[Read chapters 1-37 here]
The trail went hidden on my third day out and I bushwhacked through the thick underbrush. I hated the grime that collected where my boots met my cuffed jeans.
When we left Manhattan, I thought I would like the woods, but the heat and slapping branches and gnats and mosquitos were so difficult. In the morning I came across an abandoned wooden cabin that I thought would make a nice hideaway for that time in the future when I’d be able to just relax. Inside I found a short machete, a tin cup, and a battered copy of Playboy c. 1997. Weird. Later, I stopped in a clearing to eat some leftovers from La Gloriosa, and paged through the magazine. Most of the comics made no sense, but the women were pretty, in this weird, plastic way.
I held the magazine open and a long photograph unfolded revealing a brown-skinned woman wearing only a leopard print scarf, reclining on a chaise lounge below desert rocks. Her body was shiny and taught, muscles rippling on her stomach, her boobs to the sky.
The magazine was like a guide to ancient history. The woman so unreal. The idea of this woman going in a room and posing nude for that magazine was impossible for me to picture. It was so strange, but the magazine itself made me feel almost as if I were doing something wrong – and I wasn’t doing anything but getting ready to walk off into the woods. I left the magazine behind in the clearing, for the wolves, and moved on.
I came to an opening in the trees and a view of the universe opened off a stone ridge in front of me. You could see forever. It had to be the canyon La Gloriosa talked about. The wall was close.
La Gloriosa had warned me that this was where I’d run into trouble. I scanned the horizon, saw only trees and cliff faces leading down to a river. And the trail I’d lost, thank God. I followed the trail back into the trees. The woods were very dark.
An image of my mother flashed across my mind. Wearing a blue sweater, jeans, brightly colored tennis shoes, she was walking happily along a city sidewalk as I looked up at her.
“I just saw my mom,” I said to myself.
It was like I finally remembered what she looked like. There she was, smiling, her hair tucked behind her ears. Oh my God that made me feel so good.
I continued on through the damp, spongy woods. I felt so rich at that moment. I felt full. I felt there was nothing more I needed. As my eyes adjusted to the dark forest, the powdered surfaces and the mottled bark of the branches took shape. The path was thick with needles and leaves, stones in places. A stream flowed noisy and unseen through nearby rocks.
I turned to look at it, and as I stepped, my right foot felt a hole, and I almost fell. I stepped back. It was huge.
Bear trap!
I crawled forward and I looked into the pit and there was Joe, on his back looking up with vacant eyes. Was he dead? I looked around for help, but of course there was no one.
“Joe” I called out to him, and he stirred.
“I’m coming down.”
“No,” he whispered, waving me away with a slight move of his hand.
I reached for a handhold to lower myself down into the pit and suddenly slipped violently down the clay wall, scratching for a grip but nothing held and I landed on my shoulder with a thump and a groan. Oh fuck! that hurt. For a moment I could see myself from above, crumpled in the dirt at the bottom of the pit. I lay still at the bottom, my cheek in the cool moss. I had to catch my breath. Slowly I came back into myself.
“Jesus Christ!” I cried.
I unfolded myself. Everything hurt.
I looked at Joe. He was crumpled and in bad shape. He had no idea what was happening.
“Damnit,” he said, holding his wrist. “I think I broke it.”
“Let me see.”
I didn’t think it was broken, but I could see he was in terrible pain. When I tried to soothe him he pushed me away and moaned deep and loud. I looked up at the moss and leaves dangling off the edge of the packed-dirt walls. It was at least 12 feet up to where the hole opened like an oculus to the deep green trees flecked with bits of blue sky. We were never getting out of here.
I had to get him up into the sun. I stood and tried to figure out a way to climb the wall, but the dirt was packed so tightly, and the wall was so steep, that I couldn't even get a fingerhold. I felt defeated. There was no point.
We sat on the ground for a long time, so overwhelmed that darkness seemed our fate. I shut down for a bit, zoned out. I have no idea how much time passed but when I came to the world Joe was moving. Joe said everything was going to be ok, in a voice that reeked of defeat.
“Maybe you can stand on my shoulders,” he said.
He was joking, but I thought it might be a good idea.
He gave me a long look.
“You look so sad,” he said.
“How can you even see my face in these shadows?”
“I can see a little bit, but it’s more that I feel it.”
“I’m not sad, I’m pissed off,” I said. “I can’t believe this happened.”
“Why did you have to fall in?”
“I didn’t choose to fall in. Jesus. You’re the one who fell in first.”
“But you're the one who fell in stupid!”
He laughed at me.
“And you’re saying that you fell in smart?”
He smiled at me. But he said, “I’m not gonna make it.”
“Of course you are. Here, let me hold you. Do you remember -- this is how we first met. I fell onto the roof of that truck. You saved me. My turn now.”
“Kiss me,” he said.
“What if somebody sees?”
He laughed, and that made him cough, and that made him spit blood. I arranged him in my lap, my back against the wall, and stroked his face.
“I hope somebody sees us so they can get us the hell out of here.”
“That would be nice.”
“I mean it,” he said, leaning forward. “I need to feel something good right now.”
I took his temples into my hands and leaned down and covered his whole face with kisses.
Everything smelled like clay. There were clumps of it in my hair.
“Dirty love,” I said.
I was hungry as hell.
“I’m fucking thirsty,” he said. “But we only have a little bit of water.”
“Save it,” I whispered.
“I wanted to live forever,” he said.
“You will,” I whispered back, his lips so close I felt his breath on my ear.
I could feel the dirt on my cheeks. He brushed my hair behind my ear and I could feel dirt coming off his hands and onto my ears. The sun was going down, and soon the hole was pitch black, except that when we looked straight up we could see through a gap in the trees to the stars. Somehow, being at the bottom of a hole, the circular opening caught a few points of stars and concentrated them, so the night sky looked thick with tiny white flowers.
We held each other through the night. I slept, for sure. In the morning light I stroked Joe’s face and it was clear that he was dead.
What if I had let myself love him? But I never had.