Hill overlooking trees for days.

Head farmer S paternal but friendly and stylish also.

E spazzing a bit when we pulled into Bennington but mellowing once on the farm.

Hadn’t slept in my tent for days.

Was missing three stakes.

So went on a Walmart run, into town, for some.

Which they, impressively, sold à la carte.

Also nabbed granola bars, gauze pads for my arms/feet, more Vaseline.

And a three-pack of cookies I merked on the way out to the car, in secret, even though I don’t know why E would have given a shit.

When I was walking across country, sleeping out, tent life wasn’t shit to me.

Unfazed no matter where.

In the tiniest of one-man bivies no less.

Under bridges, in ditches, behind bars.

FUCK IT.

I was that dude.

The tent dude able to withstand any and all conditions.

Unsure whether I was still that dude though.

Convinced myself I was, and said as much, when E asked Tent camping’s cool with you though, right?

Was so sweaty inside my tent, once I got it up.

In the dark, with a headlamp, as the rain started coming down.

Set up my makeshift, tarp rain-flap like I did every night while walking across country.

But incorrectly.

It wasn’t holding.

Still warm out so wasn’t a biggie.

But wasn’t gonna sleep with it how it was anytime soon either.

Tried to zone out by listening to a pod about a cult, by a dude who grew up in one.

Everything raw and cracked and chafing.

Putrefying.

Arms like I already said.

But crotch all fucked now also.

V on either side cracked and oozing.

Where either side of my ball bag met inner thigh cut up.

I lay on my side and listened to the disembodied dweeby NPR voice tell me how charismatic the cult leader his parents followed as a child was, initially.

Turned it up to compete with the assault of raindrops pattering on my tarp draped over my tent.

Couldn’t believe I slept in this thing for 100 days, while walking 20–30 miles a day and barely showering.

Come 3 a.m. I couldn’t take it.

Got out of my tent and smoked a cig sitting on the picnic table in between mine and E’s tents, under my umbrella.

Went “Ayo E” a few times.

Nothing.

Stared at my tent lit up eerily in my headlamp-light, through the rain.

Tried to imagine re-entering it.

Couldn’t.

Didn’t wanna.

Wasn’t gonna.

Recalling S’s offer to “head down to the main house the storm gets too crazy,” grabbed my pack outta my tent, draped my poncho over it and my head, and stumbled in its general direction.

Fuck this shit.

I wasn’t Outdoor Dude anymore.

Head down, I followed the tire treads down the hill, to the huge field opposite the main house.

The field we’d be working on first thing tomorrow.