Sex & Sourdough (20 page)

“See?” Chex Mix grinned. “He can keep heading toward Maine and check every shelter along the way. He might even catch up to Corona, if he hurries. And Anders can start school without some psycho stalker. Easy!”

“Who’s Corona?” asked Spider seriously.

“I don’t know. Just a name from the shelter logs, man. He’s, like, four weeks ahead of us. And he really is fast. I figured out his pace from the check-in times he left. The dude was doing a whole marathon each day, even in the Carolinas. That’s hard-core.”

“There really is a hiker named Corona? And you calculated his pace just from when he signed in at shelters?” Kevin asked.

“Chex has a photographic memory,” Spider confided. “And he’s a hell of a lot smarter than he lets on.”

“Oh, I am not. I don’t let on anything. People might make assumptions about me, and if they’re assholes, they’ll make stupid assumptions. But I’m just me. I’m out here to have fun. Beer is fun. Hiking is fun. Girls are fun. Discrete math is fun. Newtonian mechanics is fun. It’s all just me.”

Spider rubbed at his shins. “Yeah, well, until I met you, the only thing I thought of when I heard ‘discrete math’ was trying to hide that I still counted on my fingers until third grade. And, Chex, Quakers? What the hell?”

“It was in my head,” Chex Mix shrugged. “The hostel here is run by a Quaker couple. The Religious Society of Friends…. You got to admit, they’re cool.”

“They don’t do that whole ‘pretending it’s a hundred years ago’ thing,” Kevin said quietly.

“Oh, I know that. I mean the ‘live and let live’
thing they’ve got going on.”

“So there was actually a chance that someone who drove up here would be Quaker?” Spider dropped his head back and smiled. “You’re one in a million, Chex.”

Chex Mix smiled, then sat down, stretched out so he could use his pack as a pillow, and shut his eyes.

Spider turned toward Kevin. “So what’s your story, Sourdough?”

Kevin stared at him, not quite sure when he’d lost track of the conversation.

“Why are you out here?” Spider clarified.

“Me?” Kevin thought about the whole catalogue of lies he’d told over the years, whenever anyone asked why he hiked the way he did. After walking away from Anders at the bus station, he didn’t have the emotional focus to pull off an enthusiastic fiction this time. “It was this or kill myself,” he admitted.

“Hmm?” Chex Mix turned his head up, his eyes open again.

“I’ve got a chronic and potentially terminal illness,” Kevin said, his voice cold and nonchalant. “The Pacific Crest Trail runs pretty close to my house, just over Bishop Pass, and hikers came through town every summer, so it’s always been something I wanted to do. When I was diagnosed, I got sick of waiting around at home to die. One day I lost my temper, and I thought maybe I’d just kill myself and just get it over with. I decided to go for a walk to cool off. It turned out to be a long walk. After I finished the Pacific Crest, I came out here.”

“The Pacific Crest Trail is a
long
walk,” Chex Mix nodded slowly. “How’s this compare?”

“It’s easier,” Kevin admitted. “Mostly because there are so many towns and shuttles. The Pacific Crest Trail was one big resupply nightmare and I didn’t prepare for any of it. I got down to a hundred and forty pounds by the end.”

Chex Mix laughed. “But you’re huge.”

“I wasn’t then.”

“Damn. I know folks who get off the trail when they’ve got a cold. Sourdough’s out here when he’s dying and shit. Now I feel like a wimp,” Spider declared.

“No one who manages a thru-hike is a wimp,” Kevin insisted.

“I haven’t managed it yet,” Spider whispered. He still looked stunned. “That sucks.”

Kevin shrugged. “It could be worse,” he said with a real smile. He thought about the way his father’s heart and kidneys had both failed at the same time. “Believe me, it could be worse.” Kevin stretched his fingers, working the joints slowly to keep them from getting stiff.

A vehicle came up the dirt road quickly, kicking up dust as it skidded into the parking lot. This was a GMC Safari van, big enough to seat eight passengers, and had the name of the hostel painted on the side.

“You boys the whole lot?” the driver asked, leaning her head out the window. She was an older, heavyset woman with a bright smile.

“Yes, ma’am.” Spider hopped up.

“Well, come on, then!” When they were all loaded up into the van, the woman turned back toward them. “My name’s Beatrice, but most folks just call me Mom.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Chex Mix, this is Spider, and that’s Sourdough.”

“Any of you boys named Jeffries or Blankenship? I’ve been holding a package for a Jeffries and a message for a Blankenship.”

“That’s me,” Chex Mix smiled. “I’m Chex—” He caught himself and laughed. “No, I tell a lie. I’m Chuck Jeffries.”

“No Anders Blankenship, then?”

“No, ma’am,” said Spider. “But another guy came up and asked up about him just before you showed up. He in trouble or something?”

“Probably the same gentleman, I expect. I don’t rightly know if the boy he’s looking for is in trouble. He seemed confused about that himself. First the gentleman said this Blankenship fellow was missing, then he had taken off hiking without telling his family, and then he just hadn’t called to check in. I told him I’d pass on a message, but without knowing what trail name he’s going by….” The woman shrugged her massive shoulders and slowed the van down to navigate a sharp curve along the road. “Course, if I had a dime for every worried mom and grandma who called me trying to find some boy who disappeared out here for a few days, I’d be a wealthy woman. They all call home when they need bail money. The only other folks with us are a scout troop that came in yesterday, and I’m making spaghetti for supper. Any of you want to volunteer with the chores, I’d be much obliged.”

“We can clean,” Chex Mix volunteered. “And Sourdough can help in the kitchen!”

“Oh? Dinner’s on the stove already, so there’s actually not much left to do, besides washing dishes.”

Kevin wanted to sigh, but he didn’t dare. “I can do dishes. Can I give you a hand with breakfast too?”

“I don’t know, can you?”

“I can make the best sourdough muffins in the world,” he announced with absolute confidence.

The hostel owner stared at him in the rearview mirror, smiling. “You can help with breakfast.”

Kevin settled back on the bench seat next to Spider and tried to relax. He felt his heart skip a beat, then felt a dull sharp ache in his chest, like his entire body was being crushed. He splayed his fingers over his chest, struggling to draw a single, gasping breath.

“Hey, are you okay?” Spider caught Kevin as he swayed forward.

“My….” Kevin tried to say every breath felt like a struggle. “My chest hurts.”

“Oh, shit! Chex, get back here and help me out!”

“Is there a hospital nearby?” Chex Mix asked, his bright smile still firmly fixed in place.

Beatrice turned the wheel sharply, overcorrected, and turned the wheel back again as the van swerved and rocked. “Not for thirty miles. Is he all right back there?”

“Sourdough?”

Kevin managed to shake his head. Finding the breath to form a complete sentence seemed impossible. “No,” he gasped. “I’m not all right.”

“A
ND
WHO
would like to volunteer to give us a summary of the next case?”

Anders kept his head down. He opened the brief he’d done on the fourth case for Civil Procedures I on his laptop, keeping his notes open in a small word-processing file in the corner.

“Anyone? It’s a fun one,” said the professor, her eyes gleaming with malicious glee. “Mr. Blankenship,” she said, reading his name from her roster. “Where is Mr. Blankenship?”

Anders pressed his lips together tight to keep from cursing out loud and raised his hand.

“Mr. Blankenship! Would you give us a summary of Bradshaw v. Unity Marine Corp, please?”

Anders rubbed his eyes. This case had to have been assigned as a joke. A way to make the first week seem entertaining, just to make the whole curriculum over the next three years seem manageable rather than intimidating. Anders wasn’t entertained or intimidated, though—he was just annoyed.

“A merchant marine employee got hurt, he tried to sue his employer for damages, and the employer filed a motion for summary judgment based on the one-year statute of limitations governing marine law. He responded to the motion by saying that the three-year statute of limitations for torts applied. The court ruled that since the basis for the suit fell under maritime law, the maritime statute of limitations won.”

“That’s the rule, true enough. What does this case teach us about the basics of filing a civil complaint?”

Anders couldn’t believe he had to say this out loud. “Despite the fact that there is no rule stating that legal filings have to be typed, you should not handwrite them in color crayon,” he said seriously. “Particularly in goldenrod, because it’s harder to read than forest green.”

“Exactly!” The professor clapped her hands together. “No rule of civil procedure says that a complaint has to be typed and printed. The reason this isn’t addressed is to insure that the courts remain accessible to every citizen, regardless of access to counsel or even access to a computer. Was that what happened in this case, Mr. Blankenship?”

“No. The attorneys for both parties were friends. They were trying to be funny. Possibly trying to be so over the top that the judge didn’t notice they didn’t even cite the law they referenced. Both the complaint and answer were written in color crayon on the back of placemats from the same bar.”

“That’s right. And because there is no rule prohibiting it, the court did try to muddle through the color crayon and issued a ruling on the motion. However, the attorneys in this case were friends with the sitting judge, and he was feeling indulgent. In practice, you will all type everything. Unless you really want the judge to hate you, always type, always spell-check, always make sure your work is legible. And absolutely no goldenrod!”

A twitter of laughter vibrated around the lecture hall.

“All right, we’re already three minutes over our time for today. On Wednesday, we’ll begin our study of who can and cannot be a party to a civil suit.” The professor glanced at the clock. “Again, my office hours are on the board, the cases for Monday are on the syllabus, and have a great weekend.”

Anders packed up his laptop and slipped it into the case. He shoved his books into his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then joined the line of students heading down the steps to the front of the lecture hall.

“Mr. Blankenship!” she called, right as he was about to escape from the lecture hall.

“Ma’am?”

“It’s Anders, right? You don’t have to be so formal. Cynthia’s fine. I’m an old friend of your father’s, you know.”

“I…. Yes, he’s talked about you a lot. He said you were a terror to go up against in trial.”

“Oh, your father….” She blushed as if he’d just told her something inappropriate. Maybe he had. “A long time ago, maybe I was. You looked a little bit green when I called on you, so I wanted to let you know that you did just fine.”

He must really look like shit. He was annoyed that he had spent an hour the night before reading and briefing a case that taught him nothing beyond ‘lawsuits should not be filed in color crayon,’ but he hadn’t been nervous.

“I know it’s overwhelming, especially this first week. Once you fall into the routine, you’ll find that it gets easier.”

Anders nodded. He didn’t dare say anything. It would be impossible to say something polite right now.

“Well,” the professor said with a smile, “tell Frank I said hello?”

“I will.”

Anders hurried out of the lecture hall and the law school. He had eaten most of a box of cereal that morning, and even though it was only eleven o’clock, he was starving. He wasn’t really starving, and he kept telling himself he wasn’t really hungry every time his stomach growled. He had arrived home the Saturday before classes began, and his appetite still hadn’t settled down. He’d realized Sunday, after he’d eaten most of the pork roast his parents’ housekeeper had made for the dinner welcoming him home, that his metabolism still thought he was hiking. He’d been eating as many calories as he could get on the trail. He hadn’t done the math, but it was probably well over five thousand calories a day. And without ten to twelve hours of walking to burn them off, he was going to end up getting chubby if he didn’t learn some self-control.

Still, his stomach was more persuasive than his brain.

He made a beeline across campus to the food court. He poked around the cooler at the prepacked sandwiches, grabbed two turkey and cheese sandwiches just because they were on sourdough, and the biggest Coke they sold. He found an empty table in the far corner of the food court, ripped open one of the sandwiches, and ate it quickly. When his preoccupation with food had been satisfied, he spread out his textbooks and laptop to begin briefing his cases for Monday. He made it three sentences into the criminal law case before the chair opposite him moved.