! ! Travelogues: WET EXIT Part Two: The Place of Enchantment ! Mars Radcon ! ! ! ! ! ! ! a marlow[films], inc. travelogue #3 This story is dedicated to Doug Whittaker, who forgave me, I hope.

! Copyright © Peregrinator Press and Binding 2019 WET EXIT is a work of un-fiction -- as the author likes to call it -- and hopefully a work of art. Because the story is based upon events which actually occurred and people who actually exist, or did exist, there may be some resemblance between the story's characters and people still living or deceased. The names of all the central characters have been changed and, for the most part, only first names are used. By no means, even if the person upon whom a character is based can be deduced, should it be assumed that the character's fictionalized background or anything they are depicted as saying or doing within the story is any reflection of behavior or speech that ever pertained to the actual person.

The illustrations accompanying the text are pencil drawings executed by eye and based upon photographs either captured by the author, discovered in magazines, or downloaded from photo aggregating web sites. In each case, the pencil drawing, al- ready an approximation and typically only a portion of the original image, was scanned and modified using a variety of photo editing software. Ultimately, the illus- trations used in this book are assumed to bear scant, if any, resemblance to the orig- inal photographs. If the owner of any photo, upon perusal, discovers an image too obviously based upon their work and objects to it being used in this way, they only have to contact the author by email and it will be switched out with a different image in all future editions. The same goes for anyone who finds, and objects to the fact, that their actual first name was used (unlikely) for a minor character in the story !which might come across as too evidently based upon them. The author would appreciate readers alerting him to any typos, misspellings, inac- curacies or other screw-ups. Every effort will be made to correct same in future edi- !tions. ! ! ! ! !

Published by Peregrinator Press & Binding WET EXIT Copyright © Peregrinator Press and Binding 2019 ISBN 978-1-7323121-0-4

c/o M. Mewborn 970 W. Broadway #265 Jackson Hole WY 83001 307.713.2745 [email protected]

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! PERSONAE In Order of Appearance: ! Marlow - unreliable narrator Dinah Orbeck - former librarian Dodi - Course Leader Beth - all around helpful person Cheryl - a girl from "The Valley" Thad Houston - Apprentice Instructor Burl - Second Instructor Tyler - medical student Pat - sailor and wife of congressman Cord - big wave surfer Will - culinary school grad Crandall - biology teacher Todd - Cord’s paddling partner Sean - collegiate male Mike - the third Mike Ben - undifferentiated male #1 Brian - undifferentiated male #2 ! Adam - undifferentiated male #3 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

WET EXIT

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! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #1: The Illusion of Depth We crawl up the arm in a ragged vee formation, Tyler on point, Dinah and I lagging slightly back from Cord and Pat's position on the opposite flank. Following our launch from the spit a malaise has crept in. There hasn't been a single instance of conversation between the boats since we returned to the water and that was over thirty minutes ago. I'd swear even our paddle cadence has slowed. It's hard to tell if we're making any forward progress at all. There's an optical illusion involving the wavelets that cause it to appear as if we might be tending backwards. The sky has completely rid itself of clouds, which doesn't help the prospect. We are truncated forms, submerged to our waists in the element, each gripping a paddle with both hands, arms cycling automatically as if connected to an invisible crank. We seem to be scraping against glass, the blades skittering upon a hard surface without purchase, an utterly ineffec- tual enterprise pursued against a backdrop of vast processes: the distant glaciated peaks, the glittering water, the limitless blue sky. It's a world divided precisely into thirds, as Tyler would say, and we don't comprise a minute fraction of it. Ever since our return to the water I've been experiencing moments of acute intestinal cramping followed by release of gas. I've always considered myself to possess a robust digestive tract but that Wayfarer's Loaf of Pat's is really something. Not to mention the quantity of cheese we've been eating these past few days, plus bag after polybag of partially hydrated dried fruit. Now, there's a recipe guaranteed to bind you up. And no doubt there's been too much coffee and not enough water. I gave it a good try this morning, sitting for fifteen minutes against a rock down near the tideline, failing to produce any result. There's no cure but to give the mass more time to force its way through. In the meantime, I've vented my sprayskirt hoping it'll be enough to prevent the odor of my distress from overtopping the hull of the kayak. I don't want Dinah getting any hint of what's go- ing on back here. "What is that murk?" she might ask. Or, better yet, "What is that noisome murk?" Nossir, I don't want to give the librar- ian cause to ask anything of that sort. Naturally, she chooses this very moment to turn in her cock- [2] Travelogues : WET EXIT ! pit and mumble that she needs to add a layer, a process that will involve removing her sprayskirt from its seal around the coaming. I want to tell her this isn't a good time to be exposing herself to the atmosphere within the hullspace, but I don't see any way to explain it that'll make sense without using terms guaranteed to be offen- sive. I almost go ahead and warn her, figuring anything I say won't be as bad as the fumes she's going to be breathing once that seal is off, but ultimately think better of it. I give the stop signal to the group. We can certainly stop. Student Group Number Three may not be able to get itself on the water at the agreed upon start time but we can stop with the best of 'em. To stop and delay is what this outfit's designed for, what we were born to. No one will mind if we stop, or if we ever start again. Once paddles are shipped, before Dinah has a chance to pull off her sprayskirt, I quickly detach my own skirt and flap it up and down a couple of times as a way of ventilating the bilge. At the same time, I breathe in deeply through my nose to see if I can detect any taint from under deck. I can't smell anything but it could be that my nose, its smelling apparatus, has grown exhausted from the con- stant exposure. Dinah strips the sprayskirt from her cockpit, removes her PFD and paddling jacket and begins to reinstall the layers she took off back at the spit. There's no indication she detects anything amiss. If she smells anything, we'll never know. Noisome boots not- withstanding, here's a woman who can sit all day in the stifling at- mosphere of a downtown library, breathing in a recycled indoor air punctuated by the vinegary emissions of the urban homeless, everyone horribly constipated from bad food and dehydration, from weeks of sitting and inaction, and never give a hint she smells any- thing improper, or that she breathes air, or even needs oxygen. To witness Dinah adding a clothing layer while waterborne is a first. Until today, I've never observed her to board a kayak with- out putting on every article of gear in her possession. In the old days, she might request a halt in the paddling to remove a layer, but adding a layer, now that's a change. Dinah should've anticipated it was going to be cooler out here away from shore and saved us the delay. Nonetheless, I'm impressed to see she's beginning to experi- ment with her layers. It's an evolution from the early days of the course when she and I first paddled together, the period I now think of as The First Go-Around, the first ten days of the trip which came to an end the afternoon we dragged (sorry, Instructor Houston) our kayaks onto the Columbia moraine. The Second Go-Around, which I mark as beginning the morn- ing we formed new camping groups and shoved off from the Colum- Section #1: The Illusion of Depth [3] ! bia moraine, was barely forty-eight hours old when Cord, who was amongst the collection of young collegiates that comprised Dinah's second tent group, approached me beneath a kitchen tarp. "You camped with her the whole first part of the course," he put forth. "That's correct." "You cooked meals with her, slept in the same tent, helped her load her boat, paddled with her most days." "Yep. All that." "Yet, you always kept your cool." "That may've been the impression I gave." I was beginning to see what he was getting at. "All I can say is," he continued, "you must be one of the most patient people who ever lived." "Don't be fooled," I told him. "There was a moment just before we reached Columbia when I was thinking of putting in a request for immediate air evac." "For her, or for you?" "Either way. I wouldn't have cared." Yesterday morning, on the beach at Golden, the Instructors announced the rosters for the last of the two Small Group Expedi- tions. Dinah appeared visibly relieved to learn she was assigned to the squad I was given to lead. It's my belief the Instructors made a collective decision to put the librarian under my care for the re- mainder of the trip. Which is fine, particularly now that there are only five full travel days remaining and we are to all intents and purposes able to set our own pace. I believe the Instructors have said there'll be a day and a half at Entry Cove for Final Evals and equipment checks, after which this course is history. Dinah and I surely can't get into much strife in five days. We're known entities to each other. I didn't mind being selected as Small Group Leader either, for that matter. In fact, if truth need be known, I put in for the position by way of the anonymous nomination process, writing my own name down on the little slip of paper, along with the four names of those I wished to travel with in descending order of pref- erence. The only two I got was Tyler and Cord. And Tyler was the only one I really wanted. I figured if I took on the responsibility of student leader, I might be able to exercise a degree of control over the pace of this little excursion. Incidentally, the other two names I put down were that of my old tent mate, Crandall, whom I miss, and Beth, the husky girl, whom I decided maybe it was not too late to get to know. Initially, our three student groups were assigned numbers and of course my team was Number Three, assumed to be last to [4] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! launch, last to arrive, possibly first to vanish without a trace. Be- fore the Instructors dismissed us from the beach we three student leaders were asked to come up with traveling names for our respec- tive groups, something that could be used to designate our separate routes on the master topo. My immediate first thought was that, seeing Dinah and I were reunited, we should call ourselves "The Cavaliers". In the end, however, because the other leaders were tak- ing an alliterative tack, I settled on "Marlow's Marauders" which, I think, is closer to the spirit of our approach anyway. Dinah is pulling on her heavy wool sweater. I become mes- merized by the sight of her struggle to get her arms in the sleeves. Everything is always so difficult for this woman. The sweater is half an inch thick and consists of tightly woven loops of yarn the color and texture of chain mail. Dinah has told me she brought this sweater with her from Chicago and that it's one of the few articles of clothing from her previous life still in her possession applicable to the requirements of extended outdoor travel. The sweater has no stretch to it whatsoever. We may be here all day with Dinah twist- ing about in her cockpit, attempting to get the other arm in. My im- pulse is to assist her by reaching out with a paddle blade and pin- ning the shoulder of the sweater against her back until she can find the arm opening. Instead, I look away to the shore where I imagine, even at this distance, I can see the water lapping quietly at the greywacke stones. I don't know if, on the ballot he turned into the Instructors, Crandall self-elected to be one of the student leaders of a small group. Something tells me he didn't but was drafted for the job by the Instructors. He's not the type to turn down an assignment of responsibility and all-in-all he's a good fit. The Instructors knew what they were doing putting the high school biology teacher in charge of the youngest and most ambitious of the course. This morning, before his group launched out, the biologist stepped down the beach to where I was fiddling with Dinah's and my double. He wanted to know if I was through with the book he'd loaned me back around Day Five. Well, I knew that was coming. Pri- or to this morning I'd hardly spoken to Crandall since the end of the First Go-Around. We'd been pulled away into different cliques, I guess you could say, he being designated a member of the younger set. The invisible dividing line between younger and older falls, I believe, precisely between the biologist and myself. Which is not how it was initially. At the start of the trip, the life sciences teacher was definitely viewed by the collegiate crowd as a member of the oldster set. Crandall has striven to relate to the younger folks with his knowledge of current pop music and the fact that in the front Section #1: The Illusion of Depth [5] ! country he is by his own estimation an accomplished musician. And about that, he says, he had no idea he was going to miss his guitar as much as he has. This has been the longest stretch in his adult life that he's been without his instrument. Crandall brought his acoustic with him to Palmer and says he'll play it for us when we get back. Playing a guitar is evidently a way he has of introducing him- self to people. Acoustic may be the best choice for Crandall while on the road but back home in Texas it's electric all the way. In fact, he's recently joined with three other Austin locals to form a heavy metal cover band. The boys haven't come up with a name yet, though they're thinking of "Armadillo Roadkill". Glam Metal is the term Crandall used to describe his band's presentation, a nomenclature I was unfamiliar with. When he explained it to me all I could think to ask him was: "Don't bands of that sort usually feature a lot of hair." To which Crandall replied that, yes, in fact, they do and he and his band mates plan to wear wigs when performing. One by one, Burl wrote the traveling names of our student- led expeditions upon the master float plan. When it came the biolo- gist's turn he announced the name he'd come up with for his possé. Burl laughed and asked if it was to be spelled with an umlaut, to which Crandall replied, "Absolutely". So, "Crandall's Courageous Crüe" it was. In any case, it seems Crandall's predilection for hang- ing with the younger folk on the expedition has succeeded in get- ting him re-assigned to a different clique. Good for him. There's no reason to be viewed as older, not until you actually are older. The second student pod to launch this morning, "Sean's Somewhat Less Than Courageous Crew" -- no weird spelling and no umlaut -- is the group with the relatively open itinerary. Initially, it was to be "Seal Team Sean", but Sean himself changed the name upon hearing what Crandall was going with. I noticed Burl short- ened it on the map to the "Somewhats". In any case, the "Less than Courageous Crew" have the option of pushing limits, but I heard from Cord who has it from Sean that the more likely itinerary will be to cross Harriman to Surprise Inlet, pull off at a beach the map shows to be below the glacier and camp and fish and take it easy until it's time to make a quick dash to Entry Cove. If they delay long enough the quick dash could turn out to be a limit pusher. But they can do whatever they want. It's their course. I was down on the beach early this morning with Crandall and Sean, lining out the boats for our respective groups. Mainly, I was there to make sure the red kayak didn't fall to any of the Ma- rauders. I'd succeeded in getting back for Dinah and me our old white and lime green Seascape, which only needed its rudder ped- als adjusted to my legs to become the old familiar boat she and I had [6] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! boarded every day back when the course was young. Crandall spot- ted me bent over the double kayak, familiar to him, too, in a way, from the early days. Which was probably what put him in mind to ask about his book. Everybody seems to be wanting their property back. First, Thad Houston made noise about the return of his book and then, no more than fifteen minutes later, my old tent mate arrived with the same concern. I was able to put Instructor Houston off by claiming his book was amongst the gear already loaded in the boat. He said in that case Black Sand Beach would be soon enough. It didn't seem right to take the same tack with Crandall. I'd had his book about motorcycle maintenance in my possession for over two weeks. Fair is fair. Both of those guys are readers and share my anxiety about running short of material. This even though they each have at least two personal books in their possession. But that's the way it is. You always want to have a backup and I was foolish not to have brought one. Always travel with two books: the one you're reading and the one you're going to read next. The biologist's freckles seemed to have expanded over the course of the trip into a solid tan. His hair had also grown in the three weeks we'd been out and as we talked he was continually flicking back a wedge of bang. I decided I wasn't going to tell Cran- dall that I still had the loaner book from the Third Instructor. I thought there might be the possibility my old campmate would take pity on me and let me hang onto his book. Indeed, he may've felt some pity, yet he was insistent about getting his novel back. I fished the book from my daybag and held it out to him. I wasn't done with it and hated to give it up. Good fiction has been hard to come by on this outing. It turned out Crandall had finished the other book he brought and was ready, now we were headed out on the last SGE, to give the first another try. I could see he felt bad about asking for it back. "No, look, it's fine," I told him. "I've already read it, anyway. Maybe I'll buy my own copy when we get to Anchorage." "I'd loan you the other one," he said, "but Mike has it." "It's okay." He wandered back to his squadron of boats which the Crüe was beginning to carry down to the water. The Instructors had as- signed us intervals for launch. Crandall's outfit was first and he was somewhat under the gun to get his pod organized and on the water. Better him than me, I thought. That wasn't quite true, by the way, my saying I'd buy my own copy of the book when we got back to the world. Reading the book Section #1: The Illusion of Depth [7] ! again reminded me of the objections I'd formed about it the first time. As for the idea of living close to your equipment and taking on the responsibility of its maintenance the book is right on. I just didn't like it that the particular equipment the book's narrator is all about maintaining happens to be a motorcycle. I've never been con- vinced a motorbike is the way to go. I tried it once and found that a gasoline powered engine makes it far too easy to roar blindly over the landscape. A twist of the throttle and off you go. It was hard for me to develop much affinity for a loud, exhaust producing machine. A motorcycle only adds to a world that's polluted and filled with commotion. After Crandall left to join his group, I made a trip up to camp, the first of several trips this morning, to see how Dinah was coming with her portion of the dismantling process. Finding her engaged in the inventory of a ditty bag, I left her to the project and returned to the green and white double with as much gear as I could carry. As I was stuffing all of this against a bulkhead, Crandall wandered once more down to my end of the beach. "Marlow." "What's up, Cran?" "I just want you to know I miss the old days of camping with you and Dinah." "Yep. Those were fine days. It was all opening up, everything fresh and interesting." "I'd as soon go back to those days," he said. "It's hard to make conversation with these youngsters." What Crandall and I, each in our own way, considered to be the "old days" were only a week passed, but such is the expansion of time in the wilderness. "Right," I said. "But, look, now you get to be the leader of a strong group. No weaklings to hold you back. It's a chance to chal- lenge yourself, test your limits." "I don't care anymore about testing limits. Are you sure you don't mind my taking the book?" "It's fine," I told him. "I'll get something out of the library. I think there was some Steinbeck." "That Sea of Cortez thing? Beth's got it." "Maybe Thad Houston's got something I can borrow." "I'll give you 'Zen' back when we get to Entry. You can even have it for keeps." "We'll see." "What were you thinking, Marlow, not bringing anything to read?" "Man, I thought the trip was going to be all action. I didn't [8] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! think there'd be any time to read. What were you thinking not bringing your guitar?" "Same. I had no idea we'd have this much down time. The In- structors wouldn't have let me bring it anyway. Too bulky." "Maybe you should look into one of those backpacking mod- els." "Maybe so." Crandall and I were unable to talk much longer. His squad was in the process of calling out his name from the water. Everyone was afloat except for Crandall, the young collegiates eager to get started on the determination of their physical breaking point. My eye caught for a moment on the girl, Beth, who was in a single Po- laris for the paddle to College Fjord. She appeared entirely at home floating in the company of the strivers and pushers, entirely male except for her and Cheryl, the latter wisely teamed up with one of the males in a double. "Good luck," I said, shaking Crandall's hand. "You're paddling the red boat?" I asked. I could see the kayak's garish form down the beach, halfway in and halfway out of the water, obviously malinger- ing, happy to be the last kayak to launch, only waiting for the biolo- gist to get aboard to start putting on the brakes. "You know about that boat, right?" He replied he knew nothing about it in particular. "It's a real dandy for the amount of cargo it can carry," I said. "But it's beamy and slow. Don't be tempted to overload it just be- cause there's room. You might actually want to put one of the younger fellows in it." "I'm kind of interested to give it a try." "Well, okay then. Have a good time." The Courageous Crüe began another chorus of calling out for Crandall. He thanked me for everything, polite southerner that he is, jogged over and got into the red kayak. I went back to my load- ing. Within the space of ten minutes, Crandall and his outfit had passed over the water in the direction of the university group, masses of ice named after one or another ivy league institution, schools which if they continue to enroll students for a thousand years will never exist more than a fraction of the time the glaciers have. And probably never have half as much to teach. I saw Cran- dall in the red boat already lagging behind. With such an early start, if they pushed it -- and every indicator was they were going to push it -- the Crüe could run up against the terminus of College Fjord by tomorrow afternoon and then be forced to poke their way back the remaining two days. Whatever their route lacks in dis- tance, I thought, they can make up for it by taking turns expending Section #1: The Illusion of Depth [9] ! themselves in the kayak of blood. Dinah has re-installed her sprayskirt and, though she still has her pogies to deal with, indicates she's set to go. I go ahead and wake everybody up, give them the word that we're about to resume paddling. "As soon as you're ready with those pogies," I say to Dinah. She informs me she's not going to bother affixing the pogies around the shaft. She's content to have them insulate only her wrists and upper arms. Therefore, the group is free to proceed. We've barely lifted our heavy paddles to the first stroke when off to our right, in the shallows near shore, there occurs a terrific clamor. We're startled as if out of sleep, heads swiveling in unison. A single large bird is on panicked take-off, flailing at the water with outspread wings, furiously paddling at the surface with webbed feet. It's a cormorant, about the only bird I can identify out here, thanks to Dinah's instruction. The bird seems glued or stuck to the plane of the water. I find myself trying to boost it into the air by re- peatedly lifting my chin in its direction. Finally, the combination of flapping and pedaling produces sufficient airspeed and with the tips of its wings nicking the water one last time the bird is airborne. "Holy chicken cow," says Cord. "What a racket." The cormorant wheels about, gaining altitude, and with hardly an additional downward beat of its wings soars around the bend of the fjord and is gone from sight. We put paddles to water and within a few strokes everyone's up to cruising speed. Well, that bird sure shook us out of our torpor. We're wide awake and just in time because it looks like conditions are about to change. Up ahead, where the embayment cocks slightly to the east, the water has taken on a corrugated appearance and it seems our unblemished surface of glass is about to end. Right as we come even with the elbow a breeze begins to push against us. The water be- comes restive and agitated. Instantly, the boats feel the chop and begin to pitch and roll with energy. Dodi, it turns out, was not incorrect in her prediction of sea ice. Around the point has floated a berg of good size. The chunk, protruding above the surface of the water some ten or fifteen feet, sails toward us, pushed along by the wind. Like a glowing television in a darkened room, the iceberg is the one concerning feature in the entire scene and the eye is irresistibly drawn to it. In sympathy with our collective gaze, the rudders of the boats become magne- tized by the mass of ice and as one we begins to steer a collision coarse. As we close the distance, the chunk grows to be much larger than it initially appeared, but that's typical. As previously observ- [10] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! ed, every object on, around or connected to this place seems to turn out bigger, or further, or steeper than supposed. Now, I see that the berg is much more massive than any ice we've so far encountered and, in actuality, sticks up above the chop some twenty or thirty feet. It's as if the hemispherical dome of a state building has been set afloat. Perhaps it's the very capitol of our defunct civilization, rigged with floats and rolled into the sea to drift about partially submerged, a signal to all who've survived that there's no longer anything worth returning to in what was once known as the Con- tiguous Unite States. As we close the distance, cracks and fissures become visible in the columns of blue ice and dark veins of glacial till can be seen to streak the curve of the vault. In places, the ice of the berg glows with a sulfurous green tint. "This is not like the ice you pour your Scotch over," Burl said when we first encountered the blue-green phenomenon in the bergs off Columbia. An interesting enough observation, I thought, though I doubted whether a fraction of the student group, if that, had ever poured Scotch over anything. Burl went on to explain that glacier ice is generally of greater density than your typical home freezer ice cube, hence its peculiar manner of refracting light. The action of the waves has polished the iceberg at waterline, whereas the upper portion remains crusted and sharply faceted. According to the schooling we've received this means the berg is newly calved and hasn't yet rolled. We're close enough now to hear the sizzle and pop. We can see down into the water to a depth of a fathom or so where lurks the iceberg's submerged hull, the mass necessary to buoy up the visible superstructure. "It almost sounds angry," observes Tyler, drifting in close with her camera. She's correct enough about that. The ice has good reason to seethe with anger toward the sun and against the water that both floats and dissolves it. As the berg steams past us, a column of ice near the base of the dome looses itself and slides hissing into the sea. The chunk remains submerged for a second or two then breaches to the surface several yards away. In reaction to this birthing, a new center of gravity asserts itself and the original mass groans and tilts perceptively. Tyler back paddles with quick strokes as the bow of her single is lifted by the swell created by the calving. As we watch, iceberg and offspring are seized by an invisible sub- marine current and drawn crosswise to the wind into deeper water. This first iceberg is only a preamble. As we paddle around the elbow into Barry Arm proper, the scene opens up like a dream. The land pulls back on both sides of the fjord and we're in direct line Section #1: The Illusion of Depth [11] ! of sight with the head of the arm. Up ahead, a regular conflagration of snow and ice is on fire with the afternoon sun. Now, for the first time, it's possible to view as a line of distant blue cliffs the termini of the glaciers that rule this fjord. It's as if we've passed through a threshold. The air temperature has dropped fifteen degrees and the breeze coming down from the head of the arm carries the chill of permanent snowfields, the dank smell of old ice, the sort of heavy, cold air that might issue out of a deep freeze long shut. Upon this cold wind an armada of bergs sails forth to meet us. "That," says Cord, yelling out from his boat, "is one plethora of ice." We heave to, bring the boats together and raft them up bow to stern, hulls in contact, laying the paddles athwart the decks as stabilizers. The boats rock and dip to a surprising degree relative to one another. I extend a dripping blade across the stern of Tyler's single and, in turn, receive the shaft Cord passes over, using one of the deck bungees to hold it fast. Podding up, is what it's called. It's what the Instructors have taught us to do anytime the designated leader needs a minute to survey the situation. Viewed from our position low in the water, the icebergs ap- pear to merge into a solid front of white. I pull the sprayskirt free of the coaming and draw the binoculars up by their lanyard. The binos foreshorten the scene and disperse the nearer chunks, but the glass still describes a barrier of ice which presents as an unbroken line through which no clear route is evident. This isn't like Columbia where the bergs were large and consolidated and floated wide of each other, making it easy to pick a path. The wind has kicked up the water into a crosshatch pattern and a million wavelets reflect a fragmented sun. The ice jostles, the binoculars exaggerate the mo- tion and it's a bright, winking world out there. I concentrate the lenses on the glaciers and find that what appeared to the unaided eye to be a solid blue wall of termini now separates out into three distinct flows divided by dark horns of rock. "Any sign of those gol-durn Instructors?" asks Cord, glassing the prospect with his own binos. "Not that I can see." "You able to I.D. those glaciers?" he asks. "That I can do." I pull the topo from under the deck bungee and compare the names printed around the top of the blue thumb of Barry Arm with the three cliffs of ice that hover out there like mi- rages. "From left to right," I begin, ticking them off for Cord, "they are Cascade, Barry and ... I'm afraid that's as much as I can help you with because the map's torn off." [12] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! "Coxe," says Tyler. "The easternmost glacier is Coxe." Shifting the focus of the binos onto the moraine just south of the easternmost glacier, I pan them around over the supposed loca- tion of Black Sand Beach, our destination for the day. If a spot ex- ists there large enough to land a kayak I can't see it. I let the binos fall to hang by their neck strap and look around at the faces of my companions. It's my sense that everyone's a bit rattled. I'd like to discover some clue, before any words are spoken, about how they feel regarding the prospect before us. Cord pulls his eyes away from his eye pieces long enough to give me a grin and a thumbs up, then returns to whatever he's look- ing at through the binos. The surfer, I think, is game to go forward, or go back, or do anything else I might decide. Okay, good enough. In the front cockpit of his boat, the congressman's wife sits with hunched shoulders. Now she pivots with a neutral expression on her face to say something to the med student who, in turn, re- sponds back. I can't tell if Pat is concerned, or intrigued, or both. It was her idea to come up here in the first place, or her son's idea, so probably she's committed to giving it a try, up to a point, if this is what the group decides to do. Tyler, rafted up facing me, sits placidly in the cockpit of the Polaris single, chin dimpling over the knot of the blue bandana. You know, I used to have those concerns about exclusivity. Ten days ago, the concerns had to do with Dinah. Five days ago they had to do with Tyler. Maybe I should still be having concerns, but at this late stage of the trip concerns about exclusivity no longer seem important. I still don't see where this romance can lead, once the rare circumstance of the expedition is over, but maybe it doesn't matter. Somewhere a shift occurred in which I de- cided, if nothing else, spending time with Tyler would invest the remainder of the trip with more interest than merely continuing to be at large in the student group. And now the girl is considering a visit to the fishing town in Southeast, a sojourn to take place during the short space between the conclusion of this course and her re- turn to school. She pitched the idea only this morning as I was help- ing her shove her single off the beach. "So, what do you say, Marlow?" she asked, the divot, or the dimple, whatever it is, the dent in the skin over her cheekbone forming itself into a visible crater. "How would it be if I came to visit you in that fishing port of yours?" Actually, she'd employed the town's name, but slipped up and stuck "Saint" onto the front of it. It was a opportunity for me to cor- rect her for a change, after all of her criticism about my use of"oars" versus "paddles" or "rowing" instead of the more proper "paddling". Section #1: The Illusion of Depth [13] ! "It's quite likely," I began, "Russian fur trappers had some- thing to do with naming the town, but actually it's just Petersburg. No saint." "Well, right. I know that." I wasn't really doing much to help her launch her boat. I'd hardly put a hand on the foredeck before she was pushing back on the sand with her paddle with force sufficient to get herself water- borne. Just like that, she was twenty yards off-shore, with her question about a visit to Petersburg left hanging in the air. It was clear she didn't require an answer immediately. Which is good be- cause, about her coming to visit, I'm not the least bit sold on the idea. Right off, I don't see it as any kind of solution to our problem, which is basically a dearth of time. She put out some tentative dates and, honestly, there doesn't seem to be enough of a span in there to make it worth it, not if she wants to get back for the first day of class. What she and I need aren't five more days together, but five weeks, or five months, to determine what's between us, or what's not. A gust picks up the snarl of Tyler's hair and carries it out to flutter along with the ends of the blue scarf. Very nautical of her. I'll bet her hair sails out exactly like that when she's at the helm of her parent's sloop. I read in the action of the blue bandana a willingness on Tyler's part to proceed up-fjord. A couple of self-assured wave swells get under the pod and Tyler's boat whacks hard against Dinah's and my double. I catch Tyler's eye and observe the wire to actuate, lifting the privileged lip into a smile. It's the same attentive yet amused expression she di- rected at me on the bus, way back when. Tyler may be the only one who didn't misperceive what was going on between Dinah and I me. She understood all along I was only trying to help the librarian. The kayaks bump again and I'm jarred to recall an anecdote Tyler related to me about her father, the renowned expert on infec- tious diseases. In a tone which revealed how clever she considers her dad, she told me how when he parks his car at the medical cen- ter he will forego his reserved spot and instead pull his vehicle in between the two most expensive cars he can find, thus reducing the likelihood of his own car receiving dents or scratches. I commented that it must not be easy to find an open slot between two vehicles more expensive than his own. I have no idea what he drives but I'm sure it's nice. Tyler curtly replied that he generally manages and, anyway, they don't have to be more expensive than his car, merely as expensive. The air is really getting chilly and I'll bet it's going to stay that way. I'm halfway considering pulling up another layer to put [14] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! on, myself. Or, I could skip it. It'll warm up once we're under way again. Eventually, I'm assuming, someone will pick up their paddle and initiate movement, although at this very moment I'm not sure if we should go forward or back. As always, Dinah's the one I'm worried about and I don't mean I'm concerned about what she might perceive to be going on between Tyler and me. I was troubled about that briefly but that was last week. The librarian has not said word one since we podded up. She hasn't moved nor so much as shifted her gaze. She stares out from beneath her balaclava at the fiberglass decking to the fore of her cockpit, head slightly cocked. I study the spot of color which inhabits the visible cheek, one of the twin barometers of her emo- tional state. The mark is there, right where it usually is, pinched and small. This can be read several ways. It could mean she's feel- ing especially tense, or it could just mean she's cold. Certainly, if she doesn't actually feel cold at this moment, the sight of all that ice up there has got her anticipating a chill. I wonder if Dinah is still pleased to be in my traveling group. A loud booming noise, like a peal of thunder, passes through the clear sky above our heads. I find Tyler's brown eyes looking back into mine with an expression of wonderment. Apparently, the noise was real and she heard it, too. "Glaciers are calving," Cord observes, still looking through his binoculars. "Barry dropped that one. Took the sound about two seconds to get here." I get my binos up just as a second boom reverberates through the air. "Which one was that?" I ask. "Barry again." The water all jammed up with ice and now this. We never heard anything like these explosions at Columbia. I scan the head of the fjord back and forth with the binoculars but can't see any activi- ty, nothing but the static fronts of the glaciers hunkered down with their butt ends in the water, blue and imperturbable. "Whaddya wanna do, Marlow?" This is Tyler. "Not sure," I say. For now, I decide, I'm going to keep my eyes glued to these binoculars. Under the influence of the wind our raft of kayaks is drifting backward and rotating. I have to twist around in the cockpit to con- tinue glassing the head of the arm. I look through the binoculars primarily for the solitude it provides. I need a moment to consider the options. I'm going to have to be careful what I say to the others because whatever I say may commit us to some form of action. As for Tyler's query, what I'm thinking is that there's the ve- Section #1: The Illusion of Depth [15] ! ry real possibility we've gotten ourselves off track. I'm even think- ing this might not be Barry Arm at all and that under my rookie guidance, coupled with a topo map which has seen better days, we've blundered into the wrong fjord. It's true it all roughly checks out. No other arm off Port Wells has three glaciers lined up in a row like that. The topo even shows a thin blue squiggle that corresponds to a stream spraying off a ridgeline right above where Black Sand Beach ought to be. Still, it doesn't seem possible we should be ex- pected to travel further into this bay. As mentioned, the topo- graphical map is drawn from surveys, probably aerially conducted, over twenty years ago. The Instructors have cautioned us about putting anything approaching full trust in the map's accuracy. The geology of this place is dynamic, to say the least. Cartographers couldn't keep up with changes to the terrain around here even if they tried. To see what's really going on, they'd have to land their plane and get into a kayak, or better yet a pair of hiking boots, and how much territory could they cover then? The spit where we ate our lunch doesn't exist as far as the map's concerned. Nor does the topo bother with phenomena as temporary as sea ice. Except for the white spaces of the snowfields, the topo is a collection of hopeful primary colors, brown and green land forms, the water an expanse of unmarked and unblemished blue that offers the false promise of smooth sailing from Harriman Fjord to Barry Arm, or anywhere else you might want to go. Amidst all of this perpetual summertime are regions completely devoid of color, the permanent ice. The names of the tidal glaciers -- Cascade and Barry, but not Coxe, not on my abraded map -- are printed in thin black italics upon a stark white. For the tenth time, I'm struck that the school issues topo maps for a sea kayaking course instead of actual nautical charts. Pat's commented on this as well. Without bothering to ask the I's about it, I've concluded that it reveals the school's terrestrial bias, the fact that the outfit has its roots in mountaineering and still identifies with being a training program for alpinists. Well, topographical survey, or nautical chart, or hand drawn treasure map, I think it's quite possible that due to seismic shifts so-called Black Sand Beach is now underwater and has been for a quite a while. Or that Coxe Glacier has shrugged and covered the beach over with ice. Really, I don't know where else we could be but up Barry Arm, but I've been lost enough times in the woods to know anything's possible. Even if this is the correct fjord and Black Sand Beach is actually up there, it looks to be unreachable given the den- sity of the icebergs. It'd be helpful for us all to remember that this whole jaunt was characterized in terms of a recon. The Instructors claim to [16] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! have no idea what we'll find. They maintain that none of them have ventured so far up Barry Arm before and if any of them have they aren't telling us. They're quite capable of dissimulating this way. It's part of their methodology as educators. They'll withhold informa- tion on purpose to increase the decision making pressure on us students. With respect to Barry Arm, they say they're working from sparse beta inscribed on their master topo, which info is itself based upon notes passed down from other Instructors via the archives stored in the map room back at Palmer HQ. Well, if the In- structors are working from scant information, ours is even scanter. The very label Black Sand Beach doesn't appear on our stu- dent maps. It's only a convenient name the outdoor school adopted for the blank sliver of ground the topo shows to lie hard by the torn spot that is Coxe Glacier. In all likelihood, no one else uses the label or would even know what we're talking about. Black Sand Beach. It makes me think of the sort of slangy term used by returnees from some Boy's and Girl's Summer Camp in the Poconos, only there it'd be White Sand Beach, the sand trucked in from the Jersey shore. This is where the campers go every day for swim lessons, a half-a- mile hike through the woods along a stretch of trail ripe for pranks and ambush. The beach is the one territorial overlap between the Boy's and Girl's Zones, twenty-five yards of pulverized white sand on the north shore of a chlorinated pond, the safe swim area marked out by strung-together plastic bleach bottles, a diving plat- form anchored in the deep part, and at one end of the beach a spot where the woods come down almost to the water's edge, coordi- nates of much counselor romance. Our campers return home to parents and siblings making reference over and over again to events which occurred at White Sand Beach, and The Fern Patch, saying them fast because surely everyone knows about "whitesan- bee" and "the fernpa" and the drama which played out there over the course of two weeks, the competitions, the humiliations, the midnight skinny dipping, the chaste or maybe not so chaste make- outs. The only thing approaching any real intelligence we have on "blacksanbee" is from Pat and such info is vague, bordering on hearsay, originating as it does from stories her son told her from his own course. He may have gotten his facts confused, or Pat may've misheard him, or be muddled in her recollection because on the day her son was describing his SGE she was hosting a fine mi- graine and had just taken on a bolus of codeine. Up until yesterday, Pat never called it Black Sand Beach. She'd never referred to Barry Arm. She just said there was this place her son told her about where three glaciers came down to the sea and he seemed to think Section #1: The Illusion of Depth [17] ! it pretty tremendous and well worth seeing. That's the limit of what Pat remembers. It'd all come back to her when she and Tyler and I were studying the map, trying to come up with some sort of route into the fjords north of Harriman. Pat said it might be the place her son had referenced. Running it by the Instructors, she became fur- ther convinced this was it. She certainly thought the names sound- ed right. Briefing with the I-team, there was the question right from the get-go about whether or not we could camp at Black Sand, whether it'd be big enough to accommodate us, whether we could find it, or if it even existed. Nothing was for certain. According to the Instructors, everything would depend on what we discovered once we got up here. Well, it doesn't appear the Instructors made it, or they got here and turned around. And, frankly, I'm not finding the situation encouraging to our continued travel. The noise of the calving put the zap on everyone, including me. Tyler's question hangs in the air. I don't know what to do. There's a great unwillingness in me to pressure people into a situa- tion with which they're not entirely comfortable. I turn to Pat. "When your son talked about this place, did he say specifically that his group camped, or did they only day-paddle it?" "I thought he said they camped." "Hmm." I take up the binos again. I have no authority here. I'm only the so-called "designated student leader". I've spent no more time in sea kayaks than anyone else in this outfit. In fact, if you want to talk about time logged on water, I have the least amount of anyone in this group, far less than Tyler or Pat. Less than Cord, too, I'll bet, if you count the hours he's spent on a surfboard. Even Dinah just got off a sailing course. Nor- mally, I have as little to do with water as possible. I don't even like taking a shower more than about once a week, though I'll do it for the sake of a girlfriend, or my relations. Hey, I paid the same three thousand four hundred everyone else on this course shelled out, not a nickel less. I will receive no rebate for having taken on extra responsibility. I'm receiving no wages here. Well, I guess there were those cans of fruit cocktail and tuna fish the Instructors slipped me, maybe as encouragement to continue coaching the younger or less experienced campers, which I didn't mind doing anyway. Rather poor compensation, if that's what it was. How does it happen that suddenly I'm rafted up in the middle of all these other boats with everyone waiting on my word to proceed? How can this be when all I want is to be ashore some- where, off by myself on a rock with a book and a mug of hot drink? And here comes another sharp pain from the gas build-up. I've got [18] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! to get out of this boat and onto dry land where I can stand up straight and move about or there's gonna be a problem. I catch Tyler looking at me, entertained by the effort it ap- pears I'm putting into an answer to her question. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to suggest we give up the idea of Black Sand Beach. I believe this announcement, once made, will prove a great relief to everyone. We'll go back out toward the head of the fjord where the shore comes down flat to the water and find a spot to establish a comfortable bivouac for the night. In fact, right there where we ate lunch didn't look like bad camping. We could set up the tent and the tarps on the other side of the creek, just to be discreet. What I'll tell Dodi and Burl and Thad Houston, when we finally meet up with them, is that after considerable dis- cussion we came to the conclusion that they, the Instructors, reck- oned Barry Arm too dangerous, too choked with ice, the glaciers way too active for comfort, and so proceeded on to their second night's camp, trusting in our ability to decide for ourselves. This plan is especially attractive because it contains within it a plausible excuse to free ourselves, effective immediately, from the scrutiny of our teachers. Not to mention that the plan's implementation would make it likely that within the space of an hour I might obtain the only thing I want in this life, a hot drink and a place to sit apart from the others. And, speaking of which, if we don't meet up with the Instructor's, Mr. Houston's loaner anthology is mine until Entry Cove. Look at Pat there, cold and stiff from the day's effort. We need to get her ashore and into a sleeping bag, a mug of hot tea in her hand. A bit of urging and I'll bet she'd willingly give up the mis- sion at this point. "Well, Marlow?" asks Tyler. The hulls of the boats bump together with the sound of hol- low drums. This little girl from Boston, team player and academic go-getter, is determined not to let me shirk my responsibility. "I think," I begin, "we should go ahead and proceed up the Arm a little further, at least until we get into the ice. By then, if we don't spot the Instructors, we should call it good, turn around and find some other place to camp. You know, go with Plan B., meet the Instructors at Entry Cove. "Reasonable," says Tyler after a slight pause. "I think so." Everyone has heard the plan -- I spoke loud enough to make sure of it -- and there are no objections. Apparently, they all think the plan reasonable, as well. Even if they don't, they'll go along with the decision. Section #1: The Illusion of Depth [19] ! Still, I hesitate to take the first paddle stroke. If it was just Tyler and myself and maybe Cord we'd already be on our way up the arm. There was an afternoon on the day before we arrived to Golden, designated as free time by the Instructors. This was only a day or so after the student group completed the first Small Group Expedition. Tyler and Cord and I took the opportunity to hike a mile or so away from camp. We were off to do some bouldering, a diversion Cord dabbled in from time to time down in "the valley". As he described it, most of the so-called bouldering takes place at in- door rock gyms. Cord and Tyler had cooked up the little excursion between themselves and then invited me along. From the way they talked about it, I gathered bouldering was something in vogue amongst their generation, the suburban faction anyway, like frisbee golf once was, or maybe still is. I didn't mind accompanying the two young- sters. As always I was continually on the lookout for any giveaways the two were, or had been, romantically involved. I didn't notice anything in the couple of hours we were away from the group, but then a girl like Tyler wasn't likely to put out any obvious clues that she was with one man as opposed to another. We couldn't find any boulders or erratics to climb that day but we did find a nice cliff face with deep sand at its base. I could see why Cord was drawn to the challenge of the little mini-climbs, re- quiring as they do the same brief intensity of focus demanded by wave riding. I wasn't game to climb much higher than I was willing to fall. I figured the sand was going to feel like solid concrete from any height above five feet. It turned out we were able to avoid the sheer face of the cliff and utilize an assistive crack. The climbing proved to be neither here nor there. The no- table thing was how well the three of us got along. There was an al- most total absence of male competition between the young surfer and myself. Even with an attractive female around as witness, Cord displayed no determination to best me and I certainly had no desire to show him up. There was an easy fluidity to the decision making, a rational assessment of risks which allowed everyone to recreate within their ability. Grudgingly, I extract myself from this daydream, so pleasant for its memory of solid ground underfoot, to find my gaze resting upon the peaked woolen hat atop the librarian's head, the old de- fault setting, the index toward which my eyes gravitate if left to their own volition. There Dinah sits, not meeting anyone's gaze. Again, there's the urge to poke her on the shoulder with the paddle, to force her to [20] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! turn around and look at me. I suppose it'd be too much to ask that she stop staring at her damn pogies and offer up her own reasoned assessment of the situation. But that's not Dinah's style. She'll sim- ply submit to whatever the rest of us decide to do. Another explosive boom passes overhead. "Cascade dropped that one," announces Cord. "Chunk of ice looked to be about the size of an apartment building." I bring first one, then another of the glaciers within the scope of the binoculars. Again, I'm too late to spot anything. Stalling, I pass the binos randomly over the shifting bergs at the base of Cas- cade thinking maybe the disturbance is a preamble to another calv- ing. A gap opens in the press of the ice and just there, rising and falling in minuscule succession like the legs of an overturned in- sect, are three sets of paddle blades. No question but it's the In- structors. Even at this distance I can descry the yellow headgasket. We break up the pod and get underway, chopping and hack- ing at the water with the paddles until the boats are up to speed. Our work is laid out for us as surely as if the water between us and the Instructors is a bolt of blue cloth requiring only to be cut along its length. "Now what're you thinking?" asks Tyler. She's moved her single into close conversational distance, only a narrow channel of water between our boats. "I'm not thinking anything," I say. "Except how long it's tak- ing to reach that first line of ice. What're you thinking?" "Well, I'll tell you," she says, punching out with her paddle shaft and drawing it back in. "I've been studying that haze up there. I remember that I once read somewhere that in the old days of stu- dio production film crews would hang a gauze curtain behind the actors to create the illusion of depth." "Way too many movies." "Probably." "What I'd rather know is what do you think about our present course?" "Let me see," she says, consulting her wristwatch. "Tide should be turning soon. Until it does, I suggest we move in closer to the shore. Less current to work against." ! "Good idea." ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! Section #2: A Surf Landing ! Whales travel in pods and so, evidently, do sea kayaks. Sometimes with whales they're called herds, but pods is better and I see why the school prefers it. I encourage the others to form up into a nice pod-like group and to stay tight as we go into the ice. Following Tyler's suggestion, the plan is to remain no more than twenty-feet off the inlet's east shore where the outgoing tidal current will be less. Speaking of our young medical intern, she remains close on the flank, looking straight into the ice, jaw line parallel to the deck of her boat, as if staring down the forward players of an opposing field hockey team. I imagine, in the final edit of this trip in her men- tal movie, Tyler will use a wipe, or a clock dissolve if that's what they're called, to cover the jump cut from the scene of our rafting up to the point of action, skipping right to where we've actually en- tered the ice, eliminating all the fits and starts in between. For the present shot, she's directed the camera person to place his lens down low near the waterline to exaggerate the forward motion of the boats. A bit of lens flare would be acceptable, to hint at how bright it is out here. The water here is absolutely trashy with bergy bits, as I've heard the Instructors call them, the small chunks of sea ice, none with an upper section bigger than a taxicab, staying with Cord's ur- ban-based gauge of size. Much larger bergs tend to be somewhat proportioned but not so with these bits. Wrongly-shaped with crusted superstructures offset from their centers, the ones that haven't flipped have small ponds of meltwater collecting topside, while others exhibit the polished horns typical of bergs that've al- ready rolled. My guess is most of these chunks will never make it out of the inlet and instead will be washed back and forth by the tides until they melt completely away. The ice presses in close and there's a seething all around us loud as conversation. The air has taken on the characteristic smell of almonds, the odor of old ice. Whoever does the sound edit for Tyler's film should enhance the noise of the hulls passing through the slush to maximize the contrast between this and the previous scene of despondency and inaction. In fact, to heighten the effect, [22] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! the editor could bring in the hissing and clicking of the ice a split second before the visual transition, ten or fifteen frames early, say, enough to prick the ears of moviegoers and alert them to the up- coming shift in pace. Several times now, as a cohesive pod, we've steered around a mass floating taller than our heads only to surprise the black ques- tion marks of sea otters basking upon a ledge. Or maybe it should be the black commas of otters. Either way I think I'm stealing the comparison from something I read once. At our sudden approach the otters quickly uncurl and follow one another into the water, leaving the ice as clean as if swept by a broom. I've asked Dinah to give me close order directions from the bow. Admittedly, I'm making it difficult for her as the tighter the ice converges the more energetically I feel compelled to propel us for- ward. The stuff in the water enhances the sensation of speed and I'm enjoying it, shoving us along with determined digs of the paddle, doing what I can to counteract the drag of the ice against the hull. Dinah tries to fend off the chunks with a paddle blade but even the smallest bits show considerable resistance. I'll bet we've lost a cou- ple of knots since entering the pack. I drive us on, fast as the slush will allow, stopping for nothing. The bergs shove back and as we scrape through the ice presses in hard, distorting the fiberglas hull. I can feel the indentations on the sides of the kayak as they travel up the length of both legs. "Turn to the starboard," is what I think I hear Dinah say from the bow. She will not yell quite loud enough for me to make out what it is she's saying and she keeps using complicated and obscure phrasing. "Turn slightly toward shore," she'll say or, "Steer more toward the blueish one." Anyway, it sounds as if she said starboard. I kick the right rudder pedal and at the same instant there's a collision of astonish- ing force. The bow of the kayak goes up onto a floe, our weight shifts to the stern and there's the uncomfortable sensation of being low- ered into the water. We've truly run the kayak halfway up onto a berg. Looking straight down along the hull I can peer far into the depths of the offending floe where a billion tiny spheroids of air are trapped. Unbelievable, really, the number of air bubbles down there, every one of them an ancient particle of atmosphere. And there goes something big and aquatic, swimming below the ice, a large, dark form. I start to say something to Dinah, but before I can orga- nize my words into a phrase that won't unduly alarm the librarian, the shape is gone. And really it's best not to alert the woman to such phenomena. That was too big for an otter. Must've been a sea lion or an orca hunting otter. Section #2: A Surf Landing [23] ! "Can you shove us off?" I yell up to Dinah who's now sitting motionless, staring down at her sprayskirt. I try back paddling. Dinah reaches out to push off from the berg but the blade of her paddle, unable to find purchase on the ice, skitters uselessly. Behind us, Pat and Cord have likewise run upon a floe, a big, flat tabular berg. Pat in the bow has been lifted entirely out of the water, the kayak hoisted until the boat's underhull is visible. Cord, leering like a madman, hauls them off with enormous pressure on his paddle, the tendons of his neck standing out like the flanged roots of a mangrove. I'm certain the Instructors assigned Cord to our group to compensate for the weaker propulsion of Pat and Dinah. He couldn't have requested the assignment. Well, maybe he wrote down Tyler as one of his four choices, but certainly not Pat, or Dinah. If it'd been up to Cord he'd have probably chosen to push limits with Crandall and the Crüe, if the surfer still cares about that sort of thing this late in the trip. Apparently Crandall doesn't. Who knows how strenuous the SGE under the biologist's leadership will ulti- mately turn out to be? All this being said, it appears as though pos- sibly we've got Cord's attention here. He may be thinking that this little venture with the Marauders may present some test of his ca- pabilities yet. Dinah and I are free of the berg, level with the water again. As we begin to move forward, Tyler draws up close on the flank. Cord, having decided to quit following Dinah and me and find his own route, steers away on a roughly parallel course. "Didja notice the color of the water?" Tyler asks. "Very blue," I offer. "Like a swimming pool." She's correct. And right for noticing. We've not seen quite this shade before. The water, dark green when we entered the bay, is now an opaque blue, almost silver. The sea has become milky with glacial silt and there's an extra degree of chill that communicates itself through the hull. Out of curiosity, I take the thermometer from the daybag and thrust it down into the water below the brash. Dinah feels the pause and turns around. "What are you doing?" "Checking the temperature of the water." "Do we really need to know that right now?" "Only take a second." After twenty beats, holding the thermometer down, when I can no longer feel my fingers, I raise the instrument up and note that the temperature of the surrounding water, eighteen inches be- [24] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! low the surface, is thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Burl's the expert on glaciers and icebergs. We'll want to ask him if the extraordinary color is due to fresh meltwater decreasing the salinity, or if it's be- cause the water is colder, causing a shift in the way it refracts light. There's a blueness in some of the larger bergs that beats even the cerulean of the sky. Explosions from the calving rush over us like a wind. Close in now, the noise has grown more articulate, each detonation preced- ed by a ripping sound which may mark the fissuring of the ice away from its mother. You can practically feel in your chest the size of the chunk by the amount of air it displaces. Large swells -- impact waves -- travel out from the head of the fjord. Beginning in the dis- tance as mere deflections of light, the waves roll forward growing large as leviathans that lift us upon their backs and then lower us down again amongst the clacking ice. Tyler calls over to ask Dinah how she's doing. She doesn't bother to ask me how I'm doing. She specifically asks Dinah. In this, the medical student employs the tone of voice one might use to in- quire after the well-being of a teammate who's just lifted herself up off the field after a hard check. I can't make out Dinah's reply but it sounds as if it's something along the lines of that she guesses she's okay. I study Dinah's back and see nothing unusual in the way she's dipping her paddle. She pursues the chore no more feebly than usual. Now she turns to look back at me. She twists sufficiently in her cockpit to get both her eyes on my person. Her face is small be- neath the roof of the woolen hat, and pale, except for the constrict- ed spots of color which never leave the hollows of her cheeks. I'm sensing Dinah must finally be prepared to say something about our course of action. Now that we're getting into the thick of it I expect her to announce a willingness to go along with the group's plan as long as it proves feasible, not unduly hazardous, provided we take adequate heed and so on. I fully expect her to say some- thing along these lines. It's the sort of thing she usually says when a situation has already moved beyond the bounds of her comfort. It's her indirect way of expressing a desire to quit and turn around, to be excused, to be allowed to go ashore, get into her sleeping bag, cinch up the hood and shut out the world. She turns to face forward again in her cockpit without uttering a single word. We've gained on the Instructors with surprising speed. Steer- ing around a tall barge of ice, a ponderous mass with verdigris en- crusted jowls, we're suddenly upon them, Dodi in the lead position clearing a route, Burl and Thad Houston following in single file. Now that we're so near, my impulse is to close the gap and I dig in with the paddle. I hear Dinah start to say something but her Section #2: A Surf Landing [25] ! words are cut off as the bow of the kayak hits a submerged chunk impossible to see. The collision throws me hard against the edge of the coaming. Son of a bitch. I sincerely hate this business. I hate all travel upon water and all manner of watercraft. I particularly hate small boats you can't stand up in, boats you have to put on like a pair of overalls. And I knew I was going to hate it the moment I stepped into the red kayak on Day One and came within an otter's whisker of capsizing, a situation not improved by a certain pair of outdoor educators who did little to maintain professional decorum toward their student, the very individual who was contributing to their salary with his own money. And money earned the hard way, if not by slinging pizzas until two in the morning then by sitting ten hours a day in a cannery picking bits of carapace off shrimp. The sound of Dinah's and my impact with the berg carries over to the Instructors who turn as one in their cockpits to discover that their students have caught up with them. Thad Houston makes a sign with his flattened palm. "Not so fast," he yells over. "You'll crack your hull." Now I see how we were able to gain so rapidly upon the I- team. The three are barely moving through the water. The method they're using is for Burl and Thad Houston to ship paddles while Dodi advances her Polaris a few meters into the ice, rocking her boat from side to side to gently move the bits out of the way. The male instructors then carefully advance into the lead she's created. I feel the incautiousness of the pace I've insisted on, although I cannot believe it's necessary to move as slowly as that. Examining the back of Dinah's head, I can just bet what imaginings she's at present cultivating, inspired by Instructor Houston's words. The noise of the last collision still reverberating in her ears, the librari- an is convinced our hull's breached, already admitting an icy rush of seawater, the kayak filling with a cold bath. She can feel it coming up around her ankles. Soon the whole boat will sink away and there she'll be, up to her chin in frozen slush, legs depending down, mus- cle and bone positively wicking in the cold. Her only hope -- of course, she's not giving one thought to the welfare of her partner -- will be to climb up onto one of the bergy bits, like that one there barely protruding above the water. Having floundered her way over to it, Dinah discovers the ledge to be polished ice, impossibly slick. The cruel fact is that she chose her floe and the cold water won't permit choosing another. Our librarian observes her hands as they flail at the unsympathetic ice. If only she could make her fingers work properly she might find a gripping place. She can't do it. And so she slips beneath the surface where she finds submersion to be [26] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! not so uncomfortable, really. It feels almost warm and the water is permeated by a pleasant blue light which fades in the depths below to the purest velvet black. There's a moment, concurrent with the awful need to inhale, in which the light becomes unbearably bright, but the moment passes quickly. Dinah gives in to it. Her chest takes in the sea, great choking breaths of it, at which point the light be- comes much easier on the eyes. Well, Dinah, don't worry. There's no leak and the kayak's not sinking. Nothing bad ever happens when I'm around. So, stick close and you'll be okay. I ship paddle, let the kayak slide back off the submerged floe as it seems to have a mind to do and wait for the other two boats to catch up. The land has grown large around us, a towering amphithe- ater of forested slopes alternating with walls of rock and blue ice. I take up the binos and direct the lenses toward the shore. Even the action of the focus mechanism is stiff with the cold. Black Sand Beach is there, all right, a crescent of ash-colored greywacke just to the right of the easternmost glacier. It's the only possible landing place in the entire realm and the Instructors have already begun to angle their boats toward it. On the ridge above BSB the cascade that appeared as a mere trickle when we first turned the elbow now shows itself to be a substantial flow. Well, that pretty much goes along with the general theme around here. I'm continually struck by it. Everything in this place turns out bigger than it seems. Bigger or further away. A portion of the stream, striking some unseen de- flection, flies away from the slope. Sunlight, playing upon the spume, highlights the twisting of the water through the air. I have to say, the strata down which the arm's three glaciers are skidding appears a good deal steeper than the substrate back at Columbia. There the icebergs were reluctant to let go of their moth- er, piling up and jamming together, barely managing to reach open water. The bergs were fractious and complaining, the newly calved jealous of the ones that came before. But here in Barry Arm the chunks simply go into free fall. I look over in time to see a section of ice disengage itself from the face of the middle glacier. At almost the same instant a noise of massive fissuring sweeps over us like a can- nonade. Now that we're close to the glaciers a sense of scale has come into play. The falling wedge is at least as large as a school bus. The ice carries down into the water a quantity of air which resur- faces explosively followed by a pronounced hiss as streamers of wa- ter and debris continue to shower upon the surface. I'm rethinking the size of that wedge. It was much larger than a school bus, more along the size of a condominium. Section #2: A Surf Landing [27] ! Dinah and I are in poor position as the swells come in. There are a couple of preliminary agitations which send wavelets lapping against our boat's hull. We make one uncoordinated attempt to swing the bow around, immediately hang ourselves up on a piece of brash and so we wait. The first big one rolls in, lifting us up along with all the ice near at hand, the entire company chattering and bickering at the disturbance. Caught nearly broadside by the swell our kayak tilts wonderfully and for the first time outside of a prac- tice drill I feel the need to execute a high brace. The maneuver isn't, I'm sorry to say, a polished reflex. I hesitate, unable to recall if the paddle is to be slapped down on the side away from the swell or to- ward it and before I can bring the proper response to bear the largest of the shock waves has passed. We watch the swells roll on toward the shore, humping their backs as they reach shallower wa- ter, finally lifting into breakers that collapse upon the beach with a noise like static. The high bracing wouldn't have had much effect anyway if I couldn't have coordinated it with Dinah. Burl, a mock-serious set to his mouth, is holding his paddle vertically in the air, the signal to pod up. "We've decided," he starts in by saying, once we're grouped up with the Instructors, who seem to have decided to dispense with any niceties like "Hello", or "How was your paddle?" "We've decided," Burl begins again, "that we're going to go in and camp with you." Now he levels his paddle in the direction of the beach. "What we have here is a surf landing. You will need to exer- cise caution as you paddle into shore. Keep an eye out for growlers. Maneuver your kayak perpendicular to the beach. As some of you have already discovered, the trick is to not let yourselves become broached to by the waves. Either take them straight on the bow, or let them come after you on the stern. And we need to get a move on because the calving's only going to increase in severity as the af- ternoon progresses." I glance over at Tyler, bobbing in her cockpit a mere five feet away. She's listening closely to Burl's instructions. There are minute water droplets suspended in the downy hairs along the length of her jaw. I truly do not know what to do about this young girl. "What's important," she has said, sometime within the last sev- enty-two hours, "is not so much what you have in common with a person but how you feel when you're around them." She didn't so much say this to me this as muse it out loud, to the air, to the water, and maybe to her extended family back in Boston. "We calculate," Thad Houston breaks in, "a thirty second time lag between the calving and the arrival of a wave set. More than enough time for you to cover the distance to the beach." [28] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! Now Tyler's checking her watch, fiddling with the controls. You can bet she's readying the stopwatch function to time the ar- rival of the next shock wave. The main problem is every hour she and I spend together out here is only going to make it that much more difficult to separate when the time comes. Truly, that's the only shock wave she needs to set her timer for. "The critical thing," Burl continues, "is once you start in don't stop until you make the beach. We'll land the singles first. That way those folks can help pull up the doubles. Dodi, anything?" The two male instructors look toward the Course Leader whose kayak has floated around with its bow pointed away from us. "Unsnap your sprayskirts," Dodi says over a shoulder. Then over the other shoulder, "And don't forget to retract your rudders." My goodness, these people are a model of expeditionary de- cision making. We haven't taken a single paddle stroke and already it feels as if their plan has carried us over the water and deposited us safely upon the sand. I can already taste that hot drink. It goes just about as Burl said it would, the glaciers facilitat- ing by holding back their ice for the duration of the landing se- quence. "Cock your rudders!" the instructor from Seattle yells out to Pat and Cord as they head to the beach, his fey emphasis getting a laugh out of Dodi. The librarian and I are the next to last boat in, Burl alone remaining on the water to orchestrate. I pull the rudder right as our bow hits the sand. Five pairs of hands come reaching down to haul Dinah and me onto the shore. Sitting in my cockpit, feeling the scrape of barnacled rocks through the hull, sensible of being so much dead weight, I'm struck by the various expressions of ur- gency, almost panic, displayed upon the faces leaning over us. Ex- cept for Thad Houston, who has a one-handed grip on the bowline ring. He's more angry than panicked, of course. "Don't drag the kayak," he yells. We've heard the phrase from him so many times at this point it hardly registers. Pat, whose grip keeps slipping off of the wet plastic of the coaming, seems in a trance, like someone you couldn't talk to. Tyler is hauling mightily on the port toggle. "You made it, Dinah," she says. And the recovery team, more or less in unison, sets our boat down upon firm, dark sand. ! ! ! ! ! !

Section #3: Evinrude ! The morning of Day Ten found us making preparations to launch out for Columbia Glacier, the first of the ivy league ice flows we were to encounter. It felt like the beginning of a fresh cycle. Carrying gear down to my new boat, the kayak I was going to crew with Cord, I passed my old tent mate standing motionless at the verge between trees and sand. She was all decked out in her pad- dling gear: sprayskirt, insulated pogies, jacket, balaclava, every- thing. It was how she usually came down to the beach, prepared to be installed into a boat. Of course, I'd always done the most of the installing. All Dinah had to do was show up and pass her gear duffel down to me where I lay ready to stow it for her in the hold. Well, that was not how it was going to be on the morning of Day Ten. Nos- siree. And not ever again. I couldn't tell much regarding Dinah's disposition as I walked by. Her bug net was down over her face and her features were in shadow. But according to my new plan, Dinah's disposition was no longer my look-out. "Find a partner yet?" I asked, moving by her. I couldn't pass without some comment, though I was determined not to stop. "Not yet." "Well, don't worry. There are precisely as many cockpits as there are people." Except for the personal equipment I was shuttling down, Cord had already finished stowing our gear behind the bulkheads of the double he'd commandeered for our use. Now that was a change, to have a boat more or less ready when I showed up. Cord said he'd take the bow. After a week of steering and manhandling the red kayak through the soup he wanted to sit up front and row without having to think. "I'll make it up to you, Marlow" he said. "You do the steering and I'll paddle like hell. You'll think we've got a hundred and fifty horse Evinrude stuck on the back. It's going to be a great day." Cord and I were loaded, bulkhead covers screwed down tight and were looking for help to haul our boat down to the water when Dinah showed up in the company of Pat. The two women were car- rying between them one of the big gasket-sealed ammo boxes -- half [30] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! of the traveling library -- plus other stuff sacks and duffels. "Would you two be willing to take all or part of this group gear?" asked Pat. "Why certainly," I replied. I looked to Cord who appeared to have no objection. There was still plenty of room in our boat for ex- tra equipment. The ammo box of books couldn't weigh much more than it had when it'd held live mortar rounds. Toss it in. Sure. We'll never notice it. What's an additional sixty or seventy pounds? Everybody has to take a turn transporting the library. A bow saw and camping grill? Sure. We'd already taken one grill on-board, what difference did another make? Just slide everything along the side of the stern bulkhead. Plenty of room. "Would you mind also taking some of my personal equip- ment?" Dinah then asked, holding out to me a duffel bag. I studied her closely. I couldn't tell if this was some sort of admission that all along I'd been pulling most of the weight. "I don't see why not," I said and relieved her of the duffel, knowing full well the ditty bag of soiled tampons was probably in- side. And I'd not resolved entirely to my satisfaction the question of whether Dinah wasn't also re-packaging her dookie. If so, it was probably in the duffel, as well. So, Dinah had found Pat for a paddling partner. That was good, I thought. The two older women were going to get along fa- mously. Clearly, if they were to be expected to keep up they were going to have to lighten their ballast. I was happy to relieve them of the majority of their gear and I knew Cord didn't care one way or the other. Really, it was Cord's and my obligation as Student Lead- ers of the Day to help them out. Good Expedition Behavior and all that. Only ten minutes past the time we were supposed to meet the Instructors on the water the student group was afloat, everybody chopping at the Sound with paddles, getting bows pointed in the same direction. "Ten minutes late isn't bad," I suggested to Cord. "I don't think the Instructors are going to call us on ten minutes. Shoot, we can't synchronize our watches closer than that." "Yeah," he said, "but take a look back there." Thing was, not everybody was afloat. Back on the beach, one kayak remained. We watched as Pat and Dinah exchanged positions at the side of their boat, took turns reaching within the kayak to fool with something or other. I could've sworn I'd seen the two women get aboard their double and launch out. They must've hit a snag and had to come back in for some reason. "Looks to me like they're having trouble with the rudder ped- Sec. #3: Evinrude [31] ! als," said Cord. "Yep," I agreed. "That's very likely the problem." I could've glassed them with the binos and confirmed this, but it didn't matter. In the old days, meaning the previous day and the six days before that, I hadn't always minded so much Dinah's delays. I never want- ed to be in the boat for more than four hours anyway. The group tended to call it quits around the same hour every afternoon, so any delay in starting only translated to less time on the water. However, on this day, Cord and I were going to be held directly re- sponsible for the student group's performance. "Maybe we should go give them a hand," Cord suggested. "You know, in the capacity of students leaders." "I don't see any reason to," I said. "Pat'll get it worked out." "Somebody's going to have to help them shove off." "I don't think so." I raised the binoculars for a second to check the position of their kayak. "Stern's already afloat. All they have to do is get in and push off." Truth was, I didn't want to help them out. Or maybe I just didn't want to help Dinah out. As of that morning, if I wasn't com- pletely done helping out Dinah, I felt I was at least due a break. I'd help her out again at some point. I'd help her jump her car when we got back to Palmer. For now, though, I thought, just give me one day of freedom. In a way, I found the delay gratifying. Dinah was finally having to do her share of the work. She was being forced to realize that loading a boat and preparing it to launch is more involved than merely handing your duffel off to your partner. "How'd that bread turn out yesterday?" I asked Cord. "Stellar. Want some? I've got what's left right here." "Maybe later." Another five minutes went by. Against all my inclinations, I was about to propose to Cord we paddle back in. Right then, the two women took seats and launched. As it turned out, according to Dodi's wrist watch, we were almost thirty minutes late to our rendezvous with the Instructors. "Ahoy, Cord and Marlow," called out Burl as we hove in close to where the threesome were podded up. The Third Instructor took it over from there, a hand-off I believe the Instructors had worked out beforehand. And let me tell you, if Mr. Houston gets worked up about dragging the boats, it's nothing compared to how he reacts to a failure to meet up at the scheduled time. I don't know. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of all the ineptitude that was getting to him. The Apprentice Instructor began by profaning the gray light of the morning, pronouncing our tardiness "bullshit", sending the [32] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! word over to us with a spray of saliva that spattered upon the ocean's mildly undulating surface. He said some other things, too, as the swell carried his kayak around, forcing him to expound over his shoulder, awkward for him. All the while, Burl and Dodi stared down at their foredecks, allowing the Junior Instructor his out- burst. As I take it, this is all a part of the process of finding one's style as an expedition leader. When the Third Instructor was fin- ished he fell immediately into what appeared to be a state of reflec- tion upon his own vehemence. Dodi and Burl proceeded to pod up with him and for a few minutes the Instructors spoke quietly be- tween themselves. "It's the responsibility of the Student Leaders of the Day," Dodi said, turning her boat out to face us, "to ensure a timely launch." She went on to say something about punctuality being a function of communication and teamwork. When she stopped talk- ing she continued to look directly at Cord and me and, I suppose, was waiting for some sort of response. Cord didn't have anything to say beyond a mumbled, "Got it." I shrugged my shoulders and kicked the rudder over and together he and I began to push our boat out to the flank. What could I have said? Unbeknownst to the group at large, a severe dependency had been built up. I was willing to take my share of the blame for creating it. I also understood that it needed to stop and the previous day I'd taken the first steps toward breaking it off. The only way to curtail the dependency was for the other party to be put into a position in which she was forced to begin figuring things out for herself. Ten days into the trip and she was about where everybody else was on Day Two, or at best Day Three. Better the process begin now rather than later, I thought. I was sure it wouldn't take her as long to ready her boat next time. Cord was correct about the overall greatness of the day. The sun rose upon an expanse of clear sky that looked as if it must've extended halfway across Canada. Eventually, there congealed a handful of unthreatening cloud forms which did nothing more than aesthetically balance a similar number of small islets dotting the Sound here and there. A breeze kicked up, enough to give the water some definition, but not so much wind as to be a hindrance. Even with the extra load of gear on board, Cord and I had an easy time of it. I was pleasantly surprised to discover how little contribution on my part was sufficient to keep the kayak moving along. He and I cut diagonals back and forth among the student kayaks, offering guid- ance on an almost boat-to-boat basis, asking individuals how they were feeling that day, discussing with them what they thought would be the best route through the islands, or around the head- Sec. #3: Evinrude [33] ! lands. Taken together, the force of our paddling was so strong Cord and I could frequently coast for short periods and still remain well- positioned on the flank. He offered me the compliment of saying I was as strong as anyone he'd paddled with so far on the trip. During one of the periods of free gliding, I asked Cord about his name. I'd been wondering about it since almost Day Minus One. "Short for Cordwainer," he said. "If you can believe it. Actual- ly, it's my middle name. My Mom was the one who started calling me Cord." I knew roughly what the name meant, a guild reference, something to do with twisting fiber into rope. "Family name?" I asked. "On my maternal grandmother's side," he said. "Cord's better than my real first name which is Mike. Or actually Michael. "Nothing wrong with Michael. Or Mike." "Nothing wrong with it except in any group of ten guys there's always at least two Mikes." "If not three." Speaking of which, at one point we paddled alongside the other Mike, the student upon whom Cord had foisted the red kayak. I swear, looking at that boat from the outside, it was impossible to see anything amiss. It appeared sleek enough, but clearly some- thing was fundamentally wrong with it. The red kayak simply did not part the water well. "Howz it going, Mike?" Cord asked. "Okay, I guess," said the young fellow, no doubt under the supposition he was the only one by that name on the course. Normally, I would've kept my amusement to myself, would not've laughed, but Cord started it and it must have been a release from all of the days of strife and tension surrounding the red kayak, the early days of camping and paddling with Dinah. I gave myself over to it and laughed so hard I lost my grip on the paddle for a sec- ond, allowing it to slip overboard. The grim expression on Mike's face told the story. He was digging his paddle into the Sound as if the bay were filled with dirt. With each stroke the extreme tensioning of his muscles caused his body to shift forcefully from one side to the other. These young col- lege fellows have to be given credit for their willingness to give it a try. I've been working on a theory that the school's catalog, promot- ing as it does self-propelled wilderness travel, has a way of drawing out from the general population individuals capable of rising to the occasion. Paddling with Cord was, indeed, like having an outboard mo- tor bolted on behind. Absent the usual pain in my arms, I was free [34] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! to reflect and daydream as much as I could wish. I mused upon the peculiar interaction I'd had with Burl that morning, just prior to the Instructor's launching out. I don't know if Burl is old enough to have served in Vietnam -- knowing him, he'd have finagled an exemption -- but I figured he was old enough to have seen the movies and read some of the books. I approached him with the intention of providing an update on the student group's status -- running a little late, as usual -- but instead of passing on this boring and completely pre- dictable info I started right in and asked Burl what sort of ordi- nance we ought to load for the mission. That is, if in his opinion, we should take on-board only rounds of fifty caliber, or both napalm and fifty caliber. Burl picked right up on it. With tongue firmly stuck in cheek he said not only did he wish to see us heading out with fifty cal. and "nape" but he also wanted us to load plenty of "willy pete" in the tubes. "Incendiaries, son. I want to see incendiaries." I was sup- posed to supply the next line about how hairy the spit was, how it was Charlie's point and all that, but I was so tickled by Burl's re- sponse, his willingness to play the little game, I couldn't keep a straight face. As I was walking away, Burl yelled out across the beach the famous line implying that the present occupiers of the point couldn't possibly be permitted to maintain their stronghold, given their inability, or unwillingness, to surf. That Burl, I thought, mainly he wants us to have a good time. I regretting not being able to fully play out the charade, failing to provide him with as much amusement as he'd furnished me. I can never, it seems, quite pull off staying in a role. Yelling up to Cord in the front cockpit, I asked if when he surfed did he prefer a heavy board or a light board. "I don't know about light or heavy," he said. "I ride a long- board. A Malibu. Very classic, very maneuverable." I was prepared to say that I thought all the young guys pre- ferred a light board, but I decided, unlike Burl, Cord hadn't seen the movie. Nor was there any point in asking him, as a joke, as long as we were talking about Mikes, if he knew a certain surfer, Mike, from San Diego. "By the way," I said, "what does 'goofy foot' mean, in surfer- speak?" "Means you lead with your left foot." "Right. And when you head out to go surfing," I began, "do you drive your van down to the beach?" You shouldn't wonder that I asked this for, you see, my mind had been colonized by what were certainly outdated and idealized images of the surfing life which no actual experience had come along to dislodge. I visualized Cord's van, a live-aboard featuring a flower power motif, or a flame job, Sec. #3: Evinrude [35] ! parked next to a palm tree, hammock slung between vehicle and curving trunk, ukulele propped against a wheel, in the background the orb of a westering sun slowly dissolved into the Pacific. "I drive a four-by," he said. "It's the only thing that can go in deep sand." "Down there in Redondo Beach?" "That's right. Hey, Marlow. I was wondering. You got a lot of totem poles around St. Petersburg?" "No saint, Cord. Just Petersburg. As for totem poles, we got scads. Stuck in the ground all over the place. Not the tourist ver- sion, either. The real thing." "Cool. I thought we'd see lots of totem poles on this trip. But guess not." "The tribes that specialized in totem poles tended to live a little further south. Did you say you're all done with school?" I was thinking of suggesting to Cord he make a trip to Southeast AK after the course, if he was more or less a free man. "No, man. Not done. Barely started." "Right." For then his and my previous discussion came back to me. "You said something about law enforcement." "My uncle's a CHiP." "Motorcycle cop?" "Yep. But I'm thinking SWAT." "Sure." It's a tough place to be, I thought. Where Cord is. The culture puts a lot of pressure on the young person two or three years into their third decade. That's when you're supposed to make the big decision, commit to a curriculum, get with the program. It's hard with everybody pulling at you. Almost better to drop out, stay be- low the radar until you've got a workable plan. Our route that day was straightforward. We had an interest- ing diversion at the opening to a channel in which half of the group chose to utilize the narrows as a shortcut while the other half, un- der the leadership of Dodi, preferred to continue around the head- land. When at last we came into sight of the bergs off Columbia, Burl suggested that Cord and I hold the group up and one of us, either Cord or myself, communicate a strategy for paddling through the ice. I didn't much see the point in it. Eyeballing the bergs, I figured we could paddle our way over and play it as we went. I was happy to leave it to Cord to say something to the group, if he could think of anything pertinent. But he turned around in his cockpit and said he was kind of hoping I'd do the talking. "All right then," I yelled out across the chop to the other kayaks. "What we want is for everyone to stay tight, nobody too far [36] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! ahead, nobody too far behind. Cord and I will set a pace everyone can follow." I paused and looked around. Across the dappled water the faces of the other students were turned in my direction. Other than the occasional dipping of a paddle here and there, the figures remained motionless, waiting for what else I might say. I affected a gaze in the direction of what I guessed to be Columbia Glacier. "When we do get in with those bergs everybody is well advised to keep a sharp look out. I've heard those suckers can roll. They sure scare me, let me tell you." And that was it. That was my Paddling- Into-the-Ice-Spiel. Possibly, I've left out a phrase or two in my recol- lection but that was more or less the gist. I could think of nothing else to say and it'd been a scrape to come up with that much. I looked over at Burl, who gave me a nod as if to indicate it'd been sufficient. We proceeded in the direction of the icebergs with very little chatter between the boats. I glanced over once in the direction of Pat and Dinah, noted that Pat was in the rear of the double and in charge of the rudder controls, a good idea. The women were doing a fine job of keeping up. Goodness knows they should've been. Having almost nil equipment on board, their ship rode lightly upon the wa- ter, buoyant as a wood chip, beaucoups free beam. The approach to Columbia was our first time amongst ice of any size. There was really not any difficulty. The bergs showed not the least inclination to roll, but pursued their course steady as barges. Some of the chunks were nearly as large as small islands, home to gangs of sea otters who slept piled upon the aprons and shelves of unpolished ice. For the most part, the bergs floated wide of each other and the route through them was obvious. We glided among the masses less concerned with finding a passage than with observing the water play of the otters who'd disembark from one berg and just as quickly re-board another. Their fur, once wetted, turned utterly black, appearing as if coated with glycerine. At our approach the animals roused themselves and slipped into the sea, dark drops of liquid returning to their source. It's almost impossible not to anthropomorphize these creatures and see them as the hap- piest of animal species, the most in sync with their environment, as Dinah liked to say. I recalled what Burl had said at the very begin- ning of the course, within the first hour of our launch from Whittier, that is regarding the otter's fear response. The instructor from Seattle had demonstrated how the creatures were conditioned to dive whenever confronted by a human pointing any gun-like object, even a raised arm, the learned response whose prevalence would drop off as we moved further from civilization. I tried it with the otters we encountered going into Columbia and, sure enough, no a- Sec. #3: Evinrude [37] ! mount of arm waving or pointing a paddle at the creatures had any effect beyond the mild alarm already instigated by our intrusion. We cleared the iceberg impoundment zone and entered the tidal flats of the Columbia moraine on the ebb. The shoals were so gradually inclined we were able to paddle over them for quite a stretch with rudders cocked, a quarter of a mile or more, before the hulls began to scrape, the singles making it a little further in than the more heavily loaded doubles. Cord and I were amongst the first to become stuck. It'd become nearly impossible to paddle anyway what with the blades striking bottom every downstroke. Eventual- ly, all the boats ran aground. Cord and I stepped out into water shin deep and discovered that once we were out of our kayak we were able to line the boat in another fifty yards. "It's like that scene in 'The African Queen'," Tyler yelled over to us. I knew what she was talking about but you had to wonder how many others of the student group picked up on the movie ref- erence. And, anyway, it wasn't quite analogous as we could see where we were going whereas Bogart's character had been in a much worse place. Finally, it was necessary for Cord and me to unload in three inches of water and carry everything the remaining twenty yards to shore. When the kayak was nearly empty of equipment and dis- placing only half an inch of water we were able to tow it in toward dry land, the boat following like a dog on a leash. In the diminished light we found our way onto the lateral moraine and established our various camps upon a shale carpeted with thick colonies of lichen, a fungus so profuse and overspreading it bunched up in places like a rug. Aside from isolated stands of stunted spruce, or some kind of tree, I'm not saying I could identify it precisely, some sort of woody plant which had managed to hack out a living on the thin soil, the shingle was an open expanse, white monoliths of ice bergs stranded by the outgoing tide positioned here and there. Some of the beached bergs were fifteen to twenty feet high and must've been floated into place during extreme high tide, maybe in conjunction with a storm surge. Teams were sent out for firewood and fresh water, both of which turned out to be plentiful, albeit a ways off. Thus we bivouacked and marked what would become the easternmost ex- tent of our travel. It'd been a long, exhausting day on the water and I was the only one in our cook group who stayed up to read and have a hot drink. Crandall and Dinah retired to the tent almost di- rectly upon finishing their supper. One of the last things Cord and I should've done that day as [38] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! SLoDs was to remind the student group that we were again camped upon the mainland and that all tent groups should secure the food from possible bear visitation. It crossed my mind that this would be the protocol, but as Cord didn't bring it up I let it pass. We were be- yond the point in the course where the Instructors were going to remind us about it. If half our food were eaten by bears the I's would've considered it an opportunity to hone E.B. and leadership skills as the group coped with the stress of short rations. Dinah and Crandall made no mention of securing the food, supporting my ar- gument that compliance was arbitrary, based mainly upon super- stition and easily eroded by the fatigue of a long day on the water. I took a quick look around, securing camp as I brushed my teeth. The whole place was so strange, the moraine sparsely vege- tated and blank except for the drab colored lichen which appeared to have been in accedence for about a thousand years, a vast carpet of plant matter engaged in a project of slowly and insidiously break- ing the rock down into its smaller constituents. It was a long ways off to the first aggregation of trees that could be said to approach the definition of "woods", where bears might bother to patrol. Even this patch of forest was circumscribed by further empty moraine. In the direction of the water the ground was torn up by glacial ac- tivity, the greywacke dark and wet from ice melt. In general the place didn't seem the sort of environment a furred and warm- blooded animal would ever frequent by choice. Wouldn't be any profit in it. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say I had a hunch about it, being a warm-blooded animal, myself. The first bear who wandered upon this moraine eons ago, not finding anything edible, chalked it up a scratch, the knowledge passed down to the present generation of bears as a sort of species memory. In other words, our rations were probably safe. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #4: Sky Hook ! In the early afternoon of the following day, the one day we were laagered at Columbia, the Instructors taught the following classes: Burl, geology; Thad Houston, ornithology; Dodi another in- stallment of the leadership progression. Each student was to pick two out of the three tutorials to attend. At Thad Houston's bird watching class I sat next to Tyler. The first of the notes she and I exchanged passed from her hand to mine right as the Third Instructor was beginning his class with a confession. The instructional was opened by Thad Houston stating that he, himself, had once felt dubious about becoming a birdwatch- er, but upon beginning his career with the outdoor school he'd ex- perienced a change of heart. Now he felt there was great value in closely noting the habits of another species, in this case birds. He pointed to the elegant simplicity of the pursuit, requiring only pa- tience and a good pair of binoculars. And he advocated the keeping of a personal lifetime list of confirmed sightings. The moment I sat down for Thad Houston's class I noted Di- nah wasn't in attendance. I assumed she must've scheduled herself to be at the second session. Or maybe she wouldn't show up for Thad Houston's class at all, feeling she was already too advanced for anything the Apprentice Instructor might have to say on the subject. Somehow, it seems allowable for Dinah to be a bird watcher. Her world is so constrained to begin with. However, there was something incongruous in a man with shoulders wide as the beam of a sea kayak, possessed of sufficient brawn to revolve the craft with an Eskimo roll, albeit while it's unloaded, taking an interest in warblers and chickadees, creatures the size of his thumb, not to mention confessing to a lifetime list. Tyler's note asked if I would consider being her paddling partner the next time the student group went out. She wrote: I'd like the opportunity to talk with you at greater length. I wrote back on the bottom of the little scrap of paper that, likewise, I'd enjoy the chance to talk with her but that I'd just taken on a new paddling partner, meaning Cord, and the timing wasn't [40] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! good for switching. That was what I wrote to her, in an abbreviated fashion. I didn't feel I was quite ready to join the clique of students who changed partners willy-nilly, trading off sometimes two or three times a day. Truth is, I'd had such a free and glorious day with Cord, the human outboard motor, I was reluctant to make any changes. Not having had my meeting with the Instructors -- that wouldn't be for a few hours -- I didn't know yet I'd be forced to make a change and Tyler would get her wish. Thad Houston pressed on with his class. He gave us to un- derstand that there were scores of different species to be spotted right here on the Sound and with over two weeks remaining to the trip it'd be an excellent opportunity to get the jump on a lifetime list. You know, if anyone among us had been hesitating up to that point to join the worldwide league of birders. Tyler handed over the scrap of paper, responding to my am- bivalence about switching boats, "Well, do what you can," written in her round cursive script of blue ink. She didn't let go of the scrap but took it back as soon as I'd had a chance to absorb the words. She scribbled some additional phrasing and returned the paper to me. It contained the post-script: "In the meantime, why don't you come over to our camp this evening and eat supper with the tent group?" If Thad Houston noticed the passing back and forth of the piece of paper he might've only assumed Tyler's and I were assidu- ous note takers. In fact, when she wasn't writing on the scrap of paper, Tyler appeared to be putting down in her lined notebook al- most everything the Third Instructor said pertaining to his subject. "Sounds find by me," I wrote back, sticking the words in along the edge of the scrap. "What time?" She wrote in answer: "Come over as soon as your eval is done, if that works." Thad Houston had brought with him a sheaf of blank lifetime list forms. He passed these around and we each took one. Already filled in on each sheet were the two dozen or so species common to the Sound, a tiny square box next to each bird name. All we had to do was spot the bird and put a check mark in the box. Instructor Houston was making it as easy as he could for us to begin the bird- ing habit. I turned the sheet of paper over to its blank side and wrote, "Do you have coffee?" "No," Tyler whispered in my ear, reading the question off the paper. "Please bring some," she said. "Bring enough for all of us." Thad Houston finished up his class by emphasizing that bird watching was not about keeping score but rather about a process which involved getting outdoors, sitting quietly and paying atten- tion to nature's subtle display. Section #4: Sky Hook [41] ! Not badly stated, I thought. "So, let's go birding," Mr. Houston concluded. I still cannot get over the discrepancy, a manly man like the Third Instructor actually pronouncing a phrase like that out loud in his deep voice . I chose Burl's geology class for my second session, happy to opt out of anything Dodi was in charge of, particularly a class on leadership. Spying over from my place in Thad Houston's class- room, I'd been able to gather Dodi's instructional involved some sort of participatory standing up and moving around exercise, re- sembling nothing other than another of her diabolical camp games. What Burl was teaching was more specific than geology, it was really Glaciology 101, with "Remedial Map and Compass" tacked on at the end for those who might've felt they needed a brush-up. The glaciology part of Burl's rap, inspired by the sea ice we'd encountered the day before and the fact we were camped a stone's throw from the snout of a major tidewater glacier, was rem- iniscent of the little handbook I'd borrowed from the floating library way back when. The Second Instructor discussed terms such as "drumlin" and "till", "slab and tabular ice", all familiar to me. Burl emphasized the density of the glacier ice compared to your normal, everyday household ice cube. When he got to "Make-Up Map and Compass" we were free to leave, if we felt we had those skills nailed down sufficiently. We were cut loose to spend the remainder of the afternoon and evening in whatever fashion we pleased, though we were urged to stay close at hand so the Instructors could call us over each in turn to their kitchen tarp for the mid-course evaluation. There were five students alphabetically ahead of me and I figured I had at least an hour before it was my go. This was the first real free time made available to us in the middle of the day since the trip began. I was in better spirits than I'd been in quite a while, maybe since putting a foot into the red kayak at the Whittier quay. My improved outlook was the result of recent alterations, breaking out of the habit of paddling with the librarian, for one, and the sense that more changes were in the offing. I decided I'd take advantage of the free time to practice playing my penny whistle, which I'd brought along in my daybag but hadn't up to that point felt like tooting. It should be noted that if I was in a good enough mood to practice the whistle then the dark and weighty cloud, whose extent I'd hardly reckoned until it was right over me, must've certainly begun to lift and dissipate. I moved into the thin margin of trees bordering the student encampment, far enough away that I couldn't be seen but not so far [42] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! I wouldn't be able to hear when my name was called. I did, in fact, play a few whistle tunes, finding myself a bit rusty on the fingering and not quite as capable of holding my spit, which is typical if it's been a few weeks since the last practice session. Mostly, while I too- tled, I thought about Tyler, the soft roundness of her shoulders and the light fuzz on the skin forward of her ear. I thought about her voice, a nice combination of any number of all-American adult fe- male voices, Lauren Bacall's, Judy Garland's and such. I'd sat close enough to Tyler at the birding class so that when I adjusted my po- sition on the ensolite not only the points of our shoulders touched but also the calves of our legs. Not far from where I was playing the whistle was a tree stump and I'll confess I had half a mind to go over there and sit down against that stump and with eyes closed to bet- ter enable a recollection of the way I'd seen Tyler's breasts move beneath her polypropylene top relieve myself of some tension. I took a moment away from the whistle practice to urinate on the ground, deciding it'd probably be best not to go over to the tree stump. I wasn't sure what would've been required at that stage to rouse my member, folded within the skivvies, dormant for weeks. After ten days of stewing beneath a rubberized spray skirt the unit was thoroughly encased within a smegmatic capsule of sweat, oil, skin flakes, old urine and who knows what else. Every time I have reason to touch it my fingers come away with a bad stink, a smell that gets worse with every passing day. After peeing I wiped my hand on my pants, but no amount of friction was sufficient to oblit- erate the funk, the pesky noisomeness. Though the tree stump was tempting, with a concavity between two root flanges that appeared a comfortable fit for my backside, I really didn't want to get into it. Plus, I had no way of knowing when someone might venture over to tell me it was my turn up for the eval. More likely than not the mes- senger would be one of the youngsters of the group who, surprising me at my maneuver, would be incapable of putting it into any sort of context. I'm sure I wouldn't have been the only person on this course to seek a moment's distraction, but word would've gotten around and it'd be another reason for sportive raillery, much worse than being made fun of for my coffee cravings. So, instead, I played through my entire repertoire of whistle tunes, the whole time smelling the reek on my fingers, and then I played through the list again, soon after which the young fellow named Sean, absolutely the wrong person to have discovered me masturbating if it'd gone down that way, came over to tell me it was my turn to meet with the Instructors. It was quicker than expected -- I don't think I'd been off on my own more than forty-five minutes -- and so a good thing I hadn't succumbed to the impulse for taking things in hand. Section #4: Sky Hook [43] ! Apparently, I hadn't quite put enough distance between my- self and the other students for the whistle practice. When I walked back through camp, Crandall said loud enough for me to hear: "Well, Marlow's been holding out on us." Little does Crandall know that if the penny whistling sounded tolerable it was only because I was off in the woods with lots of leafy brush to muffle the notes. He wouldn't have wanted to hear the whistle played up close and I hope he never asks for it. My mid-course eval went well enough. The main point of dis- cussion boiled down to the Instructors forbidding Cord and me to ever paddle together again. We set too fast a pace, they said. They suggested, for the good of the group, in the future he and I partner up with students who weren't as strong. I went back to camp to pick up the polybag of coffee, my enso- lite and eating gear in preparation for heading over to Tyler's. Crandall and Dinah were home, the teacher putting together the elements of a cookfire. I believe Dinah had been through her eval but Crandall was still waiting on his. My old campmates were dis- cussing what the three of us were to have for supper. They were glad to have me show up as they wished to know whether I'd prefer pasta, which Dinah was willing to try her hand at it, or Crandall's cous-cous, an old stand-by with us, second only to beans and maca- roni. I stalled before giving them an answer, stepping away a short space to take a leak. I'd been astonished to hear that Dinah might cook. I would learn later that at the librarian's mid-course eval the Instructors said they'd noted her seeming reluctance to use the stove. They emphasized that a portion of her final grade would depend on at least minimal mastery of backcountry cooking. Of course, in a pinch, Dinah could always boil up some pasta, put some margarine on it, sprinkle on spices and call it a meal. That'd be enough to qual- ify for a "check" on meal preparation. As opposed to a "delta" which in this school's parlance means: "Needs Work". "Could you please step a little further away when you feel the urge to micturate?" Dinah asked. "I simply cannot abide it." "Too late," I said, turning around. "All finished." I'll bet, before this trip, our librarian had never much encountered the spectacle of a male relieving himself in the outdoors, the way we can simply stand there and get it done. Of course, what probably irritates her the most is the sound of the splashing. I squatted down adjacent to our newly constructed fire ring. To witness the librarian make an attempt at cooking was almost enough to stick around for. Or, I don't know, maybe also a good rea- [44] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! son to split. In any case, I had other plans, though I wasn't quite sure how to go about disclosing them to my old campmates. "Well, you two work it out," Crandall said, when I didn't state a supper preference right off. "Whatever you decide is fine by me. I'll be right back," he added. "I'm gonna go get some of that fire starter moss." As Crandall stated this intention and began to move off a dis- tressed look arrived to Dinah's face. I asked the biologist to hold up a sec. Feeling around in my pockets, I told the biologist I probably had some paper or something which would work as well as tinder. "You could waste an hour looking for that moss," I said. What I had in my pocket was the blank lifetime birding form which I proceeded to tear into little strips, making a nest for the small size kindling. Crandall applied a lighter, we put in more sticks, taking turns gently blowing on the nascent blaze, nursing it along and within a minute it was clear the patient was going to live. I don't know whether Dinah was emboldened by the fact that I'd interceded on behalf of the Grandfather's Beard but when I stood up from attending to the fire there she was holding out some object to me. It was her knife, still in its display box. "Would you be willing to take a look at my knife," she said. "I believe I have have broken it." "Doubtful," I said, taking the little box from her. Immediately, I saw something odd. One of the blades was deployed and the handle of the knife was sticking out from beneath the box lid which, as it couldn't be closed properly, was held shut by several flesh colored band-aids. "I opened one of the blades," Dinah began to explain. "I must have done something wrong because now it will not fold back." "No, look," I said, "it's a lock blade. To close it all you do is push down here." And I showed her where on the bottom of the knife the hinged spring steel was located. I pressed it in until the blade swung free. Clicking the blade back in the open position I gave the knife to Dinah and encouraged her to give it a try, even as I knew full well she'd never be able to do it. The woman had trouble depressing the gas release on a butane lighter. Dinah placed her finger approximately where the little lever actuated. She might've even put some pressure on it, I have no idea. I reached out for the knife which she willingly relinquished. She knew it was futile. It wasn't necessary she and I openly acknowl- edge the pointlessness of her effort. "Maybe you should leave your knife in the box," I said, hand- ing it back to her. "Until you've developed more hand strength." "I think you are right," she said, sliding the pocket knife back Section #4: Sky Hook [45] ! into its cellophane sheath and re-inclosing it within the cardboard box whose lid now went down snug. Dinah tried peeling the band- aids off of the box but stopped when this threatened to bring up the printed label. Too bad, I thought. She sure messed up the nice pack- aging. "Well, Marlow, what's it going to be?" Crandall asked, easing a pot of water close to the flame. "Pasta or cous-cous?" I told my campmates my plans for supper. It was immediate- ly apparent they sensed the shift. They understood it marked the beginning of a change away from what we were. Joining another tent group for supper would've been completely irregular if done even as early as the day before. We'd only just entered the phase of the course where this was permissible. And it was permissible be- cause everyone knew that with sunrise the following day every- thing was going to change. Crandall pointed out that the evening was likely to be the last opportunity for the three of us to eat a meal together and hang out in our accustomed way. This was true as the next day was to see us assigned to new tent groups for the three day paddle to the spot where the first of the SGEs was to begin. Nevertheless, I still wished to stick to my plan of eating at Tyler's. The biologist, the librarian and myself were going to have to break from our old ways eventual- ly. I didn't want to put off the change one more day, or even one more hour. The two didn't press me very hard. It was evident there was somewhere else I preferred to be. Dinah didn't press at all. To her bowed head I bid her a pleasant evening and a good "din-din", immediately sorry I'd phrased it that way and added, "sup-sup", as a way to dilute the use of "din-din", then gave up because what was the use? I wished her good luck if she did indeed decide to under- take the meal prep and took myself away. When I arrived at Tyler's encampment only her tentmate, Cheryl, was present. Cheryl, whom I'd hardly talked to since the bus ride from Anchorage, had quickly moved into the collegiate clique which had minimal overlap with older folks like Dinah, or Pat, or myself. Cheryl informed me that Pat and Tyler were off fetching water and more wood. They'd left a request that I start the fire and begin boiling the pasta, if I was willing. "They said there's a full pot of seawater next to the fire pit," Cheryl indicated. I went over to the fire ring and saw what she was talking about. Materials for a fire were all laid out: kindling, larger sticks, flammable moss, paper, a school issue lighter. I went over to the food duffels and took out two poly bags of pasta. "Will you be joining us for supper?" I asked the young girl. [46] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! "I'm not very hungry," she said. I got the fire going and began to assemble ingredients for a sauce. On a whim, I tested the weight of the women's fuel bottles, taking each aluminum canister in hand. The bottles were not as heavy with fuel as the collegiate's but they were heavier than the ones in my cook group, which inspired hope that as far as the stu- dent group's overall fuel supply went it was likely we were going to have plenty of gas. The whole time I was occupied with these preparations, Cheryl was fiddling with her personal stereo, taking the cassette out and flipping it over, losing herself for a moment in a sort of reverie, then fussing again with the controls. I could see from where I was sitting that her tape player was housed in a sort of all- weather enclosure. The color of the case was the rich yellow that industry manages to chemically imbed within plastic. Several of the kayaks are this same yellow color. The boats seem in keeping with the surroundings yet Cheryl's device struck me as being out of place. I decided the problem was the clicking noise which accompa- nied her repeated opening and closing of the waterproof case. The precise click and snap of the lid mechanism as it engaged and re- leased was too refined a noise for a world of boulders and driftwood. It was a self-satisfied little sound, a tiny engineered noise of reas- surance meant only for the self-involved possessor of the device, offensive to the quiet evening air and the solid ground of the moraine. "What's going on, Cheryl?" "Tape got eaten." "How many tapes did you bring?" "Only the one. "Hot Hits of '88". I didn't think we'd have that much time to listen to music." "Right." I started working the larger sticks into the fire. There'd been some sort of discussion back at Palmer regarding personal electron- ics. I thought the consensus had been that no one would bring a transistor radio, or tape player, or anything of the sort. Maybe the final decision was that each individual would be left to his, or her, own cognizance regarding the matter. I didn't and don't care about it one way or the other. However, I was curious why the one idle member of the cook group hadn't already gotten on the task of starting the fire and set- ting water to boil. Probably she couldn't do any work with her cas- sette player malfunctioning, couldn't really be expected to help if she didn't have music to energize her. "I'm just wondering," I began, addressing Cheryl across the Section #4: Sky Hook [47] ! campsite, "if you could be immediately transported back to where you're from . . . where'd you say you were from?" "Southern California. San Fernando." "Right. If you could be immediately transported back to San Fernando, would you do it?" "That's funny," she said, "the Instructors just asked me more or less the same thing." "What did you tell them?" "I told them I was in no hurry to get back. I don't want them to think I'm not having fun." "How do you really feel?" "You mean if I could leave right now, this instant?" "This instant." "In that case, I'm gone," she said. 'That's what I thought." I'd also decided that Cheryl was another one who hadn't paid the course tuition herself. This trip was her parent's idea. And not a bad idea. After all, the girl hadn't quit. She'd been forced to grapple and been exposed to a little bit of how the other half lives. The en- tirety of what she's learned out here won't be apparent to anyone, including herself, for some years yet. "It's not that I don't think it's interesting," she said. "And I'm looking forward to getting back to Palmer and partying with every- one. But all I ever think about is how I'm missing the best part of the summer with my friends. By the time I get back there'll only be about a week left before school starts." I noted that, so far, the girl's lustrous black hair had not been greatly affected by the elements. It was enough to make you sus- pect she'd snuck along some product. Or she'd been able to keep it fluffy like that with lots of rinsing in fresh water creeks and water falls and so forth. And, unlike everyone else on the course who's acquired quite a bit of color, or weathering, of the skin, Cheryl had so far managed to keep her pale, almost Gothic, complexion. "Well," I said, putting the pot over the flames, "if it's any con- solation, you're not the only one who's been counting down the days." The smoke from the fire was enough to keep the bugs off and I flipped back my mosquito net. She looked at me for a few seconds. "Tyler tells me you have a mirror." "There's a mirror as part of my compass." "In that case, would you mind if I borrowed your compass to, you know, scout out the lay of the land?" I started to offer the suggestion that she refrain from exam- ining her face, you know, as a way of arriving at a truer self-con- [48] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! cept. But, really, I just wanted to get supper underway. The sooner we ate, the sooner we could have coffee. I dug the compass out of my daypack and gave it to her. "Thank you," she said. "I'll give it back in a minute." "Take your time." I was glad to see she didn't immediately flip back the lid and begin inspecting herself. Within minutes the water began to boil and I stirred in the pasta. The seawater obviated the need for salt. Within ten minutes the other two women returned to camp carrying full water bottles and a bundle of firewood lashed together with paracord. "Whatcha got going there?" asked Tyler. "Just shells," I told her. "We still need cheese. And spice." I fished one of the pasta forms out with a spoon, found it tender enough to chew and began to drain the water off onto the ground. "I hope nobody wanted that for a hot drink." "Pasta water?" Pat asked. "I don't think so." "There are those who relish it." "Can't imagine." "Where're you getting your fresh water?" I asked. "About half a klick thataway," Tyler said. "And look at this." She raised her shirt to reveal, on level with her bottommost rib, a reddened welt about three inches long. "Ran straight into a limb spike." The rushing sound that'd been set to going in my head the instant Tyler walked into camp now increased in volume as I moved closer to examine the welt. Her shirt was not raised any higher than it had to be, but it was pulled up enough to expose the pale, blue-veined flesh which commenced on that side just below the breast. "That's a very nice scratch," I said. "You dog, Marlow," said Pat. "Speaking of dogs," Tyler said, lowering her shirt, "we heard someone playing some sort of instrument out in the woods. Was that you?" "Maybe." "What was that?" "Penny whistle." I took it out of the daypack and handed it to her. "Not much to it. Two octaves. Half-notes." She turned the tube over in her hands and then reached it back over. "Kinda neat. How 'bout playing some for us right now?" "Too shrill for up close," I explained. "Better if you hear it coming through the woods." "Then go off in those trees over there and play." "Better yet if there's a rushing creek nearby." Section #4: Sky Hook [49] ! "Well, there's no creek." "I'll play it for you some other time." " "I'm going to hold you to it." Pat had begun to slice the cheese, knocking the cubes into the pot where they immediately proceeded to melt. On the rock which functioned as their camp's serving zone I set down a can of fruit cocktail and began to open it with the point of my knife, going around the top with a series of punctures "Here now, where'd you get that?" Pat asked. "Instructor's gave it to me. Along with some tuna." "Well, Marlow rates. I sure didn't get any cans of fruit cock- tail at the eval. All I got was a lecture on not volunteering informa- tion. Come on everybody, let's eat. Cheryl, let's eat." Initially, I was going to hold back on the tuna, thinking it might be a nice item to share with my erstwhile tent mates. Howev- er, it was beginning to look as if there might not be any more meals with the biologist and the librarian. I decided it was as good a time as any to eat the tuna and set the can on the rock to receive the same treatment with the point of the knife. "I don't suppose anybody got a P-38?" I asked. I didn't wait for an answer. "No? I didn't think so." And proceeded to come down on the knife handle with my fist. "You ever get bits of metal in your food opening cans like that?" asked Tyler. "Never," I said. "Even if I did, they'd pass. I've heard of people eating entire cars, Packards and Duesenbergs and whatnot, engine and all, one metal shaving at a time." "Not medically advisable," said the future doctor. I'd only made the first couple of holes along the top of the can with the knife point when Cheryl, who'd sat down nearby with her bowl and spoon ready, asked if I'd prefer to use a can opener. "Well, sure," I said. "If you got one handy." The girl took off over her head a lanyard, pulling up several items that'd been dangling down inside her polypro top. There was a space pen, a small single cell flashlight and, lo and behold, an ac- tual P-38. "My dad gave me this before I left," Cheryl said, handing over the lanyard. "He said it was all stuff I might find useful on a camp- ing trip." "Well, he's right." The P-38 was brand new, had obviously never been put to use. It cut through the rest of the tuna can slick as anything. "Thank you," I said, handing back to Cheryl the lanyard and its nice assortment of tools. "Say hello to your dad for me. A man [50] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! who clearly knows his gear." Bending back the lid of the tuna can, I scraped the flakes into the cheese and noodles. We put our bowls on the rock and Pat began to serve it out. I considered what she'd said about her eval. "I guess Dodi didn't ap- preciate you showing her up on knots," I offered. "Not only that, she said if I wanted to be evacced it could easi- ly be arranged. All I was trying to do was suggest a better way to trim the boats. I thought this school was about sharing knowledge. Cheryl, I want you to eat more than that. This is not the time or place to be trying to lose weight. And take off those headphones." The girl complied with these, her proxy mother's, various requests. "I only had one ear in," she said. "Why do they eat the cars?" "To set a record," I told her. "I'd rather drive a car than eat it." "Sure. It doesn't make any sense." "Hey, Cheryl," began Tyler. "How'd yer eval go?" "Went okay. The Instructors say I need to show more initia- tive. Dodi gave me a lecture about not getting involved in a relation- ship while on course." "Are you involved in a relationship?" Tyler asked. "Not that I know of. And that's what I told Dodi, but she went ahead and issued me a spiel. She said hooking up might cause one to be too focused on one other person. I said to her: Isn't that the point?" "Yep," said Tyler. "That's the point." Bugnets were removed all around and we began to eat "Chew carefully," I said. "Be on the alert for metal shards." For the next minute or two the only sound was the clicking of spoons against bowls. "Okay if I try a little of that fruit cocktail, Marlow?" asked Pat. "Yeah, yeah. Here. Everybody take some." We all took a couple of spoonfuls, placing it next to our por- tions of cheesy tuna casserole. "Nice change of texture," said Pat, tasting the fruit. "When I was a kid," I began, "my mom used to serve canned fruit cocktail as a sort of appetizer. She'd put it in special, fluted bowls." "Looks full of preservatives, if you ask me," ventured Cheryl, picking with her spoon at a bright red maraschino." "There was a time," began Pat, "when people were very en- amored of canned ready-to-eat food. We liked the convenience." Section #4: Sky Hook [51] ! "Don't get me wrong," said Cheryl. "I can't wait to get back to easy cheese in a can." I turned to ask Tyler how her own evaluation went. "Overall, they're happy enough with my performance," she said. "Dodi's concerned that I haven't given my mini-class yet. She wants me to do it before small groups." "Dodi's weird anyway," broke in Cheryl. "Don't you hate the way she's always yelling out for bears? All that 'Hey bear, yo bear' stuff. Maybe it's me, but it feels more like she's calling the bears to us. And what about that talk she gave us about our used tampons. She had some bizarro word for it. What was it?" "Soiled cottons," Tyler said. "Right. Soiled cottons. Now, that's weird. Couldn't she have just said 'On the rag'?" "Not if you grew up with parents in the foreign service," I suggested. "You might be used to more genteel language." "That's right," began Tyler. "If you were raised in an envi- ronment so removed from normal society you thought that taking the dodo bird for a personal totemic animal was a reasonable thing to do you might also call used tampons 'soiled cottons'." I looked around at the three women. "So, Dodi took you fe- males aside and presented some sort of 'girls only' hygiene rap? Yeast infections and so forth?" "Yep," said Tyler. "Did she say anything else about tampons being a bear at- tractant?" "She reiterated what she'd said in hygiene class. Additionally, she talked about how if we generated any soiled cottons -- 'generat- ed' was the word she used -- we should pack them out in an empty rations bag. She warned us that our periods might commence a lit- tle later than expected due to the physical stress of the trip." "Interesting," I said. "You know, I don't think it's been entirely proven that used tampons attract bears." "Dodi quoted an experiment," responded Tyler, "in which po- lar bears were tested for attraction to seal meat and human men- strual blood. Both elicited a maximal response. Dodi said that to bury a used tampon would be to almost guarantee excavation by a bear and possible habituation to the taste of human blood." "Well, well. I stand corrected. Is that water available for hot drinks?" I asked, indicating a pot that was steaming lightly at the edge of the fire. "Hot drinks, rinse your bowl, wash your face, douse your pee rag, whatever you like," said Pat. "A simple cup of coffee will suffice. Tyler, you mentioned [52] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! wanting coffee. Anybody else? Coffee?" "If you're offering," responded Pat. "Cheryl?" I asked. "My parents love coffee. They drink it all the time." "I'll bet they do. What about you?" "Not right now." "I'm afraid all I have is instant," I said, "but if you put some h.c. in it, it's not bad." "I thought about bringing coffee," began Pat, "I mean real cof- fee, only I didn't get my order in fast enough." "To that," I said, "I can only say, if it were important to you, you'd have got your order in." "Thanks, Marlow," said Tyler, taking her cup back. She im- mediately began scrounging in a food duffel and came up with a polybag of hot cocoa. "Though I usually try to avoid the sugar," she went on, "I actually prefer a little chocolate in my coffee." I noted that the bag of h.c. powder Tyler had pulled out was not only full but appeared as if the top had never been unknotted prior to that moment. Which I took as a sign Tyler's cook group might still be heavy with this most precious substance. "You probably don't normally drink much coffee back in the real world, do you?" I asked. I had the thought that Tyler possibly only drank coffee in a boutique setting. "Oh, I normally drink quite a lot of coffee. I just thought that while on this trip it'd be interesting to go without. Mmm," she said, taking a sip. "Yer right. That's not too bad." "You've not had any coffee on the course until this moment?" "That's correct." "Amazing. Yet you always appear so hopeful and enthused." "I know. Hard to believe." "Well," I said, "stick close and together we'll see the end of your mad experiment." It was at about this juncture Cheryl announced she was heading out for a walk. Her headphones were back on, the earpiece parts disappearing beneath the thick rug of her hair. She had her sleeping bag in its stuffsack slung over a shoulder by the draw- string and her ensolite rolled up under her arm. "Here's your compass back, Marlow," she said, speaking over- loud to compensate for the noise in her ears. "Thanks for supper everyone." "Before you go, Cheryl," began Tyler, "let's take a group photo. Last chance. Everything changes tomorrow." The medical student placed her camera with its little tripod upon a small erratic and set the timer. I held back at first, but the Section #4: Sky Hook [53] ! women seemed to want to include me, so the four of us grouped up. Before the flash went off, I glanced back once at Cheryl who'd come up behind and put her arms over all our shoulders. For the briefest fraction of a second I was mesmerized by the girl's all-purpose smile and the pinkest of fleshy gum material perfectly spackled be- tween orthodontically straightened teeth. Anyone who sees the snapshot later will never guess there was somewhere else Cheryl preferred to be be. "Okay. Smell ya later," the girl said, regathering her sleeping gear. "How far you going?" I asked her. She didn't answer. She was off, walking fast. "You cannot assume she heard you," Pat said. It didn't matter. Clearly, for Cheryl, listening to the music from her other life was a way to speed up time and get through the course. I waved the girl on her way and we watched as she set a course across the shingle. "Headed to the boy's camp," said Pat. "Speaking of evacs," she added, as she gathered up bowls and spoons, including the utensils Cheryl had simply left upon the ground, "there are moments when I can think of one person I'd like to nominate for immediate and permanent evac." "Would that be by boat?" I asked. "Or by air?" "Let's have it be by air. Quicker that way." "Easy enough to land a chopper in here." "No reason to land," the older woman said, "lower a sky hook. Pluck her right off the course. Next stop: any shopping mall in San Bernardino." "San Fernando," Tyler corrected. "Same difference." "Right." I said. "And truth is, I don't think she'd object." "Someday, Cheryl will realize how much she benefitted from being out here," said Pat. "It'll be a few years yet. My son's only be- ginning to realize all that he learned." I stayed a while longer in Pat and Tyler's company, finishing the hot drinks. To keep them entertained, I told them the story of the red kayak and how I'd schemed to make it mine for the duration of the course, only to discover what a dud boat it was. "Served you right, Marlow," said Pat. "You're right it served me right." ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #5: Soft Carpet of Lichens ! When I returned to camp I found Dinah and Crandall occupied at their usual tasks, the biologist sorting specimens, the librarian cataloguing her gear. Before I even had a chance to sit down, Dinah spoke. "The Instructors were over." "What did they want?" Crandall answered for her. "They came to assess our impact." The biologist was filing leaf samples into tiny ziplocs. "They said the tarp was okay but suggested we move the tent off the lichens." "Where do they suggest we move it?" "They want us to put it over there." He indicated the direc- tion with his thumb. "On the bare rock." There wasn't anything over where Crandall was pointing that I could see, except the glacier and the ocean. I went to the tent to see if I could make out the problem. Ac- tually, I already understood the problem. I'd anticipated the prob- lem when we first set up the tent. What I really went over for was to see if there was any way for us to weasel out of having to do any- thing about it. Naturally, Dinah went to look at the tent with me. Truth was, I'd deliberately erected the tent upon the thick cushion of lichens, figuring it'd be a good deal more comfortable to sleep on than the bare shingle and I believe we'd all found this to be the case. Well, there it was, our tent, the humble geodesic that had sheltered us for so many nights. And it was certainly possible to see near the tent door the place where our footfalls were wearing a path in the lichen carpet. Dinah pointed to a spot where an incau- tious step had torn a portion of the colony completely away from the rock. "The Instructors say a scar like that will take twenty years to heal.". I was pretty sure it'd not been the Instructors collectively who'd made this statement but Dodi alone. And I was tempted to express how I was starting to feel about the Course Leader's ran- dom pronouncements. I looked at the librarian, whose eyes suddenly seemed very Section #5: Soft Carpet of Lichens [55] ! round and owlish behind the opaque window panes of her glasses. Well then, I thought, we should all just kill ourselves pronto. Every human being commit suicide. Give it all back to the other species who'd been doing just fine before the homo saps showed up. I could see it was never going to end with this woman. I can look back now and recognize that this is where it started. This is where I began to disengage. It was over the relatively insignificant business of relocating the tent off of the moss on the Columbia moraine. Dinah had already exhibited far more outrageous behav- ior but for some reason her passive insistence that we relocate the tent that night struck me as beyond all reasonableness. Maybe it was because I'd just come from drinking coffee with the levelheaded persons of Pat and Tyler. Or maybe I was feeling the cumulative ef- fect of the librarian's actions and words. Not to mention I was counting on the fact, beginning the morning of the very next day, I was never to be subjected to the librarian's quirks and crotchets again. All we had to do was make it through one more evening, I thought, and everything would be fine. Dinah could've put her indictment differently. She could've suggested that maybe the lichens, or whatever they were, needed a break from our activity. Instead, she allowed her eyes to tear up. She exhibited suppressed anger. She employed phraseology which had the effect of causing one to feel a great number of innocents had been harmed. It's only natural for a person to be driven the other way by such language. In fact, the normal impulse would be to discover a desire to destroy all lichens, all moss, all inert and crust- like excrescence which require inordinately long periods of time to grow only to be continually in the way and underfoot. In response to Dinah's statement about how long it'd take the moss to repair I believe I said something like, "No doubt", or, "Is that so?", and then proceeded to explore around a bit, seeking the most likely surface of rock the tent could be moved onto. I was unwilling to venture more than fifty yards in any direction from where we'd already set up. I didn't want to get into a situation where we'd be required to relocate our entire camp, tarps and everything. The only bare rock I could find within the fifty yard parameter was ter- raced and sloped and entirely unsuitable. I glanced over to where the biologist continued to sit and sort his leaves and then I turned back to Dinah. "Look, we're only going to be here twelve more hours," I said. I was careful to speak loud enough for Crandall to hear as well. "Most of that time we'll be asleep," I continued. "At least I plan to be. I don't think it's going to make much difference at this point where the tent's pitched. Mov- ing it now will only end up causing more damage than leaving it [56] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! where it is." The more I talked, the more reasons I was able to dredge up for ignoring the Instructor's suggestion. Let it be under- stood, I'm not saying they weren't right about the lichens. It was Dinah's self-satisfied manner of pointing out our transgression that irritated me. This should be a lesson to all environmentalists, in- cluding myself. Presentation is everything. The exploiters of the world are an aggressive, willful tribe. If you don't couch your ideas for preservation and sustainability in terms which will allow them to maintain their psychology of control they'll never go for it. They'll fight you all the way and since they're the ones in charge of production and distribution and subsequent profit they tend to hold the advantage. "That's what we thought you'd say," Dinah mumbled. I looked hard at the librarian. Her hands having neither books nor papers to clasp hung limply at her sides. And her eyes without text to focus upon were wide and vulnerable. Once more, I was tempted to give her some perspective and tell her about the .22 caliber rifles, the sage hens dispatched with ice axes. Again, a hesi- tancy to add additional horror to the woman's world caused me to refrain. "What do you think, Crandall?" I asked. He looked up from his specimen packets. "Well," he began, "we probably shouldn't have camped here in the first place, but now I suppose the damage is done." "Right. Hey," I said, turning again to Dinah, "we're not likely to find a spot more level than this. If we go searching about and moving the tent and hauling the gear and everything we're only going to trample down the moss, or the lichen, or whatever it is, even worse. I say let's leave everything where it's at and we'll try to step gently from here on out. First thing tomorrow morning we'll pull down the tent and move everything carefully away." Dinah wouldn't look at me, nor did she seem inclined to say anything. I went back to the kitchen tarp. Taking note of the fact that the supper cookfire had died out and that there was no more fire wood, I settled down to make a hot drink on the stove. I wanted to say something to my campmates about having made it back in time after all to hang out with them on this our last evening together, but let it go. Say what I might it would've been putting on a false front. The shift had occurred. I'd become an interloper in my own cook- group. Dinah put in a request for hot water and a fresh tea bag and returned to her rummaging. It appeared she'd devised some new system of categorization and was forming her gear into small, dis- tinct piles, pursuing an end comprehendible only to herself. Section #5: Soft Carpet of Lichens [57] ! ! When the water was ready, I gave Dinah a portion and indi- cated to Crandall there was extra if he wanted any. "Check this out, Marlow," the biologist said, getting up quickly and pouring the offered hot water into his mug, throwing in a tea bag. "This time I've got ice." And he showed me a water bottle full of dirty slush probably harvested from a berg down by the glacier. "I can make iced tea." "That's great," I said. "Very sunbelt of you." Taking my own ration of hot water, I moved to sit at the spot which formed the third apex of our old familiar triangle. Having squandered most of the evening with idle chitchat I was determined to get some reading accomplished. "Hey. I've got fizz here," the biologist said at one point. "Just like Burl said." "Way to go, Cran," I said, not taking my eyes off my book. Dinah continued heavy with her sorting. I was resolved not to be distracted by the woman's hennish movements. Therefore, I was not aware of what she was doing when she put another pot on the stove. I suppose I assumed she wanted more hot water with which to replenish her drink. I'm not sure I gave it any thought. Only when I realized the stove had been running at full throttle for quite a space did I put the book down and get up to investigate. It was as if I'd entered the repeat of a bad dream. Dinah had loaded a large quantity of water into one of her own pots, a couple of quarts or more, and was boiling the crap out of it, as she'd done so many times in the past. The water was snapping and frothing, mak- ing a desperate attempt to escape the enormous heat which had been placed beneath it, to some extent succeeding by flinging itself over the rim to hiss upon the hot assembly of the stove. I could feel my own temper heating up right along with the water. I attempted to distract myself by noting once more how beautifully burnished was the librarian's cookware. Dinah had complained to me early on about how our wood fires were singeing the bottom of her pots. "Getting them all sooty," was her phrase. I explained that the discoloration was normal, even desirable. "A blackened pot distributes heat better than a clean one," I explained. And then I related to her an anecdote about how I'd once arrived home to my parent's house after having been out west for nearly a decade and the first evening back made the mistake of leaving my camp pot in the kitchen where my mom was able to get ahold of it. That little stowaway pot had been thoroughly coated, all the way to its rim, with soot and burned on food spills, the work of hundreds of campfires and stove sessions, a carbonization so perfectly smooth [58] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! and resistant it was as though the vessel had been anodized at the factory. I was quite proud of it. And all the next morning as I slept in my mother worked away with pads of steel wool. When I came down for coffee there was my old pot sitting on the kitchen counter, clean and shiny as a new nickel. Dinah didn't see the irony of my tale. She had no interest in her cook pots becoming coated with a black substance she was cer- tain was carcinogenic. She took my story as a recommendation for how to deal with the problem. Included in her cook set was one of those little green scrubby things, a square pad of coarse material about two inches on a side. Of course, within a minute of her using it, the pad was completely clogged with grease and soot. I showed her, instead, if what she really wanted to do was get the carbon and crud off, how to use the fine grit sand, the greywacke, to scrub her cookware. Man, Dinah got that stainless steel to glisten. Her pots were back to original condition, except for about a billion minute scratch marks. "Didn't you boil up extra water when you had a fire?" I asked. "Certainly we did," she replied. "You're not sterilizing utensils again, are you?" "No. This water is for brushing teeth and for when I need a drink in the night." "Right." Then I saw that there was another of her pots on the ground, steam rising from it. Inside the pot was a quantity of water which it appeared she'd already boiled and then removed to cool. A closer inspection showed something within, some object steeping in the hot water. "What's going on here?" I asked. She didn't answer. "A big pot of tea?" I ventured, though I knew that couldn't be it. Her titanium spoon was lying nearby and I used it to lift up the mysterious stuff in the pot. "Please don't," Dinah said. "It is not sterilized yet." "It's not what?" I started to ask, then I saw what it was, fig- ured out what she was up to, and allowed the bandana, or couple of bandanas, to slip back into the hot water which was already tainted by the loose dyes. Pee rags. That was the term Pat had used. I'm sure the librarian's pot had been dedicated solely to this task, had probably already performed the job any number of times, possibly daily since the beginning of the trip, a procedure which of course she'd kept hidden from me, all the while burning up precious coffee brewing fuel. I went to gather my book and my pad and the rest of my gear. Section #5: Soft Carpet of Lichens [59] ! "Headed for the tent, Marlow?" asked Crandall. "Nope," I said. "I think I'll just step down here for a minute." And I started walking out of camp in the direction of the tide flats. All the firewood on hand had been used up. It was only rea- sonable, I thought to myself, for the woman to spark up the stove to sterilize her toothbrushing and bandana rinse water. And the fish eye stage of boiling is so indeterminate. Totally subjective. How can you even know when you're there? Much more decisive to bring the water to an active boil. The woman was making an honest attempt to modify her methods, to be sparing of stove fuel, but sometimes it was simply advisable to give the water extra boiling time. Just to make sure. Perfectly understandable. I walked first in the direction of the water and then slowly circled back. It doesn't matter. That was the phrase I kept invoking. I'd divorced myself from the situation. I'd moved on and there was no reason to become incensed. The following morning, the student group was to put all rations and fuel canisters in a pile and re-divvy everything. For some of us the next day would essentially consti- tute a re-supply. There'd be plenty of fuel to go around, always a means of making coffee. My thinking eventually came to revolve around the question of how it is we ever establish the relative reasonableness of our own or anyone else's behavior. I placed one foot and then the other down upon sand which the sea had only recently relinquished and decid- ed that one way we do it is by measuring every instance of behavior against some average built up from the hundreds of thousands of human interactions we've experienced, or observed, or ever heard about. However, as the existence of some one such as the librarian proves, there's a way for an otherwise perfectly functioning indi- vidual to live in this world and remain, even well into adulthood, severely limited in the sum of their interactions. Her conduct had been allowed to evolve unchecked by any critique, spared the cor- rective action of rubbing up against her fellow humans. Having lived in a cloistered manner for most of her life all Dinah knew is what she, herself, thought to be appropriate. She had no conception of how her behavior registered upon the reasonableness scale. I'll tell you, by the time I took that walk down along the tide flats at Columbia, I'd begun to regret having given Dinah the ad- dresses and contact names for the other adventurous and initiatory undertakings, information I'd dispensed so freely in the first ex- pansive days of our paddling together. It was inevitable, I thought, given the dogged nature of her pursuit, Dinah would include in her long and drawn out personal saga two or three of those employ- [60] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! ments -- the commune , the Yellowstone Park concession job, work- ing on the ice at McMurdo, to name a few possibilities -- and she was bound to mention my name in the process. Fortunately, I've changed the alias I go by a couple of times over the years which should help to cloak my identity, but if Dinah starts describing me to her future co-workers and communards they may be able to piece together who was responsible for sending this difficult and profoundly incompetent person into their midst and hold it against me forever. She can still go pick grapes in France if she wants. It's unlikely she'll run into anybody I knew there. And there's no way she'll ever follow through on my idea to try bicycle messengering. Working as a deck hand on a fishing boat was never a consideration, though I suppose she could hack cannery work, not the slime line but tasks like picking the whiskers off of shrimp. But from there on out, I decided, I wasn't going to suggest any more employments for her to seek. I'd walked out and back along the strand some distance, tot- ing all of my gear. When I returned to camp, I found Crandall and Dinah making ready to retire to the tent. "Crandall and I are concerned about what to do with the food duffels," Dinah said. I looked at her and then at the high school teacher, who wore a tight-lipped smile but otherwise was keeping his thoughts to him- self. Meanwhile, I could hear the ice growling away over at the glac- ier. Really, I thought, it's over. I was no longer sharing the camping life with my old tentmates. The first go-around had expired. I'd sim- ply made the changeover more rapidly than they had. "We have decided," Dinah continued, "that we should take the duffels down the beach just as we did the other night." Some quality of the light prevented me from seeing her mouth move behind the screen of her mosquito net. Her voice came to me like ventriloquism. Dinah's mosquito headnet is an elaborate contrivance and, like all her gear, of the highest quality manufacture, in the case of the headnet with reinforced hems to help it drape properly. There's something about it, the headnet, I've never liked. Not to say the school issue nets are superior, because they aren't. They're either of such cheap material, or they've been laundered so many times, they tend to hang limply. An ambitious bug can and often will bite right through the mesh where it lies against the neck or cheek. But I'd rather have school issue than the heavy material of the librari- an's net which forms a cylindrical curtain around her head, a sort of small room from which my only desire would be to escape. Wear- ing a bugnet like that you'd have to ask yourself whether or not you Section #5: Soft Carpet of Lichens [61] ! were even technically outdoors. Needless to say, I was surprised to hear the subject of the food duffels brought up. As mentioned, we'd not bothered to stash the food the previous night, our first night on the Columbia moraine. Well, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. I don't know what it would've taken to convince my campmates that bears have better things to do than hike across half a mile of desolation to sniff around a collection of dehydrated powder and flake wrapped in plastic. "Sure," I said. "Put the duffels down the beach. Hang 'em in a tree. Float 'em out in one of the kayaks, if you really want to be sure. Why ask me? I'm sure whatever you do will be fine." I took myself off to the tent and in less than a minute was in my bag, resolved to dwell no longer upon the hazy machinations and roily fears within the mind of the librarian. And I deliberately left my noisome camp shoes right beneath the tent vestibule where they'd be handy in the morning. Dinah would simply have to deal with the stink one more night. Anyway, I didn't think they smelled as bad as all that. Dinah typically brought her own footgear, her rubber boots, right into the tent with her, leaving them standing next to her sleeping spot. I smell-tested her boots once when I was in the tent of a morning giving her the ten minute warning on breakfast. I leaned over and took a tentative whiff at the top of the boots but of course they weren't smelly or noisome at all. There was a slight brine odor and something of vulcanized rubber and that was it. I spent a moment awake in my bag listening, trying to de- termine whether Crandall and Dinah had decided to stow the food bags down the beach or not. The voices of the two came and went along with the noise of their feet shuffling about the greywacke. It sounded as though in the end they'd decided to leave the duffels in camp. And then I forced myself to cease dwelling upon the maneu- vers of my campmates. Instead, I thought about Tyler. I thought about how, when the girl was hunched over writing those notes to me at the birding class, her polypro top had pulled up a couple of inches at the small of her back, revealing a sliver of white skin ever so faintly dusted with reddish freckles. After a space, my tent mates came in and began to situate themselves, Crandall in the middle, Dinah against the tent's far wall. I didn't concern myself with them but rather attempted to re- member precisely what it was the med student had said about putting chocolate in her coffee. I liked the way she'd phrased it. It spoke of someone who was happy in their life, had made their ad- justment to it. I fell asleep with the thought that the girl was proba- [62] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! bly too focused upon her return to medical school to be distracted by anything like romance. But her shoulders were so perfectly molded, the white column of her neck so nicely proportioned to the width and mass of the shoulders, and her breasts appeared to be low slung, the way I like them. None of which of course clouded in !the least my appreciation of her total person. ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #6: Male Mythology ! We were awakened from time to time throughout the night by the noise of icebergs colliding at the head of the glacier, a sound like the crashing of box cars in a rail yard. Then it was morn- ing, bringing to a conclusion the last so-called nighttime period in which the three of us -- Crandall, Dinah and Marlow -- would share the same tent. I emerged from the dome that morning before my comrades. Looking about the student encampment, I could see no one else up except for a single lone figure hunched over beneath his or her kitchen tarp, rummaging through a food duffel. Speaking of which, I didn't see our duffels around anywhere. They weren't beneath ei- ther of the tarps. I could've sworn Crandall and Dinah had decided to skip the bear precautions and was therefore stumped as to where the duffels could be, until I concluded, as it'd happened before, someone or some persons from one of the other tent groups, wilderness ethic having gotten the better of them, had collected up what ration bags could be found around the student encampment and taken them off to stow at a distance somewhere out on the moraine. It didn't matter. I was sure I could find them. Nothing could shake me out of a mood born of the pleasant realization that beginning with that very day all movement was going to be wester- ly and in the direction of the final pull-out. In honor of this fact, I decided I'd retrieve the food duffels from wherever they'd been stashed -- they couldn't be too far off -- and make coffee sweetened with an extra ration of h.c. I walked away from the encampment, but not spotting any- thing like a pile of duffels right off was forced to explore around. I knew the pile wouldn't be toward the tide flats where the water could come up, or toward the trees where bears would be imagined to lurk. I chose the middle ground and after venturing in this direc- tion about fifty yards the pile of food duffels, partially concealed from sight within a slight declivity, separated itself out from the rest of the debris and bladderwrack. Arriving to the pile, which consisted of duffels from several of the cook groups, I pulled out our three bags and lined them up [64] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! side-by-side. Instead of going directly back to camp, I decided to leave the bags and hike over toward the glacier where there was still quite a bit of commotion. Overnight, a light condensation had settled upon the dark sand of the flats. With each footfall the moistened ground preserved the distinct pattern left by the soles of my pizza sneaker camp shoes. The wetness gave the sand an interesting feel beneath the step and I thought of the tidal flats at Turnagain Arm, the shoreline near Anchorage, where the otherwise firm sand becomes loose and mucky as it's infiltrated by the incoming tide. Seaside strollers will suddenly discover they're sinking to mid-shin with each step. Then, of course, as the sand reaches full saturation, it turns to cement, effectively trapping in place the wayward beachcomber. Locked firmly at the ankle, the tourist who might've only come down to the water's edge on a whim, is thoroughly surprised as the rising water, ushered in by one of the most dramatic tides on the planet, rises above their waist, then on up to their chest, and appears to be bent upon eventually cutting off any access to air. Even if rescue crews manage to get scuba gear in place the hypothermia brought on by the cold water has the effect of suppressing the submerged individ- ual's motivation to breathe. Some hours later, as I've heard it de- scribed, the tide retreats, the sand loosens its grip and the tourist is easily lifted out of his two socket holes, at which time the individual can be placed without protest upon a coroner's gurney and trans- ported to the airport for the return flight home, completely cured of the desire to see more of Alaska. After I'd moved along a space, I paused and looked back at our encampment, now much reduced in size against the backdrop of mountains and sky. It was possible to completely blot our small grouping of tents and tarps with an outstretched hand. I was seized by the notion that our little band of travelers had become, if not the last remnant of humanity, then its last free ranging members. Our old lives no longer held forth. What each of us had been, whatever we were doing as individuals before this odyssey began, that was over. This was how our existence was to be from now on. There would eventually be some further modifications to our lifestyle as rations became exhausted and equipment wore out. All fine by me. I was ready for a change from the life I'd fashioned for myself down in Petersburg. Entering a post-apocalyptic scenario might be the best antidote for the funk brought on by a year's worth of sameness and routine. As I approached nearer to the glacier I discovered another set of tracks coming from a slightly different direction. I walked beside these new prints until reaching the place where the ground Section #6: Male Mythology [65] ! sloped off to the edge of the glacier, at which point I stopped. Columbia makes a flat approach to the water and from where I was standing the glacier appeared as a long, white animal hun- kered within its trench. Dodi has informed us that the glacier is in "drastic retreat phase", as she put it, to the tune of a hundred feet a day. Still, the glacier seemed to be calving, or breaking up where it met the water, so I'm not sure how that works. There were loud noises coming from the pile-up of ice at the terminus but even after studying the wreckage for several minutes I couldn't detect any ac- tual movement. The tide was in and the water was holding the bergs in place. It promised to be another more or less clear day with a thin line of clouds above the mountains. Once the tide released and began its outflow we could expect to have good conditions for paddling. A movement caught my eye. Down low, at the corner where the moraine gave way to the glacier, a figure was wading out into the water. Naturally, it was Tyler. She must've been there all along, undressing amongst the errata. The white skin of the softly molded shoulders caught the morning light, reflecting it upward like a bea- con. At the sight of the girl in this vulnerable state I started to feel a little weak in the knee. I probably should've turned around and left the scene, but instead took a seat on a rock. Tyler waded out into a water thick with silt until she was among the first line of bergs, ba- sically immersed to her waist in an icy slush. She took up a few cupped handfuls to splash upon her neck and then launched out. Cutting back and forth, shoving the ice out of her way, she pulled a half-a-dozen strokes of Australian crawl in one direction and a half dozen of breast stroke in the other, then completely submerged herself for five seconds, returning to the surface with hair stream- ing, her face contorted by the cold. When I saw she was headed in to shore I dropped down with my back against the erratic and waited. In the other direction, the dark expanse of the moraine had swallowed up our camp. Not a tent, not a tarp, not a student or Instructor was visible. It seemed that we might as well go ahead and dissolve the false hierarchy of Instructor versus Student -- those who were in need of instruction being positioned lower than those who had instruction to impart -- and instead devote our energies toward figuring out the best way to organize ourselves for purposes of survival. I figured, for the sake of expediency, it'd behoove us to break up into small hunter/gatherer bands of five or six individuals and range out from a common camp. Then the girl was suddenly in front of me, barefoot, wet hair, but otherwise clothed. "Marlow. What're you doing here?" [66] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! "Out for a walk." "Doesn't look like walking." She stooped over to pull on her campshoes. "Far as I could go in this direction." I looked more closely at her shoes. "Are those possibly called topsiders?" "You got it. Topsiders. Shoes to be worn topside on boats. Par- ticularly sailboats. Well, okay. I'm walking, too. I'm walking back to camp." She began to head out. I got up and fell in step with her. "You usually swim like this in the morning?" "Two out of three mornings. It's never much of a swim. More of a dip. I probably should try for more distance." "I don't see how you can stand it even for a second. I wouldn't get in that water for a hundred dollars." "It does require a certain mindset." "No doubt. Can you butterfly, as well?" "Not so much as you'd notice." "Right. What's your mission now?" I asked. "Going back to eat breakfast with my tent group." "Me, too." "You're also eating breakfast with my tent group?" "Can I be invited?" "Can you bring more coffee?" "Just let us stop by the food duffels and I'll pick up our sup- ply." "All right," she said. "Have you given any more thought to the idea of us paddling together?" The divot suddenly appeared in the region high on her cheek. "I think it might work out," I said, experiencing at the same instant a stroke of misgiving. "Don't do it if you don't want to." "No, I'd like to. It's time for me to find a new partner. "You're not overwhelming me with enthusiasm here." "I'm just saying, I don't have a partner. I did, but not any more. The Instructors have forbidden Cord and me to ever be to- gether in the same boat. I'd like to paddle with you, if it can be worked out." "It can be worked out," she said. "All I have to do is give Cheryl the word and then see about getting us a kayak. Everything changes today." "Yep. Everything changes." "Wow. Will you look at that," she said. I knew immediately what she was talking about. I knew it before she finished speaking. The sun had just cleared the clouds Section #6: Male Mythology [67] ! which lay low to the mountains and the flats were suddenly suffus- ed with a pearly light cut through with the black shadows thrown by the errata. Two figures had detached themselves from the en- campment and stood out along the strand, motionless and rigid as tree trunks. In all likelihood the twosome were out there trying to spot birds. Unwittingly, they added the final touch to the scene by providing a sense of its enormous scale. Tyler took a camera out of the pocket of her anorak and raised it up. It was the little mini-camera of the previous evening, the one with the tiny motor that hummed when the lens cover was pulled back. She held the device briefly before her eye and then just as quickly put it away without taking a picture. "It's no good," she said. "The scene calls for a wide format and a long focal length. I should've brought my other camera. To be honest, I didn't think we'd have this much time to wander around taking pictures. I thought the trip would be more demanding." "I assumed the same thing once," I said. This was the first instance of being subjected to one of Tyler's photography references and, as with most of them, I wasn't exactly sure what she was talking about with the business of long focal lengths. All I was really capable of concerning myself with was the dimple-like depression high on her cheek, the tiny divot in her flesh, accentuated that morning by the low angle of the light. We were soon upon the pile of food bags. I went over to my group's duffels and got the coffee. Tyler fished around and deter- mined that her camp's rations had already been claimed, by Pat no doubt. "Okay. Let's go," I said. "Don't you want to carry your duffels back to camp?" she asked. "If I take those duffels back I'll be forced to explain to my campmates why it is I'm not eating breakfast with them on this, our last, morning together. Frankly, I'm not up to it. "Your call. They're your tentmates." "Only for one more hour. Believe me, it's better this way." When we arrived to Tyler's camp Pat was readying breakfast. It seemed she did all the meal prep for herself and the girls. What's cookin', Pat?" I asked. "Oatmeal deluxe," she said. "Staying for breakfast, Marlow?" "If it's okay." "Plenty to go around. Did you bring your little metal pot?" "Nope." "You can use my bowl if you want." I thanked Pat for this kindness. [68] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! "Morning, Cheryl," I said, at the same time reaching over and knocking a bit of lichen loose from the girl's hair. "Slept out last night, huh? You must have rolled off your pad." "Didn't use pads. We slept right on the moss, or whatever it is." "Perfect. "Water's hot, Marlow," Tyler announced. "Wanna pass me that coffee? You can use Cheryl's cup. She doesn't do hot drinks." I handed Tyler the poly bag of instant. She first put hot chocolate powder in each of our mugs and then spooned in a good measure of the joe, more than I would've normally used and a larg- er ration than we could afford, but I didn't say anything. This'll be our connection, I thought, Tyler's and my point in common. I'll be her supplier for the remainder of the trip. I took the plastic bag and held it up to the light to get a good estimate of how much coffee was left and decided I'd let her have all she wanted for a while, until she was thoroughly re-addicted, then scale her back. "No coffee for me this morning, Marlow," said Pat, who'd ob- served my scrutiny of the bag. "You sure?" "I'm sure, Marlow. Like you said, if I needed it that bad, I'd have brought my own supply." Tyler added hot water to the cups and stirred up the result- ing mud. I noticed that the prospect of coffee had inspired a return of the dent, the dimple, over her cheekbone. "It's good to see you've returned to your senses," I said. "Was spending a month in the backcountry without coffee supposed to be another way of testing your limits?" "Maybe." "I can understand most of it, the sleep deprivation, the short rations, long days in the boats, but going without coffee, what could possibly be served by proving yourself in such a way." "Stop." "It's just plain taking things too far. How were you expecting to keep up your moral? You're the one always concerned with what's reasonable." "Quit it. If you want to know, I thought the trip might be an opportunity to cleanse myself of some vices. Isn't that sort of the idea with a wilderness trip?" "Maybe some people's idea." I took a sip of the mocha java and immediately felt my spirits ratchet up to another level of happy. And I took note of the mug I was drinking from, a school-issue hot drink mug emblazoned with the official logo, a mug which perhaps had never seen use by its Section #6: Male Mythology [69] ! owner, Cheryl, or anyone else. It was a much more spec caffeine transfer unit than my own cup back at camp. I saw that both Tyler and Pat drank from the same model of mug, though I believe theirs were of different colors. "These are pretty nice," I said, "Same model as the Instruc- tors." I held the cup above my head to admire the solid base. This was the principle problem with my own mug, a gas-station freebie given to me by an aunt back in Virginia. The thing had a cross-sec- tion like a flower vase with an honest-to-god pedestal between its base and the bowl that held the coffee. I realized at that moment that I hated it, my mug. I hadn't realized the school mugs were so superior. I tried to remember what sort of mugs Crandall and Dinah had. I guess they were using school-issue, as well. I simply hadn't noticed. "And check this out," said Pat, taking up her sip-through lid from where it was lying on the serving rock and fitting it into the handle of her mug. The lid was held entirely and firmly secure with- in the handle. I was speechless, so impressed was I by this feature. Oh, how I coveted the mug, or one like it. I was pretty sure Crandall and Di- nah hadn't figured out the business of putting the lid in the handle. I certainly would've noticed that. There was a fleeting moment in which I considered writing Cheryl an IOU on the spot, a promise to pay her for the mug once we returned to Palmer, if she truly had no use for it. Except the mug was a pale purple in color which would never do. Purple is almost as bad as pink. "What does the school charge for these?" I asked. They told me the amount. It was nothing. Nominal. The school made no profit on it, they simply wanted everyone to be properly outfitted with this most useful of items and to carry it and the school's logo with them back into the world. I knew that the moment I returned to Palmer I'd be at Issue to buy one of the mugs, if not two, one for back-up. My flower vase would go in the trash. It was such an awful drink cup, with no thermal capability, it didn't deserve to live on even in someone else's possession. Pat dished us each a portion of the gruel she'd concocted. "Cheryl, I want you to eat some, too." She spooned a small amount into the girl's bowl. "I've never really liked oatmeal." "This is oatmeal deluxe." Pat's further insistence about the oatmeal was enough to prompt Cheryl to install the stereo headphones. "What makes it deluxe?" I asked, after a couple of mouthfuls. "Banana chips," said Pat. [70] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! "I can taste 'em. Great idea. Very novel." I had no trouble eat- ng the whole bowl, very tasty with some powdered milk poured on. I helped myself to the rest of what Pat scraped out of the pot and Cheryl's bowl, too, which the girl hadn't touched. "Why a plastic knife?" I asked Pat. She'd been using the im- plement to scrape from the pot a stubborn accumulation. "I thought it'd be light. It's not very sharp, but sharp enough. We use the same sort of knife on the sailboat." "Right." I was tempted to have a closer look -- it looked to be a beefier version of a standard plastic picnic knife -- but decided against it. It'd only be depressing. A plastic spoon is one thing, but a plastic knife is under no circumstances acceptable in the backcoun- try. Amazing the I's let her get away with it. She probably didn't clear it with them. Tyler and I took the remainder of our hot drinks down to the beach to hear the new tent group assignments. Right as students and Instructors gathered the morning sun angled up and it became positively hot and sultry out on the damp tide flat. As the sun bore down the air stilled and the winged blood suckers we'd largely avoided up to that point zeroed in on us as if we were the only land dwelling mammals for a hundred miles. Burl muttered something about the zone around Columbia being notorious for mozzies. Well, no kidding. It was as if we'd stumbled upon the season's first hatch, or its last, whichever is for these insects the most desperate. The bugs seemed to rise straight up out of the sand, ravenous, ready to breed, needful of blood to feed their spawn. Headnets were deployed all around. Some even pulled up the hoods of foul weather gear as further barrier against the winged squall. Thad Houston alone chose to remain uncovered. He was in the process of delivering a spiel on some subject. Most of us took the assault standing still, as motionless as possible, the better to keep mesh netting from inad- vertently draping approximate to skin. Oppressed by the whining of insectile wings, waiting for the last student stragglers to mosey over from camp, we became a tribe of muted and cowled acolytes attending to the mime of a lone exhorter, the bareheaded Third In- structor who swatted and pinched his nose and fanned the air be- fore his face in an arcane sign language whose meaning was grasped by no one. When everyone was assembled the Instructors took turns reading off the rota. The four cook and camp groups of the first go- around were now, on Day Eleven, compressed into three new squads, the preferred number, I take it, for the upcoming Small Group Expeditions, with allowances made for boats and tent config- urations. The groups formed that morning at Columbia were to tent Section #6: Male Mythology [71] ! and cook together as the expedition began to trace its route back westward in the direction of Whittier. After a short stretch of days, two or three at the most Thad Houston said, these same tent groups would continue on, with minor adjustments to be determined by the Instructors, as assigned squads for the first SGE. The Instructors were, of course, by then only using our first names. I was struck by how, as each name was read out, it conjured up more than a simple image of the person but also something of the force of their personality, the sound of their voice, the clothes and gear they habitually wore. The remote setting and our remove from the rest of the human race had a way of highlighting that which was unique about each of us. I suppose in some fashion we'd become a tribe, each member well-individuated yet assimilated to the group. True enough until you got down to the teenage males, all five of them. Ten days into the course and I still could hardly differ- entiate one from the other. I'd be better at this now. The boys seemed struck from the same mold, each manifesting the same atti- tude, all equally brash, quick with the ironic joke, everything easy and on the surface. None of them had faced any crux in their lives, no hard decision with which they were now forced to live. The med student was in the first group announced, a party which consisted of mostly post-grads like herself, including Pat and Crandall and another student whose name I can't at the moment bring to mind. The second group was then divulged. I heard my own name read out loud, the name that's really not my name, though every- one acts as if it is. I took note of the individuals I was assigned to tent with for the interim period. I was particularly satisfied to learn there was one person in my new group whose company might promise to make the interim phase of the trip interesting. This was the fellow named Will, who was in his mid-twenties and, like myself, currently making his liv- ing back in the world as a cook. Though, as Will had indicated at the Palmer go-around, he was a graduate of an actual culinary insti- tute, not something I could claim. If the husky girl, Beth, had grown wary of me because I hadn't made the effort up front to get to know her, I'd grown wary of Will for the same reason. I'd been drawn to the fellow from the get- go. I thought he was my kind of guy: thin and muscular, not overly emotive. In the White Zone he'd been focussed on getting his equip- ment sorted, not on socializing with his fellow students. Will's gear piles had been of an appropriate size, both what he was leaving be- hind and what he was hoping to take with him. He struck me as the sort of dude who might've arrived to Alaska a couple of weeks prior [72] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! to the course, in order to travel about, maybe do a little trekking in Denali, or the Wrangells. Whatever else he did back in the world, aside from restaurant line cooking, it seemed it must involve some sort of athleticism. He struck me as the type of male who'd continue physically fit and in his body well on into his thirties and forties. On the morning of Day One, during the interval between breakfast and our departure for the train station, I'd initiated a bit of conversation with Will only to find him cordial but relatively un- forthcoming. I asked him where he was from, to which he replied simply, "Ohio". I asked if he'd already been "in country" for a while prior to the course, thinking that perhaps with someone his age I could get away with a bit of Vietnam War Era jargon. He didn't ac- knowledge the phrasing. His answer was simply: "Nope. Flew in yes- terday." I complimented him, in that case, on giving the impression of being a hardened AK veteran, which flattery didn't seem to strike him in any particular way. I gave the fellow named Will various lead-ins to talk about what he did to stay in shape down there in Ohio. I put out the possibility that maybe he bicycled, or ran long distance. The dude strung a few sentences together to the effect that in Downtown Cleveland, where he lived, there were few places to bike or run that didn't involve driving forty-five minutes each way. He said he mainly went to a gym. Treadmill, weights and so forth. I had to hand it to him then, and told him so. "I wouldn't last a week living in a city," I said. "That so?" he replied. Then there fol- lowed a pause in which Will could've asked me a few questions in return, but I guess that's not Will's style. I'd learned far more about Will at the Palmer getting ac- quainted go-around than I learned in our short talk. To the group as a whole he'd mentioned his job as a line cook at a steak house where -- demonstrating as he spoke -- his job included testing the meat for doneness by applying a downward pressure with a thumb. He'd signed up for the kayak course because he was considering a new career as an outdoor educator. Will seemed to be his own man. I was certain he'd paid the course tuition himself. And that was about it, that was all I was ever to learn or intuit about Will. Except that oth- er people found him hilarious and he was capable of fronting an im- pressive air band. In less than thirty minutes after my chat that morning with Will at Palmer HQ we boarded the van for the train station and the trip began in earnest. I became submerged in the circumstances of the First Ten Days, the red boat, camping with Dinah, my own ad- justment to the rigors. Inasmuch as I was aware of Will, I had the impression of a competent, easy going and droll nature. He was nothing but attentive and focused when the students met with the Section #6: Male Mythology [73] ! Instructors. Yet, whenever there was an outburst of laughter fromthe direction of his tent group or any collection of students it always seemed to be Will who was the source, the only one not laughing. Which seemed at odds with our stilted conversation back at Palmer. I chalked it up to the fact that he must've been anxious about the start of the course. Now, ten days into the trip, I thought that once he and I were in the same tent group we'd naturally share conversation and maybe I'd get to see what everybody else found so funny. I was relieved to hear that the librarian's name was not amongst the members of my interim tent group. Her name didn't pop up until the roster for the third and last squad was announced. Even before Dodi began to read off the names of Dinah's new campmates I was attempting to divine who they might be, based upon who I thought was left. I have to say, once I learned the com- pany Dinah would be tenting with, I was a little shocked the In- structors would've organized it that way. I guess there are only so many combinations of students to work with but it almost seemed like a blunder, as if the Instructors hadn't been paying attention. Yet, how could they know what Crandall and I had come to know about the librarian? At least the Instructors hadn't missed the fact she was physically weak and had taken care to lump her up with a couple of the stronger males -- Sean, and Mike, I believe it was -- plus Beth, the chunky girl. And Cord, too, who might've been added to Dinah's group not so much for his physical strength but to add a little maturity to the mix. I'll admit I briefly smiled at the concept of the librarian thrown in with this gang, mostly young and male. A stiff sort of smile it was, a smile constrained by mild apprehension for my old boatmate's sake. Well, well, I thought, welcome to your new campmates, Di- nah. I looked over to see how she was taking the news. She didn't appear to be taking it one way or the other. It was hard to tell with that wicker basket headnet of hers in place. Probably she'd no clue as to what she was in for. If Dinah thought I was cavalier in my ap- proach, I mused, wait until she started camping with those spark- ers, the three un-individuated males and the surfer who would "fer sure" become their natural leader. I was certain Dinah had not ex- perienced much direct contact with this particular social product. It'd only require about twenty-four hours in their company, I fig- ured, before she realized how well off she'd had it with the biologist and me. At least Crandall and I made concessions. Those boys are going to have a field day, I conjectured, a veritable spree, when they discovered the little ditty bag of soiled cottons. And she'd be well- advised to never use the term "noisome" about their stinky shoes. [74] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! They won't know what she means by it and it'll only become anoth- er running joke. And she'd better not ask for pasta water hot drink. Or get too hyper-vigilant about sterilizing her cookware. Though if sterilization were ever called for, I thought, it'd be with those post- adolescents sharing her kitchen. I've often wondered how the collegiates feel about older women like Pat being along on the trip. What can they possibly boast about or say they've proven when a woman their grandmoth- er's age has demonstrated the same ability to hack it? Well, of course, the answer is, a trip like this would be a challenge for any- one. To begin with, it's not about brute strength. We're traveling by sea kayak here. The boats support the load. Mental determination is what's required. It's more about acquiring competency and then getting past the logistics in order to allow the wonder of the experi- ence to enter in. Never mind the occurrence of someone like Pat. The mere presence of our spinster librarian in the boy's camp was going to put the zap on their wilderness narrative. They couldn't possibly anticipate the corrosive effect Dinah was going to have upon their male mythology. I mean, I'd had no idea either what to expect when I first met the librarian back in the White Zone. She appeared spec enough. When those young thrusters get a load of the librarian and her quirks, the daily rituals, the gear futzing, the neat little stacks of ankle socks and underwear, the ziploc of personal care products, the almost hourly application of lotion to the backs of sunblistered hands, the nightly boiling of water for toothbrushing -- it's going to be hard to maintain the illusion of manly risk and hardship. Dinah's pogied and headnetted specter, sipping at a lukewarm cup of chamomile tea, will forever haunt the periphery of the stories the fellows will tell about their great Alaska sea kayaking adventure. You can believe they'll never refer to her directly, but their Lower Forty-Eight audience will sense Dinah's spinsterly and bookish presence in the background. No matter how the lads embellish the tale their listeners will know the trip couldn't have been as difficult or risky as all that if the sort of mild-mannered woman who spends her days stamping books with a due date was along. We re-divvied the rations and the fuel and immediately pro- ceeded to break down camp. It was to be another day of action, an- other day of relentless movement, another day to tick off as we were carried incrementally closer to the conclusion of the whole ill- conceived endeavor. Yet, as we readied the boats for departure from Columbia, I began to experience another of those slight shifts of mood. Do not misapprehend me, I still made a hash mark on the stained plaster wall of my mental prison cell, but on that morning I Section #6: Male Mythology [75] ! began to feel a renewed curiosity about what the day might bring. When I found Tyler, she'd already commandeered a Seascape double for our use and had it half loaded. "That was fast," I said. "Easy," she said. "All I had to do was let Cheryl know Cord was looking for a paddling partner and like a shot she was out of this double and into the front cockpit of Cord's kayak." Tyler indica- ted with a nod of her head down the line of boats where the two Cal- ifornians were already yakking it up. Tyler checked her watch. "Tide'll be at full ebb in twenty minutes. If we hustle we can hit the water right on the mark. Take advantage of the outflow." It was all set. I'd made a thorough break. A day of paddling with Cord and now Tyler and I were to be paddling partners. Dinah couldn't harbor a shred of expectation I'd return to the boat she and I had shared for so many long days on the water. I don't recall who the librarian paddled with that day out of Columbia. I saw her only once before we launched, far down the flats dragging a duffel bag back toward our previous camp. She should've been dragging it the other way, toward the beach and the boats, but there it was: The Enigma of Dinah Orbeck. I also have no recollection of her once we were on the water. I was trying hard not to think about Dinah. She and her hapless partner were probably somewhere near the rear of the group most of the day. If they ever did approach near enough for the librarian and me to spot each other I've since blocked it out. So, there you have it. Not yet knowing what was to transpire with the med stu- dent, I thought I was back to being at large within the student group.

! ! ! ! ! ! Section #7: A Brisk Walker ! Tyler may be correct when she says I'm the first male in Dinah's adult life to take an interest in her doings. Which is all well and good, if true. Dinah's an interesting person, certainly, and I haven't minded a bit getting to know her. But that never meant I wished to keep expending for the rest of the trip what little social energy I possess upon the woman, or become her lover, or anything remotely like that. If Tyler's also correct about Dinah harboring romantic feelings then I hope my decision to paddle with someone else for the launch out of Columbia was enough to ease Dinah into the understanding that the feeling wasn't mutual. Three days had passed since Dinah and I last crewed the green and white Seascape. If seventy-two hours wasn't sufficient for her to make the adjust- ment, then it cannot be helped. We're functioning under a number of constraints here. We don't have the luxury of catering to every- one's sensibilities. I spent the entire first day out from Columbia in the same double as the med student. And the entire next day, as well. It's probable that by the end of the second day a sizable portion of the group, if not every one of them, had switched off paddling partners at least once. At a mid-day beaching and snack break I was ap- proached by one of the undifferentiated collegiate males, Todd or Mike -- it's not possible to recall which -- who wondered if I had any interest in trading off boats or partners. I possessively held onto my position in the stern of Tyler's double. I'm not of the young col- legiate's generation or social stratum and am not obliged to follow the rules of sporting good fellowship, or whatever it is that keeps the offspring of the professional class continuously mixing and matching, treating everybody as interchangeable, as if to exhibit a preference would be to exhibit poor form. Nor did Tyler suggest at any point it might be time for us to trade off. There was a third day, or part of a third day, of paddling be- fore we went ashore to prep for the first Small Group Expedition. I continued on as Tyler's boatmate all the way to the end of the inter- im period. I don't recall much about the sea we passed over during those two-and-a-half days, nor the shores we camped on, not in any Section #7: A Brisk Walker [77] ! specific sense. All I remember are certain points of Tyler's and my conversation. I hope I was not being calculating in my approach by spend- ing so much time afloat with the medical student. I will admit, dur- ing those initial days of paddling with Tyler, a part of me was bent upon determining what sort of person she was and if there could possibly be any sort of, you know, liaison. Priorities first. We'd not been in the boat together more than thirty minutes out of Columbia, had barely cleared the ice bergs and settled into a normal cadence, when I asked the girl if she con- sidered herself a reader.. "I have to read so much for school," she replied, "I end up not reading much for pleasure, if that's what you mean. Except in the summer when I binge on spy novels." I asked her to give me a few example titles of the spy novels. She rattled off the names of half-a-dozen books, all by the same au- thor, it seemed, all with complicated titles featuring terms like "Conspiracy", or "Ultimatum". "My father got me hooked on them," she said. "It's practically all he reads. He says they take his mind off his work. He buys them brand new in hardback at Logan, or whatever airport terminal he happens to be in. He reads them once, only while he's traveling, on the plane, at the gate, in his hotel room. When he gets home he puts the finished book on a shelf in his study and never touches it again. I can knock down three or four over a summer. I brought one with me on this trip." I knew the books she spoke of, had often encountered the author's canon lined up like so many dust-jacketed monoliths, oc- cupying nearly a full shelf at a bookstore or library, heavy in paper, heavy in their cloth bindings, heavy in the ponderousness of their titles. I'm pretty sure I started the first in the series, though I may not've finished it. I thought the automatons who comprised the cast of characters somewhat lacking in a capacity for self-reflection. "Not much time to read during the school year then?" I asked. "That's right. When I'm in school, I'm all business. If I want to relax and escape for a while I'll take in a movie." "What sort of movie?" "Spy movies. Kidding. It doesn't really matter. Whatever's showing at the Fenway, our local cineplex. Sometimes I'll step right from one theater into the next. See two or three movies in a row, until I can't take it any more. It helps if I bring a cup of coffee in with me." "So you don't fall asleep during the film?" [78] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! "I never fall asleep during the film," she said. "I've never un- derstood people who fall asleep watching a movie. The coffee's there to help me focus." "You ever see the same movie more than once?" "Rarely," she said. "Certain old black and white films I've seen more than once." She mentioned a couple of titles. "Right," I said. "Bogart films." "Which is strange because I don't care all that much for him, you know, as an actor." "You see all these movies at the theater, or sometimes on VHS?" "Occasionally on tape. I prefer to go to an actual theater. For me that's half the experience. Sitting in the dark. The anonymity of it. What about you?" she asked. "See a lot of movies?" I replied that I did but that possibly I was more discriminat- ing in what I gave my two hours to. The girl asked me to give her an idea, then, of the sort of films I favored. I mentioned three or four titles. She said she'd seen them all, either at the multiplex or on VHS with her father. She observed that all of them were in the cat- egory of film which concerns itself with the problem of being male. "Boy's Movies," was the term she used. "I guess you could call them that," I said. One thing I noticed quickly on paddling with the med student was that she had no problem projecting her voice back to where I sat in the rear cockpit. It didn't seem to matter what the wind, or the water, was doing, Tyler's words came back to me clear as a bell. All she had to do was turn her head slightly and enunciate. And she never paused in her paddling. Sometimes she didn't even bother to turn her head to talk. Still, I heard her just fine. It was probably our second day on the water when I asked Tyler the obvious question: "So, why are you studying to be a doc- tor?" "My father's a doctor," she said. "A specialist in infectious dis- eases. I guess you could say he infected me with the same ambition." She delivered the line very glibly. Not the first time, I was pretty sure. "I have one like that," I said. "It goes: I have a sister who lives in Tucson. She's a chemist. And she married a man whose a chemist. So, you know, lots of chemistry going on down there in Tucson." "That's pretty good," Tyler said, then went on: "Not that I necessarily feel obliged to follow in my father's footsteps, I just think he's got about the best life going. We never worry about whe- Section #7: A Brisk Walker [79] ! ther or not Dad's happy." "Sounds like your father must travel a lot." "Yep. He was recently involved in the CDC's effort to eradi- cate the guinea worm. That took him down to Sub-Sahara Africa. The guinea worm, as you may know, has to have a human as a host. No other way for it to propagate." "I didn't know that." "Yep. Which makes it ripe for eradication." "Well, well. What does your dad think about the situation with Africa and AIDS?" "Depends on what day you ask him. Sometimes he's like: Pull out the NGOs, seal the borders, let the contagion play out." "No kidding?" I flashed on the old general practitioner down in Petersburg, the one who'd conducted my pre-course physical. I thought this sounded like something he might say, for the practical- ity of it, for the sake of less human suffering in the long run. "Other days," Tyler continued, "Dad's more hopeful about treatment and the possibility of a vaccine." "What sort of doctor are you thinking about becoming?" I asked. "The sort of doctor that doesn't work with patients," she said, infusing laughter into her speech in the way I'd first noticed back on the bus. "Really," she added. "I think I'd be happiest working behind the scenes. Research. Maybe epidemiology. I don't know yet. I'll tell you right up front, though, I'm not going into medicine out of any compulsion to save lives or heal people." "Your parents still together?" "Oh, sure. They've been steadily falling in and out of love these past thirty-five years." "I probably don't need to ask which of them you take after." "Well, you might. Because, while I'm most like my father physically, I inherited my mother's mental make-up. My mother's a very driven individual, more driven than Dad, if you can believe it. She's very organized as a housewife. She's also very thin. So, we're different there. If Mom puts on even a pound she immediately goes on a strict diet. Very disciplined. You know, I think I may have lost a little weight since the trip started. "About this idea of becoming a doctor," I went on, "how do you know, when it comes time to get out into the world, your passion won't lie somewhere else?" "I decided, before I was even out of high school, that what I wanted was to enter a sphere of activity so large and complex no matter how long or hard I worked at it, or how accomplished I be- came, I'd never be able to fully master it." [80] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! "Being a doctor should fit the bill," I said. "You must like school." "I'll let you in on a little secret, Marlow. Truth is, I love school. Everything about it. Basically, I'm moving toward a career that will allow me to be in school the rest of my life. I love the rhythm of school," she went on. "The seasonal cycle. Being in the city in the winter, studying, going to class, keeping distraction to a minimum. I love the immersion. Then comes final exams and sud- denly you're cut loose for a couple of months. I know it's all going to change next year. I'm going to miss my free summers. Summers are when I leave the city and live more rustically." "Is this what you call living rustically, being on this course?" "This is beyond rustic. Normally, I spend most of the summer vacation at our cottage in Nantucket. Since this is the last break from school I'm going to get until I'm thirty, I thought this summer I'd do something a little more extreme." I listened to Tyler's pleasant, well-scripted patter, decided she was downplaying the expectation her parents had placed upon her to become a doctor. And also that the family property on Nan- tucket Island probably stretched the architectural definition of "cot- tage". Even if much of what she said sounded like a repeat honed by many previous conversations, Tyler managed to overlay her deliv- ery with the disarming laugh in a way that made the phrasing seem fresh. I asked her the usual question about how she'd come to hear about the outdoor school and the sea kayaking course. "When I was an undergraduate," she began, "I knew a lot of kids who took these courses. The outdoor school recruits pretty heavily from the east coast colleges." Right, I thought. Because not only would those schools con- tain the biggest pool of environmentally-leaning young people, but also the ones with parents most able to afford the remote and logis- tically involved expeditions of which this outfit specializes. I saw how the outdoor school was working it, slowly infiltrating the large universities until its wilderness courses would become almost a part of the curriculum. Evidently, students can already obtain col- lege credit for participating in these outings. And they should. A girl like Cheryl, for instance, will gain more life knowledge from something like this than from any number of university classes. "So, Marlow," Tyler began, "how'd you hear about the course?" I confess I gave the coed more than a simple answer. We had the time, after all. I traveled back several go-arounds, even previ- ous to the life I'd been living down in Southeast AK, back to the bo- Section #7: A Brisk Walker [81] ! hemian days in the Northern Rockies, to the seasonal existence of the Yellowstone concession worker. I tried to give our East Coast academician some sense of the service industry/backpacking scene particular to the great wilderness reserves of the American West. As with her own school slash summertime dichotomy, seasonal life in a National Park has its own rhythm. For one thing, it's a job with an end date. By the time the snow flies in October you're once again unemployed, without stigma or obligation, free to travel and to try other modes. Until the money runs out, or until it's time to return to the Park for another go-around. "It's been noted," I said to Tyler, "that the concession workers in Yellowstone often possess a better knowledge of the backcountry than the Park Service." "How is that possible?" she asked. "Rangers are so burned out from issuing permits and pa- trolling the campgrounds the last thing they want to do on their days off is go backpacking." The med student attended to this description of the Yellow- stone Days. Which I'll admit has also become a bit scripted over the years. When I paused at one point, she asked, simply: "Where do you take showers?" "Where do we take showers?" I repeated. I didn't think she was seriously asking this. I didn't know what to say. There's always somewhere to cop a shower. Employee housing comes with a show- er. That takes care of half the year. A shower is the least of one's problems. Obtaining fresh vegetables is more the challenge for a transient bohemian. "I mean, it sounds delightful," she said. "I wouldn't mind liv- ing that way for a while. I don't think I could do it permanently." Back to Tyler's original question of how I'd heard about the course, I described to her the way it transpired, that during a fourth summer of working in the Park my principle backpacking pal, a waiter named Dan, told me about the Alaska sea kayaking course he'd taken a year previous and how impressed he'd been with the school and its instructors. And then, whaddya know, bare- ly two years after Dan's and my backcountry conversation, I was in Southeast AK, making good money in the canneries and on the fish- ing boats and I'd put enough aside to either pay cash for a kayak or to take a course with the outdoor school, though not both. "And has the course turned out to be what you expected?" she asked. "Better than expected. I wish I'd known about this school when I was in college. It might've changed everything. But as for sea kayaking, I don't think I'll pursue it any more after this is over." The med student and I weren't very far into our paddling [82] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! partnership before she attempted to correct me regarding the use of the terms "rowing" and "paddling". "Rowing," she said, "involves using an oar, fixed in an oarlock. You often say rowing, Marlow, when you mean paddling." "It's all boatspeak to me." "You also use the term oar," she continued. "But these aren't oars." "Oars. Paddles. Swizzle sticks. If it has to do with moving flu- ids around, I'm sorry, but it's not my bag." As I've owned up to, part of my intent during the days of paddling with Tyler was to discover, without asking her outright, if she was available. It seemed unlikely it could be the case, a girl as toothsome as herself, with such prospects and parents who'd cer- tainly not leave the question of her future mate up to chance but who in all likelihood were already arranging a lineup of suitable partners. When Tyler mentioned the summers in Nantucket, I as- sumed that must be where the boyfriend was. "What do you do there in Nantucket," I began. "Or do you say 'on' Nantucket? Aside from reading spy novels?" "We say, 'on'. I swim. And I sail. My parents have a small sloop. The wind is very good off the Cape. It blows in from the sea at a consistent nineteen miles per hour." That's it, I thought. The boyfriend is a local Nantucket chap who works summers at the marina. Or, he's a member of her own class, on break from his own fine school, and with whom she sails the waters surrounding the island. "When you go out sailing in the sloop," I began, "do you an- chor somewhere overnight?" "Oh no. It's strictly day sailing." "Do you sail with a friend?" "Nope. Always by myself. Why? Do you sail?" "Not a bit." "In that case," she began, "You probably don't follow the America's Cup." I thought about it for a second and decided that I sort of knew what she was referring to. Somewhere I'd seen photos: se- verely heeled sailboats, mere slivers of hull burdened with enor- mous quantities of canvas, while at deck level a dozen or more crew in fancy foul weather gear crowded the windward rail to keep the whole arrangement from capsizing. "It's sailboat racing?" I ven- tured. "Sailing yachts," she said and went on to describe a little of how it works with the challenges at international level and a fancy silver goblet stored at the yacht club of whichever country is cur- Section #7: A Brisk Walker [83] ! rently the champ. "It's the oldest active trophy in international sport," she said. "The New York Yacht Club was the possessor of the cup for about a hundred and twenty-five years. Until they lost it to Australia. Recently the trophy went to New Zealand." It didn't sound as though Tyler so much minded these upsets in the sailing hierarchy. If a little country like New Zealand could be the holder of the prestigious trophy then evidently sailboat racing wasn't all about who could bankroll the fanciest yacht. I'm sure Tyler was looking for a respondent chord in me re- garding the big time sailing regatta and I doubt I gave her a fraction of what she was looking for. She said some stuff about hull design, catamarans and what not, which I had a hard time following. It was clear this was a big passion for her, another interest passed down from her father. Tyler related a strange tale about the trophy, itself, an or- nate thing she described as resembling a sort of overblown genie's lamp. Apparently, the cup had recently been damaged by a pro- tester, an Indigenous New Zealander, a Maori, who barged his way into the Auckland boating club and hit the trophy a good wallop with a sledgehammer. In a tone conveying much concern over this affront to propriety, Tyler said that officials were still trying to see if the thing could be restored to its original shape. She didn't know the details or motives behind the vandalism. I didn't say anything but I thought it wouldn't be too hard to imagine a Maori native hav- ing a beef with the sort of privileged, decidedly non-indigenous types who'd brought in something along the lines of sail yacht rac- ing, not to mention other colonial enthusiasms. During our two-and-a-half days together on the water Tyler always took the front cockpit of the kayak, for the unobstructed view, as she said, the photographic possibilities. I can only recall her taking one snapshot the whole time we were out on the water. "Orca," she announced one afternoon, putting down her binos and taking up her mini-camera. I looked in the direction her camera lens was pointing and spotted the distant pickets of dorsal fins. The orca were quite a ways off and, in my estimation, were barely going to show in her photo, if at all. Tyler's upper back and the confusion of her Titian hair were the featured components of my view forward. I kept my eyes pretty well fixed upon the rolling action of the girl's shoulders, particular- ly the twin scapula, the way they flexed and rotated with each pad- dle stroke. The movement reminded me of the way the girl had waded out into the Sound the morning I spied her at the Columbia [84] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! terminus. She'd moved so confidently into the slush, her shoulders undulating to a slow beat as her hips shoved the ice out of the way. "And you swim?" I asked. "There on Nantucket?" "Yep." "Pool laps?" I proposed, supposing there probably was one, possibly olympic-sized, attached to the "cottage". Additionally, I con- jured up images of poolside soirees and clambakes at which all manner of male suitors made an appearance, lining themselves up along the pool's expansive and uncluttered apron for her inspec- tion. "We have a pool," she said. "My parents keep it heated. I pre- fer swimming in the bay." "Which bay is that?" "Naragansett." "Right. In the bay. Kind of cold isn't it?" "Sure. But in case you haven't noticed, I've got some extra insulation on me." She laughed through the words in her customary way. "No more than what's necessary." "Nice of you to say. I try not to obsess about it." "How far out into the bay do you go?" "It's a quarter of a mile to the first buoy." "Sharks?" "Nope." "Nope they're not around, or nope you're not bothered?" "Nope, I'm not bothered. I mean, I don't worry about them. The real trick is getting back to shore when I swim out at night. I have to navigate by the lights out back of the house." "What do you do for exercise when on dry land?" "I used to play a lot of field hockey. Those days are over. I don't have that kind of time anymore. I was thinking maybe this year I'd sign up for Open Swim. Pull some laps between classes. Keep up the daily half-mile." I visualized the girl with her mass of hair tucked up under a swim cap, except for the short curls at the nape of the neck, wet and dark with pool water. "Very time efficient," I pointed out. "You got it. I've also been thinking of possibly leasing a one person shell to scull about on the Charles. "Sure." "But I probably won't." At that point I figured I'd run to ground most of the obvious scenarios which might produce mention of a boyfriend. If she had a romantic interest in the works somewhere, I'd either hear about it in due course or I wouldn't. Section #7: A Brisk Walker [85] ! Tyler brought up the penny whistle again. I don't remember if this was on the second day out from Columbia, or the third. It was somewhere in there. I do recall that students and Instructors were hove to, waiting for a couple of boats which at the insistence of the SLoDs had gone ashore to arrange a switch-out. Naturally, the red kayak was involved. Our large-boned gal, Beth, had proved unable to push the scarlet demon through the water with enough force to keep up with the group. Needless to say, I felt somewhat redeemed. Probably the boat had been overloaded, easy to do given it's capa- cious hull and wide hatches. The SloDs had induced Beth to trade off with one of the boys. As the rest of the group backfilled off-shore waiting for the swap to be completed, I made the first of my mental notes to ensure the red boat didn't fall to anyone in my squad when it came time for us to launch out on the SGE. "Would this be an okay time to hear some music out of that whistle of yours?" Tyler asked. She and I had drifted away from the other boats. I decided at that distance the noise of the instrument might not be too awful on the ears of the other students. I took the whistle out and played through the six or seven tunes I knew, requiring all of ten minutes. At the first notes, others in their boats turned their heads but after a few seconds went back to whatever it was they'd been doing, con- versing between themselves, daydreaming, casting out a hopeful lure. I was counting on the lapping of water against hulls to obscure the whistle's shrillness. "And how long have you been studying the penny whistle?" Tyler asked when I'd finished. "You mean, not including the years at Juilliard? "Right. Not including those." "Five years," I said. "Though I'm not sure 'studying' is the right word for it." "Better than one song per year," she said. "That's not too bad." Dodi paddled over in her single, took in the two of us with one inclusive gaze and asked if she could examine for herself the thing I'd just been playing. "Not much to it," I said, passing it over. "Two octaves. Half- notes." The Course Leader moved the instrument to the fingertips of both hands and putting the fipple to her lips blew a little ditty that demonstrated she might've had some experience with six holes, if not a tin whistle then maybe a recorder, or a flute-o-phone. "Nice," she said. "Metal. Very durable. Good for travel." She smacked the whistle into my outstretched palm, not appearing the least mindful of the fact that if we'd muffed the hand-off that [86] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! would've been it, the instrument would've sunk away into the depths faster than I or anyone else could've dove in after it. With that the Lead Instructor paddled back to the pod. Despite my concerted effort to steer clear of the topic, Tyler eased into the inevitable question of where it was I'd gone to college and whether I'd participated in organized sports. Inevitable be- cause for this girl and her whole milieu a person's academic affilia- tion and extra-curricular involvement were the most important indices of worth and character. "I thought the sections you read from the kayak book were well delivered," Tyler began. She was referring to my mini-class, presented only a couple of evenings back. Recall, as part of the class, I'd read out loud some sections from the famous sea kayaking manual, paragraphs evoca- tive of the author's perilous and lonely oceanic crossings. Mainly to corroborate the fact that kayakers do, in fact, sometimes sleep aboard their boats. "Where did you go to school?" she asked. "You mean college?" "That's right. College." I gave her the name. As expected, she hadn't heard of it. "Play any sports?" "In college?" I asked, stalling. "Or do you mean high school." "College." "No sports in college. Unless you consider brisk walking a sport. I did try swimming laps one semester." I paused and then fig- ured I might as well level with her. "Anyway, I dropped out before the end of my junior year." "You dropped out? You never finished?" "Never finished. I was an English Major, so it didn't matter." There was silence for half a minute at her end of the boat. Then: "Jeez, Marlow. I assumed you had at least a master's. Clearly, there are ways to live in this world which don't require a college degree." "Clearly." It had to have been at least the second day out of Columbia when Cord, in the rear cockpit of a double, pulled abreast of Tyler's and my boat. "Well, well," he said. "Isn't this cozy? You know, Tyler," he continued as he and his partner pulled ahead with easy, powerful strokes, "if you took your shirt off I'll bet you could get Marlow to paddle twice as fast." I'm guessing that between Cord and his paddling partner that day, one of the frat boys if I remember correctly, this was the Section #7: A Brisk Walker [87] ! conversational level to which they'd briefly fallen. Even so, I don't think he meant that Tyler was to strip down to skin but only to take off her top to reveal the flesh colored sports bra. The med student said something back to the boys across the gap of water which I couldn't make out. Whatever it was, it proved amusing to all three. Tyler laughed and Cord laughed and his pal laughed. Digging in their paddles the two fellows moved their boat to the front of the formation. It was disheartening for me to observe Tyler share a conspiratorial understanding with the young males. The three of them would naturally have made use of generational jargon, articu- lating an outlook entirely alien to me, something akin to the belief that the body is primarily a machine for experiencing sensation. Be that as it may, now that I know all parties better, I realize how little substance there was in my suspicion at the time that Cord's sugges- !tion about Tyler's shirt constituted the sarcastic aside of a rival. ! ! ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #8: Undermining Accepted Policy ! So it went. Students and Instructors paddled together for two-and-a-half days out of Columbia. On the third day, we knocked off around noon and went ashore. The next day was spent divvying up rations and gear, filing float plans for the first round of Small Groups to begin the following morning, the morning of Day Sixteen. For this short, three day expedition the composition of the student groups, as they'd been set up for the interim phase, was adjusted slightly, the Instructors instigating a couple of changes to compen- sate for physical strength, or practical ability. "Setting us up for success," was the operative phrase. One of the modifications put into effect was to shift Will out of our group and over to Tyler's. This had less to do with anybody's physical capability and more to do with a disparity in the shelters. Back at Palmer, we students had been issued a variety of tents: domes, half-domes, self-supporting two person A-frames, etc. It hasn't always been easy to distribute tents appropriate to the num- ber of people in each tent group, or to account for differences in people's height, their lying down length or, for that matter, their lying down width. Our group, the one consisting of Will, myself and four of the collegiate males, in addition to being slightly over-allo- cated with physical strength, somehow ended up oversupplied with tent space, while Tyler's group plugged along for the duration of the interim period under-equipped in both realms. In the end, we gave them Will and a small two-man tent, leaving the five of us who re- mained with a large sized dome, which was fine. It forced us to pack in more tightly to sleep but constituted a more efficient use of tent space, greater utility to weight ratio and so forth. Honestly, I didn't care that much about having to give up Will. During the whole interregnum out of Columbia he'd proved to be continually unforthcoming in conversation, at least to me. I hardly learned anything more about him beyond what he'd already disclosed. Origin: Cleveland. Occupation: grill chef. Hobbies: gym workouts. I'd been interested to talk to Will about his culinary training. I'd discovered an aptitude for cooking at the pizza pub job and was Section #8: Undermining Accepted Policy [89] ! wondering if maybe I shouldn't pursue some type of formal train- ing. Will was already getting a reputation on the course as an in- ventive campcook. Clearly, his skills weren't confined to a rou- tinized setting. It appeared to me as though he'd acquired some use- ful and adaptable competency by attending chef's school. But when I brought up the subject Will didn't seem inclined to advise me one way or the other. "Sure, man," he said. "Whatever you want to do." That was how he responded to my voicing the possibility of looking into the very same culinary institute at which he'd been certified. I stared at the fellow a second, noting the sparse blonde beard along his cheek and upper lip, and let it go. Will sure didn't seem to mind talking to Todd, or the other three guys in the group, two of whom he'd camped with the first go- around. The three youngest fellows, freshmen and sophomores at their colleges, nineteen or twenty years of age, are truly so un-indi- viduated they hardly warrant names. Well, all right, they do have names. The names are Ben and Adam and Brian. Of course those are their names. Perfectly nondescript names for a trio of unexcep- tional male units. Each of these ciphers is about five foot eleven, of medium build with close-cropped, buzz-cut brownish hair. What else can one say? They're each in possession of a longish pale face which by Day Fifteen or Sixteen was exhibiting the aforementioned bit of fuzz on chin and sideburn. Each of these monads wears khaki cargo shorts and a white t-shirt -- not so white anymore -- with the logo of a beer or liquor brand or other product they're not yet legal- ly old enough to consume, or even purchase. As a rule, the ballcaps they pull down upon their bullet shaped heads are worn backwards or sideways. Since we rarely have reason to put on the foul weather gear with hoods up, wearing baseball caps with brims turned the wrong way isn't an issue. All right, I know. I shouldn't be so hard on them. How indi- viduated was I at age nineteen? The answer: not very. After all, even if they hadn't paid for it, the fellows had elected to come on the course, an experience which would forever set them apart from those who'd never attempt such a thing. In other words, their dif- ferentiation from the mass had begun. Apparently, two of the boys currently attend the same col- lege somewhere, had known each other since before they came on the expedition, even to the point of influencing each other in their choice of outdoor course. The two formed their own separate club or clique, drawing in the third fellow based, it seems, upon a shared interest in certain hard rock bands, a topic about which Will was conversant enough to join in. [90] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! The threesome, along with the senior collegiate, Todd, who in addition to digging the formally trained chef's campfood also dug Will's brand of verbal antics. This, I'm sorry to report, turned out to be mainly puns and wordplay, or the repeat of certain stock phras- es such as: "It's later than you think". Or: "That was your first mis- take". Basically quips easy to work into almost any response, a sur- face sort of humor anybody can enter into if they're of a mind and which some people find uproariously funny but which I find tire- some. "Hard to say, not knowing," was one of Will's favorites, fre- quently repeated by the youngsters. I got sick of hearing it. Will told the boys the one about the waiter who came out pressing down upon the steak with a couple of fingers and when this was objected to by the customer shot back: "What? You wouldn't want me to drop it again would you?" At least three of the four collegiates hadn't heard the joke before. In Will's professional judgment a steak dropped upon the floor before it reaches the cus- tomer's table is never cause for concern. A quick rinse-off at the sink, some re-grilling on each side and that ole steak's good as new. As far as any grit or dust the meat might pick up? "It's all carbon," Will proclaimed. Which is true enough and I'm sure we've all eaten steak thus seasoned. The young fellows found the notion subver- sively hilarious. Frankly, a lot of Will's humor struck me as originat- ing in an inability to take anything seriously, or to see anything as worth doing. Which is certainly diverting, to a point, but not all that helpful to be around on a continual basis. Will is in that indeterminate phase of having been out of col- lege and on his own for three or four years, still in the process of making his mind up about life. He can go either way with respect to whom he relates best at any given moment, the college crowd or the regular adults. In this instance, he chose to go with the collegiates. As I'm almost a decade past my own truncated college experience, I wasn't invited into the club, nor was I much inclined to join. About the only time any of the youngsters addressed me directly during the couple of days of the interim was to refer to one or the other of my personal oddities, either in my manner of expression, or how I managed my gear. One of the fellows asked why I continually referred to the kayaks as "boats". "Well, they go on water," I said. "In my book that means they're boats." "Boats are usually bigger." "Well, I'm sure you're right." I was asked why I made a habit of mentioning the Third In- structor by both his first and last name. I replied that it just seemed Section #8: Undermining Accepted Policy [91] ! like it ought to be said that way. Which was a sort of joke, but the fellows didn't get it, being too young yet to appreciate how the mind develops its quirks. "You know, as in Thad Houston, Esquire," I said, to their further incomprehension. I'd had the Third Instructor's name locked in right from the get-go and was proud of it. The man had introduced himself in the train station parking lot with both first and last name, intending for us, of course, to drop his surname when addressing him, as is nor- mally done. I'd been so struck by the easy way he pronounced his given name -- I've always been envious of people who can do this, my own legal name consisting of an awkward and usually misheard, mispronounced and misspelled agglomeration -- that I've kept Thad's last name attached to his first for its poetic value, always pronouncing it in its entirety, sometimes even to his face. There were aspects of my personal equipage the fellows found puzzling. Young people in our culture can be like this, as they're often in the throes of trying to figure out what it is they ac- tually need with respect to possessions. There's the junk the culture says you should own to be considered bona fide, the car, the clothes, the nice digs and all. But every young person harbors a suspicion that more stuff is being foisted upon them than they really require, that there's a simpler, more pared-down approach to life possible out there. "What's with the chopsticks?" one of the boys asked. Here's one of the things I appreciated about Dinah and Cran- dall: those two never once drew attention to my chopsticks, because my old campmates are fully adult, more tolerant of eccentricity and besides if we were ranked in order of most to least in terms of queerish behavior I don't think I'd be first in line. The biologist and the librarian took note that the sticks worked well enough for the job of moving pasta or polenta from pot to mouth and that was suf- ficient reason to employ them as far as they were concerned. I could hardly explain to the young freshmen what was actu- ally the case, that I'd acquired the idea of chopsticks from a charac- ter in a movie. I had to make up something about having lived with my family in Southeast Asia during the time of the Vietnam War (true) and that my father had insisted all of us kids learn to eat with chopsticks (not altogether untrue). It was impossible to know how the explanation struck the youngsters. I looked to Will, who was in the eatery business. I thought he'd understand the utility of chopsticks. But not so. Nada. They probably don't put out chop- sticks at a steakhouse. Still, being older and more worldly he could've helped me out. Yet, he wouldn't even meet my gaze. Didn't want his stock to take a dip, I suppose, as a result of revealing any [92] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! affinity with the oddball character. In case you're wondering, the chopsticks are mainly an aes- thetic consideration, the result of having watched too many times back-to-back a certain feature length movie. The film's lead charac- ter, an individual of considerable charisma, a man all about mili- tary expediency and adapting to the enemy's culture, employs chopsticks whenever he chances to eat. Well, that was all it took for me, as film characters and figures from literature are about the only role models I have in this life. The youths were curious why I had a lanyard attached to my spoon. "I have no idea how that got there," I said. "It must've come that way." I was getting tired of always explaining. The lanyard had been installed to prevent overzealous bus- boys from taking my personal spoon away by accident. Which has happened more than once. And when it does, the marker makes it possible for me to go back to the dish room and locate my imple- ment. The lanyard is attached with a cordloc permitting easy re- moval so the spoon's handle can be used to extract the last of the peanut butter out of a jar. And the reason there's a hole to thread the lanyard through is because I drilled out the two little knobs where the other utensils to the set, the useless fork and knife, had once been attached. You see, to have gone into an explanation like that with the juveniles would've been impossible. Not that I would've minded, if I'd sensed the proper receptivity. One of the boys, in a moment of boredom, worked his way around to asking why I wear "goggles" instead of normal sunglasses. "And what's with the dorky side shields?" he asked. Now, I thought I was on pretty solid ground with this one. I explained to the lad that they were glacier glasses for high altitude mountain travel, the side flaps there to prevent snow blindness. I waited for a nod of approval. "And also because I have an eye condi- tion," I added, when I saw that there wasn't going to be any nod of approval, or any appreciation for the hard core esoterica I was dis- pensing. He was from New Hampshire, or Rhode Island, the kid who asked about the glasses. Once this course is over the young prep- ster will return to the flat and hazy piedmont of his state where the cities have metastasized to the point of blocking out horizon and sky. He'll not venture above five hundred feet elevation the rest of his entire life and will never have need to own or even comprehend the function of a pair of glacier glasses. Naturally, the other thing the boys didn't approve of was my gas station coffee cup. Every one of the fellows, at one time or an- other, directed a disapproving look at my CTU. Particularly when all five mugs were lined up on a rock waiting for a dose of hot water. Section #8: Undermining Accepted Policy [93] ! Honestly, it's possible I'm the only one on the course who'd failed to purchase the standard unit with the school logo. Like I said, I'm completely on-board with the spec standard issue sippies and intend to have one for my own as soon as possible. Who could've anticipated the outdoor school to have its systems down so thor- oughly even to the standardizing of its hot drink mugs? Amazing. Plus, I've started to notice a practice, working its way through the student group, for tethering the sip-thru lid to the handle with a short piece of perlon, a slick modification I need to look into. Any- way, I offered no explanation or apology to my interim camp group for the single-wall coffee cup with it's odd pedestal stand. It's bad gear and I know it. Though I guess there's a chain of gas stations back east somewhere that'd provide me endless free refills were I to show up with the thing in hand. I could relate any number of additional ways I was out of sync with my first campmates of the second go-around, but this should suffice to convey a sense of the dynamic. The fellows basical- ly thought I was weird as heck. Things got a little better when Will shifted over to Tyler's group. Once the grill cook was out of the equation, the three youths and the senior, Todd, who's a couple of years older than the others and still reading the long novel about uncompromising individual- ism warmed up to me a bit. After all, I was the guy who once made a special trip over to advise a certain cook group on how to bake a loaf of yeast bread, a group which included both the senior, Todd, and the freshman, Ben. For most of the forty eight hours of the first SGE I kept my headnet pulled low and retreated into the books I'd brought with me, Crandall's loaner plus a manual on reading weather patterns I'd picked out of the floating library, sipping as many cups of mocha java as I could work into a travel day, which turned out to be quite a few as the routes assigned to us by the Instructors were not overly challenging. The first SGE was not so much about mileage but get- ting our systems nailed down. Incidentally, I should mention that most of those cups of coffee I employed for mental escape were brewed on the group's gasoline powered stove. Every one of the re- issued fuel canisters had come back to us at least half full and, as we were nearly two thirds of the way through the course I began to relax a bit about fuel usage. Not entirely, but some. I will point out that younger fellows appreciated my attitude about securing the food duffels at night. "What d'ya think, Marlow? Take the duffels down the beach?" they'd ask. The boys might've looked upon me as a strange older dude, [94] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! but they'd picked up on the fact that I wasn't entirely new to the backcountry. I hadn't been able to stop myself from telling them stories about my hiking days in the Northern Rockies. What carried the most weight with them was that I'd spent a fair bit of time in Yellowstone Park, which in the minds of most Americans is practi- cally synonymous with bear encounters. "Honestly," I began, in response to their query, "if there'd been one verified bear spotting by this point, I might say yes. The duffels are probably fine under the gear tarp. Our smell alone will keep the bears away. But don't go by what I say." This produced a round of nervous laughter, not unlike the sort Will used to provoke. The fellows seemed to enjoy any attempt to undermine accepted policy. I guess I was the same way at their age. The solution we arrived at was to pile the food duffels, not down the beach, but at the edge of camp. Which, if you're dealing with bears not yet habituated to the presence of humans, may've been the safest approach, short of using the duffels as the prover- bial pillows. Give the outdoor school another ten years making in- cursions into this region and those duffels had better be placed well away from camp, no exceptions. The bears of future days, thorough- ly conditioned to the reward of ripping open backpacks and duffel bags, will have to be allowed to go about their business without in- terference. ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! Section #9: Just Like in the Movie ! Thus, for the first Small Group Expedition the Instruc- tors had locked us into three more or less equally strong and evenly outfitted pods with every promise of successfully accomplishing three days and two nights of travel without the benefit of their su- pervision. They'd accepted no student input for the first SGE, no little scraps of paper drawn out of Burl's teal-colored ballcap, no self-assigned group names. It was just Pod #1, Pod #2 and Pod #3 for a forty-eight hour excursion and if we weren't entirely happy with whom we were traveling we were supposed to suck it up and deal, view it as training for getting along in an expeditionary set- ting. No student leaders were appointed, or solicited, for the first SGE. The excursion was short in duration and the terrain consid- ered to be unchallenging. The Instructors encouraged us to elect SLoDs for each day we were on the water, or else make decisions by consensus. It was up to us. You know, it being our course and all. They said leaders would be appointed for the second SGE if, in fact, we qualified for a second Small Groups. On the last day before the SGE commenced I attempted to spend as much time as possible in Tyler's company. This was rather against my own better judgment, but I couldn't seem to help it. As the exigencies of preparation for travel took hold, I was compelled to leave her and go get with the four other students of Pod #2. Believe me, I've indulged in some speculation with respect to how the interregnum of the first Small Group Expedition may've ultimately encouraged Tyler's and my involvement. In the context of this course, two or three days is a considerable period of time, the temporal equivalent of two or three weeks back in the world. Suffice it to say, it was enough time for Tyler and me to review to what degree we were truly interested in one another. Also, enough of a break, subjectively speaking, for either of us, if we'd wished, once the group re-formed, to let the whole thing slide. After all, there'd been no physical commerce up to that point, if you don't count the occasional shoulder bump and leg touch. I think it quite possible that if Tyler and I had been assigned to the same first SGE it would've worked against our involvement. I [96] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! believe she would've grown exasperated at my hesitancy and sim- ply passed on the whole idea of romance for this summer, with me or anyone else. In her mental schemata it was almost time to re- turn to school anyway. The forty-eight hours of the first SGE -- a sort of trial run which, provided none of the pods screwed up too badly, was to set the stage for a second and longer excursion -- al- lowed me to be at large amongst the group again, to work at getting to know some of the other students. Such was my ambition. After forty-eight hours with the frat boys I arrived back to Tyler's com- pany thinking that exclusivity might not be such a bad thing after all. In truth, what with staging for departure and the confusion surrounding recovery as the groups re-assembled, the first SGE entailed more along the lines of fifty-two hours of separation be- tween the med student and myself. By the time all four groups, counting the I's, converged at the nameless beach which had been designated the final "X", I was back to feeling I wanted the whole thing to be over, the whole expedition, the only phase left to endure the last and final SGE. With only ten days remaining to the trip, I found little reservation about giving myself over to whatever might happen, or not happen, with the med student. It's funny to think how back when Dinah and I were first traveling together -- a centu- ry ago, it seems, sometime back during the latter part of the 1800's -- I had concerns about the fog of exclusivity which seemed to be creeping around the librarian and myself. What did exclusivity matter anymore? There was no one left on the course I'd not had the chance or made the opportunity to talk with. This included Beth, the husky girl, with whom I'd had a sort of conversation. Not that she would've labelled it such. As you may recall, on the day Cord and I were SLoDs, Burl insisted that one of us deliver a spiel prior to leading the group into the icebergs proximate to Columbia. Somewhere in my strained and impromptu delivery, my gaze came to rest upon the large girl sit- ting in her cockpit. For the briefest second, she and I made eye con- tact and I experienced an immediate feeling of relief at having final- ly broken the barrier. In my mind, it seemed Beth and I were finally enjoying the long delayed one-on-one conversation. And we shared a secret, unbeknownst to the rest of the student group, unbe- knownst even to the Instructors. She and I were privy to the knowledge that as we entered the ice the bergs would drift apart to reveal a beachhead previously undiscovered, a magical isle where the slate wasn't grey but bleached a brilliant white, where the fish- ing was bountiful and the insects were kept off by a gentle onshore breeze. This enchanted beach would be backed by a woodland of an- Section #9: Just Like in the Movie [97] ! cient trees, an accommodating forest where we could pitch the tents upon a thick carpet of lichen, a living substrate accommodat- ing yet impervious to our footfalls. Freshets of glacier melt would flow through the woods to the beach, a creek water never needing to be boiled for purification. Here there'd be driftwood galore for the nightly bonfires and salmon bakes. Humpback whales would disport themselves daily within view of our kitchen tarps while deer and bears and wolves loitered nearby with naught but a benign curiosi- ty. Bethany and I would finally become the boon companions we were meant to be. We'd sip hot drinks in the dappled shade and share long conversations about our past, where each of us was from, what had led us to enroll on the course, our aspirations as artists -- the usual touch points. The girl would prove an entrancing conversationalist, an informed critique of travel literature and ear- ly '70's protest rock, all the way up to and including the shift when my generation finally decided to stop caring and dance disco. Well, of course, the truth was, the girl held my gaze for an instant and then looked away, as would anybody who'd been treated as rudely as she for no apparent reason. There was no conversation and no enchanted beach. I've since heard on the QT from Crandall, who seems to be on conversational terms with everyone, that prior to the course the girl, Beth, had passed through some hardship, this being the death of a parent. It was an unexpected event which, as Crandall describes it, gave the young woman pause to reevaluate her life's direction, eventually leading her to sign up for this expedi- tion. If only Beth and I had been assigned to the same SGE, we would most certainly have talked. We would've had to. As it is, ran- dom chance has always assigned us to different tent groups, differ- ent student led expeditions. I guess it's random, unless Beth put in a request with the Instructors that she not be placed in the same group as Marlow whose avoidance was starting to give her the willies. There can be no question but Beth senses the oddness in the fact that she and I have never spoken. Naturally, there've been instances along the way when the girl and I have crossed paths, either hauling gear down to the beach, or making our way back to separate camps after a meeting. Each time this has happened she goes by with eyes downcast. Beth's probably the sort who puts it on herself, convinced she's of- fended me in some way. I'm older than the girl by nearly a decade. It's incumbent upon me, as the one who's been alive the longest, to bridge the gap. If only I'd swallowed my early bias, made some chitchat with her early on. I hope in the end she'll chalk it up to mischance, the fact that circumstance never threw us together. [98] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! Honestly, it turns out I was more mistaken in my initial es- timation of Beth than I've been about anyone or anything since the day this course came together in Anchorage, maybe since the day I stepped ashore at the Petersburg ferry dock a year and a half ago. Certainly I'm more mistaken about Beth than I was in my initial estimation of Dinah, far more mistaken about Beth than how I thought I might take to sea kayaking. All reports indicate the girl is possessed of great spirit, that she overbrims with a subtle, sarcas- tic humor, is easy to travel with and does more than her share of the work. She's certainly demonstrated no difficulty whatsoever in meeting the physical demands of the trip. I guess she had a little trouble that one day with the red boat, but who hasn't? And as I said, she's even succeeded in shedding some weight. Her skin has abandoned its pastiness for what could almost be called a tan, at least a sort of reddening. It appears the course will end without presenting an oppor- tunity for Beth and me to exchange a single line of dialogue. When the bulk of us part ways in Palmer, every student on this expedition will have achieved a working knowledge of every other student, with the exception of Beth and me. Incredibly, it is in fact the situa- tion that she and I have not exchanged a single word with one an- other. Nothing. Zilch. Not so much as a "Hey", or a "Good morning", or a "Watch out". I'm thinking such a pact of silence may've never occurred between two students on one of the school's courses. Un- less I initiate a conversation with Beth at Entry Cove, or when we get back to Palmer, she and I will achieve a perfect record. I'm pret- ty sure, at this stage, Beth won't be the one to initiate anything. It's completely up to me whether or not we will preserve an unmarred record of avoidance. It'd probably be best at this stage to let the course conclude without attempting to open any subject between the girl and myself. It'd simply be too awkward. I wouldn't know how to begin to explain to her how it happened. I'd be sure to flub it and end up insulting her further. Honestly, I should be shot for this. Enough of Beth, though I do wish her well and secretly be- seech her forgiveness. Now, as for Tyler. The med student likes to say that it's not so much a question of what you have in common with someone as how you feel when you're around them. I'll add that it's also important to note how you feel when you're not around them. I spent the initial twenty-four hours of the first SGE relieved to be free of the Boston- ian's presence and the remaining twenty-four yearning to be near her again. I was constantly conjuring up the sound of her voice or visualizing the roundness of her shoulders. Section #9: Just Like in the Movie [99] ! I came to realize that part of my infatuation with the girl lies in the odd fact that she reminds me of one of my first media crush- es, a young starlet famous for her lead in a late '60's T.V. sitcom. The previously mentioned infatuation with the actress who'd play- ed the part of the pretty assistant to the Kenya veterinarian in Di- nah's favorite wildlife show was one thing, but that didn't compare to the stir I felt when I watched the girl in the '60's sitcom. The nov- elty of the program lay in the fact that the actress played both parts of a pair of lookalike teenage cousins, sometimes made to ap- pear on the screen simultaneously by means of trick photography. I was only about seven years old when the show first aired but I viewed it numerous times, like maybe two hundred times, as a re- run over the course of the next decade. I believe the show still plays on the cable channel which specializes in rehashing such inconse- quentia. The two cousins, each of whom had their appeal, one a bookish intellectual, the other a rock-and-roll crazed teenybopper, were conflated in my mind into the perfect girlfriend. There were instances when I'd sit through two continuous hours of the repeats, four separate recycled back-to-back episodes of teenage hijinks, a bubblegum zaniness of zero relevance to anyone or anything, but sufficient to imprint upon my mind the face and figure of the viva- cious actress who played the parts of the identical cousins. I'm sure I occupied more time watching the girl cavort about on the screen than I spent relating to the members of my own biological family, or asking real girls out on dates, which never happened anyway until I arrived to college and then only once. At the time the T.V. show was current the actress was in pos- session of hair a bit redder than Tyler's, a little less auburn, but otherwise styled precisely the same, the front cut in bangs, a fringe exactly like that which the med student is constantly blowing out of her eyes. The T.V. sound stage lighting played upon the teenybop- per's cheekbones just as the sun and the moonlight of this place kisses the smooth cheek of my girl from Boston. Honestly, I don't think this sort of thing has been adequately researched, the way one's adult erotic desires may've been shaped by early exposure to certain physical types on television. I should think it a phenomena unique to the generations who've grown from infancy with televi- sion as a constant companion, whose first conscious memories are an admixture of real life and situation comedy. When, prior to the T.V. age, could there have been the opportunity for someone like me to gaze, literally stare with impunity, for hours a day, day after day, at another human being as she moves about and reacts to a thou- sand made-up situations, even to the point of tracking her as she ages over the years? It's a one-way transaction that must be unpre- [100] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! cedented in the human experience. There's probably a whole cate- gory of males, females, too, who'd find the med student unaccount- ably alluring for this reason. By the time Pod #2 cleared the last headland and cut rudders toward the rendezvous beachhead, I was resting easy with a plan to give myself over to the desire to be exclusively near Tyler. That is, if she was amenable. I was ready, whenever she and I should first lay eyes upon one another, to closely scrutinize her expression as an indicator of how to proceed, especially the area near the temples, at the corner of the eyes, where the truth always shows. Well, she was the one who sought me out, coming over to my tent group within an hour of her SGE hitting the beach. She paused on the threshold of our camp, pushed her bug net up onto her cap and asked with great humility if she might join us for supper. She smiled, squinting exactly like the girl of my television dreams. The tell tale region adjacent to her eye, the assembly of skin and tissue there, was entirely clear and unambiguous. Tyler had brought with her to our kitchen tarp a ginger cake she'd baked that morning, minus the third she'd fed to her tent group. The cake had a topping of re-hydrated fruit, minced up and stewed in brown sugar and vanilla, more than sufficient passport into our camp and to a share of our dinner ration. Are you kidding? My campmates, four male youths, not older than twenty and con- tinuously hungry the way a fellow can be at that age, said absolute- ly, they wouldn't mind it a bit if Tyler and her cake joined us for supper. She was invited in whether I wished her there or not. Incidentally, I should mention that shortly upon arriving to shore I gave a look around for the librarian. I wanted to spy the woman out and see if I could detect, without necessarily talking to her, how her SGE had gone. I finally spotted her amongst the stu- dents who were milling about the encampment, many indulging in naps beneath half-erected tarps, or beneath no tarps, snoring light- ly through mosquito headnets, exposed to the open sky. By that stage, the Instructors were no longer marching up and down the littoral, whipping encampments into shape. If we wanted to chance the weather that was our business. Of course, there's never been any weather. With respect to the librarian, all I could detect from a dis- tance of fifty-feet -- I had no desire to approach any closer -- was a certain subdued demeanor. I imagined perhaps there'd been some sort of humiliation or strife suffered within her Small Group, like the playground embarrassments of childhood she'd probably al- ready succeeded in repressing and not anything she was likely to disclose. Section #9: Just Like in the Movie [101] ! On the day which marked the conclusion of the first SGE and which saw us once more gathered together at the designated ren- dezvous point, an obscure cove on the mainland to which the map may not've given a name, we were advised by the Instructors to continue to camp and cook in our established groups for the thirty- six hours it'd take us to make Golden. Once there we'd be welcome to mix and match as we pleased, to cook and camp with whomever we wished, until new rosters were worked out for the final round of SGE's. As the first phase of student led excursions had concluded without any students becoming lost, or hurt, or reporting serious interpersonal conflict, the I's had decided to promote us to the next level. I took note of how refreshed the Instructor's appeared from their forty-eight hour break from us, their charges. Despite the fact they're always saying it's our course and how we're free to establish whatever pace or routing we wish, they'd pushed us hard from the day we departed Whittier and kept us to a float plan established well ahead of time. Truthfully, there would've been no reason for us to linger during the initial ten days. It made sense for us to keep on with the relentless movement, pushing ahead with classes and in- struction. Now we had the luxury to loiter a bit on the way back, get in two full SGEs, maximize the time Instructors and students could be apart. Barring the unforeseen, the I's had guaranteed to them- selves a total of five or six days in which to be on their own. I don't blame them. I'd work it the same way. With a view toward sending us out on routes of greater length, with each small group a self-sufficient traveling unit not re- liant upon assistance from any other group, over the course of the day and a half required to make Golden the Instructors filled our time ashore with first aid scenarios and rescue drills and other as- pects of the course progression that needed to be checked off. As mentioned, I spent most of the first SGE when ashore hunkered down with Crandall's zen motorcycle novel, alternating this with the field manual on weather. Conducting a page count, I could see the zen novel wasn't going to go the distance, even if the biologist didn't ask for it back prior to the second SGE, which I had a feeling he was going to do. Somehow, I was going to have to ac- quire more reading material. Right away, the first evening in camp following our re-group, prior to our SGE debrief, I approached Thad Houston. I knew the Apprentice Instructor had some books with him. I'd observed him with at least two different trade paperbacks cracked open in front of his bristly beard, because I'm one of those people who always takes note of what others are reading. Instructor Houston had [102] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! brought along, at minimum, a Hemingway novel and some sort of thick anthology of short fiction. And there might be other tomes in his go-to duffel. I sized up Thad Houston as a company man who as an instructor would see it as his mission to serve his students and do what he could to enhance their course experience. When I broached the subject, the man he said he had no problem with loan- ing me a book for a few days. Reaching straight into his possibles bag he pulled out the anthology which turned out to be a first rate collection of masculinist fiction. Receiving the heft of the book from Mr. Houston's hand, largely ignoring his advisement that he'd like the book back before second small groups, I instantly calculated a book that heavy would provide a solid week of reading. By that point Crandall's loaner would carry me the remainder of the trip. I was secretly calculating that one or the other, either the biologist or the Third Instructor, would forget to ask for their book back by the onset of the second SGE. Thus the expedition entered another, this time much shorter, interim or transition period. On the afternoon of the second day of this transition we gave the paddling a break somewhat earlier than originally planned. We were still a short effort out from Golden, the I's said about two or three hours. It would've been possible to con- tinue on and by early evening arrive to the checkpoint with the propitious name, so long held out to us as a significant milestone indicating as it did the beginning of the last leg of the expedition. At about two o'clock we went ashore for what was supposed to be a pee break at a small spit jutting out into a baylet indenting the shore of a largish island. Somebody -- okay, it was me -- broke out a stove for hot drinks which was enough to inspire the Instructors to propose we stop right there for the day. They pointed out that we still had over a week to accomplish the same distance back to Whittier which had required only three days to cover on the outbound leg. Better, they suggested, to dedicate the rest of the afternoon to com- pleting the last of the first aid scenarios. The Instructors didn't re- ceive any argument from us about quitting early. A quick scout of the shore above the beach proved it to be adequate to our needs. The first aid training wrapped up by late afternoon and the rest of the day was designated as free time, no evening meeting, no campgames, nothing. Eat and sleep wherever and with whomever we wished. Almost Day Twenty and it seemed the expedition was finally turning into something I could live with. Less than fifteen minutes after the Instructors cut us loose, Cord and Tyler came by to propose a hike. I was a little startled to see the two of them together like this, evidently strategizing their own little outing upon which I was invited, possibly only as an after- Section #9: Just Like in the Movie [103] ! thought. This was the previously mentioned hike to search for a "bouldering" site, the activity which when Cord described it struck me as more or less a college campus pastime, analogous to tossing frisbees around the quad, or putting on a pair of sticky shoes and a chalk bag and free climbing the admin. building. Cord and Tyler led the way out of camp with me tagging along a few paces behind. The two were wearing identical wind pants, school issue, green with black skid pads, very spec. Natural- ly, I wore my dorky neon blue rain pants with suspenders, the gal- luses only adding to their goofiness. It's not like the pants need sus- penders to hold themselves up, it's just how they came. I ought to cut them off. We weren't five minutes out, away from the fringe of trees along the beach, when the surfer removed his shirt to take advan- tage of the sun exposure. The skin of the lad's tanned back was a phenomenon to behold, I'll tell you. Resembling the perfect coat of a large cat, the dermis, about six square feet of it, is without blemish or mark, evenly colored a tawny hue, a responsive hide that undu- lates and flexes with the movements of the underlying muscle. "Cord, how many hours a week did you say you spend in that tanning booth?" I posed the question directly at the paired scapula as they tensed and contracted. "Not hours, Marlow," he replied. "Minutes. Maybe fifteen minutes per week. And only during the winter. So's I don't get too cooked when I first hit the stand come June." "Right." I couldn't tell if the boy was at all embarrassed ad- mitting to this vane pursuit, though I suppose required for his oc- cupation. "Tanning beds are a bad idea," Tyler said. "Odds of melanoma are increased by thirty-percent." The three of us were passing swiftly over a flat, sparsely veg- etated moraine, our footfalls breaking through a crust of granular greywacke, each step sending up a puff of fine ash . "I'm really amped, Marlow, you're coming bouldering with us," the good-natured surfer put forth, ignoring everything said about tanning booths. "That's all right," I said. "Happy to come along. Thanks for the invite." I heard Cord mumble something to Tyler. "We'll be okay," she responded. "No self-respecting bear would bother to come out here. There's nothing to eat." "What about those leaves?" Cord asked, indicating a strip of trees in the distance. "I don't think bears eat leaves straight off the branch," she [104] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! said. "We'll be fine." I found myself wondering when on the expedition the two had been afforded the chance to develop any sense of one another. Then it occurred to me they'd probably been paddling partners at one time or another, as everyone except the librarian and me had traded off continuously during the first week. A thirty minute recon away from the beach produced no suitable errata or tumbledown for us to boulder, but about a mile inland from camp, across the glacier's bleak deposit of flat and gray-black spoor of sinter, we encountered a rising terrain. We came to a halt adjacent to the bank of a rushing stream where we sized up a rock slab twenty or thirty feet high which looked to offer some scrambling possibilities. As I said, I immediately liked the look of all the forgiving sand at the base of this cliff. The face of the rock was not sheer but inclined back at an angle of ten to fifteen degrees and there was an inviting six inch crack running nearly, if not all the way, to the top. We each took a turn at it, Tyler going first. As she made ready, lifting her boot to a waist high foothold, Cord said it was just as well we weren't actually climbing on boulders since we lacked the proper equipment. By this he explained he meant the large pads customarily laid at the base to break a climber's fall. The deal with bouldering, I gather, is that you keep attempting harder and harder moves until you take a tumble. Tyler had no trouble topping out the rock face. Cord noted that the girl was built for ascending cracks. Instead of down climb- ing, Tyler simply traversed off the top of the cliff band. Cord was next to take a shot. At this point, I noticed an odd hesitancy on the surfer's part. A little trouble getting going, you might say. I studied the side of the lad's face, not unmarked by mos- quito pricks and fuzzed by the light blonde beard which seemed to have reached its terminal length after a week in the bush, thicken- ing no further. The notion occurred to me that Cord might've taken up bouldering because it's viewed, by whatever crowd he hangs with down in Redondo Beach, as a hip way to spend an afternoon and not because he feels any particular calling to put hands and feet on rock. Once Cord got going he chose to do it the hard way, moving off the route Tyler had pioneered to a small fissure beginning about a quarter of the way up the face. The mossy handhold he chose peeled off and he fell/skidded about ten feet to the ground. It was like a tube city wipe-out. He caught one of his knees about half way down the rock face, a snag that rotated him slightly so that when he hit it was mainly upon his side. I guess Cord's used to having those Section #9: Just Like in the Movie [105] ! pads beneath him. I'd swear the boy appeared almost to bounce slightly upon impacting the sand, the way a raw steak will hop when it's tossed onto the grill. He got his breath back quickly enough and seemed exhilarated by the experience of colliding with the earth. I'd venture Cord's the sort who needs the occasional con- tact with physical reality, a wave crest coming down upon the back of his neck, say, to feel fully alive and inside his body. "You go, Marlow," he said. I pulled off my headnet and took to the crack. I wasn't inter- ested in doing anything original but about three-quarters of the way up I discovered the rock to incline back enough to where I could let go with my hands and basically walk the rest of the way to the top. I wasn't showing off, not in the least, but the surfer was pleased to witness my energetically giving it a go and he let out an enthusias- tic whoop. "Sick move, Marlow!" I walked off the top of the rock, same as Tyler had done. Un- like her, however, once back on level ground, I slipped on one of the slimy stepping stones adjacent to the watercourse. I was only glad to discover, once I rejoined my pals, that neither of them had taken note of my stumble, nor did they say anything about a soaking wet pant's leg. "I'll bet you do a buttload of climbing out there in Wyoming, huh, Marlow?" Cord asked. "Some," I said, not wishing to flatly contradict him. "All in all, I prefer running ridgelines." Cord asked about this and when I explained it to him he was at a loss to understand where the challenge lay. "There isn't any challenge," I said. "It's essentially hiking with a view." "Marlow," Tyler began, "would probably rather run a ridge- line about any day of the week than paddle a sea kayak." "What?" Cord began, looking over at me. "You're not enjoying the trip?" I had no compunction, as we were well out of earshot of the rest of the group and the Instructors, disclosing to Cord that the main thing the trip had taught me was how little affinity I had for paddling on open water. I told him the story of how I'd originally signed up for Brooks Range Backpacking. I went on to inform the two, quite aware I was announcing a revised plan to Tyler for the first time, that instead of buying a kayak as previously planned, I was going to ditch soggy Southeast Alaska and head back to Wyoming, or maybe the Four Corners. Cord thought it hilarious I'd managed to sign up for the [106] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! wrong trip. Chortling and shaking his head, he took to the crack again and this time, making use of the handhold no longer obscured by moss, he shifted to the other, smaller, slot and muscled his way to the top. A minute later we heard him yelling out from the bram- ble above, asking for directions on how to navigate down to the streambed. Calling it quits on the bouldering, the three of us followed the watercourse out to the beach where it fanned over the greywacke as a shallow delta of rivulets. A nice off-shore breeze had kicked in with the progression of the afternoon, allowing us to dispense with the bugnets. "So, how long you been a surfer?" I asked Cord. "From about the time I learned to swim," he said. "And I can't remember not knowing how to swim." "I wouldn't care for surfing," I said. "I don't even like sleeping on a water bed." Cord found he could only nod to this admission . We talked of sundry other matters. Cord complained of life with his SGE, the constrained route which translated to short pad- dling days, the group's disorganization while ashore as it attempted to accomplishing routine tasks. Tyler mentioned that all had gone smoothly enough with her group. Cheryl had required the usual prompting, which task Pat could be generally counted on to per- form. As we walked along the three of us made a pact to put in for the same group on the upcoming SGE. A quarter of a mile from camp, we encountered a rock pinna- cle, a partially submerged erratic I suppose it was, twenty or thirty yards out from shore. Recall the rocky turret I plucked the starfish from? This was the same formation, a cone-shaped stack projecting ten or fifteen feet above the water. A perfectly inviting target. Tyler picked up a small clod of greywacke and let fly. Almost as soon as the rock was out of her hand you could see she'd found her dis- tance. The stone impacted against the pinnacle's most prominent face, no doubt the one she'd been aiming at, and shattered quite sat- isfyingly. A good, solid shot. "We won't ask you to repeat that," Cord said. So, of course the girl picked up another greywacke chunk and winged it out, this time hitting the pinnacle upon an angled facet a little further up which sent the rock spinning high into the air, a pop fly that reached its apex and fell straight down with a small, silent splash into the sea. I already knew about Tyler's ability, but Cord was new to it. He let out a whistle and, inspired by her performance, picked up a baseball sized chunk and with a short wind-up let loose a muscular, Section #9: Just Like in the Movie [107] ! side-armed throw. His attempt bore slightly wide of the rock forma- tion but nevertheless carried out over the water in an impressive ballistic. "Close," said Tyler. Cord mumbled the saw about horseshoes and hand grenades and immediately fired off another fastball, this time with more overhand. His missile impacted the pinnacle with enough force to pare a chunk off its flank. No one urged me to give it a try and, anyway, I decided to stay out of the competition. Tyler, continuing her partiality to disc-shaped stones, greywacke's default shape, sent out another rock, more or less in the direction of the pinnacle, but low to the water, clearly with the intent of forcing the rock to skip, which it did, the stone leaving five or six nicely spaced circles upon the surface before losing momen- tum and sinking beneath the swell. "Pretty good," said Cord. You could almost hear the adden- dum, "... for a girl," which he was wise not to have uttered. Mainly because it wouldn't have applied. Tyler's throws were pretty good no matter who was responsible. The surfer now gave his attention to a large, flat chunk, way too big I thought to be pitched with any effect. The lad had a differ- ent plan in mind. Gripping the stone along its edge and twirling about the pivot of one toe, he let go discus style and, lo, the rock scaled out, bouncing off the surface of the water in two or three skips, not the least affected by the chop, and whacked the base of the pinnacle with good force. "Wow," said Tyler. "Nice work, Cord. Just like in the movie." Wow, indeed. And I wouldn't have thought of the film refer- ence, but of course Tyler got it right. Except, I believe, the metal discus in the movie required many more skips over the surface of the sea -- the Aegean, I believe it was -- to reach its target, a rather implausible feat though it made great cinema. "Thanks," said Cord. He didn't say anything about the movie. Very likely he's never seen it. I don't know if young people watch those old classics anymore. Tyler's an anomaly, I think, in this re- spect. The three of us hustled on into camp, having been gone for nearly two hours. We hadn't notified the Instructors of our depar- ture and were a little worried about our absence causing concern. We arrived back to something of a party scene, the I's having sug- gested to the student group that we cook en masse and create a pot luck everyone could participate in. There was enough movement and general confusion to thoroughly smoke-screen our truancy. ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #10: Anarchy and Freedom ! Such was Day Nineteen. As mentioned, by this stage of the trip, it'd begun to sink in to most of us that the little groupings the Instructors were forever assigning and re-assigning us to were temporary as well as random. Beginning on that day, the second following our re-organization following the initial SGE, a mood of anarchy began to infect us, a freedom sanctioned it seemed even by the Instructors. Students shifted about at whim, taking meals ac- cording to affinity rather than assigned cook groups and later sleeping wherever they ended up for the night. After the pot luck and some interesting post prandial diver- sion, which I'll go into in a minute, I noticed that at least half if not a majority of the student group stayed out, if you can term it that. That is, they slept away from their nominally assigned tent groups, spending the night in sort of an impromptu sleep-in, where I sup- pose there was conversation if not outright carousing until some time past midnight. As you might gather, I didn't participate. I thought it completely undisciplined and unscheduled. Truthfully, I was offended that the Instructors allowed the sleep-in. I guess they viewed it as another way for us to own our course. I saw it as re- gression to what had been our pre-course, pre-wilderness selves, the emphasis shifting back to social interaction and looking to a group for one's sense of belonging. Eschewing the sleep-over, I made a point of retiring to the tent of my old SLG. There was no shortage of space in the geodesic that night. Of the five man Small Group only two of us showed up to the tent, myself and one of the young, anonymous fellows. Well, not entirely anonymous anymore -- I shouldn't put it that way -- it was the fellow named Adam. The fact that he'd evidently chosen not to participate in the open air gabfest taking place at that very moment somewhere out in the weeds inclined me more toward the lad. Per- haps he possessed more independent spirit than I'd given him cred- it for. Come to think of it, Adam was the only one of the collegiates who hadn't pestered me with annoying questions during the inter- im period. As I was taking off my sneakers at the tent door, I asked Adam why he wasn't sleeping out with the rest of the gang. He said Section #10: Anarchy and Freedom [109] ! something about being worried the bugs might be a bother, that he'd already used up his entire personal supply of bug dope. If that was all, I told him, he was welcome to borrow some of mine. Which offer he declined, leaving me to assume there was possibly more to it. Though ten years younger than myself, perhaps the juvenile was learning to cherish the solitude of sleep, the special reflective time which occurs before one drifts off. I don't know. That probably wasn't it. Something was going on, something that discouraged the young collegiate from making the scene. I never did learn what it was and now I never will know. That was the last time Adam and I spoke, the last time we were aware of each other's presence on the course and unless I check in with him at Entry Cove it'll be the last time the two of us acknowledge that we share the same planet, or enjoy overlapping life spans. I was well-advised of the fact that Tyler was out there partic- ipating in the informal sleep gathering. I'd said "Good night" to her following a joint late evening hot drink-fueled reading session, not mocha java, but for each of us a tall mug of hot milk with cinnamon and brown sugar, her idea. While sipping at this concoction, I asked her more specifically how her Small Group had gone. There'd hard- ly been opportunity to go into it previously and expect a candid an- swer, what with other people constantly around, even if it was no one other than Cord. "It went okay," she said. "It was a chance to get to know Will better." I didn't like the sound of that. "He's actually very interesting," she said. "And funny. And he cooks a mean pasta in white sauce." "I've tasted it. Good use of dill weed." "He's on the course as a possible first step toward becoming an Instructor." "No kidding." I was resenting the dude from Cleveland more and more. Based upon what Tyler was saying it sounded as though he and I might've actuality had something to talk about. Evidently, the line cook harbored yearnings for a more expansive life involving wilderness and travel. But, of course, the dude from Cleveland was unwilling to talk, at least to me. Therefore, I began to silently run him down, thinking how a guy like Will would be incapable of simply launching out on his own to discover the life he seeks. The only way he'd know to free himself would be to sign up for a program, take a course, look for the vocative solution, turn it into another way to earn a living, only bringing into the usual structure and limits. There's a category of restless North American male who's at a loss [110] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! for how to cut themselves loose from family and social ties. They can't make a move without first explaining to a dozen interested parties how their experiment will eventually lead to gainful em- ployment. It's altogether too cautious. Too tentative. You never get anywhere unless you take the plunge, go all the way. Which is maybe why Will can't or won't talk to me. He's offended by my hap- hazard approach, bugged by the idea that I just came up to AK and scrounged around until I found a job, eventually enrolling on this course with no clear idea where it might lead. I don't know. Maybe I put Will off for other reasons. Sensing Tyler and I were done for the evening, I secured the book and the empty hot drink mug and went off to brush my teeth, determined to head to my assigned tent, more or less assuming the med student would head to hers. In between bouts of spitting tooth- paste onto the ground, I caught sight of her and Cheryl, sleeping bags slung over shoulders and pads rolled up under arms, moving toward whatever nefarious rendezvous spot had been agreed upon by those who'd put out the secret invite. I struggled to grasp when there'd been time or opportunity for Tyler to be summoned to the sleep-in. I thought I'd been in her company most of the afternoon and evening. So, I retired to the tent, shared with Adam. What passed through my head during the special reflective time before drifting off to sleep was the image of Tyler out there in the raw bush, chock- ablock with ten other supine forms. I saw her shake her head at some conversational turn, the reddish-brown hair spilling out of the top of her sleeping bag to spill rust-colored upon the grey stones. I imagined smoke from a still smoldering bonfire wafting over the group, the fire pit placed downwind by one of the savvy younger males as a way of keeping off the bugs. Individuals would take turns getting up to throw on the occasional log, quickly returning to the laughter, the giggles, the quips and puns, the only possible form of exchange in a gathering of that size, conversation reduced to least common denominator. Perfect for Will, I thought, if he was out there and I was pretty sure he was. And, of course, when I awoke the fol- lowing morning my first thought, during the uncommon time fol- lowing wakefulness, was of the auburn-haired girl, lying out there upon the ground, finally asleep after having been kept up half the night by mindless banter. I saw her shift in her bag, turning over to free the curls of reddish gold captured between cheek and the kelly green jacket she uses as a pillow. Well, how would it have been, I wondered, if I'd gone out there to lie with Tyler and the group? Probably not good. I was completely inept at that sort of surface badinage. I'd have been frustrated, unable to say anything perti- Section #10: Anarchy and Freedom [111] ! nent to the girl because of the proximity of others. What would it have been worth? I decided they could keep their group sleep-in. Honestly, I continue to be at a loss as to what motivates people to glom up next to one another like that. I can hardly imagine a bigger waste of time than congregating out on open ground with a bunch of people in such fashion and so, naturally, when Tyler proposed I join the group for the next sleepover I instantly accepted the invite. The next communal bivouac occurred the following night at Golden, slightly less than forty-eight hours ago from our landing here at Black Sand Beach, if you can believe it. Not more than thir- ty minutes after the expedition ran the hulls of its nine kayaks upon the pristine shoreline that was to serve as our last group stag- ing area, Tyler came to me and proposed the idea I participate in that night's sleepover. I was involved in pitching the dome tent, by myself as I recall as all the other members of my old SLG were down on the beach playing hack or harvesting mussels. I had the poles in but the thing had such a big footprint it was proving diffi- cult to find sufficient level real estate. A fairly stiff off-shore breeze was adding to the challenge. "Marlow," Tyler began, helping to hold down a corner until I got a stake in, "a bunch of us are thinking of sleeping out again tonight, provided the bugs aren't too bad. You'd be welcome to throw down with us." "I doubt the bugs will be a problem," I said, implicating the breeze. But at Tyler's words, of course, I experienced a sudden emotion of pleasant anticipation, a simple joy at being included, a feeling rooted I'm sure way back in the anxious early teenage years, before a person learns to suspect such feelings. It was as if I'd been invited to something exclusive, a private pool party, say, like one of those soirees I imagine her parents throwing every couple of weeks all summer long at the "cottage" on the Cape, gatherings mainly de- signed to show off the place, as well as draw in the suiters for Tyler's inspection. Once she and I settled down in our bags for the sleep-in, I was inspired to ask her outright if she wasn't dating somebody out there on Nantucket. "Maybe a fellow who works down at the Marina -- ," I started, with the idea of easing her into it. "Yes," she said, cutting me off. "There is, or was, a fellow. William Stroud. Third year at Stanford. He interned for two sum- mers at a design firm across the bay in Providence. His father's an MD. Our parents know each other, have known each other for years. Suffice it to say, they were the ones who set up the date." "I knew of William," she went on, "but'd never met him. He called me one day, completely out of the blue. We went to a couple of [112] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! movies. Drank some micro-brew. That might've happened a total of three times over the course of two summers. Bill's a nice enough guy. But there's no chemistry. Not like what's said to be going on down there in Tucson. Anyway, Bill goes to school in California." I liked the sound of this summation, suggesting as it did that Tyler might not consider as viable any male who spends a lot of time in California, either enrolled in design school, or working as an ocean lifeguard. I was a little nervous about sleeping out without the protec- tion of nylon walls. I don't know why. As it turned out, the whole set-up for the group sleep-over was different from what I'd imag- ined. I thought the promiscuous faction would make a point of trooping us all out to some open space in the woods, well away from the Instructor's semi-dome, where we'd throw camp pads and sleep- ing bags down upon the ground, wall-to-wall, so to speak, from one edge of the clearing to the other, alternating head-to-toe, no room for deviation, everybody required to breath each other's foot aroma. Instead, the gathering was situated toward the beach where grew a sparse salt grass and where gusted a beneficent, insect-dis- persing breeze off the water. We placed sleeping pads down upon clean, pulverized greywacke. I suppose if campers have learned nothing else on this trip they've learned to maximize their comfort within the constraints of a wilderness locale. I don't think we were that far out of earshot of the Instructors. Tyler and I certainly weren't out of earshot of the other student participants, which in- cluded just about the entire student roster by this time, with the only abstainers quite possibly the insect phobic Adam and the li- brarian. At least, I didn't see Dinah there, but neither did I conduct a headcount. At one point, Will and his entourage of four or five younger males got up en masse and relocated further into the woods to conduct, I supposed, their own exclusive powwow and jamboree. Contrary to what I'd feared, that the sleep-in would con- sist of a claustrophobic touchy-feely, the truth was that while Tyler and I could hear the other's voices from around the hummocks of salt grass we couldn't see them. I mentioned to Tyler my already dispelled anxieties about what the sleep gathering might entail. She said that the previous evening some people had, in fact, arranged bags head-to-toe. Cheryl ended up with two or three boys lying hard against her spot on the ground. Whereas Tyler, by her own testimo- ny, had moved away from the group to sleep, cozying up against a driftlog. Recall that the collision of lips and sexual near-miss at the fish smoker's cave was still a day away. Aside from some shoulder touching at Advanced Nav, Tyler's and my physical contact had in Section #10: Anarchy and Freedom [113] ! volved little more than the grasping of an elbow, or perhaps the in- advertent touching of fingertips as we passed our hands at the same moment over some piece of gear. This lying down during the first night at Golden was equally chaste, consisting of little more than feeling the presence of each other's body through the com- bined material of two polarguard sleeping bags. I'd like to say that we were both exercising restraint, that we both recognized the danger of any kissing or groping, but I have a feeling that of the two of us I was the cagey one. Which is not to say I wasn't continually passing my gaze all over the girl's face and form. This was when I first took note of the clean spot in the center of the girl's palm. Her hand was lying limp upon the ground, an inert extension from the elbow upon which she'd propped herself. I took up the hand, like lifting a warm, damp, heavy cloth, and asked her about the clean zone. She explained the matter of the contact lens solution. I laid the hand back down upon the sand, not yet ready to advance to the intimacy of revolving the tip of my finger within the white cusp -- that would come later -- and headed out on another tack, doing my utmost to ignore a building physical tension. "I have to confess," I began, "I share your fascination for par- asitic nematodes. Romantic, I know. How did you say the business with the guinea worm works? "The way I understand it," replied the med student, "the egg enters a human host through the oral cavity." "The mouth?" "Correct. It has to be a human. No other animal will work. I'm not sure why that is. The larva, the worm, hatches and begins to migrate about the body sub-cutaneously." "Beneath the skin." "Yes." "How big would the larva be at that point?" "Oh, eventually it can grow to be three or four inches long, while remaining thinner than a pencil. Sometimes, the worm will migrate right over the eyeball." "That's got to be traumatic for the person involved." "I should think. Usually, the larva tends toward the lower ex- tremities. When a worm is ready to leave its host it creates an exit through the skin, causing a very bad wound site." "Route for infection." "Correct. One of many concerns. If the eggs can be prevented from entering a human host then the guinea worm will be eliminat- ed. Proper hygiene. Hand-washing. Education. The usual drill. You know that Rod of Asclepius thing, the two snakes and a staff? The [114] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! so-called symbol of the medical establishment?" I was able to sort of bring it to mind. "It's thought," she went on, "the design may have originated from the ancient practice of winding the guinea worm out of the body with a stick." There was a pause in which I took in with my gaze the skin along the length of the girl's exposed inner arm, a region of pale flesh where any moment a worm three or four inches long but thin- ner than a pencil might begin its egress. As which point I would need to go look for a stick. "I was wondering," I began, tacking again, "back during the getting acquainted go-around, why were you so reluctant to tell us the name of your school?" "I don't like the reaction it gets," she said. "People assume I'm bragging." "Right. I figured it'd be something like that." "Truth is, I'm as amazed as anyone by my progress." "I'm sure you are." I could feel my eyes moving all over the med student's face, traipsing the curls of her hair, barely able to keep my lips away from the inside of her elbow where the vein pulsed blue and dark. I locked onto the timepiece that dominated her wrist. "Complicated watch," I said, tapping at the crystal, large as a fifty-cent piece. "Yes. As you can see, it's both digital and analog. I like to have a watch that does both. Here's a little glimpse into my secret life, Marlow. Sometimes, when I'm in the women's room at school, you know, sitting in a stall, I might spend an entire minute watching the liquid crystal seconds dissolve one into the next. I find the progres- sion very satisfying. It means I'm a minute closer to the future, to the end of the month, to the term, to the academic year, to the con- clusion of the whole friggin' rigamarole." I was experiencing an image of Tyler sitting in a toilet stall, motionless on the stool, hunched over looking intently at her wrist. "I love the precision of a digital display," she continued. "However, for actually telling time, I prefer an hour and a minute hand. The position of the hands provides a better sense of where I'm standing in relation to the available hours. It seems more nat- ural for time to be marked off by circular motion, like the move- ment of the sun and the moon." And in the spirit of her words she rotated her finger around the bezel. "It's a pretty big watch," I observed. "A man's watch." "Waterproof to a hundred and fifty meters," she said, holding her wrist up off the sand. "Note the armored casing. Anything less Section #10: Anarchy and Freedom [115] ! rugged tends to crap out on me. I like a watch I can wear when I'm swimming, or sailing. When I'm back in the city, back in school, it serves as a reminder of that other life. And I don't have to take it off in the shower. I notice you don't wear a watch." "Nope. I don't like to be reminded of the time. I do carry a small clock for the alarm function." So saying, I dug the little unit out of the day bag and then out of the fanny pack where it was kept safe from water and impact. Flipping the lid away from the face, I showed it to her. "Nice," she said. "Analog." Well, there arrived the hour on both of our timepieces when I, for one, began to feel dragged out. I was hoping the evening could be wrapped up without the need for any physical interaction, if this could be accomplished without hurt feelings. I'd had about as much talking as I could stand and we really needed to get some sleep. The next day was to be the assignment of new SGEs with all the fren- zied activity surrounding that. It was my intention, and I managed to follow through on it, to wrap up Tyler's and my supine conversa- tion session without so much as a good night kiss. Because I was afraid of what the mildest peck on the lips might lead to. As you might intuit, most of the restraint was originating with me. But, and I don't care what she says, some of the hesitancy was on her part. If she'd made any sort of move on me during that bivvy out I don't think I'd have exactly stood up, stuffed my sleep- ing bag and walked back to my designated tent. When I woke up the next morning, after a not too bad seven hours of sleep, the girl was turned facing away, completely enfolded within her sleeping bag. I got up, quietly packed my gear and went off to find coffee. By ten o'clock that morning the student group was broken into three new SGEs, this time in accordance with our own input via the little slips of paper, subject to Instructor veto. We huddled up with our new traveling pods, maps spread out on the sand, en- couraged by the I's to begin immediately working on float plans and getting our equipment squared away. The I-team left the process largely up to us. I believe Marlow's Marauders was the only one of the brand new Small Groups to seek the Instructor's advice or ap- proval on a route. Rations divvy was scheduled for mid-afternoon. I'd truly wanted to be in attendance for this process, to make sure our group got it's share of h.c. powder. But then Tyler and I hit those snags while on our hike to find the benchmark, what with finding the ea- gle feather and then the nape of her neck exposing itself as she bent over at the fish smoker's cave. [116] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! Rations redistribution was well over by the time she and I got back to the group. Feeling a bit ashamed about the nonatten- dance -- it's simply not normally my style to let romance interfere with business -- I volunteered that evening to cook for the new SGE. I was happy to stick around camp and cook, to get back into the groove of the expedition, assimilate with the new tent group which, aside from Tyler, consisted of Pat and Cord and, of course, my old campmate, the librarian. Speaking of whom, ever since the first Small Groups reconvened, I'd noticed Dinah seemed altered, differ- ent in some way from the old days, though I couldn't have said ex- actly how. Cord mentioned some contretemps which occurred be- tween the librarian and the folks in her new tent group. As I'd antic- ipated, they'd found her habits off-putting. There'd been a couple of practical jokes at her expense. Anyway, I thought Dinah seemed less talkative, not that she'd ever been all that conversational. I just sort of expected she'd come over and debrief the first SGE with me, but this was a negative. For supper that night I went with pasta and, of all things, a white sauce seasoned with dill. I'd enjoyed Will's version of the recipe, the one night he made it for the interim group, and wanted to see if I could replicate the recipe, using oil to make the roux in- stead of margarine. The dish turned out just fine. Tyler was kind and said it was every bit as good as Will's. I decided the recipe would be worth incorporating into my backpacking life back in the world. In contrast to margarine, a little bottle of cooking oil would not be a problem to pack. My experience, from this camping trip and others, is that margarine rarely stays in it's container. Half of the food duffels on this course exhibit big grease splotches from leaky screw-tops, or otherwise mismanaged oleo. Okay. Let us take a pause and consider how the romantic sit- uation had thus far evolved between Tyler and myself. It does seem that a turning point occurred on the morning at Golden when she and I got the word we were listed in the same group for the second and final SGE, a voyage of five days and four nights. As if that was all we needed to hear. Five days sounded like a future together. There was the sense we could now become closer without risk of being soon separated, not until the whole expedition concluded, an eventuality increasingly difficult to imagine. Within two hours of hearing the Instructors read off the rosters she and I were on the other side of the spit, rolling on top of each other in the sand, dry humping and otherwise doing our utmost to gain entry into one an- other's body. I'm sure there was the thought in Tyler's mind the two of us, having broken through the physical threshold, might bivvy out to- Section #10: Anarchy and Freedom [117] ! gether again our last at Golden. In my book this was all the more reason to avoid further unchaperoned bivouacking. I was able to steer clear of anything along those lines by heading directly to the tent before the evening was too far advanced because, you know, it was the proper thing to do. It was the evening of Day Twenty-One. After the short phase of anarchy and freedom it was time to get back to the business at hand, to become solid with the new tent mates, get the kinks worked out. We were going to be on our own as a Small Group starting early the next morning with no further op- portunity to modify the group's constituents, or its traveling gear. Tyler and I did work it out so that once the five of us were situated in the tent she and I occupied adjacent spots, with me in my pre- ferred position against the wall. Maybe she was the one who'd worked this out. I'm not really sure. It just happened. I can imagine Tyler giving the word to one of our campmates who might've inad- vertently thrown their bag down in the slot next to mine. That would've been an interesting exchange to witness. I wonder how much of an explanation she was required to give before they shifted their sleeping bag to another spot. Maybe they instantly knew what she was getting at. Pat wouldn't have needed much clueing in. Cord perhaps a bit more. Dinah wouldn't have chosen the slot next to !mine to begin with. !

! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #11: Greywacke Drop ! As discussed, the group enjoyed some diversion the evening following the pot luck. Recall, we'd knocked off early from the boats that day. The irksome backcountry first aid scenarios were wrapped up by mid-afternoon after which Cord and Tyler and I took off on our little "bouldering" expedition. Then there was the communal supper with the three student cook groups gathered into a close circle with stoves and ration bags, the better cooks amongst us cranking out what passes for entrées in the wilderness, beany mac, polenta, and so forth. The Instructors prepared their meals separately but brought their bowls over to eat with the students. Following the meal an inertia seemed to settle upon the group, a resistance to splitting up again into separate encampments. We were all mindful that the following day was to see us arrived to Golden with a resumption of the syllabus, so to speak. The moment fairly called for some sort of commemoration. We were ripe for the spontaneous happening. I'm laying all this out as a way of under- standing how the evening came to evolve the way it did. It seemed, before the pendulum could be allowed to settle again upon disci- pline and structure, there needed to be one last swing into wild dis- order. Some of us were still picking at our supper (we'd made en- tirely too much grub at the potluck, not that anything ever gets wasted with this group), when Burl -- naturally it was the Instruc- tor from Seattle who took on the role of emcee -- announced there was a bit of entertainment on deck. I don't know if anybody else had been aware of it but I'd taken note of the moment when Will and three of his compadres split the group and headed up-beach. At Burl's prompting, the rest of us, including the other two Instructors, trooped up to where a large erratic emerged from the sand, a cousin to the pinnacle which had served earlier as Cord and Tyler's target, in this case a rock twice as wide as it was tall. As we gathered in close Will and the three male collegiates -- Ben and Bri- an, the two who attend the same school, and Mike, the youngest on the expedition -- topped over the erratic from the other side, took up staggered positions upon the erratic's small ledges and launched Section #11: Greywacke Drop [119] ! into an air band version of a well known power rock song, making the guitar and drum sounds with their mouths. It was unbelievably mesmerizing. The fascination was due, I'm sure, to the fact we'd been a couple of weeks away from media and, with the exception of the few who had access to Cheryl's tape player, completely deprived of music. You couldn't count serenading the group from off in the woods with a penny whistle. It was the parody of the bad music video that, potent even as the exaggeration might've been unintentional, drew us in. Nobody amongst Will's crew attempted to sing the lyrics but the tune was instantly identifiable. I was impressed by how none of the fellows displayed the least bit of self-consciousness. They were arrayed with perfect theatricality at different levels upon the erratic, the one lad who was pretending to drum, I don't recall which it was, leaning back against the rock so as better operate his imaginary base and high hat. Will's performance was spot on. Stripped to the waist, maniacally tossing a mane of seaweed hair held in place by someone's punched out felt crusher, he perfectly channeled the bored lead guitarist, the classic '80's waistoid who'd barely man- aged to show for his own concert, even then two hours late, whose interest in his own musicianship had withered to little more than checking out the trim amongst the groupies. Will methodically at- tacked his nonexistent axe with circular rotations of a pick hand from which spontaneity and enthusiasm had long since been bled away. About the first thing I did was spy a glance at Tyler to see how she was taking the performance. It was easy to see that while she was possibly not as enraptured as, say, Cheryl, who'd launched into dance, Tyler was amused enough. Enough to render me addi- tionally jealous. As a side note, the Instructor's reactions were perfectly characteristic. Mr. Houston appeared annoyed if not slightly em- barrassed by the display while Dodi seemed nothing but mystified. It's possible, given her upbringing and long history as a field in- structor, our C.L. had never actually seen a television music video and didn't get the reference. Burl on the other hand was digging the boy's presentation thoroughly, nodding his head and tapping a toe. But then Burl's a with-it and up to date dude. The air band demo was pretty cool, no question. Anyone would've appreciated how Will and the boys gave it just the right touch. Like all the youngsters on the course, for whom pop music seems to be the closest thing to a religion, they know their bands and had seen the video enough to memorize the details. They must've been dinking around with the song the whole first go-a- [120] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! round and yet managed to spring it on us entirely unannounced and unanticipated. More than Cheryl, more than any of us, Crandall was com- pletely seized by the spectacle of Will and his kelp-wigged minions. The biologist appeared utterly hypnotized by the performance. I watched as my old tentmate moved forward with slow, halting steps to the base of the erratic upon which the band was arranged. Judg- ing by the look of yearning on his face it was probably fair to say the biologist was torn between wishing he'd been the one who'd thought of putting together a big hair mouth band and resentful he hadn't been invited to participate. You could see how badly he wanted to be up there. In a way, I was a little surprised they hadn't asked Crandall to be a fifth. Everyone on the course knows about his gui- tar playing back in the real world, had heard about Armadillo Roadkill. Perhaps Will by whatever standard he employs has made it a rule not talk to Randall either. Maybe it's that Will only talks to people younger than himself. Or, he's uncomfortable talking to peo- ple who are actually in their life. Who knows what it is? Well, good luck to you Will in your progress toward becoming an outdoor edu- cator. Thirty seconds of air band was enough for me and if I could've figured out a way to slip off back to camp I'd have done it. There was something disturbing about the intrusion of the pop cul- ture spectacle upon our wilderness idyll. It was a distinct reminder that for most of these folks our time in the bush is but a brief inter- lude in lives largely given over to concerns about status, popularity, the mate search, material aggregation -- all of the old anxieties we're supposed to be transcending. Too bad I didn't duck out when I had the chance, the best opportunity occurring right as the ap- plause and whistles were winding down and people were slipping into the furze for a quick pee break. I truly wish I'd split the scene before the next activity had the chance to coalesce. The mouth music by Will and The Minions certainly con- tributed to the tone of anarchy that prevailed during the interim phase of the trip. But what topped it off, what really ramped up the sense of chaos and disorder, the feeling that the old rules were tem- porarily off, was the camp game Dodi sprang upon us directly fol- lowing Will's air band. We'd drifted as a group back to the site of the pot luck. There was an instant, while gathering up the supper gear, I thought I might continue to drift all the way back to the tent. Or at least to the ground adjacent to the tent, to some accommodating rock or log, and take up a book for the rest of the evening. However, I failed to act quickly enough. Dodi's voice punctuated the air, calling for us Section #11: Greywacke Drop [121] ! to form a circle. This was, as it turned out, the last camp game Dodi would inflict upon us. It's definitely the last she's going to inflict on me. Because if she tries such a thing at Entry Cove, and you'd think she wouldn't that close to the end, but if she does I will bug out to the nearest stand of trees no matter how rude my avoidance. Though the Lead Instructor was the instigator of this fresh devilment, for I don't think it or any other camp game would've materialized if she'd just let the evening be, it's possible the game originated with Burl, something co-opted from when he was an outdoor instructor in Africa. I say this because the little amusement had the feel of some- thing tribal. It wasn't the sort of deal your typical white bread sub- urbanite would come up with. Nossir. And I had a feeling it wasn't the first time Burl and Dodi had conspired to put a student group though the initiation. From what I gather this is not the first course the two have worked together. I don't know how many other times they've been assigned to the same student group. Maybe once, maybe several, though this could be their first joint kayaking expe- dition. If nothing else, it helps account for the jokey camaraderie the two share and for the fact that while Dodi took charge of the evening's final diversion she looked to Burl for confirmation on the nuances. Dodi, ever the exhibitionist, arranged the game's simple ap- paratus and demonstrated how it was to be played. First, she placed upon the ground in the very center of the circle a standard cook pot minus lid. This, Dodi said, was to be our target. It was right around this stage of things she employed a name for the upcoming engage- ment, the mysterious contest. I don't remember precisely how she phrased it though I recall she stuck the term "Squat" in there somewhere. Burl broke in to offer a different or better name. "Greywacke Drop" was what he called it, which I believe instantly erased in our minds whatever Dodi had said. I was pretty sure Burl hadn't come up with the name right on the spot. It was too perfect. These outdoor school instructors all stand squarely upon the shoulders of those who've come before them. Burl had lifted the term "Greywacke Drop" from one or another paddling course he'd previously worked on the Sound. Quite likely it was Burl who, way back at the beginning, inserted into our lexicon the misnomer re- garding the slate-like stone, deliberately miscalling it by a term bet- ter applied to, as Crandall once explained to Dinah and me, a sedi- mentary mix of gravel, sand and mud. Dodi checked with the Second Instructor to see if she needed to switch out the pot for one that was smaller. Burl said the pot she'd chosen was fine. Of course, as the object of the game became [122] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! apparent, it hardly mattered what size the pot was. Without further preliminary, Dodi assumed a decidedly squatted down position, you know, maybe to justify her original name for the contest, grabbed up a stone from the ground, a greywacke stone as it were, and inserted the rock into the crotch of her pants, appearing to make it stay there with pressure of thigh muscles alone. The Lead Instructor then began to waddle in the di- rection of the cook pot, augmenting her progress over the ground with exaggerated birdlike motions of her arms. There was some laughter, but most of us remained silent as Dodi could only be demonstrating a maneuver the rest of us would soon be expected to replicate. She made it but a couple of yards before the stone slipped out, falling with a plop to rejoin its fellows on the ground where as- suredly the pebble wished it could be allowed to stay. Dodi scooped up the recalcitrant stone and jammed it back into the cleft of her trow, managing a few more awkward steps before the stone again came forth. She blamed it on the slippery nylon of her windpants. Instead of trying a different rock, she again took up the unfortunate token and, turning it this way and that, seemed to settle upon a more advantageous angle, a rougher edge that would stick better, and re-inserted. We witnessed the stone eject itself almost the in- stant she took her hand away. In the meantime, Burl, who that evening was wearing capi- lene with overshorts, his standard attire when ashore, in any case not wearing windpants of slippery nylon, had found his own rock and stuck it up into the region analogous to the C.L.'s cleft. With elbows tightly held against his sides -- no chicken-walk for him -- the Second Instructor shuffled quickly to the center of the circle, rock staying nicely put, and hied himself around in the vicinity of the lonely cookpot, a useful demonstration after Dodi's false starts that a greywacke stone could afterall be made to stay put. We all leaned forward on camp pads to observe Burl's demo, anticipating what it was he was about to do, not quite believing he meant to do it, at least I couldn't quite believe it, not in front of all of us students, par- ticularly the younger ones. The suspense of the moment was po- tent. It sure seemed true that on the evening of Day Eighteen a tribal cohesion had finally kicked in. Well, the Instructor from Seattle wasted no time. He eye- balled his target, the perfectly circular opening of the cookpot, ad- vanced upon it in one-and-a-half determined waddles, swiveled in place, lowered his hips and with a visible flexing of thighs − "ker- chunk" − the greywacke stone, cleanly released, rattled into the pot to the accompaniment of general cheering and applause. God help us, I thought. Section #11: Greywacke Drop [123] ! Dodi was right behind her Second-in-Command, having fig- ured out how to make her rock stay put. With those crazy chicken wing flaps, she swooped in on her objective, literally shoving Burl out of the way, and dropped her deposit more or less in the direc- tion of the cookpot. I don't think the rock actually went in but hit the rim or the side of the pot with a metallic clank, which I guess she decided was good enough given she'd succeeded in knocking Burl on his can, the price required for upstaging her. "Of course, we expect you to do it blindfolded," our Course Leader then announced. Dodi passed her rock off to Instructor Houston. She pro- duced a bandana and handed it to a student to tie over the man's eyes. "It will be your job to guide him in," she instructed the rest us. The Apprentice Instructor managed a good show, not need- ing a great deal of guidance from us, not until he got down to the last few inches. He shuffled in the general direction of the pot and when it appeared he was sliding off vector we yelled at him until he corrected back. With his wide stance he managed to duck walk right over the pot and carry a couple of feet beyond until cheers and outcry got him to reverse and backward waddle over the target where at our signal the stone was released to a satisfying clank. It was a kind of showing off, I thought, the backassward business. The fact that he seemed a natural at the strange stunt could be at- tributable to innate athleticism. Or maybe Mr. Houston had played some version of the game before, not "Greywacke Drop" but maybe "Small Chunk of Granite Drop" during some idle evening in a North- ern Rockies climbing camp. I have to say, I was a little surprised to see the Third Instruc- tor go so readily into the required squat. I wouldn't have thought he had it in him, to assume such an undignified posture. Of course, he pulled it off ably, one more of many lessons we've received on this trip that there's more to these people who call themselves Instruc- tors than you might suppose. I'd come to assume the reason Thad Houston works for this outfit, with its well-defined regimen, is because regimentation is what Thad Houston seeks in this life. I, myself, am drawn to work for the school because of what I perceive to be its hyper-systematic approach to backcountry travel. You'd better believe, if I were an Instructor, I'd only build upon the school's well-honed systems and protocols. There'd be no Greywacke Drop, or Squat, or anything of the sort on my courses. No way. My curriculum would emphasize introspection and self-reflection. Students would spend their free time in contemplation, or earnest one-on-one conversation, at min- imum quietly working on personal projects, better yet, reading. Be- [124] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! cause when you sit quietly and focus on a book the wilderness and the truth about yourself have a way of seeping in around the edges. One of the best things about a wilderness trip is the opportu- nity it provides for personal stocktaking. Nothing could be more necessary in these modern times. The Establishment is undergoing a tidal shift and, I'll tell you brothers and sisters, the shift is not for the better. The old societal moorings have been displaced. The ap- proved templates for success are disintegrating and in their stead has crept a sort of mindless and unsustainable materialism. At some level everybody knows the game is up. Maybe it's the crowd I run in but at bottom no one gives a hoot anymore if you command a big house full of spouse and progeny and other excess crap. The so- called professions have revealed themselves rife with corruption, based on a lie, or if not a lie then a ruse to convince people it's all going to work out okay. Every one of us steals from the future. The way I see it, the individual is pretty much left to their own devices to kluge together a life of meaning. Any person disaffected enough to have signed up for the sort of month long ordeal offered by thie outdoor school would be well advised to spend some time on their own delving out exactly what it meant that they were prompted to make such a leap in the first place and if maybe the same yearning shouldn't be enlisted to inform the years ahead. Thad Houston passed off stone and bandana to one of the young males who seemed eager to give Greywacke Drop a go. The lad, receiving the greywacke chunk from the Third Instructor, feigned a look of mild disgust, holding the stone at arms length, and asked if he might not employ his own pebble. "Everybody uses the same rock," Burl put in. "To make it fair." Well, Dodi hadn't used the same rock. It really didn't have anything to do with fairness. I mean, was someone keeping score? Sharing the same greywacke pebble was just another way Burl had of heightening the game's tribal weirdness. The youngster didn't really care, though he continued to pre- tend a mock-fastidiousness, blowing upon the stone a couple of times and wiping it upon the ground before jamming it into the crotch of his pants. Someone stepped in to adjust the bandana. I don't recall how the kid carried off the waddling part, but I guess he managed with our encouragement and jeers to transport the rock all the way to the cookpot. The majority of the youths, nimble as they are, had no trouble with the basic challenge, getting it done the first time, rarely requiring a second try. Unless they flinched during the release they were rewarded with the sound of the stone banging down into the pot. Most of them employed Dodi's direct approach -- and you'd better believe that's what I was planning to do when it Section #11: Greywacke Drop [125] ! came my turn -- though a few tried Thad Houston's reverse waddle, or backassward approach, for the challenge of it. Quickly on, Burl instituted a system of calling out "hot", or "cold", or "red hot", or "boiling", that sort of thing, guiding the blindfolded waddler to the target. And so we went around the circle. It was like the Palmer get- ting-acquainted go-around, only now we were divulging a different sort of information about ourselves. I remember one of the colle- giates, trying the backward shuffle, missing on his first attempt, getting a little confused on the "hot-cold" cues, finally being helped by one of his campmates who crept in on hand and knee, practically putting his face in the pot, to give his pal close guidance. All very funny. I took note of Cord's and Tyler's attempts, both of them pulling off the stunt without trouble, or embarrassment, on the first attempt. Pat, as I recall, had difficulty right away getting the rock to stay put and resorted to holding it up there with her hand until she was directly over the target. No one objected to Pat's stratagem, be- cause how could anyone criticize an older person, lacking flexibility and knee strength, but still game to get in the middle of the circle and perform an action deliberately designed to mime a process generally only performed in complete privacy, away from everyone, deep in the woods or far down the littoral? Yep, a primitive scatological ritual, Greywacke Drop. Which of course was the point. Jaded veterans of the expedition as we were, it was time for the Instructors to ratchet it up, go for the unarticulated, the sub-text you might say. Anything less crude at that stage wouldn't have gotten our attention. Naturally, the colle- giates found it hugely hilarious and made no effort to suppress their laughter. Which was what kicked me off. The tension release was enormous. I'm not usually amused by sheer crassness but I could hardly attend to the action my eyes were so teared up. The sick fascination of it lay in the way Burl's little diversion recognized our unvoiced concerns about elimination, the absence of toilet paper, the absence of anything like privacy, forced as we are to perform our procedure out-of-doors, away from walls or doors with locks. The school's various policies on the matter continually weigh on the mind, the requirement to locate an approved spot, to use the recommended materials, to leave the dookie properly cov- ered and in contact with as much bacteria as the locale offers. Ceaselessly reverberating in the back of one's thoughts is Burl's warning: failure to perform elimination may result in impaction, a situation amendable in one of two ways: either the student submits to digital stimulation, by self or Instructor -- rubber gloves available [126] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! in the first aid kit -- or the afflicted student is evacced out to where the problem can be addressed by frontcountry medical staff. I don't know what it is about Burl's phrasing but his warning has a way of circulating through the thoughts at the very moment you're trying to relax the muscles enough to let it happen. And when it does hap- pen the concern shifts to insuring your deposit falls more or less in the direction of the pre-prepared scrape, all the while taking care not to ding the trowser cuffs or footgear. Greywacke Drop induced the same mincing step required during the last critical seconds before the clench is relaxed, rear end securely wedged against boulder, or downfall log, properly situ- ated over the scrape, or "cat hole" as some refer to it. Might as well admit to it, the game accurately drew the analogy between the hard, grey pebbles which litter these beaches and the mildly alarm- ing quality of our stool. I guess it's the same for everyone, though the older set doesn't talk about it much. The collegiates, in their camp banter, make constant reference. It is disquieting. It's been disquieting for me, anyway, to not be able to recognize my own is- sue, so chocked with seeds and roughage, altered by physical stress, the lack of hydration. Each time a student's turn at the game culminated in the clatter of stone hitting the bottom of the cookpot, the way the group cheered seemed proof that most of us had experienced the sensation of a gravel-like feces rolling out from the hind end. That was the game's cathartic appeal: the externaliz- ing of one's private musings on how everyone else is managing. Two and a half weeks into the course, awaiting my turn to enjoy a tilt at the pot, I felt like I'd swallowed some humiliation at being pressured into the triviality. Maybe I'm just uptight. I'm sure the I's assumed at this stage no one would be offended. But, really, having come this far with their damn program, having submitted to their manifold methods and procedures, the huge time suck of the curriculum, we should've been, I don't know, awarded medals of recognition, or certificates of accomplishment. Instead we were giv- en this asinine game as an indicator of how far we'd come. When my go came around it only took me one attempt to score a hit, though I guess I dragged it out longer than some. De- termined to get it done on the first try, I waddled duck-fashion in as straight a line as I could manage toward where I thought the cookpot to lie, sphincter muscles contracted tight around the chunk, incidentally about the size and shape of the stones I'd come to prefer for cleaning up. The student group assisted with plenty of "hots" and "colds". When I had reason to believe I was right over the target, I experienced an odd hesitation, or inability, to let the rock go. The stone felt as if it was kind of stuck in there. I was unwilling Section #11: Greywacke Drop [127] ! to bring a hand into play or, lord help me, do any kind of shaking to get the infernal thing to come out. The other students mistook my hesitation and yelled out further encouragement. "Boiling hot!" someone said. "Let 'er rip, Marlow!" I honestly appreciated the cue- ing. It was nice to feel the other's desire to help. I solved the prob- lem, the snag as it were, with a discreet tug on the fabric of the blue nylon windpants, thus easing the rock out of its lodgement. Ker- plang the stone went into the pot. I whipped off the bandana and reached in to scoop up the greywacke pebble which struck me as having become a little pol- ished from all of the attention, maybe even a little damp, and hand- ed it off to the next student. Well, it hadn't been so bad as I feared. You have to admit it's interesting how an unusually close associa- tion with a band of other humans can inure one against feeling em- barrassed. For some of us, at least. The Instructors had timed it about right. Initiated by all we'd been through, their odd little pastime bumped our familiarity with each other's bodies and personalities another couple of notches higher on the register, but only that. Imagine if the game had been instigated the first evening at Palmer. Dinah and Pat would've prob- ably self-evacced back to Palmer, making arrangements to be on the next shuttle to Anchorage. And I might've joined them, assuming the game to be but a foretaste of greater horror to come. Well, and so around the group the sacred talisman of greywacke passed until it was our librarian's turn to place the to- ken within her precious cleft and to venture forth bodily in search of the holy cookpot. Looking back on that evening, it wouldn't sur- prise me a bit if I was the only one who fully appreciated the ex- pression of controlled pain which rode on Dinah's face as she left the safety of the circle's circumference for the unknown territory at its center. I'm probably the only one who knows anything of what the woman's been through, the puritan upbringing, the years of spinsterhood squandered amongst the library book stacks, not to mention other trials. Naturally, right off, Dinah's body rejected the stone. Having received the greywacke from the hand of the previous player, held out toward her with uncertainty over whether it was right to in- clude the librarian in the game because by then it'd become obvious to most of us that the woman was operating on a different wave- length, well, that pebble just wouldn't stay put. The librarian went through an excruciating process, excru- ciating for us to witness, sticking the pebble between her thighs two or three times only to have it immediately fall upon the ground at her feet. Maybe she was having the same trouble as the Course [128] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! Leader with the slick nylon windpants. Or Dinah was unwilling to assume the necessary degree of squat or clinch. If I were to venture a theory, I'd say the problem was she didn't want that rock, or any- thing else that wasn't of her body, placed in that intimate spot. The mild cheering which had carried over from the previous player's success died on the air as we observed the librarian in her struggle to make the rock stay put. None of us would've objected to her em- ploying Pat's method, using a hand to hold the stone in place, if that's what an older woman needs to do. At one point, Dinah man- aged to get the stone to stay for the duration of the first couple of waddles until the rock once again tumbled upon the ground. She'd raise the bandana up long enough to locate the pebble and then try again. Finally, submitting to the degree of contortion required to properly perform the stunt, she got the stone to hold and embarked upon on the long, blindfolded journey across the ground toward the pot. All laughter was stifled and naught but silence prevailed as Dinah made her try. I recall one lone voice quietly offering hints of "cold" and "hot". The voice wasn't mine, I'm sorry to say. Perhaps it should've been. The voice was female, not Tyler's, not Pat's, certain- ly not Cheryl's, but Beth's, the good woman and all around helpful person. This is not to say the rest of us were so jaded by two and a half weeks on Prince William Sound we were beyond feeling pity for Dinah. I'd like to think there was enough empathy alive within the group to feel discomfiture at the sight of the older and physically awkward woman attempting to waddle over the ground while pinching an oddly shaped object between the butt cheeks. But who knows? Maybe I was the only one feeling embarrassed for the li- brarian. Again, I'm certain I was the only one in the group privy to enough background info to freight with awful meaning the specta- cle of the spinsterly book shelver caught in the throes of our inane entertainment. Embodied in the person of the librarian is the conflict each of us feels when asked to carry our fragile, private selves into a hos- tile and scrutinizing world. All of us, at one time or another, has experienced a moment or two, maybe a dozen moments, of utter humiliation. I can bring to mind, quick as that, two instances of public mortification. Back in the fourth grade, having once again forgotten my homework, I was given by my teacher a sign to wear around my neck for the remainder of the school day, testifying to my lapse. The sign consisted of a construction paper placard on a string which I managed to stain with gravy while at lunch in the school's cafeteria, more evidence of my sloppy work habits. Flash forward a decade, to age nineteen, when I was placed in a boxing Section #11: Greywacke Drop [129] ! ring with a much more experienced fighter who proceeded over the course of three one minute rounds to knock me senseless. I man- aged to stay on my feet, but that's about all I managed. In addition to the concussions, I also suffered the ignominy of soiling my gym shorts, the result of involuntary controls becoming relaxed by the pummeling. There were some drips onto the mat of the boxing ring which required mopping up by the coach with what had started out as very white gym towel. Now there was an embarrassment if there ever was one, oddly analogous to what Dinah was going through during our one evening of Greywacke Drop. I'm convinced, if you go back far enough in every person's life, you can locate a moment when they were the red-faced one, unable to accomplish the task at hand, not caring anymore about the task at hand, only caring not to cry. Some individuals seem capable of blocking out their painful memories. Of course, some people seem capable of blocking out the fact they were ever children. Even if they remember their humilia- tions, most adults have learned control and self-possession and only despise someone like the librarian for being so tactless as to reveal, at her age, terror over a silly game. Well, the whole scene took on something of an underwater quality, the librarian's movements appearing slowed by an invisible medium. The only sound was the grinding of gravel beneath her rubber boots, the loud rustling of her nylon windpants as they were abraded by the severe action of her knees and her labored breath- ing as the contracture needed to keep the rock in place fought with the requirement to urge the leg muscles forward. Tyler called over to her: "Go, Dinah. You can do it." The shout had been put forth by our erstwhile hockey player in a tone of team spirit. It was my impression the med student's cheer missed Dinah entirely and instead flew away to the lower branches of a tree where it proceeded to roost and gaze mutely down upon the circle. Tyler let it go at that, the one attempt at morale-boosting. It's quite possible the librarian was no longer with us on the same physical plane. Her body was there, duck-walking in the di- rection of the cook pot, her salvation, a goal which seemed of it's own accord to move away from her along the ground the closer she advanced. As for her conscious self, the woman had managed to take it off to some other place. The mystifying thing was, instead taking the straight on ap- proach, about two yards out Dinah reversed aspect and began to back her way toward the pot. I can't imagine what she was think- ing, attempting to achieve the target that way. I guess she wasn't thinking, not in any normal sense. As she closed in there was a flur- [130] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! ry of "hot" and "cold" cues, though no volunteer crawled in to help her situate over the target. The greywacke stone fell out from its lodgement a good three feet wide of the pot. And that was it. She gave up. That was all the try she was willing to put forth. She cer- tainly didn't owe anything more to us, the crowd of strangers who'd put her in the awkward position. She was done. There was not even the obligation to pick up the pebble and hand it to the next student. Dinah Orbeck stood upright, pulled the bandana off her head, let- ting the cloth fall to the ground, strode to her previous spot on the periphery of the circle and kept going, probably down to the inter- tidal, her usual place of recovery. That was only instance of Greywacke Drop being played that I ever heard. It wasn't really the sort of game a tent group would engage on its own without the sanction of the Instructor's. I doubt the members of Crandall's Crüe are playing any version of Greywacke Drop on their journey up College Fjord. They're more likely to spend their down time practicing knife throwing, or sharp- ening up spears for ptarmigan. The next evening, directly after our last all-group meeting at Golden, when the Instructors put forth a pep talk pertaining to the second and final Small Group Expedition which was to ensue bright and early the following morning, there was a time slot which in the old days would've certainly been filled with a campgame, concocted on the spot by Dodi. Instead, we were dismissed to our own devices. Greywhacke Drop was born of the moment, called forth by the heightened emotion on a day of transition. I'll bet no one ever mentions the game again, not for the remainder or the course, nor perhaps after the course is over. Certainly not to anybody not con- nected with the course. As good an example as any of something !which happened in a place remaining in that place. ! ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #12: Claudia and Thelma ! Dinah and I egress from the kayak and stumble onto the beach as more ice cracks and booms over at the glaciers. My left boot is full of water. "This is a very high energy beach," Dodi yells out, pitching her voice loud enough for them to hear back in Whittier. "A lot of gear has been taken off this beach," she continues. "You people need to secure your K's no lower than those trees." So saying, she indi- cates a line of scrub willows at least ten yards above extreme high tide line. Dodi now begins to dart about in her quick, small person way, gathering up the paddles, all six of them, which she's apparently going to attempt to carry single-handed to the tree line. I think she's making up the business about it being a beach that's tough on equipment. She's only saying this to create a sense of urgency. I don't see how she could know anything about it if none of the Instructors have ever been here. Well, it doesn't look as if there's going to be a possibility of hot drinks any time soon. Ignor- ing the water in my boot, I play along and join in the rush to unload the boats and move equipment to higher ground. I have to say I'm impressed by the fact that the beach does not feature the usual conglomeration of greywacke stones and pebbles. Instead, true to its name, it consists entirely of granulated black sand, greywacke pulverized to its smallest component. Maybe Dodi's right about the high energy business. I find myself jogging behind Dinah who's faltering in her at- tempt to carry the heavy grill bag. I could take the bag from her. I look over as I pass her on the left, but she won't meet my eye. Still shook up from the landing, I suppose. I'm about to offer a word of encouragement when she stops, sets the grill bag down and points toward the ground. "Oh, look," she exclaims, "it's a plover." Without asking if I'm the least bit interested, the librarian proceeds to pronounce the genus and species. "It's performing a distraction display," she adds. There's a bird there, all right, and it appears to be in some sort of distress, staggering around in a small circle, dragging a wing [132] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! upon the ground. "What's the matter with it?" I ask. "It's attempting to distract us from its nest," she explains. "Pretending to be injured. I've read about this. I once saw a televi- sion special on the behavior, but I've never actually witnessed it. And oh, oh. It has nesting stuff in its beak. Very exciting." "Watcha got there, Marlow?" This is Tyler, who has caught up with us, a food duffel hanging off each shoulder. "Bird faking a broken wing," I tell her and indicate where the little creature is performing its charade. Some perverse reflex in- spires me to move toward the bird. I'm possessed with a desire to use the side of my foot to shuffle the critter out of our path. "You're frightening it worse," Dinah exclaims. She begins to make cooing noises in the bird's direction. Now she puts her finger- tips to her lips and issues a series of kissing sounds. The bird takes no notice of these grotesqueries. A snort of laughter comes from Tyler's direction. I'm almost afraid to look at the med student for if I do there's the risk I'll com- pletely lose it. "Are you sure the bird's pretending?" Tyler asks, then lowers her voice so only I can hear. "I mean, I'd feel sick, too, spinning around like that." And then louder: "Well, I'll leave you two to your nature moment. Meanwhile, there's gear needs hauling." "Let's go, Dinah," I say. "That bird can take care of itself." As it is, I need to get on my way in order to release some gas. "You go, Marlow. I want to stay and observe." I'm certain I give the bird plenty of leeway but as I start to move past it the crazy thing skitters off into the bushes. It probably thinks it has a taker for its ruse, that I'm now going to follow it through brake and weed. "Whoops," is all I can say to Dinah by way of apologizing for her lost bird watching opportunity. Breakers from the most recent calving are arriving to shore. We all pause in our chores to observe how far up the sand the waves come. I have to admit, they roll further onto the beach than I'd have predicted. A stuff sack left on the sand where we first unloaded be- gins to float off until Cord runs down and grabs it. I'm still not quite willing to allow Dodi her point. After some discussion, it's determined that I, Marlow, will stay and secure the boats to the willows while Tyler and the others go up-slope to scrounge around for a campsite and the usual re- quirements of wood and water. It's already being assumed firewood may be a scarce. Well, that's fine. I don't mind the duty, but I decide the bow- lines can wait until I get this wet boot off of my foot. I take a seat on !Section #12: Claudia and Thelma [133] a driftlog to accomplish the task. It's good to be back on shore. Here among the willows there's a pleasant humming of insects and an odor of sun-warmed vegeta- tion. It's a smell reminiscent of summertime down in the contigu- ous forty-eight, late July in some land-bounded place, Ohio maybe, somewhere far from permanent snowfields and the cold, lapping sea. I drain the water out of the boot. You know, that's another thing, the way you have to get out of the kayaks in two feet of water, more often than not flooding one or both boots. What good is a boat that can't deliver you to land high and dry? I pull dry socks and the cook's shoes out of the day bag. Ty- ing the laces of the sneakers and breathing in all the pungent plant smell I feel as though I'm about to go out and push the lawn mower around. We've been on the shore now for about fifteen minutes and the bugs have already found us out. I stick the headnet on my ball- cap and drape it down over the bill in the usual fashion, just low enough to keep the little bastards out of the eyes. I linger for a space amongst the willows, tying and retying the bowlines of the kayaks to trunks and branches. I think I under- stand what's going on here. Early on in the course, there was all the emphasis on bombproofing our camps in preparation for the big blow that was sure to arrive. Now that the weather has proved con- sistently serene, the Instructors have shifted to talking about rogue waves created by calving glaciers. One way or another, the I's encourage us to play out a sense of danger, to pretend there's actually risk. And it's working. Our imaginations are getting the better of us. Dodi, by tone of voice alone, is able to conjure up the image of an impact wave coming in to sweep the beach clear of boats and everything else. I take it as a good sign. The Instructors are putting us through this drill because, I believe, they're preparing to leave us on our own, which cannot happen soon enough for me. I grab what remains of the group gear and head upslope, stepping through a broad, shallow stream positively milky with glacial silt, a quality we've not seen in the freshwater streams be- fore. I wonder if it will affect the taste of the coffee. I pause a mo- ment to peer down into the rheumy water. In places the flow has sluiced away the dark sand to reveal thousands of bright little peb- bles, different sorts of minerals carried down from the slope above. Coming up the rise, I find the group establishing our camp on what appears to be the only feasible flat spot around. Tyler and Pat are setting up the big geodesic in which all five of us will sleep, Pat holding a sleeve of the tent while Tyler works in a pole. "We left the kitchen tarp for you, Marlow," says Pat. [134] Travelogues: WET EXIT

"That's fine," I say. "Whose on hot drinks?" "Cord." I cannot see either of the women's faces because of their headnets. "Good enough," I say. "Is he handling dinner, too?" "Yep." Cord has set up the Optimus on a rock and is mucking through the food duffels for ingredients with one hand and brush- ing the bugs away from his face with the other. Five insulated mugs, all school issue, except for the gas station give-away, with lids off and logos facing outward, are in front of the stove, lined up waiting to be serviced. "How're hot drinks coming?" I ask. Cord turns toward me and, pulling up one earpiece of the stereo headphones he's wearing, asks me to repeat the question. "Hot drink E.T.A.?" I ask in a louder voice. "Five minutes out from a full boil," he answers. "Here's some instant joe to put in Tyler's drink. Also in mine." I drop the ziploc next to his foot. "About half a spoon in each mug will do. Take a little for yourself." "What does Dinah want in hers?" he asks. "How should I know?" "How should you know?" he asks right back, swatting a mos- quito on the side of his face. "Well, for starters, you used to tent with her." "So did you." "She always fixed her own hot drink." "Fill her mug with hot water," I tell him. "She'll either brew tea, or drink it plain." I ask Cord what he's thinking about for an evening meal. "Not sure," he says. "Can you I.D. this?" He holds up a polybag of uncooked grain. "Bulgar," I tell him. "No good for supper. What else you got?" I kneel down and help him rummage through the duffels. All of the rations, what's left of them, are knotted by type into separate bags, clear polyethylene units which somewhere along the way the In- structors informed us are known throughout the school as "Claudia Bags", so named for the rations manager who first systematized their use. The plastic bags work well to keep water and dirt from contaminating the food, but they don't do much to contain the odor that fills the duffels as a rich, almost nauseating effluvia of spice and powdered product. "There's a plethora of noodles," observes Cord. "Maybe you should make mac and cheese," I suggest. Section #12: Claudia and Thelma [135]

"I'm ace at mac and cheese," he says. "But we're out of salt. Don't we need salt?" "Boil the noodles in seawater." "Good idea. Should I build a fire or use the stove?" Now, that's a good question. I look around. Boy, if there was ever a place that aligns with Dodi's prediction of a zone short on firewood this is it, the precise terrain she warned us we'd someday find ourselves in, the remote morainal region of lore and legend of- fering little or no downfall. It was against the supposed parsimony of just such high glacial till that we've been husbanding stove fuel for the past three weeks. Yet, I see plenty of growing things around and where there are live plants there're usually dead ones that can be burned. "Maybe you'd better use the stove," I tell him. "If you're will- ing to start the supper process here, I'll get you a kitchen tarp set up ASAP. Give me twenty minutes." "Sounds good. Say, Marlow, you think there're any bears up here?" "Doubtful," I tell him, making a pretense of looking around. "Not much for a bear to eat." "Right. Can I just throw the cheese in as cubes?" "No, you have to make a sauce. Check the Cookery." "Right." "Since when do you have a tape player?" I ask. "Since Cheryl loaned me hers." Cord does not quite smile when he says this. The earpiece has already gone back in place. He wears the headset slung beneath his chin, the cool cat. Nodding his head to the beat he lifts the lid off the pot to check the status of the boil. "Let me know if you need any help," I say, though I know he can't hear me. These youngsters play their music loud enough to obliterate conversation. Loud enough to obliterate thought. I did the same once, though never in the outdoors like this. Not that I wouldn't have, if the technology had been available. The tarp I'm to use for the kitchen enclosure has been placed folded on top of a rock just downslope from Cord. The sooner I put it up, the better for him and for the rest of us. He can move the stove operation underneath and experience less problem with the flies, or the sand fleas, or whatever they are. Now that I'm away from everyone, I pause to release some gas. I hate having to hold it in and I've been forced to hold it in al- most all day. Holding it in is the opposite of what I want. For the du- ration of the tarp setting up process I plan to let any and all gas is- sue out as it sees fit. [136] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! Surveying the shelf for a likely tarp site, I see that the In- structors have established camp on the other side of a small ridge of till, almost out of view. Well, it looks as if they located -- and pret- ty quickly at that -- the only other possible tent site on the spit. Frankly, I'm not convinced that one or more of the I's has not been up here before. Not that there seems to be many possible tent sites around, it's just interesting that they knew to come right up on top here to set up their camp. And there's Dinah, standing by herself slightly upslope, headnet pulled down over her balaclava. She's motionless at present, studying a tarp that's been spread out flat upon the gravel. That would be the group's other tarp, to be set up as a shelter for the gear, personal duffels, paddles and whatnot. Dinah is welcome to attempt the job. It doesn't look as though she has much in the way of boulders up there to work with but even so she'll try to make it perfect. I once witnessed her spend an hour and a half re-rigging a kitchen tarp three times over until she was satisfied she'd taken best advantage of the available tie-downs. She kept calling me over, interrupting my supper prep, insisting I sit beneath the tarp so she could check the headroom. Her method of guying out the tarp only seemed to grow more complicated as she went. Her final configura- tion, as far as keeping off the bugs, the main reason for putting up a tarp when it isn't raining which it never does on this course, was no real improvement over her first attempt. Dinah reaches down and pulls out a corner of the tarp, then stands up straight again to undertake additional consideration. If, later on, the gear tarp's still not in place one of us can go up after supper and take care of it. Well, now, here's a likely looking pile-up of boulders for our kitchen enclosure, a bunch of rocks shoved to shoulder height by some past advancement of the glacier. I consider the salient points of the rock pile, all of the possible places tie downs can be attached. My attention is taken off of this survey by Cord arriving with the hot drink. Land ho! How long have we been waiting for this moment? It feels to have been at least a week. Cord sets the z-loc of instant on a rock and in the same mo- tion puts the fully charged mug into my hand. The cup is heavy with its containment of life-sustaining fluid, already giving off heat through its thin plastic wall. "Bless you son," I tell him. "You've done strong work." The lad's personal stereo is blasting so loud I can hear the buzz in the headphones. It sounds to be the same power rock song of Will and The Minions air band fame. Cord gives me a thumbs-up Section #12: Claudia and Thelma [137] ! and heads back in the direction of the stove, mumbling the lyrics. Well, this is a fine thing indeed. The mere sensation of warm plastic against my hand brings a reassurance the world is still hab- itable. It's school protocol that hot drinks be distributed as quickly as can be managed after the boats are unloaded. And a fine protocol it is. Sea kayaking is a chilling sport and the idea is hot drinks will have a revivifying effect upon travelers emerging from cold, damp cockpits who then face the task of setting up camp with suppertime still easily an hour away. I jiggle the cup to clear the drinking hole of clots of undis- solved milk powder and adjust the headnet so the cup can be brought up from underneath. I take a sip, pool the scalding liquid on my tongue, drawing in air to cool it. Man oh man, that's good. A lit- tle shy on chocolate, which we should be carefully rationing any- way, but otherwise the mix is excellent. I could've used this two hours ago, but I suppose on an expedition of this sort one cannot expect coffee to occur on a strict schedule. Shackelton and the gang only got hot tea once a day and for them there was never any know- ing when the next cup would arrive, if ever. I take another sip. Some may be happy with tea, or plain hot water, but personally I go with the full company recommendation of hot chocolate mix, powdered milk, of course my own instant coffee and lastly a big dollop of margarine. And, when it's available, as it is today, to put some grit in the craw, a pinch of glacial silt. The mug is practically half full of ingredients before the hot water goes in. And I'm not kidding about the silt. The result is a thick, sweet, greasy brew that absolutely cannot be improved upon. Normally, I wouldn't adulterate coffee to this degree, but out here a hot drink is also an opportunity to take in sustenance. To be handed twice or three times daily a hot, full mug of mocha java deluxe to sip on in this re- mote environment might be worth the whole three thousand four hundred. Which would come to about, say, fifty bucks per mugful over the course of the trip. I've stated out loud to some of the other students my intention to continue with the expedition hot drink mixture even after I return to normal life. My companions warn me that outside of these circumstances I may find the mix heavy and disgusting. They could be right. Once back in the world I might skip the margarine and the powdered milk. The glacial silt, too, I sup- pose. During the hot drink rap -- the school seems to have a rap session for everything -- the Instructors advised us, if we could tol- erate it, to add said margarine to the mix for the purpose of giving our bodies some fat to burn after the sugar's used up. The topic of margarine in hot drinks was cross-referenced in Dodi's hygiene rap [138] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! the morning of Day Two. The Lead Instructor made the case that margarine would help lubricate the digestive tract, contributing to effective transport of a sludge made up grains, legumes and pasta. I don't know about this, but if she's right then it's the medicine I need. Feeling another charge of gas building up, I take more of the hot drink onto my tongue and concentrate on separating out the oils in order to send them -- stat -- down below to loosen up the blockage. The Instructors also suggested, each within the summa- tion of their respective raps, that some students on courses have found peanut butter not to be a bad addition to a hot drink. Well, that would certainly bring more oils and lubricants to the site of the difficulty. However, this might be taking the remedy too far and I hope for me it will never come to this, to drinking hot peanut butter. I take another hit off the mug and consider what I wouldn't give to let the kitchen tarp wait and, instead, take the coffee and a book, Instructor Houston's anthology of masculinist fiction for in- stance, up on the rocks for a sit down and a read. Upslope, to hold the ends of her tarp, Dinah has found a set of tree branches, or maybe uprooted saplings yanked free of the ground by wind or the creep of Coxe Glacier, certainly not uprooted by our librarian. Very clever of her with these sticks. Crandall and I never taught her this trick. She must've learned it during her go- around with the college boys. I watch as Cord arrives to the scene with her cup of hot water. He leaves it for her on the ground and then goes directly away. Not surprisingly, the surfer and the librar- ian rarely have much to say to one another. For the moment, Dinah ignores her full hot drink mug and keeps on with the tarp. She posi- tions her materials, considers their arrangement for a moment and then makes a slight adjustment. In her mind, I believe she's build- ing another survival shelter, a more substantial version of her de- bris hut, this one constructed with modern materials of plastic and nylon. No doubt she's talking herself through the procedure by rote, just as she once learned to do in the Pine Barrens. Okay. Time to get on with it. I set the cup down and turn to the task, unfurling the blue plastic sheeting over the rocks. The tarps that the school issues for all its courses are a standard UV- resistant hardware store type modified by Issue with additional grommets and tie-downs, transforming them into the shelters fond- ly known as "Thelma Tarps", named after the seamstress back at HQ who came up with the design. That's right. Claudia Bags and Thelma Tarps. You'd think, given this, there must be dozens of oth- er gear items and/or systems developed by the school and named after venerable faculty. But that's all there is. Two items only, hon- oring Claudia and Thelma. You have to wonder how all of this gear Section #12: Claudia and Thelma [139] ! of the female gender is impacting our young male contingent and their wilderness mythology. They may not like being reminded that so many women and girls have been here before them. Well, the boys can take comfort in the fact that the founder of the school and principle architect of its outdoor philosophy is male, in his eighties now but a man who in his day was quite physically robust, an alpin- ist of renown, truly a rugged and overpowering fellow. During our one evening at Palmer some us watched a short documentary film featuring the founder. The man, getting a little pudgy around the middle in his later years, described how he'd started the outdoor school in the late '60's as a way to provide young people with an op- portunity to get away from the established authority figures. He envisaged wilderness as an ideal arena for youth to have a chance to think for themselves. My plan is to bring the Thelma Tarp off the base of the boul- der pile and tent it over to one of the large glacial tumuli. I begin by attaching the tie downs to any protuberance of rock that'll hold a loop. The knot I use is the sliding hitch that the Instructors taught us early on, the one I drilled Dinah on, an ingenious configuration which allows tension to be applied to the line and then fixed, yet which can be easily undone by a slight tug on the free end. Burl, demonstrating the knot, said he considered its mastery not merely a course requirement but a useful life skill, an excellent knot for tying a load to the top of a car, say, or putting up a clothesline in a motel room. He's absolutely right and if the school's hot drink recipe falls short of being worth the price of admission then the chance to have learned this knot easily makes up the difference. As presently rigged, the kitchen tarp is too low to the ground. I shift the lines to points higher on the rock pile. In a couple of instances, there's no handy anchor and the only solution is to wrap the line around a small chockstone of greywacke and wedge it into a crack. I check again and now find the tarp has pulled too far away from the big erratic. I leave off for another swig of hot drink and a quick glance upslope. I'll be damned if the librarian doesn't already have her tarp in position. She must've been practicing her trucker's hitch. Well, well. Good for her. Though, someone should go up there later and make sure the lines are taut. I can make out paddling gear, PFDs, rubber boots, etcetera, all secure and stacked neatly beneath the shelter. The tarp's author is nowhere to be seen. All right then. An additional round of adjustment centers up the enclosure. Grabbing the hot drink, I get under the plastic cover to see how it feels. I have to hand it to Dinah for getting her shelter up so quickly, but really she had a much more straightforward situ- [140] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! ation to work with up there. As the kitchen tarp presently lays there's good headroom and the area under cover will accommodate the five of us with food bags and cooking gear. It's rather a nicely situated shelter, worth the extra time and trouble it took to get it right. The far end opens upon a view of the glaciers. Employing the same principle as a headnet draped over the brim of a ballcap, the ends of the tarp are sheeted down to discourage the flies. The Instructors had nothing to do with teaching us this little ploy, we figured it out on our own. There's not a single bug under here. It's almost as if, by ducking be- !neath the tarp, a screened door had slammed shut behind me. ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Section #13: Speckled Spheroid ! Boy, I have to say, I much prefer wilderness viewed from beneath a tarp flap than across the bow of a kayak. Proof I'm more a land roamer than a seafarer, constitutionally speaking. It's not even the foot travel, the actual hiking, that provides the sustenance. I'm happiest, really, sitting quietly in a tent pitched on terra firma, gaz- ing out beyond the vestibule and studying the middle ground. That's right, instead of most forms of action I prefer to repose be- neath a nylon shelter and spend my afternoon determining the ex- act point the natural objects, the trees and rocks and such, lose their detail and become mere representations of themselves. Ac- cording to the school, the observer should be able to make out indi- vidual trees and branches from about one mile away. Today, in this place and in this light, the shift seems to occur as well as I can de- termine it somewhere between a half and three quarters of a mile. Not that I haven't already said this but, honestly, beginning with the morning of Day One, this expedition has insisted upon en- tirely too much movement. I'm already hating the idea that in about twelve hours this tarp which I've taken such pains to erect will be dismantled, packed into a boat and transported to the next desig- nated campsite. I could use a day off for some reading, augmented by ample coffee drinking and the opportunity to rest the eyes upon the blue fronts of those glaciers. Black Sand Beach may represent the furthest remove we're going to achieve on this trip. It's all back- paddling after today. In fact, I wonder if I couldn't get some reading in right now, before Cord's mac and cheese is ready. I still have a workable por- tion of hot drink left, enough to carry me through eight or ten pages of "Short Fiction By Men". Three-quarters of the way up Barry Glacier, a section of ice pares away to float silently out into the air. I follow the chunk's de- scent toward the water, anticipating the explosion of spray. My view is suddenly blocked by a pair of polypropylene leggings, In- structor issue, the ones marked with the rectilinear dashes. Now the leggings move away. Taking the hot drink mug with me, I pull myself upright to find Burl making his way around the tarp, examining its lay, running an eye along the bights. Out in the [142] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! embayment, the only sign remaining of the ice chunk's impact is an area of white foam where bubbles still surface. "Pretty good job on this tarp," Burl says. He smiles coyly, plucks at a line and finds it has the right music. "Thank you." And I am proud of my tarp set-up, tucked as it is within the boulders. It's nice to not have Burl nitpicking my work for a change. I yell over to Cord, whom I can see swatting bugs from here, and let him know he can move his kitchen operation under cover if he wishes. I don't know if he can hear me with those headphones. Frowning slightly, lips pursed in mock seriousness, Burl goes around the tarp putting increased tension on a few of the lines and reworking some of the anchor points. Now that the K's are parked, Burl wears the base camp gear which harkens back to his days as a climbing instructor. This includes, of course, the Instructor-issue- only thermals with the dashes down their flanks like the centerline on a highway. Over the tights, Burl has on a pair of sturdy moun- taineering overshorts featuring an abundance of cargo pockets, the stitches reinforced with ballistic nylon at the stress points, plus skid patches. A pair of binoculars on a lanyard depend against the front of the Instructor-issue smoke colored zip-up. Laced onto his feet are a pair of mid-weight trekking boots. They're nice looking boots and appear to be of very solid construction. I've asked Burl about them, where he got them. He mentioned the big outdoor equipment retailer in his home city and also the brand and precise model of the footwear which is named, he said, after a particular town in the American Southwest known for the active lifestyles of its residents. Taken altogether, this is Burl's preferred attire, transposed directly from his days supervising top rope sites in the Winds and North Cascades. Burl doesn't wear a headnet. I don't think the aesthetic of a headnet agrees with him. Certainly, a head- net would ruin the lines of the teal colored ballcap which compli- ments so well the purple nylon of the overshorts. Burl also doesn't agree with the aesthetic of bumps caused by mosquito bites and I know he laves on quite a bit of repellant to keep the bugs off. Burl's camp clothes borrow their colors from the milieu of his earlier career, layers that are an admixture of granite, sky and wildflower -- the hues of the high alpine -- and they transfer well enough to this terrain. I estimate Burl, in his own way, has expend- ed as much energy working out his terrestrial uniform, modeling his gear before a mirror and so forth, as Dodi has spent working out her seagoing attire. The way the Second Instructor's burgundy shorts serve as a transition between the grey synchilla and the blue thermals is too perfect and leads one to conclude he's not indiffer- Section #13: Speckled Spheroid [143] ! ent to the color coordination of his outfit. It seems only natural for Instructors who've worked in the field for untold seasons to take a proprietary interest in their issue. Who wouldn't in their position? All of the traveling which their job requires has honed their kit to the bare minimum. They possess so little in this world and what little they own must be worn continuously a month or more at a stretch before it can be traded in, not to mention laundered. If you're going to wear the same set of clothes everyday you'd better be happy with how it looks as well as how it fits. As Burl explains it, he took up sea kayaking as a means of staying employed with the school after his knees gave out from climbing. It was more the down-climbing than the up, he says, all those descents from base camp with camp gear, ropes, a full rack of pro. That's what ultimately did him in as far as expeditionary climbing went. As a senior instructor, Burl is qualified to work the school's so-called Semester in Kenya where, after adjusting the col- ors of his uniform to blend in with the greens and browns of East Africa, he leads students on relatively non-strenuous walk-ups of Kilimanjaro, or on strolls into the bush to meet the Masai. And I believe he picks up a little work from time to time as a horse-pack- ing instructor down at the school's ranch in Wyoming. Riding hors- es, he says, is not so easy on the knees as you might suppose, but it's still preferable to down-hiking five thousand feet with a seventy pound load. It's commendable the school offers so many options to the older instructor whose body has become worn out as a result off the employ. Demonstrating this afternoon not the least bit of creakiness in the joints, Burl stalks over to the far side of the tarp, the highway dashes, so expressive of kinetic movement, flexing at his knees,. "Could there be a chance of fraying here?" he asks, indicating a spot where I bent a line around the edge of a boulder. Looking about he seizes upon an empty stuff sack and inserts the material between line and rock. I take a swig of hot drink, knowing that with this swallow I'm largely sabotaging any possibility of a reading session. There's not enough coffee left in the mug to make it worth it. If I am not to read a book then I will read the Second Instructor. "Say, Burl," I begin. "I was wondering, is the bluish color of the water around here due to it's temperature?" The Middle Instructor is still working his way around the tarp, perhaps checking for more abrasive contacts. "Partly that," he says, in answer to my question. "Mainly, it's the decrease in salinity. And the presence of glacial silt." "Sure," I say. "One more question. You ever get any sea lions [144] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! up this way?" He tightens the hitch on one corner to force more clearance between the tarp and the rock. "Yes. It's possible to spot a sea lion." "I think I already spotted one. Dark shape, ten feet long, swimming beneath the ice." "Could be." "While we're at it," I continue, "what do you say to the idea of whale sonar causing a kayak to vibrate?" "I've heard of it." "Sure." "Why?" "Just wondering." I'm also wondering why Burl is here and not down on the beach casting a line. The water's probably too cold for there to be the least chance of catching anything, but the expedition's utter collective failure at fishing has never discouraged Burl from the attempt. I figure he does it for the repetition anyway. I ask him if the I-team has finished setting up their camp. "Certainly," he answers. Certainly. Of course they have. What was I thinking? It never takes the Instructors more than about fifteen minutes to position their tarp to take best advantage of the breeze. The Instructors complain that we students are slow in our camp set-up and break- down. They wonder why every morning they're able to get on the water an hour ahead of us. Well, for starters, the Instructor are not required to adjust to a new boat every morning, or a new tent group every couple of days. The Instructors sleep all three of them to- gether in one small half-dome which they break down each morning into its constituent parts and load with the rest of their well-honed gear systems into the same three singles they've paddled since the expedition shoved off. No room in their boats for the ammo box of the floating library, nossir, or for cast iron cooking grates. Burl and Thad Houston may be relatively new to the sea kayaking game but that doesn't mean they don't have their methods down. Dodi, from what I gather, has been leading these kayak trips since she was a little girl. Far from it being her first season on the water I've heard this is likely to be her last. No doubt, the whole business has become too routine to sustain any interest. "You're getting quite a beard there," Burl notes. He's worked his way completely around the tarp and back to where I'm standing, having made no further adjustments to the tie downs. "Guess so." "How was the paddle across Harriman?" he asks. "Any prob- lems?" With the fingertips of one hand, he touches my forearm and Section #13: Speckled Spheroid [145] ! then lays his arm beside mine on the rock. "No problems," I answer. "I think a couple of folks were ner- vous about coming up here, but so far there's been no talk of mutiny." I look at Burl's hand relaxed upon the granite, the fingers curled at the knuckle. He touched me like this once before. It was around Day Seven. I must've been out looking for firewood, or bring- ing back water, when I ran into him and Dodi walking the opposite direction along the beach. The three of us stopped to have a brief exchange about something, who can say what? At some point in our conversation, Burl reached out and took between thumb and fore- finger the fabric of my windpants right where it was stretched across my thigh. "What is that?" he asked, giving the material a good twist. "If you want to know, it's second generation Gore-Tex." He said he liked the look of my gear -- meaning the blue nylon pants, I assumed -- and wondered where I'd obtained it. Dodi didn't repress her amusement at Burl's tone or the expression that sprung to my face when he pinched me like that. Burl seemed bent upon getting a reaction. I had the sense he was playing a part for Dodi's benefit and that his acting the fey urbanite was a genre of humor the two had established between themselves. I let Burl know that, in point of fact, I'd acquired the wind- pants from the well-known outfitter whose flagship store is in his home city of Seattle, at which outlet he could easily obtain his own pair of blue nylon pants if he wished, if the pants weren't already remaindered, which was quite possibly the case since I'd purchased them through the catalog over a year prior. Cord is transferring his kitchen scene to the tarp. Balancing the pot of seawater atop a stove running at full throttle, the surfer ducks beneath the upper end of the shelter. As mentioned, Burl has fitted to his kayak's seat a padding cut from a closed cell foam sleeping pad for the purpose, as he has disclosed to us, of cushioning his hemorrhoids, what he refers to as "his condition". A joke, I think. The expedition was not very far along when the collegiate boys got wind of the cushion. The boys were amused and immediately gave our Middle Instructor the nickname Pearl. "Burl the Pearl." Sometimes calling him this to his face. The lads picked up on Burl's tendency to yell out "Ahoy" to ap- proaching kayaks and for a while it was in vogue for them to greet each other this way whether on water or in camp. I was present when one of the young prepsters asked Burl why it was he chose to shave every three or four days instead of, you know, letting the beard grow out as would be proper for the Alaskan bush. Burl re- [146] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! plied that, for him, shaving in the backcountry was a thing to be savored, that it was like a new lease on life, sins and regrets scraped away, a clean slate, etc. The kid couldn't tell if the man was trying to be funny, or not. Maybe I'm the only one who can hear the faint contrived redneck accent that marks Burl's sarcastic mood. I don't think the youngsters' assumption about his orienta- tion is correct. I'm sure the mannerisms are a put-on. Burl has told me himself he has a wife back in Washington State. Though, I sup- pose, "wife" can mean many things. "The drawstring's pulled out of my sprayskirt again," I say. "Do you think you could take a look at it?" "Certainly," he says. "Bring it over after supper?" A booming noise arrives from the direction of the glaciers. Burl and I turn to catch a view of ice sloughing off Cascade and crashing into the water. Burl takes his arm up off the rock and busies himself with the binoculars. The incoming tide has carried all of the bergs to the head of the arm and crowded them into a tight pack. It would now be diffi- cult if not impossible for us to leave this beach, at least not until the tide turns later this evening, or after midnight, or whenever it's next scheduled to ebb. "Say, Burl," I start to say, taking advantage of the fact that he's preoccupied with the binos. "Yes, Marlow." "How common would you say it is for students to become in- volved with each other while on a course?" "You mean, romantically?" "That's it." "No one knows the numbers," he says, lowering the binocu- lars but continuing to look out across the embayment. "It's probably more common than not. School policy is to discourage coupling, but discretion works, too. I'm sure there's quite a bit of romance going on in the field the school never knows about. I was once working a hiking course in the Winds when the other instructor and I noticed that about half the student group was having trouble staying awake in the daytime. Every time we took a trail break they'd fall dead asleep. Turned out a couple of the tent groups were getting together every night for a sex orgy. We put a stop to it, of course. Never did find out who the instigators were. That was fifteen years ago. In the Seventies. The sorts of students we get now would never do such a thing." "Must've given them all something to think about once the trip was over," I suggest. "Maybe. Probably not." Section #13: Speckled Spheroid [147] ! "Right." "Anything else?" he asks, putting the binos back up to his eyes. "What would you think," I begin, "about the idea of us chang- ing the trip plan and staying on here an extra day?" "Not a bad idea," he says, sweeping the binoculars through an arc. More ice peels off Cascade and he directs the barrels to the spot with a jerk, index finger working the focus. "I think that could be very much an option," he adds. "Talk it over with your group and get back to us." There's a sound of skittering stones behind us. We turn to see Dinah coming over the rocks in her rubber boots. "Marlow," she calls out, or what passes as calling out for Di- ane. The librarian's voice actually seems to get quieter, though more strained, whenever she attempts to cast it with any force. "I need to talk to you for a minute," she says. Burl drops the binos against the front of his chest. He gives me a neutral look and begins to make his way back toward the ridge of till. "Don't forget," he calls back over his shoulder, "glaciology rap after supper. Bring whatever you can find on the subject from the library." Two more swigs from the mug and I drain off the last of the hot drink with its dregs of undissolved milk powder. Dinah is stand- ing there in a way that suggests she would like me to take a walk with her somewhere. "What is it, Di?" I ask. It cannot be long now before supper and I don't want to be wandering off. "It would be better if you come and look," she says. We pass by the upper end of the tarp where Cord has reposi- tioned his kitchen. The noodles are at a full boil and he's using his diver's knife to cut the cheese into cubes. I hope he found the recipe for cheese sauce. These young guys are prone to throwing the cheese straight into the pot, hoping it will melt, but all it does is make a stringy mess. "How soon?" I ask him. "Ten minutes, max." Dinah leads me out past the geodesic where Pat and Tyler are situating the ensolite pads and sleeping bags onto the circular floor. The two women have got the tent positioned so our heads will be slightly higher than our feet. Which is proper. However, it ap- pears we'll be sleeping with a slight lateral tilt. But that's okay. It means I'll be making cozy against the tent wall. And if Tyler has reason to roll anywhere it'll be against me. The med student takes in Dinah with me following behind [148] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! and gives me a quizzical look. I shrug my shoulders. The librarian continues to stroll toward higher ground. It seems months since I last followed her out to look at something away from camp. I'm a little surprised to find us not heading toward the water. Sometimes the thing she has to show me is upslope. It's still sobering to consider how narrowly I escaped having my expe- rience of the trip entirely colored by the personality of this woman. "Here it is," she says. We've stopped fifteen or twenty yards uphill from camp, in a relatively open area marked by standing boulders. "Here what is?" "Right here," she says and indicates with the toe of her boot a spot on the sand. I look more closely and there, lying in a shallow depression, is a speckled lozenge shaped object. "A plover's egg," she says. "A plover," I say. "Chandrius semipalmatus." This time she says it with more solemnity. These latin phrases are always painful to hear coming out of Dinah's mouth and the instant she begins to enunciate I do my best to block it out. On reflex, I look around at the rocks and bushes to see if I can spot the bird who's left her progeny so unprotected. When I look back to the egg it takes a second to locate it again. I could walk back and forth over this spot all day and if I didn't know it was there I'd never see it. In fact, I'm not convinced even now the egg is anything more than an exceptionally rounded pebble. "Please. Don't touch it," Dinah says. "I am worried enough as it is, with us camped so close, the mother bird will be afraid to come back and incubate." "They only lay one egg?" I ask. "No. Usually they lay a clutch of three. The others may have already been eaten by wild creatures." I look closely at the woman. I definitely did not like her use of the term "clutch". The spots of color are dilated large as silver dol- lars with edges suffusing into the general pallor of her cheeks. I know exactly what she's thinking and she's wise not to put it into words. Possibly there might be one other camping site on this shelf large enough to accommodate our group, but I doubt it. There can be no question of us loading up the boats and paddling to another beach. There are no other beaches. We'd have to travel completely out of the arm before we found another landing spot, all the way back to the lunch spit probably. Besides, until that tide drops we're not going anywhere and when we do go it's not going to be for the Section #13: Speckled Spheroid [149] ! sake of one misplaced bird's egg, not when we have the best view out of our kitchen tarp we're ever going to obtain no matter where this trip takes us. "Forget it, Dinah. We're not moving camp. That egg is just go- ing to have to take its chances. Marlow's Marauders, remember?" And, I swear, at my words tears spring to her eyes. "Not only that," I continue, "but we might stay on here a day longer than originally planned. I've been talking to the Instructors about it. They seem to like the idea. How would you feel about that? Staying on another day?" She remains very still as she takes in the meaning of my words. She stares down at the egg, her long, pointed nose held per- fectly straight by the grips of her glasses. Her tear ducts have sucked the nascent drops back in and when she finally speaks her voice has a beaten quality to it. "I suppose," she begins, "now that we are here we might as well stay. If the Instructors think it's safe." "Fine," I say. I join her in some additional staring at the egg. For a second, I almost think I see it move in its divot, as if the chick- ling inside is stirring within its shell. Suddenly I'm overwhelmed by a distinct feeling of pity. I don't know if it's for the egg or for Dinah. A little of both, I think. I'm sorry if the wilderness is not all she'd hoped for. It's hard to go anyplace anymore that hasn't been im- pacted, sometimes horribly so. I suggest to her that she string up some line around the egg, so no one comes along and accidentally steps on it. "Use a couple of tie downs from your gear tarp," I tell her. "I'm sure you have a few to spare." Hastened by the mental image of heavy, trampling feet, Di- nah moves quickly off to do as I recommend. Now that she's gone, I kneel down to where I can touch the little speckled spheroid, shift- ing it slightly in its cusp of sand. The shell feels warm to my finger- tip. I don't understand a species of bird that would leave its egg in the open like this. Finger still resting upon the shell, I consider that I could settle the question of the egg's survival with a single fillip. When I remove my finger the egg rolls back to its original position. I leave the spot and head downslope toward the kitchen tarp to see if there's anything I can do to help Cord speed supper along. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #14: Romance of Travel ! "Well, the instructors sure scored the choice site." That was Cord, ten minutes ago, pronouncing on the matter as we trooped into our guides' encampment, arms loaded with books, sit pads, day bags and empty hot drink mugs. We'd arrived to attend Burl's "Advanced Glaciology Class", as the Second Instructor was calling it. Presently, we're ranged upon the rocks forward of the Instructor's kitchen tarp, waiting for something to happen. No spe- cific time was stated for the meeting. The I's said to show up after supper and they'd make us hot drinks. It appears we're early for a change. When the Instructors saw us taking seats upon the line of tumulus, Burl came down from their tarp, cleaning supper out of his teeth with his tongue, and bid us welcome. He asked us what we'd eaten for a meal and whether it'd been adequate. Now that our small possé has separated itself out from the rest of the student group and is privileged to be traveling in the company of the In- structors it almost sounded as if he might be worried about us being forced to subsist upon the school's standard field rations. Cord let Burl know that our meal this evening had consisted of macaroni and cheese made with "noodles boiled in seawater" -- the young man clearly taking satisfaction in phrasing it that way -- and that there'd been plenty to go around, even some left over, if he, Burl, was inter- ested to try some. "Sounds delectable," Burl offered, not exactly indicating he'd like a portion. Tyler inquired after the Instructor's supper. "We also had pasta," Burl said. "Boiled in glacial effluent, if you wish to know. Served with your basic red sauce. Nothing fancy." Nothing fancy is probably true, I thought, but I'll bet they had real tomato paste to work with instead of powdered base. And there would've been canned fruit for dessert. Burl noticed that I'd brought the busted spray skirt to the meeting and he came over and took from me the cheap piece of is- sue. I'd asked back at camp if anyone had seen the sewing kit, on the off-chance the ditty had ended up in our group gear. But, no, the Section #14: Romance of Travel [151] ! sewing kit had not been spotted. No one's seen it in over a week. I'm sure the kit is hanging from the branch of some bush at one of our past encampments. Burl positioned himself out in front of us and began talking. I think most of us assumed he was beginning his glaciology spiel and took up pens and paper. A few individuals, well, one individual anyway, began to take notes, putting a heading at the top of the page and so on like the good student she is. Observing the girl's stu- diousness reminded me of a moment toward the end of my own col- lege career. A professor began to speak and the entire class hunched over as one and began to take notes. I alone held back, surveying the spectacle of obedience. That was when it hit me, not exactly the first time, that I was not a part of it anymore. Not long afterward I split the program and headed to Yellowstone for the first of what would become four summers. In any case, it turned out the Second Instructor was only telling us a story based upon something he'd experienced on a past course. I had my own mending project to work on and, perceiving that Burl was not going to get underway with his glacier rap any time soon, I took out from my possibles bag Tyler's hot drink mug and a short piece of paracord scavenged from one of the kitchen tarp tie-downs. I've been trying to work out a way to attach the paracord to the lid of Tyler's cup and then to the mug, so the lid will be more or less permanently tethered. A sensible way to rig it for traveling. Tyler could figure this out on her own, of course, but she's a busy girl, scheduled to become busier, and this struck me as a helpful favor to perform. I'll confess I've been idly toying, very idly and only toying, with the notion of accompanying her back to her East Coast campus and living with her in the capacity of lover and personal factotum, or something along those lines. I got the idea about attaching the lid from the Instructors who've been living this vagabond mode long enough to have figured out most of the tricks. All of their lids are thus tethered. By my count, half of the hot drink mugs on the course now feature the modification, one person picking it up from another. It'd spread like any clever idea. Apparently, it's part of the school's nomadic culture to affix the lid of the hot drink mug, the same way it'd be normal for members of an aboriginal tribe to carry their day-to-day tools at- tached to a waist strap, or to have an efficient bundle which could be quickly unfurled for sleeping. It turns out the school is a repository of dozens of little methodologies like this, all designed to rid wilderness travel of many of the small hassles that can turn the modern person off from [152] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! camping and living in the outdoors. For instance, I've learned that it's school policy to remove the standard zipper pulls that come stock on its tents and, before sending the shelters into the field, re- place the pull-ties with ones woven with a glow-in-the-dark fiber. I was once admiring the zipper pulls on the tent which Crandall and Dinah and I shared, particularly the way the perlon was twined through the slider, thinking maybe I should replace the pulls on my own tent once I got back to town, when Thad Houston chanced by and mentioned the glow-in-the-dark feature, not obvious to me in this place of perpetual daylight. It's a safety precaution, the Ap- prentice Instructor explained, though more useful in the lower forty-eight where it actually gets dark. Evidently, the glow-in-the- dark zipper pulls can help a disoriented student, returning from midnight bladder relief and navigating through a nighttime dark- ness more utter than any they've ever experienced, successfully regain their tent. That's right, I agreed with him. I thought it fan- tastic. The school and those who work for it continually amaze me with their expertise. Ten meters to the right of our group squatdown, like the har- binger of a coming ice age, or a coming thaw -- Who can say which? - - Coxe Glacier groans and pops, adjusting itself to the underlying strata. We're presently being washed over by a stream of super- cooled air issuing from a crevice in the glacier's side. Deep within the chasm the ice is a deep blue, the same coloration which inhabits the interstices between the coiled layers of snow on top of the glaci- er. It is no illusion of distance, nor is the glacier borrowing the color from the sky. The ice has come up with its own shade of dark, translucent blue. Tyler piped up with the observation that the fold- ed pattern of ancient snowpack atop the glacier resembles a mon- strous, dirty meringue, an apt description to which there was gen- eral agreement. I worked it so that when we converged upon the rocks near the I-Team encampment I'd end up sitting next to Tyler. Normally, I try to sit close enough there's the possibility of shoulders, or el- bows, touching. But not this evening. About every fifteen minutes I'm releasing a build-up of horrible smelling flatulence. It's only got- ten worse since our supper of mac and cheese. Hence, I've posi- tioned myself at the leeward end of the group, about an arm's length from Tyler, hoping this is enough distance to allow the gas to disperse and blow downwind. I try to time my releases with any lively stirring of the breeze. So far, no one seems to have noticed the noisome odor arising from my trow. I'm going to blame dehydration for the constipation. When- ever we're in the boats there's a reluctance to sip water as this only Section #14: Romance of Travel [153] ! leads to a need to go ashore for a pee break, a disruption to the for- ward progress. I don't know about the others but I hate calling at- tention to myself for this reason and so far on the trip have waited until someone else in the group can't hold out any longer and an- nounces a need to head in to the beach. With the idea that better hydration might help the difficulty, I've set a goal of drinking two quarts of stream water during the course of the evening, though I'm beginning to wonder if the glacial silt will only bind me up worse and if it isn't the silt that's the prob- lem. Who knows about any of this? What I really need is a brisk walk. Once Burl's class is over I should try to get out for a couple of laps on the beach. Maybe that'll help loosen things up. Tyler has taken up a lotus position upon her ensolite, trip journal open on her lap. Propped upon one thigh, where she can quickly take it up if need be, is her little camera. On the other side of Tyler, Pat sits with knees pulled up beneath her chin, her legs forming a sort of bipod for the heavy telephoto she aims at the front of Barry Glacier. Pat employs a standard thirty-five millimeter equipped with a beefy telephoto. She and Tyler talked photography shop when they first sat down. I heard Tyler express again the wish that she'd brought her higher quality SLR. Presently writing in her journal, she relies upon Pat to alert her to the scene when it ap- pears the next big ice is preparing to come loose. The way the glaci- er's been acting up that shouldn't be long now. The other night I had the chance to ask Tyler on the sly if it was true about Pat being the wife of a politician. I'm fairly certain Pat didn't announce the fact during the Palmer getting acquainted go-around. I only learned of the possibility via the rumor service. "Yep. She's married to an actual congressman." "How 'bout that. She doesn't talk about it much." "Nope. She doesn't like the reaction it gets. It's like the name of my school. People tend to get fixated and stop listening to what you're saying." "Right." I took the opportunity, while we were all milling about wait- ing for Cord to serve up the mac and cheese, to ask the others, one by one, how'd they'd feel if we modified our float plan and stayed on an extra twenty-four hours at Black Sand Beach. I was also using the break before supper to look for my woolen watch cap which has turned up missing, a gear item whose purchase I can trace back to almost my first summer in Wyoming, well over a decade ago. I hate losing anything, particularly something that's been with me so long. I checked all the usual places: gear duffel, down inside the toe of the sleeping bag, in all my pockets. Nothing. I'm pretty sure I know [154] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! where the cap is. It's jammed under a bush near where Tyler and I slept out the first night at Golden. That was the last time I can re- member having my old grey, rag wool knit cap with me. This is what you get when you don't sleep in your tent. Your gear fails to stay contained and accounted for. In between poking around for the cap I asked the other folks about staying on at Black Sand, deliberately picking moments when I had each member of the tent group more or less alone. I thought that if I detected any resistance to the notion of staying another day I'd be in a better position to be persuasive if I was operating one-on-one. "Hey, Cord, what'd you think about the idea of us staying on here another day? Not leaving tomorrow as planned?" The lad was draining off the pasta against a rock. I'd failed to catch him and suggest he first offer the swill to Dinah. "Fine with me," he said. "If it comes down to it we can bust ass and make Entry in two days. A day and a half, even." "I was thinking the same thing." Pat, who'd been in earshot of Cord's and my conversation, was likewise fine with the notion of a layover day. She had little to say about it one way or the other, aside from commenting it might be nice to take a break from the boats. Of course, she said "kayaks", not "boats". I'm still the only one who ever calls them boats. Tyler I caught up with at the tent where she was changing her socks. "How'd you feel 'bout us staying on here an extra day?" I began. "The Instructor's are okay with it." "Sounds reasonable. Are the Instructors planning to stay on with us?" "Not sure. I'd just as soon they go, but probably they'll stay. Who knows?" "Either way it's okay by me," she said. "Maybe we can work in a hike." "Sure. All manner of things will be possible." Tyler lifts a hand away from the journal to fan the gnats away from her face. In the past half-an-hour the air has become thick with bugs madly flitting about to find sustenance before their flying apparatus succumbs to the cooler evening temps. Tyler checks her watch. She's able to do this even as the other hand con- tinues to write out the words she's mentally composed. My seat on a flat boulder puts me slightly above the med student, a position of advantage where I'm able to keep a close eye on the lines of bluely inked, roundish script she's putting down. When Tyler made her meringue observation, I assumed right away it was the sort of de- scriptive phrasing she was employing on the page. I leaned over Section #14: Romance of Travel [155] ! close to see if I might find something like those exact words beneath her pen, but right then she turned the notebook away. Not, I don't think, because she assumed I was spying but because she chose that moment to re-read her work. The med student writes with one of those ball point pens in which the ink is visible as a dark column within the clear plastic stylus. She prefers blue ink over black. Never red or green, she says. Blue. Because blue's easier on the eyes. Everything with the med student is about easing eyestrain, whatever will offer relief from the burdensome amount of reading required of her. There was an afternoon in which Tyler and I had a lengthy discussion about writing pens. This was early on in our exchange, sometime during those two-and-a-half days between Columbia Glac- ier and the first SGE. She described to me how it's common for her to go through nearly a dozen of the clear plastic pens in the course of a semester, mostly by way of losing them. "It's my secret ambi- tion," she said, "to exhaust a pen's ink supply before I lose it, a thing I accomplish maybe once out of a box of a dozen. The rest of the pens simply go away, who knows where?" I told her how I have the same ambition with respect to bu- tane lighters -- that is, to keep from losing the lighter before it's used up -- and that I'm generally successful achieving this small goal. It's a bit of a challenge as it can take a couple of years to use up a lighter when it's only being used to start campfires or light a stove. I suggested to Tyler that she needed a system, a method of storing her pen in the same place each time she's done using it. And that she should individualize the pens somehow, maybe with col- ored tape, something to discourage others from inadvertently pick- ing them up. "It's more my style," she said, "to stick a pen in the first handy place. The challenge later is to remember where." I mentioned to her that there were lot nicer pens out there, also disposable, if that's what she prefers, with cushioned grips and retractable points. She didn't even answer this, only smiled. "I see," I said. "You're stuck on the one type. At least they're not expensive." "Especially if you buy them by the carton." I showed her my own pen. She took the device from my hand, fiddled with the rubber boot, the grab loop, the little foam rubber grip, all aftermarket modifications of my own. She checked the op- eration, even unscrewed the barrel to examine the cartridge. She tried it out on the cardboard backing of her notebook, gripping the barrel tightly in her fist. I knew the pen would perform for her. It always writes well on cardboard. [156] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! "Very nice," she said, handing it back. "Expensive?" "Not if you hang onto the same pen for five years." "I wouldn't make it five days." I demonstrated to her how, for security, the pen clips onto a short length of nylon line affixed to my notebook. "I got the idea from a character in a movie." "Reasonable." She said. Her highest accolade. Tyler finishes out a page of the journal and flips to the next with a practiced swipe of the hand. I've never asked her about it but it's my guess she also consistently purchases the same brand of spi- ral notebook. What're they called? Theme notebooks? Colored cardboard cover, spiral of wire holding it all together, three holes so it can go in a loose leaf binder. Two places over from Tyler, on the other side of Pat, sits Di- nah. The librarian has exchanged her heavy foul weather gear for a combination of wind gear which she has zipped up tight over her layers. Dinah's expression is inscrutable behind her headnet. In her hands is a book from the floating library, an autobiographical work authored by the very same wilderness guru who set up the Pine Barrens survival camp she attended a couple of years back. I had a chance not long ago to ask our Instructors what they thought of the man's teachings and methods. "That guy ... ," Burl began, then paused. Dodi and Thad Houston claimed they didn't know enough about him, or his school, or his curriculum, to comment. I pointed out to them that his book was in the traveling library. They said this was news to them, they hadn't put it there. It turned out Burl had some opinion to offer on the man and his school. "Good enough program," he allowed. "I guess he's everything he claims. Capable of tracking anything human or animal, even es- caped convicts. 'If you're one with nature,'" Burl went on, making quotation marks in the air with his fingers, "'then you have nothing to fear.' The guy's motto. And true enough, far as it goes. Easy to be one with nature on a summer's day in the Pine Barrens. By all re- ports, he's also quite the drinker, but that can hardly be held against him." Dodi snorted. "The principle concern of half the Instructors who work for this school is where they can obtain their next drink." Dinah flips a page of the biography, turning her head enough to put a reflection of the text in both lenses of her glasses. When we'd all sat down to enjoy our portions of Cord's mac and cheese there was something in the way Dinah was utilizing her utensil, the beautiful titanium spoon, which put me in mind of the old days, the Section #14: Romance of Travel [157] ! old back and forth with her. I suddenly found myself wanting to ask her whether or not, when a light bulb needed changing back in her old apartment, she took care of the job, herself, or was she required to call the super. In the end, I restrained myself from posing the question. Nor did I revisit with the librarian the subject of staying on another day. I already have her input. On down the line, to the other side of Dinah, Cord gazes out to the water. The young man doesn't pretend to be occupied with anything other than his own thoughts. Cord studies the play of light on the undulations stirred up by the last calving and dreams, I'm fond to suppose, of the wave break at Redondo. I like it that Cord sits there taking in the scene with no camera, no distracting para- phernalia, no books or writing journals. The lad has hardly moved a muscle since we sat down. Cord takes the pure approach, casually surfing upon the experience. "What about Cord?" I once quizzed Tyler. We were walking back to our encampment at Golden, after the episode of rolling on the sand but before we fell into the grass. "What about Cord?" she asked. "Are you interested in him?" "I'm interested in him as a person." "Not romantically?" Even as I asked this I'll confess a part of me assumed Tyler and Cord had already enjoyed some sort of phys- ical collision. I tend to think it's how the younger generation oper- ates. An incorrect bias, I'm sure. Tyler let out her breath and then said: "I do appreciate his positive outlook, but Cord's just a boy. Albeit a good looking boy. At present his main interests are surfing, rock music and video games." "And working on his tan," I added. "That's right. And working on his tan. If Cord's could be said to be romantically interested in anyone on this course that person would be Cheryl." "Is that so?" I asked. I thought of the creased skin at Cheryl's neck where the delicate chains of no less than three gold necklaces lay enfolded. "Well, sure. They're both from the Valley. They speak the same language. Cord swears he remembers seeing Cheryl once at the mall. As far as Cheryl's concerned, Cord's the surfer god she's always wanted to date." Hmm. Well, Tyler may be right about Cord's immaturity. Though far be it from me to make any distinctions along the lines of who is or isn't an adult out here. And so much for the young surfer's pure approach to experience. Even as I watch, he removes his [158] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! totem pole project from his day bag and begins to whittle away with the sheath knife. Cord has kept the blade strapped to his leg the en- tirety of the course. I'm not sure it comes off even when he's asleep. Some days the way the weapon is slung against his calf strikes me as very manly and self-reliant. Other times the leg strap seems the most adolescent of pretensions. I would've probably worn some- thing like it, too, if I'd come on this course when I was twenty-one or twenty-two, only the knife would've been in a belt holster on my hip. My first summer in Yellowstone, I carried on every backpacking trip a folding Buck knife snapped into a belt clip, a two pound piece of hardware that was complete overkill for the sort of outdoor ven- ture I was pursuing. I don't recall ever using the blade for anything other than slicing cheese. I've never seen Cord toss his knife in the manner of the other youngsters, trying to make it stick into the trunk of a driftlog. The surfer only takes out his tactical tool when he needs it for some task: finely chopping garlic cloves, whittling down sticks for fire tender. Or the totem pole carving project, a worthy endeavor, a sou- venir of this place to take back to the contiguous forty-eight. Tyler's statement about Cord being a good looking boy sounds like a phrase swiped from one of those old black and white films she favors. It's hard to say where Cord would lie on the initia- tion curve. He's short on life experience, nor is he long on reading. But he's a quick study and even if he's somewhere in the bulging middle of the bellcurve it wouldn't require much, a couple of more trips like this one, to put him out on the leading edge for his cohort. It certainly sounds as if Cord has hacked out for himself, from a fairly young age, too, a solid niche as lifeguard and surfer. The self- confidence acquired in these ocean pursuits will serve him well wherever he goes. It was probably Will I should've been asking Tyler about as we approached the tall grass, not Cord. I viewed Will as so impene- trable, so opaque, it never occurred to me that he and Tyler might strike up a friendship. I forget there are guys like Will who are much more ready to open up to a female. Yesterday evening, as I prepared supper for the new SLG, Tyler and I were sipping pre-meal hot drinks and discussing movies. Tyler effected a pause, appeared to be thinking of something, and then asked: "How long 'til we eat?" "Ten minutes. Once I start on the sauce it's going to come to- gether pretty quickly." "In that case, I'm going to go over to talk to Will for a minute." She was completely straight forward about it. And she was Section #14: Romance of Travel [159] ! back no more than ten minutes later. "Will's on a roll," she said, still laughing at something the line cook had said, her eyes literally teared up from some pun or quip he'd laid on her. I'd had no trouble at the time generating some jealousy to- ward the steak broiler from Cleveland. I immediately took reassur- ance in the fact I was the one with whom Tyler had gone looking for benchmarks and on whose SGE she was enlisted. And this morning, when Student Group Number Three, otherwise known as "Marlow's Marauders", launched out, Will was already far away over the water with the Courageous Crüe, headed toward College Fjord, no doubt doing his part to push the younger students to a level of exertion greater than they'd ever known. Wondering if Tyler had any lingering doubts about the SLG to which she'd signed on, I asked her at breakfast this morning if there was not a glacier up College Fjord named for her current school. "Yup." "Aren't you interested to see it?" "Not really." "Is there also one up there named after your undergrad alma mater?" "Nope. A deliberate snub by the guys who did the naming. They decided to go with Amherst instead." I haven't felt the need to ask Tyler about where she stands with Will. As well as I can deduce, their interaction basically boiled down to one evening on their SGE in which the two had a pleasant time talking and laughing around the fire. No doubt, he's another American type her Brahmin upbringing never brought her into ac- quaintance with, not exactly blue collar, not exactly professional, a young, single man of intelligence and good parts whose path is still very much undetermined. Also, maybe I'm a little afraid to ask about Will because he's the one male on this course who'd be a viable mate for Tyler, the nearest to her own age. Cleveland's far more proximate to Boston than Alaska, or Wyoming, or any place I'm ever likely to be. Well, there'll be so little time left to the course, twenty-four hours at most, when we converge again at Entry Cove not much is likely to transpire between Tyler and the grill chef, I don't care how quickly a spark of attraction can be kindled out here. Dodi has al- ready warned us that at Entry we'll be busy prepping gear and equipment prior to turning everything in to Issue, scrubbing pots and patching tarps and tents and whatnot, chores that will occupy us right up until the moment we make our rendezvous with the con- [160] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! verted salmon trawler for the shuttle back to Whittier, a process that sounds guaranteed to be chaotic and disjointed, tedious even. Anything that might transpire between Will and Tyler at that stage isn't going to benefit from the romance of travel. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Section #15: Break It Up ! A discharge of flatulence catches me by surprise and I hear it puff out against the rock. Of course, I was the only one who knew it was coming. Nobody else had any reason to listen up and I'm fairly certain the sound went undetected. But, just in case, I take up my water bottle for a drink, scraping it against the rock in not a bad imitation of the noise from rearward. Burl pauses in the story he seems to have barely begun and calls up to the Instructor camp to check on Dodi and Thad Houston. Dodi yells back that they'll be down in a minute. The Middle In- structor, still working on my spray skirt drawstring, maneuvering the line back through its cloth channel, now returns to his other thread, recounting an experience while instructing a climbing course in Southern Chile. "We were bivouacked in a narrow glaciated canyon," he con- tinues. "We'd picked up a re-ration earlier that day. Packs were heavy and we decided to remain at low elevation to camp. It was a warm night, relatively speaking, very calm, with a clear sky." Burl appears to be making scant progress with the draw- string. He's experiencing the same trouble I'd had getting it past the waistband's mid-seam. A coat hanger or length of wire would help, if we had such a thing. "We were awakened sometime not long after midnight by a loud roaring," Burl goes on. "The next thing we knew, our tents were flattened by a terrific wind coming from up-canyon. The wind blew so violently folks had to brace themselves against their tent frames to keep the poles from snapping. There was an instant when I thought our tent might go airborne with us in it. In the space of fif- teen seconds the temperature dropped twenty or thirty degrees. The air became so frigid you could see your breath by the beam of your headlamp. The whole thing didn't last more than five minutes and then just as quickly the wind stopped. The air became com- pletely still again, stars shining, temperature back up. All of our packs were blown over, scattered around but, far as I recall, we didn't lose much in the way of equipment. Except, of course, some layers and stuff from student packs that weren't bombproofed." Burl pauses to let us absorb the mystery contained in his de- [162] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! scription. And the lesson about securing gear. If he's moving that drawstring through the waistband at all it's by mere fractions, hundredths, of an inch. "Any guesses as to what it was?" he asks. There's a pause, a beat, and then Cord: "Somebody let a big one." The comment produces no laughter though Pat gives a "tsk- tsk". It's enough to make me wonder if some of my issue might be drifting over in Cord's direction, maybe in everybody's direction. "A williwaw," Burl finally says. "Outflow wind. What happens is there's a massive pooling of cold air upslope. The reservoir of air stays locked in place until something triggers it. I like to think it could be something as subtle as a bird winging by. Whatever sets it off, when it goes the whole air mass comes rushing down at once. We survived okay, but in that part of the world the mountains go all the way down to the ocean. Williwaws have been known to blow small ships completely out to sea, sometimes even to capsize them." Burl looks down for a moment at the drawstring problem. Some- thing between his fingers appears to give and he immediately be- gins to make better gain. "I'm not even sure why I brought it up," he says, "except this place kind of reminds me of where we were camped that time." Thad Houston joins the group as Burl is finishing his tale. The Apprentice Instructor has brought to the gathering his own repair project, an old model backpacking stove which he found washed up on the beach at Golden. The stove doesn't work at present. I got a look at it yesterday and the stove appeared as if it'd been adrift for a while. One side of the burner assembly is badly corroded by contact with salt water. Thad Houston is optimistic that with some cleaning and oiling he can get it to fire up. He's set- tled himself at the far end of the student line with the stove and one of the school's stove repair kits. "Didja ever hear of a willy-waw, Thad?" Cord asks him. "A katabatic wind? I know of them," Thad Houston answers. "Never experienced one." The Apprentice Instructor must've picked up on some of Burl's commentary because, as he bends to give his bit of flotsam a closer examination, he launches upon a story of his own. "A curious thing once happened on one of my courses," he begins. "We experienced a multiple-case of trench foot." "It was what?" Cord asks. "Trench foot. Also known as immersion foot. The term de- rives from the First World War. In our case, it was an early spring hiking course in the Northern Rockies. Plenty of snow pack left Section #15: Break It Up [163] ! from the previous winter. Every day we were hiking through steep drifts and -- " I interrupt, feeling that Thad Houston's WWI description had not gone far enough, "The problem," I say, "was that trench warfare had a tendency to stalemate. Soldiers would sometimes stand around in their trenches for weeks, months even, up to their knees in ice cold mud." The Junior Instructor allows my interruption, though I no- tice he keeps his mouth poised on the precise syllable where I'd stopped him. He begins in again directly upon the word. " -- post-holing through sun-crusted snowpack. At every step our boots would break through and plunge into an icy creek of meltwater." "What exactly happens with a trenched foot?" asks Cord, the surfer from warm and sunny SoCal. "Maybe our future doctor would care to explain?" prompts Mr. Houston. "Couldn't say for sure," says Tyler, not looking up from her journal, "but I'd guess the constant exposure to cold water inter- feres with cellular function in the epidermis of the foot, or the leg, or wherever." "Exactly," says the Third Instructor. "Eventually there's cell death and necrosis." "Gangrene," puts in Burl, now making good headway on the drawstring. I'm positively mesmerized by the minute action of Burl's del- icate, tapered fingers as he massages the end of the line through the waistband's fabric tube. I look up to discover the Second Instructor gazing directly at me with a vacant expression on his face. The flat, monotone way he'd uttered that word "gangrene" is enough to make you wonder if he isn't presently far away from Barry Arm in his thoughts. "We had no idea anything serious was wrong," Thad Houston continues, his attention never leaving the ailing stove in his lap, "until we returned to the Branch and the students were released to take showers. Evidently, a significant amount of tissue damage had occurred. The hot water of the showers exacerbated the situation by bringing blood and lymph rushing to the lower extremities. Some of the student's feet swelled to the point the skin split open. We could hear the screams all the way over to Issue." A half a minute goes by in which no one says anything. "Were they ever able to walk again?" Cord asks. "Certainly," the Third Instructor says, not taking his eyes off his repair work. "The damage was for the most part superficial." [164] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! Thad Houston moves the stove's fuel lever back and forth, loosening up the corrosion, pausing to vigorously swat at the bugs that're attempting to drink from the corners of his eyes. The Third Instructor consistently refuses to wear a headnet, says he hates the feel of one, too hot and claustrophobic. He also uses no insect repel- lant. It's Thad Houston's stated belief that continual exposure to the active ingredient in bug dope is nothing less than an invitation to cancer. "What about Thad Houston?" I asked Tyler, directly following my query about Cord. This was during a break in the kissing ses- sion, the one in the grass. From where we lay I could see the Ap- prentice Instructor's silhouette through the trees, honcho-ing the ration's re-distribution, the one Tyler and I were supposed to be helping with. More than once I've reflected upon an evening, around Day Five, the course bivouacked at Olsen Island, when I witnessed Tyler and the Bearded One paddle away from camp in an unloaded tan- dem. Tyler was in the bow and as they stroked across the small embayment I could hear her describing how she was the middle child in her family, positioned precisely in age at the mathematical mean of her four brothers. At my question,. Tyler pulled back and sat up in the grass, obscuring my view through the trees to the beach where the rest of the students and the Instructors were milling about. "Thad's nice," was her answer. "Are you interested in him?" "Do you want me to be?" "That's up to you." "Well, he's very much in his life and I like that in a person," she said. Thad Houston very much in his life. Hmm. Well, that's right. Solid. Completely immersed in his vocation as an outdoor educator. When he's done here on the Sound he's headed to the Tetons for a hiking course, what the school calls them, a backpacking trip sans climbing component, though I guess there can be some top roping. When I asked him about the hiking course, Mr. Houston didn't sound all that enthused. If I'm reading him right, the Third Instruc- tor's not the sort to ever go Dodi's route and phase into a completely different career, or Burl's route and scale back to working for the school part-time. Mr. Houston's the organization man who'll spend twenty years in the field and wake up one day to realize the outdoor school is all he knows. Every speck of his outdoor experience will have been via the school. The occasional stint as a backpacking in- structor is apparently part and parcel of the required work load he Section #15: Break It Up [165] ! must assume on the career track, a trajectory that won't flatten until the knees give out whereupon he'll migrate to an in-town staff job, punctuated by a contract every now and then as a horse pack- ing instructor, or maybe something in paddle sports, you know, to keep a hand in. And, in this way, he will have utilized all his capaci- ties both physical and mental. Not such a bad thing. There's a kind of elegance in it, an organic wholeness to dedicating one's entire adult working career to one company. I envy the singularity of his approach. Maybe this is what Tyler means by the Third Instructor being in his life. I'm more like Burl in this regard, too curious about other modes of existence, other ways of seeing myself, to continue long in one context. I think what Tyler really means to say is Thad Houston strikes her as very manly. I'll not contest it. Thad Houston is your man's man, able to single-handedly Eskimo roll a sea kayak, albeit an unloaded one. He's the very image of the modern male outdoors person, what with that beard and the way he toughs it out, eschew- ing bug repellant and so forth, now troubleshooting a stove he hap- pened to come across half-buried on the tide flats, artifact of some defunct technological civilization. Thad Houston, competent and self-reliant survivor of the apocalypse. Speaking of the stove, I guess the Third Instructor's confident he's got it fixed. He's over there right now pouring fuel into the tank, hardly spilling a drop despite flinching from the bug bites. If he gets that thing to fire up I will indeed be impressed. Tyler's the sort of girl who'd instinctively gravitate toward the alpha male. And, as she says, summer is her season for ro- mance, six weeks out of the entire year when she makes herself available for dalliance. There's no time to waste. She's going to find and be with whichever male in her immediate environment seems most likely to prove charismatic and smart and driven like her fa- ther. Otherwise, she's not interested. A fly is hung in the hairs of Thad Houston's upper lip. He blows and swats at it several times before he gets it dislodged. The bug must have bit. We hear him curse, like the time the student group was late on the water, only he has a different repertoire to direct toward the fly. The Third Instructor has explained to us that his chosen approach to repelling insects in the field involves not washing the oil off of his face and keeping a full beard on. Not exact- ly the most effective approach, it seems. No wonder the dude's so edgy all of the time. Thad Houston may have his manly personal project but I'm the one modifying Tyler's hot drink mug. I'm even employing a knife and it's not just for show. I actually need the knife. The hole [166] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! through the lid flange was easy to drill, but the handle is of thicker plastic and proving more difficult to pierce. You could never make this upgrade on my gas station mug. The pathetic excuse for a han- dle on that thing isn't much more substantial than this perlon cord, which I believe is three mil. I use the knife as a tool to poke the ends of the paracord through the holes. Now to check the length. It's im- portant that when Tyler gets back to Jamaica Plain and those cof- fee houses where she studies the lid still be with the mug. I want to make sure the tether's not so long as to get in the way of a barrista's operation. That's the sort of tether I'm going to put on for her. An enhancement which will prove useful for years to come. Which has to be worth something on the alpha scale. Weeks ago, before I knew what was going on with Thad Hous- ton and birds, I once witnessed the Second Instructor sit forward in the cockpit of his boat and express excitement as he trained his bi- nos upon a species of petrel. I thought he was being enthusiastic for our sake, until I learned it was part of a secret tally. Initially, I was happy to view the business of birding and lifetime lists as a strike against Thad Houston; that is, in the alpha male department. I've since come around on the matter. Now I believe it could be con- strued as a vote in his favor. Our Apprentice Instructor says bird watching forces him to pause and take in the details. Not a bad thing. Knowing something about birds, accumulating a lifetime list, all derive from the same inquisitive, action oriented impulse that puts Thad Houston out there on the leading edge of the Experiential Curve for his generation. "How's it going with that book, Marlow?" the Third Instructor asks, not looking up from his stove project. "Fine," I say. "I guess I'm about a third into it." Boy, there's nothing more disconcerting than to have the person you were just thinking about call you out on something. He must've felt my eyes on him. "I'd still like to have it back before we all depart this place," he says. "Yes. Of course. It's up at camp at present." "That's fine. Get it to me when you can." Honestly, I think I'm almost over my jealousy of Thad Hous- ton. Even though I can recall just about every detail of the moment when I witnessed his swarthiness paddling out in the student dou- ble with Tyler -- What was an Instructor doing in one of our boats, anyway? -- it appears little came of their little outing. There's prob- ably some sort of school policy prohibiting Instructors from dating students. I should relax about it. I mean, I'm the one presently sleeping next to her. The only grounds for continued suspicion is Section #15: Break It Up [167] ! that, like Tyler, the fellow actually seems to enjoy being out on the water. Thad Houston is skilled with a paddle and practiced at wa- tery maneuvers. I swear, sometimes I think the human population can be divided into two roughly equal groups: those who are drawn to water and the sort of craft that goes on water, and the rest of us who prefer solid ground. I should've known the Third Instructor was not the sort to forget he's loaned out a book. I'm the same way. I'll remind a person years later they still have a book of mine. And if they can no longer put their hands on it, in fact have no idea where the book is, well, there's an indiscretion that could constitute grounds for a break. It was obviously costing Mr. Houston something to ask for his anthology back, impinging on his ideal of the Instructor who's all for his students. Yet, it makes sense for him to regain possession before we move into the chaos of the trip's conclusion. I'd do the same thing if I'd packed the book all this way and was counting on having it as back-up. I have no choice but to give him his book back and when I did I was going to be out of viable reading matter, some- thing which very possibly has not happened since I was first able to make sense of the printed word. "How 'bout, 'Moveable Feast'?" I asked. "Done with that?" "Still working on it," he said. "Maybe I could let you borrow it at Entry Cove." I decided not to hold my breath on that one. "Check this out," I say. I show Tyler how I've drilled attach- ment points into flange and handle and then threaded in the para- cord. She starts to take the mug from me. "Hang on, I still need to tie the knots." With a clatter of greywacke, Dodi arrives to the group, carry- ing her seat and her daybag. It must've been Dodi's turn to wash up the cook gear, put the Instructor's kitchen to rights. She leans in to where Tyler and I are discussing the appropriate length for the paracord. "Break it up, you two," the Lead Instructor says, those white teeth of hers like squares of brilliant, white linoleum tiles. The squares are joined so tightly no seam is visible. She moves on down the line to the other side of Thad Houston where she sets up her chair. Sitting cross-legged, she takes out of her duffel a knife with a wooden handle supporting a single blade and begins to work on a piece of otter bone into which she's recently been seen to be carving some design. Tyler nudges me and points down to a corner of her journal where she's written: Break it up??!! Where did we hear that be- fore? [168] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! I shrug and go back to the knot tying. Well, we've heard it before, and it was from Dodi, about a week ago, during the interim period before the first SLG. Tyler and I were the only ones present. Later it crossed my mind, when Tyler and I were assigned to differ- ent groups on the first SLG, it might be to put the kibosh on any nascent involvement. When our separate requests to paddle togeth- er on the second SLG were honored, I assumed in the end Dodi de- cided there was little going on between the girl from Boston and myself, or else decided if there was it was no longer her concern. "You two break it up." Dodi is crazy to say something like that out loud in front of the whole group. I mean, first off, I don't think any- one else cares that Tyler and I hang out together. Which only proves how out of sync Dodi is with the general tenor. Have there been any indications of exclusivity? I don't think so. Does Dodi feel Tyler and I are ill-suited for each other? Possibly. Is it any of her business? No, it is not. Well, we're not going to break it up. At this stage of things, I'm not going to benefit from exposure to anyone else in the group as much as I will to Tyler. Unless it be to Burl. But we're not going to be around the I's that much longer and the sooner they go their way and we go ours the better. Or else we're not going to get much of an !SGE. !

! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #16: The End of Camp Games ! "Has anyone ever died on one of these courses?" And so Cord brings forth the question that's been lurking about the edge of our gathering like a stranger unsure of his welcome. "Thad and I have been trading off war stories," Burl says to Dodi by way of explanation. "I see," she says. "So, I guess it's now your turn," says Thad Houston. "Give me a second," Dodi says. "To compose my thoughts,". There's a rumble over Barry Glacier way and a few hands move toward cameras and binos, but nothing much happens, no ice falls. It appears Burl's about got the sprayskirt re-threaded. Speaking of war stories and our evening's entertainment, I'm sure the Instructors intend to follow through on their promise but so far there's been no sign of hot drink prep. I hope we're not waiting for Thad Houston to fix that stove. He seems to be having trouble get- ting the cap to screw back on the fuel tank. Sand, or rust, in the threads. "I once worked a course," Dodi begins, "on which a student died." Her statement produces zilch visible reaction. "It was a sea kayaking course," she continues. "Not here. Down in Baja. On the Sea of Cortez. We were two weeks into a thirty day trip when it happened, a few days prior to Small Groups, In- structors and students still paddling together." Dodi speaks without looking up from her scrimshaw project, putting long pauses between statements. "There came an afternoon," she goes on," when we spotted some weather coming in. The Course Leader -- who, incidentally, was not me; I was a PL at the time -- anyway, the Course Leader felt that in her opinion the front didn't pose a hazard. I wasn't so sure but it was only the second kayak course I'd worked and my first in Baja. Not being familiar with the weather patterns I gave way to the CL's judgment." "Where we miscalculated," Dodi continues, hunching a bit [170] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! more over the bone she's whittling, "was not anticipating the extent the wind would pick up ahead of the front. Maybe it doesn't always do that but this time it did. We weren't halfway around the head- land when the waves hit. There was about thirty seconds in which we discussed the possibility of turning back. The Course Leader was of the opinion we could make it." "Five kayaks capsized within the space of a minute. Those of us who stayed upright threw out lines and towed the swamped kayaks to shore with students still clinging to the sides. Unlike the waters of the Sound, the Sea of Cortez is warm. It wasn't necessary that we get people back inside their kayaks. Well, in the confusion we missed one student. Who drowned. Had probably drowned be- fore we knew to look for him. His body wasn't recovered until the next day." Purely out of reflex, I look over at Dinah to see how she's tak- ing the CL's story. The librarian remains intent upon her book, the biography of the Pine Barren's mystic, though I can't say I've actu- ally noticed her turn a page in a while. She may or may not be transfixed upon the fatal component of Dodi's tale. It's impossible to tell what might be going on in her mind with the curtain of the bug net in front of her face. At the very least I'm assuming she's still brooding over that plover's egg. As for the congressman's wife, she's occupied making an ad- justment to her camera and appears unfazed by Dodi's story. Cord, likewise. It's not difficult to suppose the surfer has witnessed a cou- ple of drowned bodies dragged onto the beach down in Redondo. Maybe pulled in a few, himself. I turn to look at Tyler. She meets my gaze. "Happens," she says with a shrug. Above the westward range, the sun slides off the sky at a di- agonal, the red disk catching like a pawl upon the teeth of the un- named peaks. Tour boats and cruise ships cut back and forth at the mouth of the Arm. Keeping their distance from the bergs, the boats orient themselves broadside to provide the best evening view of the glaciers. When the air is right we can hear the faint drone of their deck speakers. A little further out from the tour boats is a single oil tanker. I had my binos on it earlier, around suppertime. The tanker has hardly shifted its position in the hour since. It lies heavy in the water, full from the spigots at Valdez. I thought the tanker almost appeared to be wallowing, sideslipping with the internal sloshing of its load of crude. "Happens?" I ask. "Well, it does," the med student says in a low voice. "Any sailor will tell you the sea is intolerant of blunders." Section #16: The End of Camp Games [171] ! "I'll take your word on it." "Did that signal the end of the course then?" Tyler asks, turn- ing back toward Dodi. "Normally it would've," our Course Leader answers, "but after the body was airlifted out we had a meeting. The other students, with the exception of one, elected to continue. Most of the students felt it was what their friend would've wanted. Personally, I think it was better we finished out the trip. The one student who preferred not to continue was evacced." No one speaks for half a minute. The silence is filled with the indistinct barking of the distant deck speakers, plus a muted crack- ing of ice from the glaciers and a third sound which requires a few seconds to locate, the quiet lap of the sea pressing upon the shore with the flood tide. The Instructors are dressed this evening in their identical charcoal-colored cadre jackets zipped up against the cool draft issu- ing from the cleft in the ice. The collars of the jackets have assumed normal proportions and are no longer up to their noses. Of course, they never did come up to their noses. "The student who chose to leave the course," continues Tyler, "was he, or she, in one of the boats that capsized?" "No," says Dodi. "Strangely, he was in one of the kayaks that'd remained upright." "Interesting," Tyler says. "Probably wanted out, anyway," I suggest on the QT to Tyler. "He was just looking for an excuse." "And the parents of the student that drowned," Pat begins, without removing her eye from the viewfinder on her camera, "did they bring suit?" "Nope," says Dodi. "The investigation determined no one was at fault. All decisions had been based upon the best information available. The student and his parents had signed the acknowledg- ment of risk. The school did make an out-of-court settlement after which the family turned around and set up a scholarship fund in their son's name." "I gather there've been other fatalities," says Pat. "Seven so far." Burl takes it up. "Rock fall accounts for most of them. There was one stream drowning and one death on a Denali expedition. In the latter instance a student slipped into a moulin and was never seen again." "A moo-lan?" This is Cord. "A crevasse. A deep hole in the ice. Some of them go all the way to bedrock." "It's thought," begins Dodi, "he went down to get water and [172] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! slipped." Thad Houston gives the derelict stove a dozen pumps. It's a- mazing the pump even works. He turns on the gas and applies a lighter. The resultant fireball is not as big as the one Dinah and I experienced that time but it's still quite something to witness. The combustion takes out a score of airborne fliers plus a swath of In- structor Houston's arm hair. "Impurities in the line," he observes. The flame settles down to a nice blue cone. "Anybody for a hot drink?" "Coffee here," responds Dodi. Pat and Dinah request portions of hot water for tea. Cord takes a pass. Tyler looks at me. "What're we doing?" "Mocha java," I tell her, patting my pocket where the poly bag of instant is stashed. "Lets see if they have any h.c. to spare." "Hot chocolate, please," she requests of the Instructors. "If you're offering." "We're offering. And Marlow?" "Same." "Pass over your mugs, please." Tyler turns to me. "How's that lid job coming?" "Got it. There you go." I hand the mug to her with the lid dan- gling loose. She immediately checks to see if the line permits the lid to be stored in the handle, which it does. She punches the lid free again and snaps it onto the top of the mug. The perlon makes a nice loop, a perfect quarter of a circle. "Not bad," she says. "Thank you." Burl asks Thad Houston if, once everybody is served, he can have half a pot of hot water for shaving. He also brings the spray skirt over my way, repair complete, and drops it on the ground next to my leg. "That should do it," he says. "Keep a good knot on the end and it won't pull through again." I thank him. He's fixed it all right. I reflect again on how I could've accomplished the task if I'd had a coat hanger, or a flexible stick. Inclining into the free space away from the group, I release some flatus, slowly, so as not to draw attention. The sea intolerant of blunders, I reflect. Well, certainly. Con- sider the photo in the sea kayaking manual, the snapshot depicting the big rollers which the author and his companions blundered into. Clearly, the writer not only lived to tell the tale but have the film developed. I don't doubt the sea is unforgiving of mistakes. Of course, we're not on the sea, technically speaking. But Dodi and her course weren't precisely on the ocean down there in Baja, either, Section #16: The End of Camp Games [173] ! and look what happened. Even protected waters can be intolerant of blunders. We'll have to be careful not to commit any. I've about concluded that a trip like this doesn't involve much real risk. I mean, seven fatalities out of how many alumni now? A hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand? The average young person is at more peril simply being at large in America, particular- ly if they spend lot of time in cars. These courses carry the illusion of risk, good for building confidence and for providing student lead- ers situations with which to grapple. But there's not much risk things won't go as planned, what I simultaneously hoped for and feared when I signed up. I was not much moved by Dodi's tale. Evidently, Tyler, the day sailor, was not impressed either. It also didn't appear Pat was much affected. She sails on Lake Michigan which, I gather, can get pretty hairy at times. Pat would know all about the sea's lack of for- giveness, even when it's not actually the ocean but more of a big pond. I'm sure Dodi's story was true in its essential facts, but noth- ing like that is going to happen to us. The Instructor team is simply too competent, the judgment of this student Small Group too sound. Crandall's Courageous Crew and the Somewhat's, however, there's a couple of outfits that could get into trouble, what with the possibili- ty of overextending themselves combined with the impetuosity of teenagers. Our appointed student leader will never allow anything un- toward to befall us, which is in a way regrettable. But he'll take great pains to not allow anything to alter the utter predictability of our days and the regular occurrence of hot coffee. This won't re- quire any active measures on his part. His mere presence will do it. Thad Houston gives Dodi first shot at the hot water. She takes it out with a dip cup and pours it still steaming through a cof- fee sock which immediately releases a powerful aroma. Man, that smells good. There's another thing: if we'd known drinking fresh brewed coffee on the course was going to be sanctioned by the In- structors I would've brought my own cone and filters, gear that now sits useless back in the school's storage locker with the rest of my stuff. How that would've impressed Tyler, if I could've brewed up real coffee. My mug of hot chocolate is passed down the line. Giving it a taste test, as is, no coffee added, it proves to not be too bad. It's ac- tually quite rich. Thad Houston didn't skimp on the cocoa, plus he went ahead and added milk powder and margarine without asking. This has turned out to be a good way to acquire a standard hot drink without depleting our own resources. Careful not to make a production of it, I shake some instant into my mug and slip the [174] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! polybag to Tyler. "Say, Marlow," begins Dodi. "What sort of temps you getting at night on that thermometer of yours?" "To tell you the truth," I say, "I haven't been putting it out at night. It never feels cold enough to make it worth knowing." "I think you should put it out tonight." "Maybe I will." Now, with a fresh portion of mocha java in hand I'm in the mood to read, until and whenever Burl should get around to pre- senting his class. I have to admit, it was a royal screw up not bring- ing a book on this trip. Something dense, like "Moby Dick", or "Grav- ity's Rainbow", would've been perfect. I could've even brought both. It's not backpacking. There never was any need to be concerned about weight. Strange to consider how I once thought this course was going to be all struggle and hardship, requiring us to pace our- selves physically, with no time to read, or even sleep. We brought over with us this evening not just the textbooks on glaciology, of which there's precisely one, but all of the books that'd been packed loose in the holds of our kayaks, each in a worn and frayed polybag of dubious waterproofness. The Student Leader of this SGE and his Assistant Leader being otherwise occupied yes- terday afternoon during gear re-divvy, the Instructors stepped in to represent us by proxy, to make sure we received our fair share of the group gear. I have a feeling the Instructors voted Marlow's Ma- rauders the physically weakest of the three newly formed student paddling groups -- not necessarily true, though we happen to have on our roster the two feeblest paddlers -- and they saw to it that we received minimal ballast. Hatchets and trenching tools were kept out of our pile. The library ammo boxes and most of their contents were shoved onto the other two SLGs. Our sparse allotment of books sits in a loose, disorganized pile on the greywacke, which is not how we delivered the books to this evening's meeting spot. No sir, instead we demonstrated proper consideration for issue. Care of Equipment is apparently an area in which we are each to be evaluated, our final rating in this and all other expedition skills finding its way into the permanent record file cabinet down at Lander HQ. Those of us who didn't rate so well in this area at Mid-Course are trying to better our grade for the Fi- nal Eval. Mindful of this, I made sure we brought the books along and placed them upon the sand, neatly stacked large to small to form a pile a foot and a half high. Not wasting any time, Burl knocked the pile over searching for glaciology texts. He found the one thin book we have on the subject, shook it out of its polybag sleeve. Section #16: The End of Camp Games [175] ! "This one's not much good," he said, tossing it back on the pile. Well, maybe not, I thought, but it's the very book I'd read in its entirety back during the first go-around, when I was hanging out evenings with Dinah and Crandall. It's not much more than a thick pamphlet, amateurish watercolor illustration on the cover. I actual- ly thought it kind of interesting, full of evocative glaciology terms. "That's all we have on the subject," I told Burl. "The other two groups got everything else." Concentrating on keeping sphincter wired tight, I go crouch- ing over to the pile of books with the hope of finding some reading material. Sifting through the volumes, all I can find is a bird identi- fication guide. I did notice that my favorite sea kayaking manual was there. I'm sure, ever since my mini-class, the book has been in hot demand throughout the student group. Or not. I sit back down, field manual unopened on my lap. Maybe I'll work my way around to looking at it in a minute. Burl has received from Thad Houston the pot which contains what's left of the water following hot drink disbursal. Using the pli- ers the school issues for use as pot grips, the Middle Instructor takes the still steaming pot with him over to a small boulder where it appears he's going to set up a shaving station. Okay, but if I'd known there were going to be so many delays I would've headed out on the badly needed walk. Burl pours a little cold water into the kettle to dilute the hot and starts to lather up his face with camp soap. I guess we'll get to that glacier rap when he's finished over there. At the end of the line, Dodi fiddles with her coffee sock. I take it Mexico is the source for these sock units. Our C.L. probably picks them up locally when she's on contract in Baja. Dodi drains the sock into a mug until it's almost overflowing and then shifts the device onto the greywacke, still dripping good coffee from its nipple. I guess it's not easy to know how much water you're going to need when you're dipping it out of a common pot but, jeez, I would've been happy to utilize real bean if she was just going to let it drain out onto the ground like that. I tried one of those imported coffee socks once. This was on the farm collective back in Virginia. Communards love their coffee and they love adopting methods from indigenous cultures even more, but they do fret about the environmental impact of the brew- ing process, filling up the landfills with expended coffee filters, et cetera. I didn't care about the waste, as if used coffee filters could comprise even a fraction of a decimal point of the problem. But those of us down on the farm also didn't have an abundance of dis- [176] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! cretionary income, or much ability to get out to the stores to buy paper filters. Somebody had a connection for the Mexican brewing socks, so I acquired one and gave it a try. I was interested in exper- imenting with an approach to making coffee which looked to in- volve a minimum of implements, a method that could be trans- ferred to the backcountry. The coffee sock seemed a good idea. Knock the grounds out into the weeds after you're done brewing and off you go. Every dedicated coffee drinker alive has probably tried out the coffee sock. Truthfully, the brew that the sock produces the first couple of times you use it is quite good and, boy, for a day or two there I'd thought I'd hit upon the ultimate solution. I wasn't doing a whole lot of backpacking in those days -- the commune was located in Virginia, after all, and the terrain was no good -- but I knew I was eventually going to travel back out to the Rockies and once again take up life on the trail. The coffee sock was going to be the perfect method to carry with me back to Yellowstone. Well, within a week, brewing two or three strong cups a day, the sock turned dark brown at the toe and the residue of acid and oils which collected there, I've gotta say, affected the taste of the bean very adversely. I continued to struggle on with it another week or so and then gave it up as a failed experiment, one more in a long line of illfated backcountry coffee brewing investigations. About a year later, still on the com- mune, thinking maybe I hadn't given it a fair shake, I tried the sock again. Same result. The first couple of brewings give you the full benefit of the bleach used by the factory to whiten the material, af- ter that it's mostly about retention of rancid oils and bitter after- taste. And they're a godawful mess to clean. Dodi's down there all the time to Mexico and can pick up fresh socks for cheap. But for me, carrying extra socks around, worrying about where to obtain replacements, would end up being more hassle than it'd be worth. Dodi can keep her coffee sock, but I wish she'd told me ground coffee was the way to go out here. Any- more, in the backcountry, I use a single brew cone with paper fil- ters. I've had the same cone for about a decade. A gift from my mother. Now that I've experienced the rhythm of a sea kayaking course, that's what I'll bring next time, not that there'll be a next time. Of course, I thought the situation would be way too harrowing for brewing up coffee. Hence, the instant java. I figured, when we were washed up on some remote beach without stove or fuel, I could still make instant with a wood fire and a tin cup. Or could lick the powder straight off the palm of my hand, if it came to that. If I'd asked Dodi about it before we left Palmer she would've said something about nobody bothering to brew coffee while on Section #16: The End of Camp Games [177] ! course, same as she said about shaving. Regarding shaving, the C.L. must've been thinking about the collegiate fellows, half of whom couldn't raise a decent whisker if their life depended on it, or Thad Houston for whom growing a full beard is a way of cutting back on bug dope. Maybe she was thinking of female students who don't bother out here to shave legs, or armpits, though I suspect a few still do. In any case, that proved to be the first item in Dodi's cam- paign of misinformation. Actually, before discounting razors, she said something about how we could expect almost continuous rain on our course, but I guess she can't be faulted for an inability to forecast the weather. Apparently, some males do bother to shave out here. Burl's over there right now folding down the collar of the full zip so he can get at the bristle on his neck. Holding up the pot lid for a mirror he lathers on more camp soap. By my estimation, Burl's made a prac- tice of shaving every three or four days since the start of this thing. "Otherwise," as he says, "it's a bear when you get back." Right enough. I rub a hand over my three week's growth and consider the hacking that'll be required to get it down even close to the skin. And there's still a week of the trip to go. Honestly, I may have to use scissors before a razor can be brought in. I open the birder's field guide and, bracing myself with a sip of hot drink, thumb through a few pages. Short-Billed Dowatcher. Marbled Godwit. A Dabchick. And a Bobalink. Christ, the names they come up with. It's like some sort of infant-speak. I doubt the birds would approve. Here's the plover section. It would appear, based upon the example in the color plate, Dinah has correctly identified her egg. I flip through the rest of the photographs. The manual has them all organized by species. A baffling compulsion to name and classify. I suppose for Dinah, taxonomy's a way to make sense of nature's chaos, bird identification providing a starting point. I look over toward our librarian. She's still reading the auto- biography of her guru, the fellow who imparted to her the skills necessary to survive if, perchance, she should pull her car onto the shoulder of the New Jersey Turnpike, wander into the trees for a bladder break and be unable to find her way back. As an alumni of the Pine Barren's survival school, Dinah's equipped to utilize the blow-by trash alongside the roadway, the cans and bottles, fast food wrappers, hubcaps and what have you and from these fashion a device with which to wring fresh water out of the humid East Coast air, or to snare a small animal. Though, really, she shouldn't be re- quired to do any trapping with so much roadkill lying around. I take one more pass at the field guide. There truly must be [178] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! something deficient in me. I feel nothing for these configurations of beak and feather. Color plate after color plate, it all looks like taxi- dermy. Besides, as I said, I don't want everything named and cata- logued. It drains out the wonder. I snap the book closed and slip it back into the pile. This is the time of evening when I used to fear the inception of a camp game. However, even with the I's here with us at Black Sand, I don't believe any game's in store. The Instructors are as tired of the drill as we are. I was never any good at the games and certainly didn't need them to get through an evening. Fortunately, with all the student led expeditions as of late, the old evening rou- tine has been disrupted and there's every reason to hope there'll be no more mention of camp games for the rest of the trip. We don't require them any more. We've learned how to put our time to good !use. It's not as though any of us ever went without television. ! ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #17: A False Sense of Security ! The glaciers push forward another notch. Some- where a boulder comes unfixed and bangs down an incline. Back on the Columbia moraine, in Burl's geology class, Glaciology 101 as he liked to call it, we learned to expect increased calving activity as the evening progresses, a delayed response to the day's warming. In the mere three hours that've passed since arriving to this spit we've become completely fixated upon the process. Predicting when and where the next calving will occur has become our new camp game. At present, our collective attentions are focused upon a col- umn of ice which leans out precipitously from the face of Barry Glacier. Nearly all the discharges of the past hour, the minor crum- blings and siftings, have originated from around this pinnacle. It's sure to go any minute. Putting my binos on the spot, I can create a sharp, focused image of the ice column and at the same time, at the bottom of the viewfinder, accommodate a blurred movie of Burl shaving. A spin of the knob brings the Instructor from Seattle into sharp focus, a close-up of the razor moving over his face. Burl pulls his razor slowly and deliberately over the broadest part of his cheek, a glacier scouring the landscape. It doesn't appear the pinnacle's going to calve off anytime soon. I put the binos down and stand up, moving off a little ways to release an accumulation of gas and then proceed a little further yet to the line of tumulus with the intention of taking a leak. I've al- ready put down one quart of water and as soon as I finish my ration of coffee I'll put down another. The trick to not drawing attention when pissing this close to the group is to direct one's flow against the side of a boulder. This spreads the stream, avoiding that most irritating of noises, some- one else's pee hitting the ground and the predictable slowing as the bladder squeezes out the last drop. There's a good view of the entire Instructor camp from here. Indeed, our guides have picked out the choice site, as Cord phrased it, given what this bleak spit of volcanic tuff has to offer. The I's kitchen tarp is nicely situated, pitched low and tight to keep out the bugs, all fifteen guy lines utilized. Their shelter is positioned to [180] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! catch just the right amount of breeze off the water, yet is well-pro- tected on the weather side by the ridge of till, should something as flukey as a rain storm actually come this way. Our kitchen tarp can boast some of these same qualities but the Instructors have done us one better by deploying their shelter broadside to the glaciers. They can, if they wish, sit side-by-side in their campchairs, cook and have hot drinks, and all the while keep a tourist eye on the calving. There wasn't much iceberg calving visible from anybody's kitchen tarp, ours or anyone else's, when we were back at Co- lumbia. The big glacier kept its process hidden, a secret industry folded deep within its trench. The afternoon I went over to the In- structor camp for my Mid-Course Evaluation, I found our I-team ranged three abreast in padded camp chairs, facing out toward the moraine as if the glacier's activity might be visible as an upside down image reflected in the mirror of the sky. It was breezy that day, our only full day bivouacked at Columbia, and to a person they wore the familiar charcoal full-zips battened tight beneath their chins. They appeared to be waiting for another hit of Dodi's sock- brewed coffee to jolt them out of a torpor and back into conversa- tional mode. Burl was frying up his specialty of cheesy doughballs. There was a food duffel open next to his leg and I couldn't help tak- ing note of the tins of sardines and canned fruit tossed in with the plastic bags of standard rations. "Good idea," I said. "Canned goods." "When you're in the field nine months of the year," Dodi ex- plained, "you get tired of the same old flake and powder." "Sure," I said. "Nothing wrong with cans, if you have boats for transport." "Or horses," she pointed out. "Let me borrow your perspective glass there, Dode," Burl asked. When the Course Leader handed over the binos, Burl used them to scan the moraine. "Couple of students down yonder," he said. "Looks like Ben and Adam. I'd swear they're burying some- thing. We should investigate, soon as we're done with Marlow here." He handed the binoculars back to Dodi. I thought it was interesting his term "perspective glass", the sort of old fashioned expression I'd expect more from someone like Dinah. Burl enjoys a varied vocabulary, seems to derive amuse- ment from it. There was an interesting looking knife sitting amidst Burl's kitchen operation, one of those French folding jobs with the wooden handle. I picked it up and fiddled with the lock ring. "Nice knife," I said. Section #17: A False Sense of Security [181] ! "That's genuine beechwood," he said. "I can see that. Yours?" "Nope. Belongs to your C.L." The Instructors checked to see if I needed coffee, which I didn't. "You sure?" asked Burl. "I hear you're something of a con- noisseur." "A connoisseur who's been just fine drinking instant since we left Palmer." At this, the Instructor from the self-proclaimed coffee town of Seattle affected an expression of disgust. This was the first time I noticed the manner by which the lids of the Instructor's hot drink mugs were tethered to the handles, the first time I noticed the modification on any mug, before the trend began to sweep the student ranks. The first thing the threesome wanted to know, pertaining to my eval, once they were braced with fresh mugs of coffee, was how the course was going for me, in an overall sense. Recall, this was around Day Eleven, well before the onset of SGEs. We were still op- erating out of the tent and cook groups formed back at Palmer. Up until that afternoon there'd been only one factor affecting my expe- rience of the course and already I had the sense a change was in the offing. In fact, right before I'd gone off to play my whistle, Dinah and I had been enjoying a discussion, in the way we'd enjoyed so many discussions, concerning the potability of the local surface water. I'd reached a point where I hardly cared anymore if my tentmate be- lieved me or not about the water's purity. "The course is going fine," I told the threesome. "But I do have a question concerning water treatment." "Shoot," said Thad Houston. "Once and for all," I began, "what exactly is the policy? Is it really necessary to bring the water out here to a full boil before it's considered safe?" "I know where that's coming from," said Dodi. "We haven't been as clear about this as we might've. Truth is, the school's re-ex- amining the policy as we speak. By and large the water up here is fine to drink as is. Check the source. Make sure there isn't some- thing dead lying upstream. Then, yes, if you want to be absolutely sure, boil it. Heat it at least until you've got fisheyes." "Not a bad habit to get into," put in Burl. "Almost everywhere in the lower forty-eight you have to boil, filter or otherwise treat your water in the backcountry." "Sure," I said. "Not a bad habit, unless it means burning up a lot of stove fuel." [182] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! "Well, right. When possible, utilize a wood fire." They asked if I had any other question or concerns. I indicat- ed none at present and we proceeded to the eval proper. The first item on their agenda was to notify me that Cord and I were to never again paddle the same double. "The expedition's better served with the two of you in differ- ent boats," said Dodi. "Yes ma'am." The Instructors went on down the list, assigning me for the most part above average marks in Minimum Impact Travel, Lead- ership and General All-Around Helpfulness. I should mention that this grading business, on a wilderness course of all places, strikes me as odd. It feels downright strange to be formally evaluated on stuff like "tent site selection", or "stove op- eration". All those checks and deltas for chores I'd been performing as a matter of course for most of my adult backcountry life. It'd be like suddenly at age twenty-nine being graded on shoelace tying, or the ability to open a milk carton. I guess the outdoor school knows with whom they're dealing, for the most part the off-spring of the East Coast power elite, the sort of folks who appreciate tangible indicators. Back where the majority of these students hail from there's criteria for every phase of life from the moment of birth right up to the last shuddering breath. And right on into the grave, for that matter, what with sta- tus points awarded to the most deluxe burial plot and spiffiest coffin attire. No lie. I've seen whole catalogues dedicated to this sort of truck. "You give us the impression of being very comfortable in the outdoors, Marlow," Burl said. "Sure. I guess I've thru-hiked the Teton Crest a couple of times." This brought a snort from the direction of Thad Houston. I couldn't tell if it was a scoff of derision, or a note of appreciation. Burl was grinning about something. "What's so funny?" I asked. "I'm sorry," Burl said. "First off, we think it's quite amusing the way you say 'Sure' all the time. And right before you came over, Thad and I were recalling the look of panic on your face when you first stepped into your kayak back at Whittier." "I thought I was going over for sure." "Don't get us wrong," Burl said. "All three of us think you're doing a good job. In fact, we were wondering if you might give con- sideration to taking the Instructor Course." "You mean work for the school?" Section #17: A False Sense of Security [183] ! "Maybe." "What does it involve, the Instructor Course?" "You have to apply," Burl said. He was poking at the little dough balls in the skillet with his spoon. Cheese Turds, is what he calls them, bite size chunks of cheese rolled in yeasted bread dough, fried up crispy. Apparently something of a specialty of his. "It's a five week course," he went on. "Backpacking, rock camp, leadership progression. Once you successfully complete the I.C. you can start picking up contracts, sometimes right away." "Howz your bug and bird ID?" asked Dodi. "Not so good as you'd notice." "Well, that's not altogether critical," she said. "You do need to be on top of your flora. Students expect instructors to know the names of plants." "Right," I said, looking at her. Not this student, I thought. "We think you'd make a good instructor," she went on to say. "You clearly possess the requisite patience." "Of course, there's no money in it," Burl said, offering me one of the fried cheeseballs hot out of the skillet, which I accepted. "But expenses are minimal when you're in the field. You're eating school rations. Whatever gear you need you can take right off the rack." Burl indicated the bowl of his basic red sauce which I guess I was supposed to dip the turd into. "Not that you can expect year-round employment right away," he added. "That's right, Marlow," Thad Houston put in. "You can't ex- pect to just get on. You can't expect to be hired full-time right off the I.C. Nobody gets on-board just like that." The Third Instructor had a cheeseball between his fingers, had dipped it in the red sauce, but seemed to have forgotten about the morsel on the way to putting it in his mouth. "Taking the I.C. doesn't guarantee you'll be offered work," he continued, sauce flicking onto his windpants. "The school will eventually offer you a contract, but they'll want to see how you perform before they see fit to send you any more. It could take years, a decade even, before you approach anything like working for the school full time. Only the most dedicated -- " "What Thad's saying is," Burl broke in, "it helps if you have a trust fund. After the I.C. you might have to hang tight for a few months, maybe a year, before the school gets around to sending you any work. It's good to have something else to occupy yourself with in the meantime." I was rolling the cheeseball, still way too hot to eat, around in my hand. "'In the meantime' pretty much describes how I've been living since I graduated high school." "In the meantime," Dodi put in, "you could get a job in Issue. [184] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! They're always looking for people to help with packs and boots and tent repair." At this I brightened up considerably and without hesitation asked the Instructors for advice as to which branch of the school would be willing to hire me to work in their Issue department. It only took about three seconds and already I was having visions of a nine-to-five straight job fitting students out for hiking courses, hap- pily performing my humble occupation for years on end, maybe never getting around to actually working in the field. "The Rocky Mountain Branch would be your best bet," said Dodi. "They're by far the busiest. There's a rumor the school's think- ing of opening a branch in the very town you're living in down there in Southeast. A sea kayaking base. Maybe they'd take you on." I didn't know how to respond to the suggestion I seek em- ployment at a base dedicated to sea kayaking. I didn't wish to come across as ungrateful. The Instructors went on to tell me, pending the results of my Final Eval, they'd put me on a list of students from the course whom they were recommending for the I.C. I thanked them for their vote of confidence. Ready to wrap things up, they asked if I had any other ques- tions. I indicated I didn't and made preparation to leave, popping the cheese turd in my mouth as I gathered up my necessaries. "You might enjoy working for the school, Marlow," Dodi said. "It'd put you in touch with other traveler types with whom you could range about in-between field contracts." "You know," I began, as I was rolling up my ensolite, "it's in- teresting. You may consider me instructor material, but there're some on this course who'd offer a very different opinion. They'd be only too ready to tell you I'm reckless and a hazard." The Instructors, to a person, manifested amusement at this and pressed me to explain. "All I'll say is, if you asked around, you'd find at least one stu- dent quick to testify that my methods are heedless of risk and actu- ally quite cavalier." The three shook their heads and said, as far as they'd been in a position to observe, they'd noticed nothing about me which could be termed cavalier. "If we have any concerns at all," Dodi said, "it'd be over your tendency to wander away from camp without notifica- tion." With this she got up, went to the open food duffel and took out a short can of fruit cocktail and a tin of albacore tuna and handed them to me. "When you get back to your camp, tell Crandall we're ready, if he is." I started to leave and then turned back. I didn't really have Section #17: A False Sense of Security [185] ! anything else to say. I was simply reluctant to disengage from the Instructors, the three competent outdoor types who'd taken such an interest in my future. I didn't know about the business of saying "Sure" all the time. I thought I said "Right" as often, if not more fre- quently. "I may've have mentioned this before, Marlow," Burl began, giving me the once over. "You'd get better result from your layering if you didn't tuck the upper into the lower. Just let it drape." "Not so easy when you're wearing suspenders," I pointed out. "But I'll work on it." "You do that. It's better for insulating." Burl put a slight lisp on the "s" which got a laugh out of Dodi. "Speaking of gear," I began, fishing the compass out of a pock- et, "maybe you'd be willing to take a look at this." I showed the Sec- ond Instructor how the bezel was completely stuck. Well, it turned out I should've done my own investigation before handing the com- pass over to the I's, but like I said, I was stalling, trying to find an excuse to remain a little longer in their company. Burl took the compass from me and began to work the bezel. Dodi leaned over from where she was fussing with the coffee sock to have a look. "Appears to be something jammed in here," Burl said. And he began to pull out bits of material from between the bezel and the plastic base. "Pieces of topo map, it looks like," he said, examining the bits closely. He spun the bezel several revolutions and then handed the compass back to me. Fragments of paper lay all about his lap. I tested the bezel and found it to revolve normally. "Thank you," I said. "Problem solved, I guess." Naturally, I knew what'd hap- pened. Through inattention, failing to take normal precautions, be- cause I never really wanted to be on the water anyway, failing to anticipate that sea kayaking would involve travel upon the actual sea, my map had gotten wet and then disintegrated, mucking up the compass which I keep stored in the same Claudia bag. "I don't know, Marlow," Burl began. "We may have to change your grade under 'Care of Equipment'." He made a mock show of taking up the eval sheet. I'm sure the topo map had received nearly all of its water damage when I was back in the red boat, straining at the oars. Wa- ter running down my left arm had soaked the paddling jacket, then went on to swamp the polyethylene bag bungied forward of the cockpit containing compass and map. Guess the knot I put in the bag wasn't so good. Very possibly there was no knot. Because, in those days, I could hardly have cared less. I wished to point out to [186] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! the I's that as a backpacker I'd been using and caring for paper topographical maps for ten years or more without problem. You stick your folded topo map in the frame of your backpack and there it stays, nice and dry, easily accessible. In the mountains it's not necessary to wrap everything in plastic. "I was wondering," I began, anxious to end the meeting on a different subject. "Does the school ever issue firearms on these courses? Because, down in Southeast, where I've been living, the locals wouldn't consider traveling in the bush like this without packing at minimum a riot shotgun loaded with double-aught." "You mean for bears?" asked Burl. "Sure." Instead of delaying my departure with concerns about mal- functioning compass bezels, or the business about bears and guns, I should've been discussing with the Instructors my severe doubts about becoming a field instructor, the very real apprehension that I might not be able to handle all the forced social interaction. "In fact, back when the school first started offering trips," Burl began, "twenty-two's were standard issue to all Wind River hik- ing courses. Not for protection from bears, however." "Too small a caliber anyway," I put in. "That's right. The rifles were for shooting small game. Grouse and rabbit and such. In those days, the school promoted more of a living-off-the-land philosophy. That all changed as the school ex- panded. We don't issue firearms to courses anymore. Carrying a shotgun for bear protection would probably be a bad idea for sever- al reasons, accidental discharge not being the least of them. Blast- ing away at the megafauna wouldn't fit very well under the heading of minimum impact. Aside from that, you'd have to hit a charging bear right on the snout if you wanted to get it's attention. More like- ly than not, in the panic of the moment, you'd only injure the bear, or yourself. The school decided some time back that carrying a loaded firearm would only tend to produce a false sense of security, ultimately leading to more bear encounters than if folks simply go unarmed." "It's more effective," Dodi came in, reiterating the point she'd already made to us at the bear avoidance rap, "to travel in a group and make a lot of noise." I figured they'd say something along those lines. Nodding to each of my Instructors, even to Thad Houston, still not able to meet the gaze of the upstart backpacker who acted as if he was a shoe-in for instructorship, I wandered on back to camp to notify Crandall it !was his turn up. ! ! ! ! !

Section #18: Dank ! A pint of urine -- all I've got to offer -- does its part to sort out the moraine's unconsolidated rubble. That mid-course eval seems a month ago now. In actuality it was only a week and a half previous to our arrival to Golden. It's really strange the way time stretches out when you're traveling like this. Must be the constant exposure to new stimuli. It was only yesterday afternoon Tyler and I had our little tussle on the beach. Hardly seems possible that could've happened yesterday. Feels like three or four days since we left those telltale marks in the sand. I head back downslope to the greywacke amphitheater where, unless there's been a serious miscommunication, we're sup- posed to receive this evening a glaciology lecture. I resume my spot at the leeward end of the group. As I re-situate, Tyler doesn't give me so much as a glance. She knows I've been off to relieve myself and she has that kind of discretion. It appears Burl has about finished shaving. He's presently performing some touch-up on his chin, checking the work in the reflection of the pot lid. You'd think, with rations getting shorter everyday and no luck with the fishing, there wouldn't be enough protein in anybody's system to grow a beard. Of course, the Instruc- tors have their private stash of albacore and who knows what else, summer sausage and beef jerky, probably. Dodi and Thad Houston are kicked back in their camp chairs, hot drinks near at hand, attending to their respective hobbies, Dodi grinding away at the otter bone with her Opinel, while the Third Instructor reads his Hemingway. I'm beginning to get a sense of how our three jefes are work- ing it. As persons with a wilderness bent they've cleverly managed to figure out a way to exploit society's current heavy interest in the remote out-of-doors. Traveling the outback is what they'd be doing anyway, whether working for the school or not, the difference is in exchange for a willingness to conduct their backcountry travel on a schedule and in a company not of their choosing they receive a salary. The Instructors belong to a contingent I've begun to think of as the New Colonists. The region these modern adventurers have appropriated is the mythical realm made up of all the last unspoiled [188] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! places still remaining to the old original seven continents, a sort of composite Eighth Continent. Of course, the only reason there's enough of the planet's surface left to comprise a relatively pristine new world, albeit not one with a contiguous landmass, is that there are bits and pieces of the old world still too remote or inhospitable for permanent habitation. Modern outdoor gear in combination with gasoline powered cookstoves and space age rations make it possible to abide in these locales for short periods during their more forgiving seasons. The precise location of the untainted geographies, the moun- tain ranges, deserts, rivers, shorelines and their access points are the school's closely guarded secret, divulged only to those who've been initiated into its instructor cadre. Nomadism is the forté of the New Colonists and lightweight camping equipment the tools of their trade. It's not their intention to create permanent settlement. The absence of settlement is what makes the product they offer so valu- able. In return for the product the Instructors are permitted to pursue upon the Eighth Continent an existence that enjoys an abundance of clean air and water, plenty of healthful exercise and a backdrop of unparalleled natural beauty. The food's a bit sub par, based upon what we've endured this trip, but perhaps other locali- ties offer better foraging and fishing. The Instructors have likewise sized me up and arrived at my gauge. They've correctly deduced, when it comes down to it, all this camper wants to do is lounge about in one or another unspoiled re- gion, drink coffee, read and dream off into the middle distance. Once the Instructors determined that I could hump the gear, sur- vive well enough on the allocated rations and otherwise do what was necessary to get comfortably situated on the substrate they decided there might be a place for me in their colonial enterprise. That is, if I'm interested. The three have made me an offer and, I must say, the vision they present is compelling. A wonderful feeling of possibility was conjured up on that afternoon eleven days ago beneath the veranda of their kitchen tarpaulin. The breeze was filling the material of the tarp, which flapped with the overspill. There was the sensation of being on-board a ship sailing toward a propitious future. Sunlight, reflecting off the ship's bow wave, dappled our shirt fronts. While across the water, only a league or two distant, glittered the shores of a new world. The whole setting could not've been more inspiring. The Instructor's description of their working life bespoke a vigorous and expansive existence, a life never so action-filled it wasn't peri- odically punctuated by mugs of strong black coffee sipped at leisure in the open air. Section #18: Dank [189] ! They say I'll have to put in my time before I can expect to come into a full estate. This is only reasonable and fair. An incre- mental approach is exactly the way I'd want it. I'm more than hap- py to take the job in Issue, if such job exists. I'll inventory the bins of toggles and cordlocs, whatever they want. Honestly, though, becoming an instructor for the school might prove to be a solution to the problem with which I'm con- fronted as a traveler, namely the need to affiliate with a community. It'd sure be nice to figure out some way to enjoy a period of com- fortable routine in the company of familiar people and not to have to make it up from scratch every six months. At present, I'm only here in the colonies for a visit and a looksee. To commit to this life would, of course, be to preclude other lives that might be lived. But to become a member of the school's instructor cadre could be a way to avoid the fate of dying obscurely in a foreign land, the likely con- clusion for a confirmed traveler who lacks a home base. I was unsure of how, during our interview, to convey to the Instructors my grave doubts concerning my ability to cope day in and day out, week after week, in the field with the same allotment of students and fellow guides. I didn't know how to tell them I was already, on Day Eleven, or whatever it was, weary of their sea kayaking venture, tired of being around everybody involved. Even now, I'm tired of forever gazing upon the same faces, never able to get more than a few moments alone. I'm starting to feel about the trip the way I do about a long distance phone conversation, a thing that's interesting up to a point but, really, almost from the moment I answer the ring I wish for it to be over. And there was something else Burl mentioned, something about the requirement to partici- pate in a rock camp as part of the training. Well, I know what that is. That's climbing with a rope and harness, an activity requiring concentration and focus, guaranteed to interfere with the day- dream. Right there's a serious impediment to my becoming instruc- tor qualified. I take up the hot drink and have another sip. Boy, that's real- ly quite tasty. The I's must have a surplus of h.c. to be so generous at this late stage of the trip. I take one more look at the bird field guide and I decide I can't do it. Mocha java this rich calls for reading material of substance. "Short Fiction" is still back at camp. It crossed my mind to bring it with me but, to be honest, I was afraid Mr. Houston might see it and be reminded he wants it back. Clearly, it wouldn't have made any difference. No matter what happens, he's not forgetting about that book. Tyler nudges me and points off toward the front of Barry. I bring the barrels of the binoculars to bear upon the cleaved front of [190] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! the glacier, scoping for where the next ice is likely to break free. The arrangement which forms the particular column we've been keeping tabs on for the past twenty minutes is starting to release small parcels. How enticing. Truly, the evening is rolling along just fine, as the rest of the course will roll along. No more surprises. Nothing more to worry about. Before too long there'll be a return to the world where I can once more be alone. The siftings of ice cease and, for the nonce, all becomes still at the base of the pinnacle. I swing the binos around eastward, past the glaciers, until the glass gathers in the terrain up-slope. I have to say, binoculars are useful if for no other reason than they put a border around a scene. Binos reduce the chaos of a landscape to a comprehendible portion. There's the waterfall, still motoring off the ridge, easier to study in its particulars with the jumble of the sur- rounding moraine blocked out. It'd be interesting to climb up there and find out what configuration of rock is making the water rooster tail over the edge like that. The waterfall doesn't look to be more than a thousand feet vertical above the beach. A couple of hours to climb up, hour for a break and a snack and an hour for the down hike. Four hours total, a good morning's undertaking. Could even allow another hour to run the ridgeline out a ways. I take a hand away from the binos for a second to find an in- sect that's worked its way in behind my ear. Gathering the bug be- tween two fingertips, I roll it first one way and then the other, feel- ing the juice leak out through the cracks in its carapace. These are a slow and disorganized species of fly, their genotype only now be- ing improved by exposure to humans who manage to kill all but the swiftest. "There it goes," somebody says. Tyler makes a move for her camera. I barely get the binos up and on target. The column is beginning to break free from the mass. A prolonged sound of fissuring reaches us, a noise like the tearing of fabric. The chunk gains velocity and small pieces of ice blow back from the leading edge where the rush of air is greatest. This is the effect I've learned to look for, this streaming of particles that's like smoke, communicating to the eye a host of impressions regarding size and velocity. The chunk hits the water, the usual big explosion follows, impressive enough. But, really, it's the display of particles flying back from the edge that's the most striking and I wish the phenomenon weren't so short-lived. I take another swig of the very good Instructor-prepared hot drink. Bears and whales. That's what I had in mind when I filled out the money order for the thirty-four hundred. I gave virtually no Section #18: Dank [191] ! thought to icebergs or calving glaciers. As for whales, other than the one that almost permanently beached itself at Olson, so far there's been only the occasional dorsal fin spotted at great distance, not quite what I had in mind when I envisioned how the trip would go. I suppose we shouldn't discount the ghost of Dodi's echolocating humpback, interesting and mysterious in its own way. The bears have left some scat for us to poke through with a stick, but so far there've been no confirmed sightings. I didn't care that much about spotting bears, anyway. I've seen plenty of 'em down Yellowstone way, though I'd been curious to see one of the big Alaskan brown bears the locals down in the fishing town talk about, the ones that never hibernate and eat the salmon and the berries all year and grow to enormous size, but I've about given up on it, s'far as this trip goes. If we aren't to see any bears, or the barnacled flukes of humpbacks lifted against the sky, then the spectacle of these calv- ing icebergs has made up for it. The glaciers and their offspring are the other great animals indigenous to the region and not to be dis- counted. "Very dramatic. The way it fell in slow-mo like that," Tyler quietly observes, positioning her camera back upon the shelf of her upturned thigh. "Think of the times in a movie you've seen a car driven over a cliff. The camera guy will almost always over crank the film so when the movie's screened the crash will appear all that more impressive." Tyler looks at me quite dead pan as she says this. She continues: "You've probably noticed in the edit they'll often- times jump cut to a different camera, backing up the frames slight- ly, so the explosion can be savored from a different angle. These calvings would benefit from that approach." Having had her say about it, she takes up her pen again, appearing to lose herself in thought. Well, she's right. I'd enjoy seeing the particles fly away at the edge from different angles. "Anything else?" I ask. "Well, you could take close-up footage of the calving and rear project it behind us as we're sitting here. It'd appear quite menac- ing." "Way too many movies," I observe. "No doubt. But you have to understand, when I'm at mid- term, the occasional movie is about the only thing that provides a break. After reading for ten hours, taking in a film or even two is a great way to relax the eyes. A thing I do sometimes, maybe a half- hour into the film, is shut my eyes and just let the audio wash over me." I think: Where have I heard this before? Then recall Dinah had said something along the same lines about her T.V. watching. [192] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! Under the ruse of wishing to hear better what Tyler's saying, I move in closer and glance down at the lines of script in her jour- nal. She just as quickly covers the page with her hand. She smiles and returns to her writing, lifting the pad with her knee, the ball point rolling soundlessly over the paper. The evening light plays upon the delicate hairs of the girl's cheek, particularly the fuzz along the jaw below her ear. I recall her rounded shoulders yester- day at Golden, stripped of their covering of poly-propylene, the bare, lightly freckled skin, so pale against the dark sand of the windward shore. Dodi's over there bending an eyebrow at us. She'd heard our whispering and doesn't approve. Our Course Leader shifts noisily on her camp chair. "Why don't you tell us a story, Marlow?" she asks, giving me a glimmer of those polystyrene teeth and then lowering her eyes back to her carving. I'm thinking there's got to be somewhere in the world where utterly white dentrifice is considered repulsive and unacceptable. Maybe Papua New Guinea, where teeth stained red from chewing betel nut is the norm. "Don't know any stories," I say. "You know stories," Dodi insists. Looking up from her knife work, she directs at me a pained expression. "You've lived, haven't you?" "Only after a fashion," I say. I catch Tyler rolling her eyes. Dodi, shaking her head, returns her attention to her project. Dodi can think what she wants but I'm not telling any stories. First off, my mind doesn't work that way. That is, in a concise nar- rative fashion. I've never been able to organize experience into any sort of account, certainly not one I can relate out loud to a group of people sitting around like this with nothing to serve as a buffer be- tween me and my words. I certainly can't tell anyone else's story. Even if I had a story, it wouldn't be nearly as gripping as the ones the Instructors have recounted here this evening. No one would be killed in my story, or even seriously injured. Such things simply don't happen to me, or to the people around me. "I truly hope, Marlow," Dodi adds, not looking up, "you've managed to learn whatever it is you came to learn on this course." "I believe I have." "And promise you'll never forget how privileged you've been to have traveled here." "I'll never forget it." I'm thinking Dodi's moved herself beyond the course. She's in the future somewhere and for her we already exist in the past tense. Section #18: Dank [193] ! "That's good," she says. Well, yes. Although I'm not so sure about the privileged part. Perhaps if the tuition had been paid for me I might feel beholden to someone, or something. I suppose I've learned what I set out to learn, though it's not what I thought I came here to learn, or what I'd announced as my intention when we were all back in Palmer. I've had the opportunity to try out some different boats and related gear, the chance to look into whether sea kayaking might suffice as an outlet down on Mitkof. Which is all good. The trip, itself, has proved to be different from any other travel I've done. That's cer- tainly worth something. I had an intuition when I signed on that I might not care for paddling a sea kayak and all I needed to do was enter upon the ex- pedition to have it confirmed. Such a life is not for me. Too dank, for one thing. I must've been crazy to think kayaking would make a good outlet. Sure, if I were to be so foolish as to purchase a boat, I might paddle it out into the Narrows away from town. I'd quickly figure out where the closest feasible campsite was located and this would mark my furthest exploration. I'd end up staying in camp until the last possible moment, until there was barely enough time to make it back to the cook's job, anything to delay getting back in the boat. And how many times would I make such an excursion? More than once, probably, possibly three or four times simply out of a sense I should since I'd paid all the money for the boat and related gear. Really, I was fooling myself to think I'd ever follow through on buying a boat. It's not even the boat that would be the problem, but all the ancillary crap that goes along with it: PFD, bilge pump, spray skirt, dry bags, paddle, paddling jacket and so on. In one fell swoop the bulk of my possessions would triple if not quadruple. You know, you have to have some parameters in this life, some basic guidelines, and the dictum to never own more than you can put on your back and walk away with is as a good rule to follow as any. In the end, I would've never recouped the expense. I would have given the boat and its paddles and everything else away for free to a good home just to be rid of it and then raced down to the dock to board a southbound ferry. Believe me, it was better I spent three or four thousand bucks this way instead of buying a kayak. This is what I've learned, if Dodi wants to know, and it's the only story I have to tell. And it occurs to me now that this pretty much seals my fate with respect to how much longer I'll continue to reside on Mitkof Island. A real- !ization that's worth another sip of hot drink if nothing else. ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #19: Nitpicking Dodi ! Across the top of the hot drink cup I venture a glance at our Course Leader. It's hard to say exactly at what point relations went awry between Dodi and myself. It might've been the very in- stant we met. I suspect it only took about ten minutes for her and me to realize we're basically cat and dog. Dodi's the sort who probably divides all people into two camps: Those Who Get Her Name Right The First Time. And then the other camp: Those With Limited Potential. I'm sure I en- trenched myself further into the ranks of the second group when, already corrected once, I still couldn't get it right and went on to ask her if "Doh-Dah" was short for something. I really thought it might be a nickname, an endearment, short maybe for Deborah. Well, it turns out it is a nickname. The Lead Instructor's real name is something completely unrelated. It's Catherine, or Eliza- beth, I don't remember what. "Dodi" is a modification of "Dodo", a nickname her father gave her, after the extinct bird, of course, which he affectionally -- I hope -- called his daughter until she reached a certain age. You'd think it'd occur to a parent that this could be construed as a slightly derogative way to refer to one's off- spring, but Tyler could be right: if you're in the diplomatic corps, living abroad, you might not be familiar with certain slang terms used by children in your home country. Perhaps so. I've formulated the notion that the nickname might've been permanently switched away from Dodo around the time her family entered their first rota- tion stateside, when the little girl, daughter of otherwise well-edu- cated and well-traveled parents, was finally exposed to the insult via her schoolmates. As far as I'm concerned the difficulty with Dodi began the moment she tried to pressure me into purchasing the unnecessary insulating layer. I was pretty sure, going into Issue, I already pos- sessed all the primary and secondary layers I needed. Still, I was happy enough to listen to the tanned and svelte female instructor lay out the options. Not only was there the smooth, white plasticene teeth, fascinating in themselves, but upon her upper lip sprouted the finest of golden hairs, delicate and vulnerable, designed to in- spire feelings of protectiveness and lust. Section #19: Nitpicking Dodi [195] ! In the end, I resented Dodi being so pushy about the polypropylene outerwear. If she was annoyed at the mispronuncia- tion of her name, I was annoyed that someone could've performed as close an inspection of my gear as she just had and failed to per- ceive that in me she'd met a camper well-advised on the range of available equipment, deliberate in his choice of gear. Because, you know, it's up to each and every rucksacker to find the balance be- tween the weight of their impedimenta and the level of comfort at which morale can be maintained. So far, I've not traveled to any place where the weather's so inclement even my worn and dated layers haven't provided sufficient protection. The frame pack may've been the largest, most capacious pack you could buy in its day but there's only room in it for items of multiple utility. I'm not allowed to possess, according the rules of effective travel, two pieces of gear which essentially perform the same function. Man, if nothing else, Dodi should've taken one look at the ca- pacious framepack, patched and repaired and beat to hell as it is, and understood I'm not the sort of person who buys new equipment willy nilly just 'cause it might be the trend. Dodi has no inkling of the extreme to which I live. She and her fellow Instructors probably think they keep their material possessions pared down but I could show them a thing or two. Dodi pushed the fancy outerwear on me by playing on my fears, the fact I had no knowledge of what we were getting into. And it almost worked, the fear mongering, and the fact I was momentar- ily not in my right mind due to the vibration she'd set up by press- ing the jacket against my chest with her bare hands. Dodi's used to dealing with students who can put the extra expense on their par- ent's plastic. But for me a piece of gear like that jacket would've cost the equivalent of twenty-four hours baiting hooks on a halibut long- liner with no sleep, or a ten hour shift in the shrimp cannery, or another Friday night slinging pizzas at the pub on the Petersburg wharf. What does Dodi know about that kind of work? She's a ca- reer instructor. It wouldn't surprise me if this were the only paid job she's ever had. It was a very nice jacket. I'll allow it. It had excellent com- pressibility and good thermal properties, was probably even in- fused with those windstop fibers everybody's been making a fuss about. My hand began to sweat from the briefest contact with the nap. Maybe I'll take another look at the pull-over when we get back to Palmer, if only to impress the brand and type upon my mind so that when I do need a replacement for the buffalo shirt I'll know what to go for. Only it can't be a pull-over. I dislike a pull-over. It needs to be full zip. [196] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! Dodi didn't say anything about my having put her recom- mendation back on the rack, if she even noticed. By then she'd smiled her acrylic smile and moved on to the next student. She's never once asked why I don't occasionally wear the pastel blue pullover. I'd been ready with an explanation but, frankly, I think she's forgotten all about our salesroom interaction. I mean, I'm wearing the damn buffalo shirt right now with it's patched elbows and threadbare shoulders. You'd think she would've noticed the ab- sence of the pastel colored layer if she was going to. It's interesting that of all the factors Dodi misadvised us about, the absolute necessity of renting foul weather gear, the need to purchase licenses for the provident fishing, the supposed dearth of firewood on the moraine and so on and so on, it was the observa- tion she made about whale echolocation that actually proved to be correct, the one statement she put forth as fact and which, at the moment she uttered it I shook my head and dismissed as complete malarky. You can't fault Dodi's advice concerning the foul weather gear. She was correct to insist upon it. I always take a raincoat, I don't care what the forecast is. And word is, it's typically very rainy on these kayaking courses. Dan, the Yellowstone backpacker who'd matriculated through the same sea kayak expedition a couple of years previous, said it rained a deluge on him and his pod every day. Their sleeping gear was perpetually wet, bags sodden and damp, socks never fully dry. Dan said it never bothered him all that much but a lot of his fellow students got pretty down. I'm happy the rain gear has proved superfluous on our course. As for the poor fishing, well, that's nobody's fault. We sure could've used a couple of the salmon bakes the Instructors were always carrying on about. Maybe we'll eat some salmon or halibut yet, but it'll be at the end-of-course banquet at Palmer HQ, along with the burgers and the dogs, not out here. But the vibration of our kayaks due to sonar reverb off the forehead of a whale? I didn't see how it could be possible. However, Dodi was as right about that as she was right about it being of little use to bring a candle lantern into this realm of nearly perpetual daylight. Hey, you know, speaking of Dan, I've thought quite a bit about my old backpacking compadre over the past few weeks, particularly now that we're approaching the conclusion of this trip. Dan was very sentimental about his time out here. It was clear from the way he talked about it that he'd derived a tremendous sense of accom- plishment from completing the course. His Instructors had also given him the nod for the I.C. Dan decided that working for the out- Section #19: Nitpicking Dodi [197] ! door school was not for him and has since gone back to the world of restaurant management. Nonetheless, he loved to recount how, for the brief period of the expedition, he'd felt he was exactly where he was supposed to be, pursuing the purposeful activity which exclud- ed all other ambition. I'm sure Dan had felt himself to be in the up- per echelon of students, amongst those who were hacking the chal- lenge, the weather, the route. More than hacking it but literally transcending the experience. Dan said he knew almost from the outset the trip was transforming him as an individual. He'd left Alaska pretty high on the effect, wondering what other lofty chal- lenge he might take on. I know that for a period after his course he lived in Bozeman, attempting to be a writer of some sort. It was di- rectly following this bohemian phase, his winter as a inchoate nov- elist, that Dan and I met at our Yellowstone orientation and ended up backpacking together three weekends out of four over an entire summer season. In my opinion, Dan was pretty far out there on the edge of the curve, riding the upper percentile of competency. Those of us who knew him in the Yellowstone days liked to say Dan was a card carrying member of the Human Potential Movement. By his own testimony, it was the experience of the sea kayaking course that'd got him thinking about what was possible in life. I haven't heard from Dan in a while. Hope he's doing okay, that the system isn't wearing him down too much. There've been moments on the course when it almost seemed Dodi had lost the capacity to care about what she was saying. I'm thinking of an instance early on in the trip -- it could not've been later than Day Four or Five, about the point when I was beginning to see the expedition for what it was, namely a thing that could be routinized and gotten through -- when I kicked the rudder over and steered Dinah and me alongside the Lead Instructor. She'd been paddling most of the day by herself out on the flank, powering along in her single. I'd gathered the vague sense she wasn't talking to anyone much that day and that she'd given word to Burl and Thad Houston she wasn't in the best of moods. It wasn't that I wished to deliberately intrude upon our CL's solitude. I think I was just des- perate at the time to talk to someone other than Dinah. "Howz it going, Dodi?" I asked, doing what I could to match her stroke. "Maintaining," was all she said in response. She didn't look over nor did she offer anything additional. Giving voice to those three bare syllables seemed to cost her a great deal. Suffice it to say, I was not encouraged to further conversa- tion with our Course Leader. I don't know what it was I wanted to talk to her about, anyway, in that early phase of the trip, beyond [198] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! possibly the standard query of how it was she'd come to work for the school, a question I still don't know the answer to. Maybe I was going to ask her for some follow up to the statement she'd made during the getting acquainted go-around about how the course was going to help us all become better travelers. I could sort of see how that might happen, traveling tends to abet more traveling, but I was curious to hear her elaborate on it. Even if this wasn't the topic specifically on my mind if she'd been more conversational the sub- ject might've emerged. Who can say? But she wasn't in a mood to talk with her student and that was that. Continuing to parallel her track for five minutes or so, as though all along I'd been merely seeking an open space to paddle, I eventually veered off and returned Dinah and me to our usual posi- tion behind the main body of the group. It's occurred to me since that when Dodi's out brooding on the flank like that, in a dark mood, maximally sensing the gulf be- tween herself and others, her therapy is to come up with another of the diabolical campgames. The game she referred to as "Sniper" is a good example, one of the more off-kilter products of the CL's mental machinations, that is, if we need something more twisted than Greywacke Drop. The idea around "Sniper" was that the participants, meaning the entire student group plus the three Instructors, would begin by looking down at the ground. At Dodi's signal, we'd all look up at once, each directing our gaze toward someone in the group. If you glanced over to find another person already staring at you then ac- cording to Dodi's rules you'd been "sniped" and were out. Can you see the problem with this? The natural human tendency is to in- stantly look away when discovering someone staring at you. At least mine is. How can it then be proven you ever glanced at each other in the first place? The whole thing was like a bad dream, ab- sent of logic, offering no resolution, and that's exactly how it played out. Yep, Dodi was scraping the barrel with that one. The whole thing was poorly conceived. I suppose it stood for something, the randomness of human encounters, maybe. It would've worked bet- ter if we'd tossed small sticks or pebbles at each other. It would've been more definitive than a glance or a gaze. The first time Dodi gave the word "go" I found myself staring directly into the side of the foul weather hood of the student next to me. I decided, as a sort of strategy, to wait until this person, I don't recall who it was, felt the pressure of my gaze, whereupon he would look over to discover their sniper already staring them down. Naturally, it didn't work out so neatly. The hooded form ne- Section #19: Nitpicking Dodi [199] ! ver looked over because the whole affair descended into chaos, ar- guments emerging from all sides. And that right there was suffi- cient smokescreen to allow yours truly to slip away back to camp. I never heard if the snags got worked out. I didn't care to know. Dodi must've subjected the student group to a dozen or more of these half-baked scenarios, some with animal names like "Wolver- ine", or "Barracuda" -- Can you imagine? -- though very few of the games included me because once I decided I didn't care how my lack of participation might reflect on the Final Eval I developed a well- honed reflex for evading these time-wastes. I'll own up to feeling miffed Dodi was not more approachable on the afternoon I steered Dinah's and my double over beside her kayak. After all, what were we paying her and the other two In- structors all that money for if not for them to be at our beck and call? I thought at the time: Well, that's just great. Here I shelled out about three month's wages with the expectation of traveling with guides who'd be energetic and engaged -- necessary for bolstering my own unreliable enthusiasm -- and now the head guide person is already failing to live up to her end of the deal. Well, that was early on. These days I believe I have a better idea of what's going on with Dodi. She's utterly burned out leading these expeditions, traveling with these motley groups of self-in- volved students drawn from, if this course is any example, the worst demographic of our privileged culture. The course roster is sixty-percent comprised of males at an advanced stage of adoles- cence, physically and mentally developed enough to be free-ranging actors in the world yet still completely dependent upon the dole of their parents. Here we have a prime collection of young men who want nothing more than to be off on their own, making their own decisions, working to support themselves, perhaps continuing on at college or perhaps not, maybe wishing they could figure out a way to stay in Alaska, maybe thinking they'd prefer to travel off some- where else, yet uncertain how to pursue any of these options and afraid of what might be the outcome if they were to step off the conveyor belt. So, they're rendered brash and insolent, uneasy in their lives. It's tragic. These youths, offspring of the country's pow- er elite, are all take and no give. They will not, or cannot, even tell a story drawn from their own experience to help wile away an evening in camp. Even the older ones who supposedly have "lived" refuse to contribute. When these punks are overheard to express themselves, which they primarily only do to each other, what they discuss -- bands, movies, drinking bouts, smoking pot, the junk food with which they can't wait to stuff themselves -- holds little meaning for [200] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! our Lead Instructor, a woman who, at age thirty-five, claims to have never seen a music video or much of anything in the way of broad- cast television. Which is to her great and lasting credit. As Dodi tells it, when she did watch some T.V. for the first time as a college student in Brussels, she failed to understand what was the big deal. Burl, attendant to this conversation, assured Dodi she'd assessed the medium correctly and that it was largely a waste, a pro- nouncement I was quick to second. Dodi's only fifteen years older than most of her charges on this course but it might as well be fifty for all her upbringing has in common with theirs. Curiously, the thing Dodi doesn't realize is the main thing we're all missing out here is media. We hold the school and, by proxy, the Instructors responsible for the fact that we aren't getting any music, or T.V., or movies. And so, unconsciously, we look to the Instructors to fill the void. Whereas in Dodi's mind the moment this course launched off the quay at Whittier we became a band of in- terdependent humans traveling together from island to island like so many castaways, reliant upon each other for diverting conversa- tion, not to mention the sharing of survival skills. In her schemata, it no longer matters who's footing the bill. Besides, it's mainly the parents who are footing the bill. In the ethos of our Course Leader we each bear an equal responsibility to contribute to the spirit of the expedition and she's lost all patience for those who fail to grasp this obvious requirement. Dodi's had it. She's fed up. She no longer enjoys nor feels obliged to inform or entertain such an unworthy crowd. I watch Dodi there, lifting an elbow to put additional pres- sure upon the handle -- "solid beechwood" -- of her pocket knife, and decide that, really, she's entirely within her rights to request a sto- ry from me or from any other student. The entire trip the Instruc- tors have beguiled us with narrative and anecdote of their past travels. It's only fair, now that we're entering the last phase, beyond any consideration of who's paying for the trip, even beyond concern for who are the Instructors and who are the Students, we should all take a turn telling a story or two. I completely agree, I'm only sorry I cannot do it. I guess, when it comes down to it, it's us students who are failing to live up to our half of the bargain. This student group and possibly every student group Dodi's headed up these past several years has been a disappointment and I think she's decided to focus most of the blame for this on me. Ob- viously, I'm no less callow and lacking in personality than the young collegiates. Never mind that I've not been the strong student leader for which Dodi hoped. I've proved entirely too passive. Nor am I the raconteur she would expect in an older student. For this I have no Section #19: Nitpicking Dodi [201] ! excuse. I've lived and therefore must have stories to tell. Not only did I fail Dodi by my unwillingness to relate a simple anecdote to fill a quiet moment, I exhibited poor expedition behavior by not even giving it a try, a thing which might've proved amusing in itself. But there you go. There wasn't much I could say to her by way of expla- nation. If my failure to be forthcoming constitutes the last straw for Dodi, confirming in her mind a decision to get out of the outdoor educator business, well, it can't be helped. Dodi puts the piece of bone against her boot to steady it be- neath the pressure of the knife point. It'll be interesting to see what the design is when she's finished. I don't know if it would do any good to explain to Dodi by way of excuse that I'm a product of the standard American upbringing, a childhood which included five or six hours of television every day right on through adolescence, not to mention a weekly if not biweekly foray to the cineplex. My narra- tive capacity was stunted early on. Dodi tells a good story, always pithy and concise. Whenever I've attempted to relate a simple anecdote it turns out overlong and involved, with no conclusive ending. I believe it was Burl who informed me this is to be Dodi's last season as an Instructor. Her plan, evidently, is to be enrolled in vet- erinary school by next fall. I think it's a good plan. Dodi should move on to the next phase. Probably Dodi and I could eventually come to terms with each other, work out our small differences, or simply learn to ignore them. Except, if I hadn't done enough on my own to disappoint the Course Leader, Tyler and I have now joined forces to push Dodi beyond disappointment to outright disapproval. I still don't have a clear idea of where this institution comes down on the happenstance of students becoming involved with each other while in the field. Well, okay, we were all exposed to the rap session about coupling up, the little addendum to the hygiene lec- ture which touched upon the school's policy regarding sex between students. It's a policy I'm completely in agreement with, in a gener- al sense, but really when it comes down to it these matters must be taken case-by-case. No one's having orgies here. Far from it. It's not like the med student and I have been constantly in each other's company, shutting out the rest of the student group, or skipping the instructionals. Basically, Tyler's and my romance has consisted of, aside from much heady conversation, a couple of forays away from camp, one of which included our pal Cordwainer. The rest of the romancing has taken place in a double kayak, or around a campfire, or a cookstove, normal aspects of the expeditionary flow. No vibe of exclusion has ever emanated from Tyler and me. I believe I can completely attest to the truth of this. [202] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! Given whatever minimal effect Tyler and I might be having on group cohesion, Dodi's disapproval exceeds any reasonable take on the matter. I really don't think Tyler's and my activities are hav- ing any effect on the group one way or the other because, as far as I can tell, nobody but the C.L. gives a hoot, if they've even noticed. But I'll bet this was the moment when the situation went irrevoca- bly amiss between the Lead Instructor and myself. Her disen- chantment with me became thorough the instant she grasped my affiliation with the young medical student. Well, all right. As for myself, I could've abided all of the Lead Instructor's quirks up until the incident of the otter bone. That was the moment I dismissed in my mind the idea of Dodi as a credible person. Tyler and I were sitting together upon a little berm of sand down by the water talking about her wristwatch. I was asking if a built-out watch like that possessed an alarm function loud enough to actually wake a person. Because that was the reason I didn't bother with a wristwatch but instead opted for a travel alarm clock. I could count on the clock to wake me out of a sound sleep. Tyler proceeded to demonstrate the watch's alarm which did in fact sound loud enough to wake even me. Somehow we transitioned from the discussion about her watch to one equally arcane, this being my theory of the Proficiency Curve. Thinking it'd be right up her alley, I explained to the girl my notion that everyone starts out at birth equal in experience, equal in practical knowledge, and beginning from Day One some move ahead while others are left behind. "It's upbringing," I offered. "Circumstance plus innate ability." This berm discussion with Tyler took place -- in this case I can pinpoint the exact location on the trip's timeline -- late in the afternoon of the last full day of travel during the interim period be- tween Columbia Glacier and the first SGE, in other words on the afternoon of Day Fourteen. The configuration of the tent and cook- ing units were about to change prior to launching out on Small Groups. The Instructors had yet to give us a schedule for the evening and for a couple of hours everyone had been left to their own devices. Tyler seemed to take on faith my explanation of the Profi- ciency Curve. I decided an illustration might be of use. Looking around for a stick or something to draw with and nothing of the sort proving handy I took the penny whistle out of my day bag and applied the cylinder end of it to the dry, tide-washed sand. I drew a common XY cartesian coordinate set of axes. "Won't that damage your instrument?" she asked. "Not a bit." I was starting to get excited, interested to see if Section #19: Nitpicking Dodi [203] ! my little theory would stand up under Tyler's scrutiny. "Let the X-axis represent time in years," I began and made some hash marks along the positive leg of the horizontal. "And the Y-axis represent the number of people in a given population with the same level of proficiency, or competency. I drew a straight line right next to and parallel to the Y-axis. "That's the given population at birth," I said. "Everybody's at the same level." "Okay," she said. "Reasonable." "Within a matter of weeks a bell curve begins to open up. This represents the different levels of competency for a given group." I started to draw the curve when she interjected. "You mean cohort," she offered. "We're each born into a co- hort." "Perfect," I said. "For a given cohort. Anyway, here's the graph twenty years down the road." I moved out a couple of hash marks and drew a classically proportioned bell shape. "The great majority of individuals are here in the middle, possessed of the same relative amount of practical knowledge." "Not an easy thing to quantify," she interjected. "However, I believe I understand what you're getting at. It has to do with life experience." "I like to think of it as one's level of initiation." "Initiation into what?" "I don't know. The fundamental nature of existence." She laughed. "If nothing else," I went on, "one's position on the curve is a function of accumulated experience." With the tip end of the whis- tle, I pointed in turn at the two ends of the parabola. "As time goes on there are those who move out onto the leading edge of the curve and those who trail behind." "Some individuals are, in effect," she said, "years ahead of their cohort in practical experience." "That's it." "Seems obvious," she said. "What happens when you move your graph out to eighty years." "The curve continues to flatten," I said, sketching it in, eight hash marks out from the zero, a less pronounced bell shape, not a bell at all, really, but more of a straight line with a slight rise in the middle. "Increasing numbers of people are out in front and to the rear. It's like a big moving sine wave." As soon as I'd attempted the more technical term I knew I was in over my head, that it was probably an incorrect usage. "A bell-shaped waveform moving through time," Tyler said, [204] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! striving to keep us in the realm of proper terminology. "Have you determined what constitutes a cohort?" This was good, I thought. This was the sort of rigor to which the theory needed to be subjected. "Let's say," I began, "everybody born six months to either side of a certain date." She immediately objected. "Too large a parameter. There could be a year's difference in age between some individuals." "All right. How about three months to each side." "Better. Still gives an advantage to those who've been alive longer." "It's not really about advantage," I said. "Or winning. Okay, let's make it a month. The cohort includes very male and female born one month to either side of a particular date." She gave it some consideration. "You know, I think I can come up with a more dynamic way to illustrate this." "No doubt." I said and began to brush the sand smooth with the palm of my hand. Tyler dismissed my offer of the metal whistle and used her finger. It was gratifying to see her getting into it. I sort of knew the concept would hold a certain allure. "What if we let the X-axis represent your so-called level of initiation," she said, beginning her Cartesion sketch, "and the Y-axis the number of people at that level within a given birth cohort." "Okay," I said. The girl and I were sitting close, intensely focussed upon the diagram evolving in the sand. Tyler's lines were very straight and she hadn't bothered to extend the negative legs of the axes as they weren't necessary to the model. "Imagine a movie," she went on," in which each frame repre- sents a year in the life of the cohort. Twenty-four frames per sec- ond." Naturally, Tyler would turn it into a movie. "Right." "Now visualize what the curve would do as the movie begins." Under the med student's scrutiny, I suddenly felt the pres- sure of the classroom, the need to keep up, a feeling I detest and which I'd thought I was well beyond. "Not sure I can see it," I admit- ted. "At the moment of birth, the graph is a straight up and down line at zero. Nobody has any life experience yet," she said. "Okay." "As the seconds tick off, the line opens up as a narrowly compressed bell curve, spreading as the years pass." She slashed at the sand as if it were a blackboard, or a whiteboard, or whatever Section #19: Nitpicking Dodi [205] ! they use in lecture halls these days, making three or four quick sets of lines, storyboarding it out, each successive XY-axes enclosing a bell-shaped waveform, as she'd phrased it, each waveform occur- ring further along the X-axis. "However," she said, "I don't think the curve would flatten the way yours did, but grow taller, and steeper, as the more populous average crowd achieves stasis, the way peo- ple do, learning less, taking fewer risks." "I'll buy it." I particularly liked what she said about stasis, certainly a thing to avoid. "This is what the waveform would look like five seconds into the film, eighty years into the life of the cohort." She drew one more set of axes and filled in the curve. "Wave" would describe it exactly. A wave that was close to breaking. Very steep on the right, much more gradual on the left with a tail end some distance from the mean. "Research has demonstrated the bell curve to be a misrepre- sentation of reality," the med student said, looking up at me. "Truth is, you have a few people who are very good at something and the majority of people who are at or below average." "Maybe it's different when it comes to a question of initiation," I suggested. "Possibly," she allowed. That's great, I thought, looking down at her graph. Each gen- eration rolls like a wave through its century, a moving curve repre- senting the sum of expertise possessed by all the individuals born into a given cohort. The wave lifts as the generation accrues more and more life experience. Some persons exist a little ahead of the curve, some a little behind. Some quite far behind. The body of the wave, where the great middling multitude is contained, compresses and rises as the decades pass, the trailing edge dragging further to the rear, the wave's peak continuing to lean forward. "Where might you put yourself on this graph?" I asked. I'd assumed I detected Tyler's bias in her refutation of the bell curve's truth. I thought, with respect to herself, she'd immediately point to the tiny forward leaning foot at the extreme right, where the truly competent abide. "I don't know," she began. "Somewhere up here, I guess." She indicated a spot high on the curve's shoulder, to the right of the bulging mean, to be certain, but still within the ranks of the undis- tinguished. "There are things I'm good at," she said. "Overall I don't think I'm much beyond average." "What happens as the cohort ages and dies off?" I asked. She looked down at her illustration. "The numbers would be- gin to fall. The wave form would eventually collapse, flatten out, dis- integrate to nothing. It'd be as if it never existed." [206] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! It was right then, as Tyler and I were gazing down at the Ini- tiation Curve, or Proficiency Wave, or whatever you want to call it, imagining its terminal demise, the end of all that accumulated competency and know-how, the wave toppling and smoothing out for all eternity, that someone landed hard upon the greywacke di- rectly behind us. There was no warning and both she and I jumped. It was as if whoever it was had sprung through the air from ten yards away. Concurrent with the sound of two rubber-booted feet impacting the ground, there began a high pitched squealing noise and at the same moment an object resembling a short waterlogged stick was thrust into the minimal gap between Tyler and myself. Naturally, it was our Course Leader, squatting there upon her haunches not more than three feet behind us, lunatic expres- sion upon her face. She gave out three or four more renditions of the squealing sound, shaping her lips like a baboon, and continued to jab at us with the thing I took to be a small curved piece of sod- den driftwood. "You two break it up," Dodi finally said, stretching her mouth into a smile that gave full expanse to the thermoplastic teeth. Standing up, she strode off toward the student encampment, giving voice one last time to the strange squeal. Twice now Dodi has employed the phrase, "You two break it up". Or, "Break it up, you two". Whichever it was. As if Tyler and I are continuously fighting, or squabbling, instead of quietly talking. Does Dodi mean we should break off sitting near each other and sit from now on at opposite ends of the group? Who knows? It's not worth pursuing. Dodi and her little stick were followed by Burl and Thad Houston. The two approached Tyler and me from the front, like normal human beings. The Third Instructor was carrying some- thing wrapped up in his foul weather gear, the yellow, rubberized side of the garment turned inward. Burl suggested that the two of us come over and join the group for a quickie comparative anatomy class to be conducted in a few minutes by our C.L. When Tyler and I reached the student encampment, the bundle of Mr. Houston's rain gear top was opened to reveal the complete and nearly denuded skeleton of a sea otter which the In- structor team had found washed up on the beach. We gathered in a circle around Dodi, most but not all of the students, two or three couldn't be located and were probably off somewhere smoking dope, or smoking seaweed, or whatever they could find to roll into a joint. With the carcass of the otter lying at her feet, our Course Leader launched into her impromptu class. Dinah was present, struck dumb I thought by what was probably the largest dead creature Section #19: Nitpicking Dodi [207] ! she'd ever been in the presence of. It was not a carcass of her fa- vorite animal, exactly, but a cousin to her favorite animal. Remem- bering what Burl had said about the skippers of fishing boats taking potshots at otters and I found myself looking over Dodi's specimen for a bullet wound. I couldn't see anything right off but without get- ting down on my knees for a closer inspection it'd be hard to say one way or the other for certain. In the course of her instructional, Dodi pointed out how the front and hind flippers of the otter are very similar skeletally to our own legs and arms. As our Course Leader directed our attention to different aspects of the otter carcass, it was easy enough to appre- ciate what she was saying. There were roughly the same number of joints and linkages on the animal as you'd find on a human, except in the case of the otter the bones were abbreviated and the limbs didn't project far from the creature's trunk. To illustrate this point, Dodi pulled her own arms inside her thermal shirt leaving only her hands to protrude from each sleeve. Then, crouching down, she gathered her knees up beneath the shirt until just the flippers of her feet were visible, thus approximating with her own body the otter's anatomical structure. It was an ingenious demonstration. The kind of demo you don't soon forget. As Dodi stood, the thermal shirt rode up the skin of her stomach until the hem revealed the lower half of a pair of remarkably tanned breasts. It was the briefest of exposures, a mere second, and wouldn't have been that long if a section of the hem hadn't hung upon a nipple requiring Dodi to actually reach up and detach the fabric. Our Lead Instructor didn't seem the least put out by her inadvertency, but this last bit of comparative anatomy sure got the attention of the male collegiates who, to an individual, ex- changed quick glances to confirm between themselves that they'd actually seen what they thought they'd seen. It seemed one of the fellows might've even let out a low whistle in delayed response, but I may be imagining that part. Whistle or not, Dodi caught the exchange of glances. There was the slightest hitch in her movement as an expression of annoy- ance played over her face. Easy to see she was impatient with the adolescents under her charge for having bothered to notice her re- veal. One more reason to write the boys off as inexperienced and unworldly and I guess Dodi had better lump me in there with them. I knew what I'd seen and didn't need it confirmed. Encircling the aureola of the nipple that snagged the shirt were the same tiny blonde hairs I'd noticed sprouting along Dodi's upper lip. As Dodi approached the conclusion of her anatomy tutorial she raised up the little stick, the thing hardly bigger than a twig [208] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! which had been in her hand the whole time, the object I'd taken for a piece of driftwood when she'd waggled it between Tyler and my- self, alarming us with the weird squealing. Bending down to the ot- ter's supine body, still splayed out at our feet upon the greywacke, Dodi reinstalled the stick to its original coordinates, a spot adjacent to the otter's pelvis, which is where I gather it was lying when the Instructors discovered the dead creature on the beach. She in- formed us that the stick, actually a bone, functioned as a sort of pe- nile support, an appendage with which every male sea otter is equipped. The otter skeleton, having completed its service as a visual aid to our lecture, was respectfully buried under a mound of 'wacke at the high tide line. Dodi retained the phallus. It's the very object she is presently holding in her lap and into which she's carving some sort of scrimshaw design with her very sharp, French-made folding knife. Sometime following Dodi's tutorial, Tyler and I went for a walk along the beach and discussed the incident of the penile sup- port, particularly the way in which the Course Leader had waved it at us as a warning and admonition. "Whaddya think?" Tyler asked. "What I think is Dodi doesn't approve of us being involved while on course." "How can she tell?" I answered that it was my guess there were probably only three people on the course who hadn't figured it out and all three of them were boys under the age of twenty. Tyler was doing some sort of swooping routine as we walked, holding her arms out wide in a birdlike fashion, wheeling down to the water and then swerving back. "I tried to spend some time with Dodi early on," she said on one of her near approaches. "Back when we were camped on Olsen. You know, younger woman/older woman sort of thing." "I wouldn't exactly call Dodi an older woman," I said. "Older than me by a decade and a half." "So, how'd it go?" "Not so well. I don't think she's all that comfortable relating to another female. Maybe it's that I'm so much younger. Anyway, I got the feeling I was annoying her." "What was it you wanted?" "What I wanted was an opportunity to ask what had influ- enced her in her choices. I admire the woman's strength and inde- pendence. I thought it'd be worthwhile to get to know her better." "She certainly chose a path different from the one you're on." Section #19: Nitpicking Dodi [209] ! "For your information, bub," Tyler said. "I'm not on any path. I might not even necessarily choose to become a doctor." We walked on for a while without speaking, then Tyler said: "I guess when you're an instructor out here working continuously for a month without break the last thing you want is some student barging in on your personal time." "No doubt." As for Dodi's impromtu class on the beach that day, I thought it was pretty good. For twenty minutes there you could almost see how she must've been as an instructor when the job was still inter- esting to her. Given her enthusiasm for comparative anatomy, vet- erinary medicine is probably a good choice. According to her own testimony, a month prior to this float, Dodi worked a kayak trip of similar length on the Sea of Cortez, a course that may've followed the same itinerary as the trip on which she lost the student those many years ago, only in this instance everyone got through fine. Word is, students and instructors on those warm water floats are in the habit of not wearing much in the way of clothes. A clothing optional policy is something each group takes a vote on early in the course. Our C.L. only had three days to make the transition from that venue to this one, to get herself on a flight from Cabo to Anchorage and then aboard the shuttle to Palmer for a couple of days of pre-course briefing. No wonder her tan appears so fresh. Dodi stays well covered up here on the Sound because she senses, probably correctly, that we wouldn't be tolerant of undue nudity. These Alaska trips have a whole different set of concerns. The water's cold, the air barely warm for a few hours every after- noon and only then if there's no breeze. Cord's the sole individual amongst us who's pulled off a tan and he arrived with a pretty good base already laid down. Anyway, being young and male, the surfer doesn't have to overcome any mores about keeping his shirt on. If he wants to go around feeling a chill all day that's his business. Too bad it can't be like those Baja trips where everybody exists in a near nudist state. The collegiate fellows would be initially titillated, then they'd get over it and be brought to a new level of initiation. I have to say, when I first got wind of what those Baja expedi- tions were like, I decided it was a good thing I hadn't ended up on one simply from not knowing the difference. Aside from the fact that Alaskan waters could still be in my future, if and when civiliza- tion takes its final downturn and the sea kayak/small bore rifle/ fishing tackle approach becomes the indicated route to survival, those Sea of Cortez expeditions strike me as more of a vacation trip, characterized by lots of sun, warm sand, productive fishing [210] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! and minimal hardship. Wouldn't learn much on one of those courses and, anyway, it doesn't sound as if Baja would be the place to be when the bottom falls out. Too close to the population centers of SoCal and Mexico City. Well, I guess it's not all sandcastles and feasting on baked grouper down there on the Sea of Cortez. Judging by Dodi's story of capsizing, it's evident difficulty can find you no matter where you are. Or it finds some people. It won't find me. By whatever mysteri- ous and occult means, I always manage to manipulate my environ- ment to ensure adequate rest and food and the arrival of one, if not two, cups of hot coffee every day. I'm sure, following her most recent Baja bacchanal, the tone of this expedition is more restrained than Dodi would prefer. I, for one, have done all I can to put the damper on any incipient revelry, if only by never initiating festivity or encouraging it on the part of others. Then there's Dinah and Pat. Plus Tyler, who's a fairly sober type. I think even Thad Houston prefers the hours to pass without uproar. Between us five serious types you're talking twenty-five percent of the course. You can sense the need for abandon building up in Dodi, un- satisfied as she is by our sedate progression. Maybe if we were to continue on for a couple of years living and traveling this way, en- during ever increasing hardship and privation, ceasing to be stu- dents and instructors, Dodi would finally start getting the sorts of stories she wants out of us. At the very least we'd all become a lot less uptight about our bodies, which would probably suit her. I appreciate Dodi's frustration but, still, what she did with that penile support was out of line, gesticulating at Tyler and me like that, squalling like a demented creature, waving the phallus around as if it were some sort of voodoo charm designed to throw bad juju on our romance. Wrong talisman for the purpose, anyway, unless Dodi's intention was to point out the obvious and discourage me from lusting after the nape of Tyler's neck. I look over toward the Lead Instructor in time to witness her accomplish a forceful gouge in the material of the bone, adding an- other flourish to whatever hideous design she's putting on the shaft. If she's not careful she's liable to slip and put a new vent hole in her wind pants, or worse. I'll bet when Dodi gets back to Palmer it won't be more than about forty-five minutes before she searches out some accommodating in-town male staff person, or male instructor in between field contracts, and suggests he accompany her forth- with to his room or tent. Who knows? Maybe one of the male stu- dents on this course has expressed an interest, though I don't know who it'd be other than possibly Crandall. It's a little hard to imagine Section #19: Nitpicking Dodi [211] ! Dodi's compact blondness grappling with the rangy red-head. He's got at least twelve inches on her. And she'd have to not mind freck- les. Anyway, if she doesn't already have a buddy on stand-by back at Palmer base then Dodi will simply have to employ her new aphrodisiac device, dipping the penis bone into the unwitting staffer's beer or mug of coffee, thus putting him under her sway. "You two break it up." The way the phrase rolled off her tongue it's a good bet she's employed it on other courses, with other incipient romancers. I don't think Dodi's disapproval of Tyler's and my behavior has really much to do with any Principle of Exclusivity or other school policy crap. Dodi doesn't approve because of what she perceives to be the gap between Tyler's and my age. Dodi's chalked me up as the instigator. I believe this to be a fair approxi- mation of the way the Lead Instructor's mind works. If I'd become involved with Dinah, instead, Dodi might be baffled but she wouldn't be telling the librarian and me to break it up. She'd consider it our business. I suspect her logic is something along the lines of: Well, if that Marlow is going to romantically entangle himself with some- one while on course he should at least pick on a female who's his contemporary. Well, I'm sure a vixen like Dodi had her day, romanc- ing the males, students and instructors alike. She's going to have to start getting used to younger women stealing away the men. It's probably a good thing Dodi's getting out of the business. Marlow perhaps should've done the C.L. the courtesy of at least indicating he was interested. That way the C.L. could've tact- fully declined on grounds of professionalism. It's a tough read with a woman like Dodi. If I'd made an overture at the precise instant I felt genuine interest, this being the fifteen seconds I was entranced by the tiny blonde hairs on her upper lip, if I was the sort of male who acted on impulse, well, at least it would've put everything on the table and possibly helped to forestall bad feeling later, not to mention clearing the decks for what was to come between myself and Tyler. Or maybe not. What if I'd made a pass at the Course Leader and she'd met me halfway? Right there in Issue, no less. Boy, that would've sure altered the tone of things. How terrifying. At some point since we hit shore this late afternoon Dodi changed the yellow neoprene gasket for a blue baseball cap, her normal dry land headgear. Sewn to the front of the cap is a sou- venir patch of a bird -- massive bill, undersized wings, odd little tuft of feathers fanning out from the rump. It's not a bad nickname, "Dodo", but the modified version is better. The original would've never worked out in the long run, a term virtually synonymous with extinction and uselessness and implying a failure to adapt, though it wasn't the bird's fault. Nothing [212] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! could've adapted fast enough to escape the pressure that eventually came to bear on that poor fowl. But "Dodi", now that's a good handle. Distinctive and uncomplicated. I fancy that the Dodo bird, not badly represented on the ballcap's patch, has come to be our Course Leader's secret totemic animal. The creature may be extinct but at least it tried and it's not as if it didn't exist quite successfully for something like ten million years, a lot longer than humans have been around even if we were the predator that finally did the bird in. The beauty of taking on an extinct, almost mythical, creature as one's personal emblem is you're free to attribute to the animal all manner of made-up characteristics. Who knows what the bird's call actually once sounded like but if Dodi wants to pretend it was a sort of maniacal squalling she's free to do so. Tyler and I aren't going to let the C.L.'s little display jinx our romance. That's right. We're not going to break it up. I don't care if my involvement with the med student provides Dodi with grounds to lower my eval, or even withhold my diploma, just about negating any future inclusion into the company of the New Colonists. My connection with the girl from Boston is about the only positive thing that's come out of this whole undertaking. Well, there's also been the odd but fascinating experience of gettng to know the per- son of Dinah. And, of course, there was the confirmation that sea kayaking's not the sport for me, a sort of negative realization but !one that's going to save me a lot of time and trouble. !

! ! ! ! ! ! Section #20: Heinous Pressure ! Seventy-two hours was about all it took for me to learn what I needed to know about paddling a sea kayak. I could've left the course directly following the wet exit drill and either gone back to Petersburg to buy a boat and figure the rest out on my own, or to not buy a boat and begin making plans to depart Southeast Alaska. Don't get me wrong. I do appreciate the places the kayaks have taken us, these islands and glacial moraines and such, but all it's done is confirm that I'm only truly happy when my feet are on solid ground. Next to me the young coed continues to write vigorously away in her spiral notebook, lower lip pushed out in the effort to mark down the words. Well, you know, the Instructors and Dodi in particular could've easily put the kibosh on our involvement by simply assigning Tyler and me to different student groups for the second SGE. Maybe they considered it. Maybe Dodi wanted to orga- nize it that way. If that was the case, I doubt Thad Houston was the one to go to bat for us. Not that the Third Instructor should care one way or the other. I'm sure Tyler isn't the first female student he's approached on a course and she's certainly not to be the last. Thad Houston will eventually marry a female participant off of one of his courses and have children with her and even that won't spell the end of his being attracted to one or another of his girl students. Nope, it wasn't Instructor Houston but Burl who in the end was our advocate, the one who convinced Dodi it was neither a detriment to us nor to the student group for Tyler and me to travel together. The Instructor from Seattle has related to us a story con- cerning a sea kayaking course he was assigned to a few years back. The course arrived to Whittier in the usual fashion only to detrain into a heavy, sustained rainstorm. Absolute deluge, Burl said. Come to think of it, maybe this was Dan's course. I should write him and ask. Or I suppose I could just ask Burl. In any case, Burl said he hated to see the expedition launch under such conditions and he convinced the Lead Instructor, who was not Dodi, to overnight at a public campground. "There wasn't a whole lot for us to do in Whitti- er," Burl said, a lead-in to the joke phrase in which the town's name is rhymed with the profane adjective. As mentioned, I'd already [214] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! heard this bit of doggerel from my workmates down in Petersburg but the other students thought it hilarious and may've assumed Burl made it up on the spot. It seemed uncharacteristic of Burl to employ a crude witticism more likely to be a stand-by among boat's crews and construction workers but evidently Burl gets around. "We got a couple of classes out of the way," Burl said, "then basically kept ourselves entertained. Nothing may be shittier than Whittier but there is a bowling alley and a movie theater. The rain let up the following day at which point we went ahead and launched. I just think it's better to start out these trips in reasonably fair weather, not in the middle of a downpour." Sure, I thought. Why not? Students have enough to contend with right off the bat, trying to get situated in their boats and mas- ter the camping drill. Burl's not the sort to put undo pressure on people. Burl may have a wife but I believe he's without offspring or other complication. The man has spent most of his adult life en- gaged in outdoor activity, doing little of what the culture expects of him. If it came down to a discussion amongst the Instructors, I'm sure Burl was the one to be the promoter of romance between Tyler and me. "Let 'em have their little expedition," I can imagine him saying. None of it really matters. Once the Instructors are off on their own and Dodi's free to indulge in solar baths to her heart's de- light she won't waste another thought on Tyler and me. Tyler's really getting into the spirit of it, scribbling away in her journal, so absorbed in whatever she's writing she's not even here. She's off in her ethereal classroom. By my reckoning, to date the girl has spent seventeen years sitting at a desk, listening to the drone of lectures, taking notes, and she's got another five or six years to go. Billions of seconds to tick off on that watch of hers. Tyler looks up from the journal with an unfocused eye and smiles in my direction, her writing hand continuing to move across the page, putting down the words in blue ink. She turns back to monitor the progress of her auto-scribbling and I'm able to gaze with impunity upon the Titian hair so rich with gold in the slanting light. This evening the mass of her hair is coiled and piled beneath a ballcap, exposing the vulnerable nape which glows with an alluring sheen of insect repellant, heavily applied. Nearing the end of the course, Tyler has half a bottle of dope remaining and can afford to be extravagant. She'll have bug dope left over to take back home with her to Boston. Every time she opens the bottle and takes a whiff of the DEET it'll remind her of this place, though not necessar- ily of me. I once pointed out to Tyler that, never mind movies, a little romance has been known to provide a useful distraction from too Section #20: Heinous Pressure [215] ! much book study. I don't recall where we were at the time. It must've been during another of our many walks down the beach. "I don't have time for any hanky-panky when I'm in school," she said. "Didn't you say you had a boyfriend back on the Cape?" "That's right. The design major. But that was years ago, when I was an undergrad. No time for boyfriends now. The way I see it, the year divides itself evenly into two distinct periods. If it's winter then I'm in the city, in school, where I have to get the work done. Summers are different. I can relax in the summer." "This will be your last free summer for a while?" "I'm in doctor training for the next five years. No breaks." "Not much room for a boyfriend then?" "Nope. I'll be in permanent winter mode." In Tyler it's necessary to recognize a person with an ex- tremely intact sense of self. And I didn't quite believe her about her position on the curve. Maybe in terms of overall competency she only rates a slot just to the right of the hump, but on the Self-Suffi- ciency Curve, in relation to her cohort, that portion of the popula- tion born one month before her and one month after, Tyler has got to be out there on the leading edge. I really don't know what to do about this girl. In a way, Dodi's right to be concerned. The gap between Tyler's and my respective ages and experience is considerable. An on-going involvement sim- ply cannot be countenanced. Tyler should break it off. There can be no future for us, she the daughter of a world-esteemed expert on infectious diseases, herself a future doctor, and me an inveterate drifter, a man who prefers to take whatever menial job comes to hand. Up on the moraine, Burl pulls the razor laterally across his jaw, cleaning off whisker and soap residue the way someone might use a squeegee to take off the last streaks of water on a car wind- shield. He taps the result of his scraping into the pot and then pitches the contents downslope, flinging the water in a violent arc, a sheet of droplets that disperses widely over the tumulus. Dilution is the solution ... et cetera. He dries his face with a bandana and puts away the shaving gear. Burl checks the coffee Dodi has set up for him. Before the Second Instructor takes a sip, he pops the lid off the travel mug. Burl's enough of a connoisseur to know that smelling the coffee is half the appeal. He now gives it a taste and nods at Dodi with ap- proval concerning the strength and flavor. I guess we've been out here a while -- twenty-three, twenty-four days now -- the only ex- planation for how such a nasty concoction could possibly be to [216] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! Burl's satisfaction, he being from Seattle where I know for a fact there's some very good bean to be had. Burl takes another sip and stares off at the headlands above camp, squinting as if the coffee has suddenly given him the capacity to discern the meaning of this place. In the forty minutes we've been sitting here the disk of the sun has ratcheted up and down the length of the range, dodging behind one mountain then reappearing to briefly wink through a saddle. It now presses upon the flank of the next bump in the obscure enchainment. The slant of the sun is flatter here than it is down in Petersburg. I guess a couple of de- grees latitude further north makes a difference. I once described to Burl my life of the past year-and-a-half in the Southeast fishing town. He failed to see the romance of a work- a-day job in a cannery, or of living in a tent city. Burl accepts the fact that I might've had to process a few fish to pay for my transport up from the Lower Forty Eight, but beyond that he'd say there are too many interesting places to see in the world to squander eigh- teen months living and working in what sounded to him like a forced labor camp. When I explained to Burl that it'd not been all cannery work but that for nearly the past year I'd been making my living as a pizza cook, thinking he'd appreciate how I'd managed to infuse variety into the requirement to earn a paycheck, he only stared at me with an expression of utter bafflement. I realized that to him it probably sounded like going from bad to worse. I'd switched tacks and told him how I'd been studying the possibility of moving back to the Northern Rockies, maybe to one of the gateway towns of Yellowstone. Bozeman maybe or Livingston. Burl said he knew a number of instructors for the school who based out of Jackson. Aside from this, I couldn't detect any enthusiasm on his part for my idea of relocation. Rather his tone conveyed the no- tion that for his friends, the other instructors, to base out of a backwater like Jackson could only be a hardship, a stopgap until they could figure out something better. I gather that when Burl's not in the wilderness the big city is the only place for him. The sun finds a trap door to fall through and with an almost audible click disappears behind the next peak in the range. Burl props one foot on an erratic, bracing his forearm and the coffee mug on an elevated knee. His face is smooth as an urbanite's and glistens with an aftershave of insect repellant. Which has got to smart if he suffered any nicks. He's going to commence speaking any second now. That click I heard wasn't the sun vanishing but the whack of the miniature clapper board in Tyler's head marking the take. "In Kenya," Burl begins, then pauses to take a sip of the coffee Section #20: Heinous Pressure [217] ! and effect another survey of the amphitheater. "As I was saying," he goes on, clearing his throat, "in Kenya, the course instructors meet each incoming group of students in the lobby of a hotel in down- town Nairobi. After a spot of lunch at the base we load up Land Rovers and head into the bush. By evening those same students are standing around a campfire in the company of Masai tribesmen, bona fide spear-toting warriors with rings in their noses, naked tor- sos all shiny with oil and such." Burl pauses for another sip and to let us appreciate for a moment the image of a warm night on the veldt. Tyler and Pat and Dinah are evidently convinced this opening is the signal for the evening's instructional. There's a general repositioning and leaning forward on ensolite pads. Tyler flips back to the page of her spiral notebook where she'd previously inscribed the date and location of our camp. Taking a grip low on the barrel of the ballpoint she waits for whatever Burl will say next. Somehow, I have the feeling this isn't the class, not yet. There's too much discrepancy between the cold, alpine colors of Burl's terrestrial gear and the greens and browns of East Africa. "Take note, if you will, the striations." The Instructor from Seattle reaches down and passes a hand over the surface of the stone upon which his foot is propped. Burl strokes the facets in the surface of the rock. He's cer- tainly right about the striae. The same phenomenon can be seen on the boulder at my elbow, a system of fine grooves cut into the face, as if etched with a tool. Similar lines are visible on every stone and rock around us. "Consider what it must've took," Burl says, his finger still ca- ressing the erratic, "the pressure, the relentless grinding as thou- sands of tons of ice pressed down upon this rock." He sets his coffee mug upon the boulder and attempts to imi- tate the grinding by mashing a balled fist into the palm of the other hand. Finding this unsatisfactory, he picks up two stones and, grip- ping one in each hand, scrapes them against each other, his lips pulling back to reveal clinched teeth. You can think what you want but I've personally concluded Burl isn't gay. The time he reached out to finger the material of my windpants, Burl was simply playing out the role he's made up for Dodi's amusement. I believe Burl acts out quite a bit for Dodi's amusement. I don't believe Burl has hemorrhoids, or any other "condition". Hemorrhoids are part of the joke persona Burl has cre- ated, the feckless homosexual, the gay blade who cannot control his impulses. I've been given to understand that "Burl" is not actually the Second Instructor's real name, that his real name is Jonathan. [218] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! I ask you, would a bona fide gay man drop the name Jonathan and take on instead the nickname "Burl"? Maybe he would, but some- how I don't think so. Dodi has seconded the business about Burl's hemorrhoids, employing the straight face she puts on when imparting all of her disinformation. And right there's reason to doubt. The ensolite pad- ding Burl has placed in his cockpit -- two or three seat-shaped sec- tions cut from a standard sleeping pad, duct taped together -- are I believe put there simply for the sake of comfort. The stock plastic seats of the kayaks are hard on the rear. If there ever comes a time when I'm forced to work sea kayaking courses for a living I might put down a little extra padding, myself. It's no different than bring- ing cans of fruit cocktail to supplement the rations. Burl is rubbing those rocks together so vigorously we can hear the grinding all the way over here. "Heinous pressure, huh Cord?" he asks. The lad mumbles back an affirmative. Ever since they de- vised their suspicions about Burl and came up with the nickname, Cord and the other collegiates seem embarrassed whenever they're spoken to directly by the older male instructor. Tossing the stones away, Burl points with an outstretched arm. "Look at the side of that hill. Right there," he says, moving his extended finger back and forth on a line. "As fine an example of striation as you'll ever see." By hill, it appears Burl means the exposed horn of granite which separates Barry and Cascade Glaciers. There's some striae, all right, and heinous wouldn't be a bad word for it. It's one of those places where the planet's flesh has been scraped away to the bone. The exfoliated rock face presents a series of grooves, deep gouges parallel to the glacial flow and visible to us sitting a mile away. The grooves would probably be visible from low Earth orbit. During the most recent ice age it's a good bet the three glaciers we see before us were joined in a single massive sheet which overran all of the surrounding land forms. A boulder the size of, say, a split level house, locked deep within the movement and subject to unimagin- able pressure, was dragged slowly across the granite flank of the horn. Easily a job of ten thousand years. And that'd only account for one of the grooves. There are hundreds, thousands of them up there. Burl was only mocking me with the thigh pinch. Though he probably has his suspicions about my orientation. Here I am nearly thirty years old and have made no mention of a wife, or girlfriend, waiting for me back in the world. Which is because there isn't any such female. For a while there, I had something going on back in Section #20: Heinous Pressure [219] ! Petersburg with a native Tlingit woman. With any luck that's over and by the time I get back to town will no longer be a concern. The same is true about the arm touching which occurred during his inspection of our kitchen tarp. Maybe Burl figured he'd put his hand on my arm, get a reaction and then report back to Dodi. Or, it may simply be Burl's nature to touch the objects he finds around him, a way of reassuring himself of their reality. Burl is one of those tactilely responsive individuals. If he's talking to a person he'll eventually need to touch them. "These glaciers are active geophysical forces," Burl is saying, "no less than earthquakes or erupting volcanoes." In perfect sympa- thy with his words there arrives more sounds of industry from the direction of Coxe where rock is in the process of being pulverized into smaller, more workable units. "Glaciers. Icebergs. Avalanches. Williwaws," Burl goes on. "Impact waves. A large calving could send out a pressure wave large enough to sweep us right off this point." I'm sure Burl's right. I mean, listen to all that scraping and banging. The earth's crust vibrates in a manner designed to keep the product moving down the conveyor. The williwaws pick up the smaller pieces and the ocean does the rest, washing the processed ore clear of the crusher. The planet is being ground down into grav- el and shoved out to sea. As has always been the case. Why even look into it? A more important consideration at this moment is what would be the best route upslope to gain the rooster tail of the water- fall. Maybe hike the moraine beside Coxe. Or, possibly, follow the stream bed itself. The creek can be seen glistening in the breaks between the alder bushes. In fact, it's a fairly good bet that the wa- tercourse hurtling itself through the air up there is the same stream that flows past our camp. "The Masai have a phrase in their language to describe places like this," Burl goes on, "the strict translation is: Killer. Death. Fang. Once the label has been applied the tribe steers clear of the spot. Whole generations will avoid going there. I think that just about sums up the situation here. Killer. Death. Fang. Very bad juju. Every kayaking book written about the Sound will advise against coming up here unless you go with an experienced guide." "None of you should forget," Dodi puts in, "what a privilege it is to be here." "Dodi's right," says Burl. "Even Marlow there, a fellow who's traveled far and collected much jade, should know how rare an op- portunity this is. The geology of this place alone is enough to keep most people out. The bugs will take care of the rest," he adds, bring- ing the palm of his hand smartly against the side of his neck. [220] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! Well, I'm sure that was only for effect. I don't believe any bug was there. "For years," Burl continues, "there've been plans to build a resort hotel on the terminal moraine of Columbia Glacier. Right on the spot where we were camped a week ago. One reason it hasn't happened is that, short of issuing a headnet with every room key, the developers don't know what to do about the mosquitoes. Or the flies. I, for one, am glad the bugs are here. Helps keep out the riffraff." "Insects can become part of the experience," Thad Houston says. "A year from now, when you're looking back on this course, you won't remember how bad the bugs were." "I don't even notice them anymore," Cord offers. "See. There you go," says Burl. "It's a question of having the proper attitude. I'll tell you, though, most people are not going to have anything to do with the upper reaches of these fjords. And why should they? There's no reason to venture in close the way we have. Cruises out of Whittier advertise twenty-six glaciers in a day. The boats maintain a safe distance from the calving. The mosqui- toes can't get to you that far off-shore. And while you're up on deck, waiting for a turn at the spotting scope, you can order a highball cooled down with chips of real iceberg. Now that's quite a thing. Re- call your Glaciology 101. Bubbles of air trapped in the ice under pressure. As the ice melts the bubbles let go with a nice snap, crack- le, pop. Makes for a very unique drinking experience. Highballs all around. Everyone gets to witness the glaciers do their calving and the boat returns to Whittier in time for supper at The Tide View." Burl pauses. Well, that's kind of interesting, I think. Back at Columbia Burl made of point of saying that glacial ice isn't like what you normally pour your Scotch over. Yet, we've got tour boats harvest- ing the brash for that very purpose. I look out toward the mouth of the Arm where there are half as many boats as there were an hour ago. In the fading light the red and green running lights show up nicely against the dark water. The oil tanker is nowhere to be seen, or else its grey bulk has been rendered invisible. Beyond the smaller vessels, out where the channel is deeper, a cruise ship on impulse power moves slowly by Port Wells, its hull alive with a hundred glowing portholes. There's electricity and refrigeration out there. Somewhere aboard the ship is a bar top of polished wood reflecting the warm glow of track lights. Thick carpeting is underfoot and there's a brass rail against which to fit the heel of your boot. A helpful barman awaits. Never mind the whisky poured over bergy bits, make it a cold beer. Well, Section #20: Heinous Pressure [221] ! I'll take the whisky, too, as long as it's available, a double shot, neat, but hold the fizzy ice. I don't want any ice, particularly not any dirty glacier ice. However, make sure the beer is cold. Burl takes a seat on the boulder, tries his coffee again. I thought at first maybe we were getting some sort of preamble to a glaciology class. But this is it. It's not exactly Advanced Glaciology. It's Advanced Something, I don't know what. Advanced Burl, I sup- pose. Burl 401. Tyler's left off taking notes and after checking the level of the ink column, which couldn't have been brought down much by her short effort, has put aside her pen. Dinah, who's ap- parently had enough of the Instructor's emboldening stories of williwaws and impact waves and, realizing we're not in for an offi- cial class, has gotten up, folded her ensolite under her arm and moved off. I thought at first she was getting up to pee -- not that she'd ever announce the fact -- but, no, she's wandered completely away to do something more to her liking, explore around down at the tide line, or go see how her nest is faring. "What we always hope," Burl says, taking it up again, "is that students who graduate from this course will, at some point, do more of this sort of travel. Of course," he adds, "if you do, it's unlike- ly we'll ever hear about it. Students are notorious for failing to stay in touch." Burl gazes into the middle distance, the region where his past students have wandered off to their unknown fates. I cannot see what Burl's looking at way over there, unless he's also trying to determine at what distance the individual trees merge into blurred forms. In this light the transformation occurs a little closer than it did, maybe less than a half a mile from where we're sitting. I recall another thing Burl taught us in our first and what appears will be our only glaciology class back at Columbia. Along with all the other terms such as "drumlin" and "till" he mentioned the French term "moraine", which translates in English to "snout", meaning the nose, or the forward projecting aspect of an ice flow. It seems that moraine has come to mean something more general, tending to include all of the rock and sediment that's been shoved around and deposited by a glacier. I like that term "snout", though. Very applicable to a glacier like Coxe, thrusting itself out into the fjord, possessed of a distinct business end. Now the Instructor from Seattle looks directly at us. "If you people take only one thing away from this experience it should be the knowledge that it's not unreasonable to travel to a place like this. Now that you know the layout, you could come in here on your own anytime. You don't need any so-called guides, or instructors. With the right equipment and a little common sense you can travel [222] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! anywhere in this region. All you need is a willingness to flounder. You may experience some physical discomfort but basically you'll be fine." A large mass within the body of Coxe shifts its position and there's a loud rumble. Burl spins on his rock and gazes up toward the glacier. We all look to see if there's been any visible change, the opening up of a crevasse, or an ice fall. However, the glacier sits imponderable and unchanged. "Of course," he goes on, speaking now to the ice, "physical dis- comfort is not what our culture's about. And people don't like to flounder. Particularly not the sort of people who have the leisure and money to travel. Modern life is too structured for that. People don't have the patience for it. Floundering is irksome and anxiety provoking." He turns back around. "I have some acquaintances back in the city, good friends of mine, whose idea of adventure is going out to see a movie which hasn't been reviewed. Still, they listen to my stories and say they'd someday like to travel to a place like this." Burl takes a sip of coffee. He's not actually with us right at this second. He's not back in the African bush either. No, he's at the pleasant Seattle coffee house, the one at Public Market with the windows that face out toward the Bay. The cafe's shop front has been rolled back to let in the early evening air. His companions are finishing their lattes, discussing the new releases, taking a poll on which movie they should attend, reviewed or not. They're deter- mined to hit upon the right cinema experience, the one film best guaranteed to ferry them through the evening and on toward the hour when they can reasonably go to sleep and escape any further requirement to fill their unstructured time. "There are some folks back at school headquarters," Burl continues, "who feel we shouldn't be bringing courses into the Sound. Places like this are too rare and fragile for organized groups. It's simply not a good idea. There's too much impact. Particularly in deluxe spots like Black Sand Beach. Places like this should be left for the solo adventurer, for those few who'll make the trip whether or not there are professional instructors or guides to escort them, individuals who'd come up here even if they had to build their own boat and navigate by the stars." I cannot imagine who Burl's talking about here. Not anybody in this group. I'd never do it. Well, there was a time when I might've embarked on such a venture, until I realized how much I disliked being on the water and found some way to sabotage the trip. Tyler's on too tight a schedule for any floundering. Cord could build his own boat and paddle it around the tip of South America, but he'd need Section #20: Heinous Pressure [223] ! somebody else to come up with the idea. Dinah's already split from the discussion so she's out. Pat, in her dogged way, is the only one capable of the kind of floundering Burl describes. We wouldn't even be up here this deep in Barry Arm if not for Pat's urging to give the situation a try, risk a little floundering. "What we're seeing in the contiguous United States," Burl goes on, swinging into what he's evidently been working himself up to, "is a population increasingly choosing to abandon the country- side and congregate into dense urban enclaves. The wildlife's start- ing to come back. Bears are showing up in New England towns that haven't seen a bear in two hundred years. Meanwhile, in the urban enclaves, citizens are less and less willing to venture into the hin- terlands without the assurances of a guide and an itinerary. The school is seeing this in the general public's inquiries regarding its courses. What we're finding is that when individuals consider the sort of monetary outlay we require to join our expeditions they ex- pect a fairly high level of coddling. People have a few weeks of vaca- tion from school or career. The principle thing they want is to expe- rience something different from the normal day-to-day. Look at the students on this course. Most of them are not all that interested in learning about leadership, or minimum impact travel, or even basic camping skills. We make them pay attention to this stuff, but really they just want to complete the trip and go home and tell their friends about their big Alaskan adventure." Burl doesn't actually look at Cord as he's saying this. The Second Instructor pauses to take a good swig of the cof- fee. The contents must've cooled off considerably for him to swill it like that. When he starts talking again you can hear the words com- ing up through the liquid pooled at the back of his throat. "These expeditions are a one time deal for most people. Given that fact, it's my opinion the school should organize its courses dif- ferently. There are lots of folks out there who like the idea of self- propelled travel, but they want it packaged and predictable. We should give it to them that way. On these sea kayaking trips, for in- stance, the school should do the grunt work, transport the food and the group gear, handle camp set-up and cooking. Course partici- pants would load their boats with a minimal amount of personal gear and proceed to a series of designated camps. We'd stay com- pletely out of places like Upper Barry Arm. And we should offer shorter trips. Thirty days is too long. If the school took this ap- proach, we could run more groups through the area and impact it less. The school would be better off. Places like Black Sand Beach would be better off. And the students would never know the differ- ence. We will have provided them with an enjoyable backcountry [224] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! experience and sent them back to their urban enclave where they'll support legislation to keep the wilderness as undeveloped as possi- ble, which is good for those of us who want to make a living out here." So, there it is. Burl has worked out a strategy to ensure the perpetuity of the larger life, the expansive life. Guaranteed to keep him positioned against the exotic background. I'm thinking maybe I'll take that walk down the beach. First though, I'll go up to the kitchen tarp and get a little snack. See if there's any leftover mac and cheese, Cord's casserole made with noodles boiled in seawater. I didn't get a very big portion the first time around. I didn't want to eat so much it'd make me sleepy for class. Plus, there was the impaction to consider. I start to make a move, gathering up my possibles bag. Frankly, I don't know what we should've expected, anyway, as far as a class went, what with the rest of the expedition not in attendance. I take a moment to consider Burl's reconfiguration of the outdoor school. "If you were to set it up like that," I say, directing my words toward the Second Instructor, "would you still call them students?" He takes a final long swig from his mug and flings away the last bit which, since it came from Dodi's coffee sock, must've been chock full of particulate. "Sure," he says. "Why not? If we can call it adventure travel we can certainly call them students." I feel another bout of flatulence coming on and move off a space. En route to the kitchen tarp, I pull off my ballcap, unwind the headnet from the brim and put the cap back on. The skillet with the leftover mac and cheese should be sitting around somewhere, a rock holding down its lid. Truly, I shouldn't be eating anything giv- en my situation, but I feel a compulsion to keep packing it in. How many days has it been since the last bowel movement? Three, maybe. It was before we arrived to Golden. I recall that I found a nice section of driftwood to prop up against. And the result that morning was perfectly normal, not compacted at all, a stool that slipped out upon the littoral smooth as an eel. Turning the corner at the upper end of the tarp, I run straight into Dinah who's stooped over at the waist, for god knows what reason. I have the impression she's tracking something, an animal maybe, and bending to get a closer look at the trace. Despite my effort to evade, she backs her hiney straight into my groin. Good lord. "Dinah." She stands up straight and turns around. "Marlow." Section #20: Heinous Pressure [225] ! Without thinking about it, I raise the hot drink mug to my mouth, surprised to find there's still some remaining. "Bugs have died down," I tell her. "You can take off your headnet." She follows my suggestion and I see her face is wearing the old familiar pinched expression, her brow wrinkled with tiny paral- lel grooves not unlike striae. Striations of worry. I see the mac and cheese skillet, its lid weighted down with the other pot, over near the food duffels and take a step in its direction with the hope that I might be allowed to pass unhindered. "Marlow," she repeats. "Oh, no," I begin. "Is it the kittiwake?" "Plover," she reminds me. "I am worried about the egg. I do not think the mother has come back to sit on it once. I think she is afraid to with us camped so close." As Dinah talks she moves away from the tarp, drawing me with her upslope until we're standing where we can look down at the orb in question, still lying within its cusp of sand. In the dusk the egg seems to glow with an internal light. I see the librarian has marked off an area around the scrape two yards wide with concen- tric loops of white nylon line. "Should we put some straw over it?" she asks. "Something to keep it warm?" I'm not sure I've ever witnessed anyone actually wring their hands the way she's doing. The sight gives me a pain similar to what I used to feel back when I was her campmate, during out trou- blous times, watching her attempt to light a stove, dropping lit matches one after another upon the burner. "Dinah, you cover that egg with straw and the mother bird is guaranteed to never come near it." And just like the old days my words cause tears to spring forth in her eyes. "All right," I say. "Okay. Look, the egg's probably not generating much heat on its own." Even as I say this the internal glow which seemed to be there is gone and the egg sits as lifeless and inert as a stone. "Covering it with straw isn't going to help." "It might hold in a little ground heat." I look at her, surprised. She's right about the possibility of ground heat. I wouldn't have thought of it. "Maybe," I say. "My rec- ommendation is don't disturb that egg anymore than you have to." We stand quietly for a moment, both staring down at the tiny spheroid. I'm experiencing another gas irruption. The contractions are really starting to get bad. I step around the egg in order to vent the fumes away from Dinah. No point in giving her more reason to find me noisome, or cavalier, or more reckless than she already has. "Dodi says," I begin, simply talking as a way to distract Dinah [226] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! from any odor she might be picking up, "the mother bird will come sit on it while we're asleep." I almost cannot believe the words are coming out of my mouth Dinah doesn't appear reassured. Standing with her back to the glow of the sunlit ridge the lenses of her glasses, for once, are translucent. Her brown eyes are still teared up. Again, I can sense what she's thinking and she's wise not to give it voice. We could eas- ily fall into a debate about the fate of all wilderness and all the wild creatures remaining and I refuse to have it characterized that way. "I'm sorry," I tell her. "Given the fact that we're here, I don't see what else can be done." I make a move to go and then turn to her again. "By the way, it looks like we're going to stay over that ex- tra day." She doesn't have anything to say to this. "Maybe we'll go on a hike," I tell her. "Or you're free to spend the day poking around the tide line. Whatever you like." I look back once more before ducking beneath the kitchen tarp, see the librarian stooped over making some adjustment to the cordon of nylon line. The cheese sauce and the noodles have congealed together into a solid mass. It's possible to cut a rubbery, triangular wedge and lift it whole from the pot like a slice of pizza. Two weeks ago, such leftovers would've been floated out to sea, but hunger and a sense of diminishing supply has modified our standards. To be hon- est, the noodles taste unbelievably good. They taste particularly fine washed down with cold mocha java, cold because my dumb gas station hot drink cup possesses negative insulation value. I may be constipated, but that doesn't mean I'm any less starved. I'm under- nourished is what it is. Vital nutrients are failing to reach the ab- sorption points. Part of me says I shouldn't be eating anything, that I should be drinking another quart of water instead but, hell, maybe this is what I need. Some instinct is telling me to eat. Maybe the mac will help push out the blockage and I wonder if anyone would mind if I finish off what's left. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! Section #21: The Wet Exit Drill ! How does it work? How do we acquire the necessary in- formation? Constantly we assess these other beings, the human creatures whom we've discovered to be our fellow travelers in the thicket of this mortal realm. Forever we're on the lookout for the ones, the few, who can teach us something about how to live, how to achieve something beyond mere physical survival. Beginning at an age earlier than might be supposed each of us struggles to discover what it is we should give our attention to and in what manner to devote our time and energy. We scrutinize for clues the older per- sons around us, the supposed adults. Our contemporaries receive a sideways glance and even those younger will warrant a once-over if by some word or action they reveal themselves in possession of in- sight into the problem. What a person quickly figures out is that no one other indi- vidual has but a portion of the answer. We're forced to mix and match as we go along, taking a little from this person, a little from that, a bit of description from a book, an example from the life of a character in a film, until we manage to paste together a workable methodology, a system for living. As for the general run of individ- uals we can tell almost from the first instant of contact they have little to teach us, unless it be to demonstrate by example how not live. Basically, it's the reverse of Dodi's camp game, her little exer- cise in repulsion and attraction where the rule was to move toward the person you'd normally be least inclined while avoiding those whom you find most interesting. In life outside of a game, if we know what's good for us, we'll move as quickly as we can into the presence of those whom we've intuited to be in possession of applic- able knowledge and away from individuals we sense are bereft. That's right. There's no time to waste in confab with the un- promising. We're forced to be ruthless, what with the hours and days ticking by at an ever increasing rate. By the time we're in our twenties we've only got a decade in which to figure it out. That is, if we want sufficient life expanse left over to apply ourselves to a par- ticular undertaking, to get beyond apprenticeship to something like journeyman level. It's so easy to be pulled onto the wrong track, to [228] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! chase what passes for success only to discover in the end we were engaged in an empty and hollow pursuit. Experience soon reveals that the majority have chosen to conform to the general mode. In lieu of any other guiding principle, the masses pursue an existence which has no other goal it seems but to garner to themselves as much physical comfort as possible, an undertaking which never need acknowledge an end. Certainly, there's always a richer, more delectable truffle, or a more comfort- able couch to be had from the sellers of soft couches, or the promise of a more profitable investment offering a higher return with which to insulate oneself from future hardship. Yessir, now there's a pur- suit that performs its intended purpose, perfectly self-perpetuating, distracting its adherents from the irksome task of asking them- selves what exactly it is they're alive for. And given the onerous- nesses of the question, maybe it's the wisest course. For it's on record that many people, employing a single minded pursuit of ma- terial opulence, have successfully distracted themselves right on through to old age and to the administration of the opiate which eased them comfortably out of their mortal burden before anything like regret could register. Fortunately, as an example, this isn't of much use to those who early on in our lives, early as age twelve even, feel compelled to step outside the conventional mode. Who's got the wherewithal at age twelve to distract themselves with opu- lence? Well, I guess it's been done. Anyway, let me warn you, once you step off the conveyor and begin to address the question of what it is your life is really for it's not so easy to catch up to your place again and get back onboard. In fact, it's just about impossible. Well, that's right. The twelve year old who goes looking about for a different, non-standard way of living, something more in line possibly with their imaginings, had best look off toward the mar- gins. That's where the outliers are, the ones who are attempting to truly manifest themselves. In a quest to attain an unlawful degree of self-fulfillment it's the marginalized who've learned what to value and, perhaps more importantly, what to eliminate which typically includes much of what the culture claims to be important. The only problem is oftentimes the methods arrived at by the edge-dwellers are so particular to their own private adventure they have scant application to our own undertaking. Still, useful leads can be picked up, pertinent info gleaned. Otherwise we're alone in the struggle to fashion a life unique to ourselves. We have little to guide us beyond our own unconscious urgings in an anxious process of trial and er- ror with time so short we can neither afford to hesitate nor act rashly at the risk of discovering we've squandered an irredeemable portion of our allotment. Section #21: The Wet Exit Drill [229] ! Late on the morning of Day Three, the Student Group assem- bled upon the beach below the camp zone of Applegate, the place that borrowed its name from the designation of a nearby naviga- tional aide. There was probably a brass benchmark driven into the ground somewhere but at that early stage of our travels nobody had the wits to go looking for it, or even had the thought such a thing might exist. Dodi announced to our assembled ranks that before the trip was to be allowed to proceed further we were to be instructed in the technique of self-rescue from a capsized kayak. Since the drill in- volved submersion in cold water we would take advantage of the fair weather we'd awakened to that morning. It was the same warm and cloudless condition which had accompanied us on the train ride from Palmer, continuing on through the launch at Whittier but which, our Course Leader pointed out, could not be expected to last much longer. The exercise, as Dodi explained it to us, would entail all members of the student group pairing up and paddling off the beach in unloaded doubles, then deliberately capsizing the boats in order to get a feel for egressing out of a cockpit while upside down in the water. Dodi referred to this maneuver as a "wet exit" at which point one of the collegiate males said, not quite loud enough for the Lead Instructor to hear, he knew all about the procedure, the wet exits, and wouldn't recommend it. "Makes my girlfriend rilly ner- vous." He got a fist bump from one of his buddies for the witticism. And an "avast ye matey" from Burl. Thad Houston organized himself to demonstrate the wet exit as it pertained to traveling by sea kayak. Sans ballcap, he launched out in his Polaris single to a patch of water about ten yards off- shore. With the sunlight flashing off the flat and becalmed surface of the Sound behind him he awaited Dodi's cue. "Thad will now demonstrate how to flip a kayak using a high brace," began Dodi. Thus prompted, the swarthy Third Instructor, with a single downward thrust of a paddle blade, flipped the single-seater and inverted himself in the water. Then, using what appeared to be a twisting motion of the hips combined with a fancy maneuver of the paddle, brought himself back upright again. The man went on to perform this roll twice more in rapid succession, each time over- coming by application of brute force the boat's tendency to remain level whether upright or inverted. I paid close attention to Thad Houston's manipulation of his one-man kayak since I figured I'd soon be following his example in the red boat. You could see the ef- fort it cost the Apprentice Instructor in the straining of shoulder [230] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! tendons, the muscular snapping of the waist, seawater streaming off the mask of his face which grew more contorted with each frigid dunking. The slaps of his paddle were startlingly loud in the still air of the lagoon. It was as if the orca of the previous evening had re- turned to the shallows for another round of revolving and thrash- ing. Right away, I think, some of us sensed a deviation from the script but this was early in the course and we didn't know our In- structors nearly as well as we'd eventually come to. At that stage we were willing to accept as well-intentioned fact whatever our guides showed us. If Thad Houston, with his thrice three-hundred- and-sixty-degree spins, was demonstrating the thing we were soon to be required to replicate then, okay, most of us were willing to go out and give it a go. Personally, I watched his demonstration of ath- leticism and had very little faith I'd ever be able to roll the red boat in such a manner. I had enough trouble making the boat perform when it was upright. Dodi was laughing. "That's okay," she said. "You won't be ex- pected to Eskimo roll your doubles," she said. "When the boats are fully loaded you couldn't roll them even if you wanted to. Thad's just showing off." As she spoke, Mr. Houston, face suffused with blood, the skin of his forehead puckered up into his hairline, began to rock his kayak back and forth with increasing energy. "What we want is for you to pretend you're in high seas," Dodi went on. "See how Thad's using his hips to simulate incoming rollers. Now the high brace and over he goes." With that the single-seater was flipped and this time stayed flipped. All we could see of the previous half-man/half-boat was the naked and featureless hull of the craft, slightly oscillating in the water, a blueish drift log that was perhaps being nudged from be- neath by some large, unseen fish. "You're capsized," Dodi narrated, "completely upside down in the water. What we want you to do, for the sake of the drill, once you're inverted, is slap the hull of your boat three times to demon- strate presence of mind, to show us you're in control." Not quite in synch with her words, but close enough, Thad Houston's arms emerged from the water and his hands beat the bottom of the kayak three resounding thumps. "Pulling your sprayskirt free of the coaming," Dodi continued, "you'll exit from your kayak." The arms disappeared, the hull gave a couple of starts in the water, shoving itself mysteriously forward then back again and with a rush of bubbles and surface agitation the Third Instructor's Section #21: The Wet Exit Drill [231] ! head emerged to the side of the capsized boat blowing a vapor of air and seawater from a mouth hole hidden somewhere within the wa- ter-soaked beard. "The first thing we want you to do when you surface," Dodi continued, "is check to see that your partner's okay and then secure any gear, paddles and so forth, that might be trying to float away." Thad Houston still had a grip on his paddle, he'd never let go of it. With a quick gesture of his free hand he sent his boat upright and with what seemed a continuation of the same motion launched himself out of the drink to lie athwart the kayak's rear deck. "Together with your partner you'll flip your kayak upright," said Dodi, "and while one of you holds the boat steady at the bow, or the stern, the other will climb back aboard. It helps if the first per- son back in their cockpit performs a low brace to steady the boat while their partner pulls him or herself up and in." Thad Houston swung his legs into the cockpit of his single and, detaching the bailing pump from the deck bungee, began to move water over the side. "All that's left for you to do is pump the bilge," Dodi said, "and you're good to go. Okay. Let's pair up and get started." Burl interjected to announce that following the wet exit drill we'd be free until mid-afternoon. He was planning to hike to the summit of one of the nearby hills, an undertaking expected to re- quire no more than a couple of hours round trip -- one hour up, forty minutes back -- if anybody was interested in joining him. Ap- parently, the island featured an actual blazed trail to its summit, a rarity in these parts. Later in the afternoon we would "bust a move", as he put it, to our next camp in a short three hour paddle. The youngsters liked his phrasing and I witnessed a couple of the young fellows turn to each other and repeat the Second Instructor's words, smiling in anticipation of a brief stint of going all out. As we were moving toward the boats Dodi announced that those of us who were presently paddling singles would need to find a partner and perform the drill in a double kayak. "No exceptions, Marlow," she tacked on. Recall, this was only the morning, or mid-day, of Day Three, our second full day of travel. I was still in the throes of coming to terms with the red kayak and would've liked to have taken the sin- gle out and performed the wet exit drill by myself, since this would be the best practice for what I expected to be a future of paddling around Southeast Alaska in my own boat. But Dodi had her eye on me and for the sake of the exercise it was evident I was going to have to join up with someone in a double.

[232] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! I looked around at the mobilizing group. My recollection is that my gaze first settled upon the biology teacher as a potential partner. Before I could move in his direction he was approached by someone else and immediately the two of them turned to ready a double for launch. My attention then shifted first to one and then to the other of the young women whom I'd talked to on the bus from Anchorage. Even as I began to approach these females I was thwarted as each accepted a proposal to go through the procedure as another student's boatmate. No one was approaching me. Maybe no one had heard Dodi's injunction about staying out of the singles. Truly, I wanted to get out there on the water as soon as possible and have the whole busi- ness over with. Burl had said the rest of the early afternoon was free time which meant one thing for me: coffee and a reading ses- sion. However, I saw what was going to happen if I wasn't careful and I was slightly in a panic about it. Obviously, if we weren't to use the three student singles we were going to come up short a couple of boats and for those who fell into this gap there'd be a delay of un- known length until a double became available. Then I noticed our librarian who was likewise standing alone at the edge of the group. Without the least deliberation I made a de- cision, a seemingly simple and innocent decision, but which, of course, as it's played out, has distinctly affected my whole experi- ence of the expedition, far more than the mere act of confronting the methodology of the outdoor school, more even than meeting and getting to know Tyler. "Let's go, Dinah," I said. "We might as well get through this business together." Along with the rest of our non-essential gear, which we de- posited in a neat pile on the beach -- socks, windpants, thermals, anything we didn't want to get wet -- Dinah left her glasses, render- ing her as naked appearing as I felt without my ballcap. I was struck by how small and blinking were the librarian's eyes without the circular panes. I moved us along to where the boats were parked and quickly got us inserted into an available double. Despite my mild panic, I had wits enough to be curious regarding the larger boats, now that I was in one for the first time, and how paddling in company with another person might differ from the experience of shoving the red kayak through the water. The instant she and I were waterborne, I paid close attention to how the Seascape double handled and how much effort was required to make it go. Right off the beach the boat seemed a good deal sprightlier than the red kayak, though it was hard to make a real comparison since we were paddling the boat completely empty of gear and rations. Something Section #21: The Wet Exit Drill [233] ! told me even completely loaded with equipment the double would move along fleeter than the red single holer. I'll admit I was not enthused about the so-called self-rescue drill. I understood it was a bit of necessary training, but it was go- ing to be irksome for certain. I've never liked swimming in cold wa- ter and we were in for a dunking and a chilly one at that, no matter how sunny a day or warm the air seemed. I resigned myself to it, figuring at least it would make the afternoon hot drink taste that much better. The three Instructors were out on the water in their singles, each of them supervising a double with two students aboard. Dinah and I loitered about, staying out of the way, but not too much out of the way. I made sure we were in position to participate in the next round. I watched the first bevy of doubles go over, the students floundering about, gathering up paddles and other flotsam -- it seemed a few folks had incautiously worn their hats -- until eventu- ally everything was restored into the boats including themselves. It fell to Burl to guide Dinah and me through the drill. We got into position and the librarian and I began to rock the boat back and forth, as the Third Instructor had earlier demonstrated, slapping the paddles down in a high brace. Seawater was already washing over the deck when Dinah called a halt to the proceedings. "Who's going to check on me?" she asked, turning to Burl. "To see that I return to the surface?". I was looking hard at the side of Dinah's face as she posed this question. I believe I was beginning to sense the trouble to come. The spot of color on her cheek had narrowed, standing out in high contrast to the surrounding pale skin. Burl replied that, as her partner, it would be Marlow's re- sponsibility to ensure she returned safely to the surface and that he, Burl, was also present as back-up. "If all goes smoothly," he ex- plained, "you won't be underwater more than fifteen seconds." Dinah and I began the rocking again. "Now, go over!" yelled Burl. Not wishing for any more delay, I employed as much down- ward force as I could muster on the brace to make sure we capsized well and good. The last image I had was of Dinah in the front cockpit relinquishing her paddle, literally throwing it away from herself, and putting her hands out to meet the uprushing sea. I could have sworn, just before my ears became stoppered with water, a scream was let loose upon the air. I carried out the steps of the procedure which, to me, felt as straightforward as if I'd performed them a dozen times already, hanging upside down beneath the boat, ears wondrously full of the [234] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! sound of bubbles, executing three fist strikes on the outside of the hull, pulling the grab loop of the sprayskirt, kicking free of the cockpit and letting natural buoyancy carry me quickly back to the upper region of air. Overall, the shock of the water was not as bad as I'd anticipated. Reaching the surface, I opened my eyes and was looking at the precise spot of water where Dinah's head emerged of a sudden, pressing upward as if through a resistant membrane. Her hair was soaked flat against her forehead and her eyes, instantly locked on mine, were wide with surprise and a kind of expectancy. I was close enough to hear her first needful intake of air. Immediately, the li- brarian began to dog paddle furiously, face flushed red, as I'm sure mine was. I gathered in the paddles and together she and I flipped the kayak upright. I stayed in the water, steadying the stern, as Dinah clambered back into the front cockpit. There'd been no discussion about who would get to board first, it just seemed the logical se- quence. I would naturally be the one required to stay in the water and steady the boat for the one who was less strong. As I said, the water wasn't shockingly cold but by the time Dinah was settled enough in the bow for me to climb aboard I could feel myself contracting in a vital way. Give it no mind, I told myself, the worst is over. Burl appeared satisfied with our performance. It was all downhill from there: twenty strokes on the bilge pump, get the sprayskirts snapped down, paddle to the beach, twenty strokes on the stove primer and coffee would be only minutes way. Even before the bilge was clear, I could feel a growing happiness knowing we'd soon be sitting upon the sun-warmed greywacke, mugs of hot drink in hand. It was then that I became aware something untoward was transpiring. Burl had already dismissed us from the scene and was calling for the next pair of students, yet Dinah was expressing a desire to go through the exercise again. I was unable to compre- hend her words at first but then I understood she was saying that she felt her performance had not been as good as it might've. She admitted she'd forgotten all about slapping on the hull and, addi- tionally, that she'd not done a good job of insuring that her paddling partner was all right. I told her that she needn't worry about me, that I could take care of myself. All I wanted was that resuscitative hot drink. It wasn't hard to see what was going on. Dinah had just been through an initiatory experience. She'd thrown herself overboard, given herself up to fate, and for as long as possibly thirty seconds Dinah was fully inhabiting her dog paddling body, absorbed in its sensa- Section #21: The Wet Exit Drill [235] ! tions, her physical self acting of its own accord and without con- scious direction, doing what it had to do to stay afloat. This was momentous for her and she wasn't ready to quit the scene of her triumph. She was full of survivor's joy and she wanted to revel a while longer in the feeling. I could hear it in her voice, the relief that the wet exit had not turned out to be nearly as awful as she'd feared. It was like a child who'd just received a shot, an inoculation, and found that beyond wildest hope it was entirely painless, the needle miraculously missing all the nerve endings. Burl said he had no objection to our going through the drill again. "As long as it's okay with Marlow," he added and then couldn't suppress a laugh as he saw the disbelief on my face. Again, as after the first capsize, I remained in the water to steady the boat while Dinah, satisfied this time with remembering to clap her hands against the hull, climbed on-board. It didn't seem to occur to her that she should perhaps hold the boat for me after our second run-through, you know, in order to be able to say she'd performed all aspects of a wet exit. Or to give me a break from the cold water. Of course, I knew that if I did the steadying we'd be back aboard and back to shore that much faster. It should be acknowl- edged, after the second dousing, by the time I tilted stiffly back into the rear cockpit, I was being visited by a deep and instinctual sure- ty I'd done injury to my reproductive capability. !

! ! ! ! ! !

Section #22: A Terrible Thing ! Once back on the beach Dinah and I quickly returned to our pile of dry clothes, her eyeglasses and my ball cap. "How 'bout a hot drink?" I suggested. "That would be very nice," she said, restoring to the sides of her nose the sight-giving panes of glass. She looked at me and I could almost feel that I was once again back in focus. Near to where we'd beached our kayak was a small drift pile holding back a berm of sand. Dinah and I moved against this bunker to cook up the hot drinks. I recall having the thought at the time that it was indeed a very pleasant spot and would do well as a place to relax, possibly get in some reading. I was also giving some thought to the possibility that the wet exit drill we'd just passed through might prove a tricky maneuver in the type of kayak of which I was considering purchase. I mean, I was sure that if my lone single seater ever suffered a capsize I'd be able to get out of the cockpit without help, but it could be tough deal to get the fully loaded boat flipped back upright by myself. The only way to do it would be to pull some gear out of the holds. It could get complicated trying to keep stuff from floating away if there was any chop and there probably would be chop since this seemed to have a lot to do with why sea kayaks tipped over in the first place. For certain, the whole thing would not go as smoothly as righting the double, or Thad Houston's little demo with his completely empty Polaris sin- gle. Only when the stove was set up out of the wind behind the sand mound and a good flame going beneath a pot of fresh water did I finish drying off, followed by changing into the capilene tights and windpants I'd left warming in the sun. Dinah and I had gotten such a jump on our free time I was anticipating I might be able to get in a leisurely cup of coffee and a sufficient read and be ready to join Burl on his hike. That very morning the Second Instructor had related a curi- ous anecdote regarding a Masai tribesman, an acquaintance of his from the Kenyan days. It seems Burl and the tribesman were pas- sengers in a Land Rover engaged in a long journey across the veldt. Section #22: A Terrible Thing [237] ! On what was the third or fourth day of continuous travel through the bush, a trip with many a false turn and retracing of the route, the tribesman suddenly called for the driver to halt. Disembarking, the man ran to a tree located off to the side of the track where from some hidden place he retrieved a bow and a collection of arrows. Returning to the vehicle all the man would say by way of explana- tion was: "I put those there!" There's a story to shake your head over and I was thinking that the act of walking on dry land might conjure up more drol- leries from the retired climbing instructor and if so I wanted to be on hand to hear them. I was feeling hopeful about the progress of the day and even before the water in the pot had developed the tiniest of fish eyes I was reaching for my daybag and the book in- side, the glaciology text, or it could've been something else from the floating library. Dinah, as I recall, took a seat on her ensolite and fell into a reverie. Though it was plenty warm with an early afternoon sun heating the still air within our tiny windbreak, Dinah had fully re- dressed herself in thermals, windgear and balaclava. Neither of us said much of anything for a time. The only sounds were the hissing of the stove, the distant voices of the Instructors and those stu- dents who were still out on the water and the click of the spoon against the side of my drink cup as I enthusiastically shoveled in the instant coffee, the h.c. and all the other ingredients necessary for a good mug of mocha java deluxe. I was pretty sure I knew what Dinah was doing, sitting there, quiet as she was. She was playing the whole event of the wet exit over in her mind. I don't know why but the idea of this annoyed me and I wished to put a stop to it. The drill was over, done with. It'd turned out to be about as aggravating as I'd imagined it would be, particularly with the extra dunking. I wasn't in the mood for a re- hash. "Do you want tea or plain hot water?" I asked. It was nice to be back on dry land and sharing a hot drink and for a brief moment, strange as it might sound, felt I was in possession of a boon compan- ion in the person of the librarian if she would simply relax and en- joy the moment. "Just hot water," she said. I readied her cup and passed it over to her, then poured my own cup full from the pot and stirred the mess of ingredients into solution, snapping the lid on to hold in the heat. I was just thumbing to my place in whatever book it was I had with me when Dinah spoke again. "That took courage," she said. [238] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! I took a couple sips of the drink, the greasy, sweet fluid, still nearly boiling hot, and wondered how long it would take the combi- nation of hot coffee, sugar and warm sun to put a stop to the shiver- ing. I didn't know what Dinah was saying about courage and I wasn't sure I wanted to. For a second or two, I contemplated taking mug and book down the beach where I could be alone, but the little bunker was so perfect even to offering its own built-in backrest. I brought to mind the image of Dinah surfacing after our first capsize, her arms and legs flailing about of their own accord, the action barely sufficient to keep her head above water, her face full of an expression of wonderment. It was like seeing her as she must've been as a little girl traipsing about that zoo of hers among the caged live animals, or when she rode their painted wooden counterparts bolted to the circular base of the carousel as she likes to refer to it. "When did you say you learned to swim?" I asked her. "Two years ago," she said. "It was a requirement for the sail- ing course." "It's a requirement for life," I said. "That would've put you at around age thirty-seven, or thereabouts?" "Thirty-seven. Almost forty and only learning to swim. Imag- ine that. Not the usual thing, I believe." "No. Not the usual thing. Can you do anything other than dog paddle?" "Breast stroke," she replied. "Breast stroke and dog paddle. I prefer not to put my head underwater." "Right." I could see the librarian, off in the corner of the pool, one-on-one with her swimming instructor, practicing putting her head underwater and blowing bubbles, never quite getting it right, the instructor finally letting it go. Up until Dinah the coach had never had a student, young or old, who couldn't tell when their head was beneath the surface. Out in the shallows the Instructors were running the last pairs of students through the drill. You could hear the high-braces slapping at the water. About those swimming lessons of Dinah's, I still have doubts concerning whether she ever actually received any sort of certificate of completion. The outdoor school takes your word on it, the ability to swim, as it takes your word on most things, how much you exercise as a rule, your general level of fitness and so on. The school never submits you to a swimming test. If you've signed the application and the release forms they aren't liable for the result of any fibs you've put down. "Yes," Dinah then said, apropos of nothing, answering some dialogue internal to herself. "What I did took courage," she went on. Section #22: A Terrible Thing [239] ! "It does not require courage if you already know you can do it." I started to take a sip of my drink and then stopped. "Well, you're right," I said, taking a guess at what she was talking about. "It didn't require any great courage on my part to flip the boat over. Since I was a little boy I can't remember a time when I wasn't being put through one sort of physical ordeal or another. All part of grow- ing up male in America." "You are lucky," she said. "My parents were over-protective. They didn't believe any one should ever willingly expose them- selves to risk. My mother and father valued, still value, longevity above all else. I was an only child, you know." "I didn't know," I said. "But somehow I could've guessed." "My parents never let me play sports," she went on. "They were afraid I might over-exert myself and damage my heart. My father holds to a theory that you are only allocated so many heart- beats per lifetime and once you use them up that is it, that is all she wrote. The only place my parents would ever let me go after school was the library, or maybe a museum, sometimes the zoo, but the zoo required parental accompaniment until age twelve. Most days, almost every day, I went to the library. With the strict requirement that I be home in time to help set the table for supper. I wasn't al- lowed to take the bus. You know, too many germs. I had to walk, or if it was raining my mother would call a taxicab. As you can see, I wasn't allowed to be an actor in my own life, so instead I read." Looking back on the day and this conversation from the dis- tance of two weeks, I would like to say that I hope Dinah has learned what she came on the course to learn. She has never made it easy to be a disinterested supporter. It was during our exchange that very afternoon, as the two of us sat there in our little divot, hands cupped around hot drink mugs, I experienced the first inkling that, disinterested supporter or not, I was somehow going to have to distance myself from the woman. Something told me, there in the early afternoon of Day Three, that I'd only been witness to what was perhaps the mere tip of the floating ice mass, so to speak, which represented Dinah's mentality. Despite this growing intu- ition, instead of taking cup and book and hiking down the beach, I perversely chose to stay and open myself up to conversation. I could feel her circling around and back, getting closer to the thing she wanted to tell me. "So then," I began, "what caused you to start infusing more risk into your life? What made you change?" I was still hanging onto the book, my fingers working their way of their own accord into the spot where I'd last left off. Why I was bothering with the [240] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! book I don't know. I guess for the same reason I was holding off tak- ing any more sips of the hot drink. I thought a satisfying reading session might still be possible even as I was doing everything in my power to sabotage it. "I wouldn't have changed," she said. "I would still be living exactly the way my parents raised me but for the fact I was accost- ed." At first, the term evoked to my mind the notion she'd been taken abruptly aside by someone and advised in the strongest pos- sible terms that she should modify her approach to living, before it was too late. And in a way, as I was to learn, this was not too far off the mark. I'd only been coexisting with Dinah for about seventy-two hours at the time of the wet exit drill, yet I was already developing a sense of the forces working within her, particularly a tension which seemed to be the result of, as well as I could fathom it, a seri- ous discrepancy between how she'd once imagined life would be and the way it was turning out. Maybe it'd be more accurate to say this dissonance, if I can call it that, arose out of Dinah's adult realization that life was very possibly about something other than what she'd been raised to believe. In any case, this striving, this grappling on Dinah's part to understand what her life was and where she should go with it, formed the salient aspect of her mentality, radiating from her like an odor, infusing almost everything she did and said. "You were what?" I asked. I'd begun to think I'd probably not heard her correctly. It wasn't "accosted" she'd said. It must've been something else. In the couple of seconds that passed before she an- swered I imagined an arcane religious term translatable to some- thing along the lines of salvation, or deliverance, or maybe induc- tion, the exact pronunciation garbled between her lips and my ears. "I was accosted," she repeated. I waited, eventually took another sip or two off the hot drink. I struggled again with a desire to get up and move away but man- aged to outlive the impulse. By and by Dinah told me what had hap- pened. On an evening approximately four years ago, while walking home from a work shift at the library, pursuing one leg of her so- termed Triangle of Safety, she was sexually assaulted. "Accosted" was the term she kept using but she meant she'd been raped. "They did tests," she continued, "in order to establish proof a man had forced himself on me. I was in the stirrups for nearly an hour as the practitioner went through her checklist. At first, of course, I was checked in the normal place -- in the front -- but, as I kept telling her, that was not where the insult had taken place. I suppose I was not very coherent at the time. I did not quite know how to describe where the violation had occurred. Of course, even- Section #22: A Terrible Thing [241] ! ! tually the medical technician got around to checking me there anyway, swabbing the area with some sort of applicator. They know all about that sort of thing. They combed and plucked my pubic hair. They took photographs. I was required to return two days lat- er so they could photograph the bruises which, let me tell you, were quite copious." Out on the water the self-rescue drill was all but over. Stu- dents and Instructors had dispersed themselves along the beach and a squad was forming up around the Second Instructor for the proposed hike to the island's interior. Burl had changed into his ter- restrial gear for the dry land walk. Someone called over to see if Dinah and I were going. I don't think Dinah even heard them. Gaz- ing off out from the shore, she was in the throes of silently compos- ing her narrative, mentally working out the sequence of events in their entirety for what I now believe might've been the first time. I yelled back to the group, answering for both the librarian and my- self, indicating she and I were content to stay where we were. Burl and his group soon departed and within minutes the sounds of the hiking party faded into the trees. I glanced over at Dinah. Her attention had become so con- centrated I looked to the water to see if there was anything I should be paying attention to out there, a basking whale, say, but nothing was changed. It was still sky, mountains and water, the same old region of thirds. "First, the nurse attended to my cut," she abruptly began again, backtracking slightly in her tale and pausing to show me the scar, which I'd already noticed, in the webbing between the second and third finger of her right hand, the thin line which could easily be attributed to an odd reflection of light. "They cleaned it and ban- daged it," she said, "and later, after the rape exam, put in exactly nine stitches. They had me undress while standing on a large sheet of white paper. The idea, of course, is to capture hair, clothing fibers, bits of trash, any clues that might lead to the perpetrator. They scraped my fingernails for skin cells, but of course since I'd not put up a struggle this provided no useful result. It was at about this stage of the inspection I was informed that my underwear showed evidence of having been sliced away on both sides by some- thing sharp. I had no idea." "As I said," she went on, "they conducted a vaginal exam, not the least pertinent to my case. I know they were just being thor- ough, following their protocol. I am sure they can never take the victim's word on what happened. In the course of the vaginal exam, the practitioner saw something that concerned her and she later referred me to a gynecologist, whom I eventually did go see. That [242] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! doctor, in turn, referred me to an oncologist, who proceeded to in- form me on my third visit to her office that I'd been assigned a di- agnoses of early stage cervical cancer. Cervical displasis was the precise term." Here Dinah paused to take a sip of her plain hot water. I was busy imagining an inflamed nodule the size of an almond, a vascu- larized knot of tissue firmly embedded in the mucous membrane of the librarian's inner sanctum, a thing which would steadily enlarge, drawing nutrients, claiming more and more of her body's resources. The hot drink I'd prepared for myself was rich with perhaps a dou- ble dose of instant coffee and I was probably starting to feel it, get- ting hopped up on the fumes. "That doesn't sound good," I said. "No, it did not sound good," she said. "Naturally, I assumed it was terminal. A cycle of chemotherapy was begun and I was al- ready beginning to be sick from the treatment when it, the cancer, or whatever it was, stopped, or went away, or maybe was never there in the first place." "A misdiagnosis?" "Possibly. I do not know. I thought it unlikely to begin with though they say there is a one percent chance even if you are a vir- gin." I was bothered by the sudden transition from the incident of her rape to the supposed cancer. "What about the rapist?" I asked, wishing to jar her back. Up to that point in our conversation, that specific word had not been used. I could see the harshness of it was painful for Dinah and part of me was immediately sorry I'd said it that way. Still, I didn't want any ambiguity . "Yes. Well. The rapist," she said, giving me a hard look and at the same time appearing to grasp how it needed to work, that if I was going to sit there and listen to her and not read my book then I required her to be specific and label things as they were. "My rapist," she emphasized. "The police never found the man who was my rapist. Not for lack of trying. The investigators got their pubic hair sample. They got their semen sample. They even had what they were liking to call a modus operandi, being that the man had cut my underwear away with a knife and then penetrated me anal- ly. But even such a mountain of evidence does no good if you don't have a suspect to match it against. I couldn't be of much help since I retained no recollection of what my rapist looked like, having never bothered to look around at him. I was already doing my best to for- get his voice. All of the evidence was put away in a case file where it has stayed these past four years." Dinah paused and shifted her gaze off across the water, southward toward the contiguous forty- Section #22: A Terrible Thing [243] ! eight where, languishing in the basement of a Chicago municipal building, her deposition lay stapled to a zip-loc containing various prepared slides along with her knife-cut panties. "You didn't see the dude when he first walked up?" I asked. "You would know this, Marlow, if you spent any time in cities. Nobody fully registers until they are closer than about three feet. And people are very careful to never get that close. In any case, I believe my soon-to-be-rapist came at me from the side. There was not much light in the spot where he and I met, only a single street lamp, barely enough to illuminate the knife he was so eager to show me. My man, if I can call him that -- my dude, to use your term -- immediately got his hand in my hair and twisted my head around so that I could not have looked at him even if I had wanted to. To- gether, we went down the street to where light was even less avail- able. Despite my best effort to block it out, I recall very plainly, al- most better now than I did right afterward, what his voice sounded like. He possessed a very deep voice. I'm certain it belonged to a black man, but I am afraid the police would not accept my impres- sion as any sort of valuable lead." Dinah continued to keep her attention fixed across the water as she spoke. As she concentrated on these bits of recollection, I saw the blood vessels stand out at the corner of her eye. "My assailant was not adverse to using curse words," she went on, "but aside from that he was very well spoken, very direct about what he wished me to do. In the simplest terms he told me to bend over, place my palms flat upon the sidewalk, spread my legs and remain silent. 'You will remain silent.' That is exactly how he phrased it. It is strange. He was so polite I almost wanted to ask him his name even as I understood that this would have been im- practicable. When I was properly bent over he showed me again the knife he was carrying. Then he said rather matter-of-factly, 'I am going to rape you.' Just like that. 'I am going to rape you. If you scream or call out, I will cut you with this knife.' He turned the blade of his knife back and forth in the light. I noticed it had teeth along the top like a saw. I told the police about the saw teeth, but they didn't make much of it. The last thing my rapist said was to keep my hands flat on the sidewalk until he was finished. With his fist in my hair he slowly tightened his grip. It was quite painful to have my head pulled back that way. To keep from falling forward, I was forced to place my hands down blindly upon the sidewalk. The sun had gone down hours before and I remember being surprised at how warm still the concrete was. I felt my man pulling at my dress. This was when he began to use the curse words. Indeed, he said some very ugly things by way of describing what he was going to do [244] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! to me and why I deserved such treatment." Dinah broke out of her trance and directed at me an expres- sion of bafflement, as if to ask what it is we males want and why we cannot keep our urges to ourselves. When I failed to give her any answer she turned back to the water and went on with her narra- tive. "The first time he pushed himself against me it almost knocked me over," she said. "I reached back and as well as I can surmise that is when he cut me." Dinah paused in her recitation and brought her hand forward to take another look at the scar. Rubbing with her other hand at the tiny disfigurement, she seemed to reappraise it's existence. "The man proceeded with his business," she continued. "Eventually his grip on my hair loosened and I was able to look down. There, on the sidewalk, very close to the gutter, I saw a wad of chewing gum smashed completely flat." Here Dinah unlocked her gaze from scrutiny of her hand and turned to me. "People are so disrespectful and messy," she said. "They will discard used chewing gum anywhere. You would not be- lieve what we find stuck beneath the tables at the library." "I can't imagine," I said. She continued. "I became fixated on that gumwad. I already knew it from having walked over it for several weeks. It lay exactly on my route, where I made the crossing to the other side of the street. And now, there I was, with my face only inches away. I will admit I have made something of a study of discarded sidewalk gum. As I always follow the same route through the city, or did until I was raped, I have been able to observe the evolution of gumwads over time. What starts out as a pink blob eventually becomes grey and then turns completely black, growing smaller and smaller un- til, after about six months, it completely vanishes. Who can say where the gumwads go?" "You'd have to assume they wear away beneath the constant tread of people's shoes?" "Do you suppose?" she asked. "I believe it is more involved than that. The ones exposed to the sun disappear faster than the ones in the shade. The gumwad I fixated on that evening was black beneath the streetlight. Everything was out of focus without my glasses. I was crying some, as well, I believe. I remember seeing what I am sure were my own tears spotting the pavement. When I returned the next day with the police investigator, I saw the gumwad was actually dark grey. The investigator was impressed I was able to bring him back to the exact spot of my rape. But, you know, I had my marker. Aside from that I had little to offer. The po- lice wanted my help in working up a composite. They had me sit in Section #22: A Terrible Thing [245] ! a cubicle with a woman who was an expert at putting together dif- ferent facial features on a computer screen. It was no good. I was completely deficient in not being able to provide a description of my attacker, beyond the fact that he smelled strongly of cologne." She paused as, it seemed, the memory of the man's smell, his voice, the close-up image of the flattened gum on the sidewalk, the repeated impacts of her assailant's body against her own all re- played through her mind. "What happened after you noticed the gumwad?" I asked, feeling giddy from the caffeine and using a term which I'd never employed in all my life. "A period of time went by," she said and paused, looking down at the edge of the water where the greywacke sand was smooth and unmarked, an uninhabited strand which served perhaps as a stage upon which she could project the physical action of the incident. "Then I realized my rapist was gone," she continued. "I was able to stand up. I found my glasses, both temples completely broken. In order to see I had to hold the lenses to my face. I walked over to a smoke shop on the corner. When I arrived to the front door and re- alized I could go inside and be safe, make a phone call to the author- ities, a fright took hold of me and I was sick to my stomach. A nice mess to leave on the sidewalk. It was still there the next day, somewhat dried up. Not that I pointed it out to the investigator." Here Dinah stopped. We both sat still for several minutes, neither of us saying anything. The splotches of color on Dinah's cheeks, as they will do, had dilated and contracted a half-a-dozen times during the course of her narrative, then become fixed at about the size of half-dollars, which is how they register when their owner is physically exerting herself, or when she's pleasantly ex- cited about something, as when it seems she'll be able to check off another species on her everlasting list. My drink was half gone though I could hardly recall having sipped at it. I had the thought that if I stood up right then and walked down the beach I might, with half a mug remaining, still get in some reading. Instead, I sat there and considered the image of Dinah bent over at the waist, palms pressed flat against the side- walk. My impulse was to blurt out and ask her why, the instant she saw the knife, she didn't wrestle herself free and take off running as fast as she could. In all likelihood, I wished to point out, her ac- coster wouldn't have given chase. Showing her the knife was the test. When she froze he knew he had a taker. Of course, I under- stood even then why Dinah hadn't run. We were only three days into the course, but I'd already perceived the disconnect, the cogni- tive malfunction, or whatever it is, that prevents Dinah from appre- [246] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! hending her immediate physical reality. "It's a terrible thing that happened to you," I said. "Yes. A terrible thing," she agreed. "Can you believe, when I was five years old my parents were still pushing me around in a perambulator. Their idea was that I would suffer fewer scraped knees. I am sure they were right. They were right about most things. From the time I was a little girl my parents warned me about the dangers of the city. They were never very specific, but I grew up with the constant reminder that bad events befall people who fail to establish a safe routine. When I became a teenager, my parents allowed me to watch the evening news with them on their television set. I saw the reports about people to whom bad things had happened. My father would always point out how it was the result of their having deviated from a set pattern. Instead of stay- ing at home, they had boarded an airplane, or went shopping in a way that was not habitual. My parents never put it into so many words, yet they conveyed the message that to travel beyond the four square blocks of one's home neighborhood was always to invite harm to oneself. They instructed me to stay out of tall skyscrapers, moving vehicles and Great Lakes ferry boats. It was a big leap for me to take the commuter train to Champaigne-Urbana for school. Father was greatly disapproving. Mother and I were forced to team up to convince him it was the only solution to my transportation needs." "When I got out on my own after college," she continued, "if you can call it getting out on my own -- my efficiency was the next block over from the apartment building where I grew up, so for all intents and purposes I was only sleeping slightly further down the hall from my parent's bedroom than when I was a little girl -- as I was saying, when I got out on my own, I established and followed a strict schedule. My mother and father were instrumental in this. It was through a connection of theirs that I interviewed for the li- brary job. A friend of my father's owns the apartment building where I proceeded to live for the next fourteen years. My parents set up the parameters of my existence. Very little initiative was re- quired on my part. My days followed a unvarying pattern which did not admit deviation. Ultimately, I did my parents one better by completely avoiding the issue of finding a mate. They should be proud of a daughter who exceeded even what they imagined to be the ultimate in a safe and static existence. I mean, my parents did not exactly follow their own dictates, seeing as how my mother be- came pregnant and bore a child, altogether a risky undertaking." Dinah continued to address her narrative toward the edge of the water. As the sun shifted its position, slipping off its apogee, the Section #22: A Terrible Thing [247] ! panes of her eyeglasses became opaque with reflected light, the lenses mysterious portals through which the librarian gazed into the past and described her life before the rape. "Every month, every season I pursued my routine," she con- tinued. "As the years passed and nothing bad happened I felt that much more impervious. It was like digging myself further and deeper underground. I followed my habitual round and was safe. I even began to imagine that by living this way I might even increase my longevity, as if there would be some benefit to adding years to such an existence. Yes, I thought I might even live to be a hundred. Can you imagine? Until I went on the sailing course, I had never experienced what it was like to get less than ten hours of sleep a night. My safe routine went on for more than a decade, almost a decade and a half, and then in the space of about five minutes everything changed. Walking the precise same route every day, I am sure I was the perfect target for a mugger, or rapist as it turned out. The terrible thing happened, as you put it. Not as terrible as being killed, I suppose, although when you are killed every thing is over and there is no requirement to live for years afterward with fear and pain." "I was back to work at the library the very next day, if you can believe it," she went on, "as if nothing had happened. My one thought was to reestablish the routine and stick to it even more resolutely, if it were possible, until I felt safe again. Suffice it to say, it didn't work. The routine was no longer capable of providing me a sense of protection. Every time I approached that gumwad to make my turn across the street I broke out in a cold sweat. My beloved Chicago, the city I had always considered my home, now harbored a malevolence. I felt my parents had misled me. According to Mother and Father, the safety of living in a high rise apartment building stems from the fact that people, such as the doorman, people you routinely meet in the elevator, will come to know you and if one day you fail to show up you will be missed. Well, when I did not return to my apartment building until very late on the evening of the rape, actually early in the morning of the next day, did the doorman re- port me missing? No, he did not. Would he have ever reported me as missing? One has to wonder. My parents always emphasized that the great advantage of living in a city is that if you come into trou- ble the police are there to protect you. Or, if you fall ill, a hospital full of doctors and nurses is never far away. You can go there and be cured. Well, this is patently not the case. It is all a lie, or at best an illusion." She shifted her head and the lenses of her glasses shed the reflected light and became once again clear as windowpanes. After [248] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! a slight pause, she continued: "I never told my parents about the rape. Amongst the three of us it had never been openly acknowl- edged that I menstruated. How was I to tell them I had been raped?" As she asked this, Dinah chanced to look at me again, as if I could possibly answer the question. "Well, I don't know," I said. "I'd like to think you could have just told them. But then I don't know your parents." "No. You do not know my parents. Or the power they have over me." With this pronouncement there followed another of the many periods of quietude which punctuated Dinah's and my conversation that afternoon. I knew there was more to come, more to hear from our book shelver, and had pretty much given myself over to the idea of staying open to whatever she had to say. It was certainly as compelling as anything I might've been reading out of a book con- cerning glacial errata, or hoar frost. I couldn't stop visualizing her parents pushing the five year old Dinah around in a stroller. "I'm just wondering," I stuck into the silence, "did you ever learn to ride a bike?" "What do you think?" was her reply. "Right." So, I waited for her to continue. I would take a sip or two of hot drink, careful not to make any noise as I swallowed, then look away from Dinah to the ground, to the cloudless sky and then back to her again. Characteristically, as she organized her thoughts anew, her gaze, which a few moments before might have pinned me against the sand berm with accusation or inquiry, grew less fo- cussed. Eventually, she looked away to the water or the smooth sand at its edge. "You know," she said, by way of starting up again, "about the time I decided to take my first leave of absence, I realized that if I looked back to when I first started living on my own I was unable to remember one year apart from the rest. When I was younger there was high school graduation and then college commencement to mark the passage of time. I cannot help but think that one's adult life should be occasionally marked by some sort of change, or mem- orable event." She looked at me. "It's usually the case," I said. "Sometimes people get married, have children. The children have birthdays. I don't know. Beats me how it works." "Fourteen years went by," she went on without much pause, "and every week was precisely the same as the one before. Nothing to mark the passage of time." "What about clothes?" I asked. "You said you bought a new Section #22: A Terrible Thing [249] ! dress every year. You must remember some of those dresses." "It was all my mother's doing," Dinah said. "She had final say about anything I wore. Of all the dresses I have owned there was only one, a brown dress, that I liked. I will always remember that one. Not so much a dress as a shift, cut straight without a waist. It's still around, in storage, I believe. As for the others, I can hardly re- call them." "I'm sure you looked very nice in your brown dress," I said. "Your habiliment," I added, using a word I don't think I'd ever said aloud before. Conversing with the librarian had a way of dredging up arcane vocabulary. "Yes, perhaps so," she said. "My habiliment." Dinah gave me a hard look and it was then I realized the brown dress must've been the one she was wearing at the time of the rape, now perhaps also included in the zip-loc of evidence, being preserved until whenever the case might re-open or, more likely, the statute of limitations is fulfilled. At which time the dress and everything else will be incinerated, or whatever it is they do with expired evidence. "My mother and I were never able to find another dress quite like the brown one. Styles change." She paused, entered another of her states of reverie. I sipped additional hot drink so as to be attentive whenever she should con- tinue. "You have to understand," she said, "during all those years, I saw nothing wrong with my daily round. I was my parents' child. Safety in routine and habit. After the rape, I remember thinking: I am thirty-six years old, my life has been split almost evenly into two epochs, the first one spent growing up in my parents' apart- ment and going to school, the second spent living in the efficiency and working at the research desk. The one salient event of the past decade and a half has been the incident of my rape." After that there followed another couple of minutes of star- ing quietly at the water until she went on. "What horrifies me the most," she said, "was how close I came to simply living out the remainder of my life without any expecta- tion of change. As long as everything stayed routine and safe, that was the important thing. You would think someone would have tak- en me aside and given me a shake, but not so. The world is perfectly content to let a functionary live out a life of complete and utter sameness." "We want you to stay put and perform your function," I haz- arded. "Well, that is right," she said, looking out across the infinite [250] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! water. "I knew the price I was paying," she added. "I continually came across television shows or magazine articles about women who had achieved some daring feat, an Amelia Earhart, or a Diane Fossey. When I was younger, I would read such articles with great interest, but not when I reached the same age as the women who had accomplished so much. It got so I would quickly flip past any reminder that there were other ways to live. Frankly, I did not want to know about it. I think by age thirty-five I was ready for my life to end, provided it did not end too suddenly, or too painfully." She laughed and brought her gaze in from the horizon. "Basically, I was already dead," she said to the wavelets lap- ping at the shore. "Or, if not dead, then very much asleep. Within the space of five minutes I discovered what it might mean to really die and I realized I did not want to be dead. I wanted to be alive. I was alive. I possessed life and I did not want to give it up." "I suppose that sounds strange," she went on. "But that's the way it came to me. Over the course of the two or three days follow- ing the rape, after much self-searching, I came to the profound awareness, the sort of self-knowledge probably possessed by every other person walking around but not by me, that I was possessed of life, was in fact right in the thick of a life span with possibly fifty years of physical and mental activity remaining which I could di- rect toward whatever purpose I wished." "The city, my beloved Chicago" she continued, repeating the phrase, "the place where I was born, spent my girlhood and grew to be a woman, in whose main branch library I toiled for almost twen- ty years, two decades, helping patrons find the information they sought, well, the city no longer felt safe." Again, Dinah seemed to be working all this out for the first time, right as we were sitting there behind the berm. "The protections I had always assumed to be there were chimera," she said. "A city does not care one way or the other if you continue to exist. A city has no interest in the life of an indi- vidual. As far as the city of Chicago is concerned I could have kept going to work in my little cubical Monday through Friday, year in and year out, until I keeled over. Or, I could have stopped going in. It really made no difference." "Can you believe it?" she asked. "Not even being raped was enough to get me to take a day off. The very next day -- a Tuesday, if memory serves me correctly -- I was right back in my slot. That is how conditioned I was. I did not know what else to do but go to work. It seems like I should have done something else, I don't know what. Gone to have a chat with Mayor Daley, perhaps. My father knows him. Instead, like a good citizen I went quietly along, punched in at the time clock and shuffled off to my desk where Section #22: A Terrible Thing [251] ! everything looked exactly as it had the day before. The people around me went through the same motions, said the same things. Paper was shuffled. Calls routed through. All the while I am saying to myself: I don't know what this means anymore. I had always thought I was being useful, that the city needed me, that I was mak- ing a valuable contribution. And maybe I was. Well, it is up to some- one else to make the contribution now. Honestly, I do not think it was necessary I be so sheltered from life in order to make a contri- bution. That is what I need to rectify." She paused for a lengthy stint. I sensed a conclusion in the works, but after half a minute passed and she failed to speak I went ahead and asked: "What is it you feel you need to rectify?" "What I need to rectify," she said, "is the fact that I have been raised to be helpless and vulnerable. It is a condition I will no longer tolerate in myself." "So, it must've been right around that time," I suggested, to keep her going, "you decided to take the first leave-of-absence, to enroll in the survival course?" "Right around what time?" "Right around the period following the rape." "Well, sure, any normal person might have done so," she said. "But not good old Dinah. I stuck to the routine for two more years." "You were probably uncertain as to what to do next." "I did make some changes," she said. "I cut my hair, for one. Shorter even than it is now. I stopped wearing dresses and shoes with heels when I walked to and from work. There are moments when I am convinced I could have escaped my attacker if I had been wearing flats. I don't know if I would have had the courage to run but I am certain my high-heeled pumps only added to a general ap- pearance of vulnerability. Never mind running, I had a hard enough time walking in those heels. I was forever turning an ankle. I bought a pair of soldier's combat boots at an army surplus store and those became my daily footwear." "A pair of track shoes with spikes might've been more to the point," I suggested. I took a last swig at my mug and that was it. Hot drink all gone. To my comment about the track shoes Dinah re- sponded with a pained snort, but an amused pained snort. I thought possibly talking about the whole business was doing her good. "About three months after the rape," she continued, "I took a course in women's self-defense. My case officer recommended it. It was free. I went ahead and signed up though I do not mind telling you I was not very happy with the police at the time. I thought they were only trying to compensate for their failure to apprehend my assailant, my forcible rapist. The self-defense class taught me how [252] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! to scream in an attacker's face and to scratch and kick out. I pur- chased the combat boots because they seemed the sort of shoes which would be good to kick with and also because, obviously, I was seeking to diminish my attractiveness to men. That was high on the Rape Clinic's list of recommendations. I stopped wearing make-up. I never cared for it, anyway. What is the point of lipstick and mas- cara if you are not actively seeking a mate?" I thought about interjecting something to the effect that she has nice skin, what with the rosy cheeks and porcelain brow, not the least needful of make-up, but decided it wouldn't necessarily be what she wanted to hear coming from a male. "From then on," she said, "whenever I left the apartment, I wore the boots, the army fatigue pants and a thick sweater, even in the middle of the Chicago summer." "The same sweater you have with you?" I asked, as a way to reassure her I was listening. "The same," she said, pulling up a sleeve of the yellow foul weather jacket to reveal a hem of the heavy grey weave. I knew the sweater well, had studied its weave almost daily in our camp, a heavy woolen article that appears to consist of wo- ven rings of chain mail, like a haulberk, if that's what they're called, heavy enough to stop the bolt from a cross-bow. She uses the sweater as an alternative to the synthetic layer the school pushed on some of us back at Issue. "It's a man's sweater," she added. "The clerk at the store where I bought it said it was of a type once manufactured exclusive- ly for the British Special Forces. I like it because it turns my body into a formless block. Sometimes I wear my hooded sweatshirt over the sweater, then it is very difficult, I imagine, to perceive I am fe- male. I purchased a kit bag to carry the professional attire, the high-heel pumps, the dress and so forth I was expected to wear while on duty at the library. Before I left to walk home I would go to the staff bathroom and change back into my fatigues. But I will have to tell you, Marlow, even when I was dressed in my rugged ap- parel and careful which streets I walked, never using the same route two nights in a row, I still could not get past a terrible feeling of vulnerability. I am not a physically strong person. I have no faith I can kick and scratch with any force. Even my screams leave something to be desired, as screams go. Is there any more hot wa- ter?" she asked. "There could be," I said, reaching toward the stove. "If you would just reheat this," she said, pouring her nearly untasted plain water back into the pot. "Maybe put a tea bag in it for me this time." Section #22: A Terrible Thing [253] ! I fired up the stove -- it required but a minute to bring her water back to a boil -- and returned the mug to her hands with a tea bag tossed in, the little paper do-hickey hanging over the rim. "You ever get tested for the virus?" I asked. "Three times," she said. "All negative." "Then you can pretty well trust you're negative." She stirred the bag around with her fancy spoon and then pulled it out by its string well before it was thoroughly steeped. She only wanted a tincture. She would save the bag for another dunking that day, or the next, even two or three more dunkings. Thus was Dinah. "I began to realize", she continued, delicately dipping the tip of her tongue into the faint solution, "if I wanted to ever feel safe again, I would have to leave the city and move somewhere new, preferably some place less inhabited. There remains only the ques- tion of where, exactly. It is not that I don't know there is a whole world out there. You cannot be a research librarian for as long as I have been, or was, and not know there are other routes to a viable life, but until recently I only knew about the other routes from books or television. I have never quite understood how I can get from where I was to the place I imagine, the region of few or even no people. Anyhow, it was right around this time I saw a television program about the survival course in the Pine Barrens, the one I told you about. I decided the Pine Barrens might be as good a place as any to begin my quest. I became convinced the first thing I need- ed to do was learn how to live without the comforts and amenities of a city. " She sipped at the watery tea and grimaced, as if the brew was over strong but she would deal. "Let me tell you," she said. "It required quite a bit of courage on my part to board the bus to New Jersey. But the bus ride turned out fine. Nobody talked to me the whole way." "Did you wear your combat gear?" "There and back." "What did your parents think about your taking the survival course?" "I never told them. I guess that makes secret number two. I was only gone six days. The course fit neatly between my weekly Wednesday night suppers with Mother and Father at their apart- ment. We three also have a habit of eating lunch together on Sun- days, but not every Sunday. I called them from New Jersey and pre- tended I was at my apartment, you know, too tired from the de- mands of work and my strenuous social life to come over. The sur- vival school did teach me some useful outdoor living skills," she [254] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! continued, "but I decided very quickly the Pine Barrens is not the uninhabited place I am looking for. One of my female classmates on the course told me about the all women's sailing trip down in Flor- ida. The Keys, while pleasant and relatively uninhabited, is not the place I am seeking, either -- not enough deciduous trees or land fauna for my taste -- but I am glad I went. The solo was a good expe- rience. Even with those two outdoor courses under my belt I still do not feel I know enough to live apart from the city." "You'll get there," I assured her. "This course will probably help." You have to recall, I'd only spent two evenings and two morn- ings in camp with Dinah at that point and had no reason not to be optimistic about her future. "What do you think about Maritime Alaska as a substrate?" "If I lived here I would always be worried about meeting a bear," she answered. "I suppose I should investigate the Interior. There is time. I am on official leave-of-absence, return date indefi- nite. I have been away from the library for nearly two months now and, to speak frankly, I do not think I am going back." With this dec- laration, she paused. There might have been another sip of tea. "When I returned from New Jersey," she continued, "I en- rolled in a driving school. I had the idea I would drive to Florida to meet the people for the sailing course, but it did not work out." "How is that?" I asked. "I took the driving test twice and failed both times. The In- structor said it was not my driving that was the problem, it was all the other cars on the road." "They always say that. You can probably re-test." "I did. I took a bus to Florida and back, but directly upon re- turning I took the test again. This time I followed the advice of my instructor and tested in the morning, when traffic was light, and passed without difficulty. Also, I think the sailing course had in- spired me with additional self-confidence." Pause, sip of tea. I almost interjected to ask Dinah why she hadn't flown to Florida. Chicago to the Keys is a long way to ride the Greydog. Must've been a couple or three days aboard that bus. But I stopped myself, realizing this woman will probably never board an airplane, a machine that leaves the ground and in less than a second is at an altitude higher than her thirteenth floor apartment. "How much time passed between the Pine Barrens and Flor- ida?" I asked. "A full year," she said. "It required that long to prepare for the course. I had to earn an Intermediate Swimmer's Patch. I should mention," she went on, "even before I attained my driver's license, I had already bought a car. Paid cash for it, another move I kept from Section #22: A Terrible Thing [255] ! ! my parents. Secret number three. I had the dealer deliver my new car to the library parking garage. I had a designated spot which up until then I had never had reason to use. About once a week I would go to the garage and look at my car and try to understand what it meant that I owned such a complicated machine. Somehow, I knew that having a car would be vital if I was ever to escape Chicago. It took me a month to work up the nerve to drive it. For weeks, all I would do was back it up ten feet, then pull forward again and turn off the motor." "What make of car is it?" I asked and when she told me was impressed that she'd managed to pick out such a suitable vehicle. If a transient and migratory person off to seek a new way of life in the Great American West, wishing in the meantime to access trailheads and other out of the way places, should purchase a vehicle then the car Dinah had bought was probably the best model available for the purpose, a hatchback, a design perfect for loading and unloading camping and traveling gear, for keeping everything organized. "That's the car you drove to Anchorage?" I asked. "Yes," she said. "Well, drove to Bellingham and then boarded the ferry. I am afraid I turned the task of actually driving the car onto the boat over to one of the deck hands. At the time I purchased the vehicle I had no such plan of venturing as far north as Alaska. I knew, sooner or later, I was going to leave the city and go some- where. I knew if I didn't eventually get in the car and start off dri- ving I would lose my hard won skills. I had heard about this sea kayaking course while I was in the Keys, but I was not sure it would be the correct next step. I went back to the library and fell into my old routine. Another year and a half went by." "A year and a half," I mused. "Yes," she said. "Eighteen months. Gone. Annihilated by the routine. I was stalling, no doubt. When I first returned, I thought that possibly, what with the sailing course, I had partaken in suffi- cient adventure to hold me for a while. I tried to busy myself at the library. I began to intern with the bookbinder. And took on collec- tion development under the subject heading of Neighborhood Histo- ry. Sewers and Tunnels: Chicago's Underbelly. It was no good. I could not, as they say, make it stick. Too bad, too. I will probably never get back to either of those pursuits. When I finally mustered the courage to leave I still had six months remaining on my apart- ment lease, but I no longer cared. The idea of continuing to stay be- came more frightening than the idea of leaving. I saw that if I was not careful another decade would pass in an instant and seem nev- er to have happened. I knew that if I was to ever get out of the city, I would have to act quickly. I had already decided that my goal [256] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! should be the West, which stills seems to hold the most promise for finding the untrammeled place I am seeking. I cannot shake the no- tion that the natural world will eventually provide me a refuge and that I will become a steward for a some wild place. Within the space of a few weeks, I decided to enroll on the kayak course, applied for indefinite leave-of-absence, purchased what I thought I needed for my journey and one Sunday morning, when traffic was sure to be light, I pulled out of the parking garage, drove two blocks down Van Buren and got on Interstate Ninety headed west." It was a nice image: Dinah, restless child of the New World pursuing the age old American solution and lighting out for the ter- ritory. The western sky the morning of her departure must've ap- peared full of promise. On the dashboard of her car the little plastic figurine of Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion must've been nodding his head in affirmation all the way to the on-ramp. This was the first time I'd heard Dinah use the term "stew- ard". It helped to answer the question of what it was she was going to do with herself out there in the bush all day. That is, aside from the not inconsiderable scramble to take care of her basic needs. I liked that word "steward" though. It brought to mind an image of Snow White and her kindnesses to the little animals. Snow White -- Jeez, what a name -- who, come to think of it, also possesses a rosy spot in each cheek. It's quite conceivable that Snow White is Dinah's model for this notion of steward, a connection she's forgotten or misplaced. She may've seen the movie as a child and thoroughly sublimated it. Wasn't there a thatched roof cottage in there some- where, the humble abode where Snow was shacked-up with the dwarves? It's not hard to understand what the term "steward" sig- nifies in Dinah's mind, the sort of deep sympathy with nature it im- plies, squirrels coming to her for the acorns she dispenses, a fox lying down at her feet like a dog, bluebirds and whatnot perching on her arm. She'll establish a routine in the magical woodland, make her rounds, check on the health of ancient, old growth trees, the well-being of hedgehogs and badgers. "I must have driven a hundred miles before I was fully willing to go the speed limit," said Dinah, continuing with her tale of es- cape. 'The whole thing seemed so dreamlike. I departed in such haste. I left most of my city clothes and my television set at the apartment for my parents to pick up." Good, I thought. She had the sense to leave the T.V. behind. Television, enemy of action and agency. "How much notice did you give your mom and dad?" I asked. "Well, that was another secret," she answered. "I needed to make what you would call a clean break. I am still convinced it was Section #22: A Terrible Thing [257] ! the best approach. Otherwise, my parents would have used their power to talk me into something more reasonable, like maintaining my apartment and coming back to Chicago after the kayak course. When I drove away from the city that morning, my plan was to call them when I stopped for my first refill of gas. It seemed to take all day to use up the first tank. I was in Bismarck, North Dakota before the indicator -- " "What was their reaction?" I asked, cutting off her trailing digression which, with all the others, was beginning to cumulative- ly test my endurance. "Surprisingly subdued," she answered. "Maybe I had worn them down with all of my hi-jinks. The Florida Keys trip took me away from Chicago for a full month. My parents were not very hap- py about that, let me tell you. They particularly worried after the course launched out and I was unable to call them every four hours with an update. At least they felt reasonably assured I was coming back after the sailing course. When I called them on the way to Seattle and told them I was going to be away from Chicago for an indefinite period, I do not think they believed me. I suspect the full import of what I am doing has still not sunken in. My mother lis- tened to my open-ended plan to travel to Alaska and her only com- ment was to say I was bound to become too homesick to keep going. My father refused to come to the phone. Ever since my deviation to the Florida Keys I believe he has considered me a doomed individ- ual, someone destined to arrive to a terrible and violent end." Dinah was circling around in her narrative, filling in the de- tails, the result I suppose of finally having found a willing listener. "It's a nice drive through that part of the country though, isn't it?" I offered. "The Badlands, Northern Montana, Eastern Washington" "It took me almost a week to make it to Seattle," she said. "One more day and I would have missed my scheduled ferry and would not have arrived to Anchorage in time to join the course. I found I could not be in the car more than a couple of hours continu- ously. There was at least one day when I could not bring myself to drive at all. To be truthful, I spent a lot of time pulled over to the side of the road, crying. It was so vexing. I kept missing the turn- offs. They come at you so fast." "Yes, they do," I said. "Were you camping along the way?" "No. I stayed in motels." And here she mentioned the name of an old and, I believe, still reputable chain of motels, the original chain of motels. "One evening I did try to stay at a pay campground," she went on, "but was unable to accomplish setting up the tent. I secured a refund and drove on to a motel, a nice motor [258] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! court." "Somebody at the campground could've probably helped you with the tent." "A man came out from the office and did make an attempt to assist but he said the tent was missing some parts. Maybe you would be willing to take a look at it when we get back." "Certainly." I made a mental note about the tent. That made two items to look into back at Palmer, including her car battery. I think it was at about this stage, late in Dinah's and my con- fab, that I started taking big slugs out of a water bottle to chase all the strong hot drink, the sugar and the caffeine, to flush out some of the jitters. "What did you think about during all that time on the road?" I asked. She gave the question some consideration. "Mostly I thought about turning back. Just as Mother predicted, I became terribly homesick being out there on the highway by myself. I missed my little efficiency apartment. I still miss it. I miss the way it always took care of me, enfolded me, provided me with food and a quiet place to sleep. I also started to worry about what it was going to be like not to receive a paycheck every two weeks. My parents are very angry at me because as soon as I changed my status to Leave- Of-Absence, Indefinite Date of Return I lost my city medical bene- fits. In actuality, I am told my benefits will continue for another six months, but so what? Evidently, physicians are devil-may-care and willing to put a person needlessly at risk and what is the use of hav- ing medical insurance if you do not know what your life is worth? "What kept you from turning back?" I asked. "The same thing that keeps me from turning back now," she said. "The overriding thought that there is something I missed in my upbringing, something crucial I need in order to feel I am in my life. I am convinced there is still time to find this awareness, or whatever it is." "There's always time," I said. "As long as you're drawing breath." I thought Dinah had it about right. And it's true, she still has a chance to figure out what it is she wants, outside of what her parents or the culture says. We all have this opportunity. Ameri- cans are afforded the chance more than most to reinvent ourselves. It's part of our collective psyche, our national narrative. And there's so much landscape out here in which to perform the rein- vention. Not to say it's easy. Full and complete personal reinvention may, in fact, be one of the hardest things in the world to accomplish. It's only for the truly desperate. "About the lack of paychecks," I said, "I expect you probably Section #22: A Terrible Thing [259] ! saved considerable bucks during all those years of steady employ- ment?" "I saved some," she said. "Like maybe a hundred thousand dollars." "Possibly a little more." "Which your father invested for you." "He did and still does. Every week he places in an account what I am sure he thinks is a reasonable allowance but which is al- ways far more than I require. It is out of that account I paid for the car and my trips." "The investments are in your name?" "I believe that is the case." "Then, take it from me, Dinah, with your inborn frugality, you'll be able to travel indefinitely without ever needing to worry about money, especially if you're willing to take the occasional odd job. I'd stay out of motels though. Try to camp more." Dinah listened very closely as I imparted this information. "Well, that is good to hear," she said, "because, to be honest, money has never seemed quite real to me. The library paid me all those years for doing what I had been doing anyway, ever since I was a little girl. I still do not fully understand how one earns money in this world. The whole enterprise is a mystery." "Earning a bit of money isn't difficult," I told her. "There's al- ways a paycheck to be had if you're willing to perform some mo- notonous physical task. The trick is living within your means." "I have never fully trusted the fact," she went on, "that I can exchange my salary for food and clothing. I am amazed shopkeep- ers go along with the scheme. I always worry that if I am greedy and purchase more provision than I need it will be to tempt fate. The next time I go out I will find the stores closed and boarded up." "Tends to work just the opposite," I said. "The more of some- thing people buy, the more of it gets produced, no matter how friv- olous." "To this day, I do not understand what people spend their money on." "It's a bafflement." "I think I would do better in a natural setting where one does not need money." "You're welcome to give it a try," I said. "I'm afraid most of the places where you might be able to live off the land have been taken up." "Birds and squirrels do not need money," she said. "Well, you're right about that." Having worked our way down to this unassailable truth, I decided hot drink remaining or no hot [260] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! drink remaining I needed to be by myself for a while. I gathered up book and ensolite pad, empty mug and partially full water bottle. "Why are they called 'pumps'?" I asked, as I was about to leave the dugout. "You mean the dress shoes?" "Yes." "I looked that up once," she said. "The term is supposedly echoic of the sound they make when you walk in them." "Well, sure," I said. And I wandered down the beach leaving Dinah to contemplate the frugal lives of birds and chipmunks. I took a seat on a pile of drift and poured water into the mug to dilute the residue of the previously strong hot drink thinking I could sip at that and fake myself into a mood to read. I believe I did turn a few pages of the book but for the most part I sat and mulled over all !Dinah had said. ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #23: The Providing Machine ! I sat motionless in my new spot atop the pile of drift logs, all manner of thought fragments passing through my caf- feinated noggin. Once or twice I looked down the beach to where Dinah continued to sit hunched over, sheltering from the wind be- hind the berm, occasionally sipping at her thin tea. I witnessed her reach out to fool with some piece of issue from her daybag, a cloth- ing layer, or perhaps a gear item toward which she possibly felt she'd not directed adequate scrutiny. This was Day Three, recall, early in the trip, when she was still in the throes of coming to terms with her personal articles. These equipment manipulations struck me as her only condescension to our shared physical plane. Thing was, for a time, I'd stopped seeing Dinah as positioned upon the lit- toral, superimposed against a background of scrub and rocky beach. Instead, what I saw was the diminished figure of the librari- an suspended in some sort of semi-transparent medium. In my imagination, Dinah floated free of the earth, slowly tumbling through a murky ether without reference to up or down. I seemed to be observing her from a great height, peering down to where she sat within a small circle of light at the far end of a long, dark tube. Normally, you'd expect someone, sensing the pressure of an- other's gaze, to eventually look over but the librarian never once glanced in my direction. She was completely absorbed in her do- ings, either inspecting the objects in her possibles bag, or otherwise lost in thought. I was put in mind of the well-worn path the bookish woman had trod all those years through the downtown of her home city, head bowed, wending her way from the library to her apart- ment, eyes fixed upon the pavement, effecting her turns and street crossings at the marker of this or that flattened wad of chewing gum. I found myself of a sudden attempting to recall what it was Dinah had said during the Palmer go-around in response to the In- structor's request that each of us disclose a little of what we hoped to achieve, or experience, while on the course. Remember, this was back when about all I knew regarding the librarian was that she owned a lot of nice outdoor equipment and had driven out from Chicago in her own car. If I hadn't been motivated that afternoon on [262] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! the beach at Applegate to search back through the last few days to dredge up the extent of her reply I doubt I would've ever been able to bring it back. Another week into the course and it would've been lost to memory. My recollection was that, when it came Dinah's turn, she ut- tered in a barely audible voice something along the lines that she hoped to add more species to her lifetime bird spotting list, a goal I can now comprehend but about which I had no understanding at the time. Thad Houston spoke up in response to her statement, say- ing it was likely before the trip was over she'd be able to check off a dozen or more new species. Seemingly encouraged by Mr. Houston's attestation, Dinah then said not in a mumble but quite audibly that in addition to spotting birdlife she "hoped to witness spindrift". Now, I know what spindrift is and as we were going to be out on the ocean in boats I suppose it was not unreasonable for the li- brarian to expect we might observe the right combination of wind and waves, but it was an odd thing to hope for, certainly an odd thing to admit out loud in the presence of a group of strangers. Still, knowing Dinah, I can imagine her being enamored with the word, a quaint term she'd probably come across in some arcane bit of read- ing. The Instructors didn't confirm or deny the possibility of spindrift. It was the last thing Dinah said which was the most strik- ing. "Coming here," she offered to the group, "represents for me a unique opportunity to see Alaska before I die." This was uttered in the perfectly flat tone reserved for the disclosure of a personal truth. Her pronouncement produced a solid five seconds of silence amongst a collection of young people who probably hadn't done a whole lot of thinking about the limits placed upon us by mortality. Then Dodi spoke: "Yes. It is a unique opportunity. None of us should forget that. Anything else?" To which Dinah replied, "No. Nothing else." Well, I suspect this will not be Dinah's only foray to the last frontier. Barring catastrophe, she'll make it back up here a couple more times before turning the last page. The story about her rape has served to explain a few things. For one, it helps me understand why the woman moves about so disjointedly. Dinah has probably never been much at ease in her physical body, but I think it possible the event of the rape succeed- ed in prying her temporal mind just about completely loose from her corporeal self. Consider for instance her one and only en- counter with the campgame known as Greywacke Drop. Very prob- ably I was the only one amongst the entire group of students and Instructors who could appreciate the expression of disassociation Section #23: The Providing Machine [263] ! which fixed itself upon Dinah's face as she inserted the stone be- tween her hindercheeks. To enter a sort of fugue state was the only way for the librarian to get through the horror of the game. One can only wonder at the anguish she must've endured to bend herself over at the waist, push that rock into her cleft and hold it there. I still can't get out my head the image of the woman doubled over in an attempt to get a visual through her legs on that cook pot. The balaclava/bug net arrangement, loosened by her spastic movement, disengaged and fell to the ground. I'm sure I was not the only one in the group struck by the length of her hair, dark brown and wavy, free now from the balaclava to trail upon the sand. Well, one thing was clear after the discussion with Dinah on the beach that day: I understood why she had the habit of bundling on so much clothing. We were barely forty-eight hours into the trip and she was already putting on every layer in her kit. It's not that she ever feels cold -- she couldn't with all those layers -- it's about diminishing her attractiveness to the predatory male. I looked down through the darkened tube to where the librarian sat behind the berm all muffled up, two or three layers of clothing top and bot- tom, the short brim of the balaclava snugged down to the frame of her eyeglasses, and I thought, yeah, that should just about do it. A potential rapist wouldn't perceive there was anything within that carapace that could be copulated with and even if he decided it might be worth a go it'd be almost impossible to find a point of en- try. It's likely I sat there on the drift pile for a full hour -- I'm sure it was at least that long -- gazing abstractly at Dinah's cloaked form. She floated in a timeless nether realm in which she experienced no gravitational pull from family, or community, nor possessed any connection to past or future. I watched the librarian lift her mug to her mouth, sip at her diluted hot drink and considered how there must be thousands of adults in our modern culture, hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, who lead what can only be termed ap- proximate lives. It's not their fault. It's due to a lack of authentic ways to live. Everything's so artificial anymore, cut off from land- scape and weather, the cycle of the seasons, cut off even from one's own physicality. Many a time I've witnessed urbanites in their natural habi- tat, foraging for food in a grocery store, or shoving soiled clothing into a front loader at a laundromat. You can feel their yearning for something genuine, their desperate need to manifest their physical- ity. Yet, there they are, trapped in an environment almost devoid of manual or tactile requirement. It's quite a situation and made con- tinually worse as the machines handle more and more of what was [264] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! once required of us as physical beings. Unless folks go to a gym to move weights around in pointless repetition, or jog to nowhere on a treadmill, they have nothing against which to direct the muscles of their body. They're relegated to moving food and drink to their mouth, bathing and other minor tasks of personal care. And don't you doubt that the robots won't take over those jobs, as well, once the details are worked out. It's impressive, the focus the urbanite will bring to the pitiable task of folding and stacking a meager collection of laundry items, once the washing and drying machines have diluted the dirt and odor to the degree it's no longer objectionable. Folding is not really even necessary to the proper care of clothing anymore, but hardly anything these people do is necessary. The pale city dweller, fully absorbed in the handling of their small stock of apparel -- as if this were all he or she owned, as if there weren't an apartment or a house nearby with every closet and shelf straining to hold its bur- den of matériel -- will press with soft and unpracticed hands at the seams of shirts and undergarments until a rectilinear pile is pro- duced. Observe as the urbanite gathers up the stack of laundry, full of evident satisfaction regarding the completion of this small physi- cal task, one of the few required anymore by modern life. Yep, it's really something. It shouldn't be any wonder Dinah's gear sorting routine drives me crazy. I've been in position, standing in the check-out line of a grocery store, to watch one or another of these pathetic, ego-depleted creatures organize their small assem- blage of grocery items on the end of the belt. As if it can possibly matter, lining up the box of organic snack crackers with edges par- allel to the conveyor, the same box of crackers that was dropped that morning onto the floor by a hapless shelf stocker and acciden- tally kicked halfway down the aisle picking up dust and god knows what else before being returned to the display. Unwilling to commit my articles to the same conveyor belt, I'll hold back and observe the human being reduced to consumer unit adjust and neaten his food- stuff containers, organize the little yogurt cartons into parade for- mation, until the interference of the check-out person makes addi- tional futzing impossible. Here we have one of the last manual crafts left to the city dweller. It's enough to make you abandon your cheese and apples and jar of peanut butter on one of the shelves of the magazine display and bolt from the whole scene, catch the next bus out to the hinterlands where clothes are washed in a river and food still grows out of the ground. Admittedly, for most of us living in this modern era, there's hardly any way left to connect with the on-going natural processes. Farmers still manage it, I suppose. Fishermen, too. Any occupation Section #23: The Providing Machine [265] ! that mimics the aboriginal condition. Long haul backpackers make the connection, for sure, though maybe I'm biased. I think it's fair to say the Instructors for this school have replicated something of the original condition, given the physical challenge of their employ- ment, the exposure to large elemental forces. But there are only so many of these gigs to go around. The rest of us are dependent for our livelihood upon an artificial economy which carries on to an ever increasing extent indoors, cut off from the natural rhythms. The approximate life is the easiest to fall into. Who doesn't grow to adulthood assuming they'll require a car and an apartment, along with a television to help while away the time between work shifts? The whole apparatus, the providing machine, I guess you could call it, rolls along without requiring much input from its beneficiaries. Not to fall into an approximate life requires considerable exertion in the opposite direction, almost an open act of rebellion. Look at what those two women in the foldable kayak, the two artists from Valdez, were required to do to escape the forces of assimilation. It helps if, as you're rejecting the given template, you have some idea of what you're moving toward. Or else you end up floating in the void like Dinah. And, really, there's probably no way to avoid a cer- tain amount of drift. In the case of our erstwhile librarian, the principle barrier to authenticity has been, as far as I can make it out, plain and simple fear, inculcated to a high degree by her parents. Fear seems to be a common enough factor in the lives of most modern people. I mean, the media mongers it in every way imaginable. The range of anxi- eties operating out there to keep us citizens in line almost defy list- ing: fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of incarceration, fear of physical harm and I don't mean serious bodily injury but fear of minor scrapes and bruises. The big one, though, the main instru- ment of control, is still the old bugaboo of fearing to find oneself outside the tribe and thus being a non-person. I've seen perfectly strong, capable adults, athletic outdoor types who harbor zero con- cern over scrapes and bruises, people who'd barely hesitate to self- amputate a limb if it came down to it, kept in line by fear of what might happen should they fall outside the construct. You have to wonder at this. It's as if they don't know they're capable of creating their own construct, their own tribe complete with its own rules and norms. For that matter, the tribe they're looking for is probably already out there, all they need to do is find it and join up. For these folks, perfectly competent in every way, it almost seems to boil down to a fear of diminution, as if through loss of social and work connections they will slip into decline and be forced to live at a less opulent level. Which they might. But so what? Other than this, I [266] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! don't know what the self-starters have to worry about, unless it be the fear of unstructured time and their own uncensored thoughts. If the over-achievers can't break free, what hope is there for the rest of us monads? Suffice it to say, there's no shortage of fear to keep a person hemmed in, performing the same ritual tasks over and over, day in and day out, magical spells against chaos and the unforeseen. Of the fears available for dispensation it sounds as if Dinah was given the full dose. When it comes to achieving anything approaching authentic- ity in this life, I have to say, females raised in contemporary Ameri- can culture are at a disadvantage. I have two younger sisters and I've been witness to their struggle. Right from the get-go, girls are coddled, sheltered from physical reality. When they aren't sitting at school desks engaged in some busywork they're assigned various pointless indoor tasks, vacuuming a hallway carpet or setting a supper table with napkins and flatware. Given the go-ahead to cut loose a bit, the approved girl activity is to dress up and patrol the nearest shopping mall for more showy, useless junk to hang upon their bodies, garments and gear of no utility outside of a controlled indoor climate. I know because I've accompanied a good number of females while they were engaged in this waste of an afternoon, ac- cepting the logo-emblazoned bags as they were handed to me, hang- ing the little loops of twine off my fingers, following the girlfriend, or the sister, or the aunt, down the concourse to the next outlet, none of which says much for my initiative. The situation for girls appears to be improving, if the women on this expedition are any indicator. Title Nine and all. Getting fe- males involved in sports at a young age is no doubt a good thing. Field hockey and swimming and crew. Girls are still at risk of losing years, whole decades even, of their lives. I've noticed that when they attempt to recall some instance of authentic physical engage- ment outside of a pool, or a gridded athletic field, they often come up blank. Girls can go right on into womanhood, they can go their whole lives, with this deficiency, unless something jars them awake. Once they've reached maturity it becomes even more difficult for a women to achieve authenticity, unless it be during childbirth, and I'm not even sure about that. You'd tend to think giving birth would put a woman in touch with one or two of the old verities, but from what I've heard, during parturition, the mind shifts into a state of unreality, the body's own anesthetic, combined with whatever the hospital's pumping in, ultimately leaving a woman numb to the process. Once the kid's out, it's back to the cocoon of controlled and cushioned indoor lodgments. As long as society is allowed to dictate the rules, women will continue to be coddled and shielded. I'll ac- Section #23: The Providing Machine [267] ! cept the possibility that on average females are slightly more fragile physically, but only slightly. Honestly, the whole cultural attitude seems a holdover from a tribal past, the thinking being that a multi- tude of women might be needed to repopulate the nation state fol- lowing some calamity, whereas in theory a lone male can handle the insemination. We steer the females away from the dangerous undertakings: hunting, mining, deep sea fishing, combat patrols. Which so far has worked out as we males need to feel ourselves use- ful for something. Most of us on this trip, male or female, have been living ap- proximate lives. We wouldn't be here if we hadn't felt something amiss. And it isn't necessary the situation be so extreme as to feel that one is living continuously inside a movie, as seems to be the case with one person I know. All that's required is he or she not be entirely at ease with the proffered template. That seems enough incentive to get one out for twenty-eight days of wilderness sea kayaking. Even Cheryl, the poorest fit of anyone on this course, came here seeking something, even if she couldn't say what it is. Now that she's here, she'll probably be happy to let it remain un- stated. It's not even pristine nature we've come seeking. I'm not sure pristine nature can be said to even exist anymore, though I do know what Dinah means when she talks about the untrammeled place. It's more like our pristine childhood we want back, the sense of wonder, the old waking dreamstate. Eventually, as I sat cogitating upon the driftlog, the hiking group returned. People dispersed to their various campsites to cook up a meal, or try a stint of fishing, or lie about beneath a hastily erected tarp until the signal came to ready the boats. I continued to sit on my log only intermittently aware of my surroundings. At some point in my musings, I tried to work out where it must've started with Dinah. I assumed, at one time, she was a normal little girl, fully inhabiting her physical self. Dinah claims her parents were over-protective. Well, all right, but there's no reason to sup- pose she didn't harbor some of the usual girlhood aspirations, which maybe I'm not fully informed about but which I gather often consist of various simplified ideas of glamour and travel, riding horses, owning a big shaggy dog, along with the hope of future ro- mantic affiliations with some handsome person. I mean, D.'s a read- er. She had to have read the usual girl books, the detective stories, the romances. I don't care how much her parents strove to instill a stay-at-home caution they surely could not've obliterated sooner than age twelve the ordinary girlish notions of a larger life. Somewhere along the way her parent's teachings sank in with a vengeance. Decades prior to the rape, Dinah had thoroughly [268] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! internalized the notion that her body was a delicate vessel con- stantly in danger of physical injury, an object capable of drawing unwanted male attention. Which in Dinah's case was distorted to mean any male attention. Thus was begun the process by which our librarian became detached from her physical self. Dinah's parents, without intending it, liberated their daughter from the expectation she would ever marry or have children. I doubt if they meant their teachings on longevity be taken to such an extreme. Dinah's right. She's done her parents one better. Forcing myself to sip off the mug of water, the approximate hot drink I'd hoped would dupe me into a reading session -- by then, the book had fallen to the side of the log unheeded -- it suddenly made sense to me why Dinah had enrolled in the all-women's sailing course. It was a chance for her to be in the company of other fe- males, many of whom were probably as uninitiated as she, to learn the equipment and master the methods without a bunch of males around who could become impatient and step in and take over. Which I'll bet happened more often than not down there in the Pine Barrens, knowing something of the sort of male who's often drawn to the notion of wilderness survival. With a lot of those guys it's not so much about acquiring outdoor savvy as proving they already have it. Those fellows think stepping in and taking over from a fe- male is a sort of chivalry, but it's really plain sexism. I can see the attraction of a gender segregated expedition. I mean, if this course were comprised entirely of males I wouldn't be in a fraction of the trouble I'm in. I wouldn't be in any trouble. I'd be having a great time and probably learning a whole lot more about leadership and E.B. and the other stuff the curriculum seems to be about. All of this and more I pondered that afternoon sitting chin in hand in my spot along the strand. I remember, about the time I was thinking of gathering up book and mug and hoisting my rear end off the log, I looked down the beach and saw that Dinah had pursued her gear perusal to the end result of which I'd eventually become quite familiar. She'd laid out all of the contents of her daybag in well-ordered rows, performing her mysterious inventory, each item placed neatly upon the ground as if she were still in the White Zone, attempting to grasp what it meant to be the owner of such objects. I observed the librarian and thought about how, if the body is indifferent to the mind, then the mind can choose to be indifferent to the body. This seemed to be the choice made by the young girl Dinah. She'd decided to exist as a cerebral entity disconnected from the sordid and dangerous world in which her body moved. Being a dedicated reader from an early age she was halfway there already. Section #23: The Providing Machine [269] ! ! Reading can inspire one to take action in the world and it can also inspire retreat. It can do one at one time and the other at a differ- ent time. Ultimately, I think, it was reading books that saved Dinah, as books have saved so many of us. Once, when I was in my mid-twenties, I'd halfway decided to pursue the path of retreat. I'd read "The Seven Storey Mountain" and was giving heavy consideration to taking myself off to the fa- mous abbey in Kentucky, a Trappist monastery consisting of men who'd taken a vow of celibacy, some even a vow of silence. I know all about the impulse to withdraw. I may end up down there in Ken- tucky yet. In the meanwhile, I have a little more business to con- duct upon the shared physical plane. Somewhere along the way books became for Dinah an in- citement to action. Sitting upon my pile of drift, I understood what she meant about wishing to rectify a condition of helplessness and vulnerability. Honestly, I didn't view her predicament as all that serious. Really, what she was saying struck me as nothing more than a desire to get out of the city and camp more, which is easy enough. You acquire the necessary gear, you head outdoors and then you stay outdoors. You don't quit and get a motel room. No. You stay outdoors and you deal. You treat it as if you'd washed ashore from a shipwreck and all you have with which to survive is the gear in your pack. If what Dinah needs is more knowledge of equipment and outdoor skills then she's already taking the right steps. Eventually, I looked down the beach and saw that she'd se- cured the contents of her possibles bag and was gone. I got up, gathered my gear, idled a moment nudging with my boot a leathery tube of rope kelp, admiring how it conformed and adhered to the rocks, dead though it probably was, then wandered over to see !what the plan was for launching the boats. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #24: Nature Program Dreamstate ! Such was Day Three, the day of the wet exit drill. I've now lived and traveled with Dinah these past several weeks, weeks that seemed each of them long as a month in that other life, the one that has it's location back in the place of cars and money and buildings and media. For the first ten days of this expedition I slept in the same tent with the librarian, ate out of the same cook pot -- or did until she shifted exclusively to using her own cookware -- and struggled whilst on the water to sync my paddle cadence with hers. Dinah and I have talked, more back in the old days than as of late perhaps, but all and all she and I have talked quite a bit. It'd take me years to talk that much with any new acquaintance in the other place, the so-called real world. The same seems true for Di- nah. I mean, think about it, she'd only known me for about seventy- two hours when she disclosed all the details about her upbringing and the rape. This should give you some idea of the effect backcoun- try travel can have upon human interaction, with its lack of dis- traction and the way it has of promoting interdependency. Once again, Dinah and I are sharing the same tent, the same boat, the same shorebound campsite. Once again, I've been required to en- gage with her personality. What I mean to say is, based upon Di- nah's various disclosures, I've worked out a sort of timetable which plots on a grid, if you will, the evolution of her self-awareness. On one level Dinah has accomplished an astonishing thing. She's managed, before the age of forty, to virtually eliminate all trace within herself of a sexual persona. I'm sure the desire is still there somewhere but she's relegated it to a back burner if not com- pletely out of the kitchen and into the back yard. You have to give her credit. In one fell swoop D. eradicated half the source of tension and unhappiness endemic to the modern urban psyche. The critical thing is, you can make a choice not to accommodate your sexual needs, but you'd better accept you still have them. Start maintain- ing they were never there in the first place, denying that you ever feel any desire of a sexual sort, and trouble is sure to follow. Take it from me. It's my suspicion that Dinah, from the moment she grasped the concept as a young girl, never quite reconciled herself to the Section #24: Nature Program Dreamstate [271] ! idea that a man and woman might consensually wish to copulate. To begin with, there was the horror surrounding the very notion of an erect penis penetrating her insides. This was followed fairly quickly, I should think, by the uncomfortable realization that this is why her insides are shaped the way they are. The librarian is the one who told me one day more or less out of the blue that the Proto-European root word for sex was "sek", meaning "to cut" or "divide". Words are Dinah's thing and there came a point in the trip in which I became fixated on Dinah's avoid- ance of the term "cockpit". I spent the better part of an afternoon and evening trying to devise a way to trick her into saying it. What I finally did was deliberately leave the campfire grate on my seat back in the Seascape. As we were setting up camp, I asked Dinah if she'd be willing to go back down to the kayak and bring it up. When she returned, campfire grate in hand, I asked her where she'd dis- covered it. "It was right there in the kayak." "Really?" I feigned. "Where exactly?" "On the seat." "No kidding? Plain as day, huh? I can't believe it. Was it in your cockpit or mine?" I asked, attempting to coax her. "Yours," she said. "You were the one who had loaded it in the rear bulkhead. Finally, I gave up. And it's funny about "cockpit", as the li- brarian seems to have no hang-up about the term "breast stroke". It wouldn't surprise me if Dinah decided early on that the whole business of sex was something cooked up by teenage boys. The rape probably only confirmed her in the opinion that the prin- ciple desire of males is to put their erect penises inside of other bod- ies, not necessarily female bodies, nor necessarily the bodies of oth- er humans. The incident of the rape only proved the whole arrangement to be worse than she imagined. Given all that, I think it'd only be natural for Dinah to still harbor some curiosity about the sex act. Knowing that her misadventure was not the usual sort of intercourse was possibly sufficient to keep Dinah from dismissing the entire transaction as unworthy of further consideration. I have a feeling the curiosity is still there, though it may've also been rele- gated out to the back yard where it's keeping company with desire. The rape followed by the misdiagnosis was apparently enough to jolt Dinah into a sharp awareness of her own existence. Numbed as she was by years of fixed routine, buttressed by the skewed philosophy handed down by her parents, convinced an un- varying daily round was the key to safety and longevity, it required something fairly traumatic to jostle Dinah into wakefulness. I'm not [272] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! sure either the rape or the misdiagnosis alone would've done the job. The combination may've been required. I'm sorry Dinah had to go through it, painful and frightening as it must've been. The rape was the pry bar required to leverage her out of her storybook dreamstate. Once the rape was in progress Dinah certainly could not've said she didn't exist. Existence was the thing she was most acutely aware of. For the couple of minutes it lasted, palms pressed upon the still warm pavement of the side- walk, I'll bet our librarian, our methodical filer of cards, didn't ex- perience one iota of loneliness, or ennui, or boredom. Nope, bore- dom was not what she was feeling. It's too bad it went down the way it did but for those five minutes Dinah was as alive as she'd ever been. Perhaps some other trauma, a purse snatching, or a side- swipe by an automobile, would've been sufficient to jolt her awake. I'm not sure, given the advanced state of her malady,. Once back in the world, back in her body, sharing the physi- cal plane with the rest of us, Dinah was prepped for all sorts of cog- nitive shocks and it wouldn't surprise me if the shocks came pretty thick and fast there for a while. You have to hand it to the librarian. She could've chosen to recoil and hide from the jolts, but instead she leant into them, moved perhaps even a little closer to their source. Very commendable, given her phobias. She enrolled in the New Jersey survival course where for at least three days -- three days that must've felt like three weeks -- Dinah's existence was re- duced to the physical basics: food, water, shelter, warmth -- the Sa- cred Four, or however the Pine Barrens school refers to them. That would be enough right there to get most people thinking about the nature of their own physicality. Returning from the Pine Barrens to Chicago and her old life of light switch/thermostat convenience must've comprised another sort of shock. It's easy to imagine Dinah, reinstalled once again in her old apartment, coming to wakefulness of a morning, lying mo- tionless beneath her blankets, listening to the rumble of traffic down at street level. Freshly returned from the survival school and it's concerns about water distillation and animal snares, she would've been in the proper mental state to be startled by the real- ization that the city which has always served as her home also functions as part of a well-coordinated system for the extraction and commodification of the planet's resources. If Dinah can anthro- pomorphize animals I'll bet she can also do the reverse. I wonder she didn't look around at the vast throng of strangers she was liv- ing amongst and suddenly see them revealed as so many clever two-legged creatures who'd decided to congregate in a city as a means of guarding themselves against the vicissitudes of nature Section #24: Nature Program Dreamstate [273] ! and to compete more effectively against other animal species. What dismay must've accompanied Dinah's realization that she, herself, is an opportunistic bipedal and an unwitting participant in her species' scheme. How appalled she must've been to find herself part of the human race and a benefactor of its enterprise. Well, you might say that for our librarian the curtain had been pulled back. For the first time since she'd grown to adulthood Dinah took a hard look at what she was as a physical being and saw a large, tramping creature requiring a hundred mouthfuls of food each day in order to live. And what she must put into her mouth are the bodies of once living -- to a degree still living -- plants and ani- mals. To exist in the physical realm is to exploit other creatures for their life essence. That must've been a tough one for our bookish cubical dweller. I wonder when it finally hit her that the particular way she'd been living was more extreme in its routine than the lives of other adults. Whom did she have to compare herself with, anyway, aside from her fellow librarians or the clerks in the stores where she pur- chased her food, her clothing and those two outfits a year? If you grew up watching nature shows every night, stuff on the history channel, or her beloved Daktari, never giving much thought to the lives of the people depicted in the programs, fictional or otherwise, not even the adult women -- the Beryl Markhams, or the Margaret Meads, or that young female assistant of Dr. Marsh's at the Nairobi animal clinic, whatever her name was, Paula it might've been -- because they were adults and you were a child and to a child adults always appear sufficient unto themselves, when would you ever have reason to speculate about the unseen lives of T.V. characters? Never having had reason to question her own ar- rival to a particular juncture in life, hardly by her own testimony having experienced a juncture, Dinah had no reason to expend the odd moment idly wondering about the backstory of the adults fea- tured in her television shows. Then she arrived to her mid-thirties and noticed she was now the same age as the famous women when they'd become full agents in their lives. The existence of the female over-achievers and their historical accomplishments, rather than continuing to be something to marvel at and celebrate, began in- stead to make her uncomfortable. Her response was to look away, change the channel, turn the page. Well, somewhere along the way, it seems Dinah stopped turn- ing the page. Maybe this occurred around the time she signed up for the New Jersey survival course. Whenever it was, for possibly the first time in her life she found herself looking about and won- dering how other people managed, what it was they'd discovered to [274] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! be necessary to the process of fitting themselves into the world. Perhaps Dinah had finally perceived the monochrome nature of her existence compared to the kaleidoscope of possibilities around her and begun to ask herself why her particular life as opposed to some other. The awareness must've eventually hit her that most of the adults in her proximity ate a variety of foods, spent time off from their jobs engaged in a range of activities, not to mention changing their employment every two to three years, if not their entire geo- graphical location. Dinah, up until around the time of the survival course, may've assumed she was more or less on par with other adults. It's only been since she started to thrust herself into situa- tions where a person's capacities are tested that the librarian's been shocked to discover what her contemporaries are capable of, the remarkable extent of their knowledge base, their acquired skills, the physical risks they're willing to take. It's been fully brought home to our book shelver that most, if not practically all, of the other adults of her cohort, to use Tyler's apt term, are a good deal more initiated than she is into the manifold circumstances of living. I can't imagine this would be an easy thing to realize about oneself at almost age forty. Her initial tendency might've been to resist the idea and ultimately fail to equate her astonishment at the exploits of others to any deficiency on her part, but instead con- clude that the rest of us are, in the main, cavalier and reckless. In the end, the notion of differing degrees of initiation was a concept that not only darkened the doorway of Dinah's mind but came right in and sat down, took one of the seats vacated by sexual desire and curiosity, and helped itself to a portion of the tea and toast and pasta salad which she'd prepared for her din-din. The concept of differing degrees of initiation might've taken the whole damn supper and stuck around for dessert. Even so, I'm not sure Dinah has yet to acknowledged the unwelcome guest sitting across from her. Dessert not forthcoming -- the librarian doesn't eat dessert -- the reality of the abyss which yawns between the mea- sure of her own abilities and just about every other adult inhabitant of the western hemisphere still sits at the kitchen table of her mind waiting to be recognized. When I witness Dinah going through that personal gear bag of hers, carefully removing each item and passing it before her con- centrated gaze -- as if it were the first time she'd noticed her spare socks, or her headlamp -- I realize it's not the contents of her duffel she's trying to come to terms with but the whole infrastructure which has underpinned her existence these thirty-nine years. There must've been a moment back in the city when she lay upon Section #24: Nature Program Dreamstate [275] ! the chaste bed in her apartment on the thirteenth floor, labeled fourteenth, within the hive complex of adult studio efficiencies and grasped the extent to which her life was supported by a vast mech- anism whose creation she'd had no say about and which, when it failed in the form of a broken kitchen appliance, or a burned out light bulb, she was helpless to fix. It's always instructive, from time to time, to consider the ma- terial props of one's existence. Unless you happen to live in that rare zone where a tropical ocean shoreline overlaps a landscape bounteous with vegetation, where a loincloth suffices and to gather a subsistence of shell fish and fruit requires but an hour of effort, you're probably going to need some clothing and other tools in or- der to get along. Gear, in itself, is never a bad thing. It's an entirely necessary thing. You just have to be careful how far you take it. You have to draw the line when additional equipment, for instance more clothes or a car or a house, ceases to enhance your life and begins to distract from the wonder. Each time Dinah returned to the city from one of her forays she saw the urban conurbation more and more for what it is. She began to see her body for what it is. She perceived the deathwish that lay within the extremity of her daily routine. Even so, Dinah could've made a decision to play it out, as the saying goes. She could've once more taken up the routine and let it annihilate the remaining years of her life. That's the purpose of the routine, as it was handed down to her by those over-cautious automatons, her parents. It's the reason anyone sets up a routine: to annihilate time, to annihilate life. And why not? She felt, as she says, half-dead al- ready. Taught since girlhood to regard her physical body with pro- found suspicion, Dinah haunted her four square city blocks like a specter, peering phantom-like out through the spy holes of her eyes. Then her body betrayed her by luring violence unto itself. Her body, the shell she inhabited, became the impetus of a criminal in- vestigation, the focus of medical attention. It stopped being theoret- ical. Her body was in fact a vessel made of flesh and bone which could be damaged or become sick. No one expressed surprise at the cancer diagnoses, nor any particular shock when it turned out to have been misapplied. She could be dying of cervical dysplasia, or not dying of cervical dysplasia. As Dinah discovered, the machine, the vast mechanism of the infrastructure, paid no heed one way or the other. Still, none of this constituted a reason to leave the place she'd always called home. She could've remained in the city, made changes, branched out, joined clubs, infused more variety into her existence, though it's kind of hard to imagine our cloistered page [276] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! turner ever doing anything along these lines. More likely for Dinah, if she'd stayed on in downtown Chicago, she would've retreated fur- ther, resolving to be more careful, tightening up the already strict routine, lessening her reliance on the machine, obliterating her grosser animal wants, limiting showers to once a week, ceased to eat meat, not even her mother's pot roast. She might've put in for a smaller apartment, doubled the number of years she got out of her clothing sets. Here was more justification for continuing to live without a mate, or any expectation of having a family. She would remain childless and subsist forevermore on tea and toast and cold pasta salad. Dinah could've kept on with her familiar wraithlike ex- istence until one day, as a matter of course, she would die as the result of some infirmity, or injury, hopefully, as she has said, not something too drawn out or painful. Then she'd be a ghost in truth, the fitting end of her long process of self-erasure. She might've played it out. Millions have and continue to do so. Yet, Dinah chose differently and that's the interesting thing. I think what ultimately influenced her was the betrayal, not of her body to itself, but of the city in which she lived and moved and had her being. Dinah always tried to do a good job as a librarian. By her own testimony, she never let a search request leave her desk without at least a note indicating additional routes of inquiry. She was a con- scientious, if invisible, citizen and rightfully felt due all the benefits and protections a city is supposed to provide its inhabitants. Dinah simply couldn't understand how the same uniformed policemen who'd manned the cross-walk in front of her elementary school all her growing up years would permit an individual capable of doing what he'd done to her continue to freely wander the streets of her city with impunity. This struck Dinah as a clear case of someone, somewhere, not performing their assigned task. She knows, in all reasonableness, you can't expect the police to be right there on the spot to thwart a rapist in his impulse. You cannot watch every move of every person every minute. But, once raped, she assumed the police force would work as hard on her behalf as she worked on behalf of the library's patrons. The cops only made her feel it was somehow her fault. Then there were the doctors and nurses who, all white coats and pastel-colored scrubs, subjected her to sundry undignified examinations and treatments which only made her ill, when there'd been no sickness to begin with. You have to wonder whether if the police, with no physical description to go by or any other evidence, had managed to apprehend and prosecute Dinah's assailant, would it have altered her decision to leave? And if the cancer diagnoses had been correct and in the nick of time, the Section #24: Nature Program Dreamstate [277] ! treatment effective, would it have made a difference in her final re- solve to hit the road? Who knows? But for all this, Dinah might've stayed on in the city, asleep, never having a reason to wake up to her life. ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #25: Search the Seven Continents ! Let us examine for a moment the notion of the untram- meled place, as Dinah likes to call it, the imaginary region she's been building up in her mind since earliest childhood. As well as I can make it out, based upon our various conversations, the un- trammeled place is just that, a region entirely untouched by hu- mans, completely free of their defilement. The zone's fundamental quality is a total absence of people. Next in importance is the occur- rence of four distinct yet mild seasons which follow one another across her fantasy landscape in regular succession. Keep in mind, most of what I'm putting together here isn't based on anything Di- nah has expressly told me but derived more from the storybook sentimentality to which she's prone. Naturally, her imaginary place will boast a climate of beckoning temperance. On most days the weather, if you can call such slowly evolving conditions weather, will consist of a few benign puffs of cumulous suspended in the bluest of robin egg skies. The only reason Dinah would wish for any seasonal variation at all is to allow the region's animal inhabitants the opportunity to pursue their quaint perennial activities, the nest building and nut gathering, the hibernating and migration, every- thing appropriate to the proper phase of the year. It's a childish, idealized notion of a place, no doubt, but that's what we're dealing with here. In Dinah's earliest girlhood conception, this imaginary world, if not vaster than the portion of earth actually inhabited by humans, was at least equal to it in size. Now that she's actually off looking for a real geography to match her fantasy, I believe she's modified her expectation and realizes the untrammeled place, if it exists at all, is not so vast, but small and difficult to approach, more perhaps along the lines of New Zealand. No matter how reduced in size, her secret place features an arrangement of land forms and vegetation so beguiling as to harken back to the original Eden. Dinah's imaginary landscape is mostly covered with forest, home to her precious woodland animals and site of her own future abode, the thatched-roof cottage. The way Dinah visualizes it, walking in one direction away from her hut, the Section #25: Search the Seven Continents [279] ! forest thickens to become a jungle, a tangle that eventually thins to reveal a tundra which in turn plays out to a desert. The desert sands pile up into dunes and against this sandy berm a boundless ocean sends its waves. And I mean boundless, an uncross-able sea, because this way our librarian will never have reason to navigate it, or wonder if there's anything on the opposite shore, or even if there is an opposite shore. She needs her environ to be hemmed in by natural barriers and for the rest of the human-degraded world to be hemmed out. In the other direction from her hut the forest climbs moun- tain slopes until the trees give out to an impassible region of rock and snow. The mountains cannot be crossed for the same reason the ocean cannot be navigated, both are too vast for passage. She'll have no reason to trek over the range, or wonder what lies beyond. The whole landscape from ocean to base of mountain can be tra- versed on foot in a matter of days. It's a neatly contained landscape, the untrammeled place, and once there Dinah need never leave. Two or three years ago, I was traveling in Arizona and dedi- cated an afternoon to visiting the so-termed Biosphere Two -- Bios- phere One apparently is the planet Earth, itself -- a miniature self- contained world consisting of half-a-dozen ecozones, very much like Dinah's special place. I gather the Arizona experiment was initiated partly as a sort of trial run for future space travel, a seed to send into the galactic void whenever the day should come when our planet is no long habitable. Be that as it may, it's too bad the librari- an couldn't have been amongst the scientists and academics who volunteered to spend an entire year encapsulated within the pod's plexiglas walls. She would've been the perfect inhabitant, the only one who'd fantasized about such an enclosure since childhood. Inci- dentally, I heard they're back to the drawing board on Biosphere Two, the experiment called off due to some unexpected and uncon- trollable swing of the biota, a proliferation of ants, or algae, or something. Insects and algae, or for that matter any sort of flora, do not figure in Dinah's untrammeled place nearly as importantly as do fauna. She rarely knows the taxonomic nomenclature of the plants we've come across on this course. Provided there are plenty of large deciduous trees growing upon her figurative island to provide shade in the summer and a golden leaf fall in the autumn she'll be satisfied. The animal inhabitants, however, are critical and in Di- nah's vision it's as if the Ark just off-loaded. Not yet dispersed over the landscape, the peacefully coexisting mega-fauna of the un- trammeled place roam about in full view of each other. What Dinah assumes the carnivores eat she probably wouldn't care to say. In [280] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! her unexamined ideal I suppose even the cheetahs sit down to bowls of berries, or nuts, or other food that occurs without overt predation. In Dinah's idealization there are no crouching vultures and nobody's chinny chin-chin is flecked with blood. The animals are not really wild creatures, anyway, but more like miniature peo- ple in animal costume, decent sorts of animals who live in tidy bur- rows, or nests, animal citizens that keep mostly to themselves, only venturing out once a week when they take up a basket and stroll to the animal marketplace for their foodstuffs. Given the amount of time I've spent around the librarian, more time than I've been with anybody else on this doomed expedi- tion, I feel I can say with considerable certainty that when Dinah envisions her own transition from the polluted and overpopulated human world to the imaginary natural space it will entail her arriv- ing transformed into a small animal. And what tells me this? All I have to do is reflect upon her evident concern for the starfish, or replay in my mind the cooing noises she directed toward the ani- malcules in the tide pool, or her nostalgia for a certain children's story, the title of which is the same as the name of the main charac- ter, neither of which ever needs mentioning again. These examples and a multitude of others tell me where her empathy lies. I have no doubt that Dinah has given thought to becoming a bird, of taking up life as a cormorant and living as an anonymous member of the flock. That is, until she obtained an up-close look at an actual cor- morant rookery, about as dank and lonely a place as one can imag- ine. Man, all that black, wet rock whitened with ten thousand years of guano. The waves can swirl and wash against those headlands until the end of time and there's no hope of those rocks ever being clean again, free of stink. No question, when it comes down to it, what Dinah identifies with most in this world are the small woodland animals. Let me pause and state that I don't enjoy employing terms like "woodland" or "thatch-roofed cottage" but these are a part of Dinah's working vocabulary and perfectly evocative of the sort of bland, benign fea- tures of which her untrammeled place is comprised. As for Dinah's woodland, you can just see it, the galleries of ancient trees, massive spreading limbs fairly dripping with moss, the open understory penetrated by shafts of light which pool upon communities of fern and toadstool. Here live the little beaked creatures, the nesting ones, the burrowing animals, the little brothers that rely upon con- cealment for protection, contentedly and so utterly in sympathy with their environment as to be invisible. In Dinah's evolved fancy these animals are clothed in waistcoats, or pinafores. They perpet- uate themselves without the need to copulate, employing instead Section #25: Search the Seven Continents [281] ! the much less irksome method of spontaneous generation. Living by themselves in the hollow trunks of trees, or in well-lit caves, or in furnished underground dens, these creatures are granted long, restful hibernations on bedsteads covered by quilts with bright patchwork. Come spring, they're awakened by bluebirds singing on a bough and golden sunbeams which stream in through mullioned windows to illuminate fresh bowls of nuts and berries and pots of jam and cream which occur upon the bedside table by some un- known process. On her survival course Dinah learned to build a debris hut. This was such a revelation to her that it wouldn't surprise me if sometimes she thinks she'll forgo the thatched-roofed cottage and simply move into a debris hut of pine boughs, an enclosure barely large enough to crawl into. Apparently, the students were asked to tear down their constructions before returning to the main camp, but Dinah, as she described it, couldn't bear the idea and left hers standing, the instructors having to disassemble it for her. The first one she built was the best, she said. None of the others she put to- gether seemed to come off nearly as well. Certainly the one she demonstrated to this student group was missing some key ele- ments. By the time Dinah entered adolescence she had to know that the whole business of her fantasy landscape was an impossible con- ceit. Still, I think, it continued as a cushion against a harsh urban life of concrete and machines. Prior to the rape it's doubtful Dinah ever actually intended to try to find the untrammeled place. It was enough to hold the vision of it in her mind as an ideal. Even now simply to imagine the existence of the untrammeled place provides our card cataloguer with solace and comfort. Or so I imagine. Most of this is conjecture. I really don't know what Dinah ultimately seeks, but I'll bet I'm not too far off the mark. Many of us yearn for something along these lines, a home in a region of wonder, a land of dreams for which the actual world offers but scant approximation. Dinah is welcome to make the attempt to find a real world match to her imaginary place, or as close a match as possible. She's free to venture as far from organized society as she can tolerate it to find the spot that offers the right combination of factors. Dinah may search the seven continents over if she pleases, utilizing her savings, the quarter of a million of dollars amassed during eighteen years of spinsterhood. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #26: The Illusion of Welcome ! There's something about how when you're read- ing a description of wilderness travel it never seems, or feels, quite as lonely or as desolate as the author describes it. Having put his words down in neat, calm lines of organized prose, the writer is un- able to prevent transmitting an admixture of leisure and comfort- able reflection. It's there, behind the words, the methodical and considered creation of the back-of-beyond experience. Read a tale of hardship, a story of rations running out, leather boots freezing solid. Read it by the glow of an electric lamp while sitting on a couch, possibly even in bed under warm covers, and it's hard not to register a certain dissonance. As for myself, the whole presentation of the page, the type, the binding, everything about the physical book tells a quiet, background tale of people working in offices, edit- ing words on computer screens, keeping regular hours, taking cof- fee breaks, pressing the pages with ink, installing covers and wait- ing for the glue to dry. The mere smell of the paper evokes a memo- ry of the library in elementary school, a dry and cozy place with good light where some of us read many an afternoon away. A book never takes you to the backcountry entirely alone and solitary. At minimum, you're there with the author as compa- ny. Whatever lengths the writer might go to convey an experience of remote desolation, he generally concedes to the need for a story and for characters, human or otherwise, to enact his narrative. Hence, the howling wilderness comes across as an inhabited region, a place where commonality can be found, a stage where drama un- folds. The whole experience of reading tends to erode the illusion of harsh privation. Again, maybe it's just me, but it almost feels slight- ly obscene to put down in mid-saga a story of duress and hardship, click off the beside light and adjust a pillow for comfortable sleep. Sometimes I eat potato chips, or some other negligible salty snack, as I read. Try doing that while involved in a story about the siege of Leningrad, people boiling down their own books in order to eat the glue, or expiring on the very sidewalk for lack of sustenance, and you'll see what I mean. The discrepancy is almost worse with television. Whatever Section #26: The Illusion of Welcome [283] ! remote wasteland is depicted in the images, backed up by a V.O. written to accentuate the extreme of climate and topography, it never fully works. In the back of your mind you know a film crew was present, apparently having coped just fine with the dust storm, or the blizzard, or whatever, all while operating an assortment of delicate, sand and moisture adverse equipment. How desperate could the situation have been if the crew managed to get out with footage intact? Even if personnel did perish on the shoot, film and equipment lost, by the time the content is shoved through the con- duit of television most of the edge is gone. Commercial breaks fea- turing pop and fresh dinner rolls, or cars upholstered in rich Corinthian leather tend to dispel the illusion. Plus, while you're watching the program, you can sense the presence of all those oth- er millions of viewers at that very same moment sitting at ease in a million living rooms across the suburban landscape. In televised nature the air temperature on the veldt or the arctic always feels to be about the same as the temperature in the T.V. room. As there's so much romance around the image of the lone traveler in the wilds, the mountain man, the solo sailor, a person can be tempted to venture out by themselves. Once there they may be surprised to discover the only drama to be found comes from the voice of dissent in their head, the constant debate of whether to keep going or turn around. It takes a certain type of person to man- age by themselves for any length of time in the wilderness. At min- imum, it requires someone who's at ease with the chaos of their own mind. In my opinion, if you go solo into the wilds for longer than an afternoon, certainly if you plan to stay overnight, you should bring along a book for the solace it can provide, a tale of har- rowing wilderness travel for instance, otherwise the loneliness can obscure the experience. It may obscure it anyway. When the day arrives for Dinah's transferral to the untram- meled place it sounds as if she intends to go there by herself, con- veyed to her dreamscape by uncanny and mysterious means, cer- tainly not flown in by aircraft, nor delivered by boat, or any other vehicle. Weary of the human infested world, the librarian will sim- ply walk away from the throngs and their commotion and enter di- rectly upon the stage of her special enclave. It will be as effortless as projecting herself into the nature photographs of the bound li- brary albums, the cropped gelatin silver images perfectly bordered by the white margin of the page, four inch by six inch rectangles depicting one or another enchanted landscape, wilderness scenes absent any hint of encroaching civilization, no sparkle of junked car fender, or white speck of hamburger wrapper. Dinah's yearning soul flew into those photos, inhabiting the scenery for the better part of [284] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! a library shift. When the time comes, she'll fly to her wilderness refuge the same way, a spirit on the wind. Once there she'll lay her- self down upon a perfumed bloom of wildflowers, the untrammeled place will enfold her and she'll finally be home. Well, perhaps that's how Dinah envisions her deliverance. Now that she's had some experience entering and exiting wilder- ness zones, I expect she realizes that the reality of getting into the bush and sustaining herself while there differs considerably from the vision she held in her mind all these years. There are logistics involved. Life in the backcountry isn't some glowing, idyllic scene, but a continual struggle for a modicum of comfort punctuated by the occasional moment of transcendence. And, the truth is, wild places are not substantially safer than the city nor, as her travels have thus far disclosed, as pristine as she may've supposed. If she'd hoped the natural world would embrace her, take her in as one of its own, she's learning instead that it's often hostile to her person and, what's possibly a greater shock to her preconceptions, the wilderness, like the city, is for the most part wholly indifferent to her welfare. Neither woods nor water have offered her the least sign of welcome, or a fare-thee-well for that matter. It's probably a good thing Dinah didn't start off by heading out into the sticks on her own. I believe she's more comfortable than most with the chaos of her own mind but I'm not sure if practi- cally speaking she could've coped with the demands of solo wilder- ness travel. It would've been too much for her all at once. She need- ed tutoring in the hard skills and the example of others. While I don't think this expedition, or the other two paid-for outings, have helped her locate the portal to the untrammeled place, I'll bet they've provided her with the occasional glimpse of the enchanted region. On this trip, for instance, Dinah discovered the catch pools, the ones she trucked me up to have a look at. Now, there was a mag- ical place if there ever was one. Viewed in the misty twilight, the silver green mercury of the pools looked as if they could divulge an oracular vision of one's own destiny, if you were incautious enough to stare down into them. For Dinah, stumbling upon the scene of the tranquil catchments, sentinels of fir trees standing around like knights in suspended animation, this very possibly marked the first instance in which she discovered in raw nature an approximation of the archetype she's seeking, her Arcadia, her Forest of Arden. Some day, Dinah will have to go it alone. But I don't think it's her destiny to be a wilderness isolate. She'll eventually return to the culture to discover what degree society is necessary to her. It's not all one or the other and to find the balance is really quite tricky. It's interesting that the librarian hasn't uttered one word in Section #26: The Illusion of Welcome [285] ! response to the exploitation we've witnessed on the Sound. My ab- duction of the starfish caused Dinah more visible alarm than all of the fishing boats and floating processors we've encountered. One can only suppose the presence of the cruise ships are a disappoint- ment. Not to mention the oil tanker hunkered down over there in the channel of Port Wells. Even here the sky is never entirely clear of contrails. If Dinah is surprised to behold commercial operations at the edge of what she'd heard was the last frontier, all I can say is she should probably work her way around to a more nuanced defin- ition of the term frontier. I'm sure Dinah is likewise discouraged by the approach taken by the outdoor school with its ethos of wilderness as substrate upon which to perform maneuvers. By the librarian's estimation we're all invaders and rapists, all of us, everyone involved in this expedition, herself an unwitting accomplice. Dinah will probably never accept the notion, manifest in the daily lives of a considerable number of native Alaskans and not a few white people in possession of a sub- sistence license, that the only true relationship between humans and the natural world is an exploitive one. I'm afraid I have to go along with the bush community's definition of our relation to the natural world. It is, after all, the arrangement we evolved to fill. A person never looks at the constituents of wild nature so intently as they do when hungry or cold. The problem, of course, is that we've become too adept at the exploitation. And that there are so many of us. Consider the starfish. It wasn't my intention to dry the little animal out preparatory to eating it, or to fashion an abrasive tool from its epidermis. I was motivated by a nostalgia of childhood every bit as sharp as physical hunger. I may've failed in trying to preserve the sea star as a specimen but if I hadn't made the attempt the creature would've remained for me no more than an indistinct form below the water line. I would've never had reason to come to terms with the construction of its rays, the granular surface of its body which I studied closely for signs of drying as the little aster- oid's need for moisture was starved. Finally, I had to appreciate the animal's tenacious grip on life. I'm sure Dinah has concluded that, in addition to all my other failings, I'm indifferent to the welfare of nature's smaller speci- mens. But it isn't true. They're free to live their lives in whatever way they wish, provided they stay out from underfoot. And even so I've been known to dig up and transplant sprouts that happen to be growing where I need to pitch the tent. Nature red in tooth and claw. The T.V. wildlife shows are pret- ty big on this topic but I reckon a lot of people would just as soon [286] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! not be exposed. I have no idea where Dinah comes down on the tube's fascination with the spectacle of, say, a lion pulling down its weekly ration of gazelle. She's been in a position on this trip to cata- logue several examples of the natural order's indifference toward the welfare of the individual. The society of birds shows no charity toward its member who's lost the ability to fly. A dead sea otter washes up on shore and decomposes without ceremony. Dinah would be correct to deduce that, if not for the expertise of her trav- eling group, the various hazards of this place, the cold water, the icebergs, the bears we never see but which we know are out there, might very well have brought about her death and done so with complete unconcern for what she was or ever would be. Speaking of bears, Alaska's as good place as any for Dinah to confront the fact that, even in a despoiled natural setting as this, predatory shapes continue to lurk about. While not necessarily hos- tile to her physical well-being the shapes are so indifferent to her welfare they may as well be classified as malevolent. If one of the predatory forms should decide to investigate her food duffel for used tampons it would simply do so. If one of the dark forms decid- ed to make a meal out of the muscle and fat in Dinah's leg, more of an appetizer really than a meal, there'd be little she could do to stop it. Nor would she say that, in theory, the predatory shape should be prevented in making a meal out of her. If our own living comes from the absorption of other life forms, the return contribution must consist in allowing ourselves to likewise be eaten. Dinah would agree as quickly as the next person to the notion we humans live too long as it is, using up far too much in the way of resources be- fore putting our bodies back into the mix. Dinah should carefully think out her eventual transition to the untrammeled place. When she decides the time has arrived to make her move to the hinterland, it won't work for her to rely upon mechanized conveyance, or any occult method such as teleporta- tion. The truth should've been borne in upon her by now that the best and only way to travel to the undisturbed wilderness is by self- propelled means, by paddle, or on foot, maybe by bicycle, or a boat whose sails are worked by hand. She'd better drop the idea that when she arrives to her special enclave she'll appear on the scene transformed into a small furred or feathered creature. Nor is the natural world going to enfold her in any sort of protective embrace. The wilderness will tolerate her presence, provided she enters its dominion possessed of sufficient skill and stamina. She'll have to show up in the body she's been allocated and it better be decked out head to toe in the appropriate gear. Dinah has invented for herself a purpose and a function for Section #26: The Illusion of Welcome [287] ! when she arrives to her magical environ and, frankly, it's not a bad one. By her own statement, she plans to proceed in the role of a steward. She feels herself suited for the position. The natural world has been and continues to be violated and the librarian knows all about violation. The untrammeled place needs Dinah as a protector as soon as ever she can get there. There will never be a question as to how she'll spend her days. She'll be attentive to the landscape and to the animal denizens who dwell upon it. All well and good, provided Dinah keeps her expectations within check. It isn't going be Snow White or anything like that. The little forest critters aren't going to be drawn to the sound of her voice, or her touch, or come to know where she lives, wending their way to the thatched roof hut when sick or hurt. I wonder if the librarian harbors any doubt regarding the realization of her goal. These days it's easy for anyone to fall into despair and conclude there's no place in the world for them to call home. As difficult as Dinah has been to travel with, I want her to succeed in her quest. I need for her to succeed. It's critical the li- brarian salvage herself and then do what she can to protect what's left of the natural world. I fully expect wilderness to someday be the last refuge for myself and others of my ilk. It may be the last refuge for a lot of people who don't know it yet. The hard fact of the matter is that the place Dinah yearns for no longer exists in one contiguous terrain. Any habitable woodland, enjoying a climate of four mild seasons, has long been discovered, divided into parcels and sold off, rarely back to the previous inhabi- tants. The best way for the librarian to approach her special locale will be to seasonally travel the residual world the same way it's be- ing colonized by the instructors of this school and other similar out- fits. That's where her untrammeled realm lies. It's in bits and pieces, distributed throughout the Composite Continent made up of all the world's remaining wild places. The undefiled region she seeks is in the interstices between the bush communities and the cities, on the water between the fish- ing grounds and the shipping lanes. This is her best bet. She should learn to identify the remaining scraps of pristine wilderness, accept that this is the way the magical landscape will present itself and then equip herself to occupy it's various manifestations during the season of the year in which the parcels can be reasonably inhabit- ed. She ought to give up on the idea of a thatch-roofed hut, or sod- roofed cabin, or any other sort of permanent shelter -- I'm doing my best here to avoid Dinah's term "bungalow", a word I don't like for the coziness it implies -- and appreciate that a tent, utilized by no- mads the world over, also embodies a certain romance and is awful- [288] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! ly handy for the way it can be quickly disassembled and hiked off to the next spot. Her debris hut is never going to be able to match a tent for ease of set-up or for keeping the rain off. Dinah wants to run free, be one with nature. If she's willing to reign in some of the particulars of her vision she may find that her dream is attainable. Arriving to her enchanted place she'll take to the life like a nun to the cloister, existing from that moment on in a state of humble grace, eating only those fruits and vegetables and legumes given up willingly by the parent plant. Not exactly Diana, !Goddess of the Hunt, but something close. ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #27: A Pair of Savages ! There were those two women we encountered early on in the trip, fifteen days back or thereabouts. Pre-Columbia Glacier, anyway. I know it was after I'd given up the red boat and switched to paddling with Dinah. The student group was still traveling with the Instructors, still neophytes at an open water crossing, which happened to be the focus of our training at the precise moment the two renegade women cruised into our midst. In fact, it's quite possi- ble on that very day the course was grappling with its first attempt to manage a crossing without interference from the Instructors. We were already well into the routine of self-selecting every twenty- four hours a new pair of Student Leaders whose job on an open crossing like that would've been to assign boats to the flank and the rear, keep the pod tight and moving expeditiously toward the far headland, basically to harangue the group until it complied with the school's standard for disciplined travel. Which, the Instructors liked to point out on almost a daily basis, was a required compli- ance, that is if we wanted to earn the privilege on down the line of our own SGE. Or, so they said. I know better now and doubt the I's would've ever willingly given up the chance to send us students off on our own so the three of them could travel unhindered for a few days. Back then the contingent nature of the SGE was held out in front of us as a motivator. And, believe me, most of us wanted the Small Group Expedition and its promise of unstructured travel, free of classes, free of supervision. It'd be safe to say that this de- sire, namely, to prove to the Instructors that we students could manage our own crossing, was the prevailing mentality on the af- ternoon that saw the intrusion into our formation of the two free- lance kayakers. Which positions the encounter at a distinct point early on the expedition's timeline, give or take forty-eight hours. Certainly some of the students at the edge of the group were aware of the approaching alien boat. Possibly a few paddlers within the pod's interior were savvy enough to notice who else was on the water. The majority of us, however, were suffering from the same syndrome that affects runners or bicyclists in a pack, every indi- vidual working harder than they normally otherwise would in an [290] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! effort to keep up with the perceived pace of the group. Dinah and I, slogging away somewhere closer to the rear of the pod than the front, were oblivious to the developing scene. Or, I don't know, maybe I was the only one who failed to notice the arrival of the strangers. All I was concerned about, as per usual, was the ache in my arms, the dripping of seawater off of the paddle blade onto my right shoulder and how much longer we had to go until we rounded the far headland. The first clue something was up was the sudden shipping of paddles all around and a general coasting to a slow down. Dinah, happy to give her arms a rest from her mock-rowing, immediately followed the group's example, though I don't think she had any more inkling of what was astir than I did. She became completely rigid, holding her paddle motionless and horizontal with both blades out of the water. At that very instant, I saw that she and I were on a collision course with another kayak which for some dia- bolical reason was coming through the pod counter to the direction of travel. I was fairly put out at having to accomplish by myself all of the braking and back-paddling required to bring the tandem to a stop. My annoyance evaporated as I became instantly mesmerized by the near approach of a drab, fabric covered cruising double, so unlike our brightly colored plastic boats, crewed by a pair of strange woman-like creatures. We'd experienced no human form or countenance other than those of our own traveling party since the launch from Whittier, a week prior. The interloping kayak was only a few yards off Dinah's and my bow at closest approach, practically a near miss, and I got a good look at the pair who were its crew. The sun blackened faces and arms of the two women, if women they were, hair tied up in knots, tanned shoulders supporting sun-bleached PFDs, threadbare floatation garments sewn with odd bits of contrasting material, the whole presentation of the duo, not to mention the kayak they were sealed within, a dun-colored vessel with patched gunwhales that seemed to ride low and meanly in the water, a craft equipped with a sail rig and an outrigger featuring curiously bowed extenders, the hull of the boat aclutter with bungied accessories, stringer of sil- vers, the line through their gills tied off to a cleat amidships, a few of the salmon still with some kick in 'em, all of it struck the visual sense like an hallucination. The strange vessel veered off, avoiding Dinah and me and everyone else in the main group, and paddled over to the flank to meet Dodi who in turn raised a "Halloo!" in greeting to her old acquaintances. There was something else about the pair, not easy to put one's finger on. As they hove to and began their brief confab with Section #27: A Pair of Savages [291] ! our Course Leader, a sort of ease or relaxation was manifested by the two women, a nonchalance concerning what they were about. It was evident in the casual but effective way their gear was secured, testified to by the negligent manner of their dress. I'm not sure they were wearing anything above sprayskirt level aside from the beat- up and patched PFDs. Reviewing the scene, I've tried to recall if there were some sleeveless t-shirts, or swim tops, or whether there was nothing but naked skin up under there and wish I'd taken bet- ter note. Their outright comfortableness with the situation was ap- parent in the way the two rode the swells. As if through long ac- commodation their bodies seemed to perfectly anticipate each wave before the undulation was fully beneath their boat. There was a flat absence of visible anxiety in their expressions, the opposite of what most of us on our paid-for expedition were experiencing that after- noon. First of all, there'd been the business, promoted by Dodi and Burl the afternoon we paddled out of the Port of Whittier, about how our expedition would avoid encountering civilians, that is kayakers not affiliated with the school. You know, out of consideration for their sense of pristine wilderness. Dodi, I noticed, didn't seem to have any qualms about engaging with the pair from Valdez. Not that the two women were likely to care and, besides, compared to them we were the civilians. The fact that we'd come to a dead stop mid- crossing was in itself troubling to our collective sense of propriety, running contrary as it did to the safety protocols the I's had been harping on for the past week. The two woman didn't appear the least concerned about pausing in open water or, for that matter, anxious about anything, such as the arrival of their next meal, or when hot coffee might be expected to appear in their mugs, or how they were going to achieve sufficient warmth and dryness later that evening in order to sleep. It was clear that for this pair of trav- elers the wilderness had become a habitable place where plenty of meaningful narrative was unfolding. I've convinced myself since our encounter with the women that they had shells and feathers, bones even, tied into the knots of their hair, symbols and tokens of their travels, souvenirs from the countless beaches they'd camped upon, the forests they'd explored, but possibly I'm imagining this part. Regardless of what I'm imagining or not imagining, I've de- cided those two females in their foldable boat represent something of what our librarian aspires to be. Given the New Jersey survival course, the Keys sailing trip and now this expedition, Dinah should be fostering a growing sense of what's possible in terms of wilder- ness travel, provided one is willing to utilize up-to-date gear and [292] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! methods. The two women in their sail-rigged boat shouldn't have come as too much of a shock to Dinah. I'm sure she'd encountered something analogous to the pair in her television specials, pro- grams which allowed her to slowly take in the details of demeanor and get-up, glancing away if necessary for a breather, then return- ing her scrutiny to note dress and equipment, the cast of the hero- ines' features, until finally changing the channel. But for D. to wit- ness in broad daylight two such hard cores, to have them come at her full of vigor and purpose, eyes squinting against the spray, spruce framework of kayak flexing with every swell, it was too much for her to take in. Dinah's awareness of what's possible needs to expand in increments she can tolerate. I imagine the librarian instantly sensing the gulf which lay between herself and the two woman. Everything connected to the pair pointed to a high degree of technical know-how. Even Dodi, whom I believe is about Dinah's same age, couldn't have impressed our card cataloger to such a degree. Dodi has the school behind her, providing her with equipment and protocols and context. As it was, Dinah first experienced Dodi at the Palmer Base acting in the role of combination camp counselor and gear shop retail clerk. Nothing mysterious or awe inspiring there. Dodi's about as accomplished as one can get as an outdoor traveler but our appreciation of this has evolved slowly as our own skills and experience have come along. For all we know, right at the moment the strange kayak rowed into our midst, Dinah was herself in the midst of mulling over her future in the untrammeled region, how she could possibly acquire the mastery necessary to transport herself from her cur- rent condition to the rarified place and how many years the process might require. Suddenly, right in front of the librarian were two women more or less her own age exhibiting a wilderness savvy be- yond what she would've said was possible for any woman, never mind for herself. In the space of about three seconds, Dinah saw all she could stand and was forced to ship paddle and bow her head. To be honest, I had my own difficulty looking straight at the two valkyries from Valdez. I saw that the two were using the pre- cise model of foldable kayak, a Klepper, that I myself had been con- sidering for catalog purchase. They'd successfully acquired the ves- sel and the accoutrements and had fashioned a life around their use. How incredibly authentic and unmediated, I thought. Now that I know the whole business of sea kayaking for what it is, namely a wet, cramped, smelly pursuit, not unlike the life of the cormorant bird who wings its way between island and mainland seeking its damp rookery, the life of the two women in their sail-rigged, fabric vessel with minimal freeboard, tacking against the wind, spray fly- Section #27: A Pair of Savages [293] ! ing over the bow with every wave crest, soaking hell out of arms and torso, holds little appeal. They can keep it. Still, I have to hand it to them. Here were two moderns who'd figured it out, who'd found a solution to the problem of how in this bogus age to live enmeshed within the natural world. There it is, I thought. If sea kayaking were your modus then this was the culmination, the best utilization of the equipment one could possibly come up with. The two wind burnt, rangy females had shaped an existence that fully addressed the physicality of their bodies, exemplifying the human capacity to confront the natural world, the capacity we'd evolved as a species to fulfill. Crandall had been within earshot as Dodi offered back- ground on the two women, the fact that one was a painter, the other a photographer and that they humped shore jobs all winter in the pipeline town of Valdez as bar backs and bussers to fund their summertime idyll. When he later passed this info on to Dinah and me, I had to nod my head in appreciation for how they were work- ing it. I'd heard tell of this sort of thing down in P'burg, how amongst the islands and headlands of Southeast Alaska you could live quite well off the water and the land provided you had the right tools and skills and that, in fact, this was one of the last ecosystems in the world in which this sort of thing was still possible. You didn't have to know about any of that to see the women had a reason for being out here, a purpose for enduring the hardships. Truthfully, I had a difficult time countenancing the pair for the few minutes they were in our presence for the simple fact that it was obvious the two had discovered a way to live that was pure and legitimate, whereas I'm sorry to say I'm still floundering in this regard. It must've both horrified and intrigued our gentle page turn- er to learn the pair keeps a small bore rifle stowed beneath the fold- able's deck for purposes of knocking down any small game that might be spotted loitering near the water's edge. I hoped Dinah took note, as Crandall filled us in on the women's artistic lives, that it's possible to live intimately with the natural surroundings without feeling compelled to divorce oneself entirely from the human enter- prise. The two Valdezians clearly demonstrated a workable ap- proach -- the very nuts and bolts of which were visible and could practically be inventoried -- toward achieving something along the very lines of what Dinah, herself, seems to have in mind. I have to wonder if possibly the most difficult aspect for Di- nah to witness was the bond which appeared to exist between the two women. I don't know, maybe this was lost on her. But, boy, there was a friendship of a sort that dates from a time when people were still dependent upon the actual physical presence and assistance of [294] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! their fellow human beings, not just for companionship but for sur- vival. You can go a long way in this life toward changing yourself and your circumstances but you cannot with any premeditation create a friendship of that caliber. It's the sort of simpatico that only results from a tremendous openness, a willingness to accom- modate and to let go of smaller aggravations. I might as well mention this. A couple of days into the inter- im period, the segment of travel between the launch from Columbia and the onset of first Small Groups, the course hit the beach of an afternoon for an on-shore break. Dodi let us know before we'd even cleared the boats that the spot served as a re-supply point and oft- used bivouac for the two women kayakers we'd encountered back about a week before. Maybe some of the other students needed the memory jog, but she didn't need to say much to remind me of the duo. I'd been mulling over the women from Valdez off and on since the afternoon they'd cruised into our midst. As we dispersed upon the beach to relieve bladders, set up a hot drink station and generally fall out, our C.L. indicated, to those of us who were still within range of her voice, the bear-proof food cache the women had built for themselves, plus a semi-permanent lean-to, really nothing more than a wind break with attached tent platform, for when the pair decided to camp overnight in the spot, perhaps to wait out some weather. Down a trail leading away from the lean-to, Dodi said, was a rudimentary sweat lodge available for anyone to use who knew it was there. Naturally, some of us went to check it out, including Burl whom I gather is an enthusiast for this sort of thing. I am not an enthusiast for sweat lodges and I'm not sure why I even tagged along. Mainly, I think it was because I was fascinated with the life the two artists had fashioned for them- selves. Honestly, if only I were more into kayaking, here was the solution, or a solution. Five months of paid labor in town alternat- ing with seven months of autonomy and immersion in the natural realm. To pull it off all you needed was the fishing tackle and the rifle, and of course the boat. But that's about it. Suddenly you'd have all the time in the world for reading and thinking, heightened by the continuous morale boost of traveling in pristine wilderness. If only boats weren't the worst possible way imaginable in which to get around. Well, we were allocated an hour on the beach that day, enough time for Burl to get a fire going in the sweat lodge. It was evident the Instructor from Seattle had some experience at the procedure, knew precisely the way to go about heating up the rocks, the proper amount of sea water to have on hand, all that. Two or three of the young fellows were along with us. No females. Section #27: A Pair of Savages [295] ! I'm not sure why. Maybe the girls saw the lot of us heading into the woods, an entirely male contingent, and held back. Which was fine. No girls along meant we could strip down to nothing and get in a good sweat. I was in a strangely buoyant mood, really under the spell of the place. The very concept of a backcountry cache point for ammo, liquor, coffee, sugar, corn meal and what all else was enough to liberate my spirits. How positively inspiring. Anyway, while the steam was thick and the sweat flowed, I tried to lead the young lads in some chants, just simple mantras like "omni mani padi om", or Thoreau's, "I have heard no bad news today". Burl joined in but the young sportsmen were, I believe, too self-conscious to participate . We never did learn the names of the two women, the two artists from Valdez. Possibly Dodi mentioned their names after the pair paddled off, before Dinah and I had a chance to move in closer. Let's say that their names are Claudia and Thelma. And who knows? Maybe it was them, run off together to Alaska. Though Thelma would be pretty old by now, if she's even still alive. It'd be interesting to see where the two female kayakers, those deliberate throwbacks, would fall on the initiation waveform for their cohort. My impulse would be to rate them way out on the flats to the right of the curve, in the vanguard, but you never know. They might only be competent in this one narrow realm. You'd have to talk to them to get a sense of their capabilities. Even if this kayaking and camping in pursuit of their art constitutes their main area of expertise, you'd have to take into consideration the convo- luted path they must've traveled to reach this point, the unavoid- able accumulation of experience along the way. At the very least this would put them out on the leading edge of the hump, some- where in the proximity of war correspondents, say, or the sorts of individuals who spend their days negotiating non-violent resolution !between rival urban street gangs. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Section #28: The Place of Enchantment ! When most of us were young and coming of age we were encouraged, if not outright pushed, to leave the safe confine of our families, to get out there and be actors in the world. This was the expectation, still is the expectation, s'far as I know. Certainly it's the expectation amongst the American middle and upper class. Maybe it was different back when the country was agrarian based, when grown children were needed to stick around, help out with the farm. Ever since the focus shifted to consumerism and the gov- ernmental edict went out announcing it'd be a boost to the economy to build and sell as many self-standing houses as possible, along with all the junk to go in them, kids have generally not been en- couraged to hang around the homestead much past the age of twen- ty. Which works for the majority, I think, who want nothing more than to be autonomous beings with their own discretionary in- comes. Most young people move out willingly into the larger social realm, go on to become regular pay check earners. Some even be- come business owners, leaders of the community, instigators of change and innovation, the sort of people who as adults are baffled anyone would hesitate to manifest themselves. As for myself, I moved out of my parent's house at age eigh- teen with great reluctance, not really making a full break until my early twenties. Being in no particular hurry to manifest myself, I gravitated toward others whom I sensed to be equally ambivalent about committing to a system in a world which often felt like a strange and hostile dream. This resulted in my carrying around for some period of time, for a decade or more, the inaccurate impres- sion that the actors of this world, the instigator types, were in the minority and that the population consisted mainly of passive, con- templative romantics at odds with what seemed a small tribe of ex- traverts who were bent on goading everyone else into action. The truth is certainly otherwise and I would've known this if I'd spent more time early on in the company of the career bound. The years have seen most of my old compadres swept up into the mainstream while the few who've remained non-committal are about the only ones still available for conversation. I rarely encounter the busy, ca- Section #28: The Place of Enchantment [297] ! reer people in my own rounds and to them, I suspect, I'm nearly invisible. Contrary to my earlier impression, evidence points to the fact that the majority of our nation's citizens are action-oriented doers who, if not bona fide instigators and innovators, are con- vinced they could be if given the chance. To a person they're out there grappling with the economic machine in an effort to achieve for themselves what seems a nebulous financial security, or to maintain a certain level of consumption, or if none of that at least to keep up appearances. Status, comfort, structure, habit, security ... any, or all, or none of these are what prods them along. I know what gets a slothful bohemian up in the morning (three hints: it's hot, it comes in a cup and it's not tea). When it comes down to it, I have no idea what motivates the average productive citizen. Don't read me wrong. I've worked at plenty of full time jobs. I'm on leave right now from a salaried position down in Petersburg. For nearly the entire past year I've been and in a sense still am in the employ of a man who, arriving to his late thirties, was not con- tent merely to hold a responsible post in a land management agency, or to be raising up a brood of children with his fecund, dark- haired wife, or to be a neighborhood supplier of high grade weed in mild defiance of the State of Alaska's personal use laws, but a man who when he saw the profit potential in owning the town's first pizzeria slash beer hall went out and commandeered a defunct en- gine repair shop on the Petersburg quay and opened a thirty-five table eatery. A real instigator is Mr. Neal, my boss, a man of force and vision, who's not above tossing a pizza or two if we're short a cook of an evening. I've witnessed my employer arrive to the shop under such internal stress from the combined demands of his many commitments that his fine motor skills were not entirely under his control and you could watch as constellations of reddish, psycho- somatic splotches evolved and shifted upon the regions of his face. Mr. Neal decided that my proposal of a twenty-eight day wilderness sea kayaking trip was a fantastic idea, a vigorous, mas- culine undertaking he'd embark on himself if he weren't so encum- bered. He never seemed to grasp that what I signed up for is an or- ganized trip. Mr. Neal thinks I'm off on my own up here, navigating uncharted waters, hunting and fishing, living entirely upon wild game and edible parts of the pine tree. Happy to give me the time off for my manly expedition, he's promised to hold my job until I get back, in fact he fairly insists I return to finish out the busy summer tourist season. Which is all fine. I'll step right back into his employ the very day I return to the island. Mr. Neal would like it if once I've gotten this kayaking busi- [298] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! ness out of my system I'd commit to working six nights a week for the next thirty-five years as a shift supervisor in his pizza pub, an arrangement he'd set up immediately if I'd go for it. He wouldn't pause for a second to consider whether this was the best way for a man to expend the remainder of his active adult years. In his mind, it'd be an excellent chance for someone like myself, who must've come up to Alaska looking for something, an opportunity, or a fresh start. Sure, within five or ten years, with profit share, I could even- tually own property in town, even start a family, lose my way en- tirely. Well, I think not. I'm happy to work out the rest of the sum- mer go-around for Mr. Neal, but then I'm off. He's compensated me adequately for my efforts and I've saved most of my pay. Because, the honest truth is, I've never understood the money I'm paid for doing a job as anything other than a means of funding a continu- ance of the quest. Nope, as it's turned out, contrary to what I assumed as a youth, most people are not overly troubled by flights of imagination, wouldn't know a romantic vision if it bonked them in the middle of the forehead. If they were ever freighted down with utopian yearn- ings when young, they somehow managed as adults to put those longings on a shelf and be well-adjusted. The truth is, those who are burdened by visions of an alternative life, like Dinah, like myself, maybe a hundred others I've met, probably thousands whom I haven't, misfits who feel compelled not merely to dream but to step outside the construct and attempt to fashion an existence in align- ment with their quixotic imaginings, such individuals are in the extreme minority. Dinah's not an instigator type, probably never will be an in- stigator type, which has a lot to do with why she was in a position to sign up for this extended sea kayaking venture and, as a side re- sult, why she's been available for the many long conversations she and I have pursued. Dinah claims that as a youth she was never pushed or encouraged to be an actor in the world. Frankly, I don't think it's in her nature to be an actor, much less an instigator. The so-called world, the approved reality, is nothing anyway compared to the version she's created in her mind. Again, I'll allow it has to do with the sorts of people and activ- ities I've gravitated toward, which possibly leaves me in a position not to judge, but as far as I can tell there's no one amongst the stu- dents on this course, or among the Instructors, nor within the school's administrative staff back in Palmer who exists in the cate- gory of Instigator. The truly assertive individual -- I think of some- one like Mr. Neal, or Tyler's father, the recognized world expert on Section #28: The Place of Enchantment [299] ! infectious disease -- wouldn't be drawn to an institution whose pri- mary mission is teaching minimum impact backcountry travel. As an activity, it's too hidden away. Even those who excel at it, should they pursue it as a vocation, work for the outdoor school, start their own guide business even, will never acquire anything in the way of position or power. To a person, they're simply not focussed enough on the main chance. They're too interested in living a balanced life, having time off to recreate, to ride their bike or paddle their canoe. A lot of them are readers, as severe a handicap as there is in a ma- terialistic culture. Wilderness as a substrate is one thing, but what the true Instigator wants is wilderness as proving ground, or wilderness as raw material for the conversion of resources into vis- ible wealth. Instigators wish to inflict maximum impact. Well, I suppose if you were to go far enough up the outdoor school's chain of command you might find an individual or two who were in it for the power, or the control, or for creating some sort of effect. But if they exist at all they operate in a sphere far removed from what's going on here in the field where the emphasis is on se- lecting a good tent site, or frying up a tasty batch of cheesy dough balls, simple accomplishments which in this realm pass for wealth and status. As for those of us who grew up infected with the romantic impulses for which no cure has proved effective, having day- dreamed our way through childhood and reached the end of the re- prieve provided by the teen years, who with some or considerable prodding from our elders, not quite able to see how else to get along, we eventually became participants to a greater or lesser degree in the economic arrangement. Most of us continue to do what's neces- sary to earn a living, having rejecting along the way a good deal of what passes as legitimate occupation, always drifting toward that which was least repugnant, while surviving the years and our vari- ous employments haunted by the vague sense something critically important was left behind, something that maybe it's not too late to recoup, whatever it was, our youthful vision of the larger life per- haps, a notion of living in a state of continuous adventure, alive to the moment. It's abundantly evident that not all members of the day- dreamer class feel the necessity to sync exterior reality to internal imagining. Not by a long shot. Plenty of them, probably most of them, ignore the ache and simply play it out. These people, once they've acquired the trappings of adulthood, all of a decade's effort, eventually must come to terms with the crucial thing that was left behind, the childhood dream of what life could contain. It seems that most make the decision to go on leaving the youthful imagining [300] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! behind, resolved that it's something which should be left behind, that as adults they're better off leaving it behind. Maybe so. But I've always wondered at this, how they manage to pull it off. Certainly life proceeds more smoothly if you tamp down the impulse to devi- ate. It's much more expedient to conform. Besides, anymore, the media provides about a thousand channels to assist in ignoring the ache, that is, if you can give yourself over to it. Well, the more profoundly disaffected can't do it, can't con- form, or stay put, or settle for mediated adventure, as much as they might wish to. Driven by the pain of inarticulate yearning they're forced to dig down in an attempt to recall what it was exactly they'd glimpsed as children in that moment their heart first opened to the world. If lucky, they may locate the instant they first fell under the spell of one or another idyll, a vision of life in some fantastical realm. They may recall there once was a time when all they wanted to do was walk the beach with Robinson Crusoe and his man, Fri- day. Or read the morning away by the celestial light of Shangri-La. After all, who wasn't ready as a child to take to the footpath paved with yellow bricks? Or cook up a fresh batch of river trout with Tom and Huck? Or languish for a day on Gilligan's Island with Mary Ann? Or, because maybe she's not everybody's dish, search out one's own elusive bird/woman beneath the canopy of green man- sions? Yep. Take yer pick. These are not just entertainments, or fanciful distractions. To the imaginatively afflicted, these exist as real places, or situations, as well defined as Paris, or Portland, Ore- gon, maybe even more so. The moment we were exposed to these visions they began to exert their magnetic pull, a force of attraction that has never lessened. It's nothing less than a longing for home. Was that enough in the way of examples? Do you need more? How about standing with Kirk and Spock on the bridge of the NCC-1107? Or standing against the breeze on the flying bridge of the charter boat Orca, tracking the harpoon floats in company with Quint, Hooper and Brody? About every kid I knew in college who'd had a chance to gaze upon the binary moons of Tatooine would've given anything to join the fight against the AT-ATs. Or to run up to the helo pad with the Four Oh Seven Seven. Or chop through the brush of Conan Doyle's lost world. Or head out from Rivendale with Frodo and the Fellowship. Or put a Winchester in the crook of the arm and walk ahead of the conestogas. Or hike out with Cyrus and the orangutang for another survey of their mysterious island. Or lose themselves in the canyons with Everett Ruess. Or walk the sands of a remote and distant Bali Ha'i. Or cross the outback with Ms. Davies and her camels (all those black flies, though, I don't know). Or lounge with Maxfield Parrish and his dryads in the crys- Section #28: The Place of Enchantment [301] ! talline air of the upper alpine. Or happy ever after in Camelot, or a dozen other lost horizons the other side of the looking glass which at one time or another provided temporary dwelling for the youth- ful imagination. Surely you can relate to at least a couple of these. Ah, man. Those innocent days of captivity, before there was any need for the child, or adolescent, now grown to an adult, to deter- mine if possibly somewhere in the tangible world the land of en- chantment might be found. If the place of wonder does exist, even if only in approxima- tion, the person vexed by romantic yearnings will correctly con- clude that it's bound to be located somewhere remote, where the going isn't easy, where there are no amenities, in a part of the world not given over to the commercial endeavor. Maybe there, we think, if we can somehow arrive to the locale, we might discover a way to live unobtrusively, maybe not producing much, but not requiring much either. In such a place, one would wake in the morning not quite knowing what was going to happen that day. Time would be freed up, allowing one to inhabit the dream space, to enlarge upon it even, the muse inspired by a landscape and a social milieu congru- ent with a poetic vision. How can one find it? Where's the place of enchantment locat- ed? Where's the gate low in the garden wall? Or the road that goes ever on, down from the door where it began? Once upon a time, I thought boats and water would be the route to the magical realm. After all, I chose as an alias the name of Conrad's fictional captain who traveled to his place of initiation via steam launch up a very large river. I was under the influence not only of Conrad's story, but also that of Thor Hyerdahl and his rafts of balsa and papyrus plus the book about the California teenager who couldn't be dissuaded from sailing his sixteen foot sloop solo around the world. Boats aren't going to do it for me, however. Yeah, I'd say boat's are pretty much out. Not the fault of the boats. I probably should've taken heed of the fact that Conrad's narrator found his initiation only af- ter he got off the boat and proceeded into the jungle on foot. Any- way, I'm not exactly sure what to try next, or where to look. As it is, a person can poke about the urban zone and other slag heaps for years, searching between the traffic streams and the subdivisions, the office parks and shopping outlets and never see anything that looks like a doorway to the magic realm. Every now and then, driving along the highway or riding in a commuter train, a hint reveals itself. The car or the train passes through one of those swaths established across the landscape for the progress of tall metal towers. As the through-cut comes even with the line of sight an aperture opens for half a second permitting a view of the [302] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! towers stalking away across the hills in ever-diminishing, perfectly replicated forms, eventually to lose themselves in the haze of the westering sun. The vehicle continues on and the gate closes, gone almost before it's seen. There's an instant's impulse to have the dri- ver stop, to get out and start walking, but the opportunity passes before it can be acted upon. Yet, there it was, a portal to the en- chanted region and a clue, if the urban dweller knows how to read it, that the region of wonderment lies not to the east, but to the west, across the big river and over the first range of mountains. This shouldn't come across as mere whimsical vaporizing. A power line through-cut like that is a bona fide entry point, a route that can be followed over the landscape to another realm where, to paraphrase one of Dinah's favorite books, "it's all blue and misty and one sees what may be hills and something like the smoke of towns, or is it only cloud-drift?" The tiny animal adventurers of that story only needed to travel a few miles from their burrows to dis- cover their region of enchantment. Sometimes a couple days' hiking is all that's required. Well, in this day and age, just about any member of our cul- ture even mildly afflicted with yearnings for the wonderland, the sort of person who takes the occasional day hike and gives at least passing thought to their gear systems, that individual has also heard about outdoor schools like this one. After all, Dinah found out about the Pine Barrens which in turn lead to the other programs, and I'll bet prior to leaving Chicago for New Jersey she'd never owned so much as a paisley patterned bandana, or a pair of rag wool socks. I mean, the very act of buying a pair of hiking boots or a sleeping bag is a venture rooted in the Rucksack Revolution of the 70's, which itself was rooted in certain ideas about the American landscape and the redemptive power of wilderness, not to mention various other notions cooked up on the shore of Walden Pond con- cerning self-sufficiency or heading into the sticks to live deliberate- ly. The concept of the New World as an unspoiled earthly paradise seemed, even as late as nineteen seventy, to be a reality only barely beyond living memory. Despair over the notion that the paradise might someday disappear entirely, if it wasn't gone already, was part of what inspired the back-to-the land and voluntary simplicity movements of those days. The twentieth century outdoor traveler, with a symbolically potent but otherwise useless Sierra cup clipped to his or her day- pack, a person thoroughly checked out on methods and tools for wilderness travel, an individual who can't remember a time in their life when they weren't involved in scouts or off car camping with Section #28: The Place of Enchantment [303] ! Mom and Dad, this is a person who might or might not benefit from the curriculum of an outdoor school. They don't need guides or in- structors to show them where the land of enchantment lies. They know where it is, should they ever need to go there. Though most of them won't. They've made their accommodation with the system and its template of career/marriage/children/house/car/television, but if they ever do need to return to the place of wonder they'll find it right where they left it, along the banks of the creek where as children they pulled honeysuckle, or stooped to catch tadpoles. However, for someone who didn't spend their childhood roaming around in the woods with their playmates, building campfires or constructing forts and tree houses or attending summer camp, who hadn't by the late teen years put together a solid repertoire of re- sponses to inclement weather which didn't involve heading indoors, a person like Dinah, for instance, these various outfitters and re- treats and organized trips are not a bad way to go. Dinah might've used a daypack to haul around her college textbooks -- something tells me she employed instead one of those old fashioned book straps -- yet, it's a sure bet she's never heard of the Rucksack Revolution. If I said those words to her there's little likelihood they'd evoke anything. I don't recall her mentioning hav- ing read the Beats. Unable on her own to locate within her home city a passage to the untrammeled place, it was reasonable for Di- nah to conclude that one of these self-described outdoor schools might have a line on the place of enchantment, that the teachers or guides or counselors or whatever they chose to call themselves were capable of escorting her to the back-of-beyond, even of teach- ing her how to some day travel there on her own. The schools pro- mote this idea in their catalog and web advertisements. It's there, subliminally coded into the descriptions of pristine nature, in de- scriptions of wilderness destinations located as far from the stress and distractions of modern life as it's possible to go on a terrestrial plane. Once an enrollee arrives to the designated clearing in the forest, distant from the freeways and the strip malls and the media, something unique can be expected to happen. A calm will descend. The screws will unwind, backing their way out of the material until, after two or three weeks of floating upon the natural rhythms, the newly graduated alumni will be ready to return to their previous life, ready for further bearing down. The catalogs don't say any- thing expressly about a participant rediscovering the realm of their childhood daydreams. That might come across as sounding regres- sive. Still, it's referenced in the carefully worded promotions. You can see it emanating from every catalog photo of students in the field, faces enraptured by a sense of deep play. And, believe me, [304] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! those are the only photos that make the catalog. You sure won't see photos of students wandering around the woods faces obscured by bug nets, or hunched over taking a crap down by the tide line. Nope, you won't see anything like that, though bug nets and cat holes are as fundamental to the life out here as anything else. Enrolling on this course made perfect sense for Dinah. It's completely the right approach. As good a way as any for her to lo- cate the portal to the magic realm, or at least gather some clues as to its whereabouts. Boy, I can just imagine how much she must've deliberated before signing up for that first round of instruction in the Pine Barrens. It probably hasn't gotten any easier with each successive enrollment and not just with the various outdoor schools but the swimming lessons, the driving instruction. I can appreciate her hesitation, her innate caution about what she might be getting herself into, knowing that with each new venture she was going to be subjected afresh to the scrutiny of others. Dinah. Diana. Virgin goddess of the hunt. Still technically true about the virgin part, I guess. As for goddess of the hunt, well, hardly. Nevertheless, I agree with my old tent mate that the jour- ney she's embarked upon does require considerable courage. She's put herself in the middle of a veritable host of fear-inducing cir- cumstances. I'm not only talking about the physical surroundings here, the deep and very cold water, the presence of carnivorous whales and omnivorous bears, the top heavy ice bergs. And that's not necessarily to list items in the order of most frightening be- cause for our spinsterish librarian the lack of privacy for personal functions is very possibly at position number one. The constant ex- posure to the elements cannot be more intimidating to Dinah than the constant exposure to course mates who without a single excep- tion arrived to this foray both physically stronger and more experi- enced than she. Yep, without question, by taking this deliberately counter-phobic approach -- the correct term, I believe, a good word for it in any case -- our librarian is demonstrating more courage than any one else on this trip. I should place myself in such fear- inducing circumstances for the sake of furthering my own initia- tion. I thought I was doing just that when I signed on for this show, until it proved so much less harrowing than anticipated. Honestly, I cannot imagine what it must be like for Dinah to wake up every morning and know that nearly everything she's go- ing to be asked to do that day will have its degree of terror. It's no wonder she must be forcibly roused. Every minute she can spend in an unconscious state is one less minute she must endure traveling with this lot. Sleep is her only refuge. She looks forward to it all day, anticipating the moment when she'll be allowed to pull the draw Section #28: The Place of Enchantment [305] ! string tight. Once safe in her bag, the spots of color on her cheeks suffusing and dilating to large irregular patches, Dinah dreams of frolicking in the company of her woodland friends. Well, maybe not so much that. Who knows what she dreams about? Whatever it is, one hopes she's granted some reprieve from the daily torment. With the rape, Dinah must've thought she'd experienced the worst that could happen. Then she discovered an even worse thing, namely, that her life contained little that was meaningful. She real- ized that if she didn't do something soon to rectify the lack of rele- vance, the day might arrive when it was too late. Ignorant of how a life was supposed to proceed she may've wondered if it was not al- ready too late. I expect the librarian reduced it to a simple mathe- matical calculation, arriving to the result that at age thirty-five, with half her expected life span yet to be lived, there might yet be time to effect a change. Sensing she'd already dodged two bullets, the rapist's threat and the doctor's misdiagnoses, she concluded there wasn't much to lose by venturing out. At the mid-point of her mortal existence Dinah is out to correct thirty-five years of depen- dency and helplessness, to radically make over her person. Trans- formation's her game now. She's lost so much time. If Dinah is out to effect a change in the essential nature of her being then additional trials by initiation are probably in order. It's never easy for a person to know how to proceed but the best method may be the very one she's stumbled upon, that is to pick the one endeavor which is the most compelling and to pursue it until it no longer seems so and then move on to the next. I have to say, from my own experience, I'm unable to recom- mend a better approach. Directly following this Alaska sea kayaking stunt, Dinah is off to Maine and the wooden boat building school with its thousands of hand tools, to be followed by a stint on a kibbutz, the details of travel to Israel yet to be worked out. If not a kibbutz then she says there's an archeology dig she could sign on with, or she might in- stead commit to a four month contract peeling vegetables at Mc- Murdo Station (my idea), or a bird banding internship in Venezuela. Dinah's sure got 'em lined up. There are the various oth- er rotations I've proposed, for instance the seasonal job with a Na- tional Park concession, which with any luck she won't pursue at the Old Faithful Inn thus sparing me embarrassment by association. I continue to think of other possibilities, such as working a stint as a hot air balloon chaser, or as a bicycle messenger. I've decided to hold back on any more travel ideas for now. She's got enough leads. I see how it works with our card filer. A suggestion from the casual bystander doesn't hold much water with Dinah, but when a fellow [306] Travelogues: WET EXIT ! student on a wilderness course puts forth an idea for some sort of work/study/internship then in her mind the recommendation's got legs. The suggestion is duly noted and placed in the file with corre- sponding gold or blue or red stars stuck to it. Unfortunately, be- cause of my enthusiasm and evident nostalgia for past endeavors, Dinah will probably follow up on every one of the gigs I mentioned. With her money savings to see her over gaps in employment Dinah won't ever have to call it quits. She can pass from one initia- tory experience to another for the remainder of her active life. Of course, the woman is actually trying to arrive somewhere, not go on like some of us, passing from one random episode to the next. She seems determined not to return to the library, which I think is good. Nothing more to learn there. She'll have to keep moving until the accretion of experience either re-makes her into the more com- petent person she wishes to become, or kills her, or severely beats her down, in the process taking along a few of those who happen at the moment to be her travel mates. It's either going to be death, a bludgeoning, or transformation. Any way you look at it she can't lose. It's strange to consider that I may be the only one amongst this entire band of wayfarers who has any inkling of what Dinah's up against. The other students certainly have no idea what she's about. As for the Instructors, Dinah exists as a manageable nui- sance, one of hundreds of students they've dealt with over the years, individuals so undirected in their lives they must pay to take a course to learn what with a little floundering they could teach themselves. Little would anyone suspect that Dinah has been this school's best student. No one has learned as much or changed as much or will change as much as a result of this experience as she. To become something other than what one was at the start of the trip, that's the great thing. Dinah should've been like the rest of us. From the moment she could crawl she should've been moving about, experimenting, making mistakes, hungrily absorbing the minutiae. It wasn't easy for her, I guess, when even the opportunity to walk was delayed by her parent's caution. By the time she was twenty, as well as I can calculate, Dinah had trailed so far back along the rearward slope of the bell curve representing the accumulated experience of her gen- eration she'd lost sight of the fact there even was a curve. The great mass of her contemporaries, relentlessly acquiring knowledge of the world, had moved beyond her view. Courage is what the librarian's going to need, no question, along with perseverance. It's unfortunate that she must involve other people in the process of her transformation, but she's a long Section #28: The Place of Enchantment [307] ! way from being ready to walk into the wilds and set up shop. To be a successful backwoodswoman she'll need to acquire an additional dozen or more technical skills, plus a better sense of how to impro- vise with the tools at hand. For someone who's slipped so far back on the experience curve it's not going to be easy for her to find the teachers she needs. For some time yet she won't have much to offer in return, unless she finds someone ready to exchange practical knowledge for lessons on the nesting habits of dowitchers and kit- tiwakes and whatnot, which I guess is not inconceivable. Now that she's reached adulthood about the only way for Dinah to receive the schooling she needs will be to pay for it. Guides and instructors and counselors wish for their clients to be interesting and companion- able, to be conversationally forthcoming about their own unique life experience and students who can't, or won't, tend to receive the minimum the contract calls for. Someday Dinah will have to leave all her tutors behind, make the leap into the untrammeled place and hope for the best. ! ! ! !

! ! ! ! ! ! This concludes Part Two of WET EXIT: The Place of Enchantment. Please go to www.TravelDeliberately.com to read parts One and Three as downloadable PDFs, or to request hand-bound, signed softbound copies. WET EXIT Part Three: Soundlessly Into the Sea !will appear at TravelDeliberately.com in the spring of 2020. !

Also by Mars Radcon and available from ! Peregrinator Press & Binding:

! ISLAND DESPAIR In pursuit of the exotic, the narrator takes a job as a pizza cook in Southeast Alaska and falls in love with the native Tlingit woman, Doris Mae.

! WET EXIT Part One: Currents and Tides - The narrator em- barks upon an Alaska sea kayaking expedition and !meets the librarian, Dinah Orbeck. Part Three: Soundlessly Into the Sea - The narra- tor comes to terms with both the librarian, Dinah, and !the young medical student, Tyler.