Memorial Day weekend was getting close, which meant Mike and Marty’s junior year would soon be done and they would officially be seniors. The two were looking forward to being the “unofficial caretakers” of the Inkwells. Unfortunately, Annie didn’t want to go there anymore, after the biker incident the last time. This of course meant Mike would have to go with her, and she got her way as usual. Lately, Marty noticed that Mike could barely conceal the exasperated expression on his face whenever she was around. Instead, Annie was determined to drive to Yosemite for the holiday, and Marty could see Mike struggling to refrain from telling her to do just that. But he went along with her wishes, like an obedient mutt.
“How are we gonna keep the Inkwells clean if we’re not there?” Marty asked him during one of the few peaceful moments they had without Annie around.
“Maybe if we put out some trash cans and stuff, it won’t be so bad.”
“Yeah,” Marty mused speculatively, “That might help. I saw some old 55 gallon drums out by the white horse that would be perfect.”
The McAuliffes had a horse, too. She didn’t have a name, everyone just called her “white horse.” Even people from over the hill knew about the white horse – she was a living landmark on the way out to the beach. She was corralled in the corner of their property near the bridge, and right next to the road. Nobody ever rode her, and Marty rarely saw her move. He asked Little Billy if they could use the drums, and he liked the idea so much he offered the use of his pickup truck, too. The old mare put her ears back when they loudly banged the drums into the truck, but she didn’t budge. With Lucas’ enthusiastic permission (“Why the hell didn’t I think of that?”) they installed one at the top of the path, and two more down at the party spots in the shade. Marty painted “Please keep your swimming hole clean” on their sides, just to make it obvious what they were for.
Despite the tension between Mike and Annie, Marty was excited about their upcoming trip to Yosemite. It had been too long since he had visited the greatest cathedral in the United States. Typically they didn’t plan much for it – they just threw a bunch of stuff in the back of Annie’s Bronco and hit the road. Boobers came along too, and borrowed one of Marty’s old canvas sleeping bags. There was a lot more traffic than Marty remembered, being a holiday weekend and all. The last time he’d visited the greatest National Park he was eleven years old, which seemed like a lifetime ago. He would be eighteen in October, and old enough to be drafted if there was another war. Marty wasn’t too thrilled about registering for the Selective Service, with the inherent possibility he could be sent to a war like Vietnam against his will.
For the time being, however, he was still seventeen, with the entire summer ahead of him. What a great way to kick it off, he considered happily, forgetting all about things like wars. Yosemite is a place that makes conflict seem superfluous. Humans and their problems become very small. The valley has been described so many times by visionaries like John Muir, in such awe-inspired, flowery terms, and none of it does the place any justice whatsoever. If it hadn’t been created naturally, people wouldn’t believe it could be real! When Albert Bierstadt painted it in 1866, folks back East thought he had painted a fantasy scene – surely, that much grandeur could not exist in one place! They brought mushrooms to enhance their experience on Sunday, which felt as natural as taking a prayer book to church. It took a while to find a decent camping spot because the Valley was full, but they eventually located a place to prop up their lopsided tent. Instead of lighting a campfire and roasting marshmallows, they fired up a joint and proceeded to party hardy. They were amused by the straight-laced family from Iowa in a spiffy RV next door, peering out worriedly through their curtained windows as if to say, “There goes the neighborhood.” Mike turned up the boom box as loud as he dared, just to make a statement. He didn’t like being looked down upon by rich folks.
The next day was all about avoiding people as much as possible, which was difficult because they were everywhere on a holiday weekend. They made the mistake of taking the mushrooms before breaking camp, and the effects were coming on strong while they were still looking for a place to park. All four of them jumped out of the Bronco exuberantly – the way little children race away from a school bus – and ran laughing into the forest. The tourists looked around to see what was so funny, but the shroom heads were gone; headed for the river. They kept running into tourists who had planned ahead and gotten up early, and already had the best spots staked out for their little postcard picnics. The four shroom heads would stumble out of the bushes giggling stupidly, only to find a young couple kissing, or kids playing, or a family eating, and they’d titter with embarrassment, bumping into each other in their haste to change direction and find a place of their own where they could let their brains completely off their leashes without ruining somebody else’s day.
“Run away!” Marty yelled, and the four adventurers snickered, remembering Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They pantomimed the sound of horses’ hooves made by two halves of a coconut as they galloped across the grass.
The repeated encounters with astonished tourists in the lovely meadows surrounding the Merced River made them all breathless and giddy, and they instinctively adopted a tribal instinct, crouching low and sneaking through the foliage. That made some folks rather nervous, especially when they bounded away laughing and yelling “Whoop! Whoop!” like a pack of baboons. At last, they found a secluded clearing from which they could admire the majestic views of El Capitan without alarming the public, and they craned their necks to absorb the majesty of the huge monolith soaring four thousand feet above where they stood. Suddenly, Boobers glimpsed a Park Service ranger truck through the trees, and exclaimed, “The cops are coming to get us!” Once again the four fungal fugitives took off at a sprint, zig zagging into the forest. They laughed gaily while they ran, following a small stream to a beautiful shady glade, and flopped onto their backs in the lush green grass, utterly exhausted, in a spot where they could watch Bridalveil Falls gushing endlessly into the valley. They forgot all about school, parents, jobs, and their adolescent troubles for one blessed afternoon, and merged blissfully with one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Their soul-cleansing was so complete, they even forgot where they parked Annie’s Bronco! Eventually they got hungry and thirsty, because they’d left everything in the truck, and they reluctantly crawled to their feet and tried to convince their legs to work again. It took a long time to find the road, but they eventually followed the sound of traffic from inside the forest, and made it back to the parking area. There, they devoured their snacks and sandwiches like a pack of starving wolves, and warily watched the mothers keeping their children away from them. Their bonds as friends grew stronger from the shared experience, and as they drove back home in a great mood, Marty suggested all of them go backpacking to the Bear Lakes up in the Trinity Alps later in the summer. Boobers was already snoring next to him in the back seat, but Mike & Annie were enthusiastic about it (and they were holding hands again).
Sadly, when they got back to the Rusty Bucket Ranch they found that the Inkwells had been trashed. Gilly told them angrily that there were more bikers than ever before, and they just took over the place! He had a black eye, and described a scene where the cops showed up, and a fight broke out, and somebody set one of the trash cans on fire and rolled it into the creek. Lucas and his sons had to come down and make everyone leave, with the help of the sheriffs who made a few arrests. Marty was horrified, and feeling guilty that they’d abandoned their posts to frolic in Yosemite Valley while the McAuliffe clan was bravely defending their turf. Their muscular cousin, Alex, was showing off her bruised knuckles, and describing how she “rearranged the face” of some dude who tried to jump her. Mike and Marty hustled down to the swimming hole to survey the damage. Buster and Baxter were sullenly picking up broken beer bottles and cans, and tossing them into one of the drums. Someone had scratched out the word “swimming” so now it read, “Please keep your hole clean.” Lucas was picking up paper trash with a long grabber and putting them into plastic bags.
Marty reached out, “Here, let me help you with that,” and bade him sit in the shade. “I’m sorry,” was all he could think to say.
He puffed a bit on his pipe, saying, “It ain’t yer fault, boy, people are just natural born pigs that’s all.” The idyllic swimming hole now had all the charm of a liquor store that had been hit by a tidal wave! There must have been over a hundred people partying among the rocks! Mike helped carry the trash up to the road, while Marty found a stash of beer and Jack Daniels in the bushes, under a pile of empties. He gave the swag to Lucas as meager compensation for his trouble. The burly old redneck took a swig, and said he was going to repair the fence and shoot trespassers on sight after that. The Inkwells was never the same again.