‘An American experiences a unique exhilaration upon discovering the perfect location for a picnic. Private but not clandestine. Shady but neither wet or cold. Flat and softened by grass rather than earth so as to remain firm throughout the meal rather than sinking under the weight of its attendees. ‘Pristine Picnics’ has capitalized on this little joy and, for a moderate fee, can point you down a path all your own. Their impressive grounds allow for 53 simultaneous picnics, re-discovered each day.’

‘Pristine Picnics’ keeps the sausage-making aspects of their model hidden only enough to be easily ignored. When I ask about the work that goes in to maintaining their campus, the supervisor on duty, a woman name Dae, takes me into the back and walks me through scale models of the campus and its systems.

“Most of the work is done at night,” she explains, “And we’ve automated a great deal of the maintenance. Our mowers are fitted with proprietary blades that round out the grass rather than leave sharp edges. They keep and carry the clippings out, all by 2:00am so that the smell of the process has dissipated some by the time the sunrisers arrive. A second little army emerges just before daybreak,” she smiles, pointing out a minature half-orb robot, “They collect the morning dew and take it back to the reservoir. No wet blankets, here.”

We arrive back at the campus model and I take a moment to study the pattern of paths- 53, one assumes, each pointing inward and alternating in depth. Picnic areas are marked with little flags.

“Why aren’t these at the end?” I ask, indicating a few of the sites, “Are you expanding?”

Dae shakes her head.

“There can only be one true site per path,” she says, “Otherwise the intimacy of the picnic is compromised. In reality, there are many acceptable picnic sites on a given journey. Our customers derive satisfaction from little acts of transgression. If they reach the end, they may remember a site just a few minutes back that they preferred. That will become their site and they will believe that they have made a discovery, circumventing what they believe is the ‘Pristine Picnic’ script and enjoying what seems to be a more authentic experience.”

“But they don’t?”

“The site they remember will be the true site, of course,” she smiles again.

I keep all this in mind as Hector and I set off down my path. We’ve got the run of the place for two hours and I don’t suspect the meal will take long, so we admire the shallow forest and stop each time it opens to reveal a clearing where one could very likely sit and be contented. The sites become increasingly idyllic as we pass and before long I’ve begun to experience a mild stress that I eventually conclude is an argument, happening in the back of my head.

On one hand, I, too, want to arrive at a conclusion of my own- to find a site that is perfect for my tastes whether or not it is perfect for everybody who rents this path.

On the other hand, I’m aware that the desire to transgress, in regards to the script, is a mechanism built into the script itself.

An oasis presents itself not long after- a grassy knoll not far from a stream. The stream is noisy enough that I wonder whether it would make conversation difficult- couples might avoid it. The stream is shallow and gentle, however, meaning that a family with small children might stop to let them play. Though Hector is intrigued by the noise, I choose to bookmark it as a potential for myself, knowing that if a better site presets itself I will likely have my answer.

Unfortunately, the next two clearings are of the same or higher caliber and the path terminates, not long after, at the top of a slight hill so that I might eat my gas-station sandwich with a view of the forest below and still be relatively hidden myself. I stop there for a moment, resting against a tree, and realize that this must be one of the paths on which the true site is located at the end. To perform off-script, I have my choice of any of the three or four previous sites, each sporting their own novelties.

Hector and I begin to walk back and I feel satisfied with my decision up until the point at which that satisfaction spills over the brim. What are the chances that the satisfaction of turning my back to the furthest site is, in fact, a feature of the sites previous? I’ve already decided that I will skip the first site on the way back, remembering the cooler air of the site just after, which means I’ve likely been fooled into choosing the true site after all.

Standing in the path, with Hector impatiently tugging at his leash, I’m eventually able to take a few calming breaths and resign myself to accepting the true site as the place where I’ll spend my next hour. It would be silly to rent a room at a nice hotel and then spend the evening searching for a mild downgrade- why not just enjoy the luxury that I paid for?

Imagine Hector’s surprise when, upon reaching the site that I’ve resigned myself to, I feel a tiny, almost non-existent flicker of disappointment. I realize that the picture I had in my head of this site which, in its favor, appears to be the most private- the picture I had formed was based upon the satisfaction I felt at turning my back to the hilly terminal site which, really, seems like the best of the bunch. What’s the need for privacy when I’m guaranteed this path for the next… 45 minutes? The terminal site is the true site and, if Hector and I turn back now, we should have time to eat our food and go.

More than enough time, really.

We spare another few minutes walking a little further back, just so that I can remember the flaws of the site previous to the private site (which is really, actually, maybe second best- really maybe actually as good as the terminal site) before rushing back to the end where the view is beautiful but where everything is a little too perfect, actually. Now that I see it clearly, the perfection there is strained- manicured like a golf course.

I check my watch and see that if we eat on the trail we should be able to enjoy the true, previous site for a few minutes on the way out and still get away without a late fee.

We turn back.

-traveler

The northern forests of Vermont take me the nearest I’ve been to another country in quite some time and I make it a point to drive out toward the border into Quebec just to have a look. It’s occurred to me that I may be squandering an amount of my youth (what remains of it, anyway) in this aimless reiteration of the United States, but the journey has always been about completing the book and the book winds and winds within the borders but never compels me to leave them. Hector and I share a sandwich and head back the way we came, stopping by ‘The Supernatural Reserve’ to see how things could always be a little worse.

‘For all that Americans like to tell their ghost stories, the only ghost that has been certified as real by the Federal Government currently resides at ‘The Supernatural Reserve’ in Vermont. Advertised as ‘Felicia Gonzales’ little slice of paradise,’ ‘The Supernatural Reserve’ is an old mansion maintained in a perpetual state of disrepair as an homage to the early days of Gonzales’ haunting, when she terrorized a succession of families who sought refuge from the city and were naïve enough to overlook the too-good-to-be-true price tag. Each family’s attempt to exorcise the old woman from the house involved the destruction of her remaining personal items and, eventually, her mortal remains which had been exhumed from the grounds for the detection of ‘satanic or otherwise devilish iconography,’ none of which was found. Given these circumstances, little is known about Gonzales as she lived which is the primary reason that she has been stripped of her humanity in death.

The close secondary reason for the stripping of Gonzales’ humanity is the supernatural patience with which she bears disgrace. The burnings, for instance, seemed to annoy the ghost but did nothing to decrease the frequency of her hauntings. The only indications of anger noted in this period were perceived as increasingly frequent side-eyeing as Gonzales acted out the final hours before the fatal lightning strike that would kill her. Whether this patience is borne of the otherworldly state, or whether the woman has always been willing to turn the other cheek is hotly debated by resident parapsychologists, both sides of which test the lengths of her calm unendingly.

The final culprit in Gonzales’ dehumanizing is the operation of ‘The Supernatural Reserve’ through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department, which is standard procedure for most reserves, natural or otherwise. People aren’t really accounted for in the department’s wheelhouse and, given Gonzales’ unique situation, they’ve had no blueprint from which to work. In the absence of novel solutions, the department proposed that ‘The Supernatural Reserve’ be treated like any other. Visitors are kept to certain numbers and the mansion is kept exactly as it was found, the cracks neither fixed nor allowed to widen. Gonzales is left to fend for herself in her ‘natural habitat,’ with the exception, of course, of the researchers who sometimes dress in period clothes or leap from closets in an attempt to jar her from her cycle, all the while assuring their superiors that the process is all quite scientifically sound.

It’s easy to see that Gonzales has become a harried specter. Her side-eyes have become frantic, as though she’s wrestled just that from the loop she treads each day and sees, now, the shuffling crowds in her peripheries. The loops have become long and erratic, never changing, exactly, but often freezing or repeating in the middle like a lazy plotline. Her clothes have become tattered and unwashed and they hang from her form. She is, by all accounts, dying and nobody seems to know what that means for her.

Paranormal activists have drawn parallels between Gonzales’ behavior and the pacing of a tiger kept too long in a zoo. They’ve joined the researchers and the tourists at the site, organizing rallies and sit-ins, sometimes breaking into the mansion in the evenings to steal items they believe Gonzales may be anchored to. The ghost carries on in the meantime, seemingly oblivious if not for the wide-eyed gaping with which she performs her mortal chores.’

Hector is not at all impressed with ‘The Supernatural Reserve,’ intuiting something in the smell or aura of the place that eludes me. I had suspected an amount of tackiness and am surprised by just how understated the grounds really are. If not for signs and a few ADA compliant structures for leveling out the forested approach, the mansion would look like any of a number of derelicts I see off the side of highways.

Gonzales is in the kitchen, which is where all the current visitors are as well. Signs in the preceding rooms point out historical motifs that were added along the way by the families that attempted to live with the ghost but, as expected, nothing of Gonzales’ remains. A family peels off from the group as I arrive and I slide neatly into an opening with which to view the woman. She’s feeding something into a fireplace- wood, I assume at first, but as she continues to shudder and loop I see it’s more likely invisible food fed into a pot that no longer hangs there. An official stands nearby and whistles each time one of the children present attempts to run a stick through the apparition.

“Save it for the yard,” he shouts.

The yard is the only portion of the grounds at which visitors are allowed to interact with Gonzales. Interact, in this case, means further whipping of the stick through her form, trying to kiss, hug, or scare the woman, and, for one man at least, lying on the ground in her path to ascertain whether or not he can see up her dress. Gonzales does not appear in pictures so the march is free of that, at least, and compared to the time she spent in the kitchen I can’t help but feel as though she hurries through the yard to be done with it all.

“That’s intermission, folks,” the man calls and he climbs into his truck to smoke.

Intermission occurs when Gonzalez retreats to the outhouse to relieve herself, a scene that live-in families found so unseemly that they tore the structure down and replaced it with a nearby boulder. For the last half-century, Gonzales is able to disappear into the boulder for this business, at the very least, and she spends the vast majority of each afternoon in solitude before finishing up the last few chores and combusting. Researchers have lobbied to have the boulder removed, arguing it’s historical only up to a point, but the operators have remained opposed, citing their current ‘as-is’ procedure with a particular sneer. Activists pile books, magazines, and other reading material around the boulder to express the woman’s need for privacy.

With Gonzales solidly entombed, Hector is a little more willing to take a walk and relieve himself as well. I consider waiting for ‘intermission’ to end but worry, already, that Gonzales has seen me among her tormentors. I’ve had enough of ghosts already and wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end when the patience with which she performs her scenes turns to wrath. Hector and I dive back into the Midwest, instead, no more or less haunted than before.

-traveler

‘It’s easy to draw parallels between ‘Delaney’s Orchard,’ covered elsewhere in this book, and ‘The Gorechard’ of Southern California. They’re both functioning orchards and they both produce uneaten fruit and uneasy feelings. As is often the case, the difference comes down to motive- the churning of bones by the roots of ‘Delaney’s’ peach orchard is the consequence of good intentions gone awry. ‘The Gorechard’ is exactly what it’s supposed to be.’

Most literature on the matter recommends a spring or summer visit to ‘The Gorechard,’ when the fruit has begun to ripen and ‘Judgement Day’ looms but it’s early autumn by the time Hector and I arrive and the festivities have long passed us by. ‘The Gorechard’ is something of a misnomer for what is really a series of independently owned farms, each with their own names and each with their orchards so closely pressed that it’s easy to mistake them for a single, massive enterprise. The fruit grown in the orchards is not intended for consumption nor does it have an official name (which is to say it has so many nicknames that nobody can quite agree what to call it). Come ‘Judgment Day,’ it’s my understanding that attendees just refer to it as ‘rot.’

Rot is grown in ‘The Gorechard’ strictly for the sake of competition, cherry-like in its early stages but increasingly deformed as it expands toward ripeness. Winning rot has been measured with diameters of three feet and lengths of nearly four and half. Weights vary with purpose: some competitions require a minimal pit while others focus on size and weight specifically. The result of most competitions is rot that swells under the constraint of its own skin. It sags like a sick, alien cocoon from the tree, translucent except for a dappling of inner clots. Most rot will burst well before Judgement Day and that’s the trick, really. Competitors cultivate several strains in order to hedge their bets.

We pass by several orchards before I begin to spot a few clumps of rot still hanging from the trees. A booth in the parking lot down the road is vacant but a man steps out from his house to gather an entry fee.

“Wouldn’t touch’em if I were you,” he tells me, “They’re due just about any day now.”

“Didn’t win you any prizes?”

“They’re breeding trees out in the south field,” he says, counting the money, “Little longevity from those helps to keep things nice and juicy for the measuring.”

At the core of all this competing is the rot’s tendency to burst at agitation, spraying thick, blood-like ichor as it drops its pit. Most measuring competitions require that the rot hold up for the duration of the measurement but explode with a pin-prick afterward, proving peak ripeness. The insides smell like rotten milk and are often already infested with the larvae of a local fly that skitters incessantly across its surface and penetrates the skin with it microscopic ovipositor. The result is a horror scene, unfolded in an instant, and images of the aftermath are often flagged for censorship online, no different in presentation than the morbid snapshots of fatal car collisions.

Hector and I stand near the breeding trees for a while before I find a small stone and, with the blessing of the man out front, nail a clean shot to hanging rot several trees down simply to see it for myself. It performs the grotesque expulsion and the tree shakes with its sudden release of burden. Unfortunately, the shaking tree begins to burst the rest of its fruit and the fruit of the trees around it. Anchored, as I am, by an ancient rabbit on a leash, I don’t quite make it out of the blast zone in time.

The man out front laughs, initially, but then he offers a shower and a change of clothes while mine run through the wash. It’s not the sort of kindness I may have taken in the early days of all this but, more and more, I find every reason to linger a while with people who will have me. We watch my clothes stiffen on the line as the sun sets over ‘The Gorechard,’ illuminating the last of the season’s rot like shards of red glass.

-traveler

‘‘With an eye on Paris’ physical meter, measured in expensive lengths of platinum-iridium, the nation’s movie industry reacted to the early-eighties’ rise of the American sex comedy with a similar solution. Rather than rely on the memories of Hollywood’s aging elite (or the notoriously exaggerated descriptions provided by the then-modern teens) a group of troublesome youth were supplied a stipend, a venue, and enough booze and alcohol to throw a party as they saw fit. Two-way mirrors and cameras allowed the industry’s writers to harvest plot seeds from the all-year party (later shortened to ‘The All-Party’) and to have a reasonable defense when the prudish MPA inevitably tried to slap them with anything above an ‘R’ rating for being unrealistically gratuitous.

‘The All-Party’ was meant to be a temporary project, funded by three producers, each with a specific script in mind. When those films were inevitably lost in the late-eighties oversaturation of sex-romps, the producers prepared to disperse ‘The All-Party’ but were approached by a new batch of filmmakers, freshly arrived to try their own hand at the bloated concept. So it came to be that ‘The All-Party’ was handed down for decades, outliving many of the original participants and informing the silver screen’s understanding of what it meant to be a modern teenager for far longer than the initial one-year run. As party-goers aged out (passing the threshold even for ‘skeevy college-aged alum’) they were dragged off in their alcohol-induced slumber to be replaced by some wide-eyed transfer whose only goal in life was to comfort his crush when she’s dumped by the jock. These rookies were quietly poached from schools nationwide, usually students who had been expelled for (or dropped-out to pursue) little ‘All-Parties’ of their own.

Unfortunately for realists, ‘The All-Party’ is no platinum bar and the unit by which Hollywood measures its characters has long since warped into something altogether different. A crackdown on child endangerment has led to ‘The All-Party’s’ youngest recruits being 18. The result is that most high school melodramas are played out by full-fledged adults who tower over their lockers and struggle to act as though they’re only just learning about sex.

More importantly, ‘The All-Party’ is changed by the vacuum that maintains it, fermenting into something that is more itself than was ever initially intended. It has become such a concentrated pit of deviancy that writers now work to dilute what they witness through its mirrors in order to provide something remotely palatable to their global audience.

Participants emerge from ‘The All-Party’ with no understanding of society. They shuffle to music they no longer hear, sleep for only hours at a time, and suffer painful drug and alcohol withdrawals. Many are injured from cruel, slapstick stunts performed around the ‘The All-Party’s’ pool. Many are wracked with guilt or anxiety for having felt, for so long, that ‘The All-Party’s’ fictional parents would be arriving sooner than expected and that ‘the mess’ would need to be cleaned up before that time. Since 2007, when a drug-resistant form of gonorrhea was traced back to ‘The All-Party,’ all out-going participants are quarantined for two weeks and subject to a battery of tests upon exit. The quiet solitude of their hospitable bed is known to trigger panic attacks and therapists stand by to ease their post-party depressive episodes.

Just one of ‘The All-Party’s’ two-way mirrors are accessible to the public. Voyeurs treat ‘The All-Party Overlook’ as a sort of pilgrimage site but are often disappointed at what they find there. Those willing to describe what they saw relate a scene more evocative of science fiction or body horror than your average straight-to-streaming comedy and they grimace and shrug and wonder aloud how such a thing could even be legal.’

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

Perhaps you remember, years ago, the day I was kidnapped by a witch hunter and rescued by the Stranger. I’ve recovered from the event, inundated by a slew of further traumas in the meantime. One might even suggest I’ve learned something, though, if that’s the case, ‘The Second Place for Follower’s of the Gray Witch, Roki’ is undoubtedly the first test of that theoretical knowledge.

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Following the destruction of ‘The [Original] Place for Follower’s of the Gray Witch, Roki,’ ‘The Second Place for Follower’s of the Gray Witch, Roki’ is second in name, only. Now offering space for both followers of the Gray Witch, Roki (any branch) AND friends and family of followers of the Gray Witch, Roki (up to four), ‘The Second Place for Followers of the Gray Witch, Roki’ is the nation’s number one choice for card-carrying followers, friends, and family alike. Please limit familiars to one-per-follower (as the Dust Tome mandates).

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I’m not at all nervous about the visit until my sheet of counterfeit membership cards slides from a machine in the local print shop and I begin the tedious process of cutting them out. The edges of the first as so mangled by my nervous tremors that it wouldn’t pass muster with even the least invested bouncers or doormen. Like casting a spell or embellishing a resume, the use of a counterfeit credential requires an expenditure of some kind- a little sacrifice, even if its just the energy necessary to maintain a commitment to the bit.

I manage cleaner cuts on the next few, but I start to wonder exactly how official an organization like ‘The Followers of the Gray Witch, Roki’ would be on paper. The most official document I own, my driver’s license, is pretty ratty and it still gets me into bars. Do followers keep their membership cards clean or is there an amount of blood staining or smoke damage lending credence to the pass?

I’ve got six counterfeit cards, when all is said and done, each on heavy card stock and each looking more or less authentic depending on cut. I take some of the worst and fold them a few times. I rub one in dirt and let Hector chew the corner off another. I consider coaxing a drop or two of blood from a scrape on my knee but draw the line at handing bodily fluids over to a cult. I think of myself cautious but understand how it may look, to an outsider, like superstition. I squint and settle on the first one that doesn’t make me feel a nervous flutter in my stomach.

‘The Second Place for Followers of the Gray Witch, Roki’ is a sprawling complex, meant to be condos before the housing collapse and, now, a solid investment on the part of the cult or, alternatively, the sect of witch-hunters that attempts to lure the cultists in. The woman who previously kidnapped me claimed there were only three of her kind but, given that deceit was the basis for the interaction, her word doesn’t hold a lot of weight. In my mind, the chances of ‘The Second Place for Followers of the Gray Witch, Roki’ being another trap is about equal to it being the real thing.

Which presents a new problem with the cards. The hunters of the followers of the Gray Witch, Roki seem like the type to burn first and ask questions later. Discovering the membership card on my person won’t do me any favors if I’m suspected of being in the fold. The more counterfeit a card appears, the more likely it is I might convince hunters that I am what I am- a curious traveler with a strange pet. Too counterfeit, though, and it won’t pass by a true believer.

Hector scuttles about in his carrier as, an hour later, I hover over a public garbage can and examine the six cards, talking myself into and out of each. I consider bringing them all so that I can improvise on the spot, depending upon the legitimacy of the welcome. A witch-hunter means I bluff a clear counterfeit from the back of my wallet, a follower situation means I pull a clean-cut, authentically-worn card from my breast pocket. A shakedown reveals all the cards which, in either scenario, might suggest a lovable interloper (which is the truth I tell myself). In reviewing them again I find, to my dismay, that even the nicely printed cards have begun to wilt under examination.

I return to the copy center to print another round and find the self-service machine is out of order. The woman behind the counter offers to let me use the machine in the back so I step through the ‘employees only’ door and into a small, dark room- empty except for a chair and bindings. The door locks in time for me to notice a pattern scrawled on the floor underfoot and the woman moving in the shadows, now clad in a robe.

“Ah ha!” she smiles, “I see my sigils have held against you, sir!”

I wonder- which card do I show her first?

-traveler