Panic At The Camp Site
Part 1
The frosted crunch of the tent liner underneath me was the first sound I was greeted with, as I rolled over to my side. The unrelenting cold makes icicles hanging on the tips of my beard like little people dancing, just on the edge of a field. In a cough and a wheeze, I summoned all the courage I could to brave the morning air. What was left of my glorious hole filled roof flapped halfcocked, across my living expanse. Offering far little in the way of shielding my now freezing face from any more breaching of its haul, by the electric currents of the undulating morning wind.
Unsheathing myself from my mummy like sleeping bag and abandoning the comfort of my cocoon, I readied myself to prepare my morning coffee. Also to enjoy the company of my little woodland friend. Living a life of few amenities, I dawn my double coat attire and sweatpants holed with cigarette burns. Making sure to grab my morning salvation before unzipping my tapestry thin tomb. My glorious, but oh so cheap, instant coffee.
As if it was a scheduled communion; before I even have the chance to sit down on my dilapidated camping chair, the air is filled with the chorus of a single songbird beckoning me. Drawing nearer by the second, in a swirling motion from the treetops down to me. Synchronized sizzling swiped at the back of my head. Letting me know my little pal was as excited to see me; or maybe more accurately, his food, as I was to see him.
Plopping open a not quite rancid water bottle, I tossed in the instant coffee with the same vigor as a crack head loading a pipe. Seeing as how I'm not too far off from that monicker myself, I give a quick chuckle to myself as I light up my first cigarette of the day. Still bent and dried out from the previous night, adorning the inside of my chair's cup holder. A hair clip of a misfortunate hairstyle.
Lighting it up and inhaling the satin river of smoke in, then out and pouring water into my plastic cauldron. I greeted my little friend with an outstretched arm as I blew out the opposite of his direction.
"How are ya this morning, my feathered friend?" I asked as if he would respond back with anything other than a fluff-up and an inquisitive look. He tweeted beckoningly is response surprisingly enough. Asking the unspoken question, I knew already. Anthropomorphizing him in my mind, that question is always the same.
"Could ya just get on with it and drop some food already man?"
As if I heard the urgency in the request, I get on with it, tossing a handful from the object of his affection. A seed bag I stole that was for some bird feeder, last time I raided a cabin.
As he pecks away incessantly at the scattered remains of the pile and my cigarette plumes wasted relief through the air, the gravity of my life's situation comes back into frame.
You see as cozy and free as this situation seems, it's only a snapshot of a life at the end of its rope. Exiled and denigrated to the fringes of society. Because you see, I've been homeless since 1996.
I won't lie to you, as I did to myself and those around me back then. I have no one to blame for the current state of affairs but myself. Years upon years of a spiral against all hope and help, burned bridges so intensely you’d be hard pressed to say there ever was a bridge there to walk on.
Drug fueled diatribes and endless nights of he said she said fiascos plagued those years. Culminating in the final straw breaking for parents at a loss for how else to write the wrongs of a man who lost all hope for himself.
Thinking of that final act of overt disrespect, even now, reminds me of pressing a hand firmly on a stove top left on. The unexpected, jolt of inferno with the sustained pains of roadkill begging for a bullet. Still haunts me to this day in ways I’m still figuring out. But in the interest of setting the stage for how a man comes to make a lonely shack aside a tree and a bird his only company, I'll relive that horrid night for you now.
That night started out like most did back then. The slosh of a wine glass and the contempt that came with the nightly ritual of overconsumption by a woman who had estranged herself from her son light-years ago. And a son who due to that very excommunication had dug himself into a pit deeper than the cavernous Marianas Trench.
An ever-expanding trench. Thickly lined with the sticky tar that had taken hold of many souls like him, in smoke filled dens across Europe and France in the mid 1900's all those years ago.
The daily squabbles of domestic disturbance had gone unabated for many years between the two by now. Aside from a few brushes with the law that took center stage on a front lawn like a grand exhibition between two addicts of different tastes, we managed. But on this night, it reached a fever pitch at a particular argument gone too far.
She had busted down my door in a fiery rage, hellbent on finally destroying my stash, with a new liquid courage that her bottle usually afforded her. Saying,
"This is it!!! Where is it!?! Where is it Jaaaaaake!?! It ends tonight!!!"
Her eyes locked onto what was left of mine. I hadn’t even registered her words before the thought occurred to me to hide the pipe that I was actively caking my lungs with. Now exhaling into her face before she continued in a frantic search for what lay right by my side.
"What in the fuck is actually wrong with you Jake? You know as well as I do we set a line in the fucking Sand the last time we had to get you clean. We told you the next time you slipped up. It’s over. We've tried and tried and tried!!! To no end Jake! No en-"
"Ff .. ffuuuuu. Fuck you."
That was all I could muster out, as a familiar blissful darkening of the corners of my vision closed in on all sides. Tentacles of something beyond anything God's light would dare venture near anymore. Something holy decrepit and all-encompassing in its comfort wrapped up my damned mental coffin in its grasp. The last words I heard from my mother's lips; before I leapt into the arms of that unholy maker were,
"We're going to have to have you admitted honey."
Ya know? It’s funny to me to think now how nice it might have been to go along with it all. It's not like I hadn't been before. But something about this time. It was different. An abhorrent avalanche of repressed layers of my subconscious slipped down to meet that little house in Appalachia on that day. Leaving in its wake a burnt cross that'd burn down the halls of that poor house forever more.
The hallow night that lay before my perceived nightmare scenario created a nightmare of my own making. Threefold. I Shuddered back to reality at 3:36 in the morning. Upon the horror of realizing my stash was gone, I had the same mission my mother did when she came into my room earlier that night. But she didn't adorn herself with the illustrious kitchen knife I did on my journey. Especially not with the crimson eyes of bloodlust I had to my gate, as I stormed into her room to reclaim what the devil’s temptress was in one of its worst forms. Tempting me to forever change the hands of fate towards a new venue.
I shudder even now, thinking of how I left her. Most people that kill say it was all a blur, or don't remember it at all. But I can tell you one thing. That wasn't the case for me. I remember every facet of ever fiber detailing that moment and that night. It lives forever now to haunt me in what are only ever nightmares anymore.
To this day I still shudder that my father had to remember it all in the same horrid detail. When he got back from his latest business trip in the following days. To find he not only lost his son, but his wife that day as well. He also lost any hope of answers from the one person to crescendo these events into motion. Because that night I excommunicated myself from civilized society.
Choosing to more than likely die out there in the unforgiving unrelenting mass of nature's midst, than the sheer solitude of a life of walls upon walls and no sane voice to ever etch the halls in a soothing tone again. Forever condemned to a hell scape of man's own making.
Instead, I heeded the beckon of a world far more ancient than any man had ever created. Bathed In the blood of my drug fueled rags I took to scaling mount Appalachia. Never to grace the halls of a home again. Though I never really thought of that place as much of a home anyway.
Part 2 https://www.reddit.com/u/LucyLove3912/s/n6h8QwcFAU
Part 3 https://www.reddit.com/u/LucyLove3912/s/nmGS6Pk54R
Part 4 https://www.reddit.com/u/LucyLove3912/s/aC7mnMtwlX
Part 5 Fanale https://www.reddit.com/u/LucyLove3912/s/1m4oXh8mDC