by Brad Listi
“I DON’T LIKE IT IN THE CAVE, JOE! NO WAY!”
He gripped the table. His shoulders rose.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” my mom said. “We’re not going anywhere. Don’t you worry. You’re gonna stay right here with us, okay?”
My dad turned to me. “We told you to be conservative with him,” he said. “We told you to take it easy, don’t let him overeat, and come straight home. You should know better than that, stopping off in the middle of nowhere at some goddamn hole in the ground. There’s no telling what could’ve happened to him.”
“It was a safe tour,” I said.
“Like hell it was.”
Eventually, Uncle Brian calmed down. My mother gave him some more mashed potatoes. The rest of us watched in silence as he cleaned his plate completely. I thought for a moment that the worst of it was over. I thought I was out of the woods. But it wasn’t meant to be.
Shortly after finishing his meal, Uncle Brian took a moment to mention that he had “PISSED HIS PANTS” that morning.
My chin dropped to my chest. My little sister choked on her water, spitting it onto her plate. My mother was across the kitchen, standing over by the sink, opening another bottle of wine. She turned around, jaw agape. My dad sat up straighter and glared at me.
“What’s he talking about, Wayne?” he said.
“I PISSED MY PANTS, JOE!”
I massaged my eyeballs with thumb and forefinger.
“What in the hell is this, Wayne? What in the hell happened here? What aren’t you telling us?”
I tried to remain calm. I tried to remain casual. I explained, to the best of my ability, that Uncle Brian had had a small “urinary episode” as a result of his slight oxygen issue and that I had taken care of the problem immediately, as a precautionary measure. Furthermore, I assured everyone that Uncle Brian had bathed immediately at a nearby motel.
“And then we hit the road and came straight home,” I said. “No more stopping. No more side trips. No more accidents. End of story.”
“Jesus Christ,” my dad said.
“JESUS CHRIST!” said Uncle Brian.
There was a long, uncomfortable period of contemplation as the facts of the case started to register and congeal.
“Listen,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any harm. I actually thought it might be fun for him. It was a complete accident, nothing more.”
“I HAD AN ACCIDENT!” said Uncle Brian.
My mother walked over to the table with the bottle of wine.
8.
A week in Indiana was plenty. Uncle Brian’s underground panic attack had gotten me off on the wrong foot. My parents were all over me from the start. On the second day of my stay, they sat me down for another round of The Conversation, eager to hear me explain my direction in life. Something about my aura had them uneasy. I seemed quiet, they told me. Distant and detached. They wanted to know what all of my wandering would amount to. They wanted to know why I seemed so intent on blowing through all of the money I’d been so lucky to make. They wanted to know how I’d been dealing with bereavement. They wanted to know if I’d given any thought to what they liked to call my “trajectory.”
trajectory n., pl.trajectories
1.) The path of a projectile or other moving body through space.
2.) A chosen or taken course: “What died with [the assassinated leaders] was a moral trajectory, a style of aspiration” (Lance Morrow).
3.) Mathematics: A curve that cuts all of a given family of curves or surfaces at the same angle.
I told them I didn’t have much in the way of a conscious trajectory. I’d never been much for planning.
“How am I supposed to know what I’m going to be doing a year from now?” I said to them. “How am I supposed to know what I’m going to be doing a day from now? I can’t plan that far ahead. Hell, I can’t even plan five minutes from now. It’s impossible. Anything could happen.”
“You don’t have to know,” my mom said. “You just have to have some idea. Of course the future is uncertain, but you have to be willing to step forward. It’s an act of faith.”
“What is this aversion you have to planning?” my dad said. “It’s a necessity of life, son. We all have to make plans.”
“It’s not an aversion to planning,” my mom said. “It’s an aversion to commitment.”
“Commitment,” I said, “implies feeling strongly enough about something that you’re willing to commit. That right there is the issue. I just haven’t decided what I’m committed to yet.”
“Well, the sooner the better, I’d imagine,” my dad said.
“Some people’s vocations come to them at a young age,” I replied. “Those are the prodigies. Lightning hasn’t struck for me yet.”
“Sometimes you have to jump in feet first, son,” my dad said. “Lightning doesn’t strike unless you fly a kite.”
“Exactly,” said my mother. “You can’t run forever, Wayne.”
“You think that’s what this is?” I said. “You think I’m running from something?”
My parents kind of looked at me. Then they kind of shrugged.
9.
That night I had a dream about Amanda, the first and only dream I’d had about her since she’d died. It was pleasant. We were in Havana, down by the water, walking along the Malecón, looking at Communists. Amanda was pushing a stroller. We had a baby daughter. We were calling her Amanda Jr. because we couldn’t agree upon a proper name. We were going back and forth about what to call her. I wanted to name her May Valentine. Amanda wanted to name her either Fiona or Stella.
At some point along the way, Pamela showed up. I looked to my left and there she was, standing on the rocks below the parapet, wearing the red dress I’d bought her. She was barefooted, holding her red high-heeled shoes in one hand. I was terrified that the tide was going to roll in and crush her. I called out to her in a panic.
Pamela! I said. Pamela! Get off the rocks! Get away from the water! It’s me! Wayne!
But she couldn’t hear me.
10.
The very next day, I made a sweeping decision about my immediate future. I decided to hike the Appalachian Trail for a while. It was something I’d actually pondered before but never too seriously.
I was bowling with Uncle Brian when the notion returned to me, hitting me like a minor epiphany. This time it was serious. I suddenly realized that a summer spent wandering the wilds of Appalachia would satisfy all of my mental and environmental requirements and then some. I wanted the quiet, I wanted the nature, and I wanted the solitude—but I also wanted motion. I wanted variation of landscape from day to day. I wanted to meet strange people. I wanted the potential for interaction with large, untamed mammals. I wanted to rip myself away from the myriad mindless distractions I’d learned to lean on over the years. I wanted another dramatic reduction of familiar stimuli.
I also wanted exercise. Vitality. Physical health. And I wanted to quit smoking. I wanted pink lungs. I wanted to quit committing casual, gradual suicide. That sounded like a decent idea.
Out in the wilderness, existence would define itself on wholly different terms. The trail was immense and unforgiving, running from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mt. Katahdin, Maine, a distance of approximately 2,168 miles. It traveled through fourteen states, eight national forests, and six national parks. Generally speaking, the trail itself was about two feet wide. And it was open only to foot travel. No wheels allowed.
Hiking it would be a mental and physical challenge like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It would force me to live without comforts and vices. It would clean me out, purify me. It would force me to confront myself. Perhaps it would strip me of a few illusions. I felt it was exactly the right thing to do.
Normally, individuals who walk long distances on the Appalachian Trail start trekking in March or April, near the beginning of springtime. I would be starting in June, at summer’s onset, in the South.
Normally, long-distance hike
rs do some training beforehand. They lift weights. They run. They stretch. They hike. I, on the other hand, hadn’t trained at all. My physical conditioning was average at best. My youth was really the only thing I had going for me. My beanpole legs, tired heart, and young, black lungs would be forced to endure a baptism by fire.
Not surprisingly, my parents’ response when I announced my intentions was lukewarm at best. At that point, they’d already given me their opinions on my existence. I knew what they thought I should be doing with my time, more or less. Wandering the wilds of Appalachia clearly wasn’t what they had in mind. But to their credit, they made no real effort to stop me.
“You want to do what?” my father said.
“Where?” said my mother.
“I’m going to walk north,” I said.
On one level, I like to think that they were impressed with my willingness to endure such hardship voluntarily. And the fact that the trip was going to cost a relative pittance (about $500 a month) didn’t hurt either, helping to placate their growing concerns over my penchant for financial myopia.
Beyond that, though, news of my impending foray into the wilderness did little to allay their concerns about my (woeful) lack of trajectory, my (apparent) deep-seated fear of commitment, and my resultant tendency to (as they perceived it) run away from all things associated with real life.
Real life.
11.
In the days leading up to my journey, I busied myself by stocking up on supplies—boots, a tent, a backpack, a knife. The decision to hike had officially been made, and my excitement was rising. I was ravenous for information and wanted to know everything. I purchased a wide assortment of guidebooks and read through each one with great intensity. By virtue of this process, I found myself inundated with information about a guy named Benton MacKaye, the man primarily responsible for the existence of the Appalachian Trail. His story was deeply intriguing.
MacKaye was born in 1879 and raised in a town called Shirley Center, Massachusetts. He received a master’s degree in forestry from Harvard University in 1905 and went on to work for various government institutions, including the U.S. Forestry Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Indian Service, and the Tennessee Valley Authority.
In 1915, he married a woman named Jesse Belle Hardy Stubbs, a prominent suffragist. Her nickname was Betty. Together they lived an intellectual and politically active life.
Sadly, Betty was plagued by mental illness. Throughout her life, she suffered intermittent bouts of severe depression. She went nuts in 1918, for example, suffering a full-blown mental collapse. Only with the tireless support of family and friends was she able to manage a functional recovery.
Unfortunately, however, the recovery didn’t last. Three years later, it happened again. Betty descended into a fit of terrible darkness in New York City. Deeply concerned, Benton arranged for her to stay at the country residence of his friend Mable Irwin, a Universalist minister and a lecturer on eugenics, hoping the retreat would aid his wife’s recuperation.
eugenics n. (used with a sing. verb)
The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding.
With Mable Irwin’s assistance, Benton escorted Betty to Grand Central Terminal, where they were to catch a train to Oscawana, a small town north of the Big Apple.
While Benton was standing in line to buy tickets, Mable and Betty walked off to the ladies’ room. Suddenly and without warning, Betty bolted. She pulled away from Mable, darted into the crowd, and disappeared. Mable was frantic. Together she and Benton searched Grand Central and its surrounding streets, trying to track Betty down. They looked high and low, calling out her name.
A few hours later, Benton reported his wife missing.
A few hours after that, Betty MacKaye’s body was pulled from the East River.
According to a report in the New York Times on April 19, 1921, Benton MacKaye claimed that Betty “often said she intended to end her life by jumping into the Hudson or East River.”
end v.ended, ending, ends v. tr.
1.) To bring to a conclusion.
2.) To form the last or concluding part of: the song that ended the performance.
3.) To destroy: ended our hopes.
v. intr.
1.) To come to a finish; cease. See synonyms at complete.
2.) To arrive at a place, situation, or condition as a result of a course of action. Often used with up: He ended up as an adviser to the president. The painting ended up being sold for a million dollars.
3.) To die.
Betty MacKaye’s remains were cremated. Benton scattered her ashes near a lily pond on Staten Island during a brief outdoor ceremony. Frogs could be heard singing from the lily pond during the service. From that day forward, Benton MacKaye always cherished the song of springtime frogs. It made him think of the cycle of life. It made him think of the beauty of Betty. It reminded him that winter was followed by spring. It gave him hope on days when he was feeling terribly, impossibly blue.
12.
I left on a Tuesday, first thing in the morning. My parents and Uncle Brian saw me off in the dawn light.
“Be careful,” my mom said. “And call us every time you get to a town. And be sure to let me know if they’re holding my packages at the post office.”
My mom had agreed to send me boxes of food and supplies at designated towns along the trail. She was terrified that I wasn’t going to eat properly, that I’d shrivel up to nothing in the wilderness, collapse into a heap, and be fed upon by predators.
It had been a major concern of hers ever since the day I was born.
Uncle Brian said good-bye next. He gave me a clumsy hug that nearly knocked me to the ground. Then he gave me a high five.
He liked to hug people and give them high fives.
I had a hard time hugging people and telling them that I loved them. Even people in my own family.
I had no problem giving people high fives.
“GOOD-BYE, WAYNE!” Uncle Brian said. “I LOVE YOU!”
“Take it easy, Uncle Brian,” I said.
Then I gave him a high five.
I said good-bye to my dad last. He hugged me a little bit more tightly than usual, and when he pulled away, I could see that he had tears in his eyes. The man was half Italian. He had never been good with good-byes.
“Just be careful,” he said to me.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Your mother and I, we worry about you.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m okay.”
“We love you, son.”
“Okay.”
“You take care of yourself out there.”
“I will, Dad. I’ll be okay.”
With that, I climbed into my rental car and started the engine. I backed out of the driveway and rolled away down the street. Uncle Brian took off after me on foot. This was another habit of his: He liked to take off after people on foot as they drove away in motor vehicles. If you weren’t careful, he’d run out into the middle of a busy street in hot pursuit.
Driving away, I watched in the rearview mirror as my dad chased him down, took him by the arm, and led him back up to the house. I honked the horn twice and gave one last wave. And then I made a left onto Gray Road.
13.
Back when I was in college, I’d read Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, a harrowing nonfiction account of the mysterious life and death of Christopher Johnson McCandless. A bookstore employee had recommended it to me one Sunday afternoon, and I wound up reading the entire thing in one sitting.
McCandless was a fascinating character. Raised in a fairly affluent Washington, D.C., suburb, he had excelled as both a student and an athlete throughout his youth. According to friends and family members, he had always seemed like a relatively happy, relatively normal individual.
But then things got weird.
Shortly after graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1991, McCandless gave away his entire life savings to
charity, abandoned all of his possessions, severed contact with his family, and disappeared without a trace. He blazed out West, ditched his car in the desert, burned all of the cash in his wallet, and went on a vision quest. Along the way, he gave himself a new nickname.
He called himself Alexander Supertramp.
In April 1992, about a year into his vision quest, Alexander Supertramp hitchhiked to Alaska and wandered into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley, all by himself. He was trying to have a transcendent experience on the planet Earth. He was trying to defy his parents, renounce materialism, have an adventure, and return to nature.
Also, he wanted to know what it felt like to be truly alive.
A few months later, an Alaskan moose hunter found Alexander Supertramp’s emaciated corpse in a dilapidated school bus in the middle of nowhere.
nowhere adv.
1.) Not anywhere.
2.) To no place or result: protested the ruling but got nowhere.
n.
1.) A remote or unknown place: a cabin in the middle of nowhere.
2.) A state of nonexistence: an idea that came out of nowhere.
Nobody was exactly sure how Alexander Supertramp had died in a dilapidated school bus in the middle of nowhere. Some thought he starved to death. Some thought he accidentally poisoned himself. Some thought he had a death wish. Others thought him a fool who simply took asceticism too far and paid for it with his life. They thought he was a young, silly punk who had been needlessly burned by the heat of his own idealism.
I didn’t really know what I thought.