– Still Prone to Thinking Out Loud –
When the men returned, there was celebration. Everyone was safe. Tristin got a fire going and they pulled a pre-cooked spaghetti feast from one of the coolers on the raft. Todd cleared space on the table for a two-burner Coleman stove.
John and I did the grunt work; we cleaned up and looked for wood, which was easier said than done because ten thousand people had traveled the river that year and used all the easy wood. We might have to walk a long way from camp or up steep slopes where lazy tourists wouldn’t go. Most people scavenged the wood that had been carried by high water in spring and deposited along the river’s edge, so we searched the slopes above camp for dead trees to roll downhill. And that was part of it; part of the fun was wandering away from camp and away from the feeling that anyone else was around. There was no hurry, no urgency to the task.
Dinner Time
Todd brought his dinner over from the table to where everyone was sitting around the fire pan. The fancy blue beach chair didn’t sag when he sat on it. He smiled as he skooched in.
“Oh, that’s better.”
Then he settled back to enjoy his meal in the great outdoors. Steaming hot from the inside out… not like my freeze-dried trail food. It was a meal made at home by Tristin’s mom and packed for this trip. There was plenty; I put a big spoonful in my cup. Food tasted better outdoors and I savored every delicious bite.
The good grub whet my appetite, so I went to my Wicked Cutz stash for dessert. Every flavor of dried meat imaginable; turkey jerky, Teriyaki, my favorite sriracha bacon… not fake flavor but succulent bacon jerky. Lightweight with lots of fat and protein, it was the perfect trail food. Reaching in without looking, I selected a bag at random.
“Korean BBQ Beef. You guys want some?”
“Jerky?”
“Not just jerky. This stuff is made by a professional bodybuilder.”
I took a piece and passed the bag around for the rest of the guys to sample.
“Supposed to be some kind of connection?”
“Between body building and beef jerky?”
“Just wondered. Is it good?”
“This BBQ Beef is tasty but not tender. Kinda dry.”
“Like jerky…”
Nods of approval as everyone gnawed dry meat.
Thinking Out Loud
“Can you hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?”
Todd sat across from me and stopped chewing to listen harder. They all did; a sudden silence to search for the mystery sound.
“My teeth. Can you hear my teeth?”
..that’s what I was wondering because they sounded loud to me. They were only a couple years old but already my gums had receded and the dentures didn’t fit as well. The jerky was making them work hard and I could hear the clacking in my head.
Todd seemed delighted by the question.
“No, Taylor, I don’t think so.”
He glanced around the circle with a mischievous smile on his face. Tristin choked back a laugh and held his hand to his mouth to keep the food inside. Todd remained nonchalant, as if it was a normal question to ask around the campfire.
Of course, I was embarrassed. I hadn’t spent time talking with people in a very long time, and the valve between thinking inside my head and thinking out loud was evidently too crusty… it didn’t seal very well. When I went to town for groceries, I said ‘Hi’ to the lady at checkout and smiled at the girl who made fancy coffee at the drive-thru. If Tuggle the postman came by, we would talk a little bit. Apparently, though, I needed to exercise my buffer better.
Corrective Action
“That didn’t come out right,” I confessed.
“Came out crazy as hell.”
“What I was tryin’ to say is these teeth ain’t mine, Todd…”
“Well, whose teeth are they? Where’d you find them? Or did you carve them out of wood?”
Tristin choked on his food. His dad beat on his back. John’s cheeks turned red from laughing.
“They’re mine, goddamit. I bought ‘em but they’re fake. They’re dentures. And they don’t fit real well.”
It was too late to leave it at that, so I tried again to explain.
“When I got ‘em, I didn’t have much money and they kinda charge by the post. After they pull all your teeth, they screw these posts in to anchor your dentures. They use four on top and four on the bottom, but I only had money for two.”
“Fucking hilljack…”
Past being embarrassed, I opened up.
“And now they don’t fit as well. Especially on top. Can’t bite an apple, and they kinda rock and rub when I eat steak or jerky. I can hear the squeaking and clacking real clear and, when I was sitting with you guys, I wondered if you could hear it, too.”
It seemed a reasonable explanation.
“Well, no. Now that you explained it – now that I know what you mean – I can truthfully say ‘No, Pat, I can’t hear your teeth’.”
“Good. I didn’t want you to think I was weird or anything.”
Laughter blew the clouds away. It echoed, multiplied, bounced back off the mountains and bonded us.
(Excerpt from “Lost & Found” due for publication Spring 2024)