Hoh Rainforest, intro
So there I was, lost and alone. I had just watched my
unhappy marriage dissolve around me over a few hours and I was sitting in a grocery store parking lot with a truckload of camping gear wondering what I was going to do next. I had just returned from a camping trip with a longtime friend when my `loving' wife confronted me about a lie regarding the money I had taken to buy weed for the trip. It all unraveled from there. She either kicked me out or I volunteered to leave. In either case, I was alone again. Freedom! Or was it unwelcome solitude?
After a lonely night in my truck in downtown suburbia, I quit my job and Sunday school class and opted to head back out into the woods. I knew about some free campgrounds out in the rainforest and without making a conscious decision, that's where I went. After a several hour drive I pulled into a nearly deserted campground and found a campsite that already had some firewood. It was starting to get dark, so I immediately started to get the tent out and setup so I could get some actual sleep that night.
That's when I first saw him. A cute but grubby looking 10 year old boy with curly, bushy red hair came into my campsite. He was wearing a large, blue quilted down jacket with sleeves so long they hid his hands. His jeans were very dirty and short enough for me to see he wasn’t wearing any socks. Duct tape was holding one of his shoes together. Saying something about his family forgetting to grab their firewood when they had switched campsites, he asked if he could have his wood. I muttered something incoherently since I hadn't actually used my voice in more than a day. Whatever it was that I said, he took it to mean that he could have the firewood and he quickly started grabbing a handful of wood.
Not wanting to be alone anymore, I offered to carry some of the wood over to their campsite. As I loaded up, he cheerfully told me his name was Jonnie and that he was almost 11. He and his family were from Arizona and had been camping for a few months. By the time we got to their campsite, it was obvious the kid had given me a line of bullshit about it being their wood, but I didn't really care.
It looked as if they had been in their current campsite for over a month. There was garbage scattered all over, their car had a flat tire, and the stench of unwashed clothes and bodies wafted from their tiny tent. The first one I saw was Jonnie's mom, Ellen. She was a short fat woman with a nappy mop of red hair and a toothless smile that only a meth addict can have. She was smoking a cigarette at the picnic table and didn't get up. As I dropped my load of wood near the empty fire pit an overweight, overbearing man got out of the front seat of the tired car. He had a vacant expression and an easygoing way about him, but only in the sense that he probably couldn't put together an abstract thought. He had similar but not as pronounced dental problems as Jonnie's mom and he seemed to take joy in shaking my hand and squeezing abit harder than would be normal, reminding me of a schoolyard bully. Jonnie said something about him being his step-dad and I could tell by his tone that there was little love between them. About then, a relatively clean 9 year old girl hand-in-hand with a little 3 year old boy walked into camp coming from the direction of the toilets. They were introduced to me as Rose and Buddy. After a few more minutes of niceties I headed back over to my campsite to finish setting up the tent. As I left, Gary the step-dad invited me back over to enjoy the campfire with them. This earned him a glare from his wife and I got the impression that he didn't really expect me to take him up on his offer.
As I finished blowing up my air mattress, I realized that I wouldn't be able to play with a fire that night and I couldn't get my mind off of Jonnie and his family. After everything was set up, enough that I could just crawl in when I wanted to sleep, I decided I'd take Gary up on his offer. Grabbing half a bag of marshmallows, I walked back over to the only other occupied campsite. Any company would be better than my solitude, and besides, these people probably could teach me a lot about the how to live without a house. Thus began the adventures that turned into 3 months of homelessness with Jonnie and his family…