Next: Lizard Man | TOC

Sheer chance, or was it fate, landed Colin in Golden. If he hadn’t dallied in Revelstoke longer than expected, and been so tired and troubled by his revelations of the night before, and wary of the stringent enforcement of boondocking bans in Banff National Park, he might have driven straight on to Lake Louise or even Banff itself. But it was late, and he was tired and wary. So he followed the welcome sign pointing into Golden, amazed how flat the landscape was, and how arrow-straight the rail lines and roads were, looking northwest and southeast from the overpass that looped into town.

Flatter than a prairie, he judged. He would learn later that this narrow plain was a segment of the Rocky Mountain Trench, which had been formed ‘millions of years ago by tectonic forces that stretched and dropped large blocks of the earth’s crust between mountain ranges’, the Rockies to the east and the Purcells to the west. They were making for a spot he’d scoped out online called Reflection Lake, which he figured would be safe for boondocking.

Reflection as in: The mountains and the sky mirrored on the surface of the still waters. Or as in: Colin gets to brood over the mysteries of life as they’ve been unfolding—or perhaps I should say, uncrumpling—over the last few days? Hermes jibed.

“Ha, ha,” Colin groused, annoyed with Hermes’ chirpiness. He wasn’t in the mood for humour, especially not Hermes’ probing schtick. The weight of his own mortality sat on his shoulders like a lead-lined coat. The pull of gravity had intensified, it seemed, so that even his soul was affected. In fact, his sluggishness and inertia could be entirely attributed to sinking spirits.

Depression? Hermes suggested.

Clinical, Colin guessed.

Hey! Just cause you’ve had a bad day doesn’t mean you’re going down with the ship, man. Find your bootstraps and pull yourself out of this whirlpool.

Good advice, Colin thought. But sort of like telling a guy crawling through a parched desert toward a blazing horizon that hydration and proper diet are ‘necessary for good health and bodily function’.

He mustered enough energy to prepare a light, tasteless supper; strolled to the shore of Reflection Lake, where an observation shelter had been built; decided not to wrestle one of the kayaks down from the roof racks and go for a paddle because the shore was clogged with reeds on his side, and bordered by Highway 95 on the other; wondered for a few minutes what the hell he was doing there; then folded down the bench seats and table in the Rialta and made up his bed to sleep, perchance to dream.

~~~

At first, he thought it might have been a raccoon. He’d awakened to Hermes’ soft growling, then heard the scrabbling of a creature, just outside, on the driver’s side of the Rialta. Bear? His gut clenched, and a tourniquet of fear quickened his breathing. Cougar? No, he figured. Cougars pad through their environments on soft, silent paws.

Human! Hermes declared, sniffing at the air streaming in through the Rialta’s louvred window and around its concealing, pull-down blind.

Hermes’ growl intensified.

“No!” Colin shushed.

A beam of light illuminated the window’s blind for a second, then pointed away, moving toward the front of the RV. Cops! Colin thought. They’re going to kick us out.

That theory was busted by the unmistakable hiss of an aerosol canister coming from the direction the light had pointed. They’re spray painting something onto the side of the Rialta!

Tag, you’re it!

Not funny, Colin chided, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and slipping his feet into his Crocs.

The hissing stopped.

Colin froze.

Quiet! he ordered Hermes. Sit! Stay!

After a few seconds, the spraying resumed. Colin crept down the aisle, cautiously unlocked the Rialta’s door, then levered it open, grabbing a flashlight from the shelf above the fridge as he carefully exited, lowering himself onto the ground. He paused. Listened. Snuck around the front of the Rialta and peered down the driver’s side.

He could just make out the silhouette of a figure dressed in black. The tagger worked quickly, his spayed strokes and slashes etched with the speed and confidence of a signature inside the perimeter of his headlamp’s beam. An e-bike was propped on its stand behind him.

“Hey!” Colin yelled, switching on his flashlight and blinding the intruder, pointing its dazzling cone at his face. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Startled, the youth froze for a second, then charged, brandishing his aerosol can as if it were pepper spray. Colin retreated, stumbling backwards and falling. His assailant hurled the canister at him, then turned and fled, just as Hermes rounded the Rialta, growling and barking like a banshee. He latched on to the tagger’s leg and shook furiously, but had to let go as his quarry accelerated on his bike, kicking and dragging Hermes out of the parking lot, onto the road.

“Hermes! Come!” Colin shouted after him. “Come!”

Reluctantly, defeated, Hermes skulked back to the camper, sitting dejectedly at Colin’s feet, the two of them studying the freshly painted graffiti on the side of their Rialta, words posted above a hurried representation of a swastika…

14/88
We Are
Watching 

…it proclaimed.

What the fuck does that mean? Colin asked.

Consult Dr. Google, Hermes suggested.

‘The number 1488 is a hate symbol and numeric code used by neo-Nazis and white supremacists to signal their ideology,’ the Google lookup said.

‘14 stands for the Fourteen Words Slogan: We must secure the existence of our people and the future of white children. This phrase was coined by David Eden Lane, a member of a white supremacist terrorist group.

‘88: Stands for Heil Hitler. The letter H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, making 88.’

Colin couldn’t sleep after the confrontation. Not with the cryptic slogan and swastika inscribed on the side of the Rialta.

“So what do you suppose the ‘We are watching’ line means?” he asked Hermes.

Dunno. Could mean they’re watching for enemies.

Or perhaps for opportunities?

Maybe for a sign?

Such as?

Time to rise up and take control. ‘Remigrate’ the lesser beings that are taking over our country and diluting its racial purity?

Why here? Why now? Why on the shell of our Rialta, parked in the middle of nowhere… I mean, really, neo-Nazi activists in Golden tagging boondocked RVs. Does that make any sense?

Hermes didn’t answer, but Colin waited expectantly for the thought formulating in his companion’s canine brain to emerge.

Remember the way Jayclyn reacted when you pointed your mobile in her direction?

Yeah. So?

You said yourself that she might be on the run.

Okay?

Know the saying, ‘You can run, but you can’t hide’?

Colin nodded.

That’s never been truer than today.

“Huh?”

There’s all kinds of tech out there for tracking targets or suspects. Facial and voice recognition. They can ever zero in on the way a person walks, and who knows what all else they can track us with. That’s classified as ‘top secret’?

“So what are you saying, Hermie?” Colin demanded.

Not saying anything, except that kind of tech isn’t likely to be found in your typical basement hacker’s or teen blackshirt’s toolkit, right? It’s the kind of eyes, ears, and nose that’s the proprietary technology of big corporations and senior levels of government, along with the AI muscle they are developing to sift mountains of digital data and pick out grains of sand.

“Connect the fucking dots for me!” Colin groaned.

If Jay’s on the run, my guess is she’s trying to hide from the pervasive eyes, ears, and noses of the omniscient powers that be.

Colin stared at his companion in disbelief.

Special delivery snail mail, man? In the age of mobile phones, texts, emails? Go figure, Hermes persisted.

“What’s that got to do with an alt-right goose-stepper spray painting his sick graffiti on the side of my camper?”

Remember January 6, 2021?

“Huh?”

You don’t think there are ‘unofficial’ links between right-wing governments and alt-right activists?

“Oh! Come on, man! You’re not suggesting this fucked-up kid was sicced on us by some government edict, surely?”

Is your cell phone switched on?”

Hermes stared at Colin without blinking. Maybe you want to switch it off… Just as a precaution.

By imperceptible degrees the sun rose, its incandescence diffused through the Rialta’s blinds and windshield. Colin had folded the bed up and pulled out the table between the benches at the RV’s back window. He lifted the blinds, letting the daylight in.

I should feel like shit, he thought.

But he didn’t. He felt… Rejuvenated! As if the adversities he faced—mourning Cynthia, missing Jayclyn, confronted by the obstinate insanity of naziism—had activated a resilient, determined, courageous streak in him. To surrender would be a betrayal. For Michael and Gloria and the grandkids, Jayclyn, Hermes, and the memory of Cynthia, he had to…

Buck up! Hermes suggested.

We’ve got to go into town.

What for?

I’m not driving anywhere with that fascist obscenity painted on the side of my van. I need to find a hardware store and get a spray canister of white paint. Besides, I want to see the town.

If you’re not driving, how are we going to get there?

I’ll cycle in.

What about me?

Colin sighed and gave Hermes a consoling look. “Well,” he said. “You can either stay here and snooze until I get back, or come with me in the…”

Please no! Hermes begged…

“…in the doggie backpack.”

Nooo! Hermes wailed. I can keep up with you. I’ll run behind. Won’t deviate for anything, not to sniff, not to piss, not for anything!

“Down Highway 95? In morning traffic? Not a chance, Hermes. Even if you didn’t get run over, I’ll be the target of universal condemnation. I can’t take that chance.”

What, of me getting squished, or of you getting a few dirty looks?

Ignoring the jab, Colin went to fetch his bicycle off the Rialta’s back bumper rack, and the doggie backpack from the rear compartment. Hermes put up a bit of a struggle being coaxed into the backpack, stiffening his legs so that Colin had to use more force than he liked. His resistance was mostly bluff, though. He even growled when the drawstrings were pulled tight, narrowing the doggie backpack’s opening around his neck, his head sticking out of it like a groundhog’s. What? Are you trying to strangle me?” he complained. But by the time they set out for Golden’s downtown, he’d resigned himself to his mode of transit.

They pedalled five kilometres from Reflection Lake between forested embankments, past rail yards, commercial and industrial zones, and through suburban neighbourhoods. Colin spotted a Rona hardware store en route but decided they should play tourist for a while, have a look round before heading back to their boondock. He could buy the paint on their return trip, cover up the offensive graffiti, and still have plenty of time to make Calgary before dinner.

“Wha’d’ya say, Hermes?” he asked over his shoulder.

Lemme out’a here!

Soon, man.

Life, Colin realized, approaching the bridge over the Kicking Horse River, is a non-stop reel of decision-making. Glimpse the wrong way, and you’ll miss an opportunity or get run over by a truck; choose the right course and opportunity unfolds like the petals of a flower—over and over again on new branches, a kaleidoscopic unfurling of wonders…

Oh! For god’s sake, puh-leeze stop with the grand cinematic entrance. You’re riding an old beater of a bike, into smallsville, a town marked by the tiniest dot on the map. This ain’t the Taj Mahal, and you’re not the Grand Poobah!

Colin had to pull over he was laughing so hard. He could feel Hermes smirking behind him.

Gotcha!

Got me good, Colin agreed.

But did I getcha better?

“Huh?”

Are you feeling better?

Yeah! A lot better, thank you, Colin said, realizing his had been a cathartic laugh.

A horn tooted behind them; Colin looked back and returned the smile of a woman, waiting to obey the green light on Golden’s main drag. He rolled his bike off the road onto the sidewalk, and looked round, resetting his bearings. They were at a signalled crosswalk; a path entered from the right, and continued to the left across the street, beyond a war memorial and the parking lot of Golden’s Town Hall.

You are about to be freed! he announced.

And what, may I ask, without being ungrateful, master, has provoked this generous act of belated mercy?

A path emerging from the unknown in the east, and reentering terra incognita in the west.

If it’s the realm of the unknown—revealed between the rising and setting of the sun—why go there? Surely you are a man whose leaps of faith are from one stepping stone to the next?

Sometimes the unknown is your best option, Colin answered.

And it was Hermes’ turn to laugh. It’s taken six-and-a-half decades for you to realize that?

Closer to seven, but who’s counting?

Hermes shrugged, rolling his eyes heavenward; Colin punched the button to activate the crosswalk’s stoplight; then they took their first steps toward the unmarked trail.

~~~

To: CynthiaPetersonArtist@gmail.com
Subject: Day 10 on Rialta Road – Golden Breakfast
From: Call-In-P-Terson@gmail.com

Hello, My Love,

I can’t blame the chef for the quality of my meal. Or the weatherman for my dampened spirits, or the mapmaker for my distorted worldview. Hermes and I pedalled into Golden this morning—well, I did the pedalling; he was, literally, on my back the whole way, offering his canine commentary. For a while, he roused me from my depressed mood, and we actually shared some laughs, but I’ve got a slow, psychic leak, and have to pump myself up repeatedly before I go completely flat.

Golden is a perfect town if you like cycling. I haven’t yet found a hill within the city limits much bigger than a speed bump, and yet it is encircled by mountains in every direction. A citizen of Victoria, this topography confuses me. I find the streets too long, straight, and wide, and the mountains too far away. And I miss the ocean. It’s as if my version of a cityscape has been stretched taut over a gigantic drumhead, flattening everything except the distant mountains, and letting the ‘sea-nery’, as we’ve so cleverly dubbed it, spill over the edge.

Every town has its charms, though, and I should be delighted, sitting here at an outdoor table on the patio of the Golden Bakery & Deli in Golden’s downtown. I know my latte has been perfectly brewed, and my breakfast scone is delicious, and the sun is shining down brightly on the deli’s patio tables, and the Kicking Horse River is churning by intriguingly, and the wonderfully patterned feature walkway that runs beside it invites me to doddle along with Hermes. But if I was asked to give this place and time an honest review, it would be a dreary, glum report. Because that’s the state of mind I’m in.

You have taught me that flavour isn’t simply an attribute of gourmet cooking; it’s an essence extracted from the meal by a connoisseur’s mind, tongue, and throat. The same orange, tasted by a culinary dullard, will merely be food; the epicure savours the texture, sweetness, and coolness of the fruit as it activates his taste buds. “There’s a difference between ‘eating’ food and ‘experiencing it’,” I hear you saying. “Nutrition has spiritual as well as physical dimension.”

Even as I recite this mantra over my morning meal, love, I am painfully aware of my inability to live up to it, and feel saddened that I’m failing. I bought Hermes a chocolate doughnut, which I cut up and put on a paper plate; his gusto and tail wagging will have to suffice for the two of us.

Why am I being such a downer?

The dreary chronicle of my days was depressed even farther last night by a deeply disturbing incident. Under the cloak of darkness—in every sense of that phrase—an alt-right vandal sprayed racist, neo-Nazi graffiti onto the side of our Rialta. Why he chose us as a billboard for his sick message, I can’t say. Perhaps he figured a moving display, rather than a message degrading the precincts of a brick wall in an obscure back alley, would spread his contagion farther afield. I don’t care to fathom the workings of a white supremacist’s actions; the attempt at thinking like one of them sickens me, sullies my spirit.

But I do try to understand their motives and the societal circumstances that have led to the rise of far-right passions. To simply write them off as lunatics and thugs is to ignore the fire burning in our basement. And to attack them intellectually or physically is to give them proof of their claimed legitimacy as a righteous cause battling the oppressive forces of a degenerate, evil society. They are hero worshipers, and need an enemy as the target of their noble ambitions. And the bigger their antagonist, the better, because gladiators look stupid and pathetic in fields of roses.

As a ‘woke’ person, I have to do my best to understand my perceived enemy. What has roused the fury of the MAGA faithful? What has been inflicted on supremacist white males in particular that has enraged and incited them to violent protest?… I was going to say ‘against their own societies’, but clearly they do not consider themselves part of the existing order. They have been alienated by the nations of their birth, and that is the crux of the matter.

Uncomfortable as the exercise will be, I have to see the world through the glaring eyeballs of a radical right-wing activist, and feel the torment and anger that would drive me to wave a Nazi flag and rewrite history so I can justify the existence of one of the most authoritarian, genocidal states to ever have ruled on earth by recasting Hitler as a truly great leader.

Do you think I’m capable of such a daring empathetic feat, dearest? Of transforming myself from the exceptionally intelligent, sensitive, funny, loving mate I am into a monster-worshipping, tattooed, gun-wielding, Molotov-cocktail-throwing  terrorist? Whatever your answer, I think you will be underestimating my chameleon talents!

I have to end this letter, love. Hermes and I have to pedal back to Reflection Lake, the place we boondocked, and I have to pick up a canister of white spray paint along the way so we can obliterate the racist graffiti spewed onto the side of our Rialta.

Missing You
Always.
Love, Colin

Next: Lizard Man | TOC