather silly. Will was
staring at me intently from across the fire.
“Do you still want your hamburger?” The hunk of meat looked positively diseased, maggoteaten. Besides “Didn't I get sand all over them?”
They laughed. “No, you didn't.”
“Are you sure?”
Toby passed me the hot dog buns, but I had no idea what to do with them. I stuck my fingers
inside the bag and felt the soft bread, but my fingers were no longer my own. They were long, rounded,
and ungainly, and the bread felt very evasive, as if I couldn't quite get ahold of it.
As if to say “This? What is this? I don't know what to do with this,” I handed the bag, minus one
bun, to Jonathan, grinning like a fool. This was so weird.
“Well, do you want your hamburger?” someone asked doubtfully.
“I – I couldn't. That is the scariest thing I've ever seen. I'm afraid of it,” I laughed, getting up
and walking in the direction of nowhere in particular. Will followed me. I saw him over my shoulder (he
came out of nowhere!) and I gasped again. “Oh God...”
He laughed. “Do you want to go for a walk?”
“Yes, very much.” And so began my epic journey through another world.
Everything was flat, very flat, and silvery – the waves a mere continuation of the land.
“You're seeing the world as it really is,” said Will. “As one thing – not specific hills or bodies of
water.”
The waves came in in shifting phases. My vision was reduced to viewing things only at blocks at
a time, like badly downloaded graphics or one of those movie picture books, so the waves would move
quickly, then stop, move quickly again, but start in a different place. My fingers still felt odd as I
clutched the roll.
“This isn't earth,” I said. “It's somewhere else, somewhere dark. I like it.”
I suddenly realized that Will had seen so many other worlds. To me, he knew everything, right
then.
“This is your world. This is where you are from – the dark place.”
“Where do you come from?”
“Not from earth. It's some place...more like here...but not quite. I'm just visiting here.”
“It's not mine, either.”
“Of course it is! I understand now, I understand!”
“It's everyone's. We have to share it. But this dimension is ours, for now.”
“It's mine! Yes!” I ran, fascinated by the ground underneath me, and I felt like I could fly,
euphoric, then in the next instant, I dropped the bread I was holding, certain that there were cobwebs
all over it.
“Oooooh, okay,” I muttered, attempting to soothe myself. “I like this drug,” I thought. “It's
tricky. I have to stay on my toes, keep calm, or it all escalates. This is more complex than 2C-D. I like it
better.” All the while, I could feel myself inside my mind; I was conscious of what I was saying, and
that's how I can remember so much of what happened. The sky was beautiful. Everything moved as
though it was underwater, and I saw technicolor falling stars, like clusters of mica. The moon cast odd
shadows on the ground – shadows that shifted in patterns, and turned the ground to life beneath my
feet. I fell to my knees, delighted, not giving a second thought to how sandy I was. I finally saw that the
sand was as natural and as pure as could be. We were the intruders here.
The moon's light scuttled across the sand in the sane off-and-on fashion, and the pattern lines
were one inch apart, curving this way and that like moving rainbows, with each successive ring
brighter than the last.
“Do you like the ground?” asked Will, chuckling.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.” We kept walking farther down the beach, together. Two souls.
“Close your eyes.”
“Okay, I – OH!” I saw a dark black background with patterns all over it. Neon worms, crawling
in squares and rectangles, turned into fish, and then to pretzels. They were bright white, red, yellow,
and green.
“Pretzels? Haha that's crazy. I had no idea this could be. You're like my mentor.”
“I don't want to be your mentor,” he said, shyly.
I trired to recover. “Well, no, of course not. I just feel like I'm seeing so many things all at once,
that's all.”
We passed by clusters of people, and they all looked supplementary somehow to the real world –
my world. They were like tangents. Some looked like stitches, “like Hot Topic stitches,” as I described
them – people without faces. That's how I knew they weren't important to me.
“Do I have a face?”
I looked at him for the first time. He looked the same, but with dark holes where his eyes should
be. “Yes.”
For some reason, I said: “I think about things, Toby laughs about things, you stare at things,
and Jonathan...Jonathan just is.”
“I stare at things?”
“Yes, to change them.”
“You're right.” He sounded very surprised. “I do that a lot. I didn't know that you'd caught
that.”
“I'm a lot smarter than...just about everyone, I think.”
“People like your friends at River Hill, right?”
“Heh, now you're just trying to get inside my head. You'll never get in now. I'm apart now.
Apart.” I dashed off ahead of him, trying to find Jonathan and Toby. “Where are they?” I whined back
at him. I felt I had to see them, if they would prove half as interesting as Will was right then. I wasn't his
anymore – I should be spending time with all of them.
I groped my body nervously, and came into contact with my water bra. I flipped out because it
wasn't part of my body, and the next thing I knew, huge cockroaches were crawling up and down the
beach as far as I could see – big ones and small ones, all black and writhing. I screamed out in terror.
Will looked over his shoulder to see if anyone had heard me, then he put his arms around me.
“Shhh, what's the matter?” The kelp had turned into bugs, and to my surprise, tears were
coursing down my face. It had felt so real I had cried – and not just for effect!
“You've got to be calm, remember? That's it,” he reassured me. We walked back to the campsite
where I'd see the others.
“I've got to learn that nothing can hurt me here. I can make things into whatever I like, if I try.
For example, that! That – I'm ignoring that.” I passed something that looked like a crawling dog.
I wasn't looking directly at Will, but I could see at least five of him – some ahead of me, some
behind.
“We're about there, c'mon.”
“No, just hold on a second.” All of a sudden I grew frustrated. I felt he was controlling my trip.
“Hold ON! There now, I need some privacy.”
“OK. How far away should I go?”
“Rational sense tells me I need you...” I trailed off. “Wait. No I don't.”
“What?”
“Nevermind. Let's go find the others.”
I came down while listening to Kid A around the campfire. I felt at home. I'd told Will that his
friends felt like my friends as well, and I'd meant it.
Will fried two pounds of bacon for us, then we ate the pineapple (and fried the leftover bits in
the bacon grease). Will ate a jalapino pepper, raw, and nearly died. That was pretty crazy.
“I came down around the time Stephanie came up, but I feel like this meat is making me trip,”
laughed Toby.
“It's probably because it's bad.”
They were all ready to go, but Will wanted to stay and smoke pot on the beach for awhile. I was
too tired to move, so I just watched the fire. We were alone again.
Will asked me if I had the driving seminar still when I got back.
“Well, no. My mom not only informed me that I'm not allowed to get a parking permit, but she's
keeping the keys to the red car, she's not letting me take voice lessons, and she's only paying for six
college applications, so I have to make about $500 by the December deadline.”
“Your mom is such a bitch!”
“I know.” I'd been a bitch to her too.
Jonathan and Toby had disappeared. Jake was within hearing distance but I couldn't see him.
He was on the phone again with his ex girlfriend. A few days ago she'd broken up with him.
We came to a gravel road. I stepped beside Tree Piper out in the open and we both stood still,
staring out ahead at the verdant farm plots opposite. It was the first interruption of our progress since
we'd eaten a little earlier on that morning. I'd been in a zone alright. I felt drained, capable of walking
more but just disappointed with my past.
“What now?” I asked, not turning my head from the scene.
“I think we walk right a little ways,” said Tree Piper. “I'll check the book, but Kincora should be
right up ahead.” The book verified this, but distances of roadwalking are not equal to the same distance
of trail – even if the trail is, say, mountainous and the road is necessarily more flat. It has to do with
intrigue for me. Literally everyone has seen the side of a road before. Farms or cities, there are only so
many permutations of scape that offer themselves to you while you're driving in your car. Or walking
slowly by. There are other roads, but they're usually near abandoned. You have to know someone who
will take you in at just the right time (night time) when the same delapidated barns look spooked while
you make the curve and you think you can see a ghostly face from the broken window. When the trees
look like Amnesiac.
“Hey.” Tree Piper caught up with me. I realized I'd been walking ahead this whole time. “You
okay?”
“Yeah.” I found the hazel of his eyes within his head. “Yeah. Long mind trip, that's all.”
“I understand.” We walked side by side. The road was definitely big enough for that. “To tell
you the truth, I wanted to hike with you today because I was too much in my head.”
“Yeah?” I was still kind of there, worrying the memory like a talisman.
It was the first time I'd replayed that particular series of events since it had happened eight years
ago. It was good that I could remember. But the realization of how affected I'd really been, how
criticized and then cozened after I'd responded with so much weakness, not nearly enough anger!
Anyone can meet criticism at the gate with intermittant smartass comments as I had done back then. I'd
been in the habit of viewing the world in a certain way and within that world I had been queen. No one
had ever questioned me before. Of course I'd had a few things to say.
But now, after so many years of struggling for basic human rights, I was angry. I had humbled
myself, I had. I had been very open-minded to versions of the world other than that of my childhood. I
had learned by watching, chronicling, mimicry and finally through love. And here I was. I didn't know
how to feel.
With my mind still clouded my body kept on autopilot. Right to the door of Kincora it took me
and into a bed with Firestarter and Bushwhacker.
The two of them made much of me when they found I was alive. I didn't speak at all while still
on the dark smoking porch where hikers were gathered. They were around me again. Firestarter
bearhugged me, his singer's voice greeting me in lovely intonations and registers. I thought of the other
more wonderful, private moans he made while we'd all been loving each other and I melted a little
inside. Bushwhacker asked me questions. I watched a raccoon reach through the bars of the porch and
eat birdseed through a pie tin. An enthusiastic, rather large personality in a blue t-shirt and dark glasses
spoke to me and said that “this happened all the time, they'd been waiting for him, in fact.” Tree Piper
pointed to some cold pizza on the table to see if I'd like any. Everybody was eating, taking it easy. Even
Tree Piper was eating. Maybe it was alright. Had it all been a dream? I'd felt like I was learning a
doctrine, that food was poisonous, that perhaps we could evolve if we were perfectly pure...
So much for that.
As I lay in a big bed, my left thigh and arm thrown over Bushwhacker, my lips near her nipple,
exhausted and sweaty, Firestarter on the other side of her, our two palms on top of each other near her
white stomach, I relaxed. I didn't care about anything, and we had the best bed in the whole place. The
two of them were really splurging, I think they'd given up on finishing the trail. Or maybe they just
wanted to make the most of the time they did have, I don't know.
Everyone else slept singly in dusty bunk beds on the ground floor behind the kitchen. Free
hostels were mostly unheard of, and said kitchen was somehow fully stocked. Bushwhacker had made
sweet potato wedges with cream, cinnamon, and butter. I'd eaten a few even though I don't like sweet
potatos. The point of any hostel, but especially a free one, would be to meet people. Talk. Else why not
sleep in the wilds? But everybody that did talk seemed stressed, a little out of it maybe. Some had
played board games, I had said nothing. It all weighed heavily on my mind and there was no denying it.
Here we were.
I slept a very sound sleep in the warmth and comfort of that bed. The rain pattered on the roof
and against our window.
May 10, 5.5 mi
The next morning it was still raining and I sat on the porch just watching it come down. A few
pizza slices were still sitting there, maybe the raccoon would eat them later I thought to myself as I
rolled cigarettes and watched men pack up their gear, taking their time.
I had a very cold shower. I'd just as soon have walked it off in the rain but I was back in with
Firestarter and Bushwhacker. They hadn't minded at all last night though. “What a pair of freaks!” I
laughed to myself. I'd probably been covered with grime and salt.
From hostel number one, their plan was to head to hostel number two, a fancier one with freshcut individual wooden cabins. I kept Firestarter company in the rain while Bushwhacker sped on ahead.
By the time Firestarter arrived to pay for the room Bushwhacker had been in the multimedia room for
hours, typing up a feverish trail journal all about their escapades.
“I'm setting up a Pay Pal button on my trail journal!” she told us delightedly. “Maybe if people
read it, they'll donate to our cause.” I really loved her right then, so staunchly forward-leaning in her
little shorts, all red-eyed, taking swigs from a bottle of Dr. Enuf soda.
Bushwhacker wrote and Firestarter and I slept. We slept all day together with our arms about
each other. I liked him a lot too. It's hard not to like someone with unlimited snickers bars when you
have nothing, but I mean it more in the sense that we were complicit at a deepening level. We were
tired, so we slept. I knew he respected my motivation as a hiker and I respected him for his musial
talents and support of Bushwhacker. Every time I looked at Bushwhacker I saw more of what he saw in
her. It was weird.
Every few hours or so she'd return, opening the door wide and scurrying up to her perch on the
top bunk. “I'm getting some notes,” I heard her say.
“Really? From what?” I asked.
“The AWOL book. I want to see how many miles we did per day.”
“I'm doing sort of a similar thing.” I stretched but couldn't rouse myself completely. All my
muscles were sore as hell and I liked the dark. I wanted to be able to ask her if she'd like any help.
Maybe I could get up and have one of those sodas, go to the multimedia center with her. But I never
did. She ran back out before it came to my lips, and then in five minutes I was asleep.
In the evening I woke up and everyone was doing something. Except me and Firestarter. We
didn't even want to leave the bed. But we could hear other voices on the porch next to our cabin,
laughing and joking around. Sticks was singing, playing a little guitar. I really wanted a drink. I thought
about it and how they had some beers at the store in the office.
This couple who I'd run into again and again showed up at our door with these really delicious
sandwiches. I guess they'd made them together. I guess there was a kitchen. The guy was black or
Indian or something and all smiles all of the time. The girl looked like a vegan in peasant skirt and eco
fabrics, her black curling hair under an earthy-toned bandana. The sandwiches were fried egg, tomato,
sourdough and a lot of other seasonings, I don't even know. They gave us a whole one and me and
Firestarter split it.
“Thank you!” I thanked them profusely, the representative from our party for sleep. I wasn't
hungry at all but I ate some and asked Firestarter if he wanted any. He shrugged. I left it on the desk.
“Do you want any beer? I'm going to get some.” Would I spend my own money on that? Fuck yes.
“Sure,” he shrugged. So I stuck my stocking feet into my still drying boots and got my stuff and
left.
After I bought a six pack of Bud Lite Lime, I stopped into the bathroom to wash my hands. It
was all done up with wallpaper like Victorian advertisements. Women in bustles looking like beaked
birds, trippling heads descending in rows over the sink. Feathers. Tiny feet.
“What's going on?!” I put the question to myself in the mirror. I looked beautiful. My long, soft
blonde hair hung below my shoulders, loose and free. I was tan and fit. It was kind of a shock to me. I
got out of there and kicked the gravel on my way back to the cabin, feeling like Newt from Aliens.
Maybe a few years older than Newt from Aliens. But I really had the body of a teenage girl.
I slammed the first three beers immediately sitting at the table in the dark and loving it. As
Firestarter didn't get up I had one of his three, then two of his three, then saved him just one by putting
it in his pack. All of our stuff was on the floor. Where was Bushwhacker?
As if on cue, she was back! Kind of freaked-out and paranoid about the timing, I sat down again
and nursed my beer. We talked a lot but I don't remember what about. Every once and awhile I'd go out
on the porch to smoke a cigarette. She came out with me even though she'd never smoke – ever. And I
mean really.
Firestarter slept on the whole while. On the desk next to the bed lay the half-eaten sandwich.
Bushwhacker cooked up a meal of dehydrated greens and whole grains. She had packets saved of
seasonings and organic oils.
“This is so, so good!” I really let her know the truth with my smile. I felt very comfortable and
happy sitting there at the table with her. I do hope, I think she felt the same. She sat across from me
radiating accomplishment. She'd been writing all day and now we both got to relax. It was good not to
be hiking. It was really good.
I was drunk and just stared back at her. She wore silk, neon pagiama pants beneath the table.
They swirled in yellow, blue and purple. Black, strappy tank top like rigging on her shoulders already
strewn with necklaces. And her face was smart and satisfied, sharp nose like the edge of a curving
cutlass, thin red lips smiling, not one freckle on her white cheeks, full reddish hair. On her head she
wore a rust-colored knit cap. For a really weird moment I thought I saw Will staring back at me. The
cap very much reminded me of something he used to wear in high school. And their faces were sort of
similar.
“Do you feel like going outside?” I asked her, dubiously.
“No.” When she said this, she didn't alter her smile of satisfaction in the least. I could tell she
told the truth. We both were content to sit right there.
And at night, she was content to sleep above. I think she appreciated her own little loft. While I
once again curled up, mortal and familiar to the man beside me. We all slept for more than sixteen
hours.
May 11, 14.0 mi
New boots from the post office. Courtesy of a “Persephone” from North Face. I never sent back
the old ones (with what postage was I supposed to do that?) and maybe that's why the company didn't
let me get another free pair later on down the line. Persephone had been such a bitch over the phone, a
hired actress better paid by the hour than I'd ever been in my life, so I said “fuck you” to her and her
essay. To the camera I was supposed to document product flaws with. I just wish I'd have kept the old
pair with me somehow, without having to carry them, because the condition of this second pair of boots
would worsen far beyond their not being waterproof. But that's an entertaining detail for later on in this
story.
The annoying biracial couple from the hostel shared a car with the three of us back from the post
office to the Trail. I could not stand the guy and sitting with him in the back seat of a car was taxing. He
was describing some nougat candy, how it was “just the best,” and I wanted him to shut up. I wanted
out of the car and away from everyone, even my friends.
When we reached Trailhead, I let them all go ahead of me. In other words, I staunchly refused to
be part of their company. I sat on a large rock and waited a long time, all to make sure that I would not
run into any of them that day. I smouldered in hate.
That day was very desperate. Perhaps it was going back to the Trail after a few days of rest,
perhaps it was that I had no idea what the fuck I was doing in life or how I'd survive running on so little
resources and love. Perhaps I regretted everything.
When the scenery around me proved familiar (just a few light lips and many brown leaves on
the ground) I turned inwards to my thoughts, then outwards in a burst of energy (jazz hands and a dance
routine on the flat stretches). Finally I once again began that most disturbing of practices, what I'd
called “the sloughing off of effects” back in the tent for those four rainy zero days. I began to
demonstrate the will to die.
It's not a pretty thing when Proteus reaches the end of his road. It's not a literary allusion when
he blinks his eyes while walking, “experiments,” stops up his ears in the middle of the day in order not
to hear anymore. Hatred fuels the sickest of all desires, the desire simply not to be, and hatred is a truly
ugly emotion. Hatred went against my ideals, but all the people of the worsening world proved reality
unworthy of my time. There was literally nowhere I could go. I was cornered. There was no hope for
me.
I ran into an old man who was trying to talk at me.
“What?” I couldn't go on, he was calling me back! “What?” I pulled an earplug out of one ear,
livid with frustration.
“I thought you were a bear!” he laughed. I stared back at him, uncomprehending. My hate was
searing, blinding, total. I was a bear. I could have killed a man.
As I walked on horrible fantasies filled my brain. In the end, the way everyone should die
should be through love. That would be a perfect end, I thought, to all this madness. The world was
going nowhere. Why not kill ourselves by all of us sharing love, something that was never supposed to
be lethal but is? My despair from love denied me, love separated, and love turning to kill me was too
much. I knew that most others felt the same way I did. In a short while, after our global protest, we'd all
have AIDS, we'd all be dying together. If you want true honesty and human dignity I tell you that is
what it is. Death. I couldn't bear the thought of my continuing struggle, of my misled friends, oh my
friends, my dear friends!
Crushed under unbelievable pain I somehow walked on and on into the night. Into the darkness.
This was nothing, this was easy compared to the everyday life of millions of people. I could feel
everyone silently suffering. My batteries were running low so I put the flashlight away. There was no
moon but I didn't care. It was pitch black but I grudgingly felt my way with the hiking stick. Forward,
always further, this terrible delusion of progress I couldn't support with any honor. I swung the thing
blindly before me and when it didn't whack a tree I knew I was on track. Sometimes I was reduced to
crawling. When the Trail curved slightly I wasted nearly an hour crouched down, feeling with my hands
for the raised edge of the trail, trying to find my way.
The last three miles were uphill but the darkest hour had passed. I had no conception of what
time it was, but clouds overhead had dissipated or something because while there was still no moon,
starlight gave me enough to go by. I sang on the exhale, gulped breaths of cool air keeping me going
uphill. I swung my arms. I climbed.
I climbed all the way to Iron Mountain Shelter (4,125') where I found Firestarter, Bushwhacker,
and some other man all spaced out on the platform. I woke Firestarter up with setting my things down,
but I would have woken him up anyway with my intentions.
“Hey, Firestarter! Hey!” I whispered loudly, almost laughing and choking up, glad to be there. I
pawed at him in the dark, found his face, gave him a long drawn kiss. He rose out of his sleeping back
to meet me immediately and suggested we take off a ways with our sleeping bags and his tarp.
Out in the open, under only the stars and enveloped by blackness, we fucked each other in
response to pain. We made no noise but were very thorough with each other, we were inside one
another. It left me utterly spent, sweaty and tired, and while I pulled on enough clothes to sleep in he
was already getting hard again against my thigh.
“Let's go down on each other,” he sucked on my ear.
“You're a freak!” I yawned, pushing him away. The thought of my own sweaty sourness made
me sick, I didn't want it.
We slept soundly next to each other all night.
May 12, 14.4 mi
In the morning everyone was gone except me and Firestarter. He gave me most of his food
before he split, which I appreciated. Apples, nuts, Luna bars, real food. The ramen diet congealed my
insides so it was good to change things up.
I rolled a smoke at the picnic table, waiting for Firestarter to get a good distance ahead. “No, I
don't really hike with people, so I?” I thought. I puffed lightly on my cigarette and watched sunlight
dapple everything in swaying patterns. I looked down at the register before me. Something was penned
in vehement ballpoint on the front: “GO BEARS!”
The “Virginia Blues” had set in with me at this point, and I hadn't even crossed the state line out
of Tennessee. I don't recall much of anything outstanding in the scenery. Most of the going was rolling
sine waves of up and down, up and down. A gentle course which varied little in terms of flora, fauna, or
footing. My big revelation for the day was that Micky and Mallory Knox from my favorite movie
Natural Born Killers were probably just gay, not crazy or even much abused. “Yes, that's what's wrong
with them,” I thought, rambling onwards, past noon now. “That'll be the answer to everything.”
Around five I sat down and had a good cry. I'm sure it was very pretty. I can never get the idea
of how I must look out of my mind, so I never have any privacy. Nothing is ever really genuine. My
hair curled about my face from the humidity. It was doing that again. My hair has never been so
beautiful in the official world of appearances and showing up. In the middle of nowhere I bloomed, I
came to fruition. And I cried.
I tried calling Bushwhacker and failed miserably. Reception was bad but there was also
something wrong with my voice. It wasn't mine. It was the voice of a jocular black guy. “'Sup,
gaaahrl?” I greeted her. What the fuck was I saying!? She said she had to go. That was the last I ever
heard from her.
But on that day something very important happened. I picked up my first copy of the New
Testament, and the little brown book with mottled cover also included the Psalms and Proverbs. That
book is the only material thing that was truly useful to me during my hike of the Appalachian Trail. The
food stores I were so preoccupied with soon were consumed and did little good for me in either the
having of them or in their being gone, for I carried everything on my back. But the little book was
actually worth its weight.
I refer to it as being my “first copy” of the New Testament because I'd never read a word of it
before in my life, much less scanned through any of the Psalms or the Proverbs. I'd been predisposed
against Christianity (and, as I assumed, “all organized religion”) by the pervasive secularism of our
time. I'd never before gotten a decent shot at the learning of it because religion (and especially
Christianity) are unfashionable.
But, as I happily ate a few cookies or granola bars or I don't remember all what, I
magnanimously decided that I'd read the book. Just to see what it was like. Maybe to verify my vague
cynicism, which I assumed at the time to be very well-founded on personal “evidence” or at the very
least to be in corroboration with the opinions of all of the friends I'd held most dear.
“I feel badly for this mission,” I thought to myself, all by myself, in that clearing next to the
great iron “bear box” that was painted a neon orange. “By the looks of this register, the church has been
leaving trail magic at this spot for over two months now. I wonder how many people picked up one of
the books or even gave a thought to the religious motive behind it.” It all seemed pretty futile to me.
I flipped through the register, going backwards day by day, and I ran into Spam's entry. He was a
good week and a half ahead (but then again, everyone was ahead). He gave a URL for his Trail blog and
I penned it in a page of my Data Book. I wondered whether I'd be in his Trail blog at any point or not.
Or was this also bad Trail etiquette? No doubt it was. I just wondered what his take would have read
like, on our gathering about Max Patch. Was he a nihilist? Maybe the Trail blog would have told me. I
remembered Thin Timber didn't tell me. So I avowed to read it one day.
As my day's trek came to an end an air of ease settled about me. I hadn't seen another hiker in
quite some time – or at least it felt that way. I was at peace.
It was getting on in May, but these last footsteps in Tennessee looked like weathered fall. The
colors were all matte, never bright or young, and a coverlet of decomposing leaves lay over everything
except the worn path of the AT in front of me. So many people had come before me on this very same
path. So many souls. And I knew we all had to have something very telling in common, though this
affinity was difficult for me to discern when face-to-face with another hiker. We'd all decided to do this
crazy thing. Why? My main reason came back to me in moments like this, when the serenity of nature
could reach me and I actually became aware of the beauty around me. There was also a certain amount
of societal dispossession, but the hike made perfect sense to me independently of the “normal world.”
In those sacred moments when I can appreciate what's around me, all hardships have been worth it.
Nothing else comes to mind but a general feeling of happiness. My life has been worth it.
I passed an old man heading south just as I saw the small, dark shelter structure up ahead to my
right. We were on top of a small hill. He introduced himself as 85.
“That was my Trail name two years ago,” he let me know. I was amazed. This thin man, about
my height, with hair all white, had walked towards me with about the same ease of movement that a
twenty year old possessed. I assumed the number referred to his age.
“Have you done a thru-hike?” I asked politely, full well knowing the answer would be “yes” but
wanting to hear him say it.
“Oh yes, I've done several.” So he'd perfected his hike over the years to the point where it didn't
take an unnecessary toll on his body. His pack was small. He had only one “hiking stick,” a thin staff
made of wood. I was inspired and felt guilty at the same time. 85 was “evidence” that multiple thruhikes could be done safely, even on into old age, but I knew that I hadn't perfected my hike and that the
likelihood of my doing that before it was too late (before I did serious damage to myself) was small.
“What's your name?” he asked me. His kindly eyes glittered from under his pure white brows.
“Coinvolta,” I said. I had decided to tell him the name I considered to be “real,” the full name
that wasn't just a cop-out consisting of initials, but even that name didn't really mean anything. I'd
chosen it at first because I'd liked the sounds, I'd chosen it in order to be different in that I wasn't given
my name, and I'd been incorrect in the meaning of that Italian word. I'd really thought, back in 2010,
that it had meant “to be a part of,” because that was the nature of the verb from which it came. But it
was actually the opposite. A kind of equivalent to “drop out.”
“Corn vulture? What?” He raised those eyebrows at me, mocking me a little.
“No, uh, Coin – Coinvolta. Like, 'coin,' currency, and then 'volta,' like...The Mars Volta.” The
man stared at me blankly, the clear question being put to me of why anyone would want to be called
that. He blinked at me in confusion before finally nodding “Oh, I see.” He did see. He saw right through
me. He'd probably seen many people like me before.
“Where are you headed today?” he then asked.
“Oh, dunno,” I replied. “I was thinking right about over there!” And I pointed to the small dark
shelter just up ahead.
“Oh you can't stay there, that's an emergency only shelter.”
What do you see about this situation that isn't an emergency, old man?
“Huh?” was all I said.
“It was built for extreme weather conditions. Say, if you get caught in a bad storm. Something
like that. Abingdon Gap Shelter is just one mile away from here.”
“Oh, thank you for letting me know!” I waved at him as he went on his way. I fully intended to
make use of this “emergency shelter.” It was here and so was I, and my inner clock (independent of the
sun's comings and goings) gave me the cue to stop for the day.
The shelter was really only big enough for one person, two at the most, and was filled with ants.
I thought it was perfect! No stranger would disturb me here. I made sure of that by taking up as much
room as possible. And indeed no one did ever pass me later that evening.
There was no water. False advertisement in that respect. I went down the hill behind the shelter
for a bit but didn't go too far down. I didn't want to climb back up, and it was a gambol whether there'd
be any water to draw from in the first place. I was fine. Above the shelter, carved into the wood with a
knife and bolded in ballpoint were the letters: “HOLIDAY INN.” I thought back on my last experience
in a Holiday Inn back in Erwin as I fell asleep. “I wonder where that guy is...KB...who I had breakfast
with. Yeah, that was his name. KB. Wouldn't tell me what 'KB' stood for because I wouldn't tell him
what 'CV' stood for. Makes sense...” And I trailed myself off to the pasture of sleep, right along with the
ants.
May 13, 16.9 mi
“Fuck!” I threw my pack down on the wet pavement. Pivoted outwards to the street, fingers
lacing through my tangled hair at the back of my head. “What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”
I'd reached Damascus, Virginia. The site of the upcoming Trail Days festival was gloomy under
clouds and in the middle of a downpour of rain. I only found three other hikers in town and they were
sitting outside of Dollar General along the main drag. One of them told me that Firestarter and
Bushwhacker had pressed on out of town together. That was alright except that I'd thrown my tent away
along with its heavy tent poles back at the hostel below Roan High Knob. I had assumed I'd be traveling
with them and that I'd be able to sleep in their large blue tent.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I muttered to myself, trying to find my wallet in the topmost part of my
pack. The other hikers, Jonah among them, watched me with sympathetic eyes.
A tentative go at a purchase of some cereal and power bars inside the Dollar General confirmed
my fear. I had officially run out of money. My card had been declined. Smirking in recognition, I'd
taken the power bars off the belt and asked the cashier to run just the cereal instead but it was no use. I
couldn't even afford just that.
“Fuck!” I walked back out to where the hikers sat in silence.
“Didn't have what you wanted in there?” asked a woman with the Trail name of Papillon. She
traveled with a small brown boxer named Yoyo. Yoyo was never put on a leash and was smart enough
to be able to find her way back to her owner.
“No, they had all kinds of shit. Even oatmeal in bulk! It's just that I'm now officially broke,” I
said.
“Hard luck!” consoled a young man sitting beside Papillon on the bench. I still stood facing the
street and we all shared a silent moment. The rain dripped on heavy from the awning in a line on the
sidewalk and a car drove by slowly, its tires eking up the water from the street and it made that telltale
wet weather sound as it passed.
There was a pizza place across the street. That seemed to be the main attraction of the town,
which confused the hell out of me in general. But why anyone would ever waste money on pizza, on
something so disgusting, was now a foreign concept to me. It wasn't just that I couldn't afford it. I didn't
want it. I needed so little in life to subsist, but now I truly didn't have anything. Not even my oatmeal.
“Hey, at least you got this far!” the young man on the bench went on. I turned, hands on my
pronounced, slim hips. My shorts were full of dirt (I hadn't bothered to wash them at either of the last
two hostels) and my ass crack was full of sweat. The watermark on the back of my shorts made a sharp,
plunging “V” down the middle in the back. “Plenty of people leave after getting to Damascus.” I just
laughed, and Jonah followed that train of thought. I looked up to catch him smiling at me.
“What, you don't just want to have a great time at Trail Days and then go home?” he prodded
me, joking.
“Fuck Trail Days!” I threw back at him vocally before walking over there to sit beside him on
the sidewalk. Zephyr, Jonah's husky with the clear blue eyes, stared back at me dumbly from out of its
picturesque head, cocked to one side. It's mouth was a piece of work, very jagged around the gum line
with all the pointed teeth and hanging jowels. What a weird, dumb creature to be sitting there on a
leash. Why? I leaned up against the Dollar General and exhaled.
“Cheers.” Jonah nudged me with his big can of iced tea. I opened my eyes to slits, my head
thrown back, chin forward, to see a special look, a very rare type of personality, emanating out of
Jonah's human eyes. Looking at me. He was disinterested, and therein lay his true compassion. He
didn't want anything.
I thanked him for the proffered drink in an offhand way, but when I took a sip of it I realized it
was beer.
“Thank God!” I turned my head and laughed. “Thank you.”
“You can have more,” he told me, nonchalant. “I've just got to pour the bottles into that can so
we don't get arrested.” He thumbed towards a plastic bag with a six pack of Shock Top sitting under the
bench. “Security is pretty tight in this town, although it doesn't look it, because of the festival.”
“Just another reason to get the fuck out of here!” I took another sip from the tea can. “No tent,
no money...now you tell me there's police?”
“You could sleep with me in my tarp,” he offered, both arms outstretched over his knees, a
glazed expression settling over him as he stared forward.
“In your what?” I teased him. “No thanks.”
“Yeah. Well.” Neither of us gave a fuck. We stared at the storefronts and at the rain. A local
came out of the pizza place and walked slowly away down the other side of the street. “Yeah. Well,
what will you do?” Here he turned to look at me. Not concerned, still not interested, but curious.
“I guess I'll just keep going,” I said. “I'm a thru-hiker.”
“Huh.” He accepted that. Nodded.
“What, how are you working this?” I asked. “For example.”
“Well, I had a little bit of money from all my stuff that I sold. You know, after that guy gave me
the bad credit card and I had to go back home for a bit to replan. But the key word in all that is 'had,'
because food stamps don't buy liquor. So I'm basically broke at this point too.”
“Oh wow.” I guess I kind of looked down on him for the food stamps. (And was jealous.) I
should have been so organized.
“CV? Is that you?” Speaking of Erwin memories, here was Rusty from the laundromat.
“Oh hey man, how you doing?”
“I'm just about to head across the street for some pizza, you wanna come?”
“Ermm, you think you could spot me a slice?” I laughed, squinting up at him.
“Of course!” As I stood up, I turned to Jonah and winked.
“See ya guys!” I heaved my pack up with one strap on, turning to wave at them as I made long
strides across the street. Jonah grinned at me as he took a sip from the can, his eyes laughing over the
lid.
The place was actually packed. I hadn't known it from outside, but there was a whole long table
full of hikers celebrating Trail Days a little early. Rusty and I sat at a booth along the side of their table.
We ordered drinks, he wanted a small pizza and I got a calzone with sausage and artichokes and
peppers.
After we'd had a few beers the food still hadn't come yet, so Rusty asked me to make an errand
for him. He wanted me to walk to the general store down a ways on the right hand side of the street and
get him some small item that seemed completely random. He handed me a twenty in order to do this. So
I went, bought him his three dollar food item, and got a pack of cigarettes for myself. When I went back
and dutifully handed him the change he didn't question me or anything. Far from it, he seemed to be
enjoying himself. At ease.
“I'm finally leaving the Trail!” he told me. He seemed happy about this.
“You're quitting!?” I couldn't believe it! Why would someone with money ever decide to leave
the adventure behind? I thought of the beauty I'd already seen and what unseen marvels awaited me in
further states. No, I wouldn't leave the Trail until I'd reached Katahdin in Maine. I'd worry about what I
should do with my time after reaching Maine – later. In the mean time, this was life! This is what I
really wanted to do!
“I'm going back into the family business,” he said. “The Trail has been boring me for a long
time.”
“Now, that I don't understand,” I confessed, “But I do remember the situation with your dad. He
needs your help. You have something to go back to. So.” I downed the rest of my third IPA. What an
unexpected surprise this was! Here, among laughing, happy people eating good food, when just half an
hour ago everything had seemed so dismal.
The town of Damascus was depressing, but in here the mood was fine. Miss Janet presided over
the long table where so many hikers were letting loose and singing along to tunes that a long-haired, tan
individual strummed expertly on an acoustic guitar.
“Hey CV and Rusty, you want to come join us?” She'd recognized me, the Trail Angel of the
south recognized me!
“Sure!” I answered for us. They had a lot of pitchers of beer over there and I figured we could
tell our waitress to set our coming food over there instead.
We all passed a memorable evening. Strider, the guitar player, sat across from me and I lost
myself for awhile in the sight of him. He was very talented and brought a great deal of cheer to the
company, bless him. I'll bet he got “the Jesus thing” a lot. His long hair, which was dark brown and
curly, was pulled back in a pony tail, and along with the beard on his face, he was a ringer.
Red Fury was there, I'd met her at a shelter in the Smokies, and we yelled across the table to
each other about how our hikes had gone so far. Her boyfriend was really drunk and funny. He kept
asking for Strider's guitar to play – and Strider even let him, once – but he couldn't play at all, much
less sing. Miss Janet had ordered several tasty pizzas for everyone, so after my delicious calzone we all
feasted on warm, thin-crusted pizza, doughy and soft at the crusts.
I was savoring the freshly-cut cube of a sweet tomato when the middle-aged hiker to my right
told me that he'd killed a girl once.
“I ran her over with a train,” he told me.
“What?” I turned to him in shock, but the beer gave me a veneer of calm. “How?”
“I was driving,” he explained.
“Oh.” There was no response to that, so I just filed away this disturbing piece of information to
ruminate upon at a later date (at which Strider would also be present).
I looked this man deep in the eyes and let him know I was listening to him. I kept on listening,
steadily keeping his nervous gaze as we all drank more beer and got good and thankfully wasted. He
told me his whole life story that night. I remember that he was on a lot of medication and had to get it
sent to him in his mail drops.
“What's your name?” I asked him, finally thinking of it.
“Train,” he said.
“Are you going to tell me what being a green beret is all about?” To change the topic I turned
back to Rusty, thinking of Paul. My friend. He'd been a green beret.
“It's special forces,” he shrugged. He really didn't seem to think it was special at all, or at least
he didn't make a big deal out of it.
“Yes, but what does it mean?” I really had to know. “It means you're spiritual, doesn't it?”
“What?” he laughed outright. “No! Where'd you get a crazy idea like that?”
“Magical?” I gave him a meaningful glance out from under heavily lidded eyes. I leaned into
him for effect. I was really drunk now, swaying in my seat. “Beautiful...?” Rusty didn't answer me but
patted me on the shoulder, letting me know it'd all be alright.
“Well!” I found a knife and banged it against the table for emphasis. Holding it upright in my
fist. “As long as my hair -” I gave it an exaggerated, ridiculous toss - “is fluffy, I don't care about
anything!!” Everyone at the table laughed and that made me feel good. I flipped it again, and felt truly
glorious. My hair wasn't half bad, really. It was blonde and long and clean. Very fluffy. I'd brushed it in
the bathroom about half an hour ago with my travel-sized comb. It was beautiful.
O
After our dinner feast I was too drunk to hike on or make any other plans, so I followed Rusty
back to his tent and asked if I could sleep there with him for a bit. He seemed reluctant because his tent
was one of those that was strictly for one man, but we made it work with a little will. With my head at
his toes, I was all jammed up against his gear, but what gear! So much food, so many different brands,
and a headlamp! I'd always wanted one.
“You keep asking me all these questions about the army,” Rusty laughed hollowly to himself.
Then he looked at me. “Do you want to try an MRE?” I'd learned about Meals Ready to Eat, standard
army issue fare, from Heather, a girl who had lived in the house with all of us when I was back in
Maryland. She'd be in the Navy now.
“Okay, sure.” This was definitely okay, seeing as how I had no food or money to speak of.
“Take your pick.” He waved his hand at all the stuff piled up at the foot of the tent. After a lot of
deliberation I went with the worst-sounding one, a “beef stew.” I really wanted to know.
“Thank you very much.” I nodded at him from across the span of my body. The closed space felt
almost comfortable. I put on his headlamp and clicked it on.
“Use the nightlight setting,” he said. “Er...here.” He reached over to the side of my head and
pressed the biggest button a few times. “There.” The strong beam had changed to a sort of fog light and
then into a dim red glow. I was fascinated. “That's for coming in late to shelters and stuff like that.
Whatever.”
“It's so cool!”
“You can have it.”
“Oh my God! Thank you!”
Again he shrugged. “You know, you could probably take most of my stuff...for free. Since I'm
leaving after the weekend.”
“How would I do that?” I was suspicious. And I didn't want to stay the weekend.
“I just wanna have a good last weekend on Trail, you know? Leave with good memories.” He
sighed. He seemed really depressed. But there was nothing I could do about that.
“I'm heading out soon. I don't need any more than this,” I said. “This headlamp will make all the
difference.” I know I was drunk but I really believed what I said. I felt I could survive on the headlamp
alone, that it would fuel my flight out of here and on. I was really crazy for the thing. It was a guy's
headlamp, too. I think that's what made it most appealing to me. It was a black-and-orange Black
Diamond brand headlamp. With multiple settings. The stupid-looking purple girlie one that Thin
Timber had stolen for me just didn't compare. This one I'd “stolen” myself, and it suited me.
Rusty tried to bribe me to stay for awhile with movies on his iPad. Why he had an iPad out there
all the time I couldn't decide. I also didn't want to see any of the movies he had. He told me Rum
Diaries “was supposed to be good.” He told me that Johnny Depp was in it. I knew that, thought it was
pretty silly to recommend something based on popular opinion, and I'd hated the Hunter S. Thompson
book it was based on. Rusty recommended another movie but by this time I was just itching to try out
my new headlamp.
“Y'know, you'll call me crazy, but...I think I'm gonna go hiking.”
“Right now?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah. Excuse me.” I wedged myself thinly out of the way, unzipped the delicate inner layer of
the tent before toeing into the vestibule and onto the grass. Process, it's a process.
“Thank you,” I told him, making sure the beam didn't shine in his eyes. “This will make all the
difference in my hike.”
“Yeah, no problem.” I turned to pick up my orange pack. “Bye!” he whispered after me. The
way he whispered, it could carry pretty far. I picked up my pack after stuffing the MRE inside and
locating my hiking stick. And then I was on my way.
Definitely deserted, everything was. I sauntered by shop fronts filled with hiker gear. T-shirts
depicting hiker stick figures running from cartoon bears. What was it with hikers and bears, anyway?
Did the bears stand for something?
I got lost in the weird glow of a Pepsi machine. It seemed inordinately bright, vibrant
unnaturalcy. Toxic. Turning away, blinking I could still see the lights.
The Virginia Creeper trail wasn't so interesting. It was just flat night walking, basically paved. I
read the sign and saw how far that bike path would go on, then elected for the straight up course up out
of there and into the hills. To my left, there it was. The familiar little hole in the tree growth, that black
passage into another world. Barely perceptible. If I wasn't a hiker (or if I happened to be a stoned hiker)
I never would have noticed it, even with the white blaze on a tree a little ways in.
Feeling liberated, I was back on the hike again. I was still a little drunk but that didn't matter to
me. I stopped only to light a cigarettes. I hiked on for hours.
May 14, 5 mi
But there are trap doors...that you can't come back from.
Back at Abingdon Gap Shelter before I'd reached Damascus, I'd found a green plastic-covered
flip through deal along with the regular register book. This green thing read “JOKE BOOK” on the
front. Already amused, I sat myself down in the shade of the Shelter and prepared to read a few.
Some of them were pretty funny. One of them was:
A dayhiker passes by an orange m&m on the Trail but doesn't
think about it much. A section hiker passes by an orange m&m
on Trail, picks it up and eats it. A thru-hiker passes by an orange
m&m lying there in the dirt, eats it, digs under it looking for
more.
One joke I didn't really get at the time read:
--What's the difference between a brick and a female thru-hiker?
--If you lay a brick, it won't follow you all the way to Maine.
After thinking for a minute, I added my own entry:
Q:
A:
Q:
A:
Q:
Can YOU pass the litmus test?
Probably not.
The lithium test?
Like, double A's?
No.
What about the acid test?
A: Uhm...
Casanova no doubt would have told me that it wasn't funny. “I don't really see how that's a
joke,” he'd said about my one concerning the Mason-Dixon line. But I thought it was hilarious. I read it
again to myself and laughed appreciatively.
After descending a gradual slope strewn with boulders behind the shelter, I came to the water
source. I threw my pack down beside me and rounded my shoulders each back getting some of the
tension out. I sat my butt down on my heels with my thighs bent out to the sides, straddling my pack,
opened the top with the draw string, and located the trailing plastic tube which was my mouth piece for
my CamelBak or water source. The long tube clicked onto the bottom of a two litre water pouch. This
blue Sawyer-brand bladder was long, about the size of a newborn baby, and it was positioned right
against the small of my back along my spine inside the pack (where the heaviest items are supposed to
be set). A delicate but strong fabric pouch kept this blue two litre thing in place and standing longside
up inside. The fabric pouch was kept in place by two fancy lightweight clips at the top. I don't know
why the clips were there, unless it was possible with some gear variation to just carry the water bladder
on your back for a slack pack or some such thing.
As I'd assumed, I was nearly out of water. I could generally gauge the heaviness on my back,
but this system of carrying water isn't perfect because I could technically run out of water by mistake at
a very inconvenient time – and never know it. Many people carry two gatorade bottles at their sides
within reach, in the side pockets of their pack. But my pack only had one side pocket; the other side
was a zipper pouch wherein I stored my rain gear. Besides, once my water was purified and it was
already in the blue bladder, why not just clip it onto my back? The mouthpiece was there at my right
shoulder, trailing under a strap and down into the pack through a special opening in the side. It was
very convenient. I didn't want to go spilling the filtered water into any other bottles (which I'd have to
carry – weight concerns are calculated even down to the plastics).
I've used this gravity system of water purification ever since Jolly Roger came to hike with me
in the summer of 2010. She seemed to be a knowledgeable hiker who'd thought to bring along gear I
never knew existed, so when she gave me her water system for keeps when she decided to leave Trail, I
kept on using it of course. And for this round of hiking, I'd gotten a brand new set of two bags and
tubes. I wanted to make sure the filter was really still working properly. We'd had to filter some really
ugly-looking water two years ago, or at least I had. I think I remember most of New York being
completely dry when I'd passed through it alone close to August.
People have all different approaches to water on the Trail. Some people perfect a system over
time that seems to work best for them. They have those expensive, trendy pumps, they filter, or they use
“SteriPens,” neon glowing wands that are supposed to break up bacteria via ultraviolet light. I
personally have a hard time believing that the SteriPen actually works, but that's just me.
The less anal hikers just drop in an iodine tablet, not caring about the funny taste or color that it
adds – or occasional debris from leaves and dirt in the unfiltered water. I've also seen some people use
small amounts of bleach as their only deterrant against disease! The people with a “reckless abandon”
streak don't purify water at all. They also tend to carry less water with them at a time. I know Jonah
only carried one liter for him and his dog while hiking. I always carried two just for myself.
With the blue bag, near empty, taken out of its sling, I searched within my pack until I found the
grody ziploc bag in which I kept the other parts of my water system: the gray two liter pouch (used to
collect the “dirty” water), the filter (a two-by-four inch piece of plastic which looked a little like a
capsule colored blue and white), and the connective plastic tubing which would connect it all together.
I found a more generous part of the stream, a place where water was flowing more rapidly and
also where it welled up over rocks in a convenient curve for me to stick the round opening of the gray
pouch under in order to fill it with water. Easily the water flowed in within three seconds. I screwed the
wide cap back onto the top of the pouch to keep the water from dribbling out, then clipped the whole
bag onto a sturdy-looking branch of a small tree. It hung by its own black strap designed for such
things. “Do Not Drink” it read in various languages around a red circle with a cross through it. “No
Beba.” “Kein Trinkwasser.” “Ne Buvez Pas.” The same thing in some Asian language.
From here I connected the blue and white filter to the mechanism where my drinking tube used
to trail from. The tube clicked off easily with the press of a button and the filter clicked in. Snap!
Finally I clicked in the special filtering tube (different from the drinking tube in that it had two
“jacks” at the end, not one jack and a mouthpiece). I connected it first to the gray hanging bag. Water
immediately began to spurt out the other end. This time it writhed a bit and twisted out of my hands,
but only a little water was lost. I grabbed it again and clicked the lower end into the filter. Now I could
just sit back and watch the results of my handiwork. It would take only a few minutes. Hard to say for
me exactly how long, for I never carried a watch on the Trail and time seems altogether different out
there anyway, more stretched out and less important. I could have waited longer and the process still
would have been worth it.
“Hello!” I heard a man behind me say. I turned to see a slight man with a dark round beard
hailing me, smiling. He was dressed all in blue (various shades) and had dark glasses on.
“How are you?” I said curtly. I didn't want to be rude but I always hated to be interrupted. It
didn't really matter, the occasion or the person; I'd come out here mostly in order to separate myself
from people. “Having a good time” was something different from the quest I was on.
“Where did you come from last night?”
Ah, the question! How many times have I been asked that inane question?
“Abingdon Gap.” I stood to my full height, stuck out my chest, and flipped my long, fluffy hair
over my shoulder. It was so long and so blonde that it felt more like a wig. And I stared him down
through my own set of shades. “X-treme” they read on the sides. I forgot where I'd picked them up
from. But they were great for keeping bugs out of my eyes.
“This is Abingdon Gap Shelter,” he said.
What?
“Where you stayed last night...that was the McQueen Shelter!” Emphasis on “Queen.”
Oh.
He was laughing at me! Who knows how long he'd been there, watching me prance about my
filtering process. Who knows what I'd unconsciously done to embellish things, what hand gestures or
strides or...maybe he'd read my joke. Had he read my joke back up at the Shelter?
I proudly got my shit together without saying anything, then strode out of there, Barbie Gone
Wrong. With her svelte, plastic legs through little shorts and spikey boots, with the neon green stripes
down the front. And the hair! The hair was pretty scary and the best part. It was bigger than my whole
body. It was great. The guy in blue gave me a whole new identity gift with a few words. I was a fucking
Queen!
O
I'd cleared Damascus safely and in the early morning mists I walked onwards. My toe path,
barely six inches wide in the caking, light brown dirt, wound up Straight Mountain in between verdant
bushes gushing with milky-film light flowers in fuscia and see-through white. The flowers looked like
they were underwater. I had a good time breathing in deeply, using my hiking stick to mark my place
every stride as I climbed. My pack wasn't too heavy and I actually felt refreshed after only a few hours
sleep that I'd spent stealth camping.
I was glad that I'd be well away from Damascus by the time the crowds amassed for Trail Days.
Nothing about the weekend was appealing to me. I'd seen a program in the bathroom of the hostel
whose lawn Rusty had camped out on, and I saw time slots advertised for “wilderness information
sessions” (who cares?), video documentaries about the Pacific Crest Trail in California (I'll see it for
myself, for that does seem to be the trend), outdoor shower pits where many hikers can bathe at once
(what in the hell?), and, of course, hiker feeds. Hiker feeds all weekend long!
No thank you!
And I wasn't the only traveler who felt the same. After an hour of taking apart my MRE while
lying on the flat bed at Saunders Shelter (not eating it, just taking it out of the package piece by piece
and staring at it), a girl named Norwall turned up soon followed by a very morose-looking guy. They
didn't want any part of Trail Days either.
We made the shelter our own, me spread out all over the left side with articles of wet clothing
hanging from every peg, Norwall in the middle tentatively strumming her full-sized acoustic guitar, and
the guy against the right side in his sleeping bag, a book in hand.
Then, to my great pleasure, Jonah arrived at the Shelter. His extrovert's bent opened up
conversation among us. I am usually bold out of necessity but had here lapsed into shy silence in the
presence of a rare girl. Poor Norwall deserved to be talked to; she'd been hiking all over the world and
was here finally meeting her match with the relatively “easy” AT. And the poor guy had a Trail name of
some fatal disease which had killed his father just half a year ago. Somebody had to say something.
“Halooo there!” He appeared on the scene sweaty and smiling, Zephyr straining at his leash
headed in a beeline towards the Shelter. Jonah looked and smiled as though all he'd done was just lean
back and let his dog pull him all the way uphill out of Damascus. “Lazy asses! What are you doing
here?” he demanded
All three of us acceded our respective, stony silences and laughed as we watched Jonah unlink
Zephyr, place his tattered pack on the bed, lean his hiking poles up against the small step ladder. “Hey
hiker trash! Haha! How's it goin'?”
WILL STOP FOR HIKER TRASH had been a bumper sticker I'd seen somewhere like two
hundred miles ago and at the time I didn't know if they were serious. I liked the way Jonah had said it
right then, though. There was an understanding between him and whoever he was talking to. No
uncomfortable feelings needed, he was just lightening the mood in a very real way. He struck me every
time I saw him. He wouldn't have presumed over anybody. It was obvious.
Jonah at last collapsed onto the platform. “Oh, shit I'm tired!” He doffed an invisible, threadbare
cap off his head with a feeling swipe, sticking up spikes of sweat-drenched blonde hair. He was one of
those rare, real blondes, whose baby hair never turns to brown or black. “Why doesn't this ever seem to
happen in women?” I've wondered on more than one occasion. “Why not me?” I wondered then.
“No Trail Days for you?” I drawled the question, arms crossed, leaning against the Shelter in the
relative dark in a corner.
“Nah, fuck it! I was outta there.” He tried to cross his legs, which were clearly sore. With a lot
of wincing he got them into place and sat facing the three of us. “Dammit, I'm sore as hell!” We knew
and were silent, facing him but not each other. “My iPod had me flying up that last one! Maybe faster
than we should have been going, I dunno. Haha! I was singin' aloud: 'The-beautiful-people,' stabbing
with my hiking sticks, 'The-beautiful-people!'” He made made mad gestures in the air of how he'd
gone. We all cracked up at this. It felt good to laugh a genuine laugh.
A “Norwall” is a type of whale with a sort of prong on its forehead. Jonah got that out of her. I
forget if it lit up or not, like those deep sea fish, or what purpose it served, but at least we were all
talking now. I flipped through my DataBook for a cigarette, partly water damaged, pressed between the
pages. At least I had one more. And my lighter was even working! I guess it had been raining the night
before. I don't really remember that, but all my stuff had gotten wet somehow. In fact, I was naked
inside my sleeping bag save for my bra and swimsuit bottoms. I didn't want to get the bag wet. I had the
thing bunched up around me too, like that guy. Except that I looked a lot more stupid with the pastel
colors and polka dots. Dammit, I hated that thing.
Our vista was a wall of green trees, no sky could be seen, but the sun faded out of all of it just
the same. Gradually, the four of us settled in to spend the night together.
“Does anybody want the rest of this? I can't finish it.” Jonah held up his titanium cup full of rice
he'd just cooked a few minutes ago.
“Hell yeah!” I said. He walked over and handed it to me
“When you're done, just throw the container at Zephyr,” he said. “He licks the container
perfectly clean every time.”
“If I'm supposed to feel insulted right now...I don't,” I thought, happily eating up the warm rice
flavored with all sorts of spices I hadn't tasted in a long time. There was probably no one in this stage of
their hike to be so excited about a rice PastaSide.
“D'you have any more cigarettes?” It was a weak question but he'd still asked. He'd turned his
head to me, I imagined he was wincing again. He stood siloueted black form, spiked hair and sharp
nose, against the still relative brightness of the outside. I could see the wetness of his eyes as he looked
at me.
“No, that was my last one.” It was the truth, unfortunately. It would be a long night. Norwall
and fatal disease guy didn't look as though they smoked.
“What is that?” Again Jonah's voice in the dark. He was in between the guy and Norwall.
Norwall was very close to me on my right. I'd moved into them from the side of the Shelter.
“What is what?”
“All that stuff laying there, where you were sitting. The plastic packets.”
“Oh yeah! That's an MRE. I'd better put it away.” Without thinking twice about it, I stood up,
letting the sleeping bag fall from me. I was still dressed, after all. Just consider it a bathing suit. And it
was really dark by now. I padded over to where it lay, the balmy air felt great against my perspiring
skin. Gathered up the various parts. The vegetable crackers pressed so hard together. The shot of
lemonade. Pound cake. Then the main part, also in thick plastic, cut like a hard rectangle.
“What?” Jonah probably knew exactly what an MRE is, he was just giving me a hard time about
it for some reason. By his one word, “What?,” I could measure his incredulity in yard sticks.
“An MRE, y'know, 'Meal Ready to Eat.' It's what they give to people in the army.” I'd whipped
around to his voice, the plastic gathered in my hands. “I've always wanted to try one.” I was met with
just silence, so I continued to talk, the words coming out of their own volition. I was uncomfortable and
wanted to justify myself. “I was thinking of joining the Marines for awhile.”
“What!?” He now sounded pained. Again, 'What?' Why the fuck not? I mean, none of your
business!
I could tell he thought I was crazy, I could just tell! But I didn't care. I stowed the stuff in my
pack, which I'd strung up from the ceiling. I just threw it in there, into the top, helter-skelter. No fear of
mice from that stuff. It'd be alright. Airtight sealed. Odorless. Indestructible.
I got back into my stupid sleeping bag and fell asleep listening to bits of conversation, looselyconnected, spread out in three human voices against the background of constant bugs like static
electricity. It was a steady menace from the insects that night. I was relieved whenever any of them said
anything. I curled closer to Norwall and fell asleep.
May 15, 18.2 mi
In the morning we all woke up at around the same time. The boys went first, then Norwall, then
last of all me. My clothes hadn't really dried that well overnight but I put them on and was grateful for
the coolness even in this early part of the spring day. The sun was out, no clouds, so it would be hot.
Meandering precipices over streams. Rich, soft, silty dirt underfoot, large swaths of which had
broken off sharply into the raging stream down below. I followed the stream all morning until it led to
the Virginia Creeper Trail. So I would have to walk some of it either way, I found. There was no
escaping into the mountains today.
I stepped out onto a flat bike path, made a right, and walked over a bridge with a lot of through
traffic. Families were out for the day on their bicycles. Old women's legs repulsed me in their shorts
and they greeted me with audible sniffs of disdain. Agreed, ladies, agreed.
I met a man of indeterminate age at Lost Mountain Shelter around the middle of the day.
“So, you escaped Damascus?” was how he greeted me.
“Yeah.” I'd been nibbling at one of the “vegetable crackers” packed with vitamins and calories.
It was so filling I couldn't even finish the one. There were two of them, both square, about five inches
by five, and reminded me in the taste of shortening. Just packed. Such heavy, durable plastic too. What
would I do with it all?
“What's your name?” I asked.
“Tree Frog,” said he.
“Hmmm.” I nodded, kneading the cracker between my molars.
“Who're you?”
“The Master Artificer.”
“Hmmm.”
A joke! But made in all seriousness.
I lately have considered reading to be an active, individualistic thing instead of the passtime it
appears to be for so many. It can be a sort of creative act. This was the only claim I could make to being
an artist myself, but it was enough to set me apart (if only in my own mind). It was a beginning.
I read everything with an attention that was deadly serious. Pronoia helped me to relate to the
works in completely new, miraculous ways. Paranoia set me apart even from these works, from these
voices I'd worshiped without question for so long.
As I did relate to the world, it was through avenues I didn't understand and still don't: telepathy,
myth. Unspoken ways. On the whole, in reality, I was beginning to question everything, even my
heroes. I could no longer endorse, I just couldn't stand for anything.
“Hamlet was a retard!” I spoke to myself as I walked. “Too brilliant for action? What kind of
problem is that?”
“Go with God!” A very dear friend had broken with me thus. It was night and we stood on the
southside of campus, facing each other. My director for BareStage productions was in his usual black
with fedora. I wore a bowler hat because of the title of a play we'd just gone to see along with his
transvestite friend, who was the playwright behind our production. I hadn't understood a word of the
dialog. But I was starting to get the impression that this man in front of me, who I'd drunk texted since
the beginning and baked pies for and such, was trying to set me up with this friend. The playwright was
really nice and we'd had some good times all three of us, but why any man would want to be a woman
was beyond me. I'd heard they'd had an operation and everything.
“What?” I expostulated. “Just talk with me, please! What are you saying, 'go with God.'
What?” I was crying. I'd just told him, in so many words, that I loved him.
He turned and walked away from me. Up the path he went, under the trees and away from me to
the northside of campus where he lived in a Co-op called Lothlorian. They had lice and crabs in
Lothlorian but they were pure, they were vegans. He lived up there with a girl I still loved. She wouldn't
talk to me after a threesome we'd had, I'd sold coke to her friend all for an audience with her and she'd
told me she “just didn't agree with my philosophy of life!” I lived in Cloyne Co-op, the most notorious
of them all for seediness, drug use, and huge parties. Deaths on campus. But even there I wasn't getting
on with people. I was not cooperating.
“Dedalus never even wrote a book!”
Neither had I. On those days at the Japanese tea house when this director of mine had taken me
“in order that we should write our novels,” I'd had some lousy paper I'd written last-minute for class
up in front of me on my laptop screen. I'd gone just to be with him. And he was getting very frustrated
with me.
Suddenly he grabbed with top of my laptop, flattened it towards him so he could see – oh fuck! from across the low table where we both sat crosslegged on pillows.
“Who writes fiction double spaced?” he demanded. He knew I was full of it.
“I do!” I'd screamed back at him nonetheless. He could have broken my laptop! “I mean, I
don't even write fiction! That's completely pointless!”
“What do you mean by that?” he asked. He lifted his chin up and tilted his head a little to the
side. The glare from all the indoor lighting reflected in his spectacles and I couldn't see him. At least I
felt I'd distracted him, but I couldn't think of anything more to say. I hadn't meant anything by it.
“I dunno, I'll explain it...next week.” I pretended to type something and get serious.
“You're a liar.”
I looked back up at him, really wanting that not to be true, that especially – but he was typing
away. He ignored me the rest of the hour we sat there. He sipped green tea and wrote his novel. His
head had just been shaved because of the lice. He wore a loose-fitting purple robe, no shirt underneath.
Totally comfortable.
Simon the Zealot eats apple pie with his fingers, stares straight at me when he announces in
public that he and his girlfriend used to “fuck like gods.” She'd just broken up with him a few months
ago.
The director is the eighth Apostle of Eft.
I walked an orange pebble path. Virginia was varried and enjoyable. Fresh, supple grass, a pretty
green, full of water, was all about. Craggy black spindle trees spurted but low out of this field of grass.
I'd climbed up a steep hillside and now stopped to rest on a large, leaning table of stone. Perched on this
landmark called Buzzard Rock atop Whitetop Mountain (5,080') I read my first Psalm out of the little
brown booklet I'd taken from the Trail Magic. I didn't feel up to reading the New Testament yet, so I
started at the beginning, with Psalm One.
I wasn't impressed.
With open-mouthed despair I also read the second Psalm. Was this it? Really? The all-important
Book on the basis of which our country had been founded? This was the Book whose ideas had defined
the West for thousands of years? Under whose control I surely lived today? I was horrified.
It spoke of a heathen people full of vain talk. Well, I didn't like that. What if I was a heathen?
And the terrible image of God laughing in derision from the heavens at these heathens also seemed
very unsympathetic. I wasn't comforted by the language protecting “the Lord's anointed,” by God
Himself proclaiming forth: “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee,” because I was hardly one
of them. I felt much more aligned with the heathens from where I sat upon that hill.
“Hey, you!” Jonah had summited and called out to me in his friendly manner. He sauntered with
his dog pulling ahead, as usual. “Whatcha doin'?”
For a split second I actually considered hiding the small book in between my hands. I knew he
wouldn't like it. The decisive factor in his leaving home and everything had been one religious fanatic
of a mother. She'd “ruined his life with religion and was now trying to destroy his little sister.” But I
made my hands be still. I held it out in front of me.
“Nothin' much,” I replied. I was even able to coax a little laugh into my voice, like “I'm reading
the Bible, isn't that a good one?” I had sunglasses on and I'm sure this aided my mask of nonchalance.
Jonah paused in his walking by when he saw the book. In front of me he actually stopped. He
was panting from the climb and he had a questioning look in his bright eyes.
I had to kind of bend my head down to let him know I wanted to keep on reading. He couldn't
see my eyes looking towards the page, I realized. He did get the hint eventually and kept on moving.
“I'll see you up the way!” he called back to me.
Yeah, sure.
Jonah thought I was a moron for not capitalizing on the situation with Rusty. And maybe I didn't
exactly know how to “get around” as they say. But I didn't care. I was so bored of everything, of people
and their bullshit, that my reading the Bible of all things was pretty perfect.
It even got better. From the bits like “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the
way” came other bits that more kind of infiltrated my mind. There was something about how people are
not animals, that we are given dominion over all animals, in fact. Just earlier that day I'd been thinking
about how convenient it would be if I were a dog or even a bug. I'd seen a wonderful, red insect at work
on a log and I'd been fascinated by its beauty, by its graceful purpose. It was amazing! But I belonged
nowhere.
But the little book in my hands did comfort me. I kept reading Psalms until I'd had my fill. Then
I put it back, open to my page, inside the perfectly-sized ziploc bag which protected my DataBook and
nothing else.
After only ten minutes of more climbing uphill I realized I was hungry. But it couldn't be
helped. I didn't feel like wasting any more of the MRE. I wanted it to last as long as possible. So I just
put my pack down, unclipped my rolled mat from off the bottom, spread it out in the green grass, and
took a nap.
O
My serenity was short-lived. I awoke to find the sun leaving, which was no problem, but the box
of cherry Jell-O powder was definitely a problem. I'd been carrying that pure sugar since Josh had
given it to me back in Tennessee. I think it made me go a little crazy. I ate sporkfulls of it raw “to save
time” before pouring the rest of it into my drinking bottle and mixing it with what little water I had. It
was tart, delicious! And it made me mad.
Fueled by sugar and anger alone I hiked seven miles in a little over two hours. The terrain was
fairly arduous. First I got to the very top of that hill, then there was a steep, long descent followed by
another hour of gradual uphill in the dark to the same height of 5,000 feet. This uphill part of my night
journey cut through some of my favorite environs of the entire trip – but more on that later. There were
even ponies. Imagine! Ponies.
But here a few words on anger:
Anger feels great. Anger makes me powerful. Beyond question, I know that I am right. Smarter.
Faster. Even purposeful. For someone's righteous anger is useful, worlds beyond the mass of “peace”
accumulating at all times. Anger can actually lead to action. Actions are seen by other people and
perhaps they will be provoked out of indolence. Perhaps.
That night, I was still mostly a prisoner of my mind. My thoughts were useless – useless! because I didn't act on them. I wouldn't let them change me. What I thought was nonsense. What I was
doing had to be nonsense.
But it felt great!
The air was now cool, things had changed, clouds had now come in. I jumped up in the way of a
falling river. This trickling water's path, inky black over the stones, was frozen in some places. I inhaled
fresh pine. I stabbed strongly with the hiking pole, making loud clacking noises against the rocks that
nobody would hear.
“Why don't they make the nail in the heel of a stiletto with as strong stuff as the tip of a hiking
stick?” I wondered. Many of my favorite pairs had worn out after surprisingly little time. “Maybe I
would hike in heels if they were this strong.
You know, drag is kind of an accusation. “I'm not me right now. I'm you!”
NOW DON'T YOU FEEL STUPID!?
Or:
“This is not a joke. I'm deadly serious. My sharpened nails will pierce you, close around your
eyeball and rip it out. My hair will kill you if you see it. It is so long and magnificent that you will will
be incinerated by all the furious heat of the sun. You will burn.
I look beautiful, you say? Pretty in pink? I could kill myself. And you should die for ever having
seen such a thing.
“Ahhh!” I surfaced from the pine forest onto a bald. I walked proudly over the top of this hill.
The clouds were thick about me but I wasn't buffeted by wind. It was like a slow-moving dust storm
underwater. I walked through it like a knife.
Just after the Mt. Rogers Spur Trail I decided to “cowboy camp” under the open sky. One might
think this an easy decision to make as I had no tent or tarp and I hadn't reached Thomas Knob Shelter.
But I really felt like cowboy camping. The Shelter was only 0.4 miles away but I spied a perfect spot to
rest, just a little ways into a cluster of pines at the top of the hill. The ground was springy with a bed of
pine needles. It smelled good. The air was warmer from the strange condensation.
I set up camp easily, what little there was to do. And I lay back, arms folded behind my neck,
right on top of my down sleeping bag. I breathed deeply, in and out, content. And everything slowed
down. I watched the stars twinkle as the clouds passed over the earth.
May 16, 11.0 mi
Sallied into Thomas Knob Shelter the next morning asking for Jonah. “Did anybody see him
here...last night?” I asked the general assembly. Maybe three hikers were still around.
“No,” said one of them.
“No,” confirmed the other. Another one maybe shook his head “negative,” it didn't look good,
and dammit! I turned tail, kind of reeled away, peeled out with my shoulders leading in exaggerated
distress.
“I really am some kind of idiot,” I laughed out loud. “All that scene last night, with my
whacking branches and angry energy! If only I'd had the guts to ask Jonah to hike with me or
something...must have been thinking of him...was the first thing I thought when I woke up next to that
pile of horse shit. 'Huh, I wonder where Jonah is right now. Probably would have slept outside with me
too, no problem.'”
I stolidly walked on, unimpressed by everything – but especially the “wild horses.” They were
more sad than wild, with hair that resembled mine: massive mats of tufting, thick blonde mane. They
just ambled right up to hikers, assorted throughout the little prairie scene that opened up in front of me
in the sun. They were really tame.
It was certainly a humbling comparison.
The other hikers were filming the horses or feeding them but I just walked on through. I didn't
even try to pet one. All I could really think of was Jonah, of his easy-going warmth. Would he ever kiss
me, I wondered, if I could corner him just right. Alone.
“You're next, beautiful,” I sighed. I kicked up dust as I walked. Not so much as a scrap left
uneaten to remember him by. No tea bag with a rose on the paper tag. Nothing. Just gone. You've got to
be careful with these young, fast guys. You never may see them again in your life. Strike, you've got to
strike!
A world-weary heaviness overcame me. Suddenly the beautiful scenery, the vast plateau I
walked across dotted with unknown brush and cacti, pink flowers, dragonflies, the effort I'd put into it
all, none of it signified anything. It was very possible that I, at twenty-five years of age, had failed to
find a companion. Out of all the world and its people, I was single. A lone wolf. And this hardly
bothered me most of the time. But right then, I felt very wanting. Especially if my frustrations related to
love would continue to manifest themselves in these episodes which didn't even have the hint of a sense
of humor.
“What's wrong, Stephanie?”
Paul held me at arm's length in the hot shower, the water cascading down over his head but he
leaned forward towards me, asking with his black eyes through the steam and the wet.
We'd just had some pretty great sex, me leaned forward with my hands on the temperature
knobs, butting into him with my behind, just writhing for him to stick it into me. Everything so wet.
Everything so wet from the beginning.
He'd come right in wearing only a towel and a tophat. The pipes in his ceiling let him know
whenever I was taking a shower. He could track my movements throughout the house. Neither of us
gave a shit that Adam, my jealous friend, was just across the hall. We played where we liked. Whenever
we could snag the time between work and my other half-hearted pursuits like “reading for pleasure” or
going to AA meetings. Washing dishes. Swiffering the floor for Donna. I was most happy when fucking
Paul.
But for some reason now I was crying. Sobbing, in fact.
“Stephanie? You alright?” He asked me again, wrapping his slick, strong arms around my back
but still looking me full in the eyes.
“It's just that I – I want! I want...” I couldn't look at him but sobbed into his neck. “I want a
boyfriend!” There, I'd said it. But such melodrama now! I've always laughed at the idea of those girls
who cry after sex. Now here I was. I continued, still feeling ridiculous but glad I was getting it out:
“Who will care for me?” I just didn't feel safe.
“Stephanie, I think everyone cares about you!” He told me straight, spine erect, only positivity
in his eyes and in his face. But I took it as an insult.
Oh! The communal retard, the girl who graduated years ago and who now walks the track
round and round again, the drunken, hardworking fool – but what a pretty one, and God! You should
see her suck cock! Who in America doesn't love that? Anything goes as long as it's entertaining, and my
efforts to win Paul's esteem were absolutely hilarious. Slipping up every other weekend or so to get
plastered and fuck our friend Bryan. Or at 3am after a five mile run through the village center, Scissor
Sisters blasting in my ears. I was drawn to that other room in the basement. But my heart was Paul's
and I was completely loyal. I wanted to be his girlfriend!
I dashed out of the shower, swinging the shower curtain out of my way. Water on the floor, no
matter. I'd clean it up later, along with scrubbing the tub out of all its grime and pulling all the clods of
greasy hair out of the drain. I really enjoyed getting the hair out of the drain. It helped me feel close to
them all without touching them. I felt useful. But I wanted to be his girlfriend!
Curling only a towel around myself, I ran down the stairs crying madly and into the basement.
At Wise Shelter I became an Indian mystic. I was the only one there, so no one to ask for food. I
turned my near starvation into the effect of a holy man. With a placating air of calm I took everything
out of my pack (slowly, very slowly), aired the sleeping bag in the sun. Let my boots and socks dry. I
sat crosslegged on my mat, reflective side up, zoning out in the great heat of this foreign place. The
Grayson Highlands. I was in southwest Virginia.
A whole troop of middle aged people showed up. They were section hikers who liked to talk a
lot, or at least one man did, so after introductions I remained seated listening to him talk. One of the
women fed me a piece of strawberry fruit leather at one point. I was very grateful and let her know with
my eyes. It was delicious but I dared not ask for more. After about half an hour they all moved on.
Then a younger crowd of men infiltrated my scene. Animal from Maine had a grin like a knife
gash, stooping shoulders, and wandering eyes. He was traveling with Gravy, a tall, silent ex-marine
with webs of tattoo work all over his arms. He was very beautiful, with a great blonde beard and
admirable build. My esteem for the Corps grew with every look I stole of him. I was up from the
ground now, sitting next to Gravy inside the shelter. I felt shy so I remained quiet as well. We just sat by
each other in silence on the shelter platform, Animal out on the bench in front of us under the beams. At
one point Gravy offered me a piece of Trident gum. Spearmint. I will always remember this. I silently
accepted and was very happy that they were there.
Standing outside the shelter smoking were three other young men, thru-hiking veterans from the
year before who'd come back in anticipation of Trail Days. They had clearly been enjoying the
Highlands and spoke of Trail Days and their past hike readily among themselves, so I asked a few
questions. Did they have any advice? What was Maine really like?
“The only advice I can give you is not to worry at all about Virginia. It's the easiest state in the
whole Trail to get through, terrain-wise and mentally. The 'Virginia Blues' is a joke. You'll be fine.”
This coming from a fellow named Juke Box. Because he sang as he hiked. Hmmm...
“I'm probably the one who can tell you all about Maine,” Animal put in, swiveling around in his
seat to face me and Gravy. “I am from there. I did a lot of hardcore wilderness training there the winter
before this hike, and after all that I have to say that this thru-hike is disappointing me.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“Well, out there in Maine, in the winter, I nearly froze trying to perfect my camping technique. I
was so far out there that there was nobody who could have helped me. Maine is amazingly beautiful, I
wish I could describe it better, but I already know all about it. I know where we're headed, so the finish
is not going to be as big of a deal to me as it's going to be for everyone else.
And these mail drops! They're killing me!”
“You put too much in each package? The weight is bad?” I asked, thinking all along to myself
like 'Yeah, poor you!'
“No, it's just the monotony I guess. It's roughly the same food, every single package. One after
the other they just keep coming, and you don't want cliff bars or trail mix anymore. I should have varied
them or something. I'm really bored of the Trail, to tell you the truth.”
“Man, what are you saying?” One of the happy, ex thru-hikers protested. “You've just gotten
into Virginia! Stick it out and you won't regret it, I'm telling you.” Animal stole a glance out to the open
side of the shelter. He just glared off into the trees for a bit in order not to see their outstanding
happiness.
“Go to Trail Days, you'll feel better,” another guy in the sun said.
“Ha!” I didn't mean to be rude, but I burst out laughing. The thought of Jonah had crept back
into my mind. Where the hell was he now?
“I didn't make it out of Trail Days last year.” This was the first thing that Gravy said out loud.
“Yeah, he stayed drunk in town for two straight weeks after. It's pretty hard to leave, I hear,”
elaborated Animal. “Kind of like a trap.”
“I knew it!” I looked down at my grimy hands crossed in my lap. We'd come this far, my body
and I. Nothing could distract me from the Trail. I wouldn't be like Gravy or even Animal, I avowed. But
yet again, I definitely related more to the two of them than Juke Box and his merry gang – even after
Juke Box let it slip that he was a Cormac McCarthy fan. Especially after that.
I got a little ballistic watching Animal trying to waste his trail mix. It looked so delicious, I think
it was homemade, because the dried fruits didn't look all salty or too dry and the m&m : other stuff ratio
was very appealing. I caved and asked for a handful. He handed me the entire bag, which I hefted in my
palm. It was heavy. That thing could have lasted me days! But I only took what I needed at that
moment, which was two handfuls. I think Animal could tell I was getting antsy just holding the thing (I
was deliberating over whether or not to take more) so he took it off my hands. I breathed a sigh of
relief.
The two of them left shortly after Juke Box and his associates, and I lingered at the shelter.
Speciously it was with the motive of airing out my sleeping bag, but I'd taken a liking to the whole
Shelter. With all the people who had passed through it over the decades, it had some powerful magic
about it. I felt at home, for the time being.
My socks starched dry, I stretched them out and whacked them against the posts holding up the
Shelter roof. Condensed sweat and dirt turns into a cakey powder which lines the insides of these very
durable socks, and I could now see the dust shaken loose from them. I twanged them some more,
getting out as much as I could, then put them on. They were warm, but they were dry, which was a
really good feeling. I wouldn't have to worry about blisters for hours more hiking.
These socks, which were of a durable woolen material and thick, were black with one white
stripe across the toe line. “FITS” they read in orange capitals below the white line, the type facing me. I
remember how I'd scoffed at the insinuating name of the (expensive) brand back in Neel's Gap, GA.
And they hadn't dissatisfied me or anything, but it was only because of my strategic stopping points
along the way that I'd had hardly any serious blisters for five hundred miles of hiking. Usually when I
stopped and was in sun I took off my shoes and socks and did the same routine of drying them naturally
while I read or smoked or watched the silent hills in a haze of heat.
I didn't know it at the time, but Wise Shelter marked exactly five hundred miles even since
Springer Mountain. Nobody around me who had rested at the Shelter told me this. Their AWOL guide
most likely led them to assume this was common knowledge; that book had not only pages and pages
of geographical elevation changes mapped out plus town maps and price listings for everything, but it
also had meticulous mile calculations, commulative, denoting total miles from the southern and
northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. My slim Data Book broke the Trail up into eleven
seemingly arbitrary sections, after which crossing over you'd start over again at zero.
The eleven sections deemed significant enough to count as distinct portions of the Appalachian
Trail in my Book weren't along state lines (otherwise there would have been fourteen of them). They
are as follows:
Section
Length (miles) Section
Boundaries
Miles from
Katahdin
Miles from
Springer
Maine
281.8
Baxter Peak,
Katahdin, ME /
ME – NH Line
0.0 / 281.8
2,184.2 / 1,902.4
New Hampshire Vermont
310.7
ME – NH Line /
VT – MA Line
281.8 / 592.5
1,902.4 / 1,591.7
Massachusetts Connecticut
142.0
VT – MA Line /
CN – NY Line
592.5 / 734.5
1,591.7 / 1,449.7
New York – New
Jersey
161.9
CN – NY Line / NJ 734.5 / 896.4
– PA Line
1,449.7 / 1,287.8
Pennsylvania
229.6
NJ – PA Line / PA
– MD Line
896.4 / 1,126.0
1,287.8 / 1,058.2
Maryland – West 94.8
Virginia – Northern
Virginia
PA – MD Line /
Front Royal, VA
1,126.0 / 1,220.8
1,058.2 / 963.4
Shenandoah
National Park
107.1
Front Royal, VA /
Rockfish Gap, VA
1,220.8 / 1,327.9
963.4 / 856.3
Central Virginia
226.0
Rockfish Gap, VA / 1,327.9 / 1,553.9
New River, VA
856.3 / 630.3
Southwest Virginia 163.4
New River, VA /
Damascus, VA
1,553.9 / 1,717.3
630.3 / 466.9
Tennessee – North 300.4
Carolina
Damascus, VA /
Fontana Dam, NC
1,717.3 / 2,017.7
466.9 / 166.5
North Carolina Georgia
Fontana Dam, NC / 2,017.7 / 2,184.2
Springer MTN, GA
166.5 / 0.0
Springer
2,184.2
Mountain, GA
0.0
166.5
These tables were put together from information found in the first few pages of my Data Book.
In the midst of things, when I was hiking and referring to the non-referential text of the Book (the stuff
between the end and the beginning), all I saw denoted were a) mileage numbers to the next of the
eleven sections, b) points of interest (usually Shelters, water sources, or roads), and c) mileage numbers
from the last section boundary I'd crossed. As you can see from the table, these eleven sections usually
only span a couple hundred miles each, so I didn't know enough either to be depressed or proud of my
progress. It kept me humble and content. The Data just went back to zero sometimes, and I knew and
accepted this, however arbitrary the points may have seemed to me (I never thought that much about
them). All I knew at that point in my hike was that I was 33.1 Trail miles away from the section
boundary of Damascus. I had no idea I'd just made five hundred miles. But I was also happily ignorant
of the fact that Damascus is only the second boundary line out of eleven.
My Data Book was a “Southbound” one because it read from Maine to Georgia, tracking the
miles down the Appalachian Trail instead of up. I was a “Northbound” hiker or “NoBo” with a SoBo
guide.
There are differences between NoBos and SoBos. NoBos are outgoing, they love people, and
their Trail culture is more based on socialization and hardcore partying than on the wilderness itself.
SoBos, who choose to begin their trek at the most difficult point of the whole Trail (Maine's Hundred
Mile Wilderness), are much fewer in number and prefer it that way. Instead of starting in March or
April like the exodus crowd of NoBos, they are forced to wait until June for weather conditions to be
physically safe up in the White Mountains, which are home for some of the worst weather conditions in
the entire world, regardless of season. The wind chill and speed, visibility, and difficulty of climb up
there require a lot of audacity, planning, and perhaps money right off the bat. SoBos want to guarantee
themselves the most exciting part of the hike before resources run out (and most hostels in the Whites
are rumored to be expensive). They make a mad dash for it, usually solo, through the pesky black flies
(which are tormenting in the summer), down through the woods of Connecticut, speeding by the less
remote sections in the middle. Some SoBos reach the Smokey Mountains by winter, but most of them
never make it. Temptations of Christmas with the family may be too much, etc. etc. But a few do make
it to an anticlimactic finish at little Springer Mountain. I imagine that to have ended approximately with
Smokey Mountains National Park wouldn't be so bad or disappointing at all. But I can only imagine
what the physical SoBos went through. I was only a SoBo in spirit.
I write this now from memory alone. I have lost my Data Book (threw it away - "with my own
hands") so daily mileage numbers are no longer possible. I am also back in jail for the fifth time this
last calendar year. Nine months in jail for five months of freedom on the Appalachian Trail.
My decision to hike the Trail with myself is a sin, apparently, for which I continue to pay today.
Even though that was my American Dream. And I did make it, in every meaningful sense, though I
didn't realize I'd reached Katahdin until a year after I'd stopped hiking. I'll tell you what happened.
I made my way through the rest of the state of Virginia without many cares. I'd been broke for
awhile but never thought about money because whatever I needed found me. I was enamoured with the
country around me. The warmth of spring was a natural blessing that left me free to camp wherever I
liked. It never got cold at night, my mind was at ease, and there was nothing keeping me from being in
the precise moment I was already in. I saw with grateful, open eyes the nature that I'd made my home.
Setbacks did come my way, with gear or the physical difficulty of hiking ten to fifteen miles
every day. Pieces of my pride kept dying in embarrassingly public ways: my shit spread out all over the
trail in emergency efforts to dry my down sleeping bag in the sun. a water leak. trying to keep my food
together in torn plastic bags.
"Soreeee!" I'd wail and force a laugh whenever someone saw me in times like these. But no
other hiker ever looked down on me at all. Even when I got caught taking a piss like two feet from the
trail, leaning off a tree like a marsupial, all the guys passing ever really said was: "Don't worry about it.
That's like, my dream."
After I picked all the kernals out of the fire pit, I made my usual preparations to leave Wise
Shelter. I knew then that my life couldn’t be real, that nothing was in my control because the plotline
was so cheesy. Velveeta. Couldn’t be worse. “Corn Vulture?” No, old man. No. That’s not my name.
And yet I’d stopped to gather up the orange kernals. Probably spit out of some guy’s mouth. Those had
been my fingers touching them. “Everything, everything, everything, everything…in it’s right place!”
But I was mollified by the beauty of the Highlands. I enjoyed myself. I was greateful to be starving and
walking through hill flats alone. I barely made it up the slight raise. I kept stopping to sit on large rocks
and smoke butts leaved within my Data Book. Wet and musty-smelling. Too small and falling apart to
smoke without appliances. I burned my fingers and was grateful. Light-headed. Moving on.
But once I surfaced in the sun at the top of the hill…! God’s country! The dry dust trail led me
straight across a flat, high field of grey-green brush plants. Prickly like the desert. Buzzing with
grasshoppers and bees. Really beautiful. All around me were Virginia hills. Some of them were covered
with dry grass, faded green and gold. Some had sparce plants. And the gentle hills to my left, a little up
ahead, had those “wild ponies” all over them, herds of them grazing.
As they were of the same herd I’d seen the day before by the Shelter, I knew they weren’t
“wild.” They depressed me. But from far away they looked well, all together ripping grass tufts,
various pigments on their hides that I could make out even from a distance. I walked between the brush
plants on my solitary hill munching uncooked lentils out of a plastic bag, the hiking stick crooked
awkwardly under my right arm. Never enough hands. I stared at the ponies, thinking of the visions I’d
seen in Roan Mountain. They’d been magical, smooth-walking red horses. Their movements had
rippled like water, like leeks underwater under the deep current. Right in front of me, snagging my
attention from across where I’d stood on Eft’s porch. Their limbs waved to me. Seduced me. They were
so graceful and full of power. Pretty weird, to be seduced by a horse.
I continued to walk in peace, unruffled by these far away ponies on the ridges. Now I wasn’t
violently displaced into other emotional states or trances by anything around me in the Highlands. I
was my own agent and I was at least equal to everything around me. Comfortable. But definitely a little
high. Beatific in that way I get whenever I’m extra hungry. I looked around me and distinguished red
prongs curling up from around the brush. They sun was high above me. Noon. Plenty of time ahead of
me.
Past two SoBo men (section hikers?) I kept walking, still chewing my lentils. “Hey, how are
you?” “Oh hey!” Feeling really bizarre, in need, and sorry for myself. (But how else was I supposed to
look?) My thing about the Trail is this: it’s open to the public, I have a right to be there, but I inevitably
felt trashy whenever I encountered other souls. I think they invaded my space far more than I ever
endangered their tranquility, for they had each other. I was soon forgotten. No matter if they caught me
out in the middle of the Trail, tranced by my iPod into a spastic fit of dancing, or taking a piss like two
feet from the Trail, hanging off a limb like a marsupial. “Sorry!!” “Oh no, don’t worry about it,” they’d
assure me. “That’s like…my dream.” Or: drying out my polka dot sleeping bag, all my shit spread out,
everything wet from a water leak from within my pack. Pieces of my pride dying everywhere with each
stranger who saw me like that. (But how else was I supposed to look?)
I descended to a bit of a ranch, fenced in, with a trailer setting in the far left corner. Nobody
around. Hmmm. I clicked open the latch on this random diversion into private property, walked across
it to the trailer. Knocked, but nobody inside. Checked underneath it just to make sure there weren’t any
coolers filled with beer, then I was on my way.
From halfway up the orange rocks on the other side, I saw a lone black truck kicking up dust
fast making for the trailer. Just missed them? Or had they seen me? Cautious. Whatever. I didn’t want
to know.
I ran across a tall man, clearly another thu-hiker, staring out from behind dark glasses standing
still like a sentry. He lowered his head slightly, polite yet stoic, and said in a deep voice, “Hello, how
are you?” I don’t remember what I said, if I babbled in a nervous panic or if I kept it together with a
curt nod and a smile. But I do remember passing him. He was dressed all in black. Long black cargo
pants. Black pack. Long black, whispy hair in a pony tail.
After a mile later I stopped to get water near a bridge. I remember remerging from rhododendrons,
which makes sense because of the proximity to water, but I’d seen so many different climbs that day.
Areas. Zones. I was glad to be near water at least though. In my gathering of that resource, Gravy
passed by the way I’d just come. He pause on the bridge to greet me. I looked up and saw him, gentle
and beautiful. I was glad he’d stopped to say hello. Both of us, very shy. I can’t remember if I said
anything. His blonde, thick beard and moustache even furthered the gentleness of his face.
Towards the end of the day I stopped at a dismal place called Trimpi Shelter. But after I saw a
register entry from Gravy talking about a smoke break, I really wanted a cigarette. I made the impulsive
decision to hike on, the distance to the next shelter be damned! (near ten miles) Maybe somebody there
would have a smoke…
Now, the first five miles were alright, but the other five after the sun had set, were not. It rained
off and on, and the threat of things worsening was always hanging over my head. It thundered and I
walked an interminable uphill slope through briars.
I began to go a little crazy, doubting if I was on the “real” AT or whether the blazes I saw on the
trees were in fact a trail veered off from the Appalachian, painted there by locals as a joke. That stuff
does happen, I hear. But these blazes looked real! I stood close to a tree, really close, inspecting the
strip of neat paint. It did look real. But then where was the shelter? Surely I should have come across it
by now. What if I’d missed it in the dark?
“Have I really missed Partnership Shelter just to end up in Sugar Grove?” I wondered in
despair. “Really? Once again?”
And then I literally walked right into the clearing that house the Shelter.
Everyone was asleep but I found pizza boxes and liters of soda on the table in front of the twofloored structure. I set out my mat on the lower deck, then turned hungrily towards the remnants of a
feast. I fell asleep easily that night, well fed and exhausted. On a platform with other people I knew
were doing the same thing that I was.
That marked my highest mileage day of the entire trail, at 24.6 miles.
In the morning I met hikers Indy and Heels. They said that “the Goonies,” ie Animal, Gravy, and
Dimples, were up ahead in town. Would I like to go with them?
“You’re going into Marion?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Indy replied. “The guys are meeting up with Dimples at a hotel there. She was injured
for awhile, and we’re all going over there to hang out.” I gladly agreed to go with.
In the process of our packing up, Indy was talking about all the fishing he planned to do on the
river when he got off Trail. Did I by any chance need a mail drop? He said he had one waiting at a gas
station in Atkins that he wouldn’t be able to use. So he wrote me down his name on a piece of paper and
gave it to me. “I’ll call ahead, but just tell them you’re picking up my package.”
Feeling much more reassured about the next bit if the journey (it helps if you know when you’re
going to have enough to eat) I headed into town with the two of them. We hitched a ride pretty easily
and were soon at the Econo Lodge in Marion, VA.
The tall guy from the Grayson Highlands was standing outside smoking a cigarette. I found out
his name was Stone Kicker. He’d been waiting for us and would make up the fourth person in our room
adjoining the Goonies. I tried to tell Indy that I could only shell out ten dollars for my share of the room
but he assured me I didn’t have to worry about it. After he went inside the small lobby to pay, the four
of us went up the stairs to our room.
It was nice to be in air conditioning! That was my first thought. We had cool and running water
on the inside, sunshine and a view of the train tracks a few steps to the outside on the balcony.
Even though I had no clean clothes to change into, the shower made me feel clean and renewed.
I shared a beer on the balcony with Dimples, the girl in the Goonies squad.
“Yeah, I’ve been holed up here for a few days with a really bad ankle,” she told me. I saw her
crutches leaning up against the Spanish-style lathered wall.
“So you’ve been partying it up?” I asked. Picturing what I would do with a hotel room all to
myself and a lot of beer.
“I miss the Trail, mostly,” she replied. “This is the first of those beers I’ve had. I’ve just been
watching a lot of TV, waiting for my leg to heal.”
Dimples told me she’d known Gravy since high school, that after he’d gotten out of the Corps
they’d decided to do the whole Trail. They’d met Animal way back in Georgia and had been together
ever since. But lately she’d been struggling with her leg.
“My mom and sisters are coming up soon in the camper to visit me,” she said. “I’ll probably go
to the doctor, see if there’s anything seriously wrong.” She finished her beer in a long draw then set it
down on the ground beside her. We sat in wooden chairs pulled from the inside. The balcony was all
haze and light.
“What happened?” I asked her simply. Already feeling the effects of the beer.
“To my leg?” she grinned up at me. “I guess I sprained it or something about two weeks ago and
all that trying to walk on it made it worse. I kept having to stop and rest. Hitch rides at road crossings.
So I decided to take it easy and wait awhile.” Dimples smiled at me, a kind smile which brought out the
two points in each cheek. She had blue eyes beneath a wide-brimmed sun hat. Freckles on her arms,
face.
“I hope you feel better,” I said.
“Thank you!” Kindly.
Stone Kicker proposed an excursion to town and the laundromat, maybe a general store. “I need
a few things.”
“Your pack must weight eighty pounds solid already!” Indy laughed.
“I know, I know, but somebody somewhere needs toenail clippers and all that other heavy stuff
that nobody else wants to carry. Besides, we need a bottle of shampoo for the room.”
“Just promise us you won’t try to pack out the shampoo,” said Indy.
“We’ll use all that for the room.”
The four of us, Stone Kicker, Indy, Heels, and I, followed the highway down to where it met a
sidewalk. There I stepped aside Heels for a ways, talking about this and that. I was bemoaning my
conditions I guess, as I often do. “I’m a girl, and I find it hard to relate to other people – men or
women.”
“When I deal with other people,” Heels said, “I try to treat them the same.”
Hmmmmm. Well there was an idea.
We walked along in the sun all together.
Stone Kicker and I made a brief forray into a dollar store where he bought not only shampoo but
two foam noodles, the ones you use in the pool. “I need some padding for the straps on my pack,” he
said. We also got a bag of Tide Pods to use at the laundromat and light tupperware to carry the
remaining ones we wouldn’t use in the wash. “Somebody might need them!” he said. “They’re not too
heavy, feel them.” I held the plastic in my hand. “Do you need conditioner or anything?”
“For my hair?”
“Yes.”
“Uh…no.” I was telling the truth but then it felt like a lie. I just wanted to keep moving, I didn’t
care, that was my main agenda in this too-bright store. The nervousness of being in town had set in on
me, and I knew Stone Kicker was feeling it too. We dealt with it in different ways, but we both felt
really uneasy. He wanted to strategize for the chaos, or at least make it a litle more bearable through
little luxuries he either could or couldn’t afford, but it drove him crazy because the chaos was still there
– maybe because it was there at all. Like Stone Kicker, I was awake to the chaos which I choose to call
pointlessness. The underlying absurdity of life. But I was so new to this realization, so completely
horrified , that I’d lost my head. All I could do was run. And in this mode of panic, I gave the physical
expression of leaving, dropping out, in the place of what I could not say at the sime: I am trying to get
away from what I object to, which is everything. There is no place for me in the world, and in the future
there will be still less of a chance, fewer opportunities for people of my mind to live. I know this, and it
makes me crazy.
“Hey hiker trash!” Stone Kicker yelled out this greeting to Indy and Heels. They were leaning
up against the outside of the laundromat in their rain gear. They only stuff they couldn’t wash. I winced
as we walked down the grassy slope towards them. Why’d he have to say that?
“It’s not true!” I immediately tried to defend all of us. “That’s got to be a joke, right? If they
only knew us.” But for me at least, my track record is terrible. A drunken prostitutde. That’s who I am.
That’s who I’ve been to the world for years. I am really trashy (or worse) but I can’t even say it. “I’m
an artist” I tell myself all the time, especially recently. Or: “When they call me trash they mean it in the
Biblical sense.” But no. At some point I definitely crossed a line into not giving a fuck. I’m nasty and it
IS trashy, I admit it. There, I said it. But at the time, I couldn’t.
Stone Kicker threw in like four of the pods with our laundry. I wuld have used one, saving the
rest, so it’s good I wasn’t in charge of this part of the operation. My rain gear was just plain rancid from
body odor mixed with that burning smell from old cigarette butts. The pants smelled like sour cunt. So I
wore my bathing suit and threw the rain gear in there too. Would it melt…? Risky. Oh well. Give it a
try. I walked out of there and joined Indy and Heels outside.
After we got our laundry done, back at the Econo Lodge, Indy turned on the TV and for some
reason it irritated me. I wanted to leave the room and I probably just should have gone over to
Dimples’ room and drank, but instead I watched Stone Kicker endlessly organize his stuff. He’d lay it
all out on the bed, like items stuck together. Evenly spaced like so many bullet cartridges or issued
clothing for warfare. He’d put it all in his pack, test the weight, then take everything out again and start
the process all over.
I asked for the toenail clippers, just to break the silence.
After this, things descended a little. People can move up and down within heaven and hell, but
after a lot more alcohol and my getting practically raped by an accident, the accident of being alive. Or
was it an accident? I get raped by aliens anyway, what accident should there be in real life? I'll tell you.
The deferrment of pleasure. I should only be who Im with if I want to be there with them inside of me.
Things do matter, nobody should hurt anyone just because They hurt us inside, but I'm saying...maybe it
wasn't an accident? I don't know.
I will tell you that after we went outside, me and what's-his-name with the lovely hair, I got
completely howling wasted. Black label alcohol was passed around, someone showed me themselves
bowing down to put on a hat. Something so simple, but I Saw them. The movement was all twitchy and
more real than everything else and then it was gone. Another hat. Another person. An imminent stare. I
asked Dimples suddenly about the efts in the trail. What were they anyway, and could they kill you.
"Actually, you do more damage to them than they do to you," she told me.
"AAAHHH!!" I suddenly wailed. Even the train couldn't cover my cries. I went ballistic just
sobbing, terrified. "Are you serious!? Well! Well....THANK GOD!" thinking of Ritchie. I just associate
the color orange with him or something, like he is the eft. Like I met him. Whoever he was. At the time,
I didn't know. But now I know he was the prince of the sky.
The next day I didn't have a hangover, which was amazing. Stone kicker gave me a really great
hat, which covered not only the back of my neck but the sides of my face and all my hair in a fine fabric
draping down all around. Safari. To walk to the wal mart in town was almost bearable under cover of
this hat, but when I went in all I could think of to buy were a bunch of bananas and one glacier freeze
gatorade. I couldn't make myself stay in there any longer. Found five dollars in my pack earlier, could
have probably added cents together in order to get at least one more thing...but maye not. I haven't been
able to do basic math in years, much less in public.
Walking back to the motel my limbs jerked involuntarily with loud noises from the road. I felt
very naded, out of place. Sexless and therefore safe in my shorts with winnowed out legs. Nobody
could tell I was a woman, could they? My arms, my arms even were pretty thin.
I saw Animal and Gravy out on a lawn in front of the motel, sitting in front of what I guessed
was Dimples' family's trailer. But I veered off to the left without even saying hello. I lied to my own self
and said that the great dane inside would probably have knocked me over, but really I just didn't want to
see anyone. I couldn't make myself talk to them and so I walked away. I hurried towards the quiet of
our room and the dark.
Stone Kicker took one look at me and said: "I think we could find a real Mexican restauraunt
around here if you'd want." I said sure, let's go.
It was a good time, just me and him. We smoked and drank real margheritas and sat in silence. I
was angry, I guess, but I couldn't tell what about. It was a weird moment. And then everything
descended, we ordered food and other people came to join us. Someone started singing something, "Is it
Nickleback? What is it?" Loser by Beck? No, how could you confused the two!? I just sat in smiling
silence, unaware of my potential danger. Five! Five for Shaman Jonathan!
Stone Kicker suggested to me that we go back to Partnership Shelter south of town. We wouldn't
be able to hike drunk very far anyway. I'd had a few.
With some difficulty, we hitched a ride back to the Trail head. A good ole boy in a pickup got us.
The young couples and old women passed us by and sure did a lot of staring, but nobody pulled over
for at least fifteen minutes.
The blast of air blew my brains out and any potential worry or thought while I rode in the open
back. Stone Kicker had sat up front next to the guy. "YOU GOOD BACK THERE!?" the driver had
knocked near my head on the window as we raced in and out of curves along the road. "YEAH!" I
yelled back, giving two thunbs up so he could see.
Walking back to the Shelter, just a ways from the road, I regarded Stone Kicker's unusually tall
stature. Long hair that was so light and whispy it looked like black ink underwater. Somehow
otherworldly. It seemed to...move. Wear just a little bit differently than anything else, according to laws
of gravity that didn't match anything around it. I was quietly watching this awhile.
And that's when I began to suspect that he was a fallen angel. He didn't belong here; he was far
too courteous and tall. Looking at the splays of his fingers, knotted joints, made me think of broken
wings. or jumbled rocks. Long fingers. old. I felt very comfortable in his company and never once felt
afraid.
We found Jonah occupying the Shelter, doing laundry in the sink with powdered detergent
around back.
"What are you doing, turning SoBo?" he asked us.
"No, we just went out to eat!" I chirped. "I had quasadillas and they were perfectly flakey
golden! And the margheritas - and there were a lot of them - were the real kind." I just wanted him to be
jealous.
"That's a good thing," said Jonah, smiling genuinely. Then he laughed a goodnatured laugh.
The three of us had the Shelter to ourselves all night, and our dynamic was one of the most
comfortable I've ever experienced in my life! I felt completely as myself, free to walk in my own skin.
For that moment, I was a young woman. In that moment I was in, I was exactly what I wanted to be,
and we were very present with the atmosphere and each other.
After dinner (Stone Kicker made quasadillas for me again that were just as good somehow as
the ones in the restaurant), I went to take a piss and saw a NO CAMPING sign - right next to a perfect
section of grass. That made me laugh. I wandered down the way moving so freely that power was
drawn to me out of the atmosphere and I attracted it just by moving. Just by taking a piss. Sometimes it
doesn't matter what you're even doing, you can attract power. Or at least I can. And watch out if I ever
start talking recently, because there is so much power in my voice that it leads whatever company its in,
regardless of ages or hierarchies.
With a few waves of my arms, a wag of the head left then right to stretch, the forest surrounded
me, it was my world, and I wasn't just a being below the sky. "Ahhh...." I snaked a graceful hand up
through the middle of my breast and up in a straightened palm towards the sky. lifting my head.
Without looking I could walk. through the wholeness of an absolutely perfect moment.
The sounds of trees breaking in the forest below the Shelter let me know where Jonah had gone.
He told me later that he'd split a dead fallen one between two standing trees. He dragged back wood
that would keep the fire going a long time. The two of us sat and talked, Stone Kicker standing sentinel
smoking a cigarette. "I have a chair in my pack somewhere," he said. Everything around us felt still and
present and powerful. It wasn't about the words or anything but that energy between us. "Maybe I'll go
look for it." I thought about how he couldn't just sit down on the stones or logs because his legs were
too long. Jonah and I sat like little biscuit lumps comfortably near the ground. I laughed.
Jonah was wide awake beneath his affable air to all, goodwill toward men and everything. At
one point he described to me the call of the bird called the wipporill. "It's really, really loud and turns up
throughout Virginia but mostly at very bad moments. When hikers are trying to sleep at a Shelter or
something. It goes whip-or-WILL, whip-or-WILL! loud as fuck and that goes on all night."
"Really?" I asked. "I've never heard one."
"Well...there's one going off right now." And then I could hear it. It was so crazy and loud I
wondered how I could have missed it.
"Do you wanna see it?" Jonah asked.
"Yeah."
We got up and stood next to each other facing the trees. Jonah got his headlamp beam shining
far into the branches and he quickly found what he was looking for. "There. See the eye right there?"
And then I saw it. It didn't look real! It was so immobile and weird, one reflective eye just
looking back at us, all the while the call rang the night. Not moving.
"Oh, wow," was all I could say.
We walked back to the fire and before I sat down I roved a little with my legs and eyes. Slowed
down and gave Jonah a significant look. "I want you" was what it said, my round lips fluttering at the
sides of my sharp turned face. I began to caress him up and down with my glance but he stopped me.
"No no!" He waved a cautious finger in front of his face.
Hmmm....ok.
Stone Kicker stepped out of the woods to the side of the Shelter. Where the wipporill had been.
and I noticed it wasn't calling anymore. I think that he killed it. without even touching it.
A few days later I met a group who called themselves "Team Chic-Fil-A" camping at a Shelter
way down the way from the Trail. a zig zagged blue blaze. They were the snobbiest group of hikers I'd
met yet, they all seemed very wary of me and wouldn't meet with me in direct conversation even while
over dinner at the table. Mostly they ignored me. There was only one lucky girl in their group, Bliss,
who spent the evening holed up in the Shelter with her face to the wall. She couldn't possibly have been
that way normally, so I began thinking that her attitude was my fault. Either that or the fact that another
guy in the Shelter, a short and pungent-smelling hiker who introduced himself as The Mayor, was
getting really stoned.
I watched the scene play out from where I sat. One of the party, a guy, stayed inside the Shelter
with Bliss, beside her. Two other guys made meals at the table silently, making eye contact with no one,
and The Mayor talked to all of us as he smoked. I was watching this one guy, he later signed himself in
the register as "Wild Bill." He was tootling the multitudes perhaps? Holding up a mirror to what I'm
supposedly like? I'm not sure. Because the way he thumped his chest and acted the caveman really
didn't suit his other vibes, his notes left in the register. His neat handwritting. Oh really? As he built the
fire he broke sticks and got ridiculous. "Fire! Fire!" he said. His long, thick, fair hair leant to the play
quite nicely.
I'd just spent the last half hour fiddling around with the driest, thinnest fire fuel possible. It'd
been left for us right in the fire pit, all set up, and I hadn't been able to spark anything.
"You know," I began, "I can never seem to start fires. You're doing a really great job."
He here looked up at me but didn't say anything. I think he was mad at me. His eyebrows
glowered his face and his mouth set sternly in his light beard. At least his eyes met mine though, stared
directly into mine. Overall, the evening was very awkward.
The next morning I woke up to misting rain. Everyone was still inside the Shelter, warm in
sleeping bags. All of us together side by side in the new dark of the day. I breathed in the fresh air of the
forest and exhaled warm into the familiar fabric near my head. All my close smells were mine, human.
A natural residue in a scent left on my skin or in my long hair or close to where I breathed every night.
The gear that was mine. I was content to breathe and be warm, slowly move myself into readying for
the day's hike. I love to turn over on a side for awhile then turn back. It's a lot of rustling movement but
it feels so good to switch. I feel like my very veins pump blood differently, I breathe differently,
depending on which side I am. And then to turn over on my stomach, face buried warm and safe! This
is pleasure and the relaxation of everything for me. One hand under a bony hip beneath me, cradling my
body, and the other hand curved about my face...! I woke up slowly that way for awhile, about an hour.
Innocent yet tuned into other realities other people don't know about. The woods as beauty, not as a
hideaway.
When other people started getting ready, I sat up too. Socks were found, precious feet examined.
Every once and awhile I'd hear the crack of a joint in a body adapting to the exploratory edge of
physical endurance. moving into states of mental epiphany and free fall. Play. climes of spiritual peace
and rare realization that are very difficult to fit into everyday life. even explain to communities of
ourselves as hikers.
We had all, by this point in time, either decided we wanted this life or had found ourselves in
this situation, little else in society seeming sane. (I was there for both reasons.) But we were all very
much doing this, hundreds of miles in. And all the growth doesn't come at once in the beginning like a
trial of getting in shape that, once you're over it, allows you to contiue. A hiker (it doesn't matter where
they're from) never could hike the Appalachian Trail perfectly, or even near their best, because society
is so permeated with poison that it would take at least the six months of a complete thru-hike in order to
detox. Maybe years!
Later that day, after getting back up to the trail from the steep blue blaze, I crossed down an
open hillside where trees had been burned. Ominous spikes jarring fingers, prongs up at the sky.
Defiance. Black vestiges. The aura of these mountains I liked.
I passed two day hikers going the other direction and they warned me vehemently about a
section of trail called "the Priest," but it must not have been too difficult because I passed it without
even realizing it and ended up at the Priest Shelter before five. There was a guy waiting there at the
Shelter and we talked a bit about things we'd like to confess. And then the darkness overtook me that
sometimes does, probably the same darkness which overtook Bliss and made her stare at the wall. I
walked up the hill, losing my water bottle and items, sobbing all the way, and then I fell almost face
first into the leaves. Just trying to breathe. When I came back Guttersnipe was waiting for me. That's
what he said his name was. A short guy in a blue shirt and red cap.
"My real name is Michael Moore," he said.
"Oh really? Gangsta!" I said. Feeling better now.
"And who are you?" he asked.
"I didn't tell you that?" Snot dripping down my face.
"No."
"I'm Coinvolta."
"I thought your name was T-Rex." I just scowled, aware of how fat my legs were. Thank you,
but don't you know the culture of hair?
We took a walk together, a blue blaze trail that was really extraordinary. He had to convince me
to go. It was like stepping into another, Latin American dimension. The jungle. The fireflies were all
around us, and a giant cascading waterfall with huge black rocks was below us roaring. Moss on the
rocks made it difficult to climb and I couldn't even believe it! The mists, I couldn't believe I could see!
And then I found a banana on a rock, bright yellow, and thought...what the hell? But I took it and put it
in the top of my pack, knowing i'd eat it later. They're my favorite.
Guttersnipe climbed down the waterfall while I ate the banana. The sun set completely and it
was very quiet and very full of fireflies and fresh but thick jungle air. Absolute quiet. I forgot where I
was, what month and in what state.
But i'm difficult, and soon after we began to keep hiking when he got back, and when our paces
didn't match up exactly enough, I told him to "just keep going." To go on without me, in other words.
He was in front of me going very fast, and I wanted to walk at my own pace. I could see that he was
getting along just fine. I don't want to strain myself. Unnecessary stuff like that really bothers me.
"Are you sure?" Yes, I was sure.
An hour later, all uphill and still on the white blaze AT, I emerged at a parking lot. A peaceful
country road with no cars on it was what it met with. There was a lonely speed sign, going reflective in
the falling cast of night. I turned to my right and saw Guttersnipe sitting on a wooden beam marking
boundaries. Next to him standing was this tall redheaded guy beside a truck. I walked over to see what
was good.
Guttersnipe hardly said anything but just listened to the local guy talk, which he did, to a
fascinating degree. He never stopped talking, even when I came over to the two of them - a brief nod
and an outstretched hand with a packet of shelled sunflower seeds and he was off again - the guy was
high as fuck. It showed in everything. I'd also just never seen anyone like him before. His hands, which
he gestured often with, were unusually large in the palm, disproportionate to everything else on his
body. Crinkly red hair, practically unclothed except for a pair of ripped blue jeans. The biggest tear was
right at the crotch. He wasn't even wearing boxers.
"So I just didn't know, you know?" he said. I fell into his speech, tried not to be distracted by his
appearance. "My boss tells me to do this thing, not perfect enough I guess I don't know why he couldn't
tell me to fucking take the stuff there and not where every delivery every other fucking time goes.
Everyone under the exact same schedule! Always that way, that's how the company is. He fucking
knows what I do, where I go, why not specify? So it's all fucked, I figure I'll sleep in my car here
tonight, I figure -"
"What, in your car?" I expostulated. Who would do that? I was about to suggest to the dude that
he start hiking the Appalachian Trail, and the dude was about to start talking again, when Guttersnipe
handed me a nearly-empty bottle of Mountain Dew.
"Here, drink this."
"Thanks." I was really thirsty and didn't know where the next water source would be.
The guy talked until the sun went down and I listened avidly to everything. I was really getting
into his story when Guttersnipe said that: "Hey, we should probably get going." It took some
convincing for both me and the local to end the session, but Guttersnipe got me with the fact that we
hadn't even any idea how far the Shelter was. So we called out goodbyes and found the AT on the other
side of the road.
"Man, I can't believe that!" I said to Guttersnipe.
"Can't believe what?"
"Just his luck I guess. All that stuff was going on with his family right when his boss sent him
on the wrong job 'by accident' you know?"
"Yeah," Guttersnipe said. He walked ahead of me in the dark. He had on his headlamp already
and I was trying to reach around back behind me for mine, but I don't know why I would do that. There
aren't even any zippers I could undo with the thing on my back still. I walked on by the light of his
glow, figuring I'd take care of this problem eventually. trying not to fall and pitch my head into the
small of my back.
"Hey, why'd you stop?" I demanded.
"You mean why did I wait for you?"
"NO! I mean...hmn. But also 'no' because I want to know what you-"
"I thought that guy looked really, really crazy. I just didn't want you to run into him in that
parking lot alone."
"I have no fear!" I protested.
"Maybe that's as it should be, and...maybe not," he breathed. "I'm really not sure. So." Now I
really couldn't see, it was so dark.
By being there, I believe that I began the process of becoming poison. Not just foreign, as a
South American jungle would be to a desert, but otherworldly. Not even to do with Satan or evil.
Just...changed. So far removed. There are certain motifs I recognize in the forest that remind me of this
poison. Jagged leaves. They come on a certain type of tree, my favorite one I've always noticed whether
in Maryland or on the AT from Georgia on up through New Jersey. They were originally noticed by me
in Maryland when I was doing drugs. My favorite tree! The leaves appear as though they are moving
when they're not. Spiraling outwards and wagging jagged. Like hats waving. Just looking at them
reminds me of tripping.
And being there in the dark, I let the poison in like a friend. I was lonely with man, Adam
maybe never was my mate and the devil remained illusive to me. This other idea, this alien presence,
outside the New Testament or anything else I'd ever read of, would become my companion sometimes
as I slowly began to desert the realm of the living.
But that happened much later. For now I only felt it subtly, noticing it change the way I felt
about the world in moments of pure silence and darkness. It called me.
Guttersnipe's voice broke me out of an intense meditation. How long?
"Hey, uh...I saw a snake." So? "I just wanted to make sure you were alright..." I really resented
this guy. But I stepped my way slowly over to him from where I'd been standing stopped. Slowly
between roots I high stepped. Puddles sheen in the black forest floor. A real jungle! The banana still in
my hand.
"You alright?" He sounded worried. Why? I didn't answer but just stared back at him. We hiked
to the Shelter which was located where that strange blue blaze met back up with the original AT.
Guttersnipe boiled a crayfish into his ramen noodles (he said it was so-so) and I ate the rest of the
banana and some more sunflower seeds. Had he given me the rest? Guess so. Hmm. We stared out into
the black static of the night.
Before getting into the sleeping bags the two of us had worried over the ground, Guttersnipe
speculated we should hang bear bags. I didn't know about that though. Should he hang his food here or
there? Should we do this or that? All of his talk seemed so stupid to me.
O
The Mayor walked by my campsite one day just as I'd hung up the phone with my dad. Glad to
see another hiker I knew, I forced a smile and copped-out due to weakness with a "stock greeting":
"Hey, how are you?," as if anything real could have possibly hoped to evolve out of that. As if
we have time in this short life for anything not real to happen! He sat down right next to me because
we'd been cool like that since our first conversation, and he told me about all the Trail gossip as he
rolled a join for us to share. Blueberry-flavored rolling papers.
"Are you really sleeping in that?" he asked. I looked over to where the crumpled-over blue tarp I
was using lay propped up with a stick. There was more to it, some rocks and a folding and balance (I
didn't have any cord) but I didn't really feel like explaining the ingeniousness of it all.
"Yeah," I laughed, exhaling a messy cloud of smoke. Why was I even smoking? I always get
paranoid when I do, these past few years.
"I think it's great!" he said. I looked into his eyes and he seemed to mean this in a friendly, non
predatory way. Non sexual for the moment, I was really relieved.
What I didn't tell him was that I'd been miming Jonah with the whole tarp thing. That would
have sounded bizarre to me if I'd said it out loud to him just then, but it was true. I'd thrown my wellloved tent away back at Roan Mountain when I thought I'd be hiking with the minstrels permanently.
And I'd Shelter-hopped until finding the tarp in a hiker box. unused. perfect. the exact same color as his.
My theory on this goes beyond what I'd at first supposed. While hiking I think about a lot of
crazy shit. What I'd first thought was, "I'd rather be Prince Andrei than marry him." I'd read in a Max
Perkins biography that he'd told all five of his daughters that, "should they ever be fortunate enough to
find a man like Prince Andrei from War and Peace, that they should marry him." But that seemed
sordid advise to his own direct family, because Prince Andrei was terrible towards his wife! indifferent
verging on cruel. while in private he was someone quite different. someone discerning of the dreadful
darkness in life that is so interesting to me, that's why I write this book. Warning signs of doom, futility,
or just the randomness of life. I'd always thought him one of the best characters in all of literature.
But what I think now about why I went with the tarp is that love deferred is still a relationship. It
can change you just as powerfully (if not more) than if two people had gotten together and had "an
official relationship," with physical proximity (actually being in the same place) and a certain reliability
of growth fed through daily conversation. But few things are certain for me these days.
"Are you alright?" The Mayor was asking me, that question again. It wasn't just because I was
spacing out; I get that in the middle of conversations with full eye contact too. a seemingly random
interruption to what I'm listening to them say or what I'm saying.
"Why does everyone ask me that?" I could feel my skeleton shrinking in posture because I was
stoned and so threw out a defiant hand, a gesture, like to shake it all off. "OK. Say there really was
something wrong with me. Whatever. But how can you tell just by looking?"
"Well...," he paused, then looked back into my face. "When I look at your eyes, I can see
through them. They're like clouds."
"That doesn't even make any sense, man." I couldn't see through clouds.
"I can just tell you've been through a lot of stuff."
"Huh." I didn't like that idea, of people being able to know what I was thinking. or of being sad.
The Mayor stayed with me a long time. Then just before dark he said he was going to try and
reach the Shelter. I watched him walk away and up through the Trail in the trees.
O
On the uphill to a mountain I was unusually exhausted one day. I'd had to take my shirt off I was
sweating so much. My pack felt rock full because I'd just refilled on water. Carrying two liters of water
along with everything else in my pack was usually difficult, but especially that day it tired me.
I saw Jonah and Mud taking a break by the Trail. I threw them a nod and kept trekking. "To stop
momentum now I might never get to the top of this thing," I thought. I think they were also smoking pot
and my day would have been over if I'd succumbed to that temptation again.
Not more than fifteen minutes later they passed me. I guess they were done resting (and yeah,
they had been smoking). I stood to the side to let them by and noticed their depressed, hazy natures.
Their dogs pulled ahead at the leash, rearing to go. They both greeted me through lidded, moist eyes.
But they were still hiking pretty fast. I guess they were used to hiking high.
I needed another break soon after that. I ate more food and tried to drink down more of the
water. And then I ran into the two of them again taking their second break too.
"This is crazy!" I laughed.
"Yeah, this mountain is killing me," said Jonah. I sat down, gave up being embarrassed for the
moment about how red and sweaty I was.
"I don't know how you can smoke and hike," I said. "I used to get stoned every day and walk to
class, but that's a little different. Mountains here and all. But also, when I smoke weed now, I get
immediately paranoid. I blame east coast weed - either that, or I've done to many other drugs.
Prescription ones are the worst."
"Woah, woah!" Mud laughed. "What? Are you saying that all east coast weed is terrible?"
"I mean...it tastes different to me, yeah."
"'Cause this is really good shit!" Jonah informed me. But I could tell he'd probably been
smoking all day.
"Well, you're from Colorado, right?" I remembered. "I just bought off friends who could go to
the clubs with their state IDs. get just the right high, my favorite weed was called 'Odyssey.'"
"Where were you, California?" asked Jonah.
"Yeah, I studied at Berkeley."
"That's awesome," said Mud. "Was it crazy?"
"Yeah, I can't believe I graduated because I was into so many other things, but I also just really
loved what I was studying."
"Did you have to work at all while you were out there?" Jonah asked then.
"No."
"Oh my God...!" He swung his head to the side, hands meeting over a leaned posture. "That's
disgusting!" He seemed to want to say. But I didn't care.
"I worked plenty after I graduated," I put in. They both looked back at me, curious. "A lot of
restaraunts, but that's hard as fuck. I worked at anywhere from The Melting Pot to a Ruby Tuesday. The
longest job I held was at a Wendy's in Maryland."
"That's where you're from? Maryland?" Jonah asked.
"Yeah."
"Uh huh. So...why would you leave California just to move back in with your parents? That's
what you did, right?" Mud gave this speaker a passive yet also pissed-off look, like "Leave her alone."
"No, it's alright!" I assured Mud. "I don't even know why, really. I was very bad at planning? for
the future, not what was in front of me. I lived for the moment, was impulsive. But everything kind of
fell into place."
"Don't you have any connections out there?" Jonah asked.
"Well, yeah." But I didn't elaborate.
"So you just don't give a shit about anything? Wherever you are, you're alright? And this, this
whole hiking thing, is just 'different' for you?"
"No, man! That's not it at all!" I said. "I don't have to explain myself to you. Yeah, I genuinely
enjoy nature. I'm just saying. Nature is wonderful. Who knows how bad you or I have it. Who knows if
you're running from stuff more than me. But here is where we all are together now." We all tried to feel
that for a minute. I sort of succeeded, not sure about for them because my talking got in the way of the
moment. I kept going: "The s ection hike I did in 2010 was one of the best things I could have done
after graduating."
Jonah didn't believe me, he glared not at me but still off to the side. I was just starting to think of
the wipporill he'd shown me and how much it had scared me when Mud asked:
"Do you think prescription meds are the worst ones? Uh...'drugs' I mean?"
"Since you put it that way, yeah. I'm not sure sometimes in my colloquium of one, but I feel that
human beings are so varried that they should be able to be their own doctors."
"That's a cool way to put it."
"The dosages of antipsychotics that doctors have put me on - combined with alcohol they knew I
was drinking - then adding too many stimulants just because I 'wanted them'...it just makes me think I
would have been better off doing meth or drinking solo." Jonah looked back at me but still didn't say
anything. "So. Where's the next water source?" I asked. "Do either of you know? I hardly ever look at
my Data Bok and I'm thinking of just pouring out the water I have. It's too heavy."
"How much water do you carry?" Jonah asked.
"Two liters, always."
"What? I only carry one, for both me and my dog."
"Oh. Well then I'm definitely pouring all this out."
"There's supposed to be a lake at the top of this mountain. We were thinking of uh...going for a
swim. Rinsing off."
"That sounds perfect!" I said excitedly.
"Yeah. Well...we'd better keep moving or we'll never get to the Shelter by night." Jonah led the
way, Zephyr straining at the leash, then Mud followed him and his dog Kali trailed behind. I reached
down a few times to pet her as we walked and before I knew it we were up the mountain.
At the top it opened out into a large grassy space. blue skies with really fast-moving white
clouds surrounded us like a dome overhead. 360 degrees we could see and I lept freely in the grass. The
other two ran with me, letting their dogs run off to go chase each other, and for one ideal moment a
mystical triad was formed. I feel drawn to groups of three, and this was another one I'd met with on the
Trail. For that one moment we simply were, together, and there was no becoming that needed to be
done. It's a difficult state to slip into. Effortless, yet rare in life.
We sat down on some rocks near the middle of the field. Mud threw Kali a few pieces of pretzel.
I sunned myself and wondered where the water was.
"I'm going to try and find this water," Jonah then said.
"I'll go with you!" I walked after him towards an area thta looked likely, flat with cat-tails
growing out of it. It was a long way off but I wanted to see if there was anywhere to swim.
There was no lake and the water source was just a shallow, black pool of stillwater. Jonah had to
get down really low to carefuly fill up his water bottle without stirring up the sludge at the bottom. I
didn't see how I was going to pour into my two liter pouch without running water or a built-in pipe to
the side of a hill which is seen sometimes.
"Is this really it?" I asked.
"Yes, this is really it." He still seemed really mad. I didn't know what for. "Uh, it's good to have
a small gatorade bottle or something that can get lower to the ground for sources like these," he said.
"It'll be summer soon and there's supposed to be like no sources in PA and especially New York."
"Yeah I know, I've hiked that entire section."
He turned back towards me from where he'd been doing something with the water. Purifying it I
guess. He had one gatorade bottle full and this other one-liter pouch.
"Here, you can have this." He handed me the pouch. I looked down at it in my hands. It was
light plastic with a small opening the size of a quarter at the top. It could easily be pressed on bent to
angle right for water flow in shallow waters. Crazy lines of blue and red squiggled designs on the
outside. There were a few designs of dogs too.
"Thanks!"
"Yeah.." Then for some reason I kneeled down next to him, knees spread apart and balancing my
elbows on my legs. Like that, I realized I could smell my own cunt, but I didn't care. I went on with
what I wanted to say.
"I would hike with you. If not now, then after the AT is over. You said you were thinking of
doing the Continental Divide Trail in Colorado, and -"
And then he hit me with some code speak. I've heard it a few times, where the subtext of
whatever they actually say is the whole message, and it's as clear as a smack in the face. You don't seem
to remember the actual words of what they say. The meaning was: "Maybe if I had any use for a 20buck whore!" How did he know about that!? My mouth fell open and I just laughed, looked back at
him. I didn't have to explain that one to him either, what had happened to me in Roan Mountain. Those
three or four days after which some hiker in the back of the truck had seen Eft handing me twenty
bucks.
Since I've been in jail and have had such good access to a weird library, I've found another, more
accurate term for what Eft was other than "Saint" or "Satan" (or 'prince of clouds'). He was a jinn.
Jonah got up and walked back to the field, leaving me there.
Well, damn! I laughed him off and walked back also.
We made our way up to the Shelter separately. I'd stayed behind to sit and admire the view
awhile. There was a town dotting the land below with sparse buildings. The wildflowers growing on the
mountain top were red, growing tall in budding tendrils. Little white flowers also bloomed everywhere
closer to the grass. Buttercups.
I made a bowl of raisin bran while sitting on a rock beside some weeds and ate it fiendishly, bent
over the bowl because of the wind. And it really went down nicely even though it was prickly what with
the water I'd just received and all. The sugar on the raisins reminded me of how I'd pick them out of
bowls of raisin bran at my old grandmother's house. Her phone was bright red and her flooring was all
green.
The Shelter where I found everyone at the top of the hill was really nice. It was out of the few
stone structures I'd seen since the Smokeys. I walked in through an actual door and it had four walls
like a house instead of one open side. Several bunk beds lined the walls and I could see Mud and Jonah
laying out their things for the night over the beds and part of the picnic table. There may have been two
other people in the shadows.
"Hey, made it OK?" Mud asked.
"Yeah." I thought that was pretty obvious. "But I think I'm going to hike on."
"You're what?" someone asked.
"I'm hiking on! I just had some good, whole grains, wasn't sure how far the Shelter
was...anyway, I'm feeling a night hike." I turned to walk back out the door and indeed I did feel
brimming with joy alive in expectation of night hiking again! As I walked away I felt the weight of all
that I owned, my innate human value apart from poverty or others' perceptions of what my accumulated
experience "meant" to the world." I fairly floated along my way.
On the way down the mountain I met with the local man who'd done Trail Magic back at
Orchard Shelter before Trail Days.
"Oh hey!" I greeted him. "How's it going? More Trail Magic?" I guessed, looking at all that he
carried.
"There's whiskey!" he smiled. "You wanna come back up to the Shelter now, right?" Laughing.
"Actually no, I'm feeling a night hike."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, but good times!" I saluted him goodbye and began to race down the hill.
I now had two hiking poles as I'd found another one abandoned against a Shelter since Roan
Mountain Hostel. They made hiking feel differently, and though I'm not sure if I went any faster or if
they did protect 20% of the strain off the knees, I enjoyed the feel of them. Down the loose dirt I skiied
down the mountain, confident in my balance and ability to feel with my feet rather than see. I'd become
a very fast hiker.
At the start of another steep rise, I felt just momentary fatigue before rallying myself with song.
I remembered to breathe, not to stop for anything too suddenly and I thought of the summit that, once
reached, who knew where it would go. through what type of forest. Free falling down or a level further
into the dark?
When I sing it's usually songs I make up. There's a complicated but usually melodic flow of
notes but I don't use words and instead make types of sound. I have always been sensitive to the
incredible range of sounds, especially in the human voice or music. I may as well be blind for all the
difference that sense makes with me. My life and my loves travel through sound. I am motivated by it,
it can even bring me very physical states of ecstacsy, and I follow beautiful sound as the love of my life.
I can promise no loyalty, I may not even be the same person from one moment to the next, because the
true voice may move me towards it - no matter where it is.
I was trying to carefully balance along ridged rocks, a layer of the earth that had jutted up at an
angle, when I heard someone coming up behind me. It sounded like they were also singing. Had they
heard me? I started and turned around, trying to see through the thick fog. A hiker in yellow made his
way up to me, and I realized that it was Knoxville. I'd been meaning to run into him for months, ever
since we'd been the only two Americans at a Shelter during snowfall. Though conditions were different
and he wore other clothes, I immediately remembered who he was. I recognized his intense gaze.
Furtively he glanced around us as he caught his breath, then he looked at me.
"Hey."
"Hello," I relplied. He seemed really worked-up and agitated to me then, and I wondered why. I
was still focusing on his appearance when what I should have seen was a very similar energy level to
my own. maybe magnified by a lot. and so I was taken aback.
"You got out of there too, huh?" he asked. I could tell he admired my decision.
"Yeah, I like to night hike sometimes," was all I said. He put down his things and turned to look
at me again. I could see him but was having difficulty thinking or speaking in the present.
He said that he'd been making dinner and having coffee at the Shelter when that guy had
arrived.
"I saw you come in and leave earlier, too, so I decided to follow you."
He had known, slightly curled hair. just long enough to curl, loose wisps about his head.
Whimsically, breathlessly, a fine point would form from his hair and they annointed his head perfectly
like so many subtle spikes. Below his dark bangs everything else about him was symmetrical and sharp.
As we spoke together we each found out that the other was an alcoholic. Knoxville said that he'd
goten drunk a few times since starting the hike and had regretted it. Before this, he'd been sober six
years. I was impressed he'd managed to get that much clean time and thought about what might have
happened to him before to give him the conviction to stay sober that long. And he'd had a lot of
willpower too. Sometimes you can know, really be convinced that something is ruining your life - and
still not be able to change it. He must have been very powerful.
"What were you singing earlier?" I asked him.
"Sublime," he said. As he looked at me I noticed again how large his eyes were. The whites of
them glared in the dark butr he looked into my eyes with a kindness that felt familiar. I wasn't afraid
and even flaunted a bit. I talked and smoked a cigarette, balancing lazily on one rock then jumping
down.
He asked where I was going that night and I said I had no idea. "I just hike until I feel like
stopping," I explained.
"Well, do you want to go on from here together now?" he asked. "You can't camp on these rocks
anyway."
"Sure." We got our packs back on and I just started out walking. If I was ahead I could set the
pace and wouldn't have to know how fast he was. Through the darkening night, up along the rocks we
climbed.
The first flat area we reached I decided I was tired. It had been about two miles and I wasn't sure
when the next campsite would be. I surveyed the gently-sloping ground to the left of the Trail. All
covered with one type of ground fern. The trees stood far apart and ominous and still there was that
pervasive mist.
"Do you wanna just camp here?" I asked. I was really tired.
"Here?" He looked about us as though unsure.
"Yeah, why not? I'm so tired, oh my God!" I set down my things by a tree. "I'm even going to
have to take a break before setting up."
Knoxville on the other hand was still full of energy. I watched him walk around in the sea of
plants, searching for a flat space. He seemed nervous, maybe even a little terrified. I wondered if he
usually stayed near the Shelters.
"Maybe...maybe we should throw a bear bag," he said, now shining his head lamp into the
surrounding limbs. I wondered how anyone could make themselves do that. But then again I hadn't seen
any bears yet...
I rolled another cigarette, unconcerned. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of asking to just join
him in his tent. My tarp would be very cold at this altitude and took forever to set up. And I was so
tired.
Knoxville paced. He just about covered a 30 by 30 foot patch of ground, then turned to me and
laughed. It was that laugh I remembered so well from before. It came out of left field, charged the
whole demeanor of the environment, and seemed to laugh even at itself and everything. From the glow
of his headlamp I could see his face, chin lifted and head angled. wild-eyed. His teeth were perfect.
small, neat, and clean. As he smiled I could see them.
"Well! I guess I can smoke a cigarette before deciding, anyway." And then he walked over to me
where I sat on a fallen tree trunk. He tried to sit down next to me and I was very amused by his efforts
because his legs were far too long. He was tall and thin - though not so tall I had to look up at his face
when we stood facing each other. Here on the low log though, the best he could do was to have his legs
out straight, crossed at the ankles. My own small body folded underneath me easily.
He rolled really strong cigarettes, and we shared one of them there for a good while. just passing
it back and forth and talking.
"Can I sleep with you in your tent?" I just decided to ask.
"What!?" He couldnt' tell what I meant, but under any context at all it made him nervous. "My
tent is really small," he recovered enough to say.
"I'll fit," I yawned. "I don't know what's wrong with me...I don't usually get so tired so
suddenly."
"Maybe you could eat something?"
"Can't. I'm too tired." Knoxville walked over to his pack and got out a cooking tin. It was still
half full of ramen and little pieces of sausage. I guess he had left in a hurry..
"You can have that if you want."
"Thank you." I went and found my spork from inside my pack. Knoxville said that he supposed
I could stay with him in the tent but that it might be a tight fit.
"Thanks!" I said again, practically nodding off now from the ramen.
It wasn't so close that it felt uncomfortable at all, really. I snaked my body in beside his and we
both had room on his air mattress. Just my arm and part of one leg lay on the ground tarp. And that way
I slept a very good sleep.
O
In the morning when I wokr up we were in each other's arms. The daylight gave a heavenly
glow to our space. Everything felt warm and good and the breeze breathed above us through pockets of
mesh in the tent.
"So...what about us?" he asked me.
"What?" Then I realized what he meant. For a few minutes I hesitated in telling him the truth.
How could I put it so that I wouldn't hurt him? "I don't hike with anyone," I finally said. "Not with any
one person. The idea of compromise at this point in my life, and especially on this journey, is
impossible to me."
"Hmmm."
"People travel at different paces. And no one should have to alter themselves for the natural
course of their lives. If one is always 'held back' and another hurried along, nobody benefits. And all
kinds of potential events and friends and lovers will never be, because life isn't natural anymore but
controlled." I felt surprised at my honesty so early in the morning. What was he thinking? I knew I
hadn't had much success at travelling for more than five days with anyone this whole time. It wasn't just
him.
"Okay," he said.
In that day's hike, when we came to a road, I told him that I wanted to rest awhile. There were
containers of water at the Trail head and some large stones to sit on. I wanted nothing more than to be
left alone. I sat down and held that space, looking at my hands. hoping that he would take the hint and
leave.
Knoxville walked north on the Trail a few yards into the trees, then he came back out to the
road. "Hey, there's a number here on this tree for Trail magic!" he called out to me.
"Really?" I asked, not really caring.
"You could call them. A pastor and his wife. They say they'll take you into town for resupply,
you can shower and spend the night, and they'll pick you up for free at this road."
"Alright."
He turned and left.
After a few minutes I decided I really would call the number. But the woman who answered
seemed disappointed that it was "just me." She said they'd be there in about an hour. I sat down on the
rock and read a few psalms.
When a large van pulled up beside the Trail head I ran to the driver's window. "Are you Father
Peter?" I asked. No, he said, they were section hiking. I watched seven middle aged men get out of the
van and file off southbound. I kept reading.
Then I heard something going on by the van. I thought everyone had left but there was still
someone getting equipment out of the back. For some reason I got up and went around to investigate,
and found that it was Thin Timber! What was he doing here with these people?
"Hello!" I greeted him happily. I was very glad to see him again, and completely forgot why we
were on bad terms. He nodded at me curtly, as though to an enemy. My feelings of love willed him to
forgive me - for whatever I'd done - and I was just happy to be looking better than the last time we'd
met. I caught a glance of myself while walking over in the van window, and I was so beautiful in my
black sweater, and there was something magical about my hair. I'd never seen it curl naturally like that
about the face. I looked like an angel.
But my priorities were a little out of whack, especially as he stood there glaring at me while
holding a large, sharp knife. He whittled idly at a hiking stick. My whole being opened and smiled
dumbly up at him.
"I see you've found hiking sticks," he said. He gestured back towards the rock.
"Yeah! They really do make a difference."
"And how is it?" he asked. "Hiking with...them?"
"It's good."
He looked furious. Gazed down at me very sharply. He was bent around his action of sharpening
a hiking pole so that his arms were close to his rib cage and his head was lowered. His eyes stared at me
so strangely! Something boundless was in his eyes, I do think he hated me.
"I was selling pairs of these at Trail Days," he said. He held out the one he'd been working on. or
stabbing randomly. "Black Diamond hiking sticks. They had a good deal going. Twenty bucks."
Again with that joke! I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything.
"You're waiting here for Trail magic?" he guessed.
"Yeah."
There was a bit of a silence, then he said:
"Have fun."
Thin Timber shut the trunk of the van and put his pack on. turned to go after the group. I stood
and watched him walk away.
After a few minutes my senses returned. I felt like I'd just been exposed to a blinding light
which left me immobile, deaf, and unable to speak. The impression of having seen him remained.
Slowly I regained my surroundings. I was aloe, in a parking lot beside a dirt road. I could see that. I
could hear, yeah, I could hear the birds. kind of like how I'd heard Thin Timber's voice the whole time
and not been able to understand a single word he said.
Feeling aggravated now, I wished I hadn't seen him. I went back to wait for the people, but was
starting to resent that too.
Mud showed up at the road, asked me what was going on. I told him and he asked if he could go
with me into town with the pastor and his wife. I said sure, I guessed he could. But I didn't want him to
come for some reason. At least the lady would be happier that it wasn't "just going to be me." And she
could make the trip for more than one hiker.
The stay at their house was very strange. I found myself crying in their kitchen for no reason,
drinking Budweiser out of a hiker box, and falling in love with Jennifer Lopez as we all watched
American Idol. In their back yard I'd seen construction underway for several shower huts and a laundry
room. Were they expecting an even greater exodus of hikers next "season?"
In the front of their house were acres and acres full of beef cattle. I'd wandered out in the night
to look at them, a cigarette sticking out of my fist, and the lows they gave out were very, very
disturbing. I stood there in the dark and heard them. I'd never heard a beef cattle moan before. I can't
say that many people see much of anything at its original source. Just how people don't know where
sunflower seeds really come from. Sunflowers actually look evil, inedible in any of its parts.
On the van ride back up from the farm basin, the preacher stopped beside a neighbor's fence
where a cow was pressed, backside facing the barbed wire. It was giving birth. I noticed that the baby
cow would likely fall right into the wire, good way to break its skin. It looked like wet, sacked dick
bobbing in and out of the mommy cow. This was also disturbing.
"Do you want to stay and watch the whole thing?" the pastor turned from the driver's seat and I
could see the pores in his large nose.
"NO!" I nearly screamed. "Let's get out of here. Now." We left.
Where the trail head met the road I ran off jet set, not even waiting for Mud. He followed me
and caught up but after seeing the cow birth I really needed to be alone.
"Oh, go on without me!" I waved vaguely with my hand, clutching hiking poles together in the
other. looking for some direction to go that wasn't back or forwards.
After he went on, I scaled the hill to my right. Straight up the orange leaf-strewn damp I
retreated and found a place to sit completely out of view. I had a great time drinking beer and reading
the Bible.
It was the middle of June.
O
I backtracked to the previous Shelter south of where I'd been and found a bearded guy all in
black the only person there.
"Hey, how're you?" I swaggered drunkenly up to him and hopped up onto the Shelter floor. We
didn't say anything else but suspended a respective silence.
Suddenly Thin Timber was in the clearing. Again, I was surprised to see him. How did he do
that?
"That note about the water being good was bullshit!" the guy in the black yelled at Thin Timber.
"It really fucked with my hike for the day!" Thin Timber leaned forwards towards the guy,
confrontational.
"Well, at least you had the balls to tell me!"
Indeed.
Really, I had no clue what Thin Timber was about with that living water business, but I took
what he said to somebody else as a message meant directly for me. Aliens and post men (Thin Timber
was undoubtedly one of the two) have a way of mass communication whereby something that they say
can mean several things to different individuals. Not just different things to different individuals, but a
gradation of understanding which may change over time for a person. And it's always exactly what
they needed to hear. At the time I felt accused, like I'd really shut down instead of telling Thin Timber
that I'd been jealous of Peach. But now his words come back to me again and they mean something
different.
I am slowly turning crazy as I write this. I am still in jail, in isolation now. I've gone through
many revisions of what actually happened to me on the Appalachian Trail, and for most of my time
writing this thing I'd accused Thin Timber of being my eventual betrayer. My Judas. and the twelfth
Apostle of the Eft ideology. But I know now that isn't so.
I have a soul, not just a body, and it changes in complex ways over time. I believe that the souls
of aliens can travel from body to body. I'm a human, an unformed human at that, so my drastic changes
in body and style are my attempt at traveling, of getting out a little bit. You can see how I've tried. But
the aliens I've met already could keep me full company for the rest of my life. I've already met everyone
I ever wanted to meet, and their souls people the "humans" around me today.
So it's not so easy to say what happened to me, at any point in my life.
I was still drunkenly staring at the dirt next to a guy I didn't know when Sunshine turned up. She
seemed concerned.
"There's - there's another boy with a - d- dog back that way," she managed.
Another one? There seemed to be so many! What was going on? I looked down and saw yet
another dog in the dirt! An ugly dog, a dog I wouldn't have liked to pet and that probably would have
slobbered all over me. But "I see" was all I said to her. I smiled back at her very lovely face. I was
wondering if she were holy because of her reticence. Like she knew that language is mostly a sin
against the complexities of the soul. She was also foreign, a German, so that might have had something
to do with it too.
That night there was a large gathering of hikers who turned up at the Shelter to spend the night.
A great party. Spam and Mattress Pad were there and they both looked very depressed. "Try again later"
syndrome to the max. Mattress Pad told me about how Atlas had officially taken off with Cheeks the
yoga enthusiast. They'd planned their whole trip together and everything. mail drops. hotels. "CATCH
UP MATRESS PAD!!" notes left periodically along the Trail didn't help. It all reminded me of Thin
Timber's notes to me, always weighed down with candy or a slim jim. When I'd skip down a ridge two
hours late from having taken my time to utter prayers in Italian. Dance. Just generally blossom along. I
laughed at the memory. I was having a great time now that a bunch of people had showed up.
I helped to feed the fire with two younger guys, a redhead and a dark lad with a green bandana
around his neck. They asked me if I wanted to smoke later, and I joined them, but I don't like to smoke
weed. We just talked and they shared the bowl.
There were two other women at the Shelter besides myself. Firefox, a very stoic girl about my
age, and "Sandy from PA." Sandy's face beneath the brim of her hat was very skeletal. The lining of her
face and the way her teeth looked reminded me of a skull. When she smiled, she looked especially like
a man, and with her round clear eyeglasses she reminded me of an animated picture, glossy and strange.
She had underwear hanging off the back of her pack for some reason. She ended up leaving the Shelter
because she was so frustrated with everything. With the mud fro my boots in the just-swept Shelter,
with a very archangel-looking blonde guy named Sonshine traveling with Firefox. Everything. He'd
thrown condensed milk into the water source or something and she'd really freaked out. She went
around back and tented in the peace. Something I often do, but that night I slept in the Shelter. I did
wonder about her though, and wished that she had stayed.
I marked the difference, though: there's "sun shine" and then there's "son shine." Very big
difference...
Nights later I descended to a Shelter with real shingles on the roof after a satisfying day of
hiking almost eighteen miles. My eft friends were along the way. Virginia's mountains were more gentle
roller coasters than the extreme half day ascents and carefully planned rocky descents of North
Carolina. I'd experimented with walking without the use of my headlamp that night, and I really liked it.
I could see the water color fade of the changing sky without the contrast of the "fake" light. And I
moved slower as a precaution not to step on the bright orange efts which dotted that part of the Trail.
Cautiously, very slowly, I walked down the way. I prepared myself to end the day's hike, and I grew
quiet with the silence of the natural woods around me. blended in as one of its natural creatures.
Mud was at the Shelter along with a few other German hikers named Sonic, BaPer Pfeunig, and
the ominous-sounding Pain. Both Sonic and BaPer Pfeunig were very tall, Sonic in especially good
shape with long brunette dredlocks. Both men seemed happy to be on Trail and they welcomed me with
smiles. Pain however was thin, shorter, and had small, dark eyes. He smoked cigarettes just about the
entire night - or any other time I met him to talk - and he stayed on the edge of gatherings, preferring to
tent that night I remember. The two of us got acquainted that night, and after my preliminary questions
about German literature (he didn't necessarily read the classics) we had a great time talking. I could
sense that Mud was jealous.
That night it rained and I spent hours holding Mud as we both sat on the warm of our sleeping
bags. I sang my favorite songs to him and he listened, a glowing and beautiful look on his face. The two
of us never did sleep together, though we shared a tent several times after hiking all day through
flowering sections of woods, strawberry butterflies, and druid lands of bright green grass in the dark.
We often kissed. But I never let him make love to me.
O
"The Dragon's Tooth" was supposed to be sort of like hiking through the New Hampshire
section. I did it in one day in light rain and thought it was great but wondered why the terrain was so
different from everything else I'd seen in the state of Virginia. How was this difference even naturally
possible? I wondered. I consider "the real Virginia," the Virginia most people know about, to be grassy
mesas, gently rolling hills and forests of greenery. This was small crevices between giant, gargantuan
slabs of stone going on for miles, as though something had reared itself out of the very earth. It was
very, just...unexpected. I felt funny about hiking it, as though it couldn't quite be real. And then I got a
little paranoid. I wondered where these stones came from and why they were formed like that.
Once I'd reached a certain height I had to walk through an exposed ridge in the strong wind. I
convulsed with the cold, stopped the make oatmeal, cold, in my bowl multiple times. It was all I had
and I was so cold, so freaking freezing!
On the way down I met two pretty young local girls going up to the Dragon's Tooth. I wanted to
go with them, they were so nice to me and laughed genuinely when I made some joke or other about
hiking. That surprised me. I'd kind of expected them to be cruel because they could, being so young and
slim in their shorts and having the power of being together. But they were really nice, and that threw me
even more than their appearance.
But there are places for weary Christians to lay their heads, and Four Pines hostel was one of
them. I'd seen directions laminated on a tree at a road gap and followed tedious, exposed blacktop to the
right address on the left. A long driveway leading to a house at the top of the hill. I could see this huge
garage was open and figured there would be someone inside.
At the turn to go in there was a white box full of people's mail. Packaged food drops. I wanted to
steal one of them pretty badly but didn't and held myself a very sound person for all that. Not that it
mattered at all, probably.
There were these eerie, out-of-joint-looking white hens racing up the farm hills in rows each
behind the other. I'd never seen a land bird move so fast so they disturbed me out of familiarity just by
looking at them. I suddenly wondered where I was again.
Mud was the only other hiker in the garage. I felt irritated at him and wondered if he were
somehow following me. I set down my stuff on a cot, took off my sweaty shirt, and walked back
outside to the side of the house and sun to see what was going on.
A big guy in a sky blue t-shirt, round dark sunglasses, was walking up the lawn from across the
main house. It was Baltimore Jack from Kincora, and we sat on a bench awhile to watch a kid in a bike
flash across the property, treading scrapes of dirt all over the place. He raced!
"Oh wow, look at that!" I laughed joyfully, sipping large thimbulfulls of whiskey as Baltimore
Jack poured them for me ("Oh my dear, it can't be that bad!").
"He's gonna die," said Baltimore Jack then, calmly almost, and I also resigned myself to this
fact. But I didn't know what he meant by that. Of course we were all going to die.
The boy came over to where we sat and got off the bike. took a look at me in my bathing suit top
and asked me who I was.
"I'm CV, I'm a hiker," I said. "Who are you?"
"I live here." He had a kind, good face with short dark hair. Must have been about fourteen?
"Oh!" I said in surprise. "Well I guess you've seen plenty of hikers before this." He still looked
back at me through, kind of shy and interested.
"Nice boots," he let me know. I'd picked them out of the hiker box inside to wear for the
evening. Giant feathers, baby blue space shoes. I have no idea what purpose they'd serve in real life.
"Thanks." I took another draught of the whiskey and wished that I had sunglasses.
"Are you in the Boy Scouts, young man?" Baltimore Jack asked the kid.
"No," he said. He didn't look like the Boy Scout type either.
"There's a manual inside, it's pretty funny, you should see it!" Baltimore Jack said this last to
me, grinning. "It's titled, 'Scouting for Boys.' Haha!" I laughed with him but had no clue why that would
be so funny.
About thirty people showed up that night for a crazy party. Music blared from a beat-up boom
box in the corner of the massive garage. 70s rock, mostly, with random channel switches to modern pop
that sounded really out of place. Back to the rock and roll it went. There were cots scattered
haphazardly all over the garage floor, and people claimed them with thrown-down packs and sat in twos
or threes reuniting or danced or smoked outside. I took a shower in the back bathroom and was drying
myself off with a blue biodegradable towel when I noticed a giant tub of orange GOJO in the corner,
just sitting there. I thought that was pretty weird, didn't know what it was, perhaps it was a cleaning
agent, but it seemed to be suggesting itself as a way out. Why was it there? Why would someone just
place it there, all neon like that? I grew nervy and left the enclosed space. But it made me kind of
concerned the rest of the evening.
Wait. Let me take you back to earlier that day:
Six of us sat outside the garage, a group of guys and girls facing Strider, who was playing guitar.
It was still daylight and we were all relaxing and feeling good. Or so I assumed - until I really looked at
Strider's face as he played. He looked angry, like he were playing against forces unseen, but the anger
was softened by a complicit sadness and empathy for all of us together. He brushed a buzzing fly away
in disgust, like he couldn't believe it, and sang to us an improvised tune. I sat there, maintaining
composure, smoking a cigarette, but a stolen look to the others in the company let me know that they
were also feeling pretty serious. None of them met my gaze directly.
"Can it be that bad?" I wondered, suddenly afraid and wondering what "it" was. What was going
on?
"I saw my brother beneath an orange sky!" Strider sang gently now. "I saw my brother beneath
an orange sky...CV?" Then he looked up at me pointedly, as if asking me to take it away, but I didn't
know what to say. I was feeling really bizarre. Awkward as fuck! In my female's body, with all of these
people I suddenly realized I didn't know, whereas before I'd looked at his face I'd thought everything
was alright...I felt like I was on the brink of Hell. Weren't we just all hanging out a minute ago? What
had happened? "No, no...!" I thought to myself. "No, please...!" Why was everyone so sad? Strider sang
on, a dark prophet, very dark:
"Down by the bay...down by the bay..." Strider sang. "Where the watermelons grow." Oh, Jesus.
"Back to my home / I dare not go / for if I do / my mother will say... / Have you ever seen a whale with
a polka-dotted tail? / Down by the bay!" The last line he mock triumphantly emphasized, leaning over
his guitar. Really very angry. I was afraid. And I didn't realize at the time why he'd be singing a child's
song. I just laughed out of terrified awkwardness, didn't know what else to do, really, but nobody else
laughed. Nobody else thought it was funny at all. They looked pissed and I wondered if it were my
fault. I thought of my stupid sleeping bag and Dino the dinosaur.
Strider changed it up again and became sorrowful. "Just cut your dick off!" He hung over his
guitar as if exhausted. He bowed to me, to me, and with upraised sad eyes he apologized to me and
seemingly degraded himself. "Just cut your dick off!" Everyone with a dick, cut it off! You may as well.
"There's no need for it here!" he sang. There's no need for the illusion of sexual pleasure when there
isn't any for some people like me. Slaves like me. There's also no need for me, no need for a person to
be alive who can't come to orgasm. Whose rights have been taken away. Was he neutered as well, or...?
Am I the only one? "Kill her, someone! No one can or would want to, but she shouldn't be here!"
Strider seemed to be saying. I was in awe.
After the sun set, Jonah had come back from eating somewhere with a group of people headed
by Butch, an ex army guy. He handed his leftovers to this big guy, then informed him to "give the
scraps to Stephanie - and then she can give her scraps to the dogs."
What the fuck? I watched him walk away from us, thankful for the thought but really just
verging on angry with Jonah right about then. Couldn't people ever be left alone?
Butch said he wasn't hungry at all so he let me have the box. I set it on the cot I'd claimed and
dug into the fried chicken. I did throw the bones to the dogs. It was pretty good and all but I was still
mad. So I stayed on my cot for about an hour listening to music and watching people.
Suddenly Strider called out to me strongly from where he sat at a bench playing cards. Clearly
he was the alpha male by his voice. He also looked very much like Jesus Christ. "CV! Come sit here
next to me!" he yelled.
"Oh no, that's okay!" I yelled back across the room, sarcastic anger in the tone of my voice. I
thought to myself: "This is the minimum distance between me and you!"
Back to the GOJO. I'd seen Jonah, after he'd given me his chicken or whatever, just lay down on
the floor like a prophet of the age. The only sign that will be given unto this generation, the only sign
that will be given unto this wicked generation, is the prophet of doom. Jonah just lay down in the
middle of the floor. Everybody else was up and going, but Jonah just lay down in the middle of the
floor. We keep looking for a sign in this generation of vipers, but I felt like that was it. Jonah is the first
Apostle of Eft.
Anyway, when I left the bathroom, Jonah was still inside there by himself. I worried about him a
lot. I loved him. I worried that he'd gone in there and died, drank the whole thing and died. And then I
thought of, say, heroin. What if he were shooting up? How terrible. What was happening to all of us?
Someone to my left had just offered me heroin and I'd refused. I didn't want any. I just wanted everyone
to be alright, to just be alright! I love, I love!
I'm trying to make sense of this part of my manuscript. It's all out of order, scanned from pages I
sent away to my only friend who would talk to me, the only friend who could reach me in the depths of
Hell in F1. Foe of West One, the usual unit I should have been in before I got into fights with the
women inmates for my freedom of speech exercising. I'll type just what I see:
"two hours. And then I thought of, say, heroin, and really felt depressed. The only sign of the age. Jonah
was prophesizing."
"I never should have started reading the Bible, man," I said to the Mayor as I passed him a flask
of wine.
"Why not?" he asked.
"I dunno, I've got a really funny feeling about it..." I said.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"I'm Jewish, personally," he laughed, as if to say really: "I don't take things nearly so seriously
as you, CV." "What have you been reading? The New Testament, or...?"
"I'll start it soon," I said ominously, staring straight ahead. Not seeing anything. In a vortex. I
felt like I'd been building up to it, so that when I started, it'd be after a very long preface by way of
meditation on all the psalms and proverbs (*little stones being thrown at my tarp in the loneliness and
peril of the night! terror!*) I felt spiritual about the little book now. Funny how the cover looked like
snake skin. Is everything a joke to people? What? It fit open perfectly in the ziploc in which I kept my
Data Book. Jonah had warned me about reading it, I felt. Do you remember when he crossed my path
just as I was about to begin?
Anyway, Fudgie, a member of the It was All a Dream Team and Mayor's crew, she was still
throwing the hoola hoop around her and she wound the whole scene about her (she'd made it herself out
of cloth!). About her person! with the movements of her hips. She spun, she danced, she held her hands
up and wound, weaved the night. she'd made the hoola hoop herself. personalized it with trailing
strands of soft color. Cloth. She was so beautiful.
The Mayor told me Fudgie was traveling with Sancho, a thin girl with long limbs like a youth, a
boy. But I could see her. "People ask me all the time if I'm a boy or a girl," she hid from a guy's direct
question after Fudgie had passed around a flask of red wine. Sancho had her hair long and straight and
sleek on one side, buzzed on the other side asymmetrical. Her hair reminded me of a Native American's.
A warrior! Other than her response to that question she said little but watched the proceedings. The
entire hike, I'd never seen anyone look more depressed than she did that night.
Things got crazy. Strider turned up from somewhere, he'd found another hoola hoop and began
to try and gyrate with it frantically, pumping the air grossly to try and get out. Obscenely. I was afraid.
He looked crazy and forced next to Fudgie's expert grace.
"What the Hell are you doing?" Fudgie demanded of him finally. Her whole being was charged
with electricity, anger, and it flew from the tight curls of her hair. spoke through the glass of her round
spectacles. I heard crackles and fusing like wires and fire in my mind as I looked at her. Tactile imagery.
"Look at me! Look!" Strider kept on with his ridiculous parody of something original and
beautiful.
"You're an idiot," Fudgie dismissed him.
"Hey YOU!" Strider walked up to Sancho and pointd in her face. "You'd better control your
chick."
What!?
His whole play was so bad, so exaggeratedly asshole, everything I hate in the world summed up
in one confrontation, that I couldn't even take it seriously. No. Not here, not now. Why? Why, God,
why? Was he serious? He couldn't be.
"What are you doing!?" Fudgie yelled, worried now, at Strider. Sancho just stared up at him
from where she sat, calm.
"Call me Riff Raff!" His gang. "Call me Riff Raff!" What? "CALL ME RIFF RAFF! CALL ME
RIFF RAFF CALL ME RIFF RAFF CALL ME RIFF RAAAAFF!!" He was screaming at Sancho. I
watched the scene, horrified, wanting to touch upon something that wasn't so thoroughly fucked-up. I
thought of turning to look at the Mayor but couldn't even move.
"CALL ME RIFF RAFF! CALL ME RIFF -"
"What would you call me?" Sancho finally asked, just to shut him up. "I mean...seriously, what
the-"
"I'd call you A LESBIAN!!!" he roared into her face.
"Woah, woah, what?" Sancho stood up. I agreed with her standing up. I agreed with her. What
was it to Strider, what was it his business to label her anything? And off of what? Hearsay?
Appearance?
"Hit me." Strider was talking to Sancho. "HIT ME! HIT ME!" He was like screaming into her
face, so when she slapped him across the face it was definitely self-defense. a perfectly, divinelysanctioned jihad of sorts. He as just so annoying and gross.
And then he hit her. Strider punched her with a closed fist, full on in the face. The force of it
bent her backwards, but she tripped up her feet behind her in a backwards jump to keep herself
standing. She looked back up at him, eyes wide in disbelief, like "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"I did it!" Strider held up his hands and began roving the area outside the garage where they'd
been standing. Looking very dangerous now, after all that. I'd been cool with him before. What was
going on? "I DID IT! I punched a girl!" He implored us all to listen, his hands thrown up as if to police
to forgive him? Riff RAF Royal Air Force meets police. What then? I hated him. How could he do
something like that? I began to doubt the reality of the situation, it was just so terrible.
Nobody knew what to do next. There were a lot of people standing outside the garage and
watching from inside. The music kept on playing but my now everybody had turned to look at Strider.
A warning sign. Skin deep or under the skin? A provocation? A test? What was it? In my mind I kept
trying to rationalize what had just happened so that Strider would not be guilty. I couldn't believe it and
I felt really awful and afraid.
Fudgie and Sancho went off by themselves after that, and the rest of us just stared at Strider. He
was wild-eyed, still held up his hands and turned this way and that about to us.
"Did you just hit a girl?" Baltimore Jack had heard Strider's shouting and had come up from
where he'd been.
"Yeah," said Strider. His eyes were so wide!
"Then you have to leave." Strider left.
Now, this whole thing seems crazy to me now, because I am in jail "for assaulting police,"
something I could never imagine myself doing and don't even really feel responsible for. I don't think I
am guilty. And, also, I do not think that Sancho was a woman. Certainly not a "girl."
No, I do not think I am guilty. I do not think that any of us are. I've been tapped, have you?
What I'm thinking is that everyone really should be treated the same. As Heels said to me once
(regardless of whether that's actually attainable or even knowable; I'll always be female no matter how
much I may want to be a young man. Would Heels have treated a young man the way he treated me
back at the hotel before the black label and before I went ballistic? Hard to say...)
The party calmed noticeably from both its heightened tension, confrontation at Strider and its
raucous, carefree prequel to the fight. Now people dispersed themselves into various camps. We dealt
with our feelings in different ways. Some sat on cots inside and talked together, a few guys stared into a
fire in an iron stove. I stayed outside the garage where there was music and more cover from the dark.
Sticks, the woman with tightly pulled back hair who'd been in the Navy, she was singing and playing
guitar at the side of the house with a group of people. Every once and awhile somebody would run at a
breakneck pace through the field in front and on over one of the ridges, chased by someone else or just
off going ballistic, I don't know. I wondered where Fudgie and Sancho had gone.
"Sun! / Won't you give me some rays / I've been out here all day / Just to see your face..."
Sticks sang in a childlike, thin second soprano, a voice I couldn't have expected coming from
her. I silently walked towards them, not wanting to ripple the effect in any way, but curious how Sticks
might be feeling about what had just happened. Avoidance? Sarcasm? I wasn't really sure. And then
some idiot shone his headlamp right into my eyes for longer than could have been an accident, so I
broke my desired silence.
"Could you get that fucking light out of my face?"
The guy bent his head some other direction, but now I was too pissed to even stay and listen. I
was bored of listening to that kind of stuff on the guitar anyway. So, I went inside and hung with the
one segment of society that always accepts me: slightly younger guys. We shared a good hour or so
watching the fire die, me and these two guys. We didn't have to say anything.
It was far too loud inside, the party had hit back up again around two and I thought that was so
shallow, they had the radio back on and everything, so I left the garage again and made my bed outside
behind the house. along the wall and directly under the low eaves or drain pipe ridge. I'd dragged a cot
along after me, just threw it down in frustration against the building, and gave Train the finger before
laying down to pass out. I assumed he was "spying on me." He felt a little too close on my radar.
When in reality, I was a little too close to everyone else - according to the powers that be and
their radar...
I spent that night alone. What a surprise.
O
Days later, I'd just made it out of a town, I stopped in a small space of shade in the middle of a
hot field. I got out a banana from the top of my pack, peeled it, and stood there eating. I don't remember
where I would have gotten the banana from.
I saw someone in a bright yellow shirt walking up the path towards me. I could see beneath the
brim of my safari hat as I watched. When he got closer I found it out to be Knoxville. And as I looked
into his eyes I touched back down to reality for a minute and was fully present. I realized it was the
third time I'd met him, and that there was probably a beneficial reason for that. I felt like I was finally in
the right place at the right time. But this type of awareness is hard for me to hold onto. Right off the bat,
when I opened my mouth to greet him, my focus on what words I should use distracted me from him.
And I can't even remember what was said, anyway. Maybe it didn't matter. I remember his intense gaze
though, like he was really looking at me. telling urgency, while speaking pleasantries. Whenever I met
his gaze directly he held my person to him, drew me up out of myself, but for some reason I kept losing
it. Knoxville must have been fairly powerful, however, because he was able to keep trying to reach me,
despite how I fronted some ardent desire to be alone. Always alone. Reading the Bible, right.
I watched him walk ahead through the field and waited for him to get enough distance.
But he waited for me at the next campsite. It was late, there was a good fire going and some
people gathered to camp, so I think he was hoping I'd have to stay there. I did, despite a pull I felt to
night hike. And I went all about the camp, doing things, finding the water, throwing down my pack and
unrolling the bed mat. Making dinner. I'd just picked up the food drop Indy had clued me into. For some
reason my long and short term memory failed me. It's like I couldn't even remember who Knoxville was
or who anybody I knew I know "was." In other words, I couldn't access the accumulated knowledge of
what had happened, what I'd felt. I just knew that I knew him.
We spent a close evening that night beside the fire. Sitting next to each other and I was talking
about something. Morbid things. Dark things. My parents getting older, seeing mortality in horrible
nature and in myself. Knoxville listened and burned next to me. I could feel his energy like the heat
from a brand in the fire, right up against my side. He leaned against me gently on my left. I quieted to
an awareness of his breathing, the soft of his shirt with his thin, wiry body beneath. Golden hair on his
arms. A curling, light brown beard. His face was so close to mine. We kissed gently and everything was
wonderful. It is a good memory to me, one that is completely disconnected from the rest of that day or
even the rest of the hike afterwards. Because nothing could have compared to it. It was separate and
pure. I'd met an Islamic prophet, but didn't know it yet.
All twelve Apostles of Eft appeared to me in different forms. They came to me as prophets of
doom, usually, except for Knoxville who tried very hard to tell me the truth about myself. That I am an
alcoholic. But here is how they appeared to me:
Jonah - Christian prophet
Stone Kicker - fallen angel
Gregary Nazzarin - tactile imagery alien
Tchaikovski - alien-aided human
Shaman Jonathan - skin walker
Love Machine - demon
Knoxville - Islamic prophet
Rory - dragon
CV - alien-aided human
Joey - druid
Thin Timber - alien or postman
Luke - Thomas Didymus, "the twin"
We woke up side by side. Our bed mats were next to each other, we'd camped outside under the
sky beside the fire. I silently got up and stretched, went off to get my water, yawning, as Knoxville
began to move, wake up the body after the mind. After you open your eyes.
He'd given me a hemp necklace the night before. It had these glass beads woven into it, and
these beads had spiraling, opaque white ink designed into them. I wore it on my wrist, wrapped twice
around, and I looked at it then as I walked, remembering all we'd shared the night before. But I lost this
necklace somewhere along the way. I think I might have even thrown it away - with my own hands with the simple explanation that it "added unnecessary weight to my hiking regime." Besides, I didn't
place any symbolic meaning into the thing. It was just a thing, not a piece of jewelry I'd chosen for
myself, either.
When Knoxville saw that I intended on being the first one out, of just leaving again, he caught
me with a sympathy hook.
"I'm thinking of leaving the Trail."
"What?" I asked, really surprised. "After months of hiking with a certain destination in mind,
you think you could just stop? Short of bodily injury?"
"I'm bored," he confessed. "The AT doesn't appeal to me anymore." I thought he was crazy! "I
have a cat back home," he added.
"A cat?"
"My dad is threatening to give her away if I don't come back home and take care of her myself.
He's tired of doing all that work, and...there's really not that many people I could ask." That sounded
familiar. What he said of his situation resounded with something in me.
"Uh, why don't you just get another one?" I asked, to see what he would say. "It's just a cat.
Right?"
"You don't understand," he said. "I really love my cat."
"Hmmm." His humanity, how much I was starting to feel attracted to him, made me extremely
cautious. I had made my way hundreds of miles through almost four states, yes, with a certain
destination in mind, but more interested in my own process of hiking the Appalachian Trail with
myself. Everything I did was a success to me, because I alone had done it. So to just pair up with
Knoxville - assuming that was still what he wanted - would be a very drastic change and would also
undermine what I'd been going for the whole time. for months. Out here! I'd been living the dream I
found I couldn't even hope for in society. My definition of happiness - freedom, independence. Isn't that
all that matters, anyway? Would he have understood it if I'd tried to explain it in the face of his sob
story? I felt idealistic and immovable standing there. Happy in the way I'd been. The way that it's so
hard for me to write about because it's so privately wonderful. The nature part. My secret life. But I still
listened to what he was saying.
"When you say 'home,' where do you mean?" I asked.
"Kansas."
"I'm from Maryland."
"Not that it matters," he added defensively.
"What's your name, anyway?" He told me. "Not that it matters," I added, trying to be egalitarian.
Then I gave a shot at trying to put my love into words: "See, to me, this is the destination. I'm at peace.
So I can't imagine anyone wanting to leave this. Sorry if I seem callous or whatever, but I think you're
crazy. Kansas or this?"
"Don't you care what happens after the Trail?" he asked. This hurt, because the way he put the
question made me seem foolish or simply in avoidance of "some great reality."
"Don't you ever chill out and appreciate where you are?" I demanded. "Just because I'm not
obsessing about time frames, money, politics, doesn't mean I'm an idiot or not human. I just don't
believe in anything anymore. Hiking here, right now, is the only reality there is for me." Knoxville
stared at me. "So. If you'll excuse me..." I left.
That night, Italian register soliloquy by the camp light of my red headlamp setting, in private. I
couldn't wait to pen it later into one of the books at a Shelter. I'd found a perfect campsite to set up my
tarp. For once everything was organized, peaceful, but my mind flew boundless and I was amazed at
how much Italian I'd remembered since graduating college in 2010. But I'd been baptized with the Holy
Spirit and with fire.
O
Another party at a local's called "The Captain's" where we all pulleyed ourselves across a stream
in a moveable crow's nest. I spent most of my time hiding from the daylight in a black sweater and
shades, drinking from all five types of local shine without even managing to get buzzed. Butch noticed
my awkwardness and gave me his camera to take pictures with. Got a good one of Jonah. He was
walking across the lawn in his infamously dirty long johns and shorts. He saw me about to take his
picture and he strutted for me, lengthened his stride, and I thought that was really funny because I knew
he didn't give a shit. Cassanova fucked me inside a large-scale wooden train in a playground. Beyond
the great massage beforehand, he gave me no help. It just felt like facing an enemy, all pain and
disappointment. On our way back to the party I was mentally fiending for a cigarette and I explained to
him how I'd had to get off Trail just in order to have an orgasm back in early May. I don't think he
believed me. I don't think I believed myself either. "What is with you, anyway?" I wanted to ask hi.
"You tent breaker! I heard that's why you and Rocket aren't together anymore. What is she, like
200 miles ahead of us all at this point? At least she can recover from shit." But I held my peace, feeling
ashed out and wasted, and I waited for the time when I'd be sober enough to make a getaway.
"What's going on here? Nothing?" Imp orphan Oliver interrupted Firestarter (orange blossom in
his long black hair) telling me about how he and Bushwhacker were through. She'd gone "riding in cars
with guys" he said.
"What the fuck!?" I was deflected by Oliver's apparent rudeness. But maybe he was just
concerned for my stupid ass. Good looking out, Oliver! About half a year too late. "Sorry about your
luck, man," I told Firestarter, downing my sixth chaser to all the moonshine. Their whole relationship
failure had undoubtedly been my fault. That night I crashed chaste and cashed in the middle of a field
with Firestarter and Jonah. And, in the early morning, I did make my getaway before anybody else had
even begun to stir. "See ya!" I waved to Firestarter and made my way through the sleeping bodies and
empty beer cans and over to the sling across the river. After pulling myself across (which I wasn't sure
at first that I could do) I hiked a pretty normal twelve mile day.
I was running. I was getting faster, when I met up with The Mayor at a Shelter. He was going
into town on a marathon day with a guy called THA HAIR. We three joined up to head in, and we
found the entire It Was All a Dream Team camped safely beneath an open lawn tent at the edge of the
town's public ground. THA HAIR introduced me to the herald of a sub chapter within the Dream Team.
"Team Safety" envoy Gator. I was happy just to be able to sit next to him as we all passed a bowl
around and smoked. He moved, his back and shoulders hunched like a bear, and his bright hazel eyes
were some of the most unusual I'd ever seen beneath black sleek hair falling into his tan face. He had
teeth like a fentanyl sucker's, but I leaned into him instinctively.
"We're called Team Safety because we're only safe when we're smoking weed," he said to me, I
remember.
"Ohhh..." I breathed.
O
I woke up in a triad with our hands in close and feet spiralled out towards the end of a dream
universe. Gator was my spirit guide. He made me a mimosa in the plastic beaker I'd found in a run
down meth lab. The bubbles spilled over, my long clean hair played shine in the morning, and a young
boy named Baby Scrouge got jealous because I was sitting in his place. He had loose, perfectly-formed
red curls. He looked like a cross between a swan and a modern Tadzio. He ended up forgiving me, as
he'd have to a few more times during the trip.
Someone was crying when we all sat at the picnic table outside of a deli. It might have been me.
We finally hitched a ride all in a group after I saw a giant purple dragon roll by in the back of a pickup.
Gator had almost bought a bowie knife inside. I hadn't wanted anything.
Oficially indoctrinated into their Team beside wide river. THA HAIR talked to me while Fudgie
knit beer coozies and Baby Scrouge delicately held up a line with a hook on the end. Confused. mock
million, maybe. But I was drunk and didn't care. Gator beside me.
"Go jump off that bridge, bowyeh!" Boy, emphasis on "boy." So off he went to join the locals.
Gator leaned into me and told me how he'd used to catch rides on the trains, climb into a compartment
of coal with his dog, lay flat under a tarp, and travel the country I'd only read about in books.
That night there was a special bonfire, just me and the guys, and I felt I'd arrived. There were
about twenty of us, some slung in hammocks and others encircling the ground. We laughed and shared
that night and I was completely apart of, not some display piece or odd one out, but actually one of
them. or so I felt. It ws one of the best days of my life.
The next morning reality set back in, and I know I couldn't hike with them permanently, they
were pulling 25 mile days, some of them. We live in the real world, with physical facts, and my body is
built differently than a man's. All history aside (I've come to see that the times have been loosed from
history and most former prejudice) it was still difficult for me to keep up - especially after drinking?
Well, maybe I just doubted myself. I'm guilty of stealing moments I've already had with a person, as if
they couldn't be improved upon. As if I'd only screw it up. So I guarded the recent past and held it close.
O
"I used to be able to fuck for hours!" Paul told me once while we were lying naked together in
the living room of the house we shared with our friends. Working people. Successful, productive people
then. Nobody home for the day, or they were all upstairs. "And then I had a fight with this bitch, some
rich white stupid bitch. She wouldn't let me fuck her. I'm just back from a tour, I lose it a little bit, ok? I
think I throw a trash can outside her garage or something. She calls the cops, they take me to a
hospital. They give me a shot there, and I haven't been the same since."
"What?" I'm in disbelief. Stuff like that couldn't happen. "Who was she?" I ask, just for
something to ask - not that I'm jealous, not really.
"Just some bitch," he dismisses it as.
–
A few days later I've locked myself in the downstairs bathroom. I cleaned that bathroom with
love all the damn time. I felt I owned a piece of the house because of all the cleaning I put into it. I
loved pulling out grimey hair congealed with conditioner out from the drains in the bathtub.
I'm trying not to cry at the moment because any number of people could hear me, that's the
thing about living with so many people. Very bad day at work. I walk to and from and it's February
before my hike, freezing. I hate my ugly, stuffy coat that belongs in Alaska. I blow on my red fingers
(forgot my gloves in the Harris Teeter locker) and I think about how I never want to call my therapist
again. About how working life is so hard, living on my own for the first time since college. "You have to
try harder, Stephanie" is what she said. Is that a joke? When even your therapist is abusive, you've
really got problems.
I hear a loud knock at the door.
"Stephanie?" An obviously distracted Paul. "Can I come in?"
"No, now's not a good time..." I throw back from the other side of the door.
"I really need to talk to you! Just for one second. Please just open the door!"
"No!"
There's a cracking noise. I open the door just to see what the Hell he did, and Paul is standing
there wide-eyed and unreadable. He'd punched a hole in the wall to the right of the bathroom door.
"I just...I really needed a hug," he says. Perhaps sensing my own desperate need and it drawing
him to me immediately. Love.
"You're being such a bitch right now!" I spit. Then I look up and he's moved in closer, his face
looks really intense and angry enough that he could hit me. He stares me down.
"Do you know what a bitch is?" He's so bright with energy we burn as we look at one another. I
meet him level in his eye. We're pretty matched.
No, Paul, I don't know what a bitch is.
It's difficult for me to hike with men. It's something that I have to work up to. Be in shape for.
Not be drunk. But I did it.
Back at the campsite next morning, THA HAIR was by turns animated and full of energy, then
diminutive and looking down on everything, one hand up, feigning disgust - but at what, I had no idea. I
wonder if there are people who hike the Appalachian Trail under a "Trail persona" directly opposed to
their real personality. for political reasons. Just looking at THA HAIR provoked me to imagine a black
gang with AKs sticking him up, shooting him for dead, then scalping him on commission for Beyonce's
next Super Bowl appearance. His hair, waist-length and blonde, was kinked from the undone French
braid/mohawk he'd had it in the night before. the night of dreams and innocence. Now THA HAIR
looked really, really angry. Yes, I think it was all anger. Different forms of expressing anger. One look at
him now was enough for me to be removed to an experience of tactile imagery. One look could touch
me, change my mind. Art that is so powerful you can touch what you're looking at. I began to feel really
strange.
He clicked on some music. "Party 'n Bullshit." I didn't like the timing of it, I didn't like the song.
I just stood there like an erect silver serpent and watched him flinching around all over the place. Sort
of wondering if I should feel afraid. It was like, "Fantasy over, here's what's really going on!" is what he
was saying. He gestured to the multitude in their tents and hammocks. Gator and I had been sleeping on
the ground.
But for me it's like: You make that clear - for you - yes. But I have a culture that is individual. It
is separate from everyone else's. It develops rapidly when I'm alone. recovers, almost. but is damaged
by displays like this. They are not true for me, especially when hiking. They are lies that are dangerous
for me to believe, even for a second. They are not the truth for me, they don't know me. How I love,
what I feel when I walk and my pride.
There are cultures of one. Communities of one. Coinvolta. They do happen. Beyond a certain
introductory stage to life in the world, an individual can willfully choose to branch off. Become just as
irrelevant to society as society has proved itself to be for them. While hiking the Trail, I was able to be
myself tenuously. I stole my own time and it was hard won. Crafted. I evolved into a being of my
choice.
Now, for whatever reason, I'm in jail. I used to be in a large two-tiered hen house filled to the
brim with stink and light and noise and cameras. Very unnatural for a person, any person with a soul,
but especially for me who was used to a good ten mile radius between myself and the next dominant
woman. Your culture, the world's culture, all the qualifications and niceties I must go through in order
to attain decency, fitness, I do not have the time! I don't care to know.
Now I am celled in isolation. I started fights with a few of the other women and it came to blows
and bruises. My head feels lumpy and hollow. I am happy that I even had a few hours, days, weeks of
beauty and self-sufficiency. Because it's all over now, isn't it? Instinctively it was done. The community
left its imprint on me. And I left, having gotten what I really needed. Food, death, etc. etc. until one day
this will all be over. I'm trapped here. They've got me. This crazy world is the dream! I do not believe it.
I can't even fucking believe it...
O
Climbing up a steep mountain the next day I slowed my movements so that I was barely
walking. Once again, as when I'd leaned into the fire at Thin Timber's precipice, just after the Wolf Pack
had overtaken us, I was protesting everything. The fact that I had to walk, even. Something I normally
didn't mind, enjoyed. But then my mouth hung agape, I barely moved forwards and wanted to fling my
body SoBo back down from where I'd come. Illogical, right? Ha! Right back down the mountain. Eft
was calling me from his house of death. The powerful demonstration of truth. The honesty. Just lay
down and take it. I wanted him. I've been trying to find him again.
Another young woman caught me at this, passed me. We eyed each other suspiciously and then
she was gone. One of the only other solo women hikers I've seen. My heart, necessarily separate from
hers, beats for her cause. I don't expect anyone to understand.
I needed rallying to get up the mountain before nightfall though. It was very, very steep and I
had to grab onto trees in parts in order to pull up the craggy orange dirt slope. The Mayor could see I
was having a bleak time of it. The It Was All a Dream Team sat at the top of the mountain, I could see
them from below, and when I finally got to them I felt as though the mountain I'd just climbed had
lasted forever and had cost me a lot.
I felt hate and physical pain. Found myself staring into the face of someone I didn't know as
they talked. How disgusting! They were ugly, too. I'd been zoning out. I hurridly moved away from him
and sat next to Gator and Fudgie. "It's ok, Stephanie," Baby Scrouge assured me. He'd seen the whole
thing. I belong with beautiful people.
I really was out of it though, I couldn't walk anymore. Gator decided to stay with me on that
rise. That night, after everyone left, he listened to me talk about how hard I'd tried before coming to the
Trail. Training with the Marines and all.
"I can't believe you did that!" His complements felt so good to hear.
"I fell in love, too," I added. "But I don't wanna talk about that!" Why had I left? Sometimes I
wonder.
We'd been drinking beer and I finished mine. Gator motioned that I could have his as well. He'd
just taken a few sips and saved the rest for me while gently and carefully listening to me speak. A
feminist. He often hiked with Fudgie and Sancho.
There was a great fog that night, but we were warm even with the overhead tarp being open. We
lay on our backs in our sleeping bags, staring up. I realized I'd just left my hiking sticks in the town
before, hitching a ride back to the Trail with an absent-minded woman, we'd almost gotten into an
accident. I'd been in a hurry to get out of her car.
I told Gator what I'd been missing, climbing up the mountain earlier that day. "No fucking
wonder! I can't believe I didn't even notice they were gone."
"You have a bad time hiking yesterday?" he asked.
"Yeah..."
"Yeah." We paused, I thought about how difficult, soul-searching, hiking can be some days. "I
get like that when I haven't had any alcohol," he then said.
"You like to drink too, huh?" I smiled, eyes closed, wishing we had more beer.
"I also have a problem with my liver where it's really painful not to drink...but yeah, I guess you
could say I 'like' it." I turned to him, questioning. "I have hep C."
"Oh." Suddenly everything was overwhelming. I'd gotten the hint, from Jonah and from others,
that "hiking in the woods" wasn't their idea of a good time. Medical bills. What else could a person be
running from? Everything just seemed extremely crazy - not the people I was dealing with out here, but
whatever we had collectively decided to leave back there. "Run from" maybe, but also hopefully search
out an alternative space? Find beauty in it? That's what I'd been trying to do. What I'd found. I looked
into Gator's eyes and realized that yeah, I'd found it. It was them, it was them after all, it was all of them
that made the journey worthwhile. The people are all that I remember. The parts solo in between fade
away. I do know this, but maybe I've been wrong. A lot. And very much a victim of the evil we'd left
behind, or tried to. I'm sorry.
The next morning I was really fucking pissed off. "I can't believe I lost my hiking sticks!" I
yelled, not really helping to take down the tarp at all, or do anything except pace and eat my breakfast.
"You'll find other ones."
"But these were...ugh!"
"Personalized?" he guessed, correctly. I'd had band aids wedging them together in parts to keep
them from sliding. There was a lot of wear and tear and they didn't match but I'd made them my own,
and now they were gone.
"Right. Just. Ugh! Just leave me the fuck alone, okay?"
"Yeah, uh..." I guess Gator was just standing there looking at me fume because his voice wasn't
traveling. "I gotta find water for my dog. I'm really worried about him." "I'll take that as a
complement!" I thought, just wishing, willing them both to leave. And they did. Gator knew he didn't
have to care for me. But hiking the rest of that day was terrible without my sticks.
So, hiking the rest of that week was terrible, until I got to Waynsboro, VA. I never did find
suitable tree branches to replace my hiking sticks.
O
Waynsboro was really depressing. Everybody was just standing around, waiting for something
to do or something to happen. hikers and locals too. A lot of hikers wanted to "aqua blaze" or row the
Shenandoah River because they were tired of hiking, but nobody seemed to have any money or plans.
So I sat in a gazebo with a bunch of guys waiting for an opportune moment to bum one of their beers.
“Hey, call this number.”
“What?” A thin guy with glasses and a beard that pointed forwards held out a piece of paper to
me with a number written in pen.
“It’s these people with canoes, ask them if they’re still in town and how we would get to them.”
“Okay…” I laughed because I had no information about this deal, but the guy prompted me over
the phone conversation whenever I didn’t know the answer to something.
It turned out they didn’t have canoes anymore.
“Damnit!” someone said. We all resumed into silence. But Thai Dye, the guy who’d handed me
the phone, wasn’t giving up. They all wanted to aqua-blaze on canoe instead of hike, and they were
here for who knew how long...some were definitely going home now or after the river.
“I’ll front the money if we rent from a company,” Thai Dye said eventually. “But you all have to
pay me back.” They agreed they would by nodding their heads. “I’ll make the call later,” he said. They
all got up to go somewhere. I walked with them to wherever they were going.
We walked through the neighborhood streets until we found a place to stop. We gathered in a
field on the edge of the city. And they threw a party for the end of the world. I got to be the honored
guest.
Right as soon as we reached our spot, the vibe changed from one of despair to relief and
festivity. I could breath again, I wasn’t afraid, and everyone was smiling and acting crazy. Everyone
shared drinks and relaxed under the shade of the one large tree.
At one point, I took the ponytail band out of my hair and let it pouf in slightly matted, bright
blond volume. I loved teasing it up and tossing it around. It had gotten so long since I’d left on this
journey and whatever roots I had I was proud of. But there was a glinty animation to me too. I laughed
a little to loudly, my smile was full of teeth, and I lived it up right there in that strange field in the
middle of Virginia.
I was among friends. They gave me so much food that I couldn’t believe it. I was set for a
month, maybe even a month and a half, with all they gave me that day. They kept walking up and
putting it in front of me. emptied whole boxes of supplies, heaps of food, and even toiletries, all sealed
in plastic bags. I was really happy and thanked them, smiling, smiling.
We got WASTED. There was also plenty of alcohol. We finished off the beers, I don’t remember
how many I had but when they were gone and I was getting into the interesting, hefty trail mix of
dollar-sized chocolate drops, yogurt-covered raisins, and whole cashews, sunflower seeds… fifths of
vodka appeared. About three of them. I know I had one all to myself, I remember the liquid in the bottle
was neon green. They said I just kept taking draughts of it really fast until it was gone, and then I
blacked out and they said I got really crazy.
Apparently I confronted Casanova, who’d cut his hand’s artery open by accident while carrying
a hiking stick.
“Night Wolf?” I’d mocked him, kicking the toe of his pink crocs with my dirty boots. He had
NIGHT written on one, WOLF on the other. “‘Night Wolf’ I’M the Night Wolf! I night hike all the
time! Probably more than ANY of you!”
The next morning they told me this and I laughed into the palms of my hands, embarrassed. But
it turned out they were going to let me go with them on the aqua blaze.
As we all waited for the river company to get back to us with the canoes, I watched Peaceful
Warrior stalk a groundhog. He was out there, he was another good example of tactile imagery because
of the imprint left on your mind's eye after your eyes are closed. A strong enough impact to feel like
he'd physically touched you - just by being a loon. He crawled, ass up in the air, his curly muff of a
head low crouched to the ground in the grass, and ever so fitfully he'd push forwards towards the
oblivious chuck on the other side of the abandoned field. "Tactile imagery" no, it was more like pure
poison. The more I watched, the more I realized that he was waging a type of war just by letting that
curtain raise on his character. The other hikers who really got close to me and traveled with me any
ways kept a check on their honesty when they could, if anything was to get done. But sometimes we all
make mistakes.
I was mesmerized by Love Machine on the shore as we all prepared for departure. Some
skipped rocks, the last of the canoes were hauled into the water. He stood there defiantly in a dirty white
blazer, a prop vestige of when a group of hikers had filled brief cases with beer cans and hiked twenty
miles - or until they passed out. He had an all red eye from where Slopes had punched him in the face.
And his hair was like straight, plaited water. Golden, perfect water. lying flat along his shoulders
spilling and all the way down his back. He looked like a demon from another, more amazing world. The
way the world should be. He took drags off a rolled cigarette in his hand, the smoke unfurled and was
gone. It wasn't just him, we were all there commemorating the end of beauty, but Love Machine was
such a good example of this that I could not help but stare.
O
I rowed in the middle with Love Machine in front of me, Slopes behind. Peaceful Warrior did all
the rowing for Thai Dye, who pretended laziness on account of how he'd funded everything, just leaned
back in the canoe and didn't have a paddle. Goat and Sal were in the last canoe. But as son as we all set
out our paces staggered, we only ran into each other intermitantly.
In some allusion to a "spring break" I never officially experienced, I took my scented, precious,
caked-with-dry-sweat yellow tank top off and also removed my ripped neon pink bra. My breasts
looked flat though from all the weight I'd lost. We were all drunk by then off the spiked lemonade. but
nobody was happy. For a funeral, I wailed mutely with my lips. Looked down at my stuffingless body,
felt morbid like a cooking, doomed shellfish, but didnt' bother to put my stuff back on - even though it
would have made me more comfortable. I didn't feel that I should have to cover myself with a bright
"shame made sexy" gear. I felt that there should be no shame at all, and so I acted as if my own body
didn't bother me.
None of the other rowers said anything. I rode with them in their midst like a warning sign, like
a potent example of power wielded wrong. Their queen. I waved, cloying, to Peaceful Warrior. We'd
fucked each other the day before in a stream along the field edge. The water had probably silted through
toxic chemicals, we'd been toxic, forming new tolerances and aberrations to "art." Difference. Any
variation on God's good glory.
On our first day, our canoe lost the map we were supposed to use for the hundred miles or so. I
felt like a storm hit and we were rowing through black gales and whirlpools, but really we were just so
drunk and the sky was blue and clear. Conditions normal. Slopes yelled up at us that he'd lost both his
phone and a set of speakers into the water after we'd hit some rapids. We couldn't believe it! But he
didn't seem to mean to go back.
"We have to work together!" Slopes implored Love Machine by his first name, leaning forwards
on his knees from inside the canoe after we'd pulled over to camp. Gay. "What's with him?" I rolled my
eyes at Love Machine. I'd noticed that Slopes didn't ever refer to me by my first name. I knew who I
was after this trip.
"Did you lose the map too?" Love Machine demanded. We all three looked at it. Soggy and torn
in folds. "We'll just figure it out," we decided, then docked to set up a tarp at the edge of a cornfield.
I'd come a long way since Icewater Spring Shelter in North Carolina, early April. I woke up the
next morning in between two young men, practically strangers, yet I wasn't afraid. I was warm and at
ease. I grasped for Love Machine as soon as I was fully awake and we had sex.
O
That second day of rowing, hot and bright, we said little, adjusting ourselves instead to this way
of travelling. Rowing one behind another, all I could see was Love Machine, and the views of the river
and trees, of course. But most of my attention was focused inwards on our company of three, the
dynamics within the boat. The act of having to row constantly kept me enough in the reality of physical
things and goals, but an invisible part of me wanted to be absolutely present with them, very badly. I
struggled. I didn’t know what to do. And so I tried to communicate, speak to bridge the gap. But I was
nervous and what I said had no meaning. I apologized for “being so out of it” when drunk the other day.
“Maybe it’s the hard liquor instead of beer,” I said. “I don’t normally drink it, and -”
“Oh look, a fish!” Love Machine said, pointing to where a large-scaled, fat fish slowly swam in
the deep of the river. It took me out of my mindset to see it, but I was resentful at being deflected from
consciousness, however painful it was and however fruitless my efforts to tell them about it, share it,
ask questions maybe? I was really angry and it was very hard for me not to say anything or take any
undue offense.
That night we camped on an island of driftwood and sand. I cooked dinner and leant Slopes the
use of my water filter and then they both built a set of stairs into the side of the island so that I could fly
up and down more easily. I laughed at their efforts, it would have been only about two big steps
anyway, but I thought they were really great.
All night we cuddled close to each other and listened to cat calls. and weird screeches. tortured
animal noises.
"Our island is on Google," Love Machine let us know as we all lay on our backs at the kobalt
blue sky fading between views of black, spindly tree fingers.
"Did you see the fireworks yesterday, Stephanie?" Love Machine.
"No..." We fell asleep together, the middle of summer.
The next night we met back up with Goat and Sal and camped on a mowed lawn at the side of
the river. The two of them had brought beer and so we all got good and drunk again. As I swaggered
back to camp from brushing my teeth (my mouth was in better health on the AT than at home as I'd
brought dental floss and everything), Sal yelled out to me that I was "a liar and a thief!"
"What the - now what the fuck?" I laughed, sitting down next to him at the picnic table and
cracking another beer. The two of us spent that night talking about possible real life equivalents of Fight
Club.
"Oh no you did NOT just get onto my sleeping bag with your dirty boots!" Love Machine railed
at me. Me and Sal were still talking after setting up the tarp and we three lay down for the night.Slopes
was in his tent. I have no idea where Goat went.
The three of us made a great team on the river, we were very fast despite lots of arguing and
power struggles - especially between me and Slopes. He was always telling me what to do, how to cook
the food, that I should "get a job," all kinds of useless shit like that, but I just laughed and called him a
dirty communist.
"I'm too educated to educate. I'm a scholar, a writer," I let him know. "And who the Hell puts
ramen noodles in with mashed potatoes? If you appreciated anything you'd want to...savor the
difference."
We were so concerned with what went on inside our canoe that only sometimes did we realize
how other people passed their summer vacations. One day, just after having navigated the toughest
rapid of the trip - in a canoe, not a float - we emerged into a floating pool of fat, very still bodies. They
just floated, all facing different directions, reactionless as we panted from our efforts. They didn't seem
to register pleasure at being in the sun or enjoyment of any kind. They just were. And it was so
frightening to me to see them so dead that I whispered to my crew "Can we get out of here please?"
O
I'm going to skip the details of a lot of this particular trip. I'm not sure I could explain them
again. The first time I wrote them out in jail, on isolation in F1, I don't feel that I could possibly tell the
truth in any way because there are so many views one could have taken upon the situation. So many
views that weren't mine. I'm not sure I could explain even how I felt. I also have a lot of guilt (over this
section in particular) for being a “snitch.” But snitches are for gangs and I'm not officially part of a
gang. I'm an artist, and art is not snitching. Really, these memories feel very private and beautiful to me.
But the successive loss of my manuscript (I tore it up “with my own hands”) just motivates me all the
more to dictate to you what I wrote afterwards. The memories are mine to do with as I please; people
are tagged in pictures on facebook all the time, etc. It's out of a sense of awe that I do this. I'm glad a lot
of it happened. And if even one person reads this, I'll be glad to tell them about it. I'll begin with the
new manuscript I wrote in place of what was torn up:
I wandered about a bit until I found this blue glass shanty with a hammock beside it along the
water. Somebody's apparently abandoned getaway. I lay down in the hammock to sleep it off (I'd just
jumped ship and swam to shore, leaving all my shit behind, because Slopes was giving me so much shit
after we stole those beers from Riff Raff's cooler).
O
“I have to hand it to you. And I will. Yes. Here.” Love Machine had said yes to me (without so
many words) even though I hadn't followed any of the gang rules, Trail policy, anything. I was largely
innocent and so no one ever bothered to detract from my individual happiness which I'd thought was
self won. When really, it had been a gift from their combined energy towards me. I was like a child.
I was poisoned as we were all poisoned. All with anger, madness, lust and frustration. Love
Machine told me he'd spent the first few months of hiking the Trail blacked out on valium. Whenever I
read something it's a satisfying destruction. Most thru-hikers are sick, but food is a bad addiction to
have. And I know now that it kept me from people - though they would have overcome the barrier
between us if they only could. They were with me, even against God. And when you have so many
problems that the very laws of existence don't suit you anymore (some souls are born to slavery, others
not) you've got a lot to hope for from Jesus Christ. Preserve us all!
I saw Jesus and Satan both, the duality of man, in the people I met. They are with me still. But I
am still trapped. Held down especially, I can guess, from some very serious attempts I've made to
improve my situation.
But I only feel love for those gangsters. Even if the correct answer is to pretend hate. We all
know how it is, we know things can go wrong when we don't mean them to, so as far as I'm concerned
most everybody I meet is innocent. even murderers. It's all love. Murder could be well-intentioned in
this shithole of a vestibule. So the hikers that said Yes, you're as a man, or you deserve to be treated as a
man, I know they loved me. Just as the hikers who said No, you don't deserve to die, loved me too.
There are just differences.
Love Machine had grabbed me from behind in the middle of the night, fucked me then left me
with his cum in the palm of my hand. The point, no pleasure to keep you here. Take it - not that it's
worth anything (here). Right. Fuck you, too.
But there's a worse evil, sanctioned by God, run by Christ, going on. There's not much time.
Butcher was also at the campsite, following me damn him, with talk about marriage.
"Is that why you decided to hike the AT?" I asked. "To...'find a wife'?" I'd really laughed at that
one.
Fuck this. We object. We're out.
Love Machine is the sixth Apostle of Eft.
But I can't go into all of that right now. I had pages and pages of the aqua blaze and on written
down, painstakingly recalled in this jail (cells six and one). But the spirit of Eft himself possessed my
body in a moment of weakness (I'd received a large order of chocolates from my patron - who makes all
of this possible) and Eft tore up all two reams of notebook paper.
So I blow it off like it's nothing, and I pretend everything is just a joke. I was so hard, and it
didn't hurt to leave them all. But in actuality it killed me.
O
I woke up to police throwing me off the hammock and down onto the leaves. I spent a few hours
in a jail at a place called "Front Royal" before my mom came to pick me up. It was the first time I'd
ever been to any jail. A long, long time ago.
And I wonder: why specifically did that need to happen (apart from modern fads dictating
what's good)? I don't play well with others, what? I betray preference? I'm not a communist and I
wouldn't sleep with Slopes. Is it really my bitchiness that gets to people or is it something else entirely?
There was a power outage for Howard County and a few other surrounding counties. I came
home, took a shower, and made my dinner by gas stove anyway. Love Machine and Slopes had throw
all my stuff overboard (even their food I'd been hoarding - I always cooked from their stores) but minus
the blue, filtered 2-liter bag of water I'd had fastened to the seat. And, oddly enough, my safari hat was
gone too.
"Hey thieves, you still on Trail?" I texted Love Machine awhile later, but it wasn't the most
tactful thing to say in the world. He never replied. I "borrowed" a full replacement water purification
system from Adam. the one he'd been planning to use when we'd originally come up with the idea to go
together...
I knew I wanted to go back to the Trail, so my dad drove me back up to the MD/PA border after
a few days of rest. I didn't even stay for the fourth of July. So far, I'd hiked from Georgia to about
Harper's Ferry, VA in one uninterrupted trek. But I decided to skip Maryland, it being my home state.
Also, I'd technically hiked from Harper's Ferry to New York during 2010's section hike. Maryland was
ground that I'd covered. I would've just gone straight to the NY/CN border, but there was a part of me
still wanting to be a part of the NoBo group of hikers. I'd started with them and I didn't want to "skip
anyone" - when in reality they were all far ahead of me anyway. Most of them. The really organized,
sober, organic people.
The night I got back to the Trail, I slept well in a $20 boy scout tent designed with the ages 1014 in mind. I felt comfortable and triumphant to have made it back, and I could have sworn I heard
fireworks going off nearby that night.
With the tent upgrade from the blue tarp and all the food still left from all they'd given me in
Waynsboro, I was doing pretty good. But I still didn't have a few things like the perfect, bouncey pair of
plush insoles to my boots I'd started out with. They were worn down almost paper thin. So when I saw
some abandoned sneakers beside an off-Trail local hangout, I took the plushier pair of insoles of the
two, leaving the first inspected pair still outside of the shoes, just tossed to the grass beside.
"Uhm, excuse me." I looked up to see a guy in a white brimmed hat, obviously a hiker, sitting at
a table by an abandoned building. "Did you just steal that guy's insoles?"
"What guy?" I was still walking, wondering how I'd cut off the excess at the top to make them
fit.
"The local guy down the way. Those are his shoes, and there were some other people with him
too."
"So?" I asked. I set down my pack on the seat of the bench.
"That's great."
I let him enjoy the moment as I went about measuring the insoles to the bottoms of my shoes.
Then I looked up and realized that the guy looked pretty...official. He was a hiker, I could
discern that much by the usual effects, the hiker gear. But he was older than most thru-hikers in their
twenties. He was bigger, too, with strange whisping hair that almost looked grey. His pack was riddled
with patches, colorful iron-on things all over the place. And he was giving me the most intense look,
eyes piercing at me from behind glasses. I rarely saw people hiking in glasses.
"You're not going to report me or something, are you?" I asked suspiciously. Suddenly I laughed
at myself and stood up, walked halfway back across the field and tossed the insoles in the shoes' general
direction. "I guess you might think I'm crazy," I said. But it had actually made perfect sense.
"No, I mean, I don't particularly care!" he assured me. "You don't have to put them back just
because I saw you."
"I don't really care about anything either," I confessed. "I just wasn't sure about you. But now
I'm too lazy to walk over there and get them back." He laughed. "What's your Trail name?" I asked.
"Dreamfinder."
"Oh wow! That's...pretty," I observed. "Nice name."
"Thank you. And you are...?"
"Just call me CV."
"I can tell you don't even want to be asked what that stands for."
"It's my favorite word, I am capable of being a private person. And I refuse to be named by
someone else, as is the custom here."
"My grandmother gave me this name," Dreamfinder said.
"That's good," I said, sitting down next to him.
We ended up having a really great conversation. We understood each other, and though I basked
in a free and easy exchange of words in that moment, I think back to a lot of what he said about himself
and the world and it occurs to me that he was cynical to the extreme. We could laugh and have lunch
and all that, but his philosophy was one of focus in the face of such dire odds that his life was becoming
insane. He was white, had just lost his father, and a lot of what had happened in the world he both
understood and disagreed with.
"Do you have a job?" I asked.
"Yes!" Thankfully, I do have a pretty good job. Masters, using it, all that. My job is basically
to...lie to people. To make up these statistics (or fudge things up a lot so that the data shows a certain
thing called a "statistic"), and convince people that they should do this or that - because of what the
statistics say. When really we are just creating more self-serving statistics by getting their business."
"Oh wow!" I repeated, imagining what such a work day would be like. "Does that bother you at
all?"
"It's starting to, yeah."
We sat in stony silence and stared out at the great nothing in front of us.
"Do you...what do you do?" he asked me.
"I don't even want to talk about it," I grimaced in general loathing. What a difficult thing to get
right: explain to someone on your first conversation how you graduated from Cal to be an underpaid
whore. that you're not an idiot, not even a "whore" in any sense other than when at paid work, a job like
Massage Envy or Ruby Tuesday, that you feel yourself some freedom fighter. that everyone just
dismisses as a whore.
After awhile I got up to leave.
"Thanks so much for talking to meee!" he nearly simpered.
"What?" I was surprised. "Well...sure. Of course." We were just two people talking, even though
he kind of looked like my old modern poetry professor. Audio, audio! It means so much more than...just
about anything. My ears are still a piece of me that I am allowed to use.
I went about my way.
I was beginning to think on the past when walking by landscapes I remembered when I decided
to sit down in the middle of the Trail. My legs felt sore, I was depressed. A hiker appeared and asked
me if I'd like to hike with him that day. I could tell by his manner he felt it necessary we keep moving,
as if to leave me there would be to leave me to evil spirits. I was suspicious of him at first, he looked a
little like Thin Timber about the face. It was uncanny, actually. But I got up and got over my nerves and
my aches.
He brought me to a sort of party, a hiker feed hosted by a whole family. The daughter and her
husband made jewelry as a career. "You two should just get married!" the mother seemed to be telling
me with every caution against the Trail. I was really weirded out and felt myself moving away from her
along the bench. Meltdown (that was the name of my current spirit guide) just watched everything
silently, even when five German thru-hikers showed up. They suggested we go to the pool for a bit,
which was in the park nearby, so we went for awhile. Mostly I enjoyed sitting with them on the
concrete, my legs stretched out in front of me. I wore a white bathing suit my little sister had given me
because she didn't like it anymore, and my tan glowed. My rosy cheeks beamed sun from my pretty
face and I was healthy, probably at the best I'll ever hope to be. Powerful.
Sonic, BaBer Pfeunig ("Bad Penny"), Pain, and a black guy with alarming hazel eyes whose
name I didn't catch, they were all hiking on that night four more miles. I decided to follow Meltdown, I
had a feeling that he'd motivated my pace earlier, and the next Shelter wasn't too far away. A part of me
wanted to learn about German culture. Ask questions, I don't know. Live in the moment? But
Meltdown's culture was mine. American, I knew, though he was quiet. As he walked away into the
darkness I noticed his subtle neon colors. The sprawling tattoos covering the backs of his calves...motifs
of bursting heart vessels in red. Crazy designs. But his clothes, though grey, were lined with neon. I
could see the seams in the dark. And so I followed him.
The next morning Meltdown announced he was going to try and do a marathon to the AT
halfway point. 2,100 miles or so in from where we'd started. I made it that day with him and another
hiker named Grey Man, who hiked behind me. Meltdown led the way.
"Are there any...topics of conversation...that you all can think of?" Meltdown curtly asked the
two of us. No, not really, we said. So we focused on our feet over the rocky Pennsylvania ground.
Hardly another word was said for hours but I had a great time making faster tracks than I'd ever made
before, in cognito between the two of them, tight running through the woods.
The three of us spent the fourth of July at an inn called the Allenbury, which also housed
theatrical productions. Nunsense was playing, I saw a really weird post card with all these guys in drag
dressed as nuns sipping on bloody marys, celery sticks popping out of the glasses. Paul used to eat a lot
of celery, I remembered. Did he live on it? I hardly ever saw him eat anything other than the ice cream
I'd tried to steal.
Meltdown and Grey Man made me hide behind a tree while they went in to pay, then motioned
for me to join them only after they were halfway up the staircase. We had plenty of beer in the room
and I drank like six of them before we even went down to dinner.
There were appetizers of rolled lunch meat, little cheeses, all kinds! and I had real IPA which is
the only type of drink I prefer. I thought it was great. But when Meltdown started talking exclusively to
some older woman (how rude! Her husband or whoever was right there next to her) I got jealous and
demanded loudly in the middle of their conversation: "D'you wanna get out of here?" I couldn't listen to
them anymore. He should have been talking to me, asking me questions.
Back at the room we all three decided to stay in. Grey Man had left dinner to go see about a
game room but came back disappointed. He listened to me talk about all kinds of crazy shit as I drank
most of the beer. I could tell he was listening to me as I prophesied in the dark based by the well-placed
questions he'd ask every once and awhile. He lay in the other bed as me and Meltdown were in the
other.
"Oh well, no matter what happens! God -" I here raised a reverent finger - "sees everything!"
Meltdown sat up in the bed and turned on a light. He just stared at me. I couldn't read his
expression because it was always the same.
"Where are you from?" I asked, trying to engage him.
"New Orleans."
"Oh that's awesome!" I felt up his thigh below the blanket, really drunk now. "Ooooh, you're so
niiiiice."
"I uh...I have a girlfriend," he nearly laughed.
Well. But does he have a Stephanie? I wondered.
O
The next morning I asked if we could do laundry, but Meltdown told me forcibly that "we do
our laundry by hand." So I went about the room nearly naked, washing my clothes, admiring myself
and the shark tooth necklace in the long mirror.
"It's time for a new bra!" Grey Man eyed my dirty, slashed neon.
"It's tailored, actually!"
Grey Man was getting ready to leave Trail for a ski trip with his girlfriend and her friends, he
told us at some point. As he talked about the trip, he reminded me of one of those rich people who never
enjoy anything because they're so rich.
"Should be a great time," Meltdown said eventually. No expression.
"Sometimes I just don't know, man," was all Grey Man said.
Down in the dining room Meltdown silently showed me the difference between myself and the
rest of the world. Women were sitting together, babies in hand. I felt like an alien in my wet, drying
shirt.
"Stay out of the sun," Meltdown advised me upon our parting. I watched him walk away ahead
of me after I'd thanked him for a wonderful time. But giving him plenty of distance because he
suddenly seemed dangerous too. I feel most in my powers when I'm actually on the Appalachian Trail.
The path we were on at that moment was within the 2% private land. Farms. But I heard what he was
saying. I heard what they were all saying, but I'd laid claim to the AT two years ago. Spiritually, I
belonged there. "Don't hike at night," Thin Timber had said. "Stay out of the sun," like I didn't belong
anywhere. I didn't listen at all but watched as he rounded the top of the hill. He opened, pop! a black
umbrella, and somehow it suspended itself from his shoulder - without his having to hold onto it. I was
a little awed at this and so stood still waiting for my hike to return to me and for nature to tap me back
into myself.
O
Daytrip, forray into women territory. Listened to Papillon talk about her pussy, pussies in
general, how women should "love themselves." Had she learned this in the Navy? I never learned and
don't want to, my opinion is that I could have done without a pussy for all the pleasure it got me. I also
was taught sexually by an older computer programmer at Berkeley, he'd gotten this idea into my head
that chicks with dicks were the ultimate, that anal sex and women were not only possible but perfect. I'd
never tried any of it (I'd been too afraid of being hurt and he was so virile that I referred to him as
Tobias Incubus) but of course I'm not a fan of the deal I'd been given naturally. Cyborg dreams were in
my mind. I left the table talk and began to hike without saying goodbye.
I was staying with a group of people at the 501 Shelter in the middle of Pennsylvania.
Rocksylvania. Passed so pleasantly, the stay I had here just a year ago. Only me and men then. A girl
named Strawberry Moonshine reminisced with me about the Smokies. A camera never does it justice.
We talked about human rights and I realized with such clarity for the first time that my life was in a
sorry condition, especially being a woman and life of the infant being valued over that of women, etc. I
can't even believe that. We're just stock animals. It all feels like a bad nightmare.
I walked outside in my bathing suit to smoke a cigarette, feeling generally horrified. A spirit
wearing a red baseball cap followed my every movement with his eyes. I've seen this spirit several
times. Once in the only potentially documented footage of Thomas Pynchon, walking through a crowd.
And again while in jail watching a Spanish TV channel and the Incubus came out of nowhere onto the
screen wearing the same red hat. He looked...incredulously aghast. something. I think he'd overheard
our conversation from inside through an open window. Whatever. I really needed to walk around a bit.
When I got back to the 501, my mind tripped out for a second because there was a very unlikely
individual daring to stand so individually in the middle of the area. He was wearing chaps and a
cowboy hat and the way he wore them made him seem half horse half man. His leg kind of stayed itself
against a boot and posed - but he was also just doing whatever he'd normally do, he seemed that type of
person, out there always. Not showing himself in particular, but he also was. I wasn't surprised because
he was so unusual, even; there should be lots more individuality in society. But it is rare.
He immediately asked me if I'd like to go with him.
"What do you mean? Now? I hike alone," I stated.
"Oh really? Well my short friend back at the truck tells me that you were out of water a few
miles back. I was just concerned." I assured him I was fine.
"On instinct, I'm going to say no." I said something dumb like that. I really did mean it about
hiking alone. I loved it! But my shark tooth necklace and crazy hair spoke that I belonged with him
wherever he was going. I never even caught his name then, I was too focused on whatever I thought I
was doing.
Kicking up dust through dairy fields, I walked through open stretches in the sun. Whenever I
climbed over fences I had to make sure that I never leaned too far to the side or my balance would be
compromised. I think I had the heaviest pack for a girl I'd ever seen.
I shared a beer with a local guy by the side of the road. He'd come up for a drive just because his
wife disapproved of his drinking. I thought that made a kind of sense. He asked me lots of questions
about my hike, said that "he could never do that," and gave me a full pack of cigarettes before I left.
"No. NO!" Jonah stormed into the Shelter that night holding his dog Zephyr on a close leash. He
was really, really angry. Me, Mud, and Knoxville watched with some surprise at his loss of calm. He
was normally so thoughtful of others, laughing everything off. "He's stupid!" Jonah exploded. "He's just
stupid. Had to carry him over all those fences. Wouldn't even walk." I remembered the story about
Zephyr, how he'd escaped from dog pounds, opened doors, jumped over fences before. Problem dog
there. "This is the only time I've regretted traveling with a dog instead of a girl," he went on. "Dogs
can't talk, so..." He sat down to join us inside the Shelter platform. Mud stayed at the fire roasting a
marshmellow. Knoxville's presence was once again clouded over for me. I remember (after a lot of
thinking about it) that he was there, but he was very silent and if he did say anything to us I can't
remember it.
There is a tally I have going on in my mind, and the odds are 3:9, YES:NO, "yes" meaning yes
to everything, "no" meaning (at least) no to pregnancy and AIDS for women. and maybe everything.
There are twelve Apostles of Eft or the devil or (as he has revealed himself to me) a very interesting
human man. And this is what the Apostles that I knew said, where they stood on this issue. I could tell
them by their speech.
Jonah NO
Stone Kicker NO
Gregory Nazzarin NO
Tchaikovski NO
Shaman Jonathan NO
Love Machine YES
Knoxville NO
Rory YES
CV NO
Joey NO
Thin Timber YES
Luke, "the twin," Thomas also called Didymus and Apostle number 12 NO
The YES people are very seriously crazy. They don't give a fuck about anything in a way, so that
even a baby could be born into a death-ensuing disease...but what's so unusual about that, long-term?
They are cynical, furious at existence (God, not at humans) and are capable of just about anything.
Murder. the unheard-of disregard for both God and gang rules. Imperfect women are allowed cred. Just
because the YES individuals say so.
And, as I've said, the NO people, it's complicated.
It is crazy for me to think of individuals this way, blah blah, but I do think they are actually
serious about their YES/NO stand. I kept hearing it (Spam was "Nein! Nein!" for example). And I still
hear it today. This is the most sense I've been able to make out of it. I say "no" because, even though I
am born a woman and want to be allowed rough equality (and access to "guns," strap-ons) I cannot
endorse the birth of another human being on this stupid fucking planet. Because - and this is not selfless
- the equality offered isn't real anyway. I've had YES people really say NO, and NO people really say a
kind of YES. I've been promised tat for tat by YES people and been cheated. I will owe my eventual
death to the YES people. My sanity. Everything. And so I say "no." Not just because I care so much
about other people's babies - or my own over Self - but because I pretty much object to everything.
O
Port Clinton, PA was a startling experience after being so long in the woods. I got as drunk as
possible at the Fire House, threw darts with locals, played pool with hikers, and saw my name in the
House register that I'd written the last time I'd come through town. I resigned my name "CV" instead of
"Coinvolta" not a page and a half away from where I'd previously written it.
I remember walking back from the bar, seeing headlights and then losing my balance. Blackout.
Hours later. I sit at a picnic table arguing full rail with Crazy Horse, the guy from the 501.
Actually, it was his whiskey I'd made the mistake of starting on before I went to the Fire House. I loved
that conversation, it felt so good to scream while everyone else ate kabobs and were pleasant. I spoke
my mind and I was fucking raging and this guy met me back with googly eyes that looked PCP insane
but listened to me at every leap of logic. "Well, you're a genius!" he said at some point.
The next day some guy told me that "everyone was mad at me" but I didn't believe that at all.
For what? I decided I didn't care. After all, I'd cleaned up after myself, fed myself a 5 am dinner of
really good alfredo noodles with leftover zucchini from the kabobs, and slept it off pretty effortlessly
before the host had to clear everyone out. I had a bit of a headache, but nothing out of the ordinary. I
was glad I hadn't taken up Crazy Horse on his idea of having me insulate my "piece of shit wal mart
tent - you're not going to make it" with glue that would have gotten me so high in there I'd be beyond
recall. "Oh my dear, why not?" he'd put it to me. "Why not? What do you mean? I don't huff shit, I just
like to drink." And so "everyone was mad at me."
"Why did you jump out of that canoe, CV?" Miss Janet the Trail Angel asked me while handing
me a pair of green superfeet insoles from out of her truck.
"I showed preference," I said, like one guilty. "I did! I was fast on one of the guys and couldn't
stand the other one, and I left eventually because the second one was intolerable towards me. I wouldn't
have stood for his shit another second!"
Thin Timber was in the front seat of her van, phone in hand. I spoke hoping he'd hear me and be
jealous. The tables had turned now and he'd gained some weight. I'd lost some while not worrying
about him and was proud of my body, the way it looked in the new clothes I'd gotten from home: black
calf-length running tights with a white stripe down the sides and a 1986 Women's Distance Festival tank
top in neon pink and blue. I'd lost the shark tooth but my pink bra straps kind of went as an accessory.
And I'd bought my first set of new hiking poles. Blue. It was a great outfit, and I wore it every day for
months.
Smoke signals. I turned hazily to see where someone was flicking a lighter multiple times.
Puffing at a cigarette. Damn, I wanted one! I walked over, thinking I'd ask, and then I saw that it was
Knoxville. Red ball cap, the same bright yellow shirt.
"Hey," he greeted me.
"Hey..." I sat down next to him.
"So..." He was having difficulty with the cigarette. It was unlipping at one end. I looked at his
face but he was looking at his hands. "So I guess you got drunk last night, huh?"
"Haha! Yeah, might have," I laughed.
"Yeah..." He fidgeted. He looked really concerned. like he couldn't even believe it, he tried
pinching the end almost grudgingly, very carefully, then burned himself. "Oh, fuck."
A really scary-looking local guy approached us. I'd been playing darts with him the night before
and I remembered kissing him. But that didn't make me afraid of him. In fact, I felt shunted around by
his whole "I'm intimidating" approach. Like everyone just assumed I needed to be taken care of. Why'd
he come over and make a point to say hello like that otherwise? Everything was so fucking cheesy, I
hated it!
"You know that guy?" Knoxville asked.
"So?" I rolled my eyes at him.
These ominous-sounding, phoned-in bells began to ring. from a church somewhere? They
reminded me more of dinner bells than marriage bells. I'd been reading the New Testament and had
begun to think they were one and the same.
Then I looked up and saw these black dogs running up the side of a backyard property. They
were pure black and longhaired and their tails were...unearthly long. The tails waved three feet in the air
off their backs as they ran. I found that kind of strange.
"I'm scared," I heard myself say.
"I'm scared too" he said.
He asked me if I felt like hiking with him yet, I said yes, and he went off to tell Peaceful Warrior
that he'd decided to hike with me.
Knoxville didn't wait for me to climb the hill out of there. I had to figure this out myself after he
didn't come back. With very great difficulty now I climbed, redfaced and heaving air through puffy
cheeks. whereas just yesterday I'd hopped spry down into town. Now I actually stopped halfway up the
hill in order to cook (not just eat raw, but cook) a packet of ramen noodles.
Then Knoxville was standing just a few feet above me on the dirt hill, facing me. "You scared
me!" I tried to laugh. But I was glad he'd found me. Once again he was looking askance side to side,
like he had when he'd first overtaken me in the fog after I'd booked it from the stone Shelter. He shifted
his gaze side to side as if to speak through his eyes: "Can you see me? We're being watched."
I got up and put everything away. After about only a few yards I collapsed into him, kind of
dangling from him like a weakling wanting a kiss. It was terrible.
But I guess he thought I wasn't doing too badly. I think he was wanting to see if I'd make it up
the first hill. And he told Peaceful Warrior that he seriously was hiking with me when that groundhog
sniffer passed us coming up the hill. Skepticism and a palpable, "duty-bound" thing about him wanting
to keep us apart. "That. is such a bad idea!" he seemed to say. We ignored him. We hiked on together
slowly over lichened rocks. I asked him to go first so he couldn't see me like this.
"Yeah, in case you had any doubts...about how badly drinking affects you...study this!" I joked.
Knoxville turned around to look at me, warning me with his very expressive eyes that that wasn't funny
at all. Then he faced forward and said something like "You really are an alcoholic."
I had to rest after awhile. He let me roll myself a cigarette from his pouch. I had my own lighter
and found it, eventually. Knoxville watched, and I didn't want to look at him because I felt like every
moment of mine was a mistake. That I'd been mistaken for being so cold before and I was mistaken
now and just unable to admit the particulars and process of that mistake. I just glazed over our
acquaintance as if nothing were actually happening. I had reached a state of utter disassociation from
reality. I enjoyed my cigarette.
"Ahhh, you know, I really miss music!" I exhaled, smile on my face. I told him what artists I
listened to and asked him what he liked.
"Dookie is so great. Probably the best album of all time!" he said quickly, as if to cut me off
from my entire dumb "thought" process. At the time I didn't register his intensity, I just wobbled about
on that rock trying to sit up, and I thought: "Gross! Why the Hell would they call an album that?"
"I just miss it." I threw my head back as if to howl at the moon, everything felt so bizarre. I felt
so bizarre. Like a movie.
"Yeah, I miss a lot of stuff too. Having a real life. My brother made it, he's in California right
now making money. We're just out here spending money," said Knoxville.
God damn! Where did he get that attitude about this...wonderful adventure? "Speak for
yourself!" I wanted to contest him, but I was so shocked from his summation of our trip up until this
point that I just stared at him open-mouthed. He was wrong!
"What?" he asked me, a grin pulling at a corner of his mustached mouth. "What is it?" I just
shook my head. "I'm out here recording music, sort of. The sounds of the forest. Birds, I've got some
pretty realistic samples of the wind..."
"Why would anyone do that?" I demanded. He was so stupid. "Just...enjoy your hike, seriously."
I felt woozy from the unfiltered tobacco - but not sick.
"HA!" he laughed. "You staggered up to me last night at the camp fire. 'Knoxville? Is that
you??'" He immitated the way I'd walked, lurching forward in violently staggering steps, crazy blurryeyed. I didn't remember that at all.
I think I was still pretty drunk after we'd hiked another two miles. It had begun to pour down
rain and I literally slid down the dirt in a river. Down we went! For some reason Knoxville let out a
crowing rooster's call.
We found ourselves on level ground and I grabbed him to me. The rain ran over all our things
and we were hurried, I just threw my pack down and pulled down my pants. I wanted him so bad from
behind, I put one hand on a stump and reached back for him with the other, pleading, grabbing for his
hand. I felt my naked ass in the wet of the rain.
He stood back from me, scandalized. Oh what, as if that's not what you're after! So I pulled up
my running shorts and went about setting up my "tent." It only took me about two minutes in a blind
rage of lust. After we went inside and it was all over in about the same time it had taken me to set the
tent up, I was furious.
"That fucking sucks!!" I let him know. I felt like punching him in the face. "I can't believe you
just did that! You've got to be able to control it longer than that, you're just a worthless asshole!" He
looked down vacantly into the leaf-smattered tent floor. "I can't believe this!" I said again. And then he
got my speech on how I'd never had an orgasm, ever. Even on my own. He seemed genuinely sorry, so I
guess he hadn't done it so fast on purpose.
"I wish I had a dick," I concluded.
"Why?" He perched on one elbow, shirtless and really thin. Poised like a gentle cat. He still had
that weird, spaced-out look.
"Just because," I said.
"Oh." Apparently that wasn't the answer he was looking for because he didn't say anything else
for awhile.
Later that night he did reassure me that dicks weren't all that amazing. "They're very simple," he
let me know. "Having what you have might feel really good if you tried." He held me in his tent, we'd
abandoned my tent because it was all wet. I felt better with him really close and us in the dark. I slept
peacefully in his arms on the air mattress covered in silk. There are three arch heavens, and the one on
the right has silk couches where men can sit with women of like age and talk of all things.
The next morning we woke up to gun shots. Somebody was firing off really close to our
campsite and getting closer as Knoxville went about taking down or setting up a line to dry clothes. He
couldn't decide what to do. I was more concerned about the fucking gun shots so I hid in my tent,
cowered really, and lost it a little by fear.
"Will you marry me?" I implored. I was terrified. I literally felt like I was going to die.
Knoxville didn't look too concerned. He just stood there, hanging socks, out in the open. "You
crazy," he laughed at me, looking off into the distance. "You just wanna marry my cock." I really had
changed towards him after I'd seen it. It was huge, it drove me crazy, what was going on here in the
woods with all the virile men? Oh, God no! I wanted him in this hollow way. Changed now. But the gun
shots, oh my fucking God! I'd say anything not to die there.
"If we get to Katahdin we can get married." Laughing at me.
"You mean it?" I was crying for some reason. That happens to me a lot. My body cries when I
don't feel the sadness.
"Yeah, ok." He didn't believe a word I said. I wanted to go back into his tent and into the dark.
What had I done? I felt really panicked.
But we spent the day there, the local hunters went away, and we waited for our things to dry in
peace. They never really did. We hiked on in wet socks.
Our traveling together was like sine and cosine mirror waves. We got as close as possible to
each other, then veered away, all the while moving in the same direction, usually very fast. Alternately
I'd be energetic then hopelessly tired. I got the feeling that there was a difficult balance being kept, like
it was illegal for us to be in the same place. But I was with him and loved it.
There were moments of confrontation where I'd get so mad. I wondered if it was his Trail
persona just to piss me off. How he really felt. This is another one of those times where I just can't talk
about a lot of what happened in town when we got out of the mountains. It's too exhausting and most of
my perceptions are probably totally incorrect. When he called me "white trash" and really gave me a
hard time in public at the bar about ordering food I couldn't pay for, I took offense at the time but he
was probably just trying to teach me a few things. I strutted down the street, braless in borrowed clothes
from when we were doing laundry, a cheap pair of sunglasses on my face and a pink baseball helmet
over my long blonde hair. "Well you're a piece of shit. You need to get the fuck out!" He kept leaving
me on my own to browse books. "King Rat." Shogun series. Then he'd be back.
We took this really expensive taxi ride, just so he could show off, and after all that money spent
we went to a shitty hotel. And he wouldn't even fuck me.
The hotel stay was the starkest awakening to reality I'd had thus far. We'd been drinking and
there was the "guilt of that," blah blah, but that night as I lay on the floor (I wouldn't sleep with him in
the bed because we kept fighting and eventually it would come to blows) I really heard for the first time
how very much like a rat cage the room really...sounded. There were ticking sounds, hummings. An
electronically-monitored rat cage. And I cowered on the floor, hoping my sleeping bag wouldn't catch
mites.
Knoxville just lay there. I'd seen that his skin was extremely unusual, with spots and stripes on
his back. I wondered what was wrong but was too horrified at the eerie silence of the hotel room even
to get up and go to him. Earlier, last evening, I'd sat in the windowsill not facing the TV, I wouldn't sit
there with him, it was too much for me. I was sexually demanding, really dirty (I'd forgotten to take a
shower) and I eventually propped open the refrigerator and got out one of the rolling rocks sized like
baby bottles he'd bought me. I sat back in the windowsill, drank the beer, and slowly relaxed enough to
really see him laying there. What was going on? Even when we were hiking, he'd just pass out for an
hour or two, set up his tent and just disappear as though dead.
I asked him for a needle in order to pop a blister, and he got pretty frustrated, got up, and
grabbed the beer bottle out of my hand. "NO!" he yelled - all the while making my gaze with his, so
intently, it was like he was trying to reach to my soul - then he threw the bottle into the trash can across
the room. It made it in. Snatch, NO, crash! A searing lesson burned into my memory, mostly by his
eyes. He tried so hard to reach me, more than anyone ever had before, but all I was concerned about
was the beer.
"You're leaving," he announced. "Why can't you just be calm? like Bunny? And with her, it's so
easy to get a ride, all she has to do is stick her thumb out and smile and the first person pulls over!"
"What? What are you talking about?" I demanded from the windowsill. Knoxville grabbed all
the beer out of the fridge, put it in his pack, and made like to leave that moment, saying:
"I'm going to give it to someone who DESERVES it!" He looked totally insane, the situation
was absurd. I didn't get it.
"WHAT!?"
"Now." He set down his pack for a minute as though to level with me. "I didn't have any fun. Do
you...do you understand what I'm saying?" My face fell. He couldn't mean it.
"No!" I wailed.
Knoxville cleared the room of all my stuff in about two seconds and threw it into the hallway.
Then he threw me out into the hallway. I banged on the door but to no effect. Eventually he came out
and let me share a taxi back to the Trail, or more like I overtook him, but we started fighting again as
soon as we made the first mountain. We parted ways and that was that.
The mountain I climbed up after Knoxville north is one of my favorites from the entire trip.
After giving Knoxville ample time to get out of my way, I enjoyed hiking that day. The climb was
ardurous, I don't see how a SoBo could have done it going down the very steep way I had to climb up.
The whole mountain was orange, dried rock, really high elevation so I could see the town below.
Canals. A railroad track. It began to rain a little and I sang to myself, refreshed.
It took me all day just to get to the grassy top of that huge, wide mountain. There was zinc
poisoning in the environs at the top, I remembered that. The trees were caking off in grey crumbles.
Everything was dead except the new grasses.
When I reached tree cover again I stopped when I saw a large movement out of the corner of my
eye. Up ahead of me, balked against the light backdrop of the sky, was a huge black vulture. I didn't
know what it was at first it was so big. But then it moved, it clawed a step to the side and its bulk
hunched, head low. It spoke volumes of dread and foreboding. I gasped. My silent appreciation of this
omen was so strong that, like a movie, I could see my own face in that terror. I could see everything,
looking at that. It was a really surreal moment. Then the vulture moved again, ducked its head, and I
realized there were two of them. The first one whipped its head to the side. Oh! It looked so strange, it
reminded me of the dark, curved edge on my first love's parker guitar. It looked like death. Feeling
disturbed, I found a peaceful campsite and made camp.
Casanova passed by with another guy after I was already in my tent. He hailed me from where I
lay.
"Hey CV."
"Hello..."
He looked really dangerous too, especially with the heavy hiking stick he carried. He could have
beat my brains in right there. And nobody would even know.
"You alright?"
I knew it looked bad. He'd seen me in that unnecessary taxi, and then there had been that whole
thing with Thin Timber, his best friend. But I was innocent!
"Oh God, please don't let him kill me!"
My breath caught within me and I thought about who this guy might be.
"Oh, I'm alright!" I managed.
"That's good," he nodded. Then he and his companion kept walking, Casanova talking
about...pokemon. Pokemon? I realized the danger of the situation if people could really talk in such
blithe nothings. in voices that weren't theirs. using tones and disguises. I'd never really know who any
of them were.
I slept that night, just grateful to have survived the day.
O
But I made a lot of mistakes. I began writing cryptic shit in the registers, really spiraling out into
madness on my own. I got through 200 miles in Pennsylvania without talking to another person.
Madness flourished and I enjoyed it. I began to suppose that different water sources tapped into
different strains of raw energy or even liquid intelligence. I got so high running through that state that it
was insane. Here is an example of stuff that I would write:
AT Catechism 2012
Q: ARRgh, ME m8ty, what would YOU do for a clone dyke bahr?
A: Ripetete, per favore.
Q: What. would you do. for a klondike bar?
A: Absolutely nothing.
Q: Correct!
And what do you get for pole blazing, hundreds of miles, two separate occaisions?
A: BrrrAWK! Cave of wonders! Brrrlllaw-
Q: NO!
*crash*
...
Provi un'ancora volta.
A: SIR! It is this applicant's duty to inform you that the course ran me ragged. but that it afforded some
great views. SIR!
Q: No.
A: Absolutely nothing?
Q: Correct.
A: ...
Anybody's looking to get out of PA.
Q: I agree.
I wrote these things without thinking much about it. I indirectly cussed Thin Timber out too. I
was mad, and I also got the feeling that their spirits were following me. One time a foreign guy had
tried to get in my pants, right into my tent, after we'd only been talking, and a tree almost fell on his tent
in the middle of the night. After I'd told him to get out of my face.
"Hey, bitch! Bitch!"
Knoxville had finally caught up with me. We'd been hiking apart for hours and I'd had no idea
where he'd been. Bitch? I'd beaten him here... "Fast recovery, eh bitch?"
We tried to hitch a ride into town but nobody picked us up. I thought it was my fault and so got
really defensive and wanted to just be alone.
"I don't like it when you call me a bitch."
"Aw, really?" He stood behind me where I sat on a little sand rise, a few comfortable yards back
onto the Trail.
"Go away."
I ran out of water once again high up on one of the Pennsylvania mountain plateaus. Flat,
seemingly neverending miles of rocks, too high up for streams. I passed by a Shelter but couldn't stop.
All I did was pen this in the register:
I AM Titania, bitch!
An' if you were
top dog
that don't mean
you ain't a fuckin' fairy too!
p.s. Thinking of you, Thomas Pynchon!
I was really, really out of it, speaking in tongues, dehydrated and starving, manic. And I guess
I'd been out of it for quite some time. Never to have understood Thin Timber's kind joke in the register
entry: "LOST: a TITANIUM sea-to-summit spork. Please return," etc. I'd really thought he was talking
about sporks at a time when people were going missing. I'd been so jealous! And then Sunshine had
found it for him, God! It drove me crazy! But I hadn't understood at all just why I had been crazy. And
that is the most untimely, tragic part of it all. (The tree almost fell on the foreigner.) Disappointing, I
thought to myself of all sorts of possibilities.
"A tree almost fell on my tent!" The guy hollered out to me.
"Oh, really?" I asked, not really giving a fuck.
Now what would I say to Thin Timber, say, if he turned up while I was night hiking? held a
knife to my throat miles away from any other human being? "What, you don't like Shakespeare? Don't
you get it? You're my beloved husband. I'm a fairy as well." "Fuck you, whore!" he'd say, wishing me
dead. Thin Timber is the eleventh Apostle of Eft.
O
I was prone to fits of ecstatic dancing in the middle of the rocks.
Five mile night run with Paul. He wore my favorite hat, he asked to borrow it before we set out,
and we were both in red. We ran together down the streets that I walked to work everyday, all the way
to the condos and village center at the other side of town. Middle of the night. He'd come to get me.
Why not? Two people improving themselves in the midst of merciless entropy and depression. Bad odds,
bad jobs, and everything falling apart. Perfect time to go for a run.
He veered off suddenly to our right, down the grassy way, and he slipped. I didn't laugh, just
waited for him to get back up. pacing myself and jogging in place. Then we ran, racing each other, as
fast as we could go, all the way to the end of the street. But I wasn't as fast going uphill, the alternate
route he'd chosen by the condos. "Come on, come on, keep moving!" he told me. He ran backwards up
the steep black concrete. I had no clue where he got his energy at the time. But Paul saved me from an
indolence and dissolution that would have been total if I'd not known him. I just would have been an
alcoholic 24/7 instead of intermittantly, working very hard and then relapsing. He reminded me that I
could run.
O
New Jersey was beautiful. Ridge walking on leaning slabs of rough stone. Orange, full harvest
moon and ritzy boating communities below. I ran through the night and the lights in the distance
blurred.
Dry grass deserts. Miles and miles. Hiking into the fog of the night and swimming through thick
clouds. Walking stealthily along the rock tops of mountains made.
Suddenly, in the dead of night, I realized how foolish I was. I was alone, in the deep New Jersey
woods now, food bag open, and there are supposedly 1 bears per square mile in that state. Kept going.
In New Jersey I saw a wolf, a beautiful hawk, and a few bears. The first bear came to me when
I'd conceived of writing this book. The title had come to me while I was .4 miles off Trail down a
ravine, reading the New Testament in the panhandling rainwater drip solitude. I smoked cigarettes, read
a book called King Rat, and wrote in the margins of the snakeskin-bound New Testament, my beloved
book.
I was "cooking" my dinner cold, just waiting for a backpacker meal to get soggy, when I looked
up to see a bear strafing across the lawn, which was level to the walk-in Shelter. Immediately I sprang
up, grabbed a hiking pole, and slammed it loudly against the bench. A warrior cry came out of my
mouth. I frightened it away. I burned a lot of rolled up paper afterwards, just to make sure it wouldn't
come back. It's times like those when cigarettes are best.
A section hiker named Lou joined me at the Shelter my second night there. He eyed my cheap
gear, all over the Shelter, and made it clear that he thought I was hilarious. called me "girly." I didn't
correct him, figured it wouldn't even be worth it, I just stared on at this guy in silence as he made fun of
my gravity filter. Outdated, sure, but it was the system I was used to. the one I'd learned to hike with.
My friend Hannah had given me hers after she'd left Trail in 2010.
"Thru-hikers, they're so confusing to me," Lou said. "You come out here, to places normal
people only visit for the weekend, and you stay - in the woods - for six months."
Please, tell me more about what thru-hikers do! I thought.
"And you are all so serious!" he went on. "About...hiking!" As if we were all neglectful hobos
running, from family, from "life" as was worth living. As if what I'd been doing, what I'd chosen to do,
wasn't worthwhile at all. To him or to anyone.
I innately disagreed with him. I knew that what I was doing was very important. Just by being
and just by being myself around others, I was fighting for my rights. So nothing that he said bothered
me at all.
O
I told THA HAIR about my bear experience at that one Shelter. He looked back at me, a look of
complete disgust on his face. I think I confused him. It may have been obvious that I'd changed a bit
since going solo and splitting from Knoxville at the orange mountain. But also he may have been a little
jealous of my independence. How I didn't seem to need anyone. He looked at me like I was an alien.
"What?" I asked him.
"Nothing. Oh, nothing. I just feel completely sick."
"Do you think it might be water poisoning?" I asked cheerily. "I've heard that it happens a lot in
this state."
"Stephanie, I hope I get water poisoning," he said.
O
New York!
There was hardly any water. Once I had to break away down a prickly 15 foot drop off Trail just
to pick my way to a lake in order to filter there. Just threw my pack down before me, scraped down
after the broken branches. I sat on a rock overlooking the silver sheened surface rippled by the wind.
Time stopped. The sun! I was so at one with myself. Peaceful. Not hurried or thinking about anything.
A father and son fished lines in a canoe over by the bank to my left.
Birdwatching families.
I stole a peach lying half-eaten on a towel by the lake. Some locals left it there with their clothes
before going for a swim. "Do I dare to eat a peach?" what a bunch of crap! You'll eat it, and steal it too,
if you're starving.
Salamander sightings. Night hike and white roots under a stone, stars on its back, an almost slimey
creature. Then another one, fat and huge and gross, wiggling its way across a Shelter floor. The Shelters
in New York were really disgusting.
Losing direction in the confusion. In this state it was easy to do that. The Trail wasn't wellmarked at all. Sharp inclines and descents, one after another like sharp spikes. The Adirondacs. There
was even false Trail Magic. "The Bow Tie Trail Angels." Rory is the eighth Apostle of Eft. He said YES
to me but he lied. He offered equality but it was just an illusion.
I still had no money and no food and was really hungry one day. Hungry enough to walk down
to a local's park by the lake. I'd heard the Spanish rhythmic music before I'd seen it. Everyone was
Mexican or an immigrant of some kind. I was the only white person there. I walked through the park
and saw a guy sitting by himself. I was so starving I made myself sit next to him, hoping he'd just give
me something. After he asked me what I was doing with the pack (he could tell I'd pointedly come
over) he did give me some food, some of his sister's cigarettes - right out of her purse - and he also gave
me a gram of weed.
"Be careful with that," he warned me.
I thanked him, saving the second half of the sandwich for later.
"You're hiking the Trail from Georgia? By yourself?" He didn't seem to believe me. "A girl is
doing this - by herself?" He couldn't believe it.
I couldn't believe how weird I felt. I walked gangling thin, sort of loose-jointed to the bathroom.
Some teenager wearing chains around his neck shoved me with his shoulder on purpose. I was like, "Oh
shit!" maybe he'd seen how that guy had stolen from his sister all just because my dumb ass didn't have
anything. None of this seemed real. I met the sister by the bathroom. She greeted me as a formality and
stood outside the place while I was in there. And then I got the fuck out. Climbing back up the tiresome
pavement, I saw a stately grandmother being attended to by her several young grandchildren. They
touched her on the face, made a show of their care. I looked at the woman and I realized: I'm homeless.
Nobody cares about me. I have no family.
I got really stoned on a bamboo freeway tunnel in the setting sun, miles above the water.
Running. Came to a million different colored trails branching off from a central place in the middle of a
clearing in the woods. Green, red, yellow, purple, grey trails. The confusion had me looking for the
white blazes for a long time.
Now they call me "nigger bitch." The police beat me up. I've been running for two years, trying
to write this crazy book, and I keep getting locked up. Some hikers visit me in jail. While I am raped,
while my memory and resources and beauty and everything are stolen from me - by my own family.
Love Machine told me not to "snitch," just to stick my face into the pillow "because it isn't bothering
you none." Knoxville tried to cheer me up, told me he was in jail as well, pretty much the same
situation. I saw his face! He told me a funny story about how he got arrested "just for trying to sell his
little pussy" (he came to me in the form of a girl, mind you) and he'd been wearing hot pants. I couldn't
even smile.
I saw a 600-pound bear walk out from behind a house I was staying at. I'd gone out on the
porch, hung over, to smoke a cigarette. And this HUGE BEAR just walked out from behind the house,
stalked across the front lawn - I didn't dare move - and it took a right on the road. Started walking down
the road. Like a car. It was fucking crazy. I began to shake. I know what it means to really shake. Shake
for me, girl! I love. I love.
Arrived at a church hostel only to be informed that Slopes would soon be arriving there. minus
Love Machine, who had apparently left the Trail. I got nervous and began to pace about outside. I had
no idea what I would say to him and hoped to avoid the confrontation.
"I'm getting, the fuck, out of here!" The second Apostle, Stone Kicker, stormed out of the
building I'd just left. He looked over at me and asked how I was.
"Oh...you know..." I said.
"Yeah."
He let me have a cigarette and we sat in silence on the bench outside.
"Oh, Jesus, here comes that guy!" Stone Kicker said, gesturing towards the driveway where
Dreamfinder was walking up. He still had that hat on (was it a fishing hat?) with the wide brim. And he
wore these skeletal, very strange vibram river shoes. the ones with the toes built in. Had he just walked
out of the sea or something? He'd said that diving was a hobby of his. Economics, mathematics, and
diving. "He drives me crazy!" Stone Kicker said.
"I like him!" I said. I had to be honest. I didn't care if someone wasn't counted popular. I didn't
consider myself a very, uh...amiable person. So.
Dreamfinder set down his things and began relating the state of affairs of things after greetings
all around. Things, were not going well.
"Ah, CV, how are you?"
"I'm starving to death," I said.
"Well, here!" He began to unload packet after packet of ready made meals onto the table. Bottles
of olive oil. Spices. Tuna packets. "I'm leaving the Trail!" he announced. I wondered if he had any more
stuff. And then I asked him why. "I'm just tired of hiking to no purpose," he said. "I've found nothing
satisfying out here. New York is especially, just horrible. There aren't nearly enough nice places where
one can stay and enjoy room service. I hate this state." I really had to laugh at that one.
"Another hiker will arrive here shortly and he will probably kill me," I lied. Dreamfinder looked
at me.
"Would you like to take a trip to the city?" he asked. "Right now?"
"New York City? Sure!"
And then things really began to go wrong for me.
O
The whole trip I was traumatized, he treated me to such nice things but I couldn't enjoy them. I
cut off all the straps from my pack "to save weight" but I was really eyeing the sharpness of the knife
he'd given me. I wanted to die I hated myself so much. All I could do was drink, or that was all I wanted
to do. In the cafeteria of a museum we never actually made it into, I drank five beers in the middle of all
those families with children. I just didn't care anymore. I'd lost it.
O
"Excuse me!" A black man sitting behind us said to Dreamfinder. "You're too loud."
Dreamfinder had been freaking out about an American Apparel ad. The girl in the picture on the back of
the bus in front of us on our way to New York City looked kind of like how I look like now. Like a
beaten-up meth addict. Dreamfinder was squirming in his seat, "That's just horrible, that should be
illegal!" but I disagreed. I wondered who the fuck the black guy was - or who anyone could be - who
could tell anyone else what to do. Just break down that barrier of sexual, moral, social prohibitions
already! Why can't I be with a man of my own age and race?
But the fact is, there are still (unbelievably to me) certain things you not only don't do, but don't
even say. The world doesn't believe in free speech, which has always been my one remaining consistent
belief. In Connecticut (connect I cut), in a town called Falls Village, I found this out the hard way. All I
said was: "You look great with long hair! Every guy should have their hair long like yours" to a short,
goodlooking hiker with a lip ring I'd just met while getting drunk with his friends. It was Nomad's
birthday. A built black guy in a dri-star cap. Military police, both he and his other friend, the third guy,
blonde, really quiet the whole time, didn't say anything but listened to me sob about how much I loved
Paul.
Nomad overheard me say this, and saw me sidling up to "Dickflap" (that was the short guy's
Trail name) and offered me vodka spiked with lemonade. A familiar drink. Here, dry drunk, you're still
an asshole when you're sober, anyway! They all waited for me at the library as I checked in online,
pretended to read something. I think they set me up.
I'd gotten a package that day from Dreamdinder. A box of food and supplies. I'd only gone into
that town to get it, it being rerouted from Monroe, NY (somewhere it should not have
been...Dreamfinder always had bad luck with the postal service). I'd ridden into town on the back of a
very handsome guy's antique motorcycle. My body, my joints, were suffering from how I'd been flying
lately. I'd been speeeeeding. Gotten so fast and so strong I'd developed powers beyond anything I ever
could imagine. I was really, really fast. But I thought I needed food. I went off Trail to get this package.
He was really hot, this motorcycle guy, and as he sat there with me at the picnic table outside "The
Toymaker's Cafe" eating food that looked delicious, of course I went in search of the box! A sin, but I
was starving. I repeat: I was starving. I couldn't sit there any longer.
What ended up happening was us hikers were left alone on site, we got more and more wasted,
Dickflap brought out a camera, then I took off my clothes for some reason. Toymaker's Cafe. "Everyone
say your name and where you're from!" Dickflap told us. "CV from Columbia." Columbia Dri-Star
entertainment. We all had introduced ourselves.
"Here, hold this!" I'd told Nomad to hold the hose behind me, I was naked, Ritchie had squirted
me with the hose, I took a shower, birthday suit for someone else, with some "extra body" shampoo and
conditioner that Dreamfinder had gotten me. Dream Killer. Pretty fucked-up. All for even insinuating
that I have the same rights as men do. That I could get with a guy that way. Free speech.
"You should be careful, Seevee, about joining the Marines." Thin Timber's words came back to
me. "They have a high incidence of rape. Highest in all the military."
"C'mere!" Nomad motioned silently with his hands for me to follow him behind the closed
Toymaker's Cafe where people couldn't see me naked from the road. And then I blacked out. Suddenly.
I think he may have done some maneuver.
O
I woke up the next morning in my Dri-Star top I'd just lifted the other day from the church hostel.
They'd dressed me. There was just one bruise on my left arm. They'd even put my thong back on, and
my running pants. But I bled through everything. I'd had my period, that was one of my motives for
rinsing off. I couldn't believe it had happened though. Would I really do that? "Toy Maker's Cafe."
Cruel and unusual. Falls Village. Marine Star. Wet. One day in jail I realized the joke about the wetness.
I cried and cried.
My tent was broken. My cigarettes were missing. Later on that day I found them. They'd been
placed under my tent somehow. I blame the prankster fairies.
I blame all of them. for what happened that day. But I'm also going to say that I probably
deserved it. I'd been almost inhumanly uncaring and selfish. But I was fucking livid when it dawned on
me that I'd probably been gang raped while unconscious, filmed, and who knew who the video was sent
to. I have no actual evidence. I don't remember this. But it's a pretty good guess.
My fall didn't end there. I kept falling, and I am still falling today. The only person I could call
was...Dreamfinder! when I found out I couldn't physically walk anymore. My dream of hiking the
Appalachian Trail by myself, gone. Stolen from me. Even this book (which was all his idea) is only
now written with his "help." It's sick. I have no access to basic rights. Things have been stolen from me.
I killed myself with a large shard of glass, broken out of a picture frame, military family. I'd just
proposed out of desperation to Adam. I didn't know what to do after I got back from the AT.
I couldn't stop. I think the AT was kind of like speed dating, but for life. That I'd lived through
so many states of mind that I was just done by the end. "Who wants to be alive / when you're twentyfive?" is right - and especially for me. Everything had gone wrong that could go wrong. I hated myself
and everyone hated me. But I wanted to tell Paul something, so I walked over to where he was staying
before I killed myself.
"Hey. Paul?"
"Hey Stephanie." It was close to 2am. He looked tired and I was looking really ragged. Undone
fencing boots. hairy legs. Pink floral skirt from when I'd gone out to dinner with Adam. A fucking fake
and just so done with how everything had turned out for me.
"I love you!" I said. He stared at me.
"Stephanie..."
"Everything I've done, for the past year, was all because of you! Training with the Marines,
hiking the AT just to get away from - it was all because -"
"Because you wanted do?" he suggested.
"No, Paul. Listen: you're going up, and I'm going down. in life. And you know what? Maybe
that's the way it should be. I admire you so much! You had nothing growing up. I had everything. And
look at where we are now! You improved your situation, you help people, and I can't stop myself from
fucking up no matter what I try."
He gave me a hug and I found myself feeling his hips. I'd missed him. I wanted him. And I knew
in the back of my mind that I'd just said all that just to impress him. I didn't love him. I wanted to be
like him in some ways. But it's not the same thing. I felt him up.
As he looked at me his eyes weren't bright the way they'd been when we were together. They
were closed to me now, glassed over. And that broke my heart.
I walked back to the house like a zombie, got back into bed with Adam and waited for him to
leave for work in the morning.
The next day I sat in that dark room alone and wrote the first part of this book. The part I wrote
then ends with: "Ciao, Paolo. Watch me fly." And then I was determined to kill myself.
I sat on the edge of the bed, wondering what to use. On impulse I just decided to go with cutting
myself open, bleeding to death, but I was too lazy to go downstairs and get a knife. I saw the glassfaced picture of Adam's dad in uniform with his mom. He'd left her after she'd gotten MS. And I broke
the glass on the night stand. grabbed the largest piece of broken glass. Slit my throat in an explosion of
frustration, rage, and passion. With my wrist I slashed once, twice, but the third time I got a really good
gash in there. My entire left forearm was hanging open. Blood dropped all over the floor from my neck
and my arm. I kept staring at the wound in surprise. I could see the fat, muscle, and viscous thick
strands of the blood. Blood ran down my front from my neck.
I lay down to die, but I wasn't bleeding fast enough. I was impatient but couldn't cut myself
again. I'd bled all over the room and then had felt faint so I'd lain down thinking it was over but the
huge gash in my arm had inexplicably slowed its bleeding. I didn't understand. There was blood
everywhere. I stood up, angry, gave the finger to Heaven, I was shaking with rage. I listened to a song.
I went outside to smoke a cigarette. I wanted to stand naked where Paul had stood naked, to
outdo him unquestionably, to make a point. I'd won. His arms had been outstretched like Jesus. Paul is
the successful Apostle of Christ. But I am not a disciple of Jesus. I hate everything.
"Stephanie, what the - oh my God!" Luke. Paul's younger brother. I'd always gotten along with
him. They'd had power struggles with each other within the house. They were like twins. Very different
people. Didymus "The Twin" is Apostle of Eft number twelve. Because Luke wanted me to die. I think.
Actually, I don't know what he thought, really. Standing there looking at me. They'd all heard about
how I'd become engaged to Adam just yesterday after finishing my hike. They'd seen how broken I was.
How hard I'd tried. They really knew me.
I thought I'd heard Luke's voice cry out "DO IT!" when I'd been alone in that dark room of
Adam's. Yes, but "do" what? I'd wondered.
First I thought about killing Adam. Putting him out of his misery. Maybe that's what the voice
had meant by "do it." But I decided against this. I don't believe in murder, or rape. or any of that shit.
So I went in to Alex's room, a guy who lived at the house. I sat on the edge of his bed. "I think
that we should all love each other...until we die," I said. What I'd meant was, from shared disease. Love
shouldn't kill, but it does. I really did fall in love with Paul. Fuck that, and fuck God! So we should all
die, together, from love! "But I love Heather," he said. He did have a girlfriend. I knew her. I'd forgotten
this in the blinding urgency of my mission. I nodded my head. That made sense. Or I just wasn't
explaining it clear enough. I didn't know. I was crazy with despair. "Why don't we go outside and
smoke a cigarette?" he suggested. Oh yeah... The cigarette was a spliff. I got stoned, then went to see
Paul.
I'd decided that that was what "do it" meant.
But that wasn't it either. Rejection all around! "I have a girlfriend," Paul had said. "She goes to
Washington College. Her name is Erin."
"Her name is Erin!" I'd repeated mockingly. I couldn't believe any of it. I was in complete shock.
I'd thought of him so much during the past five months I'd spent on the Appalachian Trail. He really had
been my inspiration. That is true.