Porcupine Pie Pt 1

The ride up the 3 and a half miles was less muddy this time, as if peddling through this sand were much better. He finally built his own bike from scratch and was fighting the cognitive dissonance that nagged concerning the choice to go single speed on an MTB, and his legs quit halfway up every incline steeper than 15 degrees. Stupid aging hipster,getting old and feeling it a month after his fortieth revolution around the sun. He was arguably more in shape than the last ride he took up these “mountains” but ex-smoker's lung and a knee surgery were a screaming reminder of his drunken married 6 year bacchanalia. Of course the ride wasn't all bad, but he was never one to smell roses, except in retrospect. His friends considered him a constant downer and had not invited him to their parties in years.

He thought about the chickie in the ranger station. He thought about her eyes and how he avoided contact with them, lest she detect the lusty intent behind his morbid unbuttoning of her all-business ranger browns. He figured that she gets the hairy eyeball from every Cabela's flannel dad, dragging Chick-Jeans-mom and here Game-Boy Dallas and Bedazzled Madison through the tree tree tree empty motel tree tree Upper Peninsula of the Great State of Michigan. This made him feel typical and flaccid, and reminded him of a twenty-four month stint of twenties tail he sincerely regretted not savoring at the time when he was also twentyish.

He confirmed his reservation for the old warming cabin on the trail to Lake-of-the-Clouds, which he was too hung over to hike to last time he stayed there, and hoped she would SEE him as he described the tracks that he thought he saw in the mud the day before, on another trail which he imagined looked just like the paw of the stuffed cougar that guarded the door of her earth-tone visitor center. He noted with sadness that she did not look up from her database with admiration and awe of he who showed no fear and almost got a glimpse of the animal that the DNR claims no longer lives in these parts, gone the way of the wolverine, the placard below the unfortunate creature assures Madison and Dallas. She did not SEE him and she was unimpressed with his nonchalant bravery at finding the intestinal fortitude not to flee her beloved wilderness, top-speed, for the safety of his preppy apartment down in Grand Rapids, where the only predators are homeless drunken panhandlers and Christian Reformed politicians.

Now he climbed what he hoped was the last hill, pushing the muddy bike up the furrow, and wishing the gallon milk-jug was supplemented by the pint of Johnny Walker that whistled like a familiar forgiving slut to him at Kamper's Kozies Gas and Fudge, back in Nagauney. The cabin was there, finally and he pushed his overloaded bike past the fire ring and complimentary wood pile, designed to keep less courteous visitors from raping the standing dead wood in the picked over and oft visited Porcupine Mountains State Park and Recreation Area.