“Then what? I pulled over as fast as I could and I just stood there. I stood there and watched the deer demolish Yogi’s car. She went crazy. Ripped the upholstery into pieces, smashed the mirror. She kicked so hard that the back windows shattered. Right there in the parked car on the side of the road. Finally I crept over and opened the door, and she got out and split into the trees.”

At this point Kurt pressed his fingers on my temples and it was like a portal opened at the base of my skull—a burst of energy flowing up the wick of my backbone into my brain. I felt like I was rising from an ocean of cobwebs, and a sickly light shone down, whitish-yellow. A warbling sound oscillated in my ears.

“Mmmmm,” Kurt was chanting from his chest. “Mmmm.” He made a long, sustained tone that vibrated though my body until my own chest resonated with his. When the chanting stopped, I lay back in the water. Kurt held me for a moment, rubbing my chest, and then let me go. I kept my eyes closed and floated in the lukewarm tub. My muscles felt light and emptied. My skin was a depleted husk.

Kurt went back to his own hot tub and opened the sluice for a new rush of hot water. We sat there without talking again, breathing evenly and listening to the crows calling each other in the sky.

His lighter flicked, and I could hear the butane feeding the flame. The harsh smell of tobacco floated over. “I see all kinds of shit out there, man. Most people never see anything at all. They don’t want to.”

When we got up to go, my body was pruned and waterlogged. We dried off in the sun and put our pants and shirts back on. I pulled on my limp socks. We yanked the plugs on the hot tubs and listened to the water cascade down to the rocks and dirt below.

On the way down the hill it rained, and we could hear the drumming shower on the canopy of ancient trees high above. The rushing creek beside us hissed and babbled to itself. It was almost evening when we got back to the car. Kurt started up the engine and we crept to the edge of the parking lot, where he flipped the blinker and turned out onto the main road.

The way back was all two-lane highways, winding through twisting draperies of national parkland. The setting sun spiked the wet asphalt, throwing up white sheets of glare, and the rising steam billowed in bright clouds. I put on the Stones. We had a long drive ahead of us.