8
Breakfast beams urged the hillside back to life, stragglers of winter clung to the shadows, the birds sung a story as a pair of chipmunks played tag across the tops of the ancient landscape.
Miles nestled in his cocoon for as long as he could stand, he hadn’t slept like that in any recallable memory and woke with an undeterrable peace washed about him, not the usual gnawing of self-depreciation, but eventually the morning sun forced him from the greenhouse and into the light.
Timpsileh swung by for a campsite inspection before inviting herself to the ongoing game of tag. Spaz looked on from the fire he had reincarnated, as a single serve wake-up call percolated back into darkness.
“Coffee?” he offered.
“That obvious, huh?”
Though Miles felt surprisingly energized as the clarity of the world ran through him. No single serve byproducts at this java shop, didn’t even register as an option with the convenience of plastic world so far removed, but why was the obvious solution so unknown to the servants of civility who weren’t restricted to a single back’s worth of baggage?
“Lemme see your cup. Hope you like it cowboy style, strong and gritty, it’s the only way this thing’ll make it.”
“Sounds perfect,” Miles esspressed as he watched Annie pebble hop her way up the hill, pausing on a precariously wobbled rocker to wiggle out of the dreamworld and stretch her arms to the sun.
“Hihani wasté brothers, good morning to you, good morning sun, good morning trees, good morning you big beautiful boulders.”
She gave Spaz a squeeze as his whisper echoed hihani, Timps insisted she was next, and Miles got his very own side hug and confirmation of warm blooded alertness.
“D’ya sleep alright out in the big bad scary wilderness all alone?”
He wondered if there were any other options available, but landed on, “So good. Like the ground hugged me in a way no sleep number could replicate. And then I woke from it with no blaring alarm clock to jerk me from tranquility. I feel like I’m still living a dream.”
“Well that’s ‘cause you are, love. This is it. This is what it’s all about. They want to try to convince you that buttons and clocks are the real world, work for the weekend and all that, but when you get to be a part of all this, who even cares what day of the week it is?”
“Plus it’s scientific bro, your body acclimates to the vibration of the planet, it’s like an actual frequency you can measure with buttons and clocks and stuff, down there at like eight hertz or something like that.”
Annie twirled around and exclaimed, “The Earth is alive. The Earth is alive and she is singing to us. Can’t you hear her?”
Miles never wanted anything more. He wanted to hear the world she belonged to. He wanted to belong to it too. He could hear the birds whistling, and the wind rolling through the trees, the crackle of the fire, but there must be something more to have enwrapped such a euphoric bubble of wonder.
“You don’t even have to hear it,” reassured Spaz. “It’s something you can just feel, and even if you don’t, it can feel you.”
“And it’ll fix ya right up,” she promised. “But...” she dragged on. “Whadya think a girl’d have to do to for her to get one of them there fancy coopachinos off of ya?”
“Why dear,” Spaz played along. “You’d simply have to pay the standard premium of any fine mountaintop establishment such as this.”
Miles considered where the capitalistic satire might be heading, probably deep into the twisted tongues of all things antiestablishmentarianism.
“Anything kind sir,” she acquiesced.
“You must tell us a joke. And it had better be a good one, for if you fail to satisfy the crowds with laughter, there will be mutiny.”
Miles was already smiling, they all were, she was sure to make short work of the task at hand.
“Um... Okay, I got one. What did the sandwich say to the hillbilly?”
Nothing.
“Jeez man, you’re as inbred as I am. Get it? In bread, ‘cause he’s a sandwich.”
Mutiny was held off for another day.
“And I can say that, because I’m a hillbilly, used to be anyway, not really sure what they’d call me nowadays.”
“They’d call a nuthouse, is who they’d call,” retorted Spaz. “On all of us. They sideline anyone they don’t understand, so that it’s easier to pretend that they understand anything at all. You see, the key to true understanding, is to understand that you don’t have to understand, then you’re free to experience the great unknown without the burden of unquestioned answers. Understand?”
Miles confirmed with a chuckle and an, “Understood.”
Freshly perked and ready for action, she poured out, “What a glorious day. Ooh, I love you sun. Alright then, let’s do something already. Where in tarnation is Cap?”
“Alright, alright, alright,” the RV grumbled, apparently within earshot of the morning coffee clutch. “I hear you out there. I’m awake. Almost. These old models are built to last, but they take a little while to warm up.”
The rig bumped and moaned and rocked a bit, all from one end to the other. “Ooh, ooh, man it’s chilly in here, almost ready, brrr...”
And out popped Cap from a disheveled hibernation, expecting iced coffee, but found himself enveloped by the spicy starshine of New Mexican mocha.
“Man, it feels awesome out here, gotta love the banana belt, why did I wait so long to come out here before? This weather’s great. It’s still cold as snowballs in the truck.”
“Yep, sounds about right,” Spaz noted. “When you live out with the Earth, it’s only natural to wake with the sun’s promise of a new beginning. But even a simple shell like you’ve got, starts to disconnect you from that, and that’s not even counting the four rubber insulators between you and the Earth. It offers comfort and security and protection from the elements, but when you live an unsheltered way of life, those elements become a part of you, and you of them. It becomes easy to appreciate any storm as just another flavor of life, while always knowing that the dawn will come to renew your spirit once again. As long as you haven’t shut it out anyway.”
“That’s why I can’t stand it when someone says it’s ‘nasty’ out, or the weather salesmen who predict just enough bad and terrible things to flood the doors of their corporate sponsors. The rain is amazing, and the snow, and the cold windy nights, and the mud puddles, and even the ice covered limbs hanging perilously close to the road. It’s only a burden if you have to leave your nuclear powered winter warmth, to warm up your petro powered mobile warmth, to drive across town to some job you hate, so that you can pay the power bill on another week’s worth of forecasted outages.”
“Okay, I hear ya, maybe I’ll pull my mattress out here and rough it with you guys one of these nights, but don’t think I’ve forgotten about the winter you spent in the Dakotas. You’re used to this stuff. And did I hear something about coffee?”
Spaz filled Cap’s dancing bear ceramic, “That’s true, but you acclimate back pretty quick. Out there we lived right in the middle of it all, ice and snow and wind, our circulation got thick with red blood cells, and by the end I wasn’t even building a fire in my tipi anymore.”
“You stayed in a tipi out there?” Miles asked. “Through all of that?”
“Yeah man, and some other structures too. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy, but it built some characters, that’s for sure.”
“Probably coulda used a few dirthouses out there, huh?” suggested Cap.
“Like you wouldn’t believe. From what I’ve read, I think they’d be a great fit, windproof and insulated, localized building materials, round like a tipi, probably couldn’t stop the bulldozers either though.”
A solemn moment passed as those two remembered the February eviction, and these two tried to imagine the unimaginable, until Cap broke the silence with, “No, but I think they might be bulletproof.”
“Here’s hoping we don’t find out,” she hopped off the rock she’d been balanced on. “But I’d be down to build one anyway, that is if you boys would be into that sort of thing.”
Her motivated speech was enough to move the party to the hay bale of bags. She held one up as if suggesting the deal behind door number two, and in her best announcer voice she read the inscription off the misbranded floor model.
“Big Usty’s Feed and Seed Emporium. Nourishing the world one bag at a time.”
She seemed amused by the agri-marketing jargon, or perhaps it was the illustration of a happy little farm. “More like ‘Fueling the destruction of nature’s functioning food systems as we string everyone out on our made up Monsanto bullshit.’ Oops, pardon me, I’m trying to get better about not swearing all the time. Poor vocabulary and all that.”
“No worries on that one dear, you already know I have the vocabulary of a sailor,” again Cap with the possible pirate backstory. “Musta said Dusty, or Rusty, or something like that.”
“Or Busty,” she chortled. “Welcome to Big Busty’s house of substandard food particles, almost good enough to sustain life in the cage. It’s got a nice ring to it, don’t ya think?”
Miles suggested submitting the newly designed logo, “Might even get rich and famous from it, they’d probably only pay us in chicken scratch though.”
“Oh Miles, I knew you were a keeper,” as she squeezed him another side hug of moral ambiguity. “Yep, definitely gonna have to keep you around, at least until the next new moon.”
She released her embrace with an extra nudge that he thought to convey something more than just friendship, but who could even interpret the nonsense language of free love celibate hippies?
Cap broke down the building procedure, which with its repetitive design was rather understandable, even to a novice layerman like Miles. They’d screen the sand and clay into a big pile of granulated Earth, though he somehow glossed over the part about all the picking and shoveling from its previously compacted form.
“Then we just gotta scoop that stuff into this here cement mixer, add a little water, and voila, one wheelbarrow load of premium dirt. Should make about three bags.”
Miles did the math and calculated a grossly underestimated ton of work.
“Gotta run the generator for that thing, wish we didn’t, but the solar’s just not enough to turn it.”
He had a big panel facing south, soaking in the energy of lengthening days, but it was only enough to power the clustered instruments of his techno-utopia.
“Gotta have tunes,” he clicked the remote start of his LCD soundsystem, Terrapin Station funneled through the rooftop speakers, “It’s kinda like the A-Team and Knight Rider had a baby.”
Miles thought it was more Ninja Turtle van if anything, and the two of them probably thought Power Rangers, but any good Dead show should be able to bridge the generation gap.
At least they looked a few years younger than Miles, but at times seemed quite a bit older. More matured. Experienced. Worldly.
“Well, might as well get started I guess, I can show you the rest as we get to it. Unless ya’ll want me to stir up sumpthin or other to chew on first.”
The consensus was to hold off on breakfast, ease into a few bags and see what it was all about, they’d probably be ready for a fast break from it soon enough anyway.
“Now we just put a few coffee can scoops into a bag, and do what we in the industry call diddling, now that’s an actual technical term, not a made up obscenity from some burnt out old man.”
He slung the bag onto his knee and wiggled his fingers into the corners, jamming the excess baggage up into itself. “That’ll make for good square corners where the bags meet, gonna be about the only square in this whole thing.”
The house, we’ll call it, was only going to be a hundred square feet or so, but there would hardly be a straight wall in the place. It was really more of a basic survival shelter, a first attempt at figuring it all out, a chance to work out the kinks while they stretched their backs. The flat rock floor had an abnormal kinda shape, which lent itself to an abnormally kinda shaped building. The longest wall convexed out to the southward view of a distant snow capped range, then another wall snaked its way around to the wooden form built to house the eventual doorway.
“Then we use this concrete tamper to really pack it in there.” Obviously homemade, a plungerstick with a tupperware shaped mass of cement attached, nails and barbed wire poking from the top of its connective tissue, a real rat stick for sure. “And then a few more scoops and we’re all done.”
“Yeah, just another 999 to go,” mused Spaz.
“Give or take. And then comes the actual building part.”
The bags would be packed in tight, end to end, each bottom holding shut the next bag’s top, from one side of the door to the other. Thirty something bags per layer, thirty something rows to the roof, one thirty-something trying to keep it up.
“And then we just tamp the piss out of ‘em.”
Each brick would start as a big puffy bag, eight inches thick, then they were compacted to within four inches of their life. Lots of tamping with a heavy concrete smasher. Lots. Easily the most grueling job of Earthbuilding.
By brunch they had the bags laid and by dinner it was locked in tight. They were solid slabs and would harden almost into rock as they dried, and unlike cob buildings, you don’t have to let these cure before you add another layer.
“Unlike cob buildings, you don’t have to let these cure before you add another layer,” Cap took it from there. “Alls we gotta do is roll out two strands of barbed wire across the top of each row, they call it a velcro strip, it sandwiches in-between to tie the whole thing together. That stuff’ll snag you too, gotta watch out.”
Miles had already known Cap long enough to assume that it wasn’t as simple as that.
“And it’s as simple as that,” Cap rebutted. “We’re just gonna go straight up with this one, then probably some kinda metal roof or something. So it should be pretty easy. I wanna start doing what they call corbeling, you just lay a big round layer and the next row gets shifted inward a few inches, until you wind your way up to a self-supported Earthen rooftop. It makes a rounded cone rocketship kinda shape, the water and wind roll right off of it, and you can even plant grass up its slope. It’ll be like an overgrown hobbit hideout or something.”
Miles couldn’t make himself consider the next building yet, his hands were already tingling with a tamp induced numbness that made for a clumsily loose cigarette. Spaz and Cap didn’t smoke, so he and Annie got to have their own exclusive club, a social sidebar familiar to anyone who’s ever stepped outside the box to light one.
“Think you could roll me one of those?” she requested.
“No promises,” he held up his first attempt and wavered his hands to express the loss of feeling among his frozen phalanges.
“Ha, me too, maybe I’ll try my own, see if I can manage something worse than yours.” She shared an elbow and a wink, and in the time it took him to pull a paper free, she had twisted one more flawless than a tailor-made. “Nope, still got it. C’mon, let’s go exploring while these squares square away some grub.”
“Hey, watch it sister,” Spaz fired from the makeshift kitchen. “I know you ain’t calling me no square.”
“No, never my love, you’re the roundest little ball of happiness I’ve ever known.”
It seemed to satisfy his artificial flavoring as he went back to the chopping block. They had a fun little back and forth, innocent jabs and made up tomfoolery, all with an undertone of deep mutual respect and love. Miles wanted that.
As they rock hopped down the hill she underbreathed, “He’s such a square,” and giggled the rest of the way to the most impressive stone overlook yet. They popped out of the piñon patch at the point where the hill transitioned from the gradual slope up top, to a steep drop-off into the valley floor. A large slab jutted out into the open space, revealing a much fuller view of the ridgelines all around, and a ribbon of thick fog snaking its way along the river below.
“Oh my freaking goodness,” she exclaimed. “This is absolutely gorgeous, and I can hear the water down there, I can almost feel it. I think that we may have found the official meeting place of the super best friend smokers’ lounge. Whadya think?”
He thought he liked the idea of having alone time with Annie, but conflicted about his sudden attachment to someone who was already attached. Could mutual celibacy possibly expand beyond the gray areas of convention?
“Sounds good to me,” he finally caved. “Is there gonna be a secret handshake or something?”
“For sure, we can work on that one later though.”
Miles looked forward to the day.
“I think I hear the dinner bell a calling. C’mon Timps,” the big white half husky flash was already on task. “Race ya,” she lured as she tore up the hill.
Timpsileh took the lead, bounding from rock to rock with Annie on her tail, she seemed to effortlessly flow through the obstacles with such finesse. He almost kept up, but without all the flash. F-plus.
“Oh you made it, good one,” she poked. “And Timpsileh reigns supreme, as always.”
She knelt down to give the excited pup a victory rubdown, both smiled a smile of ultimate content that made Miles want to try harder next time.
“You’re such a good girl, you know that?”
“She’s real chill and friendly, that one,” assessed Cap. Miles nodded in agreement, though unsure of the subject. “How long you had her?”
“Um, well, she’s not really ours, we’ve just been traveling with her for a bit.”
“Oh I get it,” spouted Cap. “You could never actually own another living being, she’s her own free spirit and all that, fucking hippies.”
“That’s for sure with this one, and all the rest too, but we’re just hanging out with her while our friend does some incognito water protecting. Timpsileh’s got a big loving family out there, and a bunch of friends, we’ll tag back up with them at some point.”
“Big responsibility, traveling with a dog.”
“Yep, taught us a lot, about ourselves, a lot of patience, and a sense of purpose to care for this creature caught in a mess of a world that we don’t even understand. Plus, she’s like so super awesome.”
“Hope she likes wild caught salmon, this chanterelle quinoa thing, and piñon nut salad, cause we cooked a whole helluva lot.”
“Oh Cap, you’re my hero, that all sounds so delicious. And wild.”
He earned himself a full-on front hug for that one.
“Eh, it was nothing special, just had this stuff lying around. Now let’s eat.”
“Deal, but let me and Miles dish it out, you big strong men are probably worn out from preparing such a beautiful meal.”
“Be my guest, and thank you very much, my dear.”
“And we’ll do the dishes.”
Miles knew which we she meant this time.
Spaz had gone to fetch their wooden bowls, and returned with an extra little saucer for Annie. She put a spoonful of each dish on the tiny plate, a pinch of tobacco, and woulda spilled a little coffee on it, if any had survived past dusk.
“It’s a spirit plate. An offering of gratitude for such abundance in life, a gift to the Earth and the ancestors of this land we’re tending. And it’s a little tasty surprise for the critters on the hill, because they’re just extensions of the Earth, like us. Ha, what if they like roasted piñons better, and start collecting them for us? We gotta get a chipmunk whisperer up here.”
“Alright sunshine,” Spaz moved things along. “You wanna sing us that pretty prayer song the little ones taught you? I bet we could pick it up.”
“Oh yeah, it’s so pretty, and just makes you feel nice. Thankful for food, and warmth, and life. And love.” She cleared her throat and painted the sky with grace.
“May all beings be fed, nourished, whole, healthy, happy,
loved, and in love, may the whole world be in love.”
Were they singing or praying? Miles didn’t know how to pray, or who to, but he could sing, well enough anyway. It felt good, she was right, he felt warm and thankful for where he was right now, for this moment, and he was pretty sure it made dinner taste even better than it smelled.