Colorado
Mountains Majesty
The moon is magic, if you don't know. Even if your company is the crude sort who speaks of women like a raw sailor. Bobby at the till, the "muskrat" at sea, a striped shirt with his belly hanging out. Not literally speaking, of course, though tonight he tried selling a boat to a young couple at the lakefront. We had driven eight miles with the intention (-- his intention!) of spying bathing beauties emerging from the waters at dusk.
"Queen of Hearts" wasn't open either-- a "gentleman's club" found deep in the Fenton boonies. Down a darkening country road, curving beyond a glen of trees, this was perhaps illustrative of man's haphazard path into sin. Like a barracks the building was squat. The building was yellow brick. The building was closed. We circled through an empty lot, our tires spitting gravel, 8 o' clock on a Sunday night. Hungry for flesh, clutching after the last fingers of sunset, and the forest undergrowth swallowed what little light was left.
The lakefront was almost empty-- except for the couple. Bobby wandered over to deliver a sales-pitch, a "friend" in this society centered around mutual-suspicion and anger. I kicked at the gravel and tried my best to look like I was minding my own business. . . . . a non-threatening guest. Two gorillas lumbering towards your wife might raise fears. . . . . here on the relative outskirts of civilization.
I hung over the metal railing fixed atop a concrete landing. The dark waters were tranquil, peaceful, idyllic. I toed at the pebbles, embedded in the concrete like insects in amber. Except for a dim smudge in the clouds, daytime was over. My night vision picked out low-lying hills on the opposite shores. A section of concrete embankment jutted out like a child's block and I sat down "Indian-style" like a kid. Over my right shoulder the road sloped into the water, where families shoved off in their boats.
The moon rippled. I thought of other lakes I'd known, how the same moon caught the eye of all cultures. A lake moon. A farm moon. A city moon. The same moon looked upon by lovers, by criminals waiting for reprieve. The silence of expectation; of hope.
A speed boat shot an invisible wake through the water, a glowing spearmint lantern at the head, as it hastened toward shore. Headlights up the lake aways. A family would be packing up their gear and preparing to leave around this time. In fifteen minutes, silence perhaps. . . . .
Bobby
turned on the head lights-- the radio blasting out country music-- and rolled the car forward, hands up in the air, mouth agape in a goofy expression, as if he would loose control and drive it into the lake. A joke to break up my reverie of thoughts. Good thing he didn't miscalculate. . . . . then we'd really be screwed!
His car seat was still a galaxy of red & yellow lighters. . . . . snow drifts of faded receipts, and spiral notebooks torn & battered from their relative importance in
Hayes' disheveled life. The warm, close smell of vinyl seats and spilled coffee had a comfort of its own.
Yes, as Bobby barreled down the sinuous country roads like a bat out of hell-- flapping it's leathery wings as it journeyed over hills, forests, and streams. I braced up for the worst-- that terrible moment when his distracted, over-medicated reflexes would fail him and send us hurtling through the brush: flipping over and over, knocking down trees, and exploding into a fireball. I held out my palms to the dash like a football player at drill expecting to be chunked into by 10,000 pounds of force-pressure. The moon was a little higher in the sky
Countless chills later, we rolled up to the "Gravois Bar & Grill", right across the street from a porno shop. This strip of pavement was the Gomorrah of Fenton, the same township where Joyce Meyers the televangelist got her start. At 9 'o clock on a Sunday night, no one was out thumping Bibles.
The back doors were locked. Nothing much was apparent through the windows, those diamond squares of smoked panes. Kids in aprons were laughing and horsing around as they stacked chairs on top of tables.
So we sat outside. The patio. Circumscribed by a knee-high fence. Beneath our feet, a surreal golf carpet that shone a bright green. Beds of gravel, beds of bushes. Under a sickly fluorescent light, white with a haze, the snow-cone stand. Bobby ruminated thoughtfully. . . . . the time when a group of mental patients went on an excursion and got the daiquiri variety-- or was it a pina colada? I could feel the warm sunlight as the troupe indulged themselves in alcoholic syrup, chuffing down the ice in a paper cup.
I leaned back in the plastic chair, the legs groaning with the unnatural angle, and glanced up at the establishment sign-- propped up on the roof like a box top. Red block lettering, against a lit white background, laid out against the black night sky. It was a lantern attracting late-night bar moths, namely us, who were "shut out" from the society of normal-faring men.
I thought of my family's Colorado trips when I was a smaller gorilla of my present self. Thick cheek bones, shining with fried chicken grease under the hotel signs, as Dad drove the station-wagon laden with musty camping gear. My brother dozed in the backseat, slumped against the window, as Dad verified time & time again that no vacancies were left at any of the hotels. Some of them had video games-- like the ones blinking beyond the glass here on the patio-- but I found them too adult and ordinary. "Super Putter" didn't do it for me like alien invasions or marauding street toughs. In the hotel lobby I had stolen a look at the red leather seats, creased with the design, lit with spiraling neon orange from the window, propped up upon a green checkered floor.
Just then, the door wheezed open and a waiter in an apron took out the trash. "Why y'all sitting out 'ere?". The bar was open all along!
The building felt like a dark, green cavern. The atmosphere was low-lit, the floor dim beneath my ankles which were swimming in darkness. On to the bar; the golden glint of mirrors, brass garnishing-- almost a tear drop of nostalgia with the sports plaques mounted up for times "better than these". Bottles of varying heights, from peach schnapps to Smirnoff vodka, and elaborate beer logos with stalks of grain, barrels of rye, and majestic 19th century leisure.
Next to us, a small man-- 5' 7" or so-- who sat with his bare arms folded, his chin tilted up to watch the baseball game. A mustache. A red Cardinals cap. A t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The muddied depths of his brown eyes betold a lifetime of blue-collar work. . . . . that inertia of middle-age that shook off the sweat, leaned on the pick, and caught the breeze.
Quiet. Vacant.
The barista could mix any drink under the sun. A "plain jane" sliding a coaster over to scare off despondence with a chirpy "hi, guys!". Back in high school, teenagers always sniggered about growing up to become a bartender; a host at the wellspring of forbidden spirits. But for $500, you could go to bartending school, graduate, and serve at your post with utter non-aplomb.
Becoming second witness to all the idle talk of masculine lore. Wealth-building schemes. . . . . lucky start-up capital. . . . . restored muscle cars. . . . . run-ins with baseball celebrity. . . . . bonking voluptuous bumpkin twins at once as AC/DC's "You Shook me All Night Long" played over KSHE 95. . . . . "Real Rock Radio" to you and "Death to Disco" to everyone else. Incidentally, we were the #1 Van Halen town in the country with our lapsed Catholic "river rat" ways that stood on top of a flat-bed truck and played "air guitar" in jean jackets and hairy mullets circa 1981.
Just then, a burst of noise. A group of young whipper-snappers in their 20's, standing around with hands in pockets and talking. White hats, jeans, oblivious expressions of those who would never understand as Bobby got lost in the mania of storytelling. . . . . the woebegone cast of characters that flew around in the mental health system like a tornado of lost souls hopelessly fallen prey to their vices.. Yes, as Mike reiterated aloud, then reiterated again insufferably. His voice, snuffy and slurred, outlined the gist of the tale. . . . . like a man building a house.
There was Larry George-- bellowing down at the bowling alley-- ripping the plastic cover off the ball-return machine and hurling it across the lanes. "GAWD DAMN IT!" his deep voice raging, rising like the pounding surf. Then, the young women would recoil at the visage of Bessie Holt-- all 350 pounds-- treating her effeminate husband like a whipping dog and throwing him food on the floor where he sits on his elbow like a little kid.
I'm snickering in spite of myself-- Bobby voice squirting across the room like tangy mustard, narrating this strange normality of chaos in this real-life screwball comedy, like a blatting horn. Our neighbor continued to watch baseball, though there wasn't a chance he missed a single word.
There was the part when Larry hefted a bowling ball over his head and busted the floor with it barring his friends from that particular bowling alley for life! And how Bessie and Charles got so lazy and fat, they bought themselves miniature refrigerators stocked with cold soda. . . . . one by the couch, and one on the floor and how Sue eventually got so fat they had a Port-a-John installed in the living room which the state duly sucked the sewage out of with hoses to accommodate "her disability" under "the equal protection" clause. Maybe if she ate less. . . . . with a government check that let her stay that way.
The man, arms still folded, watched the pitcher strike out a batter. To change the drift of conversation I asked Bobby what '70s-era band was playing on the radio. It sounded familiar but I couldn't quite place it.
"Aerosmith", the man answered out the side of his mouth.
********************
Years and years before, when my life could be construed as anything REMOTELY resembling a Bill Moyers meditation, I would have said that "getting older" was like
gradually slipping into the cold lake. Eventually you get acclimated to the change, that difference in temperature between the air and the water, and wondered why you ever worried in the first place.
********************
Dad had pulled into "Y.M.C.A. Lake of the Ozarks" with his maroon Subaru station-wagon, the light-blue 1983 Toyota's replacement. It was, as we say, a transition. . . . . . yes, as "the old mascot" was retired and switched with something newer, more refined, symptomatic of the 90's.
Though my parents were divorced, the Subaru was temporarily stashed in my Mom's garage. It sat there like a beast, a turtle, a craft. I had the enthusiasm of Luke Skywalker when Dad showed me the tape player. He asked me to try it out, and I ran inside to get a tape.
The wooden steps rose to the tall screen porch, and beneath the creaking architecture of stairs, a nook where we kept the sleds and garden rakes. Chunks of pastel lattice-work (-- left over from mended fences) and ragged leaves; the comforting odor of decay. Amongst ourselves, this broken family unit, no one expected to keep
altogether clean.
Would we rise up to meet what the media told us we had to be in this smoother, slicker age? It was an ideal. . . . . like the 1960's "space race" with Kennedy's "Final Frontier". Or at least that was the narrative that privately played up in my head as I scrambled to leave behind "my analog ways" and "embrace the now"
We parted, a "grown-up" ritual.
Here I was, placed in the hands of whatever waited for me. 1995 felt like a season of dried leaves, whisking across the ground. All the materials for success had fallen from the trees, no more to follow, and it was up to me to become "a success". I was 14 years old.
It was certainly more egalitarian than other camps I'd known, all things considered. A light, appealing glow pervaded throughout our two weeks together. Ten boys and three girls-- all in our middle teens, from the St. Louis area-- would take a bus to Colorado, settle into base camp, and climb a mountain.
That first night the boys pranced around the wide expanse of lodge, showing off their athletic prowess. Capering, dodging, their wiry momentum missing the wall by inches, banking around like fighter jets in mid-air and hurling the missile
in question, a squish ball.
Someone had left behind a boom box, sitting in the corner, and they put on "Big Ones": the Best of Aerosmith. The exciting generalities of rock n' roll; daring but mainstream. There was Steven Tyler, the singer all lips & attitude. 47 years old, and still singing about love in high school. Skinny arms stuck out of his tank-top and he resembled nothing less of a heroin-recovering chimpanzee with his leopard-skin headband. He yowled into the microphone with conviction, with seriousness, an earthy alternative to grunge by getting back to the arena-rock basics.
I forgot her name, but "Gypsy girl" sat out from the action. . . . . conscientiously. Her long black hair was covered with a blue bandanna, the white design curling out with country/western neatness, and she had the tendency to act petulant. Olive-skinned, thin as a ferret, the urban liberal activist-type who didn't need to eat much; the self-abnegating personality of the ethical and vain. She adjusted her "Indian-style" position on the floor as the ball sailed over her grim head.
My Kind of woman.
That night all of us went to sleep on the floor with our sleeping bags. It was comforting, surrounded by the warmth of other bodies, like snakes laying together in a canyon crevice.
Snug.
********************
The dining lodge sat up on stones, the giant second-story screened enclosure glimpsed from below like a giant porch. Half of the building's first story was solid-- administrative rooms, a lodge with a communal television (-- for counselors only!) and a screen door leading back to the tennis courts.
But in the back was a "hollowed out" area that was held up by cairns of stones. Faded yellow paint graced the wood. It was here that a reddish stairwell led up to the sea of round tables. There was a smell in the air-- one of healthy, nutritious, unappetizing camp food. You could not fathom the sheer scale of this place. Standardized bowls, stacks of plates, pyramids of drinking cups, waiting to be collected in the kitchen. The staff went around the room with a rolling shelf so the plates, cups, bowls, and silverware could be endlessly recycled.
From across the wide expanse of room I saw the Coca-Cola machine that tormented me
years back Though this was a Christian camp, I would have gladly sold my soul for a few dollars of spare change. The soda machine had stared back impassively, full of sweet dreams and bubbly memory
of civilization
No change, no soda. The logic was irrefutable.
Locked out.
What were my idle desires fir caffeine and sugar but those of the faceless hordes who trudged through this cafeteria three times a day?! It was like a latch over a well, a padlock in front of a thirsty man who scratched at the wood with his fingernails.
Back in those raucous days I half-entertained the notion of breaking in with a sledge hammer.
But yes, this time it was different treated like young adults instead of herds of insurance liability.
Primal. Men & dogs.
Actually, our counselors at least pretended to operate on a higher level. They were more like guides, mentors, as we stood around on the isle of teenage casualness, as part of a scene where we all acted like we "fitted in" more than we did with the consensual shared reality of inconsequential chatter that didn't really "mean anything".
********************
We had a few days before the bus took off. In that time, we participated in group-building activities.
There was the obstacle course, a challenge of monkey bars, tires swinging at the end of ropes with a pathetic, jerking dangle that belied the futility of human effort, crawling through plastic barrels, and team-work. At the end people stood with their hands on hips, breathing hard.
Then there was the trust fall.
First there was the deal when you leaned back and let your partner catch you. Then there was the deluxe version. . . . . Standing on top of a post, your eyes closed tightly, your arms crossed like a mummy, and with faith in the interlocking arms of your lodge-mates, embracing forever more as you gently fell backward.
There was the exercise when the collective lifted someone off the ground, the subject laying on their back. We hefted up "Gypsy girl" and a skinny girl but the boys crowded in when it came to the shapely one. Human nature is predictable, if low!
********************
We rode the bus, passengers on this incredible journey. You were free to get up and move along the aisles. You could sit among factions of cabin mates or move right along.
The bus had television screens built into the aisle bulkheads and everyone watched movies as we coasted through the yellow plains of Kansas.
So many homesteads, so many realities, and we were flipping through them like shuffling cards. It boggled the mind, how many lives there were. Conscious, hungering, just like mine maybe. Through the night we drove.
I saw "Gypsy girl" wrapping herself in a gray blanket, trying to catch some sleep. I stared at her, feeling protective. She had discrimination and sullenly judged things to be "fit" or "unfit". It was a challenge, an untested prospect. Would I be "cool enough" to win her approval and/or love?
Unspokenly, I vowed to buy "Gypsy girl" a soda. The Sprite machine sat behind iron bars, caught under the lurid orange lights at a rest stop. It seemed as locked away as her openness for me, who had all the grim emotion of a Spanish muleteer. Out of nowhere I asked her what brand she wanted.
"No thanks", she said. It was a ritual. We both saved face.
At about 1 AM, Willie the old black bus driver (-- whom gave the trip a mystical '60s caravan-like atmosphere) pulled into a convenience store. We had the run of the floor, under the bright white fluorescent lights with drafts of air-conditioning blowing on our shoulders. We sipped fountain soda through straws, all but prancing gamesomely around the store like 1990's commentary upon this state of "the middle of nowhere" as if we were being followed around by cameras. Outside, we were all but jumping up & down on "Planet Stoner" as the stars winked above. Armfuls of snack-cakes, full of bravado, we left this peaceful stop behind.
********************
The Rockies were in evidence as we pulled up to the ski lodge. White snowcaps, and gray slabs of rock-- it intermingled together like the swirls of a marble in a carven arch. On either side of the bus were cars bedecked with skis. That is, with roof-top carriers. Clearly we were almost at the end.
Gather up your stuff, salute your 2-day domicile with wheels "goodbye", and stand around with good cheer. We minors hefted up our duffle-bags and loaded into the waiting vans like sentient cargo for whom it would make no sense to spring off into the wilderness "like wild dogs". Driving for 20 minutes uphill over rugged, rocky countryside, we shot up a dirt road covered with auburn pine needles. A clearing of woods, and the cabins exploded into view.
Very few people were up here, only the middle-aged director of this outpost, and her collegiate cronies. They leaned over the balcony of the main lodge and looked us over as professional wilderness guides who did this year-round are apt to do, gauging who is going to be "a trouble-maker", who is going to be "emotionally-unstable", who they're going to have "to hog-tie" if it should come to that with the baser drags of teenaged humans "dragged through the mud" of Paleothic challenge.
For them it was a quiet Christian spirituality allied with the wilderness-- the good earth itself. Already, I could see "Gypsy girl" quietly objecting. She would keep up with their trekking pace, but would not surrender herself over to organized religion. For her, it was the authenticity of anti-vivisection movements in Trent Reznor wailing into a microphone with a death-shriek as strobe-lights fired off like landmines ripping out chunks of the already tortured-beyond-belief human soul.
Uh- don't you think, that's "a little much"?
The middle-aged director practically spat on the ground as she chewed us over. Before dinner I peeked into the guide's quarters and saw deer antlers, a quilt, and an assortment of cassette tapes. No heavy metal to the order of "Motorhead", but contemporary gospel music that clearly missed the "alternative" boat
of "real authenticity", man.
In the dining hall, a collection of guitars rested on holding stands. Yes, electric guitars. . . . . amplifiers with the myriad of knobs that held potential for racket. There it was, on the cherry-wood floors, a sign of casual attainment. I wondered what kind of music they played, or how they even built up the confidence to actually hold a guitar and practice! I practically bowed like a Zen Buddhist monk.
********************
After-hours we had time to ourselves. Whether the night was intentionally set aside for contemplation and self-analysis, or was just the due outcome of having nothing formally planned, no one could say. It was up to us to think as we pleased.
I stood out in the dark woods, straddling the gulf between being alone and with others. Nature seemed to "back me up", this solemn liquidness of night. The soughing of wind, the rustle of leaves, gently encouraged me to join my peers.
Did they reflect like I did?
In the boy's cabin, around the bunks, I saw "the scene" laid out as they did. That is, what was objective; what could be picked up on a video camera. It was the odor of old shirts, a healthy smell of sweat and rustic living. But with my emotional baggage, as in waiting on the cusp of transcendence, I unspokenly felt like the grand narrator over everything.
But some things
the narrator didn't know.
The adult guides, on the other hand, could rest easy. They had a long-term plan set out for themselves, a place to go, whose settled outcome seemed as easy and natural as clasping your palms behind your head and leaning back with a course set out for the future. Some of them would return to college, or stay in their wilderness-related jobs throughout the fall and winter.
In any case, I was confined to "the flux" of high school where some things were yet so fixed, but dynamic with possibility. I felt like a scientist on the eve of a great discovery, only waiting to get back to his "lab" to prove testable assertions.
I was alone again as I walked the dirt path to the dining hall.
Briggs sat in the dining hall, jamming on an acoustic guitar. It sat over his crossed leg, covered with green khaki shorts. He was the trickster of the cabin. There was a look about him that made you think of a sturdy street urchin in Charles Dickens' London-- a black top hat, small eyes, and a mouth full of crooked teeth (-- remediated in 1995 by glinting braces). His snubbed nose was always turned upwards, a big distance between his clever brain and his slurring mouth
that came up with constant "surf's up!" mischief.
His blond hair clung to his pink forehead. He was the daring one, who owned an unregistered car at the tender age of 15 that sat in a shopping district with a stolen license plate. All he had to do was drop a quarter in the parking meter every couple of hours with all the money he made mowing lawns, which is how he could afford "the fuck-car" in the first place. For him, the sky was the limit.
Then there was Bert.
With black plastic glasses, a fifties' crew-cut, and a goofy grin, Bert was totally committed. . . . . even though the possibility of war was really more of a theoretical preparation by these mid '90s. Leaning over the railing in the still night air, wearing a red tank top like a hoosier, he ate a snack cake. It was the simple things a soldier relished in.
Chris laughed, flicked the hair out of his eyes, and played "Smoke on the Water" over again. It was a moment worth preserving.
********************
The director and I had a discussion on "fear". It was whether this scrambling emotion was a good or bad thing. Cinnamon locks of hair beneath a white ball cap, she had the serious expression of a horse wrangler. Her voice came from a place far away, a quiet faith in Christianity, where words were almost superfluous. It was within her solitary nature that she took solace in even as we sat over lunch in the dining hall. Her point was that you need not know fear if you knew that you were in God's hands. Fear itself was an evil state of mind because it signified doubt.
I pointed out that gravity affects people regardless of what we believed, as when I was on the high-ropes course. Dappled sunlight shined through the windows, on the rich hardwood floors. Gray branches and green leaves swayed outside the windows, and the air was comfortably warm. Our group was all together, this wellspring of positive human potential, and the great outdoors waited beyond these wooden walls.
Loading our packs on our shoulders, we hiked the trail. It was an upward trend, as we trudged toward the mountains. Certainly, others had come before us. Someone had cut a trail on the side of this mountain land, like a long, narrow scar wide enough to accommodate a group of kids and their counselors. Clearing away brush, placing gray stones to the side as a guide. Inch by hard-scrabble inch, that is. . . . .
Sometimes talking, sometimes silent, it was the unspoken rule of the trail that each would shoulder their own weight. A middling pace, keeping our pains and minor discomforts to ourselves. No one wanted to, or even could, hinder the progress of the group-- under pain of embarrassment. Wheezing when the path got steep, in for the long haul.
Jenny-- bright, soft, and cheery, the shapely girl-- was the barometer of the group's overall mood. Whether laughing at cute observations-- the appealing glow of affable maturity, the well-adjusted commentary that buoyed good moods-- or silently trudging with a dazed look of weariness on her face, she was an index. Ahead of me, I saw her short, blond head bobbing on; her wearied attention not noticing appealing facts of the landscape unless you pointed them out to her.
*******************
Hours in, we stopped at a mountain stream and sat down.
So grateful for the fact, endorphins shooting through our brains, hot & blown, because the trail led off endlessly into the ambiguous woods. We sat off to the side; a level shelf where otherwise the trail continued at an incline. This little clearing was like a nook off to the edge.
I unshouldered my pack and stared at it. The aluminum frame formed an oval, not unlike a single snow-shoe. Metal curled from the top and the bottom to meet in the center. I fingered the bolt that held the two horizontal bars together. The pack wasn't too heavy, but put a bit of extra strain on the limbs as you threw one foot forward after the other.
Later in the day Brian took to complaining. He was a massive kid, a little bit on the fat side, a face like an unmoving monolith. He always seemed to be a little distant from things, peering through his thick glasses, through his windows of small eyes, with a voice that was suffocating to the ears.
"You can make it!"
the counselors encouraged him.Huffing through his words, he methodically picked apart the argument that he indeed could. The counselors were basing their sanguine estimate on the fact that everyone had to pass a rather simple "barn yard" medical examination before they were approved. Brian was healthy enough, to the extent of not being lame or carrying communicable diseases, but the clipboard results did not account for his overall lack of fitness. The counselors' judgment call was based on thin air, and everyone knew it. They could only continue down the trail in silence, a tension in the air as Brian quietly grappled within himself. Evidently, he could go further than he thought.
I myself was getting a thrill out of "going further", doing more than I thought possible. Initially balking at the idea, if someone had told us that we had a 16 mile hike in front of us. Rather, the team had "horse blinders" on; left in the dark to the true nature of what lay ahead. Psychologically, it was brilliant on the part of leadership, as we coped a little bit at a time. You could really go quite a distance if you kept at it and didn't feel sorry for yourself!
I felt like a veteran of the trail, almost like I could go on forever. A new gust of energy; taking me over the hills and occasional tree root jutting in my way. It was the "slow burn" of endurance, like a rocket booster coasting through outer space. It sailed easily, fluidly; and although "rocket fuel" was finite, you could go a long ways still. Gently easing into whatever awaited you, pulled along by your own inertia of movement.
The march continued.
If my body quit, my soul would go on, a transcendent vapor that fell along the perfect arc of the universe. In the purest abstract, bodies in space will coast on forever-- if not acted upon by the drag of air resistance or pulled "off course" by gravity. But body and soul could not be separated, at least in this life, and whether they could exist separately at all was at the heart of the great cosmic mystery. Certainly I was a spiritual being, yet a slave to finiteness.
********************
As the day wore on, I speculated on whether we passed the "halfway mark". Such information would be useful for rationing purposes. To trot with happiness? Or to trudge with determination? I did not want to "burn out" my energy and resolve.
Nothing would be worse, reaching a "peak" of masterful confidence, then feeling the sinking corkscrew sensation of dwindling away rapidly. Feeling "naturally high", like fireworks shooting in the air. But then the colored flames fade-- a flicker across the audience's faces; the sparks diving down, and nothing remaining but sulfurous smoke and ragged bits of burnt paper. There seemed no sense in "burning all my powder at once". Rather, one should add to the trudging festivities with the occasional "party-popper".
Never loose your sense
of humbleness before the trail!
At about 4 'o clock in the afternoon we reached a clearing. There at last. Right where the tree line ended, at the foot of a gray mountain. Everybody marveled at the beauty of it as we unpacked our stuff. Pine trees tapered off into short brush, the roots hanging on to the earth by bare inches before reaching the hard stone that laid beneath.
********************
Breakfast, cold morning.
"Lil' Bit" gazed into the fire. Like another girl on the hike, her eyes were like wide painted saucers; the vacuity of youth. Only in this case, she was 23 years old. Her brown, curly hair was tied into a ponytail and she wore a blue sweat-shirt. With "Yogi", the male counterpart of a counselor, they were like the first man and woman. Archetypes, almost.
She was short, soft in the right places, with hips. He was of middle height, hairy around the chest and legs, and economically built. Like a goat herder, maybe. Accustomed to wide-open spaces, an omnipresent ball cap on his cropped, rough, brown hair. For all intents and purposes, he was the leader; a man among teenage boys. Males were on the majority of this trip.
"Lil' Bit" was the on-site specialist out of deference to the three girls. They alone could talk about things that would give "Yogi" embarrassment. Whether commiserating over their relative softness as females, or together forming a "hot water bottle" of emotional support, "Lil' Bit" was the one to secretly hand over a tampon and tell them "to clean up".
Theoretically, the two were equals. Standing there together, taking turns addressing everyone. But "Yogi" was more the talker, whereas "Lil' Bit" was in the habit of crossing her arms and "spacing out". She would speak, uncertain of herself, and almost shrug after giving directions. . . . . in that moment when people were still absorbing her words. It took "Yogi" to set us to task with a forward wave of his hand. Her place was "behind the scenes", nudging the girls with encouragement like a mare with a powdered nose pressing the foals.
That cold morning, I engaged her. Like a documentary camera seeking out her thoughts for the sake of equal time. She sat on a log and I sat directly across from from her on another. A prodigious amount of dead mosquitoes were piled up at her feet, her arms hugging her knees.
Up here the mosquitoes were something else. Rougher, hungrier in the mountains, more determined than their milder Ozark cousins to inject their needle probiscuses and leave you itchy. Even with insect spray they hovered inches from the skin, kept apart by a "force field" of poison that was killing them slowly.
I made a joke about the pure amount of "protein" which happened to fall in her tin cup-- floating in perhaps a quarter-inch of water. The corpses "swished" with motion as she tilted the cup to see. My line of thinking supposed that a hungry person could get along quite well with this purest serving of protein if they had to, washed down with stream water and preceded with the rough chips of tree bark that I massaged between my thumb and forefinger. For fiber, that is.
"Lil' Bit" assented, but didn't seem to enthused about the idea. She smiled, then let her eyes fall back on the fire.
I rose, brushing tree bark off the seat of my pants, and started toward the mountain that ascended in the background. The grassland dipped, then met a pile of boulders that climbed thousands of feet.
Who needed an adult guide, when "up" was your only directive?
At that moment, the middle-aged director entered the clearing. Having walked 16 miles over just that morning, guiding was her job.
********************
She was tough as a saddle bag, occasionally turning around to see if the group was "keeping up".
Seas of lactic acid made my limbs sore; the physiological result of the preceding day's hike. Once muscles were left to sit, the stabbing pain crept in. If you moved continuously, carried on by your "high" of exercise, the body didn't attempt to repair itself. At least not right then.
My body was "on the mend", and I didn't feel like doing much. Almost as if I was on a mellow plateau, looking around and appreciating "how NICE" it was to sit. Quite a "high" by itself, so why climb to a taller elevation? The more I knew that I couldn't "back down" from the mountain-- the centerpiece of this vacation my parents had paid for-- the more inviting the plateau felt.
There the difference was, between staying behind and meeting the challenge, stark as the contrast between black and white. No divine intervention would LIFT me from my peaceful log, floating through the air like a swami, and gently placed on mountain's peak.
To get up and exert myself would make that "high" ebb away, fading back to reveal the yawning cavern of my soul, rubbed raw. From euphoric heights, a downward decline into weariness and physical friction. An odyssey of pain, a struggle between the higher and baser instincts, the delayed gratification of ultimately reaching the peak.
The path snaked it's way upward. As it was, the group circled around the peak in an ascending corkscrew. We rounded a "corner" and leaned back, craning our necks to see even more mountain. What we took to be the peak was only another level of rock. You couldn't stand back far enough to see the height that was hidden behind the next level. The peak was elusive, but our revolutions were getting shorter.
I began to feel altitude sickness. The foot of the mountain was buried with atmosphere, but higher up the air was thinner. With nausea and fatigue setting in, I had to breathe harder.
We stopped and had a moment to turn around and look at the view, instead of our faces plastered on the rocks. It was like looking out of an airplane. The land was huge, stretching all the way to the very horizon. Everything hovered with the slow motion of things glimpsed from far away. Green trees, blue lakes, and wisps of clouds. They floated by with indifference.
Someone accidentally shook a basketball-sized chunk of rock loose, and sent it rolling down the mountain. In accord with the etiquette of the trail, we all yelled "rock!". Whether anyone was there to heed our warning, was unknown, unseen. At most, we had passed a pair of hikers along yesterday's trail who ambled by with scarcely a "hello", inscrutable behind their pricey sunglasses like Aspen tech faggots. It was a comic sight, watching the boulder skip and jump for a full half-mile, picking up speed, barreling over stones that lay like the carcass of a huge beast. With a little bit of luck, the rock wouldn't crash through our campsite, ripping away tents and crushing our packs.
Then we climbed on.
Hours it seemed, hours it took. Finally we reached the peak-- passing over boulders and finally realizing this was it. I had the secret thrill of being the first one up there. How easy it seemed! The strain over, the pain gone, sitting on top of the world. Other mountains rose in the distance, and I felt as if we could have climbed them all. A feeling of overwhelming peace. I wondered if my life would be forever different, coming down a different person, nothing ever being the same again. Having surpassed limitations, and secretly perhaps, an alteration of the soul.
Then thunder clouds began to collect. Gray, brooding, above us. "Yogi" figured that we should start heading back. But no! I wanted to sleep up here, letting the rain pelt my closed eyelids as I defied the gods.
"Leave me", I said, shaking off his advice as I lay an arm over my eyes. Once "Yogi" explained that humans on mountain tops made excellent "lightening rods", I knew that we had to leave. But I hesitated for a second, weighing the risks and the benefits. . . . .
********************
"Down time" in the tent. Rain pattered against the green canvas, and all was a deep verdure shadow. Everyone was trying to catch some sleep. I shared the tent with Brian and Bert, and witnessed them about to come to blows. The crux of the argument was that three big guys and their stuff could not all fit in the tent. Last night, we simply left our stuff out in the cool night air.
Brian complained in his suffocating voice that Bert's pack was in the way. Bert sat up, his face like a frowning jack 'o lantern. Brian huffed that either Bert or his pack had to sit out in the rain. Bert narrowed his eyes, raised his voice like a sergeant, and refused. Brian explained his argument again and again, like the U.N. drafting a resolution, but his inertia was too much to commit to violence. He ended up talking under his breath and found a way to squeeze in somehow.
Bert rolled over, like a mountain lion with a paw over its kill, and pretended to sleep. I saw the back of his shaved head, his body laying still with sullenness. It would have been funny if masculine honor wasn't so deeply at stake, the difference between two political/life philosophies with two stubborn wretches acting like children. . . . .
********************
It was "up to us" to find our way home. Given a compass, map, and clues how to use both; that was our burden. "Gypsy girl", no-nonsense, grabbed the compass and scowled over the map. Perhaps she was the ideal "woman of the woods". . . . . hard-nosed, sparing of words, lean. She seemed to have little room in her life for sentimental thoughts, especially from me.
The trick was to align yourself so you faced north, and lay the compass over the map. Then you drew a pencil line from your destination to the starting point where you stood. Whatever angle that formed, relative to where the needle pointed, is the direction you wanted to travel. So we had it; "Gypsy girl" leading the way with the compass in the palm of her hand, the needle askance always. Adding to the complexity of the picture was the fact that the compass did not point "true north". On a map, a representation of curving magnetic waves which distorted things somewhat. Due to the iron content of the earth, the magnetic "true north" was off-center from the North Pole in the literal sense. We had to adjust our position to "off-set" this inconsistency. Whether we turned slightly to the left or right, the counselors would not tell us. To not make the adjustment meant that we might travel miles out of our way. The adjusted angle might have been slight, but the difference asserted itself over distance. To turn in the wrong direction would put us even further "off-base". One thing was certain; we couldn't travel back down the trail from whence we came. It was forbidden. Cold, dirty, and tired-- we cut a path through the wilderness. Through clearings, over gray stone, we walked for hours.
Bert was getting hostile, carrying himself down the rolling hills with exhaustion. Altitude sickness was getting to him, and he had let his walking staff slip from his fingers.
In the morning he had set off confidently with it, a chunk of wood tied around the top to form a cross, to profess his faith-- the very staff he had planted on top of the mountain. Then literally "coming down from the mountain" of his Christian ecstasy, he intended to plant the staff back in base camp. But he had no faith now, spiritual certitude giving way to blind endurance. His arms swung slackly at his side as he stared straight ahead, his mouth agape like a man on a death march.. He was embarrassed; a soldier-to-be whose sturdy constitution was failing him at the most crucial moment.
In fact, no one was having a good time.
In a war of higher and baser instincts, our good humor was slowly becoming frayed. Complaints, or egregious chatter, were met with animal snarls. An apology for garnering the anger of your comrades was not in order. . . . . repeating one's intentions, redefining one's words, would add more excruciating detail than necessary to the forum of out-loud thought.
Finally we reached yellow grassland, the trees clearing out. And what a valley lay before us. . . . . almost good enough to sit down and help ourselves to a slice of summer sausage! That's what kept me going, dreaming about having a hunk of meat. Peeling the wrapper back, eating the whole thing and leaving nothing for my fellow campers. Split 16 ways, we didn't get much but my stomach clenched gratefully around the greasy sausage. Extracting nourishment, pulling apart, and swirling it all back together in hardy survival.
Eventually, we reached a paved road and I found myself leading the pack. I looked from counselor to counselor, and they nodded. I beamed a wide grin. In a position of leadership! What was more mature than that? I had the satisfaction of being blindly followed, hearing their footsteps behind me. The camp was almost in sight, over the fields and through the trees. So close!
Then Andy and Dimitri broke away and trotted ahead.
"Come back!" I yelled playfully. In all truth I was mortified at the prospect of not being the first one back in camp. I was the destined one, remember?!
But they continued on.
"I'm the leader!",
voicing my complaint to the counselors walking a little behind me."Part of being a leader is knowing how to deal with people breaking the rules", "Yogi" explained. But here were those disreputable elements, moving further and further apart from us!
I mumbled something about "having traitors shot".
A steep gravel driveway climbed into camp, and the hike was through.
********************
The next morning, before anyone awoke, I stood naked in the shower. My feet were cold and white against the gray slabs of stone. Apparently, the shower was directly tapped into hot spring water. The campers had raved about it. But no matter which way I turned the faucet, nothing but cold water spurted out. Behind the wooden privacy gate, you would have seen my feet being lifted up and down. A very pathetic end as I half-froze out with the indifference of nature. . . . .
Back in Missouri, I stood at the podium and looked over the empty seats. So this was what it's like, standing in front of an audience. . . . .
simulated. All eyes on you, professing something. Guiding people, instructing them; making the world perform in ordered sense. Only thing was, I had nothing to profess. But yet, I stood in the abstract's shadow.
I was never the type who spoke in soliloquies, speaking ordered ideas off the top of my head like spinning flax. That would require enthusiasm, a sense of purpose. Rather, I needed a dialogue carried back-and-forth, like a radio talk show. Otherwise, I tended to overwhelm myself trying to remember what I wanted to say, struggling to stay "coherent" in the open. I wondered if I'd ever "have it".
How far along should one be, at the age of 14 years? Outside of school there was no structure. something to contrast myself against. Here I was in limbo, no lesson plan, no signpost to follow. So I stood on the outskirts of mystery, wondering if "shyness" could be licked.
********************
I needed some time alone, walking through the summer night in self-reflection. The moon's reflection rippled on the lake as I headed toward Trout Lodge. I actually stopped in the lobby, because I recalled that they kept a little basket of peppermints there three years ago when my family had once again visited. No such luck, though.
I walked back in the dark, the scene washed with orange light from the soaring concrete poles, towards the cabins which appeared as windows lit with yellow squares of light. The lights in our lodge were off.
Apparently, Yogi had led a little Christian "Vespers" session in order to get us connected with spirituality, because after all. . . . . this was a Y.M.C.A. camp. I had missed it, lost in an endless world of reflection that divided and multiplied like so much half-Jewish neurosis.
********************
Mere days were left. As a group, we meandered around the property. I found myself coming face-to-face with the "old mill". I had seen it five years before when my Dad, brother, and I came over originally. Yes, it was still a paltry stone building with the remains of busted, rotted machinery. Yes, how times had changed. . . . . in ways unimaginable!
Beyond it was a brown concrete wall (-- rough pebbles, if you felt it) that held up a bank of land. There was a shallow, tiled pool of a spring which gurgled water-- cascading over the wall and turning the water-mill. We hoisted ourselves up and dipped our feet in the cold water. It felt rustic, natural, and good. It was great.
********************
Epilogue. . . . .
"The Space Race" to merge into the
'90s and become everything I always hoped for was a failure. Here I was, stranded
on the beaches of wakened mind like a man who had nearly been drowned, I felt
like a drained swamp with gray, shriveled swamp at the bottom. No clear waters
of radiant energy, even of half-baked confidence, lapped at these moss-slopped
shores. Perhaps one was "so negative", they were fooling
themselves, but on the other hand-- they weren't jumping off into the breach
either and laying their ass on the line on a failed venture. Having "fallen off the wagon", laying on the roadside all but with a jug
of booze in my hand, and tipping it toward society in salutation.
One would play "the insanity" defense, half-true or not, as your parents come in, pull up a chair, and start "the talk" about why it's time to either "go to work or go to school". How you should "take responsibility", but what they don't seem to understand is how your whole teenaged life you were suckered into taking responsibility, sold on the notion of "Sugar Candy Mountain" that turned out to be not quite "how it was billed", mined out a long time ago, or nothing left but for worms and cut-throats taking advantage of "the pilgrims" who made the trek.
They keep bugging you and bugging you. . . . . one tries "to keep a straight face", but burst out laughing. Their nagging insistence pushes at you, like a tube at the mouth, but you pucker up and turn away. Then you start chortling as they voice a litany of charges. Of theories. Of psychological profiles. "You're hiding. "You're afraid". "You simply can't get off your 'pity pot'". Each accusation makes you laugh harder. There is the frivolity of your melting composure as they make overtures of "tough love".
Finally, I got tired of making excuses and simply buried my face in a couple of towels. Then I began moaning, holding my head as if it were aching. My voice was muffled as I howled unintelligibly. Maybe this charade would convince them that I was not "perfectly healthy" nor "fit as a fiddle".
Mom was really buying it, "like my mind had become unhinged". Encouraged, I dove to the floor with my face covered and began crawling around like a victim of Vietnam Syndrome having a fit in a shopping mall. Kicking my legs out, burrowing deeper into a pile of junk like a roach with epilepsy. Mom grabbed at my shoulder and kept shouting my name.
"THE
DEVIL IS DANCING IN MY BRAIN!",
Then I crawled out of my room, down the hallway, and lay on my side-- whimpering about devils, ghosts and goblins. Furthermore, I drug myself down the stairs on all fours and huddled in a corner like an invalid.
I kept this up for a good half-an-hour, Mom looking down at me the whole time. She then got on the phone to call Dad at work. At that point I removed the towel from my face and began laughing again, impressed with my own acting ability. That kept them "off my case" for a couple of months anyway, but with where my life had gone since I truly wonder if that wasn't "Satan"-inspired. Never "tempt fate", because the only mountains you'll know are the insurmountable firewalls of "Division of Family Services" hell with a pinch of brimstone and a monthly check for your troubles. Like temptation itself, it sustains but "never heals".
-- "Are you Satan's (p)imps?
*******************
"You want a-nuther song? Well I ain't plain' one mutherfuckin' note until someone comes up here and puts sum money in my god-damned tip-jar! You know I only came here for one purpose. . . . . to take yor fuckin' cash! Why, I could make more profit puttin' out my meth-head neighbor's asshole and ringin' a bell, hollerin' 'Man for sale! Man for sale!'
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(Rheeee of Crickets)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
("I heard that, Missy!")
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