Date: 2012-04-01
From: Carter Gap Shelter

To: Burningtown Gap
Miles today: 15.9

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 the name he here used on the trail.        ¢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 15 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 crazy people 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 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 said.         ¢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 trauma during the months that it was in my mind. Illegal body enhancement, eyeball replacement surgery. Something.                                                         o        ¢GANG RIGHT!¢ Running as one by the lake through trees in the dark. One arm length's distance from the person ahead. Arnette, 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 elbows, 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 metal training bars by the lake with one hand, swinging our bodies into an upward trend as the height increased. 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.         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 the plank, what's the matter with you!¢ Revenge for skipping out on football practice beneath a full moon. Towson match coming up. ¢But I'm not officially DEPed in,¢ was the excuse I made to myself. I'd gone for a run around the park instead, snaking into the woods.         I got back to the linked batter's cage in the field where they'd been practicing but the corporal they'd got 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 deskwork and answering some phones, but he made the strongest members of our group look like idiots. He was fast. Spry as hell he'd flanked our slow columns running uphill then raced ahead, derisively. He wanted us to see the way that he moved. He was tall, cut. Perfect. Of lethal intelligence. He screamed out at us:        ¢We're going to make monsters out of every single one of you. Even the women.¢        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.                                                         o        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 went up 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 shot, I wasn't caught on camera at all. He'd merely ¢And here's Stephanie, coming up the tower¢ but had tilted the angle of the lens over my head towards the mountains. I saw the view from the tower, renewed in his lens.        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. 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: $20 per person, $10 shuttle ride at exactly 8, 10, or 2 the following day for transportation back to the trail. But she seemed concerned about how we were going to get to the hotel, which was more than ten miles away.         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 $8 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 even find the words for ¢backwoods, creepy hick man.¢ I stared at her and hated life. We were going opposite directions. 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.         ¢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 that, if I press it, lets them know I'm in danger.¢        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 another four miles, and hotels aren't really in my budget ¢ or my plan for this trip ¢ anyway.¢        ¢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.         The incline was slight but I decided to take my boots off and sit 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 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.         Hmmm. Shapely 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...¢        ¢C.V.¢        ¢Seaweed?¢        ¢C.V.¢ He'd caught me into looking back up.        Nice, convex shoulder muscles above a trim torso. I wondered 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 lips.        ¢What's that stand for?¢        ¢What?¢         ¢What's C.V.mean, anyway?¢         ¢Nothing. Look, I'm trying to focus on something really important.¢        ¢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, decided to stop for the night. The sun was beginning to set.         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. I drew a wadjet eye motif on the shelter wall with a pen that was lying around inside, then sat down on a stone wall in front of the shelter and tried to force myself to relax.        After about five minutes I was ready to keep moving. I couldn't stop my overall momentum. Climbing back up the steep grade leading to the AT didn't sound appealing either though, so I kept going downhill past the shelter, longstriding 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 the safety of the 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 still starched, paper mache mountains. My ride and I sped between them, 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 45 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.        ¢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.         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 really took 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.         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 campsite was perfect 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 a Salem, set my tent up by the water on a bed of pine needles, filtered 2 liters of water for tomorrow, then closed my eyes on the biggest mileage day I'd had since Springer.