The Hike

 

Grainy images of mountains and jungle flashed onto the white pull-down screen at the front of our grade six classroom. Our teacher, Mr. R—whom we called Rosie— was at the helm of a humming slide projector, regaling us with stories of his travels to exotic lands.

     “Here’s one of me on the mountain.” Click.

     “This is one of our hiking group—that’s me on the left there.” Click.

     The darkened room was rife with the sly dealings of my classmates, of which Rosie—for once—was blissfully unaware.

     “One of me feeding a monkey….” Click.

     Sarah passed a note to Ben, who opened it discretely under his desk, then giggled and blushed. Jimmy sniffed his liquid paper, then passed it to Joe. Mike stared at Susan, which I hated. I had asked him out only two weeks earlier on a scrap of folded lined paper that I had discretely placed on his desk in passing. (Will you go out with me, yes or no—circle one) I had watched him open the note from my desk. He circled something without hesitation before sending it back. It was no. I went straight home after school and cried.

     I found myself reluctantly intrigued by the images on the screen that afternoon. Distant exotic lands. The browned faces of expeditioners. Pictures of a worldly, happy Rosie. A Rosie we did not know.

     Rosie was a handsome man, possibly in his early 30s. He had a lean, athletic build and short, side-swept blonde hair that made him look boyish. I would realize his attractiveness only in hindsight. My concern at that time was his volatility.

     He was often possessed by pet peeves, and it was imperative to know what they were. Sniffing, snorting or wiping snot on one’s sleeve could turn him purple in the face. You could be pelted with a box of Kleenex for this. Sassing back in class could result in having one’s desk kicked so hard as to upend it entirely, sending desk, chair and student flying. This did not happen to me; girls were seemingly exempt. Though I never tested it.

     Another pet peeve: clothes should be worn properly. Jimmy was bent over the water fountain one day near the back of the class with the white elastic band of his blue underpants sliding into clear view from beneath his jeans. Rosie had warned him all year, “Cover up that gitch, Jim, or I’m gonna yank it like a pull-tab”. Jimmy never listened. He was bent over the fountain, lazily slurping water like an unsuspecting beast at a watering hole in the savannah. Rosie marched straight over from his desk and grabbed the elastic of Jimmy’s underwear like the handle of a suitcase and yanked upwards so hard that the sound of ripping fabric up Jimmy’s crack could be heard from the other end of the room. Jimmy straightened immediately, clutching protectively at his behind, his mouth wide in shock.

     Rosie was keeled over in a red faced laugh. We all watched in silent astonishment like spectators at an accident scene. Jimmy tried to discretely pry his underwear free. Rosie patted him on the back as if it was a joke shared between two pals just horsing around. Jimmy walked to his desk and sat quietly, wiping tears from his eyes while we pretended not to see. It was unsettling to see him cry. He was the toughest kid in school.

     I didn’t think Rosie liked us much. Yet he did make efforts for our sake, which in the adult world seemed to translate to “caring”. We were possibly a redeemable, pliable medium through which he could make his mark on the world. Perhaps most importantly, Rosie would make us tough. This task could not be accomplished through ordinary means within the four walls of an institution. It required tests of mental and physical fortitude, out in the wild.

     In late spring of 1983, Rosie announced his intentions to take us on a camping trip in early June. A two day hike to a local lake from the school grounds, a round trip of ten miles. It sounded like a lot to kids who thought walking even one mile was pretty far. Each student would have to carry a backpack with everything required to survive in the urban wilds for a couple days.

     We were all given a permission form to take home, and a list of expedition essentials. An expedition! How exciting! On this list was: a can of Sterno fuel, a large empty coffee tin (to go over the lit Sterno as a makeshift cooktop), matches, canned food, snacks, sleeping bag, toilet paper, raincoat. The big item was a backpack, which many of us kids from low income families did not have. My grandpa offered me his old army surplus backpack, dug up from a musty basement. An old beast made of thick, faded green canvas attached to bare aluminum scaffolding. It smelled and looked like it had seen wartime in the trenches but it was better than nothing and my grandpa looked proud to put it on me and cinch me in. “There ye go, kid—ready for battle.”

     Rosie recommended a six-week training regime to condition ourselves for the trip. “You need to take this seriously,” he warned us with pointed finger. “Preparation is what will determine your success or failure.”

     I wondered what failure would look like on this trip. I did not want to fail.

     Every day after school we were to follow Rosie’s prescribed conditioning regime. This entailed hiking the hill behind the school from lower to upper soccer field with progressively weighted backpacks–up to twenty pounds–for an hour. The first week of training, that grassy hill was dotted with backpacking students like ants on a chemical trail. The girls giggled and stopped often to share gum and inspect each other’s packs. A few boys applied themselves in earnest. Most students did this exercise no more than five times in the six weeks before our trip. I was one of those students.

     June came fast. The dewy morning of our departure, I gathered with other nervous students in the parking lot. Many of the girls in the elite clique flashed new leather hiking boots and nylon backpacks. Guessing that it would be sunny, I wore shorts, a t-shirt, and running shoes–the only footwear I owned other than the rubber thongs I lived in outside of school during summer.

     Rosie counted heads after all the cars had left. Then, with his hand raised high, he blew his bright orange whistle and walked towards the sidewalk. We wattled towards Rosie, chattering like geese, falling into line on the sidewalk. It was a slog to the top of the hill to the stoplight where we would veer off onto the trail. The line thinned out quickly.

     Those first few minutes felt optimistic. My wartime backpack squeak-squawked in a gentle rhythm as I became accustomed to its weight. No harder than carrying some textbooks. I can do this. I kept my eye on the distance of the stoplights while trying to keep my place in the procession. I was winded by the time I made it to the top of the hill.

     I stopped to dig in my backpack for my asthma inhaler (conveniently located at the bottom). Several students passed me. When I cinched myself back in, I noticed that I was now in the company of the stragglers: buck-toothed Mandy with her coke-bottle glasses and Cindy who had allegedly shit her leotards in grade two class. I jogged on the downhill sloping trail in hopes of regaining a respectable place in the ranks.

     The dusty trail gradually descended into the black bog of a vast marsh. Yellow thickets of scotch broom scratched at my bare limbs. I swatted at swarms of mosquitos that bumbled to life as I disturbed the scraggly brush in passing. Sticky black muck sucked at my running shoes with every step. The canvas belt of my backpack, which I had already adjusted to ease the weight from my shoulders, was now digging into the soft flesh of my waist.

     The path was not well marked. I could not see more than five feet ahead through the tall stands of cattails. There were several off-shoots from the trail. Which one do I follow? I listened for the voices of my classmates to navigate but only heard the lilting song of blackbirds. One wrong choice and I would be lost. Lost! That would be failure!

     And then an open throat scream close by.

     This was the voice of dismemberment reminiscent of corn field thrillers. My limbs fell limp with fear as I stopped in my tracks. I almost spun around and raced back up the trail, but it would be Mandy or Cindy I would be running to and the road back was another uphill grind.

     I forged onwards, rounding a corner through the cattails with trepidation. A small clearing came into view where dry, solid land rose out of the muck. Nerdy Kenny was there. He threw his backpack violently to the ground and kicked it repeatedly.

     “Fuck you! You fucking asshole!”

     Kenny’s freckled face was a smoldering mess of snot and tears. More kicking, more profanities. He then collapsed to the ground like a pile of empty clothes. As he noticed my approach, he gathered himself upright and wrapped his arms around his knees, his jaw set tight as I moved closer. I saw that he was shoeless on one foot. His white sock was covered in the thick tar of Hades.

     I did not know Kenny well. He was a small, pale kid with black bouncy curls whose gentle presence was easily missed. While many boys at that age were taking notice of girls and smoking stolen cigarettes behind the building after school, Kenny was riding his banana seat bike with friends and trading hockey cards. He could never draw enough attention to himself to be picked on or bullied. A threat to no one. Today I approached him carefully.

     “Hey Kenny….are you okay?”

     “Go the fuck away.”

     I surveyed the surroundings for Kenny’s other shoe but saw nothing.

     “Where’s your other shoe?”

     He hung his head down between his knees and sobbed. I did not know what to do.

     I stepped over the scattered flotsam of debris that had dislodged from Kenny’s backpack and continued to survey the situation. Mandy quietly drifted out of the cattails from where I had just come, eyes fixed in deep concentration on the trail. She glided over the debris like a wraith and carried on. I heard the faint shrill sound of Rosie’s whistle from a distant beyond and realized how far behind I was. Probably one of the last.

     I want so much to say that I stayed with my fallen comrade. That I sat beside him, patiently listening to his woes. Looking for his other shoe. Coaxing him back on his feet. But I did not. I moved on. This haunted me for years.

     Further up on the shrubby trail, Mike and Tim were digging in their packs for something. I told them about Kenny, thinking they might go back and help a fellow boy.

     “He’s stuck back there without a boot,” I said.

     “Fuckin’ Kenny!” Mike said. They shook their heads and laughed.

     I kept walking. Another half hour and I finally emerged from the boggy underworld to a road. A gas station and convenience store was 100 meters away to my left. I looked longingly towards it while waiting for passing cars. I suddenly knew where I was and how to get back home. My desperation quickly began to percolate.

     I could fake illness or injury.

     I could tell mom that I got lost.

     (And the absolute worst) I could say I got stuck behind helping Kenny.

     Cars whooshed by as I debated my fate on the gravel shoulder. If I quit, I could go home and watch Scooby Doo with a bowl of Frosted Flakes. No one expected great things of me. I came from a broken home. Continuing would entail more suffering. I did not want to suffer.

     I saw my friend Kim up ahead on the other side, dangling off her pack while trudging up the hill. We hadn’t really spoken lately; she had started to hang out with new friends. A few months before, her parents had picked us up from school on a Friday afternoon to go see a movie. Kim introduced me to them as we clambered into the back seat of the car. They were happy to meet me, they said. Kim and I chattered with excitement about what kind of candy we would buy at the theatre. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been to one.

     We soon passed by my apartment complex.

     “God, imagine the kind of people who live in that place,” Kim’s mother said.

     “Mom!” Kim shouted.

     “We shouldn’t judge,” her dad said, in a low voice out of the corner of his mouth.

     Kim turned to me and whispered that she was sorry. I told her it was okay. We were all quiet the rest of the way. Kim’s eyes swelled with tears but I kept mine dry.

     When the last of the cars passed, I stepped forward and crossed the road. I did not know until I got to the other side if I was going to turn left and head for home or keep going straight ahead.

     My feet knew the way.

     I followed the dotted trail of ragtag backpackers up the sidewalk, headed to a distant tree line of the regional mountainous park. No words were exchanged when I caught up with Kim. I didn’t know if she even realized it was me brushing by as she dangled off her backpack like a limp rag. Passing her felt good.

     The shade of the tree line felt cool on my sweaty skin when I crossed the threshold of the park. The clamor of voices ahead led me to a clearing near a stream where my classmates sprawled on the moss. A few of them gathered water for their soup, eagerly wanting to put their coffee can cooktops to the test. I loosed myself from my backpack at the first opportunity and let it fall to the ground like an anvil. I lay spread-eagle on the forest floor next to it and devoured a baloney sandwich while watching clouds move across the sky through the treetops, as if in trance. I don’t recall alerting Rosie to Kenny’s predicament (Kenny who?).

     The last stretch to our lake destination probably took about an hour. It felt like an eternity in hell. I don’t remember much other than mindlessly trudging through endless salal. My legs felt like noodles, my guts were cramping. The wartime backpack had become an unrelenting demon harnessed to my shoulders. No one uttered a sound until we saw the lake.

     “There it is!” someone yelled when it came into view. I had never been so happy to see a body of water.

     I set my backpack down on the pebbly lake shore upon arrival. Several classmates were already splashing around in the water, squealing and laughing. Rosie stood by and watched with the expression of a proud patriarch.

     I walked by him to the shoreline, kneeled down and brushed my fingers through the cool shallow water. I peeled off my mud-crusted runners and was about to wade into the lake.

     “You should go and change first,” Rosie said.

     I looked at my classmates in the water. They had not changed.

     “But I can change after the swim.”

     “You really should go and change.”

     I grabbed my backpack and trudged over to the woods, eventually erecting my puptent on shrubby, rocky ground (too tired to care). Once inside, I peeled off my shorts. They were covered in blood. My period had come for the second time in my life. There could be no worse time. And Rosie had seen this. Oh god, kill me now. Who else had seen? I couldn’t bear the thought. I changed into fresh clothes. I reluctantly walked back out to the beach.

     Rosie was there joking around with some of the boys. Just when the thought of being seen by him again filled me with dread, he looked over at me. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up. I smiled awkwardly in return. This hard-ass, volatile sadistic prankster had looked out for me and it seemed to mean something but I wasn’t sure what that was.

     I saw Rosie about ten years later on my way home from the bar around midnight. It was a warm summer night. He rode with one elbow outside the open window of his pickup truck. I didn’t know it was him until he pulled to the side of the road next to me. He still had the boyish side-swept hair. His skin was brown and weathered.

     “Hey there, Heidelberg!” He remembered his old nickname for me. “Need a ride?”

     I was reluctant to climb into Rosie’s truck, adult to adult. It felt too personal and I wouldn’t know what to say. But I had several beers in me and hopped in.

     “Where am I takin’ ya to?” he asked.

     “Just heading home. I live across from the Baltimore.”

     I thought it would be awkward talking to Rosie, but he seemed genuinely interested in what I had done with myself—especially that I had travelled and had a few years of tree planting under my belt (a tough job, not for the faint of heart). It was then, sitting next to Rosie on the vinyl seat of his pick-up truck, that I realized I could trace every moment that I chose to persevere as a tree planter to that decision by the side of the road on our hike. Enduring through bugs, hail and extreme fatigue. Through cramping guts with fifty pounds of trees strapped to my waist, standing at the bottom of a vertical clearcut, looking up at the day’s work in the wreckage and losing my will to live for a few minutes. And then, that step forward.

     What I did not yet know, sitting there with Rosie in his pickup truck, is that I would spend ten more years slogging it out in the mountains of BC, planting about a million trees. That the money from this, and my refusal to quit hard things, would put me through university.

     It was a short ride that night in Rosie’s truck. Soon we were on the gravel shoulder in front of my house. I wish now that I had asked him more things about himself.

     “Good see’in ya, kid,” he said. “Best of luck with those trees.”

     I thanked him, slid off the seat and slammed the door shut. I never saw him again, but think of him from time to time, especially in the woods of my youth.