Climbing Up the Walls (1-5)

1.

Derek had moved to Florida and he had left me his camper. He had a concrete slab in the middle of the woods, property his grandparents owned, and on it the camper. It was small and old and smelled of mildew and cigarettes and maybe something’s piss. I didn’t want to live so far removed from civilization, but I had run out of options. I spent the summer sleeping where I could. Beaches, benches, couches, Laundromats. It was warmer then and I could. There was no work in town so I was selling pot to buy beer and wine and water and cigarettes. Even then I was scraping by.
    

The woods were thick and endless, dark and at night darkest. The forest heaved and breathed deep and loud and reminded me who was the guest there. I stayed in my trailer after dark, unless I could afford my wine and then sometimes I would go behind the trailer and light a fire in a circle of rocks and put my feet up on a large stump and stare into the fire and dream of love. I was alone, and worse yet, I was lonely.
    

Derek was the last person around that I would have considered my friend. We came up through school together and had our first drinks together and stole a car together and when we got to Poughkeepsie, were arrested together. He began to work for his father’s construction crew when he was sixteen and saved his money. Bought the camper and a car, and saved more money and then left me behind. With his camper and a small crop behind it.
    

I was alone, and worse yet, lonely, and I dreamed of love. Some beautiful girl and we would steal each others hearts and we would never live in a camper in the goddamned forest and we would have a home and a car. Two cars. We would have money and I would be climbing the ladder and she would smile at me because she loves me and I love her. I could smell her perfume some nights. I could feel the cloth of her sundress, the nylon underneath it, the skin beneath that. I could feel her breath in my ear, and the ache in my heart.
    

I would sit by the fire and sip at my wine and smoke a joint and listen to the crackle of the burning sticks and the chirps, howls, and mysteries of the forest around me until I was too drunk to stay awake, or too lonely to stay awake. Throw sand on the fire. Go back inside. Leave the radio on and a candle burning and squeeze onto the tiny bed and pull the blanket up around me and try to sleep. Try not to stare into the darkness. Try not to be the darkness.


2.

I had a pot of water boiling over the fire in the backyard for my shower in the morning. I had a rubber bag with holes in the bottom nailed to a tree near the camper and if I was fast enough I could soap up first and then pour the water in and rinse it all off and sometimes I was fast enough and sometimes I wasn’t and I would rub the dried soap off with a paper towel. I had to get my water either from the store whenever I could convince someone to bring me to town, or from a creek in the woods a few miles in. I hated carrying the jugs back that far through the woods so I usually only showered a couple of times a week and tried not to drink too much. I had no one to impress. I hoped for better days but didn’t expect them.
    

From the camper a winding dirt driveway meandered through the woods for nearly a mile and connected to a longer and windier dirt road that on one end connected to a state route and on the other, I didn’t know. Sometimes I would hear cars on the road and they would come up the driveway and people would get out of the cars and they would be my friends while they bought from me and they would leave a half hour later and then days or sometimes weeks would pass before I would hear another car. Sometimes I listened to the forest and imagined I heard a car but I didn’t. There were no cars today.
    

I took off my clothes and got my bar of soap wet and lathered up my body and then brought the pot of boiling water to the bag and dumped it in and took a deep breath and then stood under the holes and in tiny streams it burned me and ran down my skin in rivers that underneath turned pink and red and I clenched my jaw and the soap ran off me and I used all of the unchristly fucking water. I couldn’t justify wasting it. I couldn’t save it. After, I walked back to the camper, put my clothes on over the pink and red skin and felt refreshed none the less. I poured a cup from the port wine jug and sat on the pull out steps of the camper and stared at the driveway. I needed to collect firewood.
   

3.

Evening had come and in the air I could feel the crispness of autumn. The days were shorter and I wondered how well the camper held body heat. I dropped a good sized pile of sticks, large and small, next to the fire pit and went back inside.
    

I lit what was left of the candle and on the notebook next to it wrote “Candles”, next to “Soap” and “Protein”.
    

The light only lasted a half hour and the candle faded out. The air was cooler than the night before and I thought about setting up a fire but wished instead that I had during the daylight and lit a joint and sat on the edge of the bed and hoped I could sleep soon.
    

In the darkness sometimes I thought I saw shapes, and when I was stoned was almost sure of it. Moving around the camper. Trying to get in. Sometimes they were in the camper and sometimes they sat next to me and when I would lie back on the bed they were all I had and the shadows never loved me. The shadows were never there.


4.

I decided to kill myself. I wasn’t sure when. But I decided it would be before snow fell and I ended up freezing to death or starving or being eaten by fucking bears. I decided that if I was going to go it would be my own choice. There was no one to miss me. No one would hurt. No one would notice.
    

I began to write drafts of suicide notes in my notebook.
   
5.

Headlights poured over the camper and were swallowed by the aggressive black of the forest. They turned off when the car did and I watched from the window as Indian Tommy and his girlfriend got out of the car. She had been driving and he wasn’t Indian in either sense. He knocked on the door and I could hear her mumble something.
    

I opened the door.
    

“Hey man,” he said. “How’ve you been?”
    

“All right,” I said. “Could be worse.”
    

“Absolutely. Man it’s fucking dark in there.”
    

“Yeah, I’m out of candles.”
    

“Oh, that sucks.”
    

“Yeah. You want to sit by the fire or something?” I asked.
    

“Sure man. But we can’t stay long. Jen has to go to her fucking mother’s house or some shit.”
    

“Right on. While I’m here how much?”
    

“Just an eighth will do man.”
    

“Eighty.”
    

“Eighty? Fuck.”
    

“Yeah, man,” I said. “Shit’s getting harder to come by.”
    

“Christ. Fine.” He took out his wallet, counted out eighty dollars in tens and fives and handed it over. “Have to start shopping around for a new hook up.”
    

“Do it. There’s no one else around here.”
    

“No shit. That’s why you have eighty fucking dollars.”
    

“Yeah. I’ll meet you by the fire pit.”
    

“All right.”
    

They went behind the camper and from the other window I could see Indian Tommy setting up a fire. I opened up what used to be the fuse box and pulled out the remains of one of my last two pounds. I was hoping it would last me until more grew. I doubted it.
    

I weighed out an eighth of an ounce, put most of it in a sandwich bag and rolled a joint with the rest of it. Outside Indian Tommy was lighting the fire and blowing on it and I could hear his girlfriend saying they needed to go.
    

I lit the joint and walked out to them.
    

“Looks like we can’t stay, man,” Indian Tommy said. “Fucking bitch mother.”
    

“Here’s your bag.”
    

He took it and held it up to the fire and pretended to weigh it with his had. “Feels right, man. Thanks. Hey, next time, we hang out for real, right?”
    

“Sure.”
    

He laughed. “Excellent.”
    

“Hey, can you give me a ride to town?” I asked. “I need to pick a few things up.”
    

“Oh, man, I can’t I really got to split. But, hey, I got the fire going for you.”
    

“Thanks,” I said.
    

“Listen, tomorrow, what are you doing,” he asked.
    

“Same old.”
    

“Cool, how about tomorrow we come back up and we’ll take you into town and pick up your shit, I’ll buy some beers and we’ll hang out. All day. Just get stoned and hammered and chill by the fire.”
    

“Sure. I’ll be here.”
    

“Tommy! Let’s go!” his girlfriend said.
    

“All right! All right!” He turned to me. “Tomorrow man.”
    

“Cool.”
    

“Thanks again man. See you.”
    

“Yeah, see you.”
    

I watched them bicker into the darkness and around the camper. Their car roared to life and the fire glowed behind me and their headlights in front of me and they turned around and dirt and sticks crunched under their tires. I took a drag from the joint and heard them drive away. I sat down in a plastic chair near the fire.