Mounting Tensions & The Odd Man Out

(Written Sept. 10 while out of cell range)
"And then the Lama said, 'There'll be no money. But on your deathbed you will receive total consciousness.' So I got that going for me. Which is nice."

Palisades, MN pop. 110
Summer returned to northern MN yesterday. Which is nice. In and out of tiny Palisades rather quickly, I find out too late that it is home to one "Bullet" Elftmann, father of my dear friend Jan. I got a few dreams while in town, but damn. Bullet! Now there's one dream I woulda loved to have captured, a guy I woulda liked to have met.

There was talk of wolves. Local Marlene was kind enough to take Frank in for a load of laundry. Frank must have mentioned Eric's fear of bears, prompting Marlene's friend Gordon to say we could now add wolves to the list of potential predators, preying our food supplies at least.

Sure enogh today when things were getting a bit dull out on the river (dullest of all being the constant banter between Eric in his canoe and Frank in ours when all I craved was a little peace) Eric shouted out "Deer swimming across the river!" A close eye on it as it climbed out of the water in the sun showed it clearly to be what locals call "a government dog" (a bit of slander owing to the severe illegality of shooting the rare creatures). Far off as it was, it proved an impressive sight.

Evening, we pulled onto a beachhead in the inside of a bend in the river about 20 miles up and made camp. While Eric cooked up a mean spicey pasta dish, I collected driftwood and got us a roaring bigass bonfire going.

Eric, aka "Canoe Boy," joined us almost from the start and though I can find no fault with him, he wasn't "in the brochure" as I'm fond of saying of everything about this journey that irks me. It's mostly just his omnipresence. When he has to piss as we roll down the river in our separate canoes, he waits until I have to piss before stopping. Okay, so he's lonely. But does he have to announce his bowel movements? What is it about men who do that?

Mostly he grates on me because just by lingering with us he creates distance between Frank and me in this crucial early time for our two man team. I feel anger from Frank, animosity over little things. When asked, I confess to feeling the odd man out I a "threes a crowd" scenario. Militarilly-trained Frank merely says, "You'll work it out." Despite having recently read my AT opus "Dead Men Hike No Trails," he seems to have forgotten that I'm about as emotionally stable as a pregnant Elisabeth Wurtzel reading "The Bell Jar" while in the waning hours of an LSD trip. Wurtzel, dunno if I spelled her name correctly, wrote "Prozac Nation."

Frank tells us that thanks to his high rank in the Navy, he has a sea mound named after him near Fiji in the South Pacific. Wow. Cool.

Frank sleeps with his dog. "Clyde's all over my $300 bag and on my pillow," he complains. But he let's him. Frank has no children of his own, married to the sea as he was. He loooooves Clyde.

Frank teaches us how to cuss in military-speak. "Whiskey tango foxtrot oscar," for instance translates to "What the fuck, over."

We have reason to cuss. The river is so low it has no current. Portages are a muddy pain in the ass because the ramps and banks are too high. And the river up here in its "youth" winds and loops back on itself endlessly.

I try and look forward to nothing, just the endless meanders as I paddle along, entranced. That way the bridges and boat access ramps and campsites that pop up to validate my progress will come as great surprises.

Heated and beaten for lack of a long overdue bridge, Frank has a conversation with the river. He speaks for both sides. Amused and tired in my narrow V-shaped cockpit in the bow, I just listen and try and smile.

"What a long strange trip its been." Frank renders the grateful Dead a bit off key but heartfelt. I can't help think: THIS is the trip and man is it strange.

About the only thing keeping me sane and semi-grounded is FM 107 Power Loon Radio out of Brainerd, somewhere up ahead. But I can only listen in with one ear, it being imperitive that I be able to hear Frank's instructions from the stern. The Miss in her miniskirt is a mine field of exposed rocks and trees and the occasional rapid. One wrong move and the canoe will swamp. Frank has no intention of us swamping, not even once. "If we swamped, it'll have been because we made a mistake."

I have little doubt where the blame would lay. - RSM
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