Beetle

Salisbury, CT

Cory said he would meet me later on in Massachusetts. I hiked out of Kent depressed and anxious. At this point, every day was excruciating. I was distracted and empty. I was a husk of the person I was when I started my thru-hike in Georgia full of passion and willpower. I felt like my energy had been siphoned out of me. Walking north was what I did because I had nothing else to do. The trail was a tunnel and there was no turning around so I could only walk forward.

On the hike out of Kent I caught a hiker my age named Beetle. He had also graduated in June and started like I had but caught the bubble because he hiked fast big mile days. That's how I liked to hike. He graduated from Prescott College in Arizona with a degree in rock climbing. He explained that people at Prescott majored in outdoor fields and that freshman orientation was a two week backpacking trip to weed out the unserious students. I didn’t know schools like that existed. If I had, maybe I would have applied, I thought, then immediately realized that my family never would have allowed it. They were more concerned with “prestige.”

Beetle and I enjoyed conversing and decided to hitch into Salisbury, CT which was unplanned and usually not a town thru-hikers go to. It was a wealthy white town and we got the most expensive resupply on trail at the Gelson’s there but it was worth it. We went nuts and got a whole watermelon, fancy cheeses, chips and crackers, hummus, fruits, vegetables, and specialty chocolates. We brought it all to the table right outside the entrance and ate it then and there. We forgot to grab utensils but we had our pocket knives so we sat and ate with our knives and hands like animals. It was entertaining to glance at the horrified old rich white people’s faces as they exited the store.

I heard my name called and I spun around to see my favorite older hiker, Salty Dog. He was like my trail grandpa but we never hiked together for long periods because he hiked fewer miles. We kept running into each other however because of how often I got off trail for Cory. He was a welcome sight and we invited him to sit and enjoy the snacks with us.

Salty Dog decided to head back to the trail but Beetle and I were in desperate need of a shower. We did some research to see if there were any hiker hostels - none. We looked for cheap hotels but the cheapest was $350 a night. Salisbury was fancy. We wondered if a local YMCA would let us use their showers but there were no gyms. We joked about conducting a social experiment where we would walk around town knocking on doors asking to use rich peoples’ showers just to see if they’d let us. We laughed about how it might go.

“I’ll start,” I said and turned to an older man leaving Gelson’s.

“Excuse me sir, we are thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and we were wondering if you might know where we could procure a shower. We’ve looked for hotels all over town and they are all unaffordable for us. We just graduated college, you see, and we can’t afford a $350 hotel room and there are no gyms in the area…” I continued to talk and sound as pitiful and as possible, performing my best Oliver Twist.

“Well,” he paused and was clearly hesitant to say what he knew was the only thing he could say, “I uh - I suppose you could shower at my place.” He clearly regretted offering as soon as he said it.

“Oh you are too kind, we don’t want to impose but, IF YOU INSIST!” We packed our food, hastily threw out the trash, and followed him like ducklings to his Mercedes with the cheekiest smiled on our faces.

He drove us back to his three-story four bedroom house on a lake and when we parked in the driveway and hopped out he said, “come on kids I’ll show you where you’re gonna sleep.” We looked at each other wide-eyed and grinned. We didn't even ask but we weren’t going to turn down a night in a real bed for free. He showed us to our own bedrooms then said, “leave your packs here and follow me.” He walked us down to the lake. “I’ll get you setup on the boat so you can paddle around my lake while I make us dinner.” He had a lake! And he was making us dinner? This was the best trail magic yet!

Beetle and paddled out on the lake dumbfounded. We couldn’t believe our luck. We saw a rock in the middle of the lake, docked at a tree on it, and laid in the warm sun. My worries melted and we almost lost track of time before dinner. I enjoyed Beetle’s company a lot. He was easy to be around and he connected with my adventurous spirit, the spirit that led me to the trail in the first place. It was the wondrous innocent side of me that liked to explore, the side I found when Tracks and my tramily and I were eating berries for dinner in Pennsylvania. Beetle was my buddy and that’s all I wanted - a friend.

The guy whose house we were staying in rang a bell to let us know it was time for dinner. He told us to shower and he would have elote, roasted vegetables, salad, and grilled chicken ready for us by the time we were done. My inner child was singing. I didn’t grow up with a traditional childhood where you were free to wander all day then get a home cooked meal at night. My inner child was happy and not scared for the first time in a long time.

Over dinner, the man had a few beers and told us all of his antiquated views of women and black people. “Oh great,” I thought. Now I have to get in an argument defending all oppressed peoples over dinner and he’ll probably kick us out. I was always the person speaking up against injustice I witnessed on trail and it was exhausting, but when the man said that “women were a different species” Beetle threw down his fork and launched into a feminist rant. I was impressed and I almost cried. No one had ever stood up for me like that, much less all of women to an old white man with authority over us. Beetle put him in his place and he didn't say anything racist or sexist the rest of the night. I felt safe with Beetle and I dreamed about making it to Katahdin together.

The man told us he lived alone because his children moved out and his wife died the previous year of cancer. I suppose even misogynists get lonely. He pulls out a tin of weed from his cupboard and said his wife used it medicinally for the pain of her cancer but she obviously didn’t need it anymore and we should have it. He went to bed but gave us a pint of ice cream and encouraged us to stay up. That night Beetle and I stayed up eating ice cream, laughing, and getting high off this man’s dead wife’s weed.