Cheryl Strayed - Wild

I waved back.

I turned away and stood extra still and upright, acutely aware of myself as an object of hot and exquisite beauty, feeling Jonathan’s eyes on my 100-percent-muscle ass and thighs, my breasts held high by the sweet bra beneath my slim-fitting shirt, my extra-light hair and bronze skin, my blue eyes made even bluer by the Plum Haze lipstick — a feeling which lasted for about the length of one song, at which point it reversed itself and I realized that I was a hideous beast with tree-bark-plucked-dead-chicken flesh on my hips and a too-tan, chawed-up face and weather-beaten hair and a lower abdomen that — in spite of all the exercise and deprivation and the backpack strap that for two months had squeezed it into what you’d guess would be oblivion — still had an indisputably rounded shape unless I was lying down or holding it in. In profile, my nose was so prominent a friend had once observed that I was reminiscent of a shark. And my lips — my ludicrous and ostentatious lips! Discreetly, I pressed them to the back of my hand to obliterate the Plum Haze while the music bleated on.

There was, thank God, an intermission. Jonathan materialized by my side, squeezing my hand solicitously, saying he was glad I’d come, asking if I wanted another glass of wine.

I did not. I only wanted it to be eleven o’clock so he’d leave with me and I could stop wondering whether I was a babe or a gargoyle and whether he was looking at me or he thought I was looking at him.

We still had an hour and a half to go.

“So what should we do, afterwards?” he asked. “Have you had dinner?”

I told him I had, but that I was up for anything. I didn’t mention I was currently capable of eating approximately four dinners in a row.

“I live on an organic farm about fifteen miles from here. It’s pretty cool at night, to walk around. We could go out there and I’ll drive you back when you’re ready.”

“Okay,” I said, running my little turquoise-and-silver earring necklace along its delicate chain. I’d opted not to wear my Strayed/Starved necklace, in case Jonathan thought it was the latter. “Actually, I think I’m going to step out for some air,” I said. “But I’ll be back at eleven.”

“Rad,” he said, reaching over to give my hand another squeeze before he returned to his station and the band started up.

I walked giddily out into the night, the tiny red nylon bag that normally held my stove swinging on its cord from my wrist. I’d ditched most such bags and containers back in Kennedy Meadows, unwilling to carry the extra weight, but this bag I’d held on to, believing the stove needed its protection. I’d changed it into a purse for my days in Ashland, though it smelled faintly of gasoline. The things inside it were all secured in a ziplock bag that served as a very unfancy inner purse — my money, my driver’s license, lip balm and a comb, and the card that the workers at the hostel had given me so I could get Monster and my ski pole and my box of food out of their storage area.

“Howdy,” said a man who stood on the sidewalk outside the bar. “You like the band?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“Yeah.” I smiled at him politely. He looked to be in his late forties, dressed in jeans and suspenders and a frayed T-shirt. He had a long frizzy beard that went to his chest and a straight rim of graying hair that reached his shoulders from beneath the bald dome on top of his head.

“I came down here from the mountains. I like to come and hear music sometimes,” the man said.

“I did too. Came down from the mountains, I mean.”

“Where do you live?”

“I’m hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.”

“Oh, sure.” He nodded. “The PCT. I’ve been up on it before. My place is in the other direction. I’ve got a tepee up there that I live in about four or five months out of the year.”

“You live in a tepee?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yep. Just me. I like it, but it gets lonely sometimes. My name’s Clyde, by the way.” He held out his hand.

“I’m Cheryl,” I said, shaking it.

“You want to come and have a cup of tea with me?”

“Actually, thanks, but I’m waiting for a friend to get off work.” I glanced at the club’s door, as if Jonathan would emerge from it any moment.

“Well, my truck’s right here, so we wouldn’t be going anywhere,” he said, gesturing to an old milk truck in the parking lot. “That’s where I live when I’m not in my tepee. I’ve been experimenting with being a hermit for years, but sometimes it’s nice to come to town and hear a band.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. I liked him and his gentle way. He reminded me of a few of the men I knew in northern Minnesota. Guys who’d been friends with my mom and Eddie, searching and open-hearted, solidly outside the mainstream. I’d rarely seen any of them since my mom died. It felt now as if I’d never known them and I couldn’t know them again. It seemed to me that whatever had existed back in the place where I’d grown up was so far away now, impossible to retrieve.

“Well, nice to meet you, Cheryl,” Clyde said. “I’m going to go put my kettle on for tea. You’re welcome to join me, like I say.”

“Sure,” I said immediately. “I’ll take a cup of tea.”

I’ve never seen a house inside a truck that failed to strike me as the coolest thing in the world and Clyde’s was no different. Orderly and efficient, elegant and artful, funky and utilitarian. There was a woodstove and a tiny kitchen, a row of candles and a string of Christmas lights that cast enchanting shadows around the room. A shelf lined with books wound around three sides of the truck, with a wide bed tucked against it. I kicked off my new sandals and lay across the bed, pulling books off the shelf as Clyde put the kettle on. There were books about being a monk and others about people who lived in caves; about people who lived in the Arctic and the Amazon forest and on an island off the coast of Washington State.

“It’s chamomile that I grew myself,” Clyde said, pouring the hot water into a pot once it boiled. While it steeped, he lit a few of the candles and came over and sat next to me on the bed, where I lay belly-down and propped up on my elbows, paging through an illustrated book about Hindu gods and goddesses.

“Do you believe in reincarnation?” I asked as we looked together at the intricate drawings, reading bits about them in the paragraph of text on each page.

“I don’t,” he said. “I believe we’re here once and what we do matters. What do you believe?”

“I’m still trying to figure out what I believe,” I answered, taking the hot mug he held out to me.

“I have something else for us, if you’d like, a little something I harvested up in the woods.” He pulled a gnarly root that looked like ginger from his pocket and showed it to me in his palm. “It’s chewable opium.”

“Opium?” I asked.

“Except it’s way more mellow. It just gives you a relaxed high. You want some?”

“Sure,” I said reflexively, and watched as he sliced off a piece and handed it to me, sliced another piece off for himself and put it in his mouth.

“You chew it?” I asked, and he nodded. I put it into my mouth and chewed. It was like eating wood. It took a moment for me to realize that maybe it would be best to steer entirely clear of opium, or any root that a strange man gave me, for that matter, regardless of how nice and non-threatening he seemed. I spit it into my hand.

“You don’t like it?” he said, laughing and lifting a small trash can so I could toss it in.

I sat talking to Clyde in his truck until eleven, when he walked me to the front door of the club. “Good luck up there in the woods,” he said, and we embraced.