Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [87]
The cell phone was passed around, and with each family member I spoke to, I felt a little more guilty for not being there.
The last person I talked with was my granddad.
The first thing he said was, “I love you, and I am so proud of you.” He continued, “You just keep hiking. I love the outdoors, and out of all my grandchildren, I think you’re most like me in that way.”
I was stunned. I’d never known my granddad felt that way. I mean, I knew he loved the outdoors, but I thought it was the Cabela’s type of outdoors—hunting, fishing, and beef jerky. I had never realized that he saw a connection between my time in the woods and his love of outdoor sports.
After I hung up the phone, I no longer felt sad that I had missed my granddad’s party. I knew I was where he wanted me to be.
Raptor and I spent the remainder of the evening eating pizza and talking in our cell at the jailhouse. It was like having a slumber party with a fifty-seven-year-old man.
The more I found out about Raptor, the more I liked him. I learned that he had worked in a factory for thirty years, and that he was an avid cyclist, which is probably what made him such a strong hiker. But my favorite story he told me that evening was about running off and eloping.
“So you really did it?” I asked. “You just went and got married without telling anyone?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Well, I knew that I loved her and wanted to marry her. It’s like the trail. I hear a lot of people say they want to hike the Appalachian Trail, but they never do it. When I want something, I’m gonna do it. I love my wife, and marrying her was the best decision I ever made.”
“So was the trail a good decision too?”
“Ha. We’ll have to wait and see, but I think so.”
At that point we heard a door slam, followed by heavy footsteps descending the stairs.
A short, agitated older man entered the room, turned on the lights, and looked at Raptor and me. Instead of introducing himself to us, he started talking to himself.
He walked over to an empty bunk, threw down his pack, and rummaged through it for his sleeping bag. Once he was situated, he stopped talking to himself and started asking us rapid-fire questions.
“When did you two leave Georgia? Are you hiking together or separately? Who’s the better hiker? How many miles do you average per day?”
Raptor and I looked at each other in disbelief. It was like this man was playing some obnoxious trail version of Twenty Questions. Most of the time, he didn’t even wait for a response before asking the next question.
Eventually, we learned that this man’s name was Neon, which was appropriate, considering he was like an irritated blinking light that screamed incessantly for attention. He had chosen a bunk near Raptor and eventually focused his interrogation on my friend. Since they were close in age, Neon probably viewed Raptor as his primary competition. I pulled out the earplugs that Raptor had given me to block out his snoring and placed them in my ears. Then I pulled my sleeping bag over my head and tried to fall asleep. I didn’t feel obligated to say good night or offer an explanation for going to bed early. At this point, I felt like Pennsylvania owed me an explanation.
The next morning, I awoke to Neon’s boots stomping past my bed. Then I heard him curse at the light switch as he flipped it on. I stayed motionless in my bunk, pretending to be asleep. But I did stealthily remove my earplugs so I could better understand Neon’s rants. Apparently, he had been woken up by Raptor’s snoring, and since Neon couldn’t sleep, he decided that we shouldn’t be able to rest either. He complained out loud to himself about his poor night’s sleep, while at the same time stuffing a large pizza into a one gallon Ziploc bag. He had brought the pizza with him to the jail cell the night before but hadn’t eaten any of it. This morning, he picked up whatever would fit in his hands and mashed it into the bag, showing no respect for the integrity of individual slices. After he secured the bag, he licked the sauce off his fingers, packed up his gear, and