Date: 2012-04-24
From: Jerry Cabin Shelter

To: Rector Laurel Road
Miles today: 9.1

April 24, 9.1 miEarly 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'nI'd set it straightAll 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. 0I'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 or 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.¢WATT!? 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. 0The first mile was a climb of 600 feet up to a mountain called Big Butt at 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 Smokys, 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 to me at the top of that rocky mountain, 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 Smokys ¢ 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 widdle 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 FRIENDSThe 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. 0Nearing 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. 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.