This Is What It's Like

Unable to sleep. Up at five. The sky is still dark at six-thirty. The air outside is warm and humid. It is the worst time here, the molding, mildewed part of summer. I am without energy or inspiration. I do what I must. Not even that. I hold out for the long shadows.

* * * * *

After the Catskills, the Adirondacks looked like true wilderness. The slopes were not as gentle. The ground seemed harder somehow. We were hiking a trail to the top of a peak. We could see it above us. The sun was hot and sharp, and I was not in shape. I had lost some of the weight I'd put on in the hospital and after and had been working out with weights and had added some muscle, but I hadn't been walking far let alone running. I was stunned by how weak my legs felt. I had good legs, I thought, strong legs, but not now. I didn't say anything to Vladi about it, though. This hiking was difficult for him, too.

We walked under trees stepping on the layer of pine needles that blanketed the trail. Off to the left the mountain dropped rapidly. We had been surprised when we read there were rattlesnakes here. It was a sunny day, so we kept an eyes open. We could look down to the tops of trees now and see the valley slither away a little below us. We could see the top of the peak ahead, and we were glad since we had not brought much water. We planned to sit on top and have a little lunch and drink the water we had before we strolled back down.

But when we approached what seemed to be the top, we saw that it wasn't. There was more mountain above it where the trees began to thin.

"What the fuck," complained Vladi. "Let's sit down and drink some water. It's getting hot.'

I didn't say anything. I was beat and disappointed, too. We were flatlanders. I'd never climbed like this before and had not known what to expect. But sitting now with our backs leaned against a big boulder looking out over the distant hills, we were seeing something we could never see at home.

"Look at that, man," I said, sweeping my arm across the horizon. "That's something."

Vladi didn't say anything for a minute. Then suddenly he said, "Let's eat." So I reached into the little backpack I'd been carrying and got out two sandwiches. Vladi poured some water out of an old army canteen. When I bit into my sandwich, the peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth. I was having trouble making enough saliva to get it down.

"Maybe we should have made another kind of sandwich," I said. Vladi kept chewing.

When the sandwiches were gone, we sat still. I leaned back and closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the breeze blowing through the branches and to the song birds that called out from time to time. It seemed as if I were dreaming it or as if I were hypnotized. I just hung there in between in that place where the outside world joins the world within, floating in and out, up and down.

I woke when Vladi said, "Let's go. Let's climb this thing now." And so I roused myself back to life and stood on legs that already felt beat. The climbing was harder now after the rest. The trail became steeper and the trail broke into full sun. There were fewer trees and more shrubs and rock. I could feel the sweat between my back and the little pack. My shirt was soaked.

"Hey, Vladi, is there any more water?"

"Nope," he said tersely.

"Man, my mouth is dry."

He didn't say anything. We were stupid, I knew now. We didn't know what we were doing. We had filled a canteen with water. I didn't remember ever being thirsty before. I was thirsty now and being thirsty was taking away all the pleasure of the climb. Now there was only the climbing.

"This has to be it," said Vladi pointing to the top of the peak. "We're almost there."

But the closer we got, the less the spot where Vladi had pointed looked like a peak. The trail snaked on around and up more scrabble. We weren't there yet. My legs began to shake.

"You want to rest a minute," I asked.

"Not really," Vladi spat. "I just want to get this over."

Up we went, up and up until I wasn't looking at anything other than my feet. Step. Step. I really wanted some water. The day was flawless, not a cloud to be seen. There was just the sky and the sun and the rocks below our feet.

And then we were there. We had given up thinking we were near a peak. We'd fooled ourselves too many times already. But now, there was nowhere else to go. We found a little spot where we could sit together. There, we dropped to the ground.

"We made it," I said. I lay back and stared at the blue blankness of the sky. Vladi had picked up a handful of rocks and was tossing them over the sloping side out of sight. And that is how we stayed for a long while. This is what it's like, I thought. Two men sitting on top of the world.