Date: 2012-04-23
From: Little Laurel Shelter

To: Jerry Cabin Shelter
Miles today: 6.8
Weather: light rain

April 23, 6.8 miI woke up to find that it had snowed overnight. A generous coating of white clung to and accentuated ever upstanding root, every twig on every branch of the trees. How wondrous! I could see it out of one eye from where I lay on my side. But I didn't move out of some absurd fear that anyone should know I was awake. I soon gathered through sound and movement cues that there was only one person left in the shelter with me, a man. He lay beside me on his similarly rolled-out matt. Quiet, unobtrusive, but very much still there all the same. I snuck a look at him to find that he was very beautiful. Fit, as is the standard of hikers who've made it this far, and happily long-limbed propped up against the wall at my side. But with such elegant hands! I wish I could aptly describe the gentle paring of his nails. They were all evenly rounded and clean, and on such slender, artist's hands! For such hands I'd bear children, just hoping they'd tend towards their father in all things. He never disturbed me, only silently supported me as the snow fell. I believe he was reading. By the time one more man showed up for his lunch break my man still didn't converse much. He seemed out of sorts around others as well. He barely showed interest in the other, giganticly German visitor to the shelter. But when another, younger man arrived I decided it was high time to at least make efforts towards movement. But when I got out of my sleeping bag I was unpleasantly forced back therein due to the bite of the freeze. ¢Oh HELL!¢ I blew out my windpipes in exclamation, drawing all the attention to myself inadvertently. Three pairs of eyes watched me fumble back into my bag. Since they were all men I didn't feel uncomfortable, just stupid perhaps for not testing the water first. ¢You there. Hey.¢ The most recent arrival to the shelter addressed me and I looked up from warming my hands. ¢You'll freeze in that outfit.¢¢If I've survived the Smokies in no more than this, I'll be fine!¢ I quipped. ¢Oh! So you're a thru-hiker then?¢ The speaker sent an amused look about the place, its living and its inanimate objects, through strangely huge eyes. When he'd finished his survey he didn't end on me but instead upon the upper right hand corner of the ¢room.¢ ¢Of course I am! You couldn't tell that!?¢ I demanded. His eyes snapped back on me and I felt the full force of his stare. Smoke curled from the rolled cigarette in his hand, held up beside his face so he wouldn't miss a single draw. He took a deep drag, exhaled, and with his smoke he said:¢Yeah. I could tell.¢ When he opened his mouth to tell me, he cocked his head slightly to the side and back, his pupils rolling forward to follow me. It was extremely eerie and whatmore he reminded me of a skeleton the way he smiled. Perfect teeth, even teeth, like the model of a class. A skeleton hanging somewhere except it had snatched skin and run off with it. ¢Ha-ha-ha!¢ And then his laugh was strange too. The mocking of the laugh itself, as if to say ¢Who would ever laugh at such a thing right now ¢ or at anything?¢ With each ¢ha¢ he jerked his head a little more, back with the chin jutting out. Like a malevolent Halloween caricature. ¢Who are you?¢ I asked him. ¢The name's Knoxville.¢¢Knoxville?¢¢You may call me Knoxville.¢ ¢What's that mean?¢ the scary, beefy German asked. Knoxville was offputting certainly, but I preferred his brand of unsettling to this foreigner, more a pedophile than a thru-hiker, just judging by looks and mannerism. Besides, he was old. As if he'd read my scorn, Knoxville turned on the guy.¢Oh, you wouldn't get it. It's from an American movie. Jackass.¢¢What?¢ The German further stuffed his cold hands into his pockets, offended. But Knoxville just laughed his laugh again, as if somebody had pulled his voice box spring. ¢I'm Swiss but I bet I can guess at your meaning,¢ said my otherwise silent companion from the night before. Knoxville Now, I'm American and I still didn't get it. ¢Somebody on trail told me that I looked like Johnny Knoxville once,¢ he conceded. But this must have been a lie. He didn't look anything like Johnny Knoxville. The conversation turned to women and how they drive one crazy. I participated with my eyebrows from the warmth of my sleeping bag. At one point I really would have liked to participate but didn't. It's like I didn't feel I had the right to, based on my indisputable actions racked up against me in the past. ¢There's nothing like a woman that'll drive you beyond crazy,¢ the German said to the others, who had both warmed up to the topic at this point and were nodding or grinning their assent. ¢It gets inside you, you don't know what to do. It's like a sweet type of sickness. They're tricksters, all!¢This really made me writhe. I knew how I felt about men. How they'd let me down. Led me on. And yet the world would have it that I was on the side of the tempters, the kniving ones. When I felt so strongly that I was simply led by the nose of my desire, here, there, or away, because of a man. ¢Yeah, right.¢ My physiognomy spoke for me as I finally got out of my cocoon. ¢Yeah, right!¢ A mime play calling all my limbs to serve, the message hopefully spelled out by my half apologetic grimace, my askance glares. I really hope they got it. After the company lapsed back into silence I began weighing my options aloud. ¢I can either stay another night here or...well, what are you all doing?¢ ¢I'm probably staying another night. I'm still lazy from town food in Hot Springs¢ said the Swiss. But I was mostly interested in Knoxville and now turned towards him, hoping he'd tell me without my having to ask again. ¢I'm going on,¢ he said. Then that's what I'm doing. As I prepared to go walk through the snow I listened to the German and the Swiss, who'd decided to keep each other company in the shelter, trade woes and stories. ¢My socks are frozen! Have you ever had to put on wet boots and socks that are actually stiff with frost? If I had dry boots like you I'd be off, but not today.¢¢Did you relax in Hot Springs?¢¢Oh sure, it was alright.¢¢Not everything you expected it to be?¢¢Sure, I mean, I travel all this way to America, and here I am, and it's just not what it was advertized to be. It's not what I expected.¢¢They just had a documentary come out in Germany. Lots of Germans on the trail.¢¢Oh yeah?¢¢Yes! I've met...I think...¢ The German paused to consider the tally. ¢Six, I think. Sunshine, the girl. Have you met her? Then there's a whole group travelling together, just started awhile ago, moving very fast. Sonic, Riff Ralph, Pain, and BaBer Pfeunig. Hey! Funny story! Did you know that when the Germans were in Hot Springs and sick during the war, they said they never wanted to leave or even get well again because the Hot Springs made them feel so good. The treatment is better than the cure. Ha ha!¢ ¢Fuck!¢ I expostulated into the frigid air, cutting over the banal friendliness of the conversation. ¢It's so fucking freezing!¢ My hands had gone numb in the process of getting my gear together and even the little water in my Camelbak had frozen. Knoxville had been watching me keenly, I was aware. The cold didn't seem to bother him for he stood straight and didn't shiver as he smoked his thick rollies. His cigarettes were about the same size as the ones Wobbles had rolled for me, but he smoked one after the other, barely phased. ¢Do you want some tea?¢ Knoxville asked. Warm breath curled delicately around his mustache. He looked like an evil colonial landlord or a Confederate soldier. So wiry thin and wild yet somehow very...proper. ¢Sure.¢ It sounded like a great idea. ¢You have a cup, right?¢¢Yes. Well, just a bowl, actually.¢ He raised his eyebrows at this, more out of amusement than criticism. ¢There's traces of ramen noodles in the tea, just tellin' you.¢ If I were in any other circumstance I would have laughed. Oh, the quaint stories I was acquiring of odd thru-hiker standard fare! But as it was I was quietly grateful for any extra calories. The two foreigners had finally shut up and were watching Knoxville pour hot tea into my orange plastic bowl. There was indeed a greasy sheen like oil on the surface and stray bits of noodle at the bottom, but I've never tasted better tea in my life. I drank it up avidly then went about my business of preparing for departure, but for the first time I felt my poverty. This was no vacation. I'd had nowhere else to go. After I'd gotten my water and visited the privy, I hopped back up on the floorboards of the shelter, went back into my corner and shivered. With my denial stripped away it was a grim picture. This was all there was. For all my efforts I was barely getting by. I could carry everything that I could lay claim to ¢own,¢ and even these items, the $400 pack, the $100 water filtration system, I'd only acquired through thievery and prostitution. The money I'd worked for legally, the $400 from the tax return, was almost gone and I was still in Tennessee. I'd wasted most of it. That was a fact. The surface, all this hiking, was just an illusion. I was just another alligator in the New York sewers who'd been flushed down the toilet. Nevermind how I'd arrived there. I was definitely screwed. All I could do was wait for Benny Profane to come blow my brains out. Nevermind that Benny himself preferred the sewers to the streets above with their gaudy lights and women's eyes like black holes. He'd kill me just the same. It was his job. The makeshift arm band he wears reads ALLIGATOR PATROL in neon green and I know what it means. ¢This is gonna suck.¢ I talked to myself, getting ready to go out into it. Then I just decided that now was as good a time as any. Actually, the more I hesitated the worse off I'd be. So I lugged my pack on and jumped down from the platform. ¢Thanks for the tea,¢ I saluted Knoxville, and meant it.