BY STEFANIE FREELE
The Trail, The Goods, The Fire Down To Coals
We were preparing for the trip (big honking knife), making lists (duct tape, toilet paper), weighing all of the possibilities (screwdriver) of what we might desire but couldn’t fit in our backpacks (five-star chef), when we argued about what one truly needs in the mountains (water).
My guy would pack for me weapons: a gun, a sword. I stood firm on just a flashlight — without extra batteries — not being much for gadgets.
I emptied what he sneaked into my side pockets (a 10-pound hand weight, dirty boxer shorts), inserting into his pouches burdens of my own (unwashed cups he left on the counter).
We tend to do this — pinch, pull, and add things to each other’s packs. Often imaginary as in, I threw three counseling sessions in for you, or occasionally tangible, like a brick or an old shoe. Sometimes one needs a little bit of disruption in a marriage: one part malice, eight parts mischief.
We hit the trail on Tuesday, duct tape barely fitting, yes we agreed on that.
There we were, a vision of tranquility: the cheerful, boot-wearing couple, headed for the forest, one muttering about the forgotten trumpet, both braving the night without lists.
We barely made it along the first leg of the journey, heading to Spooner Lake when who passed us around the bend but Tim Hauserman, Mr. Hiker himself, the man who wrote the dang book on hiking. Behind him, a line of children making bouquets with their bandanas, chattering about all the quiet they looked forward to, calf muscles bulging, no sweat in sight.
Quick, my husband whispered, hide the duct tape, knowing full well that Hauserman is a huge fan of duct tape. I envisioned him with a palette wider than the path, knocking over the trailside brush left and right with the nonchalance and power of a small backhoe.
It is at night (stars, glorious stars!) when my husband — the one who hogged all the H2O, the man who stuffed rocks in my pockets continuously — wanted to get up close. He snuggled, he cleared his throat, he nudged himself over.
I considered the idea of dusty, sweaty, exhausted romance and instead asked where he put the chocolate. After all, I said, while he rummaged around, we logged 8 miles today on this Rim Trail business, we deserve it.
He came up empty-handed and I could have hit him right there, especially when I noticed a copy of Shotgun News tucked in the corner.
Thus began the loudest as loud under-the-sky argument, the kind only a couple in the woods can have, knowing no one is listening. No one, surely.
I yelled, You brought Shotgun News, but not the chocolate.
I brought something to study, not really read.
It is all ads about weapons!
It helps one’s mind to think.
One’s mind! One! Thinking of one!
You’re screeching.
I’m not screeching, I screeched. I brought nothing to read. Ten days and nothing to read.
As the guilty guns-are-more-important-than-chocolate husband shrunk into the corner, I crawled out of the tent, the space suddenly too small.
With the loudest zipper pull the world has ever heard, I was left out in the cold, the fire down to coals, the night reaching toward me, the wilderness everywhere. Worst of all, my flashlight was in the tent and anyway the only thing to read was his magazine, not even a magazine of articles. Even double-worse, my ego whimpered, we had agreed not to bring books or magazines. We’ll just have each other to read. He was the one who said that.
What I would have given for a collection of Russell Edson poetry. While I sat on my rock, trembling, incensed, I vowed not to ever hike with this man again, not ever. I’d divorce him, get a job in a bookstore, become a librarian, and march in every anti-gun parade in the country.
A quieter zipper occurred, one that sounded more like the word bliss or maybe kiss or even miss.
Hello? It’s lonely in here. His voice drifted from the tent.
I crawled in, to embrace the guilty husband, because after all, I was cold.
Stefanie Freele is the author of two short story collections, “Feeding Strays” with Lost Horse Press and “Surrounded by Water” with Press 53, which includes the winning story of the Glimmer Train Fiction Award. Freele’s published and forthcoming work can be found in Witness, Sou’wester, Mid-American Review, Western Humanities Review, Quarterly West, The Florida Review, American Literary Review, Night Train, Edge, and Pank.
