Mountain

by Ursula Pflug

  Felt more at peace. Maybe it was true that it didn’t matter, any of it. Maybe I didn’t need to know why I was on the mountain, what was going to happen, where my mother was. It was hard to stay angry because now Laureen was gone but it still seemed strange to me that she’d want to see Peter, not after what I’d told her. Even if she didn’t believe me, it was rude. And the not believing me part always made me crazy.

  But maybe it was enough, just to be on the mountain. It didn’t rain every day and in the heat the earth even dried out sometimes.

  I fell asleep, thinking maybe it wasn’t answers I needed after all. I dreamt Skinny and I were making love.

  16

  DAY SIXTEEN. Late June. It got cold if not frosty. I’ve been going for my long solitary walks wearing clothes that belong to others. Still chilly in spite of Skinny’s jacket and a ratty shawl I found in the goodwill box.

  Most of the kids younger than fifteen came with an adult, although there’s a handful of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds here all on their lonesome. So, while I’m worried about Laureen, it also makes me feel spoiled to complain about it. Unlike some, I did have a mother until quite recently. And I still have her; I just don’t know where she is. And Lark is in Toronto where I left him, although he hasn’t answered my emails. I’ve slept in the orange tent every night since I was first invited, but Skinny hasn’t touched me, not once. At first I thought this was good, meant he is good, but now I’m not sure. I know many of the teenagers here are having it on with each other. Free condoms. Get yours now! A big box discreetly brought out at Circle Rock, every evening at campfire time. More fun than Girl Scouts!

  Wrote to Lark again today.

  “Why don’t you come to Shasta, write him yourself? Just in case your mom’s system is wonky? With all due respect.”

  Daniel’s biker demeanour has always put me off but he’s softer with me than he used to be, or else I’m finally getting used to him. I know it’s partly how unkempt he is and that where I come from, or rather where my dad comes from, people clean themselves up. Maybe I’m judging by appearance less than when I got here, just over two weeks ago. Is that how long that takes?

  “If he hasn’t written back to your address, why would he write to mine? You’re getting mail, right? It’s not like your email’s dead?”

  He shook his head, stuffing his phone back in his pocket. Then he got it out again.

  “Write Laureen?”

  “Uh, yeah. Okay. But you’ve been writing her?” I looked at my feet. What had possessed me to buy white Reeboks? And my jacket. It was a turquoise Patagonia, made out of recycled pop-bottles or Goretex or something that I still wore when it wasn’t so cold I needed Skinny’s leather. The mud was ground in so deep it would never come out, no matter how many times I sent it to the cleaner’s. If there still were cleaners.

  He nodded. “And texting. But you’re her daughter. I mean, if anything, you know, was weird, she’d be in touch with you more than me. Because of that.”

  “Uh, okay. It’s not like I haven’t been writing her.”

  “I know. Just in case, like we said.” He passed me the phone.

  What should I say?

  Daniel looked flummoxed and turned his back.

  Hey Laureen, I miss you. Where the fuck are you? Sorry for swearing. I don’t usually swear. I know you do, but Lark doesn’t like it, so normally I don’t. I know you don’t care. I wish you were here.

  I thought about erasing it. I was babbling, my nerves shot. I left it. What mattered was making contact, not what I said or didn’t say.

  I love you. I hope you didn’t disappear because I burned the food too often, ha ha.

  All my love, Amethyst.

  PS: I still have all the money you gave me. I work in Kitchen a lot. Me and Skinny and Nan. I’ve gotten to know them both. You have nice friends.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Daniel turned around and took the phone back. He hadn’t wanted me to think he was spying while I wrote. I started choking up. That was why I hadn’t asked to go to Shasta with him. I needed a little distance. Not just from her disappearance, but what it was doing to me. The overwhelm. Denial can be a survival tactic.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll go back to SF.”

  “What happened when you went?”

  “Nothing. There was no one there, at Peter’s. No Peter, no Laureen. I went three times a day for three days. I called and texted and wrote them both all the time. Then I left.”

  “It’s weird my dad isn’t writing back.”

  “Come with me to Shasta next time.”

  “Or I can give you his phone numbers.” I was asking a lot, I knew. “You don’t have to call, you can text.”

  “We’ll see. I’ll let you know before I go again. By then you might have changed your mind.”

  17

  DAY EIGHTEEN. No Skinny at breakfast. I helped with dishes after, and then went to Kitchen and chopped carrots for Nan’s carrot lentil soup. She makes it with wild ginger from the forest and it’s better than anything.

  That was where Skinny found me.

  Nan heaved a damp cardboard box up onto the table in front of him by way of greeting. Halfway there the bottom gave way and then there were piles of carrots in the dirt. I started picking them up.

  “Why don’t you be a grownup and help?” she asked him.

  “I don’t ever want to grow up,” Skinny said.

  Nan rolled her eyes and bent for carrots.

  “I thought I heard you say you’re a man,” I said. I didn’t expect him to say that men weren’t kitchen slaves or anything dumb ass like that because he’s not the type, but I was curious. Maybe he was being a jerk just for fun again.

  “There’s a difference between a man and a grownup,” he said, and changed the subject. “A friend of Estevan’s told me one of the things they did at EST to help you let go was get you all in a room shitting together.”

  “They can do that here, too, only it’s a lot cheaper,” Nan laughed, and put a knife and cutting board in front of him. Obediently, he began to chop.

  “My point exactly,” he said.

  “Excuse me?” If there had been a workshop on group poos I’d missed it.

  “Have you seen the four-seater outhouse with no dividers?”

  “I have,” I said, not pointing out I hadn’t used it when anyone else was. “Somebody’s idea of a joke?”

  “Me and Daniel just ran out of wood. I think now people dare each other to use it, to show how tough they are. Not intimidated by bodily functions and all that,” Skinny said.

  “What’s EST?” I asked.

  “One of those expensive white guy guru things that were popular back in the seventies and eighties,” Skinny said. “Turned out Erhard was abusive.”

  “You know, the usual crap,” Nan said.

  I didn’t know, really, but didn’t want to draw attention.

  Now that she had two captive choppers, Nan took her whetstones out of the leather tool bag she always wore and began sharpening knives.

  “Have you ever been raped?” Skinny asked.

  Did he mean me, or both of us? It seemed like he’d asked the room at large.

  Nan went first. “Not technically,” she said. “A boyfriend of my mother’s used to try and feel me up, and it got pretty gruesome on one or two occasions.”

  “I’m sorry, Nan,” Skinny said.

  “It was a long time ago,” she said, wiping the oil off her large and now very sharp knife. “I’m a different person.” She glanced at Skinny. “A grownup. I wouldn’t let anyone fuck with me now. That was the lesson.”

  “Hard lesson for a twelve-year-old,” Skinny said.

  “Harder for an eleven-year-old,” she said.

  “No doubt. You?” he asked me.

  “Ditto. Nan exactly, weirdly en
ough.”

  They both laughed as if that was the funniest thing they’d heard in a long time. I didn’t quite get the joke and finally had to ask.

  “The commonality,” Nan said. “In more than one sense of the word.”

  “One of my mom’s boyfriends molested me,” I said. “He rubbed her feet in sweet almond oil when she was exhausted. He made her laugh. She didn’t know he’d come over when she was out and corner me. And I know there are worse kinds of child abuse than being felt up by your ‘uncle’ in the kitchen, but it made me furious. I wish I’d been told it was okay to say no, maybe I’d have done it sooner. Not just about that, about anything. Taught how to say no. And Laureen didn’t pay much attention when I told her.”

  “It’s the transgressive aspect that’s wounding as much as anything. The violated boundary. We never recover, not entirely. No matter how much therapy,” Skinny said.

  “Why did it take me so long to tell him to stop?” I asked. “Why did I feel I didn’t have that right? There was the surreal movie aspect to it all—it shouldn’t be happening and so in one way it couldn’t be.”

  “You’re never the same, Skinny, you’re right about that,” Nan said. “I hated myself. First because I couldn’t tell him to stop, then when I did tell him, he didn’t listen, not at first anyway.”

  “You’re lucky he did eventually. That didn’t work for all of us,” Skinny said.

  “I was so flabbergasted,” I said. “It just felt too impossible and weird, something that wasn’t supposed to happen, coming from someone I was supposed to trust, someone my mother cared about.”

  “I know this sounds bad,” Nan said, “but it’s hard to imagine Laureen being dismissive. And I don’t even like her all that much. Respect, yes, like, not always. I’m not doubting you, it’s just a comment on her character.”

  “Her and Lark’s breakup was bad. Maybe she was so grateful to be seeing someone who was nice to her that she waved it away. Told herself I was exaggerating, embroidering, trying to get attention, who knows.”

  “The human capability for denial is monstrous,” Skinny said.

  “Yeah, it is. I’ve never really forgiven her. This was supposed to be our patch-up trip, or one of them. We’ve had a few. We keep having the same conversation, round and round in circles.”

  None of us had named any names. I was going to ask why that was but then I noticed Skinny playing with something in his pocket.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “A penis,” Nan said.

  He pulled a little pouch out from its nest in the black denim and untied it. A crystal. Not a cluster, just one long multi-faceted finger, clear as glass. He held it out.

  I took it and looked through it at refracted mist and mountain, handed it back. I was afraid of dropping it. “Very clear,” I said, “I hear that’s supposed to be good.”

  “You think I’m jaded, Camden Town, but it all helps. The saunas help detoxify. Same with the wild food, full of trace minerals to reboot your brain.” Skinny glanced at me briefly before continuing. “Crystals, cranial, Birkenstock shoes. Even the mountain works.”

  “But I do feel it, the mountain,” I said timidly. “Like a dark strong rush pulling me down and up simultaneously, smelling of pine needles and snow.”

  He touched my arm and smiled, apologizing for an unintended slight. “I know. Me too. They probably don’t, though. That’s why they all talk like that. And why I’m sarcastic sometimes.”

  He’d never touched me before. He’d hugged me once, near the beginning, but he’d never just casually touched me like a normal person. I didn’t point it out, though. I didn’t want it to stop.

  Nan looked from one to the other of us. She shelved the knives she’d been working on and tucked her stones back into their pouch. Smiling, she grabbed Skinny’s hat and rubbed his new fuzz. He looked briefly panicked before he got hold of himself and joined in her laughter. She’d already ducked under the awning and walked away, her long skirts swirling around her untied work boots.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He nodded, brandishing his mineral member. “It’s from Coleman Mining in Arkansas. It’s where the very best come from.” He grinned, putting it away again. “Maybe one day I’ll show you how it works.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Me and the other five hundred girls here.”

  I guess I was fishing. I’d never seen him with a girl but he didn’t read as gay. He was hard to parse although we definitely had chemistry.

  He got a funny look on his face. And changed the subject.

  “Five hundred, nothing. Didn’t you know we have thirteen hundred folks, as of today?”

  “It’s funny there aren’t more fights,” I observed. “It’s a lot of people and so many of them lead such stressful lives.”

  “You’re not including yourself?” he asked.

  “It’s not that I’m not; it’s just that disaster is relative. And nothing really bad has happened to me.”

  “That’s a weird thing to say,” Skinny said. “You’re underage, you’re penniless, your parents are AWOL, you were molested as a child, what counts as bad in your universe?”

  “Well, you know, worse things. My dad has money, wherever he is. I’ve never been beaten up. I could’ve grown up in Aleppo. I have you two to lean on.”

  “You have first world survivor guilt,” Skinny said. “Anyway, to answer your first question, didn’t I tell you I know Aikido? They make trouble, I can get them thrown out.”

  “Who does the throwing?”

  “I get Daniel and a couple of his lackeys. Sometimes I help.”

  “The ugly biker creeps,” I said.

  “Don’t be so mean, Camden Town,” Skinny said. “We can’t all be beautiful.”

  He couldn’t have meant me, because I, most certainly, am not.

  “Apologies,” I said. I should’ve told him I loved it when he called me Camden Town but I felt too shy.

  “Taken,” he said. “Anyways, they’re pussycats, mostly. Guys like that usually are, have you noticed? But most people take one look at them, and they leave voluntarily.”

  “Do you throw a lot of people out?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “Folks like it here. It’s safer than downtown. They want to stay. They’re good.”

  He was so casual it freaked me out. “How long have you lived like this?” I finally asked.

  “Lived like what?” he stared at me from under the plastic brim of the ridiculous hat, which he’d put back on. I was trying to read the expression in those dark eyes. As usual, I couldn’t. But the dolphin lips were smiling a little more than usual. He knew what I meant. He was having me on.

  “Do you have parents?” I asked.

  “Estevan raised me,” Skinny said. “He and his partner were my foster parents. Your mother mothered me a fair bit, when she was around. And yes, things like this are what I know.”

  “True for me too,” I said. “Come to think of it.” When I wasn’t home with Lark and his plastic.

  He nodded. “Every year the rest of North America gets more like the life I’ve known from day one.”

  “It hasn’t been such a bad life, has it?” I asked, reaching out to touch his smiling purple mountain. He only flinched a little.

  “I don’t have anything to compare it to,” he said and abruptly got up and left. I was finally getting used to that.

  Not much of a mall rat ever, I guess. That would be one difference between us. And the parents thing.

  So he’s like me, or one side of me, only more so.

  18

  DAY NINETEEN. I’m so transparent. There’s nothing in my journal entries anymore except transcriptions of our conversations.

  It’s not like this tells me anything I don’t know.

  A voice on the trail behind me. “Hey, Camden.” I liked th
e way he said it, his gravely voice like gentlest of sandpaper on my gonads.

  Do girls even have gonads? What are gonads?

  He caught up with me, although he had to stay just behind; it was a single file trail. Since I couldn’t see his face it was easier to say. “I’m going to have to jump you one of these nights.”

  “Hey,” he poked me under my shoulder blade. “Patience. You never heard of it?”

  I heard him light a cigarette. I turned around. He was looking at me and smiling, but he didn’t say anything more and neither did I.

  It reminded me of the quitting smoking workshop I’d listened in on.

  What’s so hard to say that you’d rather bang another nail into the coffin than say it?

  19

  LOOKING FOR SOFIA

  a story from Carmen, as told to Camden O’Connor

  Here, look at these pictures. I shouldn’t be using up my battery to show you pictures, but it’s not like I can call anyone from here anyway, right? This is the squat where me and Kenny and Sofia lived, back before things heated up and I ran away to San Francisco. We had a good time living there, the three of us. But we were innocent then, if I think back on it. We didn’t know how much worse it could get. We didn’t know we could lose even those homes made of garbage. We didn’t know yet that people we knew could die. I heard Kenny was dead. But then, I was also hearing that about him when he was alive. You know people like that, who attract disaster? Sofia didn’t attract disaster; she went looking. And then when it was almost on top of her, she’d duck, and come out clean. She’d laugh at us for holding our breaths. It was a game she played. She was good at it, too; I hope she’s still as good at it.

  I guess I came to the mountain looking for her. I’ve been here for three days now, and I only just realized it, that I’m looking for Sofia. It’s funny, sometimes I think I see her. I see someone way across the meadow with long black hair and I think it’s her. There’s a split second when I tell myself it’s her, tell myself she came because she could feel it, that I was here. I catch myself thinking that all the time; if I stay here long enough, she’ll know I’m here, and she’ll come to meet me. Things like that used to happen to me and Sofia all the time. We used to get our periods together. I remember this one time I went to Vancouver and our rhythms got out of sync. When I came back, she’d already had her period—but she had another anyway, just so she could have it at the same time as me. That was the kind of person she was. She’d have two periods in one month just so you wouldn’t have to be alone with yours. That takes a lot of heart, I figure. But she got mad. To get even, she made me clean up her place.