An Encounter with the Incapables
Chapter 39 of my utopian dystopian novel, The Lost City of Desire
[Read chapters 1-37 here]
Growing up, Carmen never went hiking, not once. She rarely left her family’s upstate farm. The rest of the world outside her family’s fields, and the swim pond, all the world across the cracked asphalt river road, none of that drew her when she was young. She never explored. She just stayed put. Then, all of a sudden, she realized she was turning into her mom, who was known in their area as a troubled recluse. So she pleaded with her father to take her with him on his next trip to the city to barter grain for goods.
On that trip, when she was 14, she saw how liberating it could be to travel somewhere else. Just sailing down the Hudson under the big broken bridges was a mind-opening experience – thinking about how anyone could have designed those bridges, let alone build them, had her mind racing. Her father made her stay pretty close to the boat on that first trip and often when men came to trade with him, he made her go down below and out of sight. One time she peeked through a crack in the cabin hatch as two brutal looking men stepped on to the boat and came right towards her father, right up close. Her heart pounded knowing he wouldn’t put up with that. They were demanding wheat for free, said they would protect him if he gave it, but his face went cold in a way she’d never seen and he reached back for a club and hit the first guy right across the temple. He fell back onto the deck and her father ordered them both off the boat. That night they ate quietly, grilled sturgeon and pilaf, and he never said a word about what happened. When she told Joe he accused her of exaggerating.
“You’ve got a lot of him in you, you know,” she said. He ghosted her the rest of the afternoon. He hated being compared to his father. He’d vowed long before to never be like him.
Still, that trip to the city cemented her desire to visit again, and again. This most recent voyage down the river was only her third trip, and the first she’d taken without the old man. Now look where that had gotten her.
Yeah, look at me, she thought. Climbing yet another hill on a mossy path. I’m never going back to the way things were.
An image of her mother creaking back and forth on a metal glider sofa on the front porch appeared in front of Carmen and just stayed there, taunting her as she walked up the hill. The image wanted her to feel guilty for leaving her mother. But she wasn’t going to do that. In fact, she was glad to be away. She’d never thought she would be glad to leave her family, but the truth was unavoidable: she was happy. Even Joe got on her nerves often enough. She was good alone.
At that thought the trees shimmered in the wind, a great quick blowing that had her in the center of things, the nexus of the world.
Carmen caught herself: she had to find Joe and Sarah. Mind couldn’t wander. She hoped they were right up this trail somewhere. That was the best she could do – hope.
Because I don't have a frigging clue where I am beyond that, she said to herself.
The mossy trail opened onto a ridge with views of distant rolling mountains covered with trees, and a valley with a small river running down below. She was on the high trail Calico Mom had spoken of. It was getting steep and it was starting to kick her ass, but she kept her steady pace. Not too fast, but definitely not slow.
You’d think I’d be more scared from having to deal with Shonda, and those dudes by the river -- even Calico Mom was a bit scary, in her pale way, Carmen said to herself.
She’d seen Calico Mom start talking to herself when she thought no one was looking.
That wasn’t cool. Especially because Calico Mom had as her life’s mission keeping other people from talking.
Look at me. I’m laughing at myself.
Too self-conscious.
Snap out of it.
You were always too distracted.
Helloooooo! she said out loud.
Then there was a crashing sound and she stopped, cocked her head, and listened, every muscle tense, her whole body suddenly firing on fear. She looked up along the cliff face to catch a two-foot wide boulder bouncing down from ledge to tree to ledge and, finally, out into the free air where it fell until it disappeared into the abyss.
Carmen quickly left the trail and went about 30 yards back into the thick holly and pine trees to hide from whoever had knocked that boulder off the trail. She crouched behind a fallen log and cocked her head: no sounds. She could see about 50 yards down the trail, and then it disappeared into the foliage. She thought she caught a glimpse of pink.
What if it was Joe and Sarah?
She struggled to remember what they had been wearing. She couldn’t. Joe always wore whatever was at hand, but she didn't remember him wearing anything red on this trip. She didn’t know Sarah well enough to say what she would wear. And anyway, it had been a few days.
Dammit! She said out loud, swatting at her legs and belly. Jesus!
Something was biting her and she rolled away from the log.
Ants! Jesus. Oh my God. She brushed the mulch off her knees and there were 10 or 12 red spots there from where the ants had pincered her. One had gotten into her belly button and she dug her fingernail in there to stop the bite from itching. She scurried away, low to the ground to keep out of sight, suddenly so vulnerable. And then there were footsteps, thuds, on the path. She lifted her head for a look and there they were, passing on the trail. A big group, maybe 15 men and women, ragged looking, marching in formation. Peasants. That came to her mind. A word she’d never used. They looked terrified, their clothes patched and dirty. She ducked so they wouldn't see her, but maybe too late, because they stopped.
“Watch your way there!” a man cried.
“Shhhhhhhh,” said a woman.
“Don’t shush me. And don’t block the way!”
“Shhh. I hear something.”
“Something coming out of your ass, maybe.”
“We should have left you on the other side,” she said.
Carmen froze in fear. These could be Hard Fork disciples from across the wall. They were either fleeing that world, or they were part of it, sent here for no good reason. She breathed deeply, preparing to run if she had to. She didn’t trust them.
She lifted her head to watch them.
“There she is!” the woman cried. “I saw a girl.”
“Get her,” said the man.
Carmen jumped up and ran into a holly stand, the sharp leaves snapping at her face. She just kept going, running further and further from the crashing noises she heard behind her. They were slower. She felt like there was energy in her legs lifting her higher and farther and faster than she’d ever gone. She jumped over a fallen log and climbed up a rocky slope before pausing to look back.
One of the women was almost upon her, red face and hair flowing over her baggy shirt.
“Why are you spying?” the woman said. “We’re not over there anymore. You have no right.”
“What are you talking about?” Carmen said.
“Who are you?”
“I come from the Hudson River. Who are you.?”
“We are from back there.”
“The wall?”
“The West. We are heading east.”
“So you’re from the other side.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Are you headed to the city? To New York”
The woman just gave her a blank look. She didn’t know what that was.
A general mayhem rose down below, her people calling to her to hurry.
“Don’t let the punks mess with you,” she called out to Carmen as she ran back down the hill. They were incapables, Carmen thought. That group tramped off up the trail. None of them looked very fit, or very happy.
Carmen sat for a moment, a little surprised. If that woman was from the other side, what was the other side like? She seemed like she was from the 20th century or something. Backwards. Unkempt. Frightened. Carmen climbed down the hill and looked up the trail in the direction the people had come. Nothing. No one. She proceeded along the trail, tense and alert for any noises. About a mile along, the trail split into a Y. The right finger of the Y was well traveled. The other trail rose sharply uphill to the left.
So this is the high trail Calico Mom spoke of, she thought. I wasn’t even close before. Calico Mom was right.
Carmen set off uphill on this trail feeling protected, guided and at peace after her scare. The disciples had disturbed her. There was a disconnected sense about them that made her feel awful. She wanted no part of it.
The woods were beautiful again, the trail mossy again. She walked on, certain of her mission. She was going to find Joe and, with him, Sarah.