Misc Stuff, Delacroix II

Got my wireless problems straightened out. First I’d like to thank David and Owen for the excellent suggestions. Turns out I was stymied by the sticker on the bottom of the wireless router. The MAC address ended in 2EA. I noticed the iBook was using a router that ended in 2E9. Changed the last digit in the repeater setup and the problem was solved.

I really wanted to put up another free iTunes code today (yep, I’ve begun cheating) cause it’s fun to see what songs other people use the code to buy. But I went to a Wal Mart Supercenter and all they had was diet pepsi with the yellow cap. Not a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I hate Wal Mart in general and Super Centers in particular but today I needed some food items AND a intellivision plug into your TV game set thing, you know for nostalgia. That’s a stunt you need a super center to pull off. Note: The games sucked way more than I remembered. The experience was a lot like stumbling over a box of Cookie Crisp, recalling that you loved the things and then actually eating them only to discover that your tastes no longer accomodate raw sugar crystals.

Game of the day:Marbles Fast, easy to play and very diverting.

TV pick: I am tempted to go with John Farr and recommend blowing up your TV, after all when is the last time you saw something of personal interest on the network news? It’s mostly watching bad things happen to other folks from the safety of your couch. On the other hand it’s March Madness and I love the first days of the NCAA tourney (particularly the upsets) so turn your set to CBS and enjoy.

Random bit of oddness: Abe Lincoln in a prison fight Well he could wrestle…

END OF BLOG, STOP READING NOW

You ever drop a barbel on your toe, see it smash the nail flat and think “Wow, that’s really gonna hurt” for a split second before the actual pain slams into your head and you start cursing? I feel like that right now.

No matter, here is the second installment of the Delacroix story. Apologies in advance. (For the first part go here)

Delacroix goes Fishing

Delacroix emerged from his house looking bloated. I wondered if too much inactivity had taken a toll, after all a 10 by 10 basement office doesn’t offer a lot of room for exercise. As he neared my car I realized that he hadn’t fallen into the same trap of sedentary living and Long John Silvers I had, rather he was wearing several layers of clothes. Wearing layers is generally a good idea when hiking but the temperature was hovering around 75, the top of the highest mountain might be thirty degrees colder but Delacroix was dressed for an Antarctic expedition. I chalked it up to an over engineered experiment by Delacroix.

Delacroix climbed into the car and immediately began talking:
“If you had tinted windows this wouldn’t be required”
I replied by noting I do have tinted windows for the rear seats
“Yes, of course. The light limiting feature is present but not satisfactory. It would be a breach of etiquette to ride in the rearward compartment.”
“Del” I said, “You can ride anywhere you want”
“Of course you say that… I suppose you actually believe it. However If I were to ride in the rear you would consider yourself a chauffer and harbor a deep resentment”
Delacroix is quite probably a genius but sometimes he blunders.
“Shit bitch” I replied, “I’m not going to think any less of you, you crazy moody bastard”
My comment received no response other than Delacroix hunching over as we traversed a particularly populated area.

For the next fifteen minutes I was stuck in the car with a silent madman. Finally the interstate on ramp appeared and was negotiated. As we merged onto the highway Delacroix sprang to life. He slid his outermost jacket off and tossed it behind the seat. He began jabbering:
“The open road, speed that frees. The tire rolls and saves the souls. Out here we are but organisms, the freedom of anonymity is the greatest freedom of all.”
Not sure what to say in response to this I gave a non-committal nod and flicked on the cruise control. The next thirty minutes were spent in listening to the tire hum interrupted only by Delacroix cracking the passenger window and taking deep breaths. Following the deep breaths he would usually declare some bit of trivia that made no sense. Something along the lines of “The rivers down” or “Bad year for Tobacco” I kept giving the same nod of nothing and decided to jack my end up to a sweet 39 grand.

The exit that led to the Smoky Mountains didn’t look intimidating, just another exit with neon gas station signs and a few sparkling fireworks advertisements. Delacroix was lightening up, as we turned onto the road that led to the Smokies he started fiddling with a sweater and seemed on the verge of saying something more meaningful than “Thick area for white tails” His mood changed quickly when I nearly locked the brakes to avoid running into a 2004 Lexus LX sitting at a dead stop. The gentle curve of the road, the trees and buildings had conspired to hide the fact that Highway 411 was little more than a parking lot. This was a predictable event during the fall months but very rare in the early spring. Delacroix reacted immediately and badly. He gave a short hoarse bark followed with a barely audible yet punctuated “It’s unanticipated! There were no indications!” He flailed for a few moments trying to reach the previously discarded jacket but his attempts were fruitless. As the realization that the jacket was too far away to be retrieved dawned on him he seemed to physically shrink in the seat. I actually felt a pang of pity, not only was Delacroix stuck in traffic the situation it’s self was a complete surprise. These were both very hard realities for Delacroix.

There was no choice but to idle and when I slid the gear shift into neutral Delacroix began to mumble. The mutterings weren’t coherent complete thoughts but odd snippets that may have shared a far-flung thread. “Apple blossom festival, printed in the paper” then a bizarrely juxtaposed “Chevy’s, Winnebago’s, mini vans, cholesterol level 212, 96% obesity” He would finish up each rant with a admonition: “Completely predictable, avoidable, avoidable, avoidable.” Much of it was completely unintelligible and occasionally I thought I heard soft sobs.

After Delacroix had mumbled, sobbed and reproached himself for five or ten minutes (a total of about 15 yards of forward progress) I decided a little conversation might alleviate some of his discomfort. Not knowing what to say I read one of the bumper stickers on the behemoth (odd that someone would drive a huge Lexus and plaster it with environmental slogans. Odd but common) directly in front of us and tried to make a joke:
“Hey, that bumper sticker says ‘Garbage Kills Bears’, don’t you think the bears are somewhat culpable? Geeze, no one makes the bears eat the garbage. I say garbage doesn’t kill bears, lazy bears kill bears”
I expected a chuckle, or a slight lifting of mood. What I got was wholly unexpected.
“No, garbage kills bears” Delacroix said softly. But he wasn’t done. “Garbage kills bears daily, garbage hates bears and bears love garbage. That’s the rub, the bear’s love is unrequited. It’s not the dependency on garbage that kills the bears, it’s the garbage.”
“I was just joking Del” was all I came up with.
“I suspect you are joking but you have hit upon a deeper truth. Heroine hates people, people love heroine. It’s the same for bears. A few rare people can actually use heroine and live productive lives, Dr John Hopkins for example, but for the average person heroine addiction is a death sentence. Perhaps not the death of the physical body but certainly the death of ambition. Garbage detests bears more than heroine despises humans”
“I’ve never seen a bear with a belt wrapped around it’s limb heating up a fried pie hoping to find it’s last uncollapsed vein” Honestly, hadn’t the anthropomorphization gone on long enough?
Though he still seemed small and agonized Delacroix nearly smiled. “I think you will reassessing that statement later”

Suddenly we were free of the traffic jam. There is a restaurant connected to an apple grove on this stretch of road and the slowdown was mostly due to an overworked, overweight sheriff letting car after car turn left. As we passed the restaurant I noted that most of the cars were Chevy’s or nondescript minivans. There was also a large contingent of Winnebago’s (I later learned that this was an official stop on some oddly wholesome Winnebago tour). I glimpsed the line stretching outside the restaurant, everyone seemed to be red faced and very fat. Delacroix said nothing.

15 minutes and ten miles later we were in the Smokies. Delacroix had his window fully open and began taking off layers of clothing faster than a stripper in an East St. Louis dive. I stared out of the windshield and watched the Little River slosh it’s way around boulders and run over smaller rocks. The clear water looked inviting and I cursed myself for leaving the fly rod hanging on the wall. Delacroix was grinning and breathing deeply, he seemed to be truly enjoying the olfactory assault provided by the fauna. This time even my urban-dulled nose could detect the change in odors: A few miles earlier the air that lingered in the car reeked of the usual tourist trap smells, cotton candy, fast food and sunburn ointments. Now the smell was stronger but infinitely more pleasing. I could smell the crisp water mingled with the abundant resinous pines, while leaves turning to earth played a soft base to the more potent aromas.

Delacroix was navigating in earnest by this point, telling me to turn this way and that, leading us down ever narrowing stretches of poorly maintained blacktop. Brush was dragging the sides of the car and I was thinking about asking Delacroix how much farther we had to go when he said:
“We are near indeed, I suggest you turn right into this thicket.”
There was no road I could see and no break in the brush to forge a path. I stopped the car and told Delacroix that there was no way I was going to plow through some of Uncle Sam’s most pristine land just to save a few steps. Delacroix laughed, got out of the car and moved some strange kind of vine that I hadn’t seen before to reveal a car width path once covered with crushed stone. He hopped back in the car smirking.
“Now you know why I find this particular road so amenable. Generally I would ask you to keep my secret but I sincerely doubt that you could return to this spot”
He was right, of course, there was no way I’d find that road again. On the other hand I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being correct yet again.
I spat: “For me to find it I would have to look for it. And, Del, I assure you this is not a place I’ll ever be looking for again.”
“Yes, well there’s that.” He replied.

After two or three miles Delacroix said, “Stop” and we did. I didn’t pull over because there was no side, veritable boulders on the right and a steeply sloping hollow on the left. Delacroix must have seen the worry on my face:
“Nothing to think about, the road ends precisely 127 yards east. I suggest you think of this as your easiest parallel parking job.”

We got out of the car, at this point Delacroix wore only shorts and a pair of very thin sandals, and I grabbed my gear. Delacroix grabbed nothing. I asked him about this and he replied:
“A natural beast needs only what can be found. The mere act of bringing some comfort with one into such a setting only reveals the distance between an individual and clever thought. A careful beast will find all is provided.”
I almost asked him what the hell he was babbling about and if he was going to just hug trees or have full on tree-human carnal relations. Instead I tried a snappy:
“Unless pine trees crap conte crayons the Smokies ain’t providing what I’m hauling.”
Delacroix found his annoying again smirk and said:
“The art supplies, of course. You have brought the majority of Todd’s art supplies except for the airbrush kit he bought on a whim, You did this because you fear his moodiness, you fear that the quirky fool will refuse to produce an adequate piece if he feels limited by his choices. Let me save you a considerable amount of weight, just take the oils”
Delacroix was maddeningly on target. Todd had been strongly into the multimedia lately so I was carrying his entire kit on my back, except for the airbrush setup. I suspected Todd only huffed the propellant since he was constantly deriding air brushing as a touristy gimmick. I also reckoned I knew Todd better than Delacroix so I politely told him to stuff his opinion sideways. For my efforts I was treated to a look of abject pity.

With that we were off. There was no trail I could see but Delacroix moved quickly and confidently up the mountain. I tried to keep up for a few hundred yards and decided that was a hopeless task, Delacroix moved with practiced speed using all four limbs in conjunction. A hand would briefly touch a rock, a foot would graze a stone and neither would rest long enough to provide a solid purchase but somehow it was enough for Delacroix to propel himself ever higher up the steep slope. Once I had rejected any notion of keeping Delacroix in sight I began to take note of my surroundings. I was in a craggy area with trees and shrubs and wildflowers growing anyplace the soil could be reached. In the distance I could hear water rushing but despite repeated efforts I could not fix a location for the stream. My dislike for the outdoors gave way to an appreciation of the surrounding beauty and I admitted to myself I was glad I had let Delacroix lead me to such an ideal spot.

Thirty-five minutes later my lungs were burning, my knee was bloody, my elbow was deeply bruised and I was cursing the mountains and Delacroix. I had not seen him since we first started hiking and I was beginning to realize I was hopelessly lost. It may sound laughable to become so incredibly disoriented so quickly but the scene, though beautiful, was exactly the same in every direction: large rocks and towering trees, very disorienting. There were only two things I could be certain of, the sound of the water had been getting louder and I had been going uphill. I figured if worse came to worse I could chuck the art supplies, lay on my side and roll down the hill. I would hope that the boulders could magically direct me to the car like a game of giant pinball. I calculated a concussion would be the likely result of such an experiment so I decided to press on a little further.

Without any warning the grade disappeared beneath my feet and I was surprisingly next to a fair sized mountain stream. I wasn’t any less lost but I did have something new to look at. As I picked my way along the stream I found Delacroix’s sandals. This could mean anything: Delacroix was swimming, Delacroix was dead, Delacroix was sunning himself on some rock. It didn’t matter too much, if I found Delacroix dead I wouldn’t be all that pissed and if he was swimming or something at least I had a way home. The abandoned sandals did not mean any of the things I thought they might. I learned this as I rounded the next man sized boulder and got hit with a snake. It was a large snake, maybe four feet long and with a midsection thicker than my arm. I was quite taken aback by the thoughts that traveled through my mind in the short moment the snake was on me: “Ye Gods, it’s some super rare man eating constrictor” “Come on buddy, you’re big but this is a battle you’re going to lose” and finally, most alarmingly “I hope I didn’t leave the iron on” I found the last thought the most disturbing owing to the fact I had never plugged in the iron, ever. For all my intense mental activity my physical response was fairly weak. I jolted slightly and let out a small yelp. I watched the snake hit the ground and slither away. I was certain I saw a large set of rattles on the end of the reptiles tail and thought I must be hallucinating, surely rattlesnakes were not in the business of pouncing on hikers from above and then shuffling off as if nothing had happened.

I looked up and saw Delacroix bent over in laughter. It took a moment to put things together: Delacroix had thrown the snake at me in a bad attempt at a practical joke. At that moment I decided to beat him to death, not a hard decision to make with the amount of adrenalin running through my system. An instant later I had changed my mind. I had two reasons: Delacroix would most likely thump the tar out of me if I tried and it was the first time I had ever seen Delacroix make a joke of any kind.
“Delacroix, these mountains really bring out a change in you.”
“Indeed, it’s like showing up somewhere and realizing it’s where you’ve belonged all along”
I thought about that for a moment and wondered if those Quizno commercials were documentary in nature.
“Hey Del, what kind of snake would you say that was?”
“It’s a Timber Rattlesnake, Crotalus horridus, the only specimen I could find suitable for my needs.” he said between giggles.
I was still infuriated and that statement only made matters worse. I made a mental note to get a pillowcase full of soap bars and pay Delacroix a midnight visit.
“Wasn’t that a little dangerous Del? I mean you could’ve just said boo.”
“No danger involved, she had just eaten. Ah, the look on your face” Delacroix was beaming.
I was trying to forget the incident so I changed the subject.
“How much further to Todd?” I asked.
“It’s a good distance yet, we’re not quite halfway there and the more difficult stretches have yet to be encountered. I suggest you cross the stream at the low point and keep going.” He replied.
I was a bit worried “You’re not coming with me, hey dude I was pretty lost just now and I’d feel more com..” Delacroix cut me off.
“Worry is unnecessary, you are too predictable. You are the human equivalent of an electron. You are compelled to follow the path of least resistance. Trust me you will stumble upon Todd, the encounter will take place in 1 hour and 57 minutes. On your way you will cross the Appalachian Trail. ”

Great. I would be going this alone after all. I patted my pockets to see if I was carrying a ring in case I stumbled across a crack leading to earth’s molten interior, I wasn’t. I crossed the stream where the maximum depth was fifteen inches. I took one final look back and saw Delacroix heading towards a very tall tree completely naked. For moment I thought my earlier prediction of carnal relations with conifers was coming to pass. Instead Delacroix climbed to the highest branch that could hold any amount of weight and jumped. My first instinct told me that Delacroix had gone completely mad and committed suicide. My instinct was wrong, as I stood there transfixed by a personal viewing of “Faces of Death 27” Delacroix erupted from the water holding a trout. No, it wasn’t suicide. Delacroix had merely gone fishing. I adjusted my backpack and headed up the hill.