USFS 2019 — Part 1, Chapter 4

“What if you had come all the way up here and I was like, ‘Oh man, I forgot the ashes?’” I said it as Elliott offloaded his pack and began to crouch down next to me.

“I mean, I would be pretty fucking irritated, but since I’m sticking around Challis, it would just be something stupid that you’d never live down.”

We’d each done Borah many times in our lives, together and independently. Proximity had made it easy from a logistics standpoint. The drive was about 30 minutes since our house was closer to the trailhead than Challis proper. Finding another time might’ve been conceivable, but it was unclear how long we’d still have a base of operation in Idaho, and I didn’t yet have any reason to believe that Elliott and I would overlap in Challis again while we did. Even if he truly intended to stay, my expectations were low. I was operating under the assumption that there was no universe where he wouldn’t relapse within his first few weeks in Challis, and probably overdose after that.

“Does it count as something you can’t live down if it’s as macabre as forgetting to bring your dad’s ashes somewhere?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I feel like when you talk about something you can’t live down, it’s like a parlor joke. It has to be inane or embarrassing. Like, you wouldn’t tell me, ‘you’re never gonna live that down,’ if I went and stabbed someone, or got hospitalized after a bad accident.”

“Or killed yourself?”

“Exactly.” I said it before I could even remember how closely it applied to our current situation. Even though I’d categorize myself as an overactive empathy machine, I wasn’t sure that I’d had an emotional jolt of any kind in several months. True to form, the poignance in that case didn’t faze me for some reason. Stuff like that was partly why I sometimes wondered if I was an incipient sociopath, or even a fully formed one. The fact that I never felt weepy when it would’ve been highly appropriate always just made me feel like more of a menace to society.

“I want to clarify that I wasn’t trying to be a dick just then.” I could tell Elliott was amused though he slurred the words, definitely a smidge loopy. He probably wasn’t super comfortable at altitude these days. He would have had the energy to laugh otherwise. “I was honestly just trying to come up with hardcore examples and that was the first one that came to mind.”

“Well, you nailed it. Suicide is, in fact, something one can’t live down.”

Until I’d spent time away from the western U.S., it had never occurred to me to take in anything in a way I could report out on. And even so, it had only been after starting therapy in the the first half of 2019 that I realized my attraction to remote places had less to do with a comparatively purer state of mind and place, and more to do with the marked decrease in the number of neurotypical people to compare myself to as a mode of self-sabotage. But I had noticed this much back in undergrad: People were often disappointed when they asked me “what it was like out there.” It’s like they expected something to the tune of Wordsworth, but all I had to give them was an abridged and sterile listing of physical features.

It was true that I’d gone somewhat out of my way to get out of the synthetic world once I felt sure nothing about it was good for me. But I think people mistook my preference for a less manmade existence for a poetic sensibility and that just wasn’t the case. One big takeaway from my time in therapy is that I’d underestimated how much anxiety had enabled me to move through environments, even commanding ones, without ever noticing much about them. Extended activity outside had always been means to an end for me—my way of managing an overactive mind. As a case in point, though I’d done Borah at least a dozen times in my life, I had never been checked into the sensory experience. Maybe because of the circumstances, or maybe just as a forced mindfulness exercise, I tried to pay closer attention that day on Borah, and on Diamond before that. It’s not as though it was the most pristine view from a state high point. But on a clear day, it was something.

Fire season started coming earlier and earlier. It isn’t unheard of, now, for a June day in Idaho to look hazy in patches, especially from that high up. Snow started to disappear earlier, and fires started to appear in its stead. Through most of my childhood in Challis, we wouldn’t have thought about doing Borah in June—even mid-June—without microspikes and a good set of trekking poles for sketchy, exposed sections, particularly on the descent. There had been years where there was more snow still on the peak in early August than there was that June.

The quasi-blinding effect of anxiety that had impoverished my experience of what I knew was an impressive physical environment was perhaps particular to me. But there was a funny thing that happened to anyone familiar with picturesque places. On a typical day, the grandeur could be lost on permanent residents. But on rare days, especially at the turn of seasons, it could verge on hallucinatory. Even from a distance, the contrast in shading of the different layers of exposed rock could be so stark as to look painted. And especially early and late during winter days, I’d noticed shadows had quite a singular effect—at times chilling to look at as they moved over the faces of the Lemhis and Lost Rivers. I’d been alone whenever I noticed this. Far from exulting or euphoric, I found it mainly disarming. I took it as a solemn reminder that land had always domesticated humans more than the reverse.

Nothing felt particularly striking about the view of the valley below or surrounding peaks that day. It was greener than I was used to seeing, but that was because I was used to what the world from Borah looked like in July and August. The clarity stood out though. And I found it more disorienting than anything. I think I had been told at one point that you can make out Challis, Salmon, Clayton, and identifiable landmarks even further away from the top of Borah on a clear day. I’d never believed it and hadn’t had any reason to. But when I saw what a difference smokeless air made, I realized where the impression had come from.

Elliott asked me how long I’d been waiting on him and I honestly had no clue. It was easy to dish out Darwin Awards to folks who neglected to move to lower ground at the first sign of a thunderhead. But I always found myself more sympathetic whenever I was above treeline. I’ve accepted it as a basic fact of life that losing track of time comes easiest in places we’re not intended to stay.

Elliott had just packed away the wrapper of a Clif bar he’d wolfed down. When he opened a bag of nuts and offered me some, I noticed he hadn’t taken a sip from the nozzle attached to his water bladder since he’d made it to the top. I asked him how he was doing on water, reasonably confident he’d run out. When he finally confirmed as much, I gave him the cursory amount of shit the scenario warranted before telling him to give me his bladder. I had anticipated this situation and packed an extra liter of water for it, which I proceeded to empty into his bladder. I handed it back to him, returned the empty bottle to my pack, and removed the clear plastic bag full of colorless dust that was what was left of Aldo Callahan.

Elliott looked away from the bag and over his shoulder for a while, itching his neck. “Kenz, you know why Dad wanted his ashes scattered up here?”

I hesitated because I hadn’t considered the question. I said I didn’t, but immediately suspected that they must have visited the topic in the same December conversation Elliott had mentioned the day before.

“He knew you’d always come back here.” He was looking at the ground between his thighs then. He’d laced his fingers together and put them behind his neck, still not looking up.

Without meaning any disrespect to Borah, I pointed out that I returned to several places that were a little less out of the way. I was afraid right away that the response came off as aggressive and quickly clarified that I didn’t expect Elliott to explain Dad’s position. But in response, Elliott calmly said that Dad thought I lived for perspective and admired that about me. He hoped that would never change and that I’d have a reason to think of him whenever I made it back up to Borah. It was precisely that kind of information that complicated what had effectively become my own dogmatic strain of nihilism, even if I refused to admit it was that. I’d forgotten how much you could forget or not know about yourself until you had to see it reflected back at you through somebody else. I thought of an aphorism I had stumbled upon in a French surrealist’s novel: “What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above.”

I asked Elliott if we should empty the bag then. Pulling apart the seal immediately made me think of Walter Sobchak and the Dude carrying Donny’s ashes in a Folgers coffee can. I managed not to laugh and decided not to bring it up. But, because of the association, I realized that, in addition to being a notably clear day, it was also unusually calm. There was almost no wind at the top of Borah, something I hadn’t ever experienced above 10,000 feet, let alone 12,000.

“Kenz, have you ever considered becoming a mortician? I mean, if you’re this cool with your own parent’s ashes, maybe handling dead people is your calling.” As soon as Elliott said it, I thought of how a doctor had referred to Joan Didion as the cool customer when her husband died. I suspected my apparent coolness owed more to apathy induced by emotional exhaustion than anything else, but also kept that to myself.

“Does this remind you of Walter and the Dude with Donny’s ashes right now?” he asked.

That my brother had been thinking about this, too, was a relief. If I was a bad or insensitive person for making the connection, at least I wasn’t the only one. “I mean, only because it’s not super fucking windy. I’m just appreciating what a pain in the ass it would be to work this bag in gale-force winds. Should I just dump them here or give it a little bit of swing action?”

“Swing action? That sounds like a bad idea. Please don’t do that.”

“Well, do you want to do the honors?”

“Maybe we do half and half.”

I stood and kept a hand near the seal and placed my other hand at the bottom. “Should I just pour or like try to get it into the air a little bit?”

“‘Into the air a little bit?’ My god, Kenz. It’s not fucking pixie dust. Also, that sounds like swing action again. Can we please rule out anything resembling swing action.”

“I didn’t say swing action—” I took a breath. “We’re going to be up here all day if you’re going to interpret everything I ask for a second opinion on as ‘swing action.’ I promise I’m not going to swing the damn ashes. Here,” I said, walking to the edge of a bluff. I turned around to look at Elliott. He lifted a hand to signal he had no objections. I poured what I thought was about half the contents. The dust was finer than I expected, leaving cloudy patches on the bottom of my pant legs. It was bizarre that a person’s material state could be reduced to that: dust. Then again, it was bizarre that a person’s material state started in that same form. I didn’t give it much thought then, but the close parallels between life and death would come to bear on my perspective quite radically in the ensuing weeks.

I walked back over to Elliott and handed him the bag. I didn’t watch him pour the rest; it felt invasive. I didn’t turn around until I heard Elliott unzipping his pack.

I was happy to take it easy and go the same pace as Elliott for the descent. The trip down was quiet—we only saw two other people on their way up, and passed another two already on their way down. Elliott was close enough behind me that more than once, I heard him say ‘swing action’ and laugh to himself—a callback that kept him amused for over two hours until we saw partial views of the parking area through the coverage.

“Swing action,” he said for maybe the sixth time since we’d been at the top. “Swing action. Kenz, you’re never going to live that down.”

I laughed and then unironically asked Elliott if he needed to hit the vault toilet before we headed home. That inspired him to remark briefly that it was a pity most of us seemed to know more words for shitters than our own feelings. I said that I wasn’t sure if I disagreed or concurred as a matter of posterity—a word choice he correctly identified as a dad joke playing off of the nature of shit as a posterior phenomenon. And of course, he got all that without me explaining the shit out of it.

It wasn’t until I removed the keys to Gertie from my pack that Elliott remembered I did Diamond earlier that morning.

“How was that?” he asked.

“Fine,” I shrugged.

“Fine? Kenz, you’ve done two peaks today and it’s…” He un-velcroed a pocket and took out his phone to check the time. “It’s not even two.”

I lifted my palms and titled my head in an exaggerated shrug, aping an emoticon that had emerged as an internet staple in the years before Dad’s suicide: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“You do realize you’re like a fucking Amazon, right?”

“I think you’re downplaying the whole anxiety disorder at play in my extreme behavior.”

“Is that an official thing now?”

“Yeah. One of a few.”

“Are you medicated?”

“Fuck no. Just because I know where I fit in DSM nosology developed by a bunch of white guys doesn’t mean their big pharma buddies get to cash in on me.”

“Smart girl.” He put his hands in his pockets and kicked at the ground when he said it.

“Smart or stubborn? Time will tell, I guess.”

“I don’t know, Kenz. I can’t speak for meds they prescribe people with mood disorders, but I’m pretty sure most drugs are developed with the principles that govern the rest of capitalism.”

“I buy that.”

“Cute capitalism pun. I’m just saying that I don’t think the FDA is all that concerned about helping people become stable and self-sufficient. Like, the thing you asked me last night about nicotine not being my problem got me thinking. I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of shit when I’m not lucid, but I honestly think everything I’ve gotten into has been approved by the government for some medical application.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“I know. I mean, I’m sure you and I both know people who are alive right now because of ADs and antipsychos—”

“SSRIs, too.”

“Sure. And we could name others. I know those aren’t necessarily addictive and have awful, awful side effects to boot. But I don’t know that people always know what they’re getting into. It’s scary shit.”

“You seem to know a lot about this stuff, Elliott.”

“I’ve literally spent the last four years reporting on the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. It’s been pretty educational on the prescription meds side.”

“Oh damn, I forgot about that,” I said. I had also forgotten how that department’s name included the term “mental hygiene.” It felt like a sinister throwback to the U.S. eugenics movement, something I had spent way too much time researching in my Virginia years after learning that a rundown building in a nearby town had been an institution where a number of involuntary sterilizations of “unfits” had been performed. I remembered also learning that the record office that fueled the whole movement had been located on Long Island. I wondered if it had ever occurred to Elliott that the current name of NYC’s health department may have come from an era when the notion of “race hygiene” was in vogue.

“Do you want to sit for a second? I took Pete’s Trooper.” As Elliott asked, he unbuckled the chest strap on his pack. 

“Mindy.” The correction was involuntary.

“What?”

“Pete’s Trooper. Her name is Mindy.”

“Oh.”

I almost asked why he didn’t take Dad’s truck. But Pete and I had made the decision that neither of us were interested in seeing it again after it was detail cleaned and reupholstered. It was already gone. I don’t know if Dad had ever given it a name.

Elliott swung open the rear doors. Troopers, I had forgotten until the day before with Pete, had become a novelty among SUVs in that they didn’t have a hatchback rear. I suppose there’s a reason hatchbacks are more functional, but the charms of swinging doors make me wonder if the latest fashion is just a result of unexamined habit and laziness among car designers.

“You said anxiety wasn’t the only thing?” Elliott asked and took a pull from his water bladder before removing his own pack and sitting down. He interjected a word of thanks for that again before I responded.

“Yeah, I have major depressive disorder—a real shocker, I know,” I said ironically. “But the one that really floored Dad was that I have avoidant personality disorder.” I took off my pack and put it inside before I sat down with legs draped over the bumper.

“Oh, yeah? When’d you tell him?”

“Last month. That was the last face-to-face conversation I had with him.”

I still don’t know if I’m surprised that Elliott didn’t ask me to explain the symptoms of the disorder. I never expected people to have heard of it. From my internet scavenging, it seemed like the only person publicly associated with it was J.D. Saligner, which I confess sounded pretty on-brand for me.

Whether Elliott already knew anything about the disorder before that conversation feels immaterial though. He knew that as far as Aldo Callahan was concerned, anything that preceded the “personality disorder” suffix meant more or less the same thing, no part of which he could accept. It wasn’t lost on me that in a different decade, I would’ve been one of those folks slotted as “unfit.”

Elliott put his hands together, rested them between his thighs and looked around with a sympathetic cringe. “How did that go?”

“Dad said there was no way I had a personality disorder because I wasn’t a crazy person. Then he went to bed.”

I couldn’t tell what Elliott was looking at, but he exhaled and cowered like he’d just seen someone get decked. Elliott and I had both developed an affection for hockey. And, owing to Dad’s Pittsburgh ties, we had a healthy interest in their hockey franchise, which of course came with a healthy disdain for their Metropolitan Division rival, Washington. I thought of Washington wingman Tom Wilson’s high hits, the likes of which earned him a suspension at least once a season. More than once, those same hits had been season-enders for a player on the opposing team. Elliott’s reaction was the type we reserved for Wilson hits.

“Jesus Christ. He got that worked up about that?”

“I also implied he was depressed out of his mind and should get professional help himself. I think that’s really why nothing I said went over well.” It’s still difficult to judge whether anything else I’d said to our dad would’ve landed differently if I hadn’t put him on the spot. I remember puzzling over it even during that conversation with Elliott, but not out loud because I was caught off-guard when Elliott said, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t fucking blame yourself for this.”

Had a social worker or a grief counselor been tasked with observing Elliott and me that day or the day before, they could’ve been forgiven for expressing concern about our brain development. Up to that point, we had both kept a remarkably even keel. Elliott telling me not to blame myself triggered what would be the only overwhelming rush of emotion I recall from those first days after Dad’s death. I stood and took a few steps forward from the back of Mindy, just enough to catch a breath. As a rule, I was a fan of crying as a hell of a way to release stress, but it was something I tried to avoid early in the day because the whiplash leached into everything after in a way that only REM sleep could undo. Crying was also something I went out of my way to do privately. Elliott had done something the therapist I’d worked with had done often. Both had more or less implored me to be more forgiving toward myself. I recognized a pattern wherein it was always that kind of message that sent me into an emotional tailspin.

It had always come naturally to me to feel responsible, in one way or another, for everything, which meant being habitually disappointed in myself. To forgive myself would be to absolve myself of responsibility—something that goes completely against my nature to this day. I’d later realize that something many forms of neurodivergence, and personality disorders in particular, seem to share is that they can give individuals a paralytic preoccupation with the outsized consequences of their actions. At best, you end up with a bleeding heart empath like Fred Rogers who takes a radical burden of generosity upon himself. At worst, you end up with a veritable megalomaniac like Ted Kaczynski who acts out antisocially. The harmless but chaotic girls of middling talent like me seemed to loom somewhere between, though I’d hope somewhere closer to the Rogers than the Kaczynski end. As far as I can tell, the trick to not devolving into a Travis Bickle figure seems to rest in finding a symbiotic relationship with the ego—a cognitive shift I may well never master.

Elliott and I went a long time without saying anything after I’d walked away from Mindy. At some point though, he’d stood and walked toward me. I only noticed once he was beside me. He reminded me that he’d neglected to hug me the day before after insisting we spare ourselves an awkward car hug. Then he reprised one of his standby quotes—the Tommy Boy line “brothers gotta hug”—before engulfing me demonstratively. Much like crying, I did believe in the physiological health benefits of consistent hugs. But even so, I had never been an especially deft hugger. I had to imagine that Elliott always felt like he was hugging a scarecrow, but he didn’t seem to mind. The day before, somewhere between the run of visitors who’d inquired about Jasper, I saw an old photo of my brother and me layered in winter clothing, maybe ages 7 and 4, in a familiarly rigid embrace—me looking flummoxed as ever and Elliott amused as could be.

Before we loaded up in our respective vehicles, I asked Elliott if the conversation he’d had with Dad back in December had been their last face-to-face conversation. He said it had been and wanted to know why I’d asked. I said I wasn’t sure, and that was true at that moment. But once we’d gotten on the road, it occurred to me that based on what Elliott had said on Borah, the last things Dad had said to Elliott about me, and the tenor of my last conversation with Dad seemed at odds. Six months after he’d extolled my perspective to Elliott, he’d flatly dismissed the notion that I had a personality disorder. In his mind the two were mutually exclusive. And I knew better than to think that he was unique in that attitude. Even in the most nominally progressive systems of ideals, I’d noticed it to be universally true that people are discouraged from holding truths that seem to conflict.

Such a reductive take on reality would only strike me as more suspect as the events of that summer lined out straight, tense, and inevitable.