Ghost Ship | Prison Renaissance Prison Renaissance Special Issue Volume One | Page 27

no money, had not used any money in two years. No money, no down sleeping bag, no high-tech hiking boots, no address book, no picture of Mom, no mementoes of any time, place or person—just a homemade satchel, and an orange U-Haul packing blanket tied on top. Into the satchel I had watched him pack a few odds and ends of soapstone, some candle ends and matches, a knife, a splayed toothbrush, a cracked gray sliver of soap, a journal of his tiny, cramped handwriting, a pen, a plastic garbage bag rolled up tight and held with a rubber band, a hard loaf of brown bread he’d baked the night before, and the bundles of seeds.

I had offered for him to stay on a while longer, but he refused, on some kind of Zack-like principle. He felt guilty sleeping indoors. Sleeping outside sharpened his intuition with the seeds. I was relieved when he declined my offer, though I had made it sincerely.

“The least you could do is let me drive you to a good camping place,” I said.

“Do you know one?” he asked, stretching his legs out to look with satisfaction at his new footwear. There was a special spot I’d found, a remote place on a small river in view of the mountain that was as close to paradise as I’d ever found. I was worried, though, because it was almost winter, and being by the water made it even chillier.

I planned to make him take the green wool blanket I kept in the car.

“I know the perfect spot, but what will you do if it snows?” I asked. “Will you come back here so I can put you on a bus to Arizona or something?” It was about a sixteen-mile walk, but I knew he wouldn’t even blink at that. He didn’t answer. “Promise you won’t camp out there in the snow?” I asked again.

He laughed. “You can’t admire my freedom,

and then go trying to chain me up again.”

That made me mad. “It’s not that,” I said. “Is it such a burden to have someone not want you to freeze to death in the wilderness?”

“Please remember that it’s the seeds that are important. They will last long after I’m gone. I can care for generations of people with my seeds,” he said, and he stood up quickly and reached for his satchel.

“Well, it’s just as important to care for the people around right now,” I said righteously, stopping myself before adding, So there. He looked very young. I hoped he had a green thumb.

I drove him out to my spot and made him take the blanket. He resisted at first but I told him he could just leave it out there for the next person, and he went along with that. We hugged, and for a moment stood eye to eye. Then he turned away and began walking towards the stream.

The first night he was gone it snowed like crazy, and didn’t stop for three days. My van got stuck in its parking place, and a huge branch fell on the roof of my cabin and broke two windows. There was so much snow I couldn’t even get to my little cafe job in town, let alone drive sixteen miles of bad road, so I couldn’t go out there to check on him. I kept looking down the road, looking for a brown figure trudging through the whiteness in wraparound shoes. But he didn’t come.

Finally, after a week, I got my van dug out and put my chains on to drive out to where I’d left him. I was already berating him affectionately in my mind as I imagined finding him, cold and bedraggled, by a soggy campfire. I got stuck and unstuck several times on the last two miles of road—no one had driven out that way since the storm, and the snow was

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