USFS 2019 — Part 2, Chapter 7

“Let’s hear it for the woods!” Ian yelled after another round of handclaps, this time from Bridger and not me.

“What?” Bridger asked, sliding awkwardly over a wet rock compacted into the trail.

“He thinks you’re giving it up for the woods. Like an ovation,” I said.

“Yeah, man. That’s your guys’ shtick, right? I know you Sagittarians love communing with the earth and shit,” Ian said.

Ian was deliberately trying to get a rise out of me. He and Bridger had asked what my conversations with Tully entailed. I had said they were difficult to boil down, which clearly disappointed Ian because he pressed me by asking what our most recent conversation had been about. I said that I had expressed frustration with a perception that folks with their Sun in Sagittarius were thought to be inordinately earthy types. Tully had guessed that I rejected the idea of being slotted based on my birth chart and I clarified that I cared less about that than the false binary between humans and the rest of the living world that the generalization seemed to imply.

“So you really buy that astrology stuff?” Ian asked.

“I don’t know that I ‘buy’ anything, Ian. I think it’s just another lens for understanding this effervescent shitstorm that happens to have an ancient precedent and make some material sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every organic substance is carbon-based. Everything carbon-based is made of dead star matter. When I think about the laws of conservation of mass and energy, it seems reasonable that the position of things on a planetary scale had something to do with where we were born and when.”

“Ian, you’re from California, right?” Bridger asked. He had been quiet long enough since clapping that I guessed he had been stewing on something.

“And I’m also a Scorpio. Yes, I know I’m evil. What’s it to you?”

“That’s not what I was going to say. But duly fucking noted, sir,” Bridger said. “I was going to say you didn’t grow up anywhere near predators, did you?”

“I grew up down the street from a guy that reminded me of Jesus Quintana. We’re pretty sure he was a predator. I didn’t fuck with him.”

“No, smartass. Like furry quadrupeds?” Bridger said.

“I know that’s what you meant, numbnuts. You already know the answer. I’m from Orange County. The only things wild and predatory about it are class, drugs, and rampant suburban infidelity. It’s all in The O.C. if you ever need a reference text.”

“MacKenzie.”

“What, Bridger?”

“You’ve never explained to Ian what’s with the hand-clapping?”

“No.”

“So you, Ian, honestly have no idea what it’s about?”

“Don’t tell me Callahan has been making an ass of me this whole time.”

“To be fair, I wasn’t making an ass of you. Not initially, anyhow,” I said.

“Not initially?”

Bridger had his hands on his thighs, like a Renaissance fair jester about to call for a huzzah.

“Yeah,” I drawled, this time not with the impatience I typically reserved for Ian, but with a trace of feeling remiss. “About that. I honestly didn’t realize I was censoring this willfully. Like it took me a long time on that first hitch to realize that you earnestly had no clue why I was clapping. And once I figured that out, I sort of enjoyed leaving you in the dark. Then I just forgot.” As I said that, I recalled that the moment under the clustered downfall was actually what had thrown me off from bringing Ian up to speed. Everything had become a jumble in an instant and I had forgotten. It was a miracle that I’d been lucid enough to be firm with Ian in that situation. “So, here’s the thing. Bridger and I grew up in grizzly habitat. There’s this wisdom, and it’s good wisdom—”

“The best wisdom,” Bridger piped in.

“Truly. There’s a lot of bullshit wisdom out there—bear bells, for example. Turns out the wisdom that’s preventive and doesn’t cost any money is the most effective. Anyway, making noise periodically is a low-energy thing you can do while you’re hiking to let animals, especially bears, know you’re around before they can see or smell you. It’s like a way to be courteous…”

“Like announcing that you’re inviting yourself over to their house,” Bridger said.

“Exactly. Anyway, obviously bears aren’t so much of a thing out here in the lowlands. But the concept holds up for most animals. They don’t want to run into people if they can avoid it. It’s something you’re taught to do in grizzly country, and it’s kind of a habit. Which I don’t think is a bad thing. I mean, it helps people know you’re here, too, if they can’t see you.”

We stopped and were talking in a single line, Bridger still on his slick rock between us, Ian and I leaning on trees a few feet from Bridger, but on opposite sides of the trail.

“Oh, I can respect that. You don’t want to get shot by mistake…or on purpose. Probably annoying for hunters if you’re scaring off everything though,” Ian said.

“Well, if they’re out here they’re not hunting. They’re poaching. So they can fucking deal,” I said, turning around and continuing on the trail, hoping it would encourage Bridger and Ian to follow behind. They quickly did. “They have the most unnatural advantage anyway if they’re armed. So, they can get over the minor letdown of not getting to fire a gun.”

“Speaking of guns, you know what that reminds me of?” Ian asked.

“What’s that?” Bridger asked.

“I actually looked up the lyrics to that PJ song you named Glorified G after, Callahan.”

“I’m sorry. Should I be impressed that you took it upon yourself to find the lyrics to a PJ deep cut after hearing it a dozen times in a row, or that you’re capable of understanding the song?”

“I wouldn’t call ‘Glorified G’ a deep cut. I mean, it’s on Vs., isn’t it?” Bridger asked.

“Okay, for you and me, Bridger, no. No, it’s not a deep cut. But for somebody who doesn’t know PJ’s discography, I think any song that didn’t chart or make it onto Marco Collins’ heavy rotation counts as a deep cut.”

“Fair enough,” Bridger said. For all his cartoonishness, I didn’t take for granted Bridger’s general fluency when it came to important matters of culture. There were ways I never expected to be understood, but it was a relief to have a peer who could track on at least some of the finer points.

“All I’m saying,” Ian reined us back in, “is that I could see people today feeling like the point of the song is a hot take, so that had to have been a take-and-a-half in the 90s.”

“I get where you’re coming from, but will remind you that they’re all still active musicians and an active band,” I said, realizing that we had to be close to the cabin—progress toward which was easier to estimate later in the morning, with more light. We got our start as a group a little over an hour later than I would’ve started on my own. I wasn’t sure that I preferred the clarity over the ambiguity. I guess in a way I had started to like not knowing how close I was to the destination, or maybe I had just gotten comfortable with it. Knowing what I knew of my characteristic nervous energy and restlessness, it no longer surprised me that I was better at playing the fugitive.

“Callahan, do you have a vendetta with guns?” Ian asked.

“I mean, one of four things I think we all need to do to reverse the way this shitshow on our planet is going involves guns.”

“Oh yeah? Let’s hear the plan,” Ian said.

“Stop eating meat, stop having kids, stop buying from Amazon, and melt all the guns.”

“Jesus.”

“Look, I don’t think any of those are very bold propositions. Do you? For most people, a combo of at least three of those things aren’t even a part of their daily lives.”

The cabin was just starting to become visible through the coverage and we remained silent for a stretch except for the swishing of our weather-proof gear and the pad of our feet on the damp ground.

“This is separate from my four-point ‘if I were queen of the world’ platform, but my dad shot himself in the head. He hated guns.” We were silent again for a bit after I said that.

“Shit. Sorry, Callahan.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it in a self-pitying way. It’s just what happened.” Things were always less awkward when people were just on the same page. I wished everyone would just operate on the Nick Lowe “Cruel to be Kind” program. I noticed Bridger had been quiet since we’d drilled down on the gun part and wondered if he suspected my dad had shot himself as soon as he saw the conversation heading that direction. For all his clowning, that Bridger was awfully perceptive.

“Back on the subject of ‘Glorified G,’ does it look like the goat’s back?” Ian asked.

“Nope. Doesn’t look like there’s any goat.”

I heard Bridger clap from behind me, clearly for sport this time. “Yeah! Give it up. Give it up!” Bridger yelled it as we reached the clearing around the cabin and enclosure. We spread out from our single line and slowed down.

“So, wait,” Ian said. “Do you make the sounds for the same reason as the claps?”

“What sounds?” Bridger asked.

“Not you. Callahan.” Ian said.

“You have sounds?” Bridger asked me.

“Whoa, okay. So the sounds are just her thing? She does like this really loud laugh…”

“The Hocus Pocus laugh?” I asked.

Ian and Bridger both looked dumbfounded.

“In Hocus Pocus, there are those two jerks that harass Max after he’s moved to Salem. They call him Hollywood. One of them does that booming laugh. It’s kind of fun to do in places with good acoustics. So, the woods…” I said, extending my arms out as if I was reluctantly presenting some kind of showcase prize on The Price Is Right. “I mix it up so I’m not always just clapping. And, now that I think about it, just hand-clapping is a little ableist, isn’t it? Like what if there’s an animal out there with hearing damage that can’t hear that frequency but can hear vocalizations?”

“Okay, every part of that is weird. But that’s not the only thing you do.”

“MacKenzie, I had no idea you were an 80-trick pony,” Bridger said.

“There’s the Chewbaca sound.” Ian outed me before I could elaborate.

“It’s true,” I said.

“Can we hear it?” Bridger asked.

“These sounds can’t be solicited. The will has to come naturally.”

“She does do them though! I had no idea it was the same thing as the clapping.”

I nodded.

“God, I’m really relieved to know this finally,” Ian said. “For the longest time, I was too embarrassed to ask.”

“Embarrassed?”

“Well, yeah. I didn’t want to be a dick and make you feel weird if you had tourettes or something.”

“I guess that’s cool of you on some level, but I don’t think tourettes manifests in wookie calls and Hocus Pocus laughs.”

I wasn’t prepared for how stupefied Ian looked over that information. Judging by the way he gasp-laughed, neither was Bridger. “Dude, you know tourettes doesn’t always manifest as vocal tics, right?”

“Then why is it always represented as people yelling random shit?”

“Probably because nobody with actual tourettes is ever consulted,” I said. “Anyway, Ian, if there’s anything like that you’re holding back on for the rest of the season, please just fucking ask about it. I’m pretty incapable of lying, so you’ll get the real answer.”

***

I woke up from a dream about an alternate version of my conversation with Bridger and Ian over the handclaps. In it, Bridger had decided to deny that he’d ever clapped to alert critters and tried to persuade Ian that my clapping was involuntary. So, as far as Ian was concerned, I was just the batshit new seasonal clapping for no reason. Bridger had clapped and was poised to deny it was him again before I woke, but I was sure I’d heard more handclaps once I had. It hadn’t happened to me for some time that stimuli in a dream and the material world mysteriously synchronized. “What the fuck?” I mumbled.

The cabin bunks we slept in were basically glorified cots, but were also unlike any cot in the modern sense of the word. They might’ve even had straw in them. As I squirmed into an upright position in my sleeping bag, the mattress made coarse, scratchy sounds and the frame of the whole bunk creaked. The sound used to make me nervous that it would all collapse at any moment, which would be a truly terrifying prospect if anybody was sleeping above me. But there were enough cots that, even with a team of three, we could all occupy bottom bunks. Even knowing that a vacant cot and some other material could still collapse on me if the frame gave out, I had gotten used to it and found the novelty thrilling in a way. The sturdy oak frame and lumpy mattress I slept on back at the Rain Shadow seemed extravagant by comparison.

I held my breath at first trying to listen for sounds inside or outside the cabin, somewhat hoping to hear a guilty snicker issue from Ian or Bridger’s bunks. If this turned out to be a “the call is coming from inside the house” thing, then I’d just roll over and make a note to hatch a benign revenge plot. Once enough time had passed without another strange sound for my adrenaline to subside, I settled back into my stiff cot. Though a light sleeper, I almost never had trouble getting to sleep. But the dream had hit a very specific trigger of mine. I obviously hated being misunderstood. But I thought one of the cruelest things human beings could do was knowingly misrepresent each other’s intentions. Though I was woefully incapable of manipulating people myself, what Bridger had done in the dream was an elite version of manipulation that strained empathy. I’m sure some ethicist out there could imagine a scenario where active denial is morally defensible, but that always seemed like cheating to me. I knew people often lied in the name of self-preservation. I often wondered if I’d feel differently about dishonesty if I thought I was more worth preserving.

I was startled when I heard handclaps again and sat back up. That time, I was sure, the sound had come from outside the cabin. I could hear either Bridger or Ian stir and roll over in their own cot. I thought about running the risk of waking them both just to confirm that it wasn’t one of them outside staging all of this. But, maybe still sour from being disbelieved by one of them and made to look like an ass by the other in the dream, I chickened out.