The road was closed and it was raining and rswfire walked it anyway, flashlight in hand, camera running, headed for Driftwood. Two miles down, two miles back. The errand was coffee and pop — he had run out of Mountain Dew a day or so earlier, and Bill had started setting cans aside for him. This sweet old man, he says of him, this man has what I need. The supply comes through the corridor rather than out of it. That is the point.
He states the terms plainly while he walks: he does not trust himself to go into town yet, not with the vapes there. So he has arranged his life to sit inside this corridor and not leave it except to do his rounds. Tomorrow he will need fuel for the truck — he thinks they are about at that point, though he isn't certain. Somehow he is doing it. He says it is getting harder, or maybe it feels more real, and that he is not ready to trust it yet. So the perimeter holds and the walking substitutes: a couple miles down this road for pop and coffee, a couple miles back, and the ocean as many times as it takes. That's what we do to never put nicotine in our body again.
Partway along he crossed paths with the police officer he hadn't seen in about six months. The officer didn't recognize him at first, and rswfire notes he seemed surprised — surprised to see him at all, and surprised to find him walking back here in the rain. The exchange passes in a few sentences and the road resumes. Music runs underneath the whole walk, a playlist of thousands of songs cycling past, none of them yet the one that fits the journey he is on right now. The rain gets very wet. Off to one side the forest looks scary, he says, and then he keeps moving.
The declarations arrive in the middle of the walk, not at the end of it. We are not leaving this. I am certain I will not compromise. They come between observations about the rain and the flashlight and the songs, held at the same register as everything else — not escalated, just stated, and then walked past.
The last stretch is a long hill up to where he lives, at the front of the park near 101, at the work center. He marks the pulloffs as he passes them, counting his way up. Then the site comes into view: the volunteer truck he drives for the Forest Service, the Jeep he has managed to hold on to so far, and the RV lit up like Christmas. He acknowledges that he makes his presence known there. Behind him, the closed road and the dunes. Literally live behind the gate. It's wild, isn't it?
He addresses the economics on the climb, without resolving them. He hasn't figured it out yet. He is not returning to his old life — if that was going to happen it would have happened by now, nearly two years in. We'll figure it out though somehow. The sentence is left where it lands, and the hill continues.
At the top the wind has died down. He checks the time: almost six. He considers making a fire and hanging out, by himself, and mentions that someone could imagine themselves out there with him, or might see this someday, since it all goes behind Sanctum now and nobody is watching. That's fine. That's how he makes them. Then he is home, holding two little cans of Mountain Dew and coffee from Bill — the entire object of the four-mile walk in the rain. And it was worth it. I'm feeling really good about my choices right now. He leaves it there.