Date: 2012-04-25
From: Rector Laurel Road

To: Big Stamp
Miles today: 14.8

April 25, 14.8 miI 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, trashbag-like 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 the tent 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 it 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. 0I 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 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 I'd be fine with that. 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. After some chilled Snapple iced tea and a warmhearted goodbye, I walked into that Ingles like a proud Amazon warrior 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 fifteen 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 airforce 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 sixties. Dark wooded panels and asymmetrical architecture. The driveway was so long and ill-tended to 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. ¢You surrhe you don't want a smoke?¢¢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 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. 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 ride 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 you 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. ¢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 just 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 awake 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 of it. 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 either. 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. 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, I couldn't rise to the strain of human relations for long stretches 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 closer towards the valley beside 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.