Morning slipped in quickly and the sound of the jeep shook my eyes to an awake state. I sat up fast and wondered if I’d slept in but the sun was barely creeping over the hills in the distance. The jeep rounded a corner in the distance, but not so far that I couldn’t see the driver. It was a woman. I wondered who she was. As she pulled up the hill to my camp, I got a look at her.
She was pretty, maybe 24, and she had big blue eyes and shoulder length brown hair. Her smile was huge and wide, her teeth white and clean. She stepped out and came over to me.
“Good morning!” she chirped. “Did you eat yet?”
I stood and brushed the sand out of my hair. “No, not yet. I can make some oatmeal” I said.
“NO! I brought you a treat. The man who came to see you the other night, Nick, he said you were very nice to him and to bring you an apple.” She threw an apple at me and I caught it in one hand.
“Oh, and just so you know. He said you two had a very nice talk, and that you opened up to him and he asked to be assigned as your counselor. Isn’t that nice? He’s a very handsome man. I like him.”
“You mean the guy with the stubble?” I asked. He was the one who had visited me. The one who had touched me, parted me with his hands and made sure I knew he was in charge.I could still smell him on me as she nodded yes excitedly.
“Yes. That’s him. He said you still have problems telling the truth, but you’re starting over, and with his help, I’m sure you’ll be fine. He’s taking you under his wing, so to speak.”
She walked over to my fire and blew on some coals and they turned red and hot, and they reminded me of the feeling that was filling my stomach and insides. That man was going to be my personal guardian for the rest of my trip. I started to panic a little bit.
I walked over to where she was, grabbing a few pieces of wood for the fire. I sat them down and blew along side her gently til the bark that was hanging off in strings caught fire and the blaze began. It felt good, the heat on my face. It distracted me from the nerves that felt like 1 million ants that were scurrying around my insides, biting and burning as they made themselves at home in my guts.
“Aren’t you going to eat that?” she asked, nodding towards the apple that I still had in my left hand. I took a bite and turned to face the sky. It was blue and the clouds were feathery, the branches of the dead trees appearing to stir them up like smoke trails being tortured and tickled by long black fingers. I was learning already how to imagine myself in another place when the topic of men was coming into play.
She stood and went to the jeep and grabbed a few things. She walked back to me and plunked down a new journal in my lap. I picked it up and looked at her.
“I already have one” I said.
“I know, but Nick wanted me to take any journal you had before this morning and bring it back to him. He says you’re making up stories and stuff, and they want you to start fresh. They know you really want to try. Plus there’s a new thing called the A-TEAM, its for kids who aren’t making progress, its really hard, harder than what you do normally, so you don’t want to get sent to A-TEAM. Its full of boys who have done terrible things…rape, gang shootings…stuff like that. So Nick thinks you’ll be fine as long as you stick with him.” She smiled at me and turned away to look at my bedroll. “You should shake that blanket out, Allison. You’re going to get bugs that hang out at the bottom.”
She stood and walked around my area. She seemed deep in thought when she said, her back turned “So…can I ask you something?”
“Yeah,” I said, hesitantly.
“Um, well I’m from Vegas too, and well… I used to be bad like you,”
(nice, bad like me eh?)
“…so I was wondering, where do you get your drugs in Vegas? I won’t give names or anything, but like I am going home in a few weeks and well…”
Ok, was this girl asking me for a hookup or was she a narc? As far as I was concerned, she was a narc and I wasn’t about to tell her anything.
“Uh, my boyfriend gets them for me. I have no idea.” I said this with a bit of a question in my voice. One that made her defensive.
“I mean, I’m going on a Mormon mission probably when I get home but I was wondering…like…is it easy to get drugs there now or what? I’ve been living in Salt Lake for a while, so I was just wondering…well…never mind forget it.” She stood and walked to the jeep.
“So, anyway, yeah, well good luck, I’m sure I’ll see you around. Oh and here,” she said, digging in her front pocket. “Take this.”
She tossed a tiny bar of soap to me. It was one from a motel I’m sure, the ones they put the staff up in 2 nights a week when they went in on their days off to shower and shit (or so they said). I smiled and thanked her, and she coldly drove off. I think I may have hurt her feelings by not telling her any names and numbers, but I wasn’t about to get anyone else in trouble. I mean, I only knew kids who occasionally came across some pot as it was.
She had taken my old journal with her. I saw her grab it, she made it no secret, but still, it disturbed me. I knew then that I’d have to carefully hide the truth about what was happening from here on out. Most of all, I’d have to figure out how to deal with Nick being my personal guide for the rest of my journey. The smell of him on me was strong still, and I could not shake the image and feeling of him on top of me.
I looked again at the clouds and wondered why the black branches had to pull them apart like that, their fingers pushing into their soft whiteness, not unlike a forceful man.
Rose Says:
October 24th, 2006 at 2:29 amVisit Rose
I remember a lady that was a councler and she was more cool than the other counclers and while I was on my second solo in handcarts section I still couldnt get my own fire and she gave me one.She got me a fire after staying with out one for a day and night then she came visit me the next day and got one for me what a relief that was first good thing that happen to me I was able to cook up a storm all by myself on that second solo and I had my fire so big I was told to settle it down cause they were able to see the flames from quite a distance.I was feeling good because think about it I was at end of program on a solo with a fire that I would not let burn out completely by covering the coals with I think rocks so it wouldnt burn out.So I think I was on my 3rd day of the solo and one of the counclers came to drop off a letter from my dad and I said cool I have a fire given to me from councler I have all food I can eat and Im by my self and I dont have to hike every thing was going as good as it could have got being out there. So I open the letter from my father and it said Dear Rosemarie I will write one of the lines in his letter(yes I saved all my letters from mom dad and brother and I still have my spoon my wooden spoon that I ate from. This is what my father wrote The dishearting thing to me is that you dont know about your additional stay in Utah . Meaning he was writing in the letter to me trying to comfort me because there was nothing he could do My father and mother had a plane ticket already booked to pick me up on the date that challenger gave to them ya know 63 days and my father and mother had to cancel the flight and make a new one for almost 4 weeks later. I guess the only thing I can come up with (meaning the reason challenger decided to hold me back was I could not get a fire on my own during the whole program because I did not have the proper material and I only had 2 chances to pick out my spindle off the trees and none of them were a steady flow in order to glide it correctly in my fire board . So well ya they said you will not go home with out a fire I was scared but I still had hope to go home cause my dad already had ticket to come on certain date and my father had no say so in the matter. And well after that I found myself a spindle cause someone left theres out by accident which was God sent to me now that I think about it and I took it and the spindle I found and then kept was the greatest spindle of all cause it took me through over 3 weeks through and then they called me fire queen cause I went manic always gettin the fire when it was time to set camp up.