Hopper and I went on a hike together on Tuesday. After a long spell of wet and boring skies and what felt like a lifetime in the closet, the sun had finally come out. It was dry and bitter cold, but butch as they come, so we went for it. Times like these you gotta take what you can get.
Hopper brought the acid.
I brought coffee in a tall silver thermos with an etching of the moon on the silver cylinder for a more colorful description that puts the reader right there with us. I also brought an extra camping cup [insert description at final edit because right now all I remember is the feel of cold metal in my hand when I struck the peregrine falcon upside the head]. For Hopper.
We decided on Forest Park, which seemed like a great idea at the time. Upon our arrival we were hit with the in-your-face reminder that Forest Park is a forest full of pine trees that block out the sun and that it's always colder in the West Hills than SE Portland because it's in the hills and that's where wind is made when you don't have plains for it to come sweeping down like they have in Oklahoma.
We felt like a couple of idiots.
Hopper offered to fly us back into town, maybe try Tabor or something, but it was already almost noon and the sun sets at five and besides, we were closer to the roost downtown so Hopper could just head over when we were done here and do any extra editing on this sentence before he went to bed.
So we popped our tabs (just a half between the two of us, Hopper isn't into heroic doses and I had to drive home later) and trekked up the fire road to the Leif Erikson Trailhead. Once the drugs kicked in we realized that the story was dumb and that we had no idea how we were going to fit in the peregrine falcon incident what with all the bullshit epiphanies and multiple meanings of life we were coming up with that we wanted to cram into this super short blog on this super short hike on what turned out to be the Wildwood Trail and not Leif Erikson and were we lost and do you feel that?
I don't think we're in Oklahoma anymore, buddy.
It's hitting me hard and I'm thinking I probably shouldn't have done this on an empty stomach but I only woke up an hour ago. And it's cold, it's so fucking cold, Hopper, I've never felt cold like this before, it's like I AM the cold, like I am the elements, I am winter, I am February, I am god. I am death. Does death drink coffee? Maybe that will warm me up.
Are we past tense or present, Hopper, I can't remember. Don't answer that, just open the thermos with those prehensile toes of yours. I can't feel my thumbs.
Hopper wants or wanted some coffee, too, but the coffee was or still is too hot for a crow so we pour or poured some into the camp cup with the orcas printed on it [see I remembered and it was Sue Coleman art, too, that cultural appropriator of many talents].
As Hopper sips or sipped or was sipping even though we try to avoid past progressives, I gaze or goze or was looking or fuckmylife just stared up at the trees for chrissakes why is writing such a pain in the ass. They wriggle or wriggled (but not Wriggley, he's not here, just Hopper) in the frigid wind under the influence of drugs, flinging bits of themselves out into the forest to sound of twitters and cheeps and scoldings and the occasional gwah.
The bits fly or flew in all directions, sometimes into other trees, sometimes onto the ground. At one point everything decides to be present, and all the bits stop flinging and the ethereally low-pH chorus comes to a sudden halt, save for the piercing scream resonating from one sleek and fast chunk of forest hurtling towards us or am I just tripping?
Next thing we know we're back in past-tense. Hopper's head was deep inside the aluminum cup while he tripped out on the steam of the coffee and the sound of his slurps resonating off the mug's metallic walls. He never saw the falcon coming.
I took a wild guess that I wasn't tripping after all even tough I was and threw myself between Hopper and the predatory missile. Time gets all freaky on me though and so does my narrative. I find myself turning into you and realizing none of this has happened yet. (Heads up, you're going to feel a surge of wonder. Partially from the drugs, partially from the daily awe you experience being friends with all these loudmouthed black birds, and, if you're a dude, mostly from how easy it is to cross you legs and how uncomfortable it is to wear a bra holy shit how do women do it day in and day out and does this joke sound any less overplayed when used in the context of crows and acid trips?)
Ok, so you're going to wonder a lot of things. But you're also going to snap out of it when you discover that the peregrine falcon out-maneuvers you, you slow and clumsy land-plodding beast. You'll realize that this bastard is about to make coffeecake out of one of your best friends, who cares if he's a crow he's still your friend, and you'll instinctively reach out and grab him by one of his yellow knifeblade feet. Your hand will be all tore up like a junkie on a booze bender when there's no junk to be had (hey you used to be in a rock band, you've seen it all) but Hopper will pull his head out of the coffee cup and out of the path of the sharklike maw of the pint-sized predator just in time. You'll grab the coffee cup and lift it over your head. Hot coffee will run down the sleeve of your jacket and into your armpit but you won't notice 'til later. Instead you'll pause for a fraction of a second, just long enough to realize that bludgeoning an animal that is just trying to survive is not your thing no matter who he's trying to eat to maintain said survival. You'll set the cup down and give the bird of prey a firm shake and rattle off a slew of threats enough to scare any Vegas mobster into taking up a permanent residency in Antarctica, then fling him back into the sea of psychedelic tree bits from whence he came.
Weeks later when your hand is healed you and Hopper will laugh about this blog over lunch, about how bad the story was/is/will be, and about how fortunate the two of you are that Hopper is a handsome model and you are decent with the camera and that nobody in the Photography Lovers group reads these things except maybe Dan and Nine and Alt3r and Bob Ross and Emma and the Colonel and that Mister Lionface guy in Scotland and Brandt if he's still alive and Ginny if that IS her real name and Bulldog and...
fuck, Hopper, we're fucked, Hopper, we can't post this yet it still needs a shitload of editing.
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