My Best Pot Stories

Yes, We Have No Muffins For You

“You know what would be amazing right now?”

Engaging in Fantasy-Land is what housekeepers did to keep themselves from going stir-crazy in the northern tundra of Denali, Alaska during the tourist season. Elizabeth had been snacking on TGIFriday's Potato Skins out of the vending machine all summer.

“Mudslides from TGIFriday's.”

“I'd been thinking the exact same thing.”

I forget which one of us concocted the thought, as by this point in the summer all the seasonal employees were in such a state of delusion, having fended off mosquito rages, moldy employee wall tents, and well, every other unfathomable thing in the world happening, that concocting any kind idea from staging a world coup to having sex with a stranger just to sleep on their mattress seemed within the range of possible thoughts one might have.

“There's a Friday's in Anchorage.”

At this point, it's necessary to pull up a map of Alaska to get an idea of the radiance of the light about to go off in our heads. Denali is about smack in the middle of Alaska. Anchorage is at the southern coast. Alaska is just about as long north to south as the entire length of the lower-forty-eight.

By car, Denali is about a five hour drive back down to Anchorage. None of us seasonal employees arrived by car. We all took the train, the ticket for which easily cost one week's wages. And that was just a one way ticket. The shuttle easily cost one week's tips, and hitchhiking was free except for the fact that the likely hood of meeting a fate many times worse than a train or shuttle wreck increased exponentially when putting thumb to pavement.

So the bottom line was, we were stuck. All we could do was change sheets and dream of mudslides. Cool, delicious, sweet, chocolaty, creamy, alcoholic mudslides.

But they're only five hours away. Five hours. Anyone on the road going south from here is almost certainly going to Anchorage. If we hitched a ride to go down there, maybe we could take a shuttle back. We could definitely save enough in tips to afford a one way trip. Then we wouldn't have to stress about finding a ride back in time to clock in for work after our escapade.

All that for mudslides? It's kind of like cock-tease to leave Denali, and especially to treat yourself to something as decadent as a mudslide. You get to taste ecstasy for a little while, but you know you have to go back. You know that shuttle is going to pull out at a certain hour, and if you're not on it, all your possessions will be thrown out of your tent by the time you do get back.

And if our history has taught us anything, any well meaning trip to anywhere for the sake of adventure in Denali has met with unadulterated catastrophe. We'd be fooling ourselves to believe we could actually pull such a thing off. Even from the perspective of the managers, though our fellow housekeepers Sam and Val had proved themselves to be the most valuable housekeepers on staff, Elizabeth and I were the alpha housekeepers for some reason. If neither of us were there, it would be like a second grade class with no teacher. Eventually there would be a dirty linen fight until Jin Sun, housekeeper from Korea, would screech out “Don't scratch my heart!” Elizabeth's and my presence never stopped that, but we gave the illusion that it did, I guess.

But when the “not-I's” start hanging down on you, that's when the spirit of The Goonies kicks in.

“RD, there is no idea that's too far out for us. I made out with a biker chick. You almost got kidnapped by a guy on crack. We can do anything.”

And with that, we arranged to have our days off together and dreamed of glorious mudslides with nothing stopping us, riding the cherry down the mountain of whipped cream right into the bliss of a milkshake with booze.

Five rooms just checked out that need to be cleaned before lunch which is fifteen minutes and it's the one time they bought pizza rather than making us horrendous shit and if i don't get there on time there will not be any slices left?

Mudslides, RD, mudslides.

The manager Candy, yes, Candy, docked me “bonus pay” again on my time card even though I clocked in well before my shift, and didn't clock out until after it was over, because she is a dr unk? Again?

Mudslides, mudslides.

To Find Just the Right Ganja Treats

“You know what my favorite smell in the whole world is?”

Billy was one of my tent mates in Alaska during the summer of '04. He was the dishwasher at the hotel restaurant, and his childhood best friend Sam was a housekeeper with me. The three of us shared a dark moldy wall tent, which also housed various cast-aways (read: people who got fired or kicked out of their tents by pukers or pissers) in the space abandoned by a meth-rattled redneck cook who was kind enough to leave us a hammock and the flashlight he fashioned into a resin pipe. Quite the Alaskan ingenuity.

“No, what?”

“The smell of hot butter colliding with Ganja!” he says while getting ready to chomp down on a bright green rice crispy treat half the size of his face.

With the smile of a Cheshire cat, he began to ingest his pot soaked buttery snack. But with the amount of pot we had already smoked that day, it seemed strange that one could possibly get any more stoned.

“Where did you get that?”

I had to have one.

“There's a girl over there,” and he pointed to a collection of trucks and RVs off in the distance, “with a long flowy dress and long hair. But you have to go through Hell to get there.”

Somehow, hope against hope, we had made it to August, the final stretch of our three month self imposed imprisonment in Denali, Alaska, working for the Crow's Nest lodge and restaurant. Many of us had fled,been fired or flogged, and only the heartiest remained. As a special reward, many of us thumbed a lift two hours south to Talkeetna, where the annual weekend-long Bluegrass Festival marked the end of the summer, and the arrival of darkness for the first time all season.

I hated hitch hiking.

It was a fun adventure, because you never knew what you were going to get, but you also never knew what you were going to get. So the prospect of passing on the festival to ensure not having to yet again get picked up by a psycho, pervert or fiend seemed totally fine to me. Even though Billy assured me we could hitch as a team with his girlfriend, I was also in the auspicious position of having to leave the festival early in order to be able to clock in back at work within a few days, which is what got me into trouble during the infamous crack-ride story.

But I didn't run this far to sit back for the finale, and when else in my life will I be in proximity to a place called Talkeetna where once a year they have a Bluegrass festival that attracts visitors from all over the world? Until now I'd never heard of Talkeetna, and never before taken an interest in Bluegrass music, so, why not?

But that's just the thing, the festival attracts all the local seasonal workers who could get the day off, and a handful of old school fringe hippies. So within fifteen minutes of holding Billy's colorful TALKEETNA sign, a yellow truck we had seen in the neighborhood throughout the summer pulled over and the couple inside got out and started making room in the bed of the pick up.

This was my reward for having endured so many long trips with total head cases. The two worked at one of the lodges too, and they had either purchased the truck for cheap, or managed to borrow one for the weekend. Either way, were down for two hours of wind in our hair and Alaska as the backdrop.

The ride to Talkeetna included several pulls off the road to pull off the peace pipe for a while, and take some moments to soak in the entirety of Alaska draped around us.

And I'd take moments to take in the entirety of the driver;

the way he'd lean against the old yellow pick up, the Marlon Brando-issue wife beater perked out at the nipples, a real nerd-rocker complete with dark rimmed glasses with his cute smiley girlfriend with pig tales and a charming disposition. I would stand there fantasizing of watching their love making videos, their bodies like landscapes, mountains, valleys, thunderous eruptions, movement, evolution, unity, separation.

“Come on, I'll take you there.”

Billy realized he had just described every girl at the entire festival, and they probably all had ganja treats for sale, but I wanted the one he had, the one that oozed with primordial green goo, saturating all the rice crispies in between.

And so began our long journey into hell to find just the right ganja treats.

The way the festival was set up, there was a camping area and then there was the festival area. Between the two was one long dirt road on which resided a twenty-four hour tailgate party. Lined on both sides with monster trucks, RVs, campers and what not, giant groups of partiers would merge with other groups, everyone drunk or otherwise inebriated, everyone trying to dance, everyone trying to get to the festival, everyone freaking out on LSD trips, and oh yeah, even in Alaska, August is hot, so it's 80 degrees and it's approaching ten at night.

In other words, it's hell.

When you start, you can't see how long it goes for, where your friends have suddenly gone, or even which direction your supposed to be going, and there's no real guarantee you won't get kidnapped by a gang of Alaskan separatists in bandannas and grizzly pelts.

But where there's a hell, there's a heaven. The desolate tundra of Alaska has a tendency to attract hot white trash men with too much testosterone, no shirts, low cut jeans, muscular everything, tattoos, and absolutely zero sense.

So walking through a jungle of them falling over each other is hardly a death sentence, except in the extreme fact that you know if any of them caught on for even a second that your attempt to get by them by smearing your body all over theirs had more than an “I'm just a bro trying to get around another bro, yo” tinge to it, you'd be impaled on a flag pole and waved around as an example to all other considering perverts.

And just like Billy described, we had finally found her amidst the tall trees of the redneck wonderland, long hair and dress flowing as she spun around in circles, her colorful beads like prayer flags spreading prayers of color into the wind. And like an ambassador of mother nature, a basket of bright green sweets was nestled under her bosom.

Billy made the introductions, and she tried to make the transaction.

They're five bucks each, or two for eight.

Or three for... six.

Stoner math seemed to dupe both of us for a second, but she just seemed happy to be spreading her warmth no matter what. “Just be careful,” she warned. “Try half first, then wait a while.” Ingesting THC with food usually comes with a warning. There's no real way to gage how much you're ingesting, and because it has to seep into your blood system through your stomach, rather than into your brain through your lungs, it takes a lot longer to feel the effects, and by the time you realize you've had too much, you probably ate the rest anyway, resulting in the feeling of being hit by a mac truck for the rest of the day.

The Alaska Logs: Prologue

In the summer of 2004, I embarked on a journey to fulfill a life long dream: To be a housekeeper at a lodge in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Alaska; to sleep in a moldy wall tent; watch my mom make out with someone other than my dad; break my ankle; and smoke more pot than I had cumulatively smoked in my life up to that point.

Along the way, I met a leprechaun, a navy man, a pirate who lived in a tree, and a whole bunch of Russians. There were Hawaiians with ukuleles, rednecks with confederate flags, and a baby eater or two. I made friends with a man on crack, a man named Coke, won the race, broke the cup, drank it all and spat it up. That's right, this was Denali National Park, Alaska.

In the land of the free, Denali stands as a no-holds-barred zone where even the one deputy in a couple hundred mile radius will tell you, “If I have to drive two hours to take your ass back to the Fairbanks jail because you were being drunk and stupid, you can bet we ain't gonna be stoppin' for no happy meals.”

About twice a month, I'd get the courage and strength to try and tell everyone back in the lower 48 what was going on up in Denali. As the emails progressed, they got weirder and weirder. It was hard to believe our daily existence, let alone try to put it into words. That being said, there are still many stories that haven't been told: There was the Talkeetna Blue-Grass Festival, the trip up to the Arctic Ocean, and the dramatic conclusion that included a man in a Superman shirt and the words “little asshole” over and over and over.

Over the next several weeks, in a series of posts labeled “Alaska Logs,” I'll be presenting my emails back home in full, overwhelmingly odd, uncensored format. Most of them were written in some kind of “state,” like the “state” of being on the end of a week long bender, or a mushroom trip, or about to start one of those two. There'd be so much activity going on in the campgrounds that finding time to write was usually limited to the time between sunset and sunrise, which, at the height of summer, dwindled down to, oh, about five minutes. So the writing behind the stories is erratic and partially incomplete, but when I got back to earth, my friends at home clearly seemed to have gotten the joke.

But before we get into all of those, here's a little preview in the form of a flickr set. As a housekeeper, I found it my duty to document (on camera) the state of people's rooms that we had to clean. 2004 was definitely before the camera phone boom, and I was working it old skool with an arsenal of disposable point and clicks. I hope you enjoy the tour of people's stuff, and the occasional left-over-pizza-as-tip:

The Alaska Logs: June 1, 2004

Week one, e-mail one:

Alright folks,
First up, a plea for food. You know me, I don't like to be a picky person, I'm a roll with the punches kinda guy. But I'm very concerned about the food issue going on here. I saw the movie Super Size Me, and it really makes a good point about what eating a Mac Donald's diet will do to your body. Obviously no one eats Mac Donald's three times a day for a month, but that's basically what's going on here at the Crow's Nest. I was weary about eating eggs and sausage everyday for breakfast, complimented by anything fried lunches. But my "willingness to go with what ever" was broken when one of the cooks, a sweetheart named Beatrice from Anaheim, California, showed me the artificial butter that the potatoes were sautéed in, followed by the “eggs” that were poured out of a carton. Everything we eat here is processed and sautéed in artery hardening artificial butter. I can't stomach the idea of paying $52.50 per week to take a sledge hammer to my health.

So I'm sending a plea out to everyone for some food.

Everything here is ridiculously expensive. If I got off the meal plan, I'd easily blow my whole paycheck on granola and cereal. I can't store anything perishable, so things that can be eaten right out of the package or heated up with water are what I'm limited to. Think oatmeal, various granola type bars, tea, coffee, hot choco, trail mix. That would be awesome. I'm getting a squirrel proof container soon, so I'll be all set.

I feel really torn making this request, but I think it's for the best. If I opted for a bagel instead of whatever fake fried item they happen to be serving that day, it'd set me back about an hour's wages.

Groveling done. Let's back this train up a bit.

I'm in freakin' Alaska! After a week, I can tell you, this is going to be a real test of endurance, but it will be completely be worth it. I am looking forward to saying "I survived 13 weeks at the Crow's Nest, and fell in love with 13 weeks at Denali."

The conditions here are pretty intense, and the conditions we're working under are even more intense. It's a good thing we all have great sense of humors, because a lot of times, all we are able to do is double over in laughter.

Here's a little bit of the set-up:

The valley here, about a mile from the entrance of Denali National Park, is definitely a redneck wonderland. The people come at you with a heavy fist of intimidation, as they smoke cigarettes and swig beer from their log cabins which smell like decades of smoking. I haven't seen any mullets, but tons of male ponytails, shit kickers, Stetsons, leather biker garb, basically everything that wreaks of redneck. I've already heard the phrase "You don't like fried food, what kind of American are you?" Good thing I've gotten my chops having grown up in Lakeside. Every monster truck blaring heavy metal makes me think "And I feel like I just got home."

So needless to say, the conditions at the Nest follow suit. Master Crowfoot sits up in his mansion on top of the hill (really), while us minions work in the rain and the mud to keep things going at the Lodge. Our reward is going home to our leaky tents hungry. We face "termination" at every step, and no amenity is provided for except hot shower (bonus!), and potable water (barely).

Despite the abysmal conditions, we're all carrying through with pretty incredible spirits. It has forced us to quickly re-orient what we find important. For instance, my greatest thrill the other day was the fact that I remembered to surreptitiously make an extra sandwich at lunch time (which was provided for on our $52.50 per week meal plan), to stuff into my pocket so I could stow it away for dinner (not provided for $52.50 per week). We were silly with excitement when one of us "stole" a piece large dinner roll from the kitchen. We shared it amongst ourselves like pigeons at the train station. All this really makes me excited about the strength of the human spirit.

The Alaska Logs: Goonies Never Say Die

Week four, email two:

June 14, 2004

Today, the cook who showed me the diarrhea-inducing fake butter our restaurant uses, told me she added a generous supply of extra squirts to the owner's meals, and they came back telling her how much they loved it. High five.

Also, I placed second in a race! I've never entered anything remotely athletic before, but I heard there was a 5k race in the park, benefiting an AIDS Outreach program in Alaska, so I signed up. I know I like to run, but I just thought I'd be lounging off in the distance while the real runners took stride. But low and behold, I came in second! Hmmm, there's a 10k midnight-sun race in Fairbanks on the 19th.... Maybe I'll sign up for that too.

Hitchhiking is the preferred method of getting around when you're without a vehicle, like 99% of us Nester's. I took my maiden hitchhiking voyage last week, as every day supplies that you can't get in Denali for under ten bucks started to become scarce; like toothpaste and batteries. With my favorite sailor, Jim, and Russian housekeeper, Dimitri at my side, we took the Alaskan Interior by storm armed with our thumbs and handsome good looks. The first car we showed a little bit of thumb to slammed on its breaks to pick us up. We were headed two hours north to Fairbanks, home to probably the farthest north Wal-Mart on the planet, but this compadre was only going 15 miles up the road to Healy, home of the all-night drink-eden, The Totem. From Healy, it took a little more elbow grease, but our patience was rewarded with a hot-blue Oldsmobile convertible. Top down, rock music blaring, the perfect cotton ball clouds in the sky, and sun shining brightly down, he brought us all the way to Fairbanks, where we spent the majority of the day fending off desert-like heat and bushwhacking through two miles of highway tundra to the Wal-Mart at the edge of the horizon. Not a mirage, the package of bagels for the same prices as a single bagel in Denali made us dance with delight and joy.

But now we were left to hitchhike home, fighting the same blazing sun with the added joy of ten pounds of food strapped to our backs. The only thing to do was keep walking south with thumbs out, and keep walking. And walking. And walking. And walking. Staying put only meant that clouds of mosquitoes would descend on you, shielding you from being seen by any passing motorists. Hours passed, and it began to appear we just might end up walking all 200 miles back to the Nest. To keep from allowing our tempers to get the best of us, and end up stopping cars by brawling in the middle of the highway, we split up, with Jim going on a head, and Dimitri and I sticking together. After a few more hours of mosquito damage, we found refuge in a bar where we inhaled cheese burgers and Alaska Summer Ales.

Once we decided to brave it back in the mosquito country again, we lucked out with two girls driving a pick up truck puling over going to Denali. They told us to hop into the back and lay low. Dimitri and I looked at each other, shook our heads in disbelief and jumped in. Of course we would be riding all the way back to Denali the same way we got out of there: with the wind blowing through our hair, looking straight up into the unmoving cloud-dotted sky while the horizon races by in the periphery.

We've already had our first casualty of the season. Tony, the Costa Rican kid, was given the boot on Friday. Many of us suspected that by our first pay day, some one would be ousted off the island. I just didn't expect it to be him... such an awesome spark to have around, I already miss his presence in our little camp. There wasn't any one thing that he was fired for, I honestly think they were just making an example out of him. They made a list of complaints, which they could easily make about any one of us, and they gave him 30 minutes to leave the property. He was a front desk guy, and he made a couple mistakes, but nothing malicious or anything really awful. I saw him later that night and he decided to leave AK and hang out in Seattle for a while before returning to Iowa where he goes to school. So random, and such a bummer, it's like they're waging an unnecessary war against us, they people they've employed for the summer.

Later that night two more folks were given the boot. Steve and Angela were busted letting off fireworks in the campground at 2am. Now, if you're going to get fired, doing with fireworks shooting off in the background, and master Crowfoot chasing after you with a shot gun is a pretty good way. It's safe to say Steve and Angela wanted to leave. Steve was a cook, and he had already completely missed a shift (leaving all us workers hungry for breakfast), and he had talked about going south to Homer. I think Angela fell for him a bit over the past couple weeks, and she wanted to take off with him. Angela was this gem of a girl, a cabbage patch hippie with cute cheeks and long braids. She'd always exclaim "RD!" when ever she'd see me, and give me a hug. Those hugs will be missed. I spent an evening on my tent porch with Steve who told me all about his time summiting Mt McKinley (a 22 day hike) and his time running from the law.

Another kid, Travis, was with Steve and Angela when the firework bonanza occurred. Apparently Candy, our favorite demonoid monster manager, has a hit out for Travis' head. Travis is an attention seeker, you might say. Being around him is kind of like being seven when you've just learned how to say “faaaaag.” But that's okay, in fact, even though he's the bitterest seven year old you're likely to ever meet, there's just something endearing about him we just can't get enough of. That being the case, Candy is out for blood. She must have pee'd herself when she found out he was with Steve and Angela that night, but Travis is one of only three of our highly prized drivers at the lodge, who work overtime to shuttle around the endless sea of Japanese tourists that fill the Crow's Nest (and who he does karate chops behind). Tonight I heard Candy's voice screaming over Travis' walkie-talkie, as he was wandering through the “forbidden zone,” i.e., being in the employee campground while on duty. I fear for our future with Travis.

So the mood around the camp has been a little low lately, having seen three people get nixed. Some people are muttering under their breath that they want to leave, and others (myself included) feel there's so much left un-discovered here (personally and adventure wise), it's worth it to stay for the long haul.

The Alaska Logs: I Was Late To Work Because I Had To Buy Someone Crack

Week five, email three:

June 24, 2004

I'm trying really hard to get Saturday and Sunday off, so I can make my way to Fairbanks for the Midnight Sun 10K race. But the conceptual nature of saying "can we swap days off" to a couple of Russians is proving to be more than I can handle.

“No, it means I would work Thursday and Friday, and you would work on Saturday and Sunday.”

“But Saturday and Sunday we have off.”

“I know, that's why I'm asking if we can trade. So I can go to Fairbanks on Saturday.”

“Oh, sorry, we're not going to Fairbanks on Saturday. If we were, you could come with us.”

“Thanks.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the idea that I can make it up to Fairbanks after work, run a race, and be back before my next shift seems do-able.

Our young Paul Newman look-a-like shuttle driver, Luke, who ran the 5k race with me, won't stop egging me on. He's definitely going. We're in the middle of our work day, and every time we pass each other with a pile of dirty bathmats, Luke finds a way to remind me how much I deserve a break, and to do something really special for myself.

Oh, what's this?

It's a nicely folded newspaper left by the guests from this room that just checked out.

And, oh, the front page...

it's about tonight's big race!

Amazingly, directly underneath the paper is a big box of brownies and a six pack of beer. Radio all housekeepers, we struck gold! Bring the bottle openers cause we're celebrating, and RD is going to Fairbanks after work today!

Fast forward to 11:00 pm, Fairbanks.

I'm wandering around the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, architecturally, a modern ghost town meets the Soviet Block. I made it here in one hitch, picked up by an older gentleman in a large red truck. It was unclear to me if gentleman's intentions were in any way sexually motivated, as I was in my running shorts and he fit the profile of men who I had seen on “professional” outings in the past. It's approaching midnight, it's 80 degrees out, the sun is blasting, and characters from Tony the Tiger to Military Men In Diapers dot the starting line.

I've never run this far in my life. This is a real race. I have a bib number, there's nearly 4,000 of us. I'm wondering how I got into this, and what it is I'm actually doing. Then the gun shoots, and we're off.

Somewhere around the 5th mile, a bunch of unrelated but interconnected thoughts start running through my head. Things about the work I'm doing, the place I'm living, the things that have occurred over the past month, this race I'm running... and a word comes to mind. Endurance. Will I endure another two months here? Will I endure another mile in this race? My body starts to run on it's own, and the mind focuses on that one word...Endurance.

At some point, my legs decide they don't want to push me so fast, and I walk a couple times. Even so, I amaze myself by finishing in 52 minutes, the 69th person to cross the finish line. A sudden adrenaline rush comes over me that makes me realize why people say racing is an addiction... kind of like getting a tattoo, but probably a little more productive for your body. I've never done anything quite like this, and here I am... AK, midnight, 80 degrees, just finished a race. What?

It's 5 am. I had two hours of sleep at the UAF dorms. A fellow by the name of Mac that Luke and I met was kind enough to take us in for the night. Luke had the day off and decided to hang out in the F-banks for the day, and I decided to make it to my 8am shift.

It's 6am. A truck pulls up to me in response to my thumb on the highway. He wants to know where I'm going and how much I can give him. I figure I'd be cool with giving him $20 for gas. But he says that he's not really going in that direction, and $20 would only get us half way there. I agree to fill his tanks and give him a couple extra bucks for his kindness in going out of his way to get me home. I figure maybe he's just looking to help someone out for a little pay off. You already know where this story is going.

He starts in on how he needs to visit a friend of his first, very quickly. Something about a spare tire... and that we'll stop and get gas first. I'm tired, delirious, eager to get home. Somewhere in my confusion I gave him $40, and filled his tank with $40. I think I meant to give him $40 and fill his tank with $20, or vice versa. Never the less, $80 out of my pocket, we're on the road, looking for this friend with a spare tire. The fellow starts making frantic calls on his cell phone as we head further and further into the ghetto of F-banks. I know there's no spare tire... unless spare tire is a code word for crack. The ghetto is filled with broken up homes, rusted out trailers, busted swing sets, over grown lawns, and the most red neck lawn furniture/ornaments you can imagine. But the friend with the spare tire is no where to be found.

The cell phone calls get more frantic, "Where the fuck is that fucking fucker?" and I start to wonder how on earth I'm going to get out of this situation. We pass by a random guy on a bike who claims to know where "that fucking fucker" is. He hops in the truck, and we make a dash for it. Random guy hops out of the truck. A tinted window truck pulls up. I see my $40 and crack rocks exchange hands. All I want is to not get shot, so I lay low, and act calm.

It's 7am. My ride smokes his crack, and offers me a hit. Not in your life buster... but now at least we're on the road. I use his cell phone to call the front desk at the Nest to let them know I'm just now leaving F-banks, and will be there in 2 hours. Now that he's smoked his crack, he's much calmer, and focused on getting to Denali. Phew. He's paranoid as fuck though. "Is that a trooper behind us? I think it's a trooper. Let me pull over. When the trooper comes, you're driving. Do you drive? Do you have a license? I don't."

He gets nervous about the fact that there's a bit of crack in the door handle. "I gotta get this out of here, just in case." We pull over, he gets out, and he begins to snort the crack out of the handle of the door. Am I really witnessing this right now? Is this for real? Is a man seriously snorting crack out of a door handle in front of me on the side of the road in nowhere Alaska?

Of course, my head is beaming with thoughts. I think of Colin Thurborne. He's an English journalist who took a trek across Siberia. He spoke of being stranded in a town where the whole population had turned violent... drinking vodka all day and stabbing each other all night. He found refuge in a hospital with only one patient who would cry and scream all night. So the  realization comes that this is just another adventure. This is just another one of those freakin' bananas stories that I will have forever. Seven hours earlier, my body was soaring with energy and adrenaline, feeling so phenomenal having just finished a race. And now my body is reacting in the same way, but this time I'm scared out of my mind. But yet, I'm enduring.

Apparently $40 of crack gets you from Fairbanks to Healy, a town 15 miles outside of our Denali canyon. I knew I'd get a ride easily from Healy back to the Nest, but the fact that this crack head wanted to be a dick about taking me an extra 15 miles was the ice cream on this cherry blossom pie. Within 30 seconds, a driver with a rafting adventure company picked me up. Appropriately, his name was Coke.

I clock in an hour and a half late. I see Elizabeth, my charming house keeper, and I give her a great big hug. I'm useless, trying to digest what I had just been through. I think to myself, we'll just get through this day, and we'll have tomorrow off, and everything we'll be awesome. But, you know, life has other plans.

Candy, the Manager of the front desk and housekeeping staff, is a drunk. If she's not at least half in the bag, she's all the way in it. And she's an angry drunk to boot. Today was the day that she decided to unleash her wrath on the housekeeping crew. I keep hearing from Elizabeth, Candy is pissed, we're making mistakes, we're too slow, we're going to get canned. I hear from other people she's making threats to fire half of us and start picking people off the street to replace us.

Travis, the angry leprechaun, comes to me with a worried look on his face... "If anything should happen to you RD, the restaurant down the road is hiring, and they have great accommodations." I get a pat on the back from my favorite front desk-er Joann... "RD, she has it out for you, so watch your back." But her face lights up when she comes to tell me that my sweetheart back home,  Ben, called, and my face lights up as an immediate response. I'm saved by the thought that as soon as lunch comes, I can call Ben, and feel a little bit of relief.

Lunch comes, and I'm making a b-line to the pay phone, but I don’t quite make it. Candy announces the housekeepers only get a 15 minute lunch today. It's pizza. It's from somewhere other than here, so that means it's actually good. I go to grab a slice and run so I don't clock back in late. I'm with my lunch, I'm starving. I'm clocked in. I'm going to go into one of the cabins that I was working on and eat in peace. I trip on the steps leading up to the cabins and drop the pizza to the ground. It's all over.

I go into the cabin I was going to eat in, and break down. We use walkie talkies with each other while on duty, so in my moment of desperation, I call on the radio ... "Elizabeth, can you come to room 508, right now?" She sees the tears running down my face, and lays down next to me on the bed. How can this be happening? We both want to know, because we're so confused. I tell her how dropping my lunch was the final straw, and we both double over in laughter. Such ridiculousness. So bizarre. So incredible. But we decide we're going to toast the end of the day and have a real fancy dinner to celebrate.

The Alaska Logs: If It Happened Anywhere Else, I'd Be Shocked

Week eight, email four:

July 16, 2004

I know my mom is waiting in nervous anticipation to see how much of “Mom's Wild Adventure In Alaska” trip I write about. Don't worry mom. I won't tell all the lurid details of your visit by email. Instead, I'll wait until I can tell folks in person! Let me just say that my mom is the raddest gal I know. Having the experience of carrying her up the stairs to her Crow's Nest cabin is one I will always treasure. Yes, this is Denali, where time and space don't exist, and reality turns on its head.

“If it happened anywhere else, I'd be shocked. But it happened here.”

This was the first thing Ernie said to me the morning after my mom's first night in Denali. Ernie was a fire-fighter-turned-Crow's-Nest-shuttle-driver from Arizona with an “always a little sweaty” / “gentle giant” presence. This particular morning his eyebrows were pointing unusually high and his forehead was scrunched up with a look of barely-controlled-panic. As we made our way to the front desk, Ernie unraveled a series of “if it happened anywhere else, I'd be shocked” events which had occurred so far this morning, while I was still sleeping away the evening's mis-adventures.

The scene that morning began with a bus load of Japanese tourists and a missing cook.

The Japanese arrived especially early to catch a special breakfast buffet. This was indeed special, as the Crow's Nest normally forbade breakfast for guests. This breakfast would be served by the kitchen's brand new cook, Matt. Matt was probably the sixth cook to come in (and out) of the Nest's kitchen this summer. I hadn't seen him around much until the night before, when he was in the “hang out group” that I was in, celebrating my mom's arrival in the canyon. By the time I had seen all sorts of worlds begin and end that evening, Matt was boarding the all-night shuttle to the no-last-call bar 15 miles up the road, The Totem. The Totem is the kind of place where every story that begins with “So last night at the Totem” is a bad one.

Fast forward to 7am, and the Japanese tourists. Ernie saw that there was a big crowd, and a little confusion, so he stepped in to try and help. Brad, the restaurant's manager asked Ernie to go wake up Matt, and get him into the kitchen by any means possible. Ernie went and came back empty handed three times. In between trips, Ernie was handed a knife and instructed to start cutting fruit to serve to the Japanese to keep them from starting a hello-kitty riot. Finally, it was sudden death:

“Ernie, tell Matt he has 15 minutes to get in here or off the property.”

Needless to say, Matt never made it into the kitchen, and he was out looking for a new job within 15 minutes.

That happened, and then the sun vanished.

Literally, it vanished.

With the wild fires burning all over Alaska, it was only a matter of time before all the smoke started choking out our little canyon, blocking out the sun entirely. But since the sun doesn't set much up here, there was no night-time to relieve us from smoky orange haze with visibility barely reaching across the street. By the time we lost sight of the anything resembling nature in our periphery, cabin fever had set in to the point of panic and delirium.

Out of the haze, Ashley and Carol appeared. Our new prep-cook and waitress were heralded with open arms and porch parties featuring copious amounts of Key Stone beer, billowing bongs and “My Friends” being sung on the Ukulele. Things were so loose and laze-fare in fact, that Carol's boyfriend Victor became a regular at the campground, even though non-employees were strictly forbidden from Tent City, per order of the Crowfeet. On the outside, Victor and Carol looked like a charming young couple, straight out from the suburbs of Fairbanks, complete with big hair, bangs, and beer swigging goodness that only real Alaskans can offer. But on the inside, specifically the inside of Ashley and Carol's tent, things were a different story.

“Is there somebody there?”

“It's me, Ashley. I had to come here, I didn't know where else to go. They were fighting all night.”

“What?”

“Carol and Victor.”

I was used to being woken up by the sounds of foxes eating left over sandwiches or squirrels eating nachos outside the tent, but not by a whimpering, moaning lump of person emanating from one corner of our tent at five in the morning. I had already been surprised by an impromptu tent-porch party at around 2am, and figured that this was just more of the same. To my surprise, Ashley was there; huddled in the corner; hair a mess; eyes watery, puffy, and red; body clearly in some sort of state of shock. Apparently Carol and Victor either forgot or were too drunk to care that Ashley was in the tent with them, as they proceeded to tear each other in half with their loud and hateful words. All night long, they yelled and yelled and yelled at each other. Ashley just stayed hidden inside her sleeping bag, unable to break free of the semi-violent outburst that was unfolding before her. During one of the shout-breaks, she made her escape to our tent when I found her quivering and weeping.

A couple hours later I was housekeeping away, and I heard on our radio system... "Front desk to maintenance... there is a strange man in Ashley's bed, he peed on her sleeping bag and won't leave. Can you go take care of this?"

What?

What?

Victor peed in her bed and won't leave? Oh yeah, that's right, I forgot where I was for a second.

Later in the day I found the discarded, peed on sleeping bag on the trail between the restaurant and our tent city. Candy being Candy refused to let us wash it for Ashley, saying it was too big for the washing machine. We have a fucking industrial size washer, which could fit ten sleeping bags. Candy should have just said "I am a mean spirited person, and I refuse to let anyone have comfort.”

My head had been spinning all day from the morning's freak out, and a run after work was in order to calm my nerves. Once I clocked out for the day, I started jogging down Denali's only street, where I found a little path that lead me to a secluded spot along the Nenana River. Away from the voices and broom sticks of the Nest, my mind started to latch on to the sound of the roaring river, noticing how beautiful it was. Even under this orange glow that permeates everything, the river just keeps being beautiful weather or not we can see it. It bums me out that we forget to notice because we're so busy being mean to each other. But to have this moment is a blessed one.

Not even ten minutes into my meditation, I was presented with a horrifying sight.

It was Carol. She appeared before me as if she were imitating what meat looks like after being put through a grinder.

“It's my ankle. I rolled it.

You did more than roll your ankle, lady. You and your boyfriend ripped each other to shreds all day in the woods is what you did. And now I get to take you back to the crow's nest. Great!

Brad, the restaurant manager, had been privy to the day's activities, and was smiling like the creepiest old man you can think of walking in on a cheerleader who fainted before getting into the shower. He was ready to fire Carol just for having invited Victor to the employee campgrounds, resulting in his awesome display of piss-power, but having heard her and Victor yelling at each other all day from the gas station across the street was just icing on his cake.

He saw me with Carol around my shoulder and came to help get her up the hill.

“Let's get you to your tent, then we'll load your stuff into my truck, and I'll take you down to the bottom of the hill, and you can hitch hike yourself back to Fairbanks, and get that ankle checked out.”

That was all he said. And then he laughed like Gargamel from The Smurfs.

The sleeping bag remained on our trail, soaked in piss.

I'm not at all surprised that Brad left a battered woman with a sprained ankle on the side of the road to hitch to Fairbanks after firing her. That's the kind of guy Brad is. He's not all bad... but everyone here can envision him punching his mom or eating a baby and laughing his hideous evil laugh while doing it.

Oh, speaking of baby-eaters, another great quote I heard about our management was "If I were hitch hiking, and Carol or Mike Crowfoot pulled over to pick me up, I would say, 'I'd rather spend six hours in a car with a baby eating rapist.'"

Yeah, and there's Candy too... who said to my MOM, "It's a good thing your son wasn't working today, because one of our guests reported a theft from their cabin today." Then she flew away on her broom stick.

Believe it or not, between our employers and all the odd things that occur, there are moments for bliss, fun, excitement, and full-on roars of laughter. Most days I wake up feeling like a Muppet, but this tends to occur anywhere I go; just this goofy, 'foot loose and fancy free' kid ready to attack the world. Every once and a while I get a little weighed down, but all I need is for Kermit to come in and give me a little pep talk, and I'm ready to Gonzo the whole place down again. So with said peppy attitude, doing housekeeping is actually a fun time. I mean really, all we do are lame tasks like making beds, while goofing off, using our bodies for physical work, and spending most of our time outside taking in the sun. It comes as no surprise that we adopted a policy that if we find alcohol in a checked out room, we must consume it immediately. Today this included a glass of wine. Our biggest score was three beers and a plate full of brownies. You can believe the chocolate stained smiles on that day... "I'm drinking beer, eating brownies, making a bed, and it's only 10 am."

It also helps to have people like Jin-Son on your housekeeping crew. Jin-Son is an adorable part time housekeeper, who is a full time cook at the fancier Chalet resort. He's fresh off the plane from Korea, and can barely communicate in English. But just the type of character he is leads me to believe he can barely communicate in any language.

“Where is Lizarbet?”

Jin-Son had a crush on Elizabeth, or Lizarbet, as he could say.

“She has the day off, Jin-Son. She'll be here tomorrow.

"Oh, I am sad. She is so beauriful. I miss her."

Then imagine an Engrish version of “You Are So Beautiful To Me.”

The Alaska Logs: What If We See A Care Bear?

This is the last email I sent during my days as a housekeeper in Alaska. The final three weeks after this email snowballed into an unending series of friends visiting, parties and ambulances. I never got to writing about all that. Look for the yet-to-be written final chapter soon!

Week eleven, email five:

August 02, 2004

Holy Toledo... the home stretch approaches. It's officially August; darkness is settling in, and the cold and the rain are signaling the end of summer. I have a bunch of visitors coming up, plans to see a blue grass festival, to hit the arctic circle, and to grab a ferry to see some glaciers and awesome coastal towns. So, I have a feeling this month is going to fly by.

I took a journey out to Valdez a couple weeks ago, you know where Exxon decided to blow a load all over the Prince William Sound back in 1991. It was a small caravan of Nesters, myself, Joann (our lovely front desker who's currently taking a week long siesta in Seattle, and coming back with a CAR!), Dan (Remember the monchichi’s? Think that with a beer instead of a banana in his hand), and Luke (young Paul Newman). The trip started out as a free trip to Prudhoe Bay, the starting point of the Alaska Pipeline at the arctic ocean, through a friend of Dan's. But that plan kept falling through, then coming back up, then falling through again. So we took matters into our own hands and decided to rent a car (in Fairbanks... cheaper, and they don't charge by the mile like they do in Denali), and head south to the other end of the Alaska Pipeline, Valdez.

I finagled my days off so I could get four days off in a row, and I was one stoked little puppy. We'd be free from the nest, free to explore this enormous state, and free to our own devices. Pure bliss, but I had a sneaking suspicion once the four days were up, coming back to the nest would be the hardest button to button. So we piled in the car, put the pedal to the metal, and started our journey south. We decided to take the Denali Highway, which is a gravel road, maybe 300 miles on which you can only go ~40mph if you're lucky. The potholes and boulders prevent you from making any real speed, but time was on our side, as was the beauty that is AK!

We kept stopping along the road to soak in the sights. Mountains that could inspire poets to write epics about the glaciers running through them demanded our attention. Being cooped up so long in our nest, we had forgotten that this is a place of remarkable beauty. There are things here for us beyond shuttle busses, tourists, RV parks, and gremlin employers. Joann may have been a little on the jaded side, but she made quite the blunt point by saying, "Denali is ugly. This is beautiful." Spots on, babe.

To drive to Valdez, one must summit the Thompson Pass. Thompson Pass gets over 300 feet of snow annually. It shows. The glacier that slices through the pass strikes you like a bolt of lightning. It shouts out "I am a glacier, and I am tearing the mountain in half." So wait, just yesterday I was making beds (and yes, you would be wooed by how I do my "hospital corners" and can fold the pillows into the comforter!), and today I am humbled by the magnificent force that is nature? I'm stopped to consider my life for a moment. Bananas.

Valdez is a fishing town. What does one do in a fishing town... but fish! We met up with a local fisherman who took us out into the sound so we could catch us some salmon. It was more than enough for us to just be sailing like free birds through the sound; to see wild life flourishing and no trace to the tourist's eye of the oil spillage. Otters floated by, and seals swam around us. But we were there to get a fish treasure! I hope our fisherman guide got a kick out of us fishing novices who were busy hooking lines to the boat, dropping poles into the water, and catching jellyfish rather than doing any real fishing. But for all our follies, we did come back with four ~2 1/2 ft Salmon. Joann was the starlet of the boat, she caught 2, Dan caught 1, and the fisherman got one too, which he let Joann reel in. I lost one under the boat, and Luke's put up such a fight it broke the line. Apparently most people catch 30-35 on their rides out, but hey, we got 4!

Our hard work on the boat was celebrated by a trip to Ernesto's, a Mexican joint. I was hoping for a margarita, but the waitress kindly informed us that they didn't have their liquor license... yet. She was also a few frijoles short of understanding basic Mexican food flare. When I asked for the carne asada burrito, she asked if I wanted beef or chicken. I couldn't keep a straight face when I answered "beef please. thanks."

That night we found refuge at a camp ground called Blueberry Lake. We cruised the campgrounds for a little bit, then found ourselves asking the question, why get a camp spot when we could just sleep under these picnic tables at this nice little gazebo? The gazebo was butted up to the lake, so it was a little heavenly little spot, right near all the waterfalls that drape Valdez like veils.

As youngians do on great camping adventures, there was smoke and drink to be shared by all. Our drink was a dangerous combination of vodka and power ade, and the smoke provided perfect psychadelicness for the cloud layer that was invading Blueberry Lake. Before we knew it, we could barely see 10 feet in front of us... we were literally in a cloud on the mountain. Strange thoughts ran through our minds... what if a scary clown walks on by? what if those creepy girls from the Shining go skipping by? What if we see a Care Bear? The possibilities were endless.

One kind of funny, but kind of scary thing about sleeping out in the open, not in a tent, is that any random thing can come up to you and find you. This happened. I was woken up by the feeling of something pawing at me, and I just thought... no, this is not happening, I am going to be attacked by a bear while sleeping at the foot of a lake. I really hope it's a Care Bear. The adrenaline that flowed through my veins for that split second got my "fight or flight" motors going, and I looked up to see black and fur. Oh fuck. Oh wait, heh, it's just a dog! I started laughing, then let the dog sniff and lick around. Then it was back to sleep to dream of salmon, dogs, and scary clowns trampling through clouds. Yay.

We camped through the entire trip, but managed to never used our tents. After Valdez, we drove out to Anchorage, and sans a proper place to stay, literally crashed in the lawn of a gal that Dan met a few weeks earlier. It was late, and we had already accidentally passed out on the grass in a random park for about an hour, so the lawn of a real house was great idea. The gal found us on her grass around 6am, and woke us up to invite us to sleep inside her house where it would be a bit warmer, and mosquito free! She had a little 4 month old kitten who proceeded to paw us in the face all morning as we tried to sleep. Curious dogs one morning, pawing kittens the next. Right on!

Sadly, and I could feel this coming, the return "home" was an unwanted one. You know how in cartoons, when they show the wicked castle, it's always surrounded by thunder clouds, with lightning and rain? Yeah, that was the scene as we neared Denali. We could see the beautiful blue skies behind us, and the storm that hovered over the Denali canyon in front of us. I really don't know how we managed to keep going, but we ended up back at the Nest... and there were stories for us to hear upon our arrival.

That week after our return was the closest I've come to quitting. I was so close I actually had started writing my resignation letter in my mind. The stories we heard were among the usual crappy dealings from the owners and Candy. Carol Crowfoot called one front desk person an idiot to her face, Candy kept on her "you're fucking it up" rampages, and so forth. But the straw for me was the story I heard about how Candy drunkenly stumbled into our camp ground and started mouthing off about Travis, our angry little leprechaun.

The Crowfeet had started putting "Drivers Wanted" signs all over Denali, and even in Healy, 15 miles north of here. Travis was a driver, we already had three and didn’t need any more. The management merely had it out for him because of his attitude, rather than anything he was doing wrong. It was clear they were getting ready to shit-can the boy, and you know, putting up flyer's for his job around town was the more dignified way of letting him know rather than telling him to his face.

The reports from the folks in Tent City were that a few days after the flyer's started appearing around town, Candy made an unannounced visit to Tent City, our little haven where we're allowed to get away from Candy and the Crowfeet. She was drunk, belligerent, and was just yelling about Travis to anyone who would listen, including Travis himself, who was at the campground.

At this point, this is just abuse, plain and simple. We do not get paid enough to watch a drunken douche bag completely trash one of our friends on our off time. Why should I keep working here if all we're handed back is abuse? I'd rather have gotten back into the truck with my crack smoking friend than work another day for these folks. The day I heard about all this, I decided to do two things... wait until the morning to see how I felt, and talk to my mom. I knew my mom wouldn't tell me what to do, but she'd provide enough insight to get me to look at the situation from different sides.

So I woke up the next morning, and I felt sick to my stomach clocking in. I walked into one of the cabins, and I just started to write. I wrote this poem that basically spelled out "Leave now!" Elizabeth even said "by staying here, we're accepting something that is unacceptable. We're saying that this is okay." So I was ready to start packing my bags by 5 O'clock.

I had this nagging suspicion that talking to my mom would either give me the confidence to walk or the strength to pull through for another month. And sure enough, I was right. What I got out of our conversation was "If you can leave with love and compassion in your heart, leave right now. But if you have anger and hatred, it will find you again later." I really don't want to encounter anyone like Candy ever again. So I'm still a nester...but only for another 20 days! Within that time, I hope to find the strength within myself to leave and say "thanks," rather than "I pissed in your iced tea, but you probably couldn't taste it under all the vodka." Heh, I might say both!

I miss you Travis. Come by and crash our tent again.

The Electrifying Conclusion

This post is my final in the mp3-of-the-day series from my rock and roll recording sessions in San Diego. This post also serves as the final chapter of The Alaska Logs, stories from my summer working as a housekeeper in Denali National Park in Alaska. The title, The Electrifying Conclusion, is the name of the farewell Guided By Voices tour/film.

As the final weeks of the season approached, everything started to fall apart for the Crowfeet.

We, the summer employees who had slaved away all season to eat crappy fried food and sleep in moldy wall tents, were just done caring.

"Fine. Fire me," was the attitude amongst the Nesters towards the end. "You mean you might take away my toilet brush and give it to another jack-ass for a couple weeks until they get fed up with you and never come back? Well, shoot. I better stop turning off my two-way radio, taking showers in people's rooms, smoking pot instead of vacuuming, and pissing in the flower arrangements then."

Those of us who weren't fired stayed because what made it all worth it was our little community. As the original list of Nesters dwindled down to single digits, our bonds grew tighter and tighter. Perhaps a little too tight, as most of everybody was sleeping with each other, and for at least one Nester, Joanne, the bonds needed to be broken in order to save her impending marriage back home.

Under the guise that she was merely leaving for a week to ten days to go back home, save her relationship, then return with a car, we sent her off back to the lower 48 in the hopes that we would see her beautiful smile again, and she would bring wheels to take us all out of Denali.

The funny thing is, we bought it. We waited day after day like puppies awaiting mothers milk, salivating over the thought of having access to a car. But we should have known better. We sent her back home and expected her to come back? None of us would have come back. So when the call finally came in to the front desk that she was pulling the plug, it became clear the only thing left to do was ditch the Nest.

"I heard it through the rumor mill that you're planning on leaving us on the 25th. Is that true?" Candy, the drunken manager, was always meddling into the affairs of her underlings. I was under contract to stay through the beginning of September. How she caught wind of the fact I had made a pact with two other Nesters, Alla and Elizabeth, to secretly rent a car and floor it to Anchorage with all our luggage in the back is beyond me. But there I was, face to face with the wickedest witch of the tundra, inside a small cramped room, her sipping her "iced (and probably long-island'd) tea" out of a tall orange plastic cup, the door closed behind me, no way out.

Clearly my only option was to lie. And badly.

“What? What on earth are you talking about?”

I denied it all up and down, but it was clear to the both of us that I had been found out, and I wasn't going to give in or butt out. We still kept pretending that I was going to continue working into September, even though I had friends from back home arriving left and right, and my attentions were clearly focused away from the lodge.

My visitor roster was the direct result of my bachelorhood in Boston, and internet hook ups. Luckily a lot of these one night stands turned into full fledged friendships, so much so, two of them dropped their busy Boston lives to come to Alaska to enjoy the adventure with me. A third one would even take me back to his home, carrying me on his back.

Joe.

When Joe arrived, it was like St. Rainbow walking through Graytopia. It was beautiful. By the end of night one, Joe and Nana, one of the old Hawaiian drunkards on deck with us, were drinking at the Lynx bar and arguing over who could give a better blow job. Nana was loosing to Joe's bravado (which was making every straight guy at the table turn bright red ... with curiosity), until Nana whipped out her trump card: “Well I can take my teeth out!”

Georg.

Georg's arrival overlapped Joe's by a night or two. This brought the number of guys I'd hooked Joe up with up to two. Georg also brought a feast for the emaciated Nesters; glorious amounts of cheese, crackers and wine. Not even in our normal lives did most of us treat ourselves to such luxuries. And here, the finest pate's and international wines were pouring out of his army-green duffel bag. We ate like kings, and slept the whole next day.

Ben.

I used to refer to this man as my “make-out buddy.” And now it was certain that post Alaska, instead of becoming a high priced NYC escort, I'd be moving to California to start a life with someone I hadn't been able to shake out of my head for the eight months we'd been on opposite coasts, pretending we liked it that way.

His arrival had been the topic of everybody's conversations for at least a week. Everybody knew Ben was coming because I wouldn't stop talking about it, and I wouldn't stop smiling like an idiot. Random people would help me with the countdown on a daily basis, “3 more days, RD!” they'd shout out to me on my mile hike to the bathrooms.

Literally in a superman shirt and superman skivvies, superman arrived at the lodge, and swept me away for good.

Long days of smiling and gazing into each other's eyes, knowing that we would soon be in a rental car with Elizabeth and Alla burning rubber away from Denali, made our reunion so peaceful and angelic, that we decided to take a small but adventurous camping trip in the park, just the two of us.

But as my entire summer had taught me, nothing makes it through Denali without being sucked into the vortex of Denali.

The journey of our camping trip started at the foot of some mountains being ripped open by glaciers. Our first day we had walked four miles from the road towards the mountains and set up camp, picking blue berries from the sides of the hills... just like all the grizzly bears we had seen the previous morning from the bus on the only road in or out of Denali National Park; a park the size of Massachusetts.

Little did my superman-clad super boy know what a role his ironic macho statement would make on our journey through Denali together. He was saving me from the Crowfeet and sour Candy, saving me from drifting off into the underbelly of NYC, and within the first twenty four hours of our camping trip, he would be saving me from being eaten by bears while laying helplessly in a rock quarry with a broken ankle.

Up to this point, I had survived relatively unscathed through the Denali vortex. Except for the run-in with the cracked out guy who picked me up hitchhiking, I didn't really have any experiences that would completely alter the course of my life like most people seemed to have. Now that I was with the sweetheart, and we were well away on our adventure, I figured I was safe, and that I had made it out. Such bravado is what gets you in trouble.

Winning the Civil War

There’s only one person I’ve ever let call me “Ardie.” The first time most people repeat my name after I’ve introduced myself, they say “Ardie?” And I have to say, “No, R … D,” stressing the D slightly more than the R to enforce the concept that you say them like two different letters.

Jim was the exception.

Of course he was. He was a hot little navy boy that would be spending the next three months with me holed up in some offspring of the Twilight Zone called Denali National Park in the middle of Alaska. I would have let him call me anything he wanted, as long as he continued to smile at me.

To Jim’s credit, he demonstrated he clearly knew that my name was comprised of two initials, and he figured out that it bugs the snot out of me when people conceptualize it as a name that starts with an “A” and ends in an –ie or –y. But Jim’s purpose in our relationship was to produce a rise out of me, and this he did on many occasions.

The relationship between straight men and gay men is an odd and potentially explosive one. It’s a relationship that has baffled me most of my life, and one I dedicate a good portion of my psyche trying to figure out and unravel. The fact that there is a “thing” to try to figure out at all may not be readily apparent until you’ve become the boy who plays “house” and not “cars,” or has more Madonna tapes than baseball cards, or wants to be a Carebear for Halloween. That’s when it becomes quite clear that there’s a major divide in the masculine continuum, you’re really skirting one edge of it, and you’re only six.

It’s true. At the age of six, I was a Carebear for Halloween. I’m sure my parents were pulling their hair out at the idea of sending a chubby cherub in a pink plastic costume to kindergarten. But they saw that nothing was going to stop me from running to school bursting with rainbows, and they were there to take the pictures of their pink Carebear arm in arm with a plastic costumed He-Man. In the 21+ years since that time, life has not taken many turns away from that picture.

And so entered Jim. He established himself as the alpha male of the group early on. There were twenty-odd of us twenty-something’s, all gathered in Denali, slated to work at a hotel for a summer, shuttling guests around, making their beds, cooking their dinners and rummaging through their garbage for left over food. Jim had arrived a full two weeks before any of us, laying electrical wire, digging ditches, putting cabins back on their foundations and getting drunk with the locals. He made it clear he had the biggest bravado of any of us, and the moment I saw him I could feel the molten waves of testosterone erupting out of him. He was fresh out of the Navy, he was in combat in both Afghanistan and Iraq, he could drink more alcohol than all of us put together, bed anyone he chose, and fight blind folded with one hand tied behind his back. Yes, a complete man’s man, a dude of dudes, the machismo of macho. But frankly, I wasn’t impressed.

Should We Smoke A Bowl Before We Go To The Post Office?

"Since we're getting out of work early, RD, want to go to the post office before they close?"

"Sounds good, Elizabeth. I need to do some laundry, so I'll bring that too."

Life in a wall-tent in Alaska doing housekeeping at a roadside lodge meant that small delights like going to the post office became things to center your day around. The fact that Elizabeth and I were able to get off work early was an even more exciting treat, as the folks that kept us ball-and-chained to the lodge normally didn't let us out of work until exactly five, and not a minute earlier.

By some stroke of luck we had finished scrubbing all the toilets; folding all the toilet paper ends into perfect "V" formations; and stocking the supply closet with double flats, bathmats, and hand soaps (which we were warned about five times a day NOT to steal, under the threat of IMMEDIATE termination), and it was only 4pm. We had at least an hour to gather our postcards and gift packages of horrifyingly awful moose-bear-caribou montage t-shirts, and get them to the post office before closing time. There were laundry facilities across the dirt path from the post office, so while Elizabeth gathered her address book, I put three pair of socks worn over the last three weeks into a bag along with some jeans that bore blood spot victories from every smashed mosquito that didn't get to enjoy my blood for too terribly long before meeting my palmful of love.

"Dan got the keys to the van, he'll drive us to the post office!"

Luck was really on our side this day. The post office/general store/laundry compound was a solid one mile from our lodge. Not an unbearable distance, in fact, on days when I knew to expect Trader Joe’s gift boxes from my friends back home, I could hustle there and back during our lunch break. But today was Saturday. The thought of having to go all of Sunday knowing that a postcard from my sweetheart was just on the other side of the locked door, depriving me of smiles desperately needed to get through our Twin Peaks-ian existence in Alaska, was too much to handle.

Having a car in this barren wasteland meant you were a god. It meant you could get further than the pedestrian walk way without paying $50 for a shuttle, or waiting for the next townie with a shotgun in his truck to pick you up. Where he got this van, and how was unimportant. The long and short of it was we had wheels, and we were going to the post office! What better way to celebrate our good fortune than to smoke up before hand?

We sat around Dan’s wall tent porch ceremoniously passing around a bowl with our letters and laundry strewn about in front of us, secure in the fact that even though our hour was ticking away, having a ride meant we’d get to the post office in five minutes. How nice it would be to spend the rest of my afternoon in this euphoric peace, watching the alpenglow while getting chores done… and hey, the general store sells FRESH ICE CREAM!

Somehow we decided it was best to let Elizabeth drive, so Dan and I went around to the passenger side of the van and waited patiently to be let in. Elizabeth stood at the driver’s side door with a perplexed and giggly look on her face.

“I can’t put the key in the door!” Of course not, we’re completely ripped. From there our world melted into a timeless void of confusion and laughter. As I recall, the keys were tossed from the drivers side to the passenger side and back again a half dozen times, none of us able to open the door. Perhaps it was never locked to begin with, because somehow we ended up inside the van ready for our next step of obstacles. “The ignition won’t turn!” “Oh yeah, I think the key is broken and you have to jam it in and then bring it out part way while turning it.” Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s seat was collapsing behind her, and our eyes were too full of tears to see straight. All told, I think it took us a good half hour to get out of the parking lot.