Date: 2004-08-01
From: Georgia

To: Maine
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

''Je voute menage maintenant.''The Evening with Alice unwinds...Strange rhythms in Brooklyn. Had about an hour alone with Alice beforeshe tired of me. Well, we were both tired so went down for a littlenap at 3, slept damn near an hour after which friend Jamie showed up. Suddenly it was all about the girls and Alice ceased eye contact. Itwas weird. Almost as though I'd disappeared. Maybe I had! Maybe Iwas the Cheshire Cat now, and naught but vapors and glistening teeth. Alice and I, the recently self-titled "Your Madnessty" have along-running relationship with the Wondeland idiom. Actually, Alicehas a VERY long running relationship with Alice of Wonderland. Isimply toy with the language of the story when relating to her. ForAlice (not her real name) is in fact the fifth generation granddaughterof the little girl Lewis Carroll took such a fancy to, both in hisphotography and opiate dream-filled fanciful tales of life in anunderground full of backwardses and upsidedowns and not-quite-right inthe head everybodies. Suffice to say, that was about the last I saw ofAlice's eyes last night.Friend Jamie is cute and interesting, so I endeavored to get her tomake eye contact, but met with little success. I was drinking beer. Had been since hitting Little Italy around noon all dizzy with the cityand needing a beer to right myself in the unright world of dizzyingheights and crushing crowds. Jamie and Alice were watching the clockand telling disparaging tales of times past when they would have todrink a bottle of vodka just to leave the house. These girls are intheir early twenties. I'm 37. I drank my beer and waited. At last, apparently, the magical hour arrived and out came the blueglasses with ice, tonic water and vodka. Suddenly, there was laughterand connection between us and a funny shift occurred. Although Alicecontinued to avoid my gaze, Jamie came around and suddenly was talkingTO me directly rather than to the walls and the furniture and such,none of whom, I dare say, were half as fond of her comely looks,blanched white skin and auburn hair as I. (You notice this kinda shitwhen you've got nothing better to do but watch people. I notice a lot.Probably too much.)Eleanor comes over now and after a brief introduction in which Iintroduce in my Werner accent, she talks a blue streak in Germanlish. It's hilarious. She's hilarious. A dancer and a big girl by anymeasure, she bounds about the Brooklyn flat like a wide-winged pelicangraceful as a swan. Flinging open the fridge door, she curtsies thenthrows legs high, first one then the other, arcing over the fridge doorlike it was nothing. Impressive. But it's well-past "Hiker Midnight" now and though I don't make anissue of it nor do I even openly admit fatigue, I am caught yawning,caught closing my eyes. It feels like something of a sin in NYC to benodding (w/o the aid of opiates) at some pre-midnight hour, but there Igo. Out of sync with the world again. Never quite on the rights withthe Laws of Time. Another guest shows up, and then another. One is "The Jackie" soreferred to because of all the stories I have heard about her andphotos I've seen. Jackie was the one person I was truly lookingforward to meeting tonight. Alice told me Jackie really wanted to meetme, too, to suss out this character who moved about the rigid paths ofmen like a silverfish and a hawk, sliding, gliding, and outlining theirony of it all in sweeping Sharpie ink scribbles and shark toothkeystrokes of pocket computer.Jackie hardly said hello. No, in fact I'm pretty sure she didn't evensay that. I said something like, "So, you are the Jackie," and thatI'd heard lots about her and that was it. No conversation. Jackie,Jamie & Alice became a block of impenetrable female energy. And Jackiefollowed suit instantly with the no-eye-contact thing. It was endearing really, watching these three soul sisters unite andshare such obvious camaraderie and love. But it was also sad. Veryquickly I had gone from "featured guest" to invisible man.I kept my composure. I kept my eyes on them all, looking and listeningfor a way "in" to the conversation, an "in" that never came. Eleanoreither noticed my painful disappearance or related to it or something. She kept saying that I needed to go to bed. So I finally did. Smack in the middle of the party in this one room railcar-shaped flat,I conducted the ritual of my every night in the forest. I laid outsleeping pad and bag, unfurled my fleece pillow, and hit the floorbehind the couch.   And promptly passed out. I remember folks leavingnot long after. I never met Alice's beau, who returned home sometimelater that night. In the morning, I packed with thruhiker efficiencyand quiet, disturbing not even the sleeping dog, grabbed my leftoverslice of NY pizza and an oil can of Fosters and slipped out the doorand back to the safe forest world. -RSM