Date: 2012-04-03
From: Burningtown Gap

To: house by the river
Miles today: 11.5

April 3, 11.5 miWhen I woke up early the next morning and unzipped myself out to the world, I found hikers eating pancakes, hikers leisurely feeding the revamped fire with fringe twigs, hikers leading other hikers in group yoga-inspired stretching. I started off towards the tarp dome with the intention of figuring out how to get breakfast, but Thin Timber stepped up to me first.¢Good morning!¢ His voice was gentle and invited me to my first really good look at him. He stood two heads taller than most everyone else but moved in complete possession of his body. It was the rest of the world that looked awkward by comparison. He had a refined look about him. Probably refined out of existence. Relegated to the likes of this place or in the old history books. An expressive face which betrayed volumes of comprehension. He probably understood most of what goes on between people in this horrible world, but instead of becoming completely numb to everything or growing deranged in reaction to outdated modes of ¢living¢ which don't consider or even really allow human development in its richest diversity, he'd saved a part of himself for moments like this. He was open, alive. ¢Hey 'Timber,¢ I said. His eyes met mine directly, held me to our relation in the present moment.¢Why don't you sit in my hammock and I'll see about getting us some breakfast.¢Nice.¢OK,¢ I said.I'd never sat in a hammock before, but beyond the initial leap of faith that it would hold my weight and not turn me over onto the ground, the fabrics felt fine and the suspension was remarkable. I experimented a bit and every angle I leaned into it, the hammock adjusted to support me. I wanted to lay my length out in it and kind of sneak a private moment, but I didn't want to swing my dirty boots up into the sling. I satisfied myself with a hard lean to the left from a sitting position. Softest mesh curtained my face, which I rested against the gathered folds near the top of one side. Thin Timber reappeared with three petite, blueberry pancakes ribboned with a red berry syrup. ¢Thank you!¢ I took the paper plate in my hands and admired how tasty they looked.¢You're a woman. You deserve it,¢ I heard him say.Now, I must be a fatal polemicist because, in that moment, I couldn't just accept the lovely scene for what it probably was: an effort to make me feel comfortable. Courtship, even. Perhaps. My own thoughts as to who I am, what I ¢deserve,¢ were forming, faster than ever in 2012, and they determined my future actions by here coming together, playing things out, evolving. I was unconscious enough to enjoy my pancakes but there was another part of me that was awake. It disturbed me. ¢Pick your poison,¢ he told me, holding up an odd knife and one spoon. I chose the knife then regretted my decision. But after I'd successfully hewed off an edge piece of one pancake and balanced it on top of the width of the plastic knife, I smiled. I tasted. It was pretty fucking delicious. Thin Timber sat beside me in the hammock and we split the three pancakes on the plate between the two of us.0After a night of drinking, normal people take it easy. Hikers get up early and put in just as many miles as they'd planned. The only potential change isn't in the itinerary, it's in the absence of the pack. Our honorable host agreed to ¢slack pack¢ all 20 or so of us. We loaded all our packs into his truck, which was parked on the nearby state road, and we set off on foot. The Nantahala River was our destination, about ten miles away. Thin Timber and I walked together on the trail through a wide meadow, then up the steep introduction to the mountain range we'd be crossing that day. It had only been about a mile when he said he had to stop to filter water. He'd brought along a few plastic water bottles for us and his filtering pump was in the daypack slung across his shoulders. The whole Wolf Pack apparently had the same idea and they lingered at the spring which welled right up out of the rocks near the shelter. Cold Spring Shelter looked unsuitable for any life but vermin. It was the most common model (flat bed with three walls and one open side) but it was dusty, cobwebbed, and smelled terrible. Feeling awkward, I found the register and looked for Jay. I recognized his handwriting from the week before. ¢If you look hard enough, everything you need can be found in nature. -Jay¢Yeah, except meth.I closed the register and moved my body to the center of things, wondering what was taking so long. ¢I know I'm going to get burned today,¢ said Atlas, a musician who must have been working on his beard since before starting the AT. Coarse, frizzy hair covered all of his lower face, his head and neck, his upper chest. ¢Oh well,¢ I said. ¢We're all a little burned.¢ For some reason almost everyone present laughed. ¢Ain't that the truth!¢ whooped Damn Yankee, a random middle-aged man sporting a yellow-orange curl on his forehead at the end of his mohawk. He took a long draw on the water bottle Thin Timber had handed him.¢I believe I brought some sunscreen,¢ said Cheeks, the Indian girl who'd led the yoga that morning. Atlas nodded.Thin Timber, Casanova, Sunshine and I traveled the first part of the day together. They kept stopping at views, which seemed besides ¢the point¢ after the third or fourth. The gentle, blue mountains all looked exactly the same that day, so I began taking furtive glances at my companions.When we all walked on together my mind was at ease and things felt normal. But when Sunshine returned my gaze once I was overpowered by a feeling of horror. Her face, it was so radiant in kind-looking symmetry, but her skin looked like it were melting in some places, dark indented patches across which lighter threads of skin stretched. I thought about the little that Thin Timber had told me about her. She was German, it had been very difficult for her to get a visa, he ¢used to give her food and stuff¢ but that he'd ¢rather hike with me.¢ Casanova was ahead of me. I could see the slight raise of his blonde mohawk in the back of his head bumping up in the middle to his crown. Or was that the natural shape of his skull? The more I stared the more I could see a little knob at the top. It was like a square mass implanted between his outer skin and his brain. He turned in profile to readjust his knee brace and I found myself doubting his species. He was more like the barely-covered hardness of a dinosaur skeleton. His nose, elongated from his queer, beedy-eyed face, looked like a bone. And the muscles on his arms were so sharp and defined I imagined they'd feel like cold, smooth rocks. ¢Cass is very talented,¢ Thin Timber had let me know. What could that mean? He's good at eating pussy? No. He'll tear me a new asshole? I broke out in a hot sweat imagining the possibilities, making sure to rehydrate myself with plenty of water.After we'd stopped again, reorganized, and Thin Timber had taken a few photos, my hand jerked out madly and grasped Thin Timber back from following the others. Wait. I was wanting, I needed to suck on his lips. He bent towards me and we kissed, intertwined, our hands exploring each other's fabrics and skin. He had a bald patch at the top of his head and I found a single metal bar piercing through one of his nipples. I opened my eyes a little, kissed the center of his collar bone and looked down. A pair of red dice barred the ends. We were both shirtless. When had we taken them off? My longing only had tentative fingers to work with, and the theory that he knew that only made it worse for me. ¢Let's keep going,¢ he whispered into my ear. Oh that's right, we were hiking. We were outside together in North Carolina. I had forgotten everything the moment I started touching him. He looked at me and grinned. He had thin, straight teeth that looked very sharp. ¢You lead.¢ It was like a threat. If I stood there still he'd rip my sports bra off and bite my breast, drawing blood. I could picture my own blood in the cracks between his white teeth. So I ran. Exuberant, heightened, I flew up and jumped down the peaks, skipping steps, fast and effortless. I knew he was behind me but I couldn't see him. I could feel him though. He moved me. But he wouldn't catch me. We outstripped the members of the Wolf Pack one by one. Playful, enjoying my body, I threw my whole momentum forward and faster, swinging my arms to lengthen my stride. Swish, curve, low crouch to round a bend. My hands traveled up from my knees to my svelte thighs. I couldn't stop from feeling myself, rounding out my ass with a swift pass from my fingertips as I ran, gestured, danced.Sunshine saw us pass and threw down her daypack full of first aid materials at us. We zig zagged down the switchbacks of the mountain watching the pack roll down the middle, stirring up leaves, getting caught and then dropping. ¢What the hell is Sunshine doing?¢ laughed 30 Pack as he stepped aside. I looked back up the steep grade to see her trying to scramble down after her pack, skipping the long sides of the trail. ¢Yellow blazing,¢ I heard Thin Timber say. But without a car or a real road it's called ¢bushwhacking.¢¢That's what she gets for trying to keep up with the Wolf Pack!¢ Thin Timber said derisively, actually stopping to watch her descend.Did I care about any of this extraneous nonsense?Absolutely not. I'm not part of this Wolf Pack, man. ¢I'm getting out of here,¢ I announced. I began to leave. All I had to do was observe Sunshine's predicament to know that I couldn't trust any of these people. ¢What's the matter?¢ Thin Timber stayed me by touching my shoulder gently, but I whipped around as though I'd been pushed. By way of response I returned his fearsome grin from before and said nothing. I just hoped that my jaw bones looked serious. With upturned palms I curtly swept my hands aside, motioning for him to please go ahead.¢Are you sure?¢ He didn't believe me. But I stood my ground, defiant. As he passed me Thin Timber made a crack about ¢Porky Pig.¢ He strode on slowly, like a long-limbed woman, swinging his neon green Nalgene with the Eagles sticker on it. There's something in that water!Just after I realized this, Thin Timber bounded away ahead of us all. I looked down at the water bottle I'd been carrying. It was empty.¢So that's how he's got them all rallying around him,¢ I thought and then started running, vying to catch him.0¢Here's your reward for keeping up with me.¢ Thin Timber handed me the other half of a chewed Power Bar. Peanut Butter flavor. My least favorite. I wasn't hungry at all and barely nibbled at the edges as we took a break in a chalky ravine which served as a road. Thin Timber had stopped and waited for us and the stragglers came down one by one. I took a seat next to Sunshine on a log and waited while Thin Timber stepped off to find the spring.A trail angel drove through Tellico Gap and advised us to get in with him. There was ¢bad weather brewin.'¢ But I knew that I would be walking and just shook my head at him. Cass got a ride out of there with a few others as his knees were bothering him. I don't know where the rest of the Wolf Pack was. Sunshine and I ¢rested¢ side by side. I didn't turn my head to look at her directly or anything, but my fear of her face was gone. I took off my boots and socks, then apologized for the odor. ¢Nobody cares,¢ Sunshine said. An isolated, perfect truth!Somebody should have told Kesey's Who Cares Girl. Flailing around in the San Francisco sand on acid making a fool out of herself. ¢Who cares? Who cares!?¢Well, unlike a fly on the wall, I can talk to you about the things that I know, about the objective truth in subjectivity. Nobody cares. I found out. Sunshine told me.0The three of us started towards Wesser Bald slowly with Sunshine in the lead. It felt stiff and unnatural at first to be moving again, but I came up to the episode gradually. The forest around me burned in bright intensity but all my thoughts were turned inward. I was angry and my anger made me full.At the Jump-Up Lookout, Thin Timber wanted to get a picture of the two of us. I smiled sweetly, close-lipped, eyes slightly guarded by my lids as well, for what I hoped was an overall attractive effect. ¢Come closer, rest your head against my chest,¢ he said. We took another one. I was startled at how rapidly his heart was pumping. True, we had just climbed up a sheer rockface, but the flurry of percussive palpitations I felt against my cheek had more behind it. Being near him was like holding a frantic bird ready for flight. I wish I could have focused on his mask for the photo. Maybe I could have read into it. But I was too distracted by my own image. I was so beautiful that it felt like a sin to know it, to look.The mountains around us had changed dramatically since we'd begun hiking that morning. I felt the intensity and saw it outside me as well. The Jump-Up (at 4,000 feet above sea level) was a treeless, panoramic view. There was a jagged, narrow mountain directly in front of us, so huge and real it was overwhelming, deep chasms on either side of it and a gulf between us and its base. To our left and right were more rounded, consecutive hills, all covered with trees. I stared at the vision before me, unable to believe it. It was too big, the world was too big. The afternoon was still clear and our visibility was so good that we could probably see for 200 miles or more, peak after staggered peak. Things changed quickly. After about two miles of running down the mountain after Sunshine, who had disappeared, it began to hail. Distracted with joy, I laughed gratefully and ran faster, ahead of Thin Timber at this point, raising my arms in manic abandon. I couldn't believe any of it. I skid about a foot on a patch of slick mud, but didn't fall.¢Woah, take it easy!¢ Thin Timber suggested. ¢Not so fast.¢ The storm came on so quickly that half the sky was still bright day. The quality of light was remarkable. Dense, dark clouds juxtaposed with strobes of purest, shining light. The hail started out small but rapidly became ice rocks about two inches in diameter. Fortunately, unbelievably, the Roofus Morgan Shelter was only a few yards down the descending trail. Freshest green grass and tiny yellow flowers lined the way as we scrambled to shelter. Wobbles and Voltron were the only other two under the structure. Wobbles, Thin Timber and I shared what I thought was a spliff, but it smelled like strong potpori and hit me like crack. The sound of the hail on the tin roof was awesome. Frozen where I sat, I watched it all wage inches from my face. When I could break away and looked to my left and the inside of the shelter, I saw my reflection in Voltron. Two bright, young things on our inside being productive with something. Water filtering, sharing, planning. But we were outside, vultures, watching. I smelled Thin Timber's orange, soaked polyester and electric blue over there somewhere. So this is what it means to be high. In five years of partying in Berkeley, CA I'd never felt this way. The lines, the meth, oxy 80s melting on tin foil, the liquid, the windowpane, even morphine through a needle ¢ nothing compared. I couldn't speak so I just leaned, forwards towards the downpour, then against Thin Timber's warm rib cage as he caught me with his arm, held me to him.After a few hours, Thin Timber and I joined back up with the Wolf Pack on US 19 by the Nantahala. We got our gear from the truck then hitched up the way to a summer cabin one of Damn Yankee's friends had let him use for the night. Atlas played the three songs he'd written recently out on the screen porch where we left all our gear. ¢I can't stay here¢ was the refrain of my favorite. Inside, Spam was frying and Casanova was sauteing. Most people watched something on the TV but I couldn't tell what it was because every time I looked it was at the ads. Thin Timber helped me get an in to take a shower. With thirty some people in one little house with one bathroom, it wasn't easy. Inside, warm and happy, I thought about how I wasn't contributing much even to my own shower because I hadn't packed soap of any kind. I rubbed myself with 'Timber's loofah and enjoyed the hot luxury of water.Cass nearly walked in on me three times. The door didn't lock and I must have taken more time than I realized. Even if he just wanted to come in and take a crap, I felt threatened. I didn't even try to go myself, during this hour long odyssey in the bathroom, even though I needed to badly. Cheeks was in charge of laundry. She caught me coming out of the bathroom so I awkwardly thanked her. ¢Thanks for adding to the pile!¢ she said. Thin Timber scored the two of us a piece of floor in the master bedroom. We'd be the only two in the room besides Damn Yankee, who would take the bed. But in the mean time we had a closed door behind which to change into our clean laundry. Wrapped in a towel, I waited safely for Thin Timber to come back. I sipped from his Nalgene expectantly and smoothed my hair out in front of the mirror. Bronzed from the sun, bright-eyed, my blonde hair shining even in the indoor, flourescent lighting. He came back in the room, closing the door behind him. I could barely see because I was burning so bright from inside. Somehow I walked across the room to him, dropping my towel to the floor. ¢Thin Timber,¢ ha! That's a joke right there. I laughed as I felt what he had, eagerly undressing him, but he could have no reason to take offense.Instead of resorting to the bed, supine, he gathered me into his arms and bounced me against his hips, right there. I clasped my arms together over his neck, sucked wet, slick kisses from his mouth. His hands grasped my ass as he slid in and out of me, and he held all of me against him with such ease, as if I were a smaller, altogether different species. Evolution fuck. After we got dressed I went back out to the darkened screen porch to have a few beers and listen to some more guitar. Spam, who sat beside me in my rocker in what I felt was silent support, only left my side to retrieve oreos from the kitchen. Oreos which had been bisected, cheddar cheese squares inserted in the middle, then wrapped together with bacon and fried. ¢Here, C.V.¢ Spam held out a plastic plate full of his creations. ¢That's OK, I don't really -¢¢Just try one!¢ His insistence was urgent, so I went ahead and tried one ¢ though it defied all usual standards of good taste. Once I'd had one, I thought they were pretty good. I tried another. ¢You ate what?¢ Thin Timber said when he came out onto the porch for awhile. ¢Oh great, that's just great! And you're smoking more cigarettes too.¢ I didn't care. I was having a great time.Spam told me a story about the bombing of a famous museum housing works from the classical period.¢If it were up to me,¢ he said, ¢I would have been like, 'Oh no, not those! Anything but those precious things! Here, destroy some modern art. You'll do the world a favor!'¢ His flamboyant, actor's presentation of everything made him impossible to read. Personally, I hoped he was being sarcastic. We are all of the modern school whether we like it or not. Always on the edge of time. We may as well give it glory. Later, when Cheeks had Spam face flat on the floor boards in order to give him a massage, I felt nervous, party to more than I wanted to be. In a way it looked so right, but I wasn't involved and therefore it was painful. I'm not really into voyeurism. I was stuck in my chair without a guitar or a person's hand to hold, so I smoked cigarettes and endured alone, though it was difficult, as most realizations are.