Ivy

Epilogue

I had zero regrets about quitting my job. It was a shitty job anyway. It wouldn’t be difficult to find another one just like it. I might not want to tell them the reason for abruptly quitting my employment at the home improvement store, even though going up north to spend the weekend with a hot and horny minotauress was a perfectly cromulent reason.

I could claim a family emergency came up, the manager wouldn’t let me go deal with it . . . or a car accident, or I could not mention why I’d quit; it wasn’t like most of the places I was going to apply would care anyway. Minimum-wage jobs demanded a steady stream of warm bodies to grind down.

Applebees needed a busboy, and by Tuesday morning, I was clean-shaven, given a crash course in the intricacies of bussing tables, and by Tuesday evening I understood why the previous busboy had decided to quit.

I took it with all the aplomb I could manage. I still had memories of the weekend to keep my spirits up.

I also had lots of time for internal reflection, because while I needed to keep a placid smile on my face as I cleared tables, customers hardly ever interacted with me. Why would they? I was beneath them.

By Friday, I was hoping against hope that my phone would ring, that I could tell my new manager to bus his own damn tables, but it didn’t. Ivy didn’t save me.

Throughout the lunch rush on Saturday, I wondered if she’d found a new cart boy to dig post holes and mix cement, if she was teaching a new cart boy to hunt.

Had they laid together in the clearing and looked at the stars?

•••

I could fantasize getting in my car and heading up to her cabin. I still remembered the way—almost remembered; I’d had to check Google Maps because I was distracted when she took the exit. After that it was easy, a couple of turns and I didn’t think I’d been so distracted that I’d miss them.

My car wasn’t built for a fire access road, but as long as it hadn’t rained I thought it would make it. And she kept her gate unlocked . . . and she had a sign that said ‘Fuck Around and Find Out.’

Ivy wasn't going to call me again.

I started my second week of bussing and I thought about the woods and solitude.

I thought about the wilderness, the fact that nature didn’t care, the fine line of survival. In Applebees it was clean plates and prompt service and an appropriate amount of obsequiousness; in the woods that didn’t matter at all. The burdock stuck its burrs to whatever it could, leeches attached themselves to anything with blood, and maybe that thing with blood would decide to eat the leech.

I thought that Ivy had tried to save me, and I’d refused to grab the line she’d offered. I’d been given an opportunity to do something different, and I’d fallen back into the same old ways.

What could I do? I didn’t have a cabin, I didn’t have land up North.

•••

Bussing wasn’t a job for me, but there were lots of other jobs available if I was willing to sacrifice some of my dignity to The Man. I was making enough to keep my head above water, and I had mornings free to pursue other job opportunities as they came up. Meijer was hiring associates and I put in an application and a few weeks later I had a new job unloading semi trailers.

Not only was it a wage improvement, but I didn’t have to deal with self-important Karens any more.

I wondered how long any of them would last in the wilderness, especially stripped of their clothes and any veneer of civil society. How many of them would be willing to deal with a leech without complaining to the swamp manager?

Ivy didn’t call, and deep down I hadn’t expected her to. She had entered my number into her cell phone, although there was every chance she’d deleted it as soon as she got home.

I could still hope that she’d kept it for the next time she needed someone to dig post-holes for her.

And I would have.

Even without the promise of sex, I would have. To be in the woods again, naked and free—that would be ideal, that was a dream to keep, a hope for the future, even if my paychecks and bank balance said the best I could hope for was a couple days at a state park.

•••

I didn’t have camping gear, and even with an employee discount I would have bankrupted myself buying all I needed at Meijer.

No, all I’d once thought I needed. I’d learned that I could leave all the trappings of civilization behind, that I didn’t need a Coleman lantern and a dining fly and a Thermarest and a fancy sleeping bag.

How much did I really need?

Some food—including a can of beef stew for old time’s sake—and some blankets. I got a recreation passport, paid a few dollars for a campsite, and slept in the back seat of my car. It wasn’t the same without Ivy; it was cold and I had to keep my clothes on.

I hiked the trails, wider and tamer than the game trails on her property. There were no swamps to cross, no tall growths to push through, but it brought me back. I saw the forest with new eyes, and I took off my shoes and socks and walked the trail barefoot and studied the flora and the fauna.

My car didn’t make for a comfortable tent, and as I drove back Sunday night my neck and back hurt, I reeked of sweat and woodsmoke and I regretted knowing that I would have to shower in the morning before my next shift, that I’d have to lose that connection with nature, at least for a time.

•••

That night, before going to bed, I applied for a job as a park ranger.