Jilly and I arranged to go camping together, though we didn’t know each other all that well. As for her willingness to accompany me, I was pleasantly surprised. Jilly was tall, pretty, had springy hair and a cool smile. Me, when I looked in the mirror, something woeful stared back. 

She’d volunteered to drive us—good thing, as I didn’t have a car. On the evening we left, I clambered aboard her jeep. She’d rolled back its roof to take advantage of the balmy summer air. As we drove through town, the vehicle’s plastic side windows snapped in the breeze. 

Jilly and I worked together, that’s how we were acquainted. We were both recent college graduates, earning peanuts for teaching special needs kids at a run-down school in the Catskills. (Surprisingly, 30 years later the place still existed. More to come on that.) You could say Jilly and I were just beginning our careers. Though for me, at least, “career” was too fancy a word. Fact is, I’d taken the only job I could get with a degree so worthless I’m still embarrassed to reveal it.

Jilly’s hair, with sun-kissed strands, whipped back as she drove. “Hey Iceman,” she said. You wanna get more weed, I know where.”

 

“Iceman” wasn’t my name. She’d started calling me that after she saw me play basketball once with some co-workers. It was meant to be ironic, as I’d flung up even more air balls than usual.  Jilly liked nicknames: there was a guy we worked with, named Willie, whom she called “Hand-Jive.”

“Um,” I said, thinking of how much dope I had, trying to figure out whether we could use more. “Uh.”

“Speak up,” she said. “We’ll pass the block soon. I may not have it in me to turn back.”  

“How much you got?” I asked.

“Some.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.” 

“I like a decisive man.” Jilly hit the brake and swung a sharp right. 

We drove along a street where homes had seen better days. Yards contained mostly dirt, trees looked stooped. We stopped in front of an apartment house, two stories of bleached-out cinderblock. In front, there was a barbell on a mount near a bench. A few late-stage teens stood by it, looking up to no good. 

“Here we are,” Jilly said brightly. 

“You mean right here?”

“Affirmative.” She switched off the ignition then calmly lit a cigarette. “Once you get past those kids,” Jilly said, “go up to the second floor. Apartment 209. You’ll notice, if memory serves, the stairwell smells like, well to be blunt, shit. You’ll want to hold your breath. Also, you may see what looks at first like groundhogs loose in the hall, or squirrels. But they’re just these big rats they got. Don’t worry. If you leave them alone, you’re probably okay.”

Jilly watched me, her grin spreading behind large-framed sunglasses. I turned my attention to the teens, who insolently eyed our jeep. A couple of them sneered, as if they dared us to get out.    

“Well. . . you know,” I said, trying for a steady, uncowed tone. “I think we got enough.” 

Jilly’s grin broke out in full, no holding back, all teeth. She flicked her cigarette from the jeep and started the engine. Her tires squealed as she pulled out. She laughed in a crazed, whooping way I’d never heard from her before. I blushed and turned away, slouched down in my seat.   

Jilly made a left at the corner, still hooting. We rode toward the sun as began setting behind bright green mountain tops ahead.    

                                                                                            ---

   

It was dusk when, having bumped along a narrow, graveled road for a while, we reached a clearing near a stream. Jilly parked on a strip of tall grass and turned off the motor. 

We were in a state park, unsure if we were allowed to camp overnight.   

“I honestly don’t give a damn,” Jilly said as she climbed out. 

She took big strides toward the back of the vehicle, where our gear was stashed. We began hauling stuff out.

We were surrounded by large trees whose canopies sprawled above us, yet with enough space to reveal a swath of dimming sky. We could see a ghostly half-moon. On the ground, bushes and brambles jostled together, mingled with the trees; I inhaled a clean, earthy smell and listened to the bubbling hiss of the stream.  

Jilly carried an armload of supplies and I followed, cradling tent poles, dropping and retrieving a couple along the way. She laid her stuff on flat ground, and I did the same. Jilly stretched, yawned, then crouched and snapped together two halves of her pup tent. She wore cargo shorts, and boots that came just above her ankles. At her direction, I picked up a flat, good-sized rock and began banging metal stakes into the ground.  

A field of stars emerged and the evening darkened as we worked. It took us only about 30 minutes to raise the tent, mostly because Jilly knew what she was doing. We each took a cold beer from the cooler, and drank as we cleared space for a campfire. Fireflies flickered, offering a brief illusion that the universe of stars was reaching down to us. With flashlights, we searched among thickets and brush for firewood. We eventually hauled back a decent stash and tossed them in a pile. Insect chirps were insistent; they whirled around us, dizzyingly.   

“Throw the small ones down first, Iceman,” Jilly instructed, her face glazed with perspiration.    

I did so. I created a firepit of sticks a couple of yards long and wide. Jilly carried over an armload of larger wood. I went to our pile and did the same.

Jilly set the ends of several sturdy branches into the pit and leaned them against each other until they formed a pyramid. She lighted a match and tossed it in; small flames came alive, and dark, ashy smoke curled upward.  

I said, “I see you’ve done this before.”

She kicked a few twigs closer to the flame and told me to toss in more. I did. She dropped in another lighted match and the fire surged, crackling and spitting as embers leapt about. The heat rushed like wind on my face. I stared, absorbed in the spectacle of bright, burning colors.  

We walked the brief distance to the stream. Moonlight floated on its surface and the current stirred up froth that glared like ice. We knelt on the shore, scooped out cool water and splashed our faces. 

Jilly tossed her hair forward and doused the back of her neck. “Yes! Better than a hot shower,” she said. 

As I watched her, I felt grateful for the opportunity. 

​                                                                                          ---
                                                                  
We sat on blankets, viewing the fire, passing a joint between us. Jilly was a Grateful Dead fan, and a cassette of their music played softly, jostling with the sounds of crickets, the stream whispering in the background. The firelight glowed onto a stand of evergreens across the way, and the flames projected a trippy. blinking effect. The sky’s ambient glimmer revealed outlines of dark trees and brush alongside us.  

Amid this open-air wonder, I was most concerned with the wonder right next to me. What was I supposed to do now, with her sitting so close? What would a normal guy do? Well, I considered myself fairly normal, just reticent. What would a normal, reticent guy do? Probably, what I was doing—nothing. She’d toss me in the water if I misjudged the moment.   

“Yeah,” Jilly said. “When I was a kid, authority figures would take us into the woods, me and my brother. ‘Okay now,’ they’d say. ‘Time to go fucking camping, you like it or not.’ Of course, I rebelled. Fought them tooth and nail.” I passed her the joint; light sparkled in her eyes. She laughed. I grinned back.

“Truth is,” she said, “I liked it. Then I came to really dig it. Out here, nobody messes with you. There’s kind of a no-bullshit kind of justice. If you treat nature with respect, it respects you back.”

“So, like,” I said, the weed probably doing some talking for me. “If you kill an animal out of season, say. Like a wolf. You mean a bear or something’ll come kill you as punishment?”

With a puzzled look Jilly turned to face me. She half-grinned then laughed through her nose. “We like to see the universe a little more macro than that, Iceman. Say, the human race destroys a forest. You just killed a major source of oxygen, which we need to goddamn breathe, you know? Keep doing it, eventually we all die. That kind of justice.” 

“So, they did you a favor, teaching you this stuff,” I said. “Your parents.”

The joint was tiny now. Jilly took a final drag, flipped it into the fire. My eyes followed the tiny burning projectile, then I looked back at Jilly. Her expression surprised me. Her lower lip curled outward; the eye nearest me glinted, looked filled with something. Her cheek seemed pale, almost spectral.

“Among others,” she said, quietly. “There was like a whole generation in my family. Campers, hikers, tree huggers, the whole nine yards. Henry David Thoreau types.”

“Cool,” I said. “I never knew people like that.” 

I loved this mode of communicating. I reminded myself—good-looking women were people too. A friend told me: you want to get into a girl’s head, just listen. Or pretend to. I wasn’t pretending. The soundscape enveloped me: the flow of water, the crickets, the Dead’s acoustic guitars. All felt sublimely centered. My head whirled, my spine tingled.

“They’re all gone,” Jilly said, barely audible.

I wasn’t sure I heard her right. “Um,” I said, breathing deeply, searching for gravitas. “What do you mean?” 

I could feel her silence, an awkward void sucking in the night’s chorus. Then she was up on her feet, smiling. I hadn’t noticed her move. She grabbed my wrist and yanked me up, forcefully. “What do you mean?” I repeated, as I teetered on my feet. 

Jilly ignored it.

I realized the music had kicked up; you could find a beat. Jilly moved to the beat and expected me to do the same.  
Like most girls I’d known, she could dance with some flair. She released me and her arms swung before her, her feet stepping right and left, hips swaying, shoulders dipping, all precisely in concert with the music. All apparently effortless. 

Like many guys, if not most, I couldn’t grasp the formula. Trying to dance made me feel like a clod. But Jilly’s exuberance overruled my restraint. The campfire was a spotlight, and we filled it, dancing in its fevered glow like it was our only reality. I was leaping as high as I could, clapping my hands together each time I touched down. Jilly spun around, snapping fingers stylishly over her head, sparkling and grinning blissfully. 

The music revved up further, became propulsive; we responded accordingly. We stomped and kicked, clumps of dirt spraying up from our feet.  It felt like we were moving the earth.  

                                                                                              ---
                                                               
Later, we snuffed the campfire and crawled into the tent. Jilly switched on a lantern, and amber-tinted light pushed through shadows. She removed her top, revealing breasts cradled in a bra just secure enough for the job. She squirmed and pulled off her shorts, disclosing bikini underwear. I disrobed too, knowing my body would impress her far less than hers impressed me. 

“You like to sleep to music?” Jilly asked.  

I assured her it was fine.

She reached for her boom box; her skin bathed in the lantern light. The illumination revealed an overpowering, distinctive quality to her skin, a gleaming softness that was magnetic, as if it had to be touched. I felt like too much blood was flowing to my head, forcing my pulse to jackhammer like mad to pump the stuff back out.  

No question of me brooding, wondering what to do. As a silky, haunting brand of music started to weave its web, I cleared my throat, choked with the residue of ungodly desire.  

“Would you mind,” I inquired, “if I placed my hand on your thigh?”     

                                                                                                  ---
                                                                                                                               
When I awoke, I heard a thousand birds chattering. A gray, murky daylight filled the tent. I saw Jilly’s rumpled sleeping bag was unoccupied.

I put on my shorts, pushed and crawled through the tent flaps. My knees crushed moist grass; I breathed the air of a muggy, dew-filled morning. The sky was pale blue, pink-streaked. I saw the charred remains of the campfire and, as I turned my head, swaths of sunshine roll in beneath the treetops. I blinked against the piercing light, climbed to my feet and turned around.

 
Near a cluster of bushes, in wide, ink-dark shade, stood a fuzzy animal—a mid-sized doe, lean and gangly.  
It wasn’t alone.

 

Jilly stood close by, in her underwear and a tank top. She held a hand steadily before her. The doe was eating off Jilly’s palm.

I opened my mouth to blurt out my astonishment. In those days, wild deer sightings were rare; smaller still were the odds of seeing a person interact with one. But then I let good sense take over, and I stayed quiet. I just watched.  

The doe was reddish-brown, blending wheat and rust; it flicked its tongue onto Jilly’s palm, its wide black nose bobbing. Its eyes were large, dark, and glossy with feeling. It had prominent funnel-shaped ears. The doe looked sweet and gawky; I thought it was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. I heard Jilly mutter: “There, there now.”  

The deer continued to root in Jilly’s palm, its dark lips moving up and down as it munched. I dared not move, determined to keep silent, to hold the moment. I felt dew on my skin, smelled rich foliage. Birds continued their chatter; now they sounded melodious, earthy. 

Jilly whispered: “Aren’t you sweet.”

The doe’s white tail swished side to side. I heard my own measured breaths; the range of forest colors sparked vividly. Sunlight glinted off leaves, brightening their tips. Time was a slow-motion haze.   

Then, like a switch was flipped, all returned to normal. The doe quickly looked up. She bucked to full posture, her eyes scanning, ears swiveling. I heard a motor vibrate behind me; I smelled oil. The deer streaked off, leaping into brush. You could hear her crashing through branches, noise fading as she moved away.

I turned and saw a pickup truck beneath tree limbs. It looked out of place; it may as well have been a Sherman tank. Red letters were imprinted on its side: Cornwall Park Ranger.

Jilly said: “What the fuck.”

A ranger opened the driver’s door, stepped out. He wore a flat, broad-brimmed hat, a gray shirt, olive short pants to his knees. A pistol was holstered at his side. He had a crewcut and an erect posture. He wasn’t tall, but strode toward us as if he was.

“Good morning!” he barked.

“How’s it going,” Jilly drawled. 

The ranger halted, surveyed the area with light blue eyes. “You folks stay overnight? Burn a fire?”

Jilly stared at the man, expressionless. “Right on both counts,” she said.

The ranger’s eyes flicked on, then off, Jilly’s bare legs.

“Both illegal. Both fineable offenses. You aware of that?”

“No, Jilly said. “But it’s bullshit. Look around. God’s country.” She waved at the trees, at the sky. “It’s perfect. What’s the point, if people can’t enjoy it?”

“We got rules,” the ranger said, “to preserve all this.” He pointed at the fire remains. “That’s a hazard.”

Jilly stepped toward the ranger. “Not if you know what the hell you’re doing. And some of us do.” 

“You dump anything in the water?” the ranger said.

“Fuck no,” Jilly said. 

“Collect your gear, load it, and leave the park now. Right now. Or I will fine you.”

He and Jilly faced off, like in a duel. The ranger looked mostly impassive, but you could tell he was pissed. Jilly glowered—lips drawn downward, eyes narrowed, face blotched with color.  

But it was clear who held all the cards.

“Fine, fine,” Jilly said through her teeth. “Asshole,” she muttered, loud enough for me to fear the man might shoot us.

I hadn’t so much as twitched since the confrontation began. As the ranger marched back to his truck, my tension finally cracked and loosened. I blew a long exhale. I walked toward our tent, looking for stuff to carry. 

                                                                                       ---

​

We had barely spoken as we rode in the jeep off the gravel road, out onto the parking lot, where a couple of lonely cars sat. It was still early morning. Jilly had cranked the roof back overhead, enclosing us, and the windows were also sealed. At the exit, she hung a right and we began a steep drive down the mountain, the sun climbing on our left. 

After we’d gone a few miles, I finally said: “At least he didn’t fine us. Or worse.”

Jilly didn’t answer. We continued to sweep down the road, our course lined with glimmering shrubs and tall oaks that shot shadows across our path. We passed craggy, rocky foothills. After a couple of more miles, the ground became flatter and houses began to appear. 

Jilly lighted a cigarette, steering one-handed. She passed the butt to me, which I took as a positive sign, and she lighted another for herself. I drew hard, going for that enjoyably woozy sensation I got when smoking early.

Now the road stretched out in front, with no other cars visible. Jilly cranked up our speed.  

“So,” I said, hopefully. “Where we headed?”

Jilly took a drag, exhaled smoke that lingered inside. I crushed my cigarette into the ash tray, contented and dizzy.

​

She accelerated further, trees blurring as we rushed past.  

Jilly said, quietly, “I got no place to go.”

We entered a long curve. After riding its edge, we closed quickly on a vehicle ahead. Though the road lines were double yellow, Jilly steered into the opposite lane and we whooshed past the straggler like it stood still. We swerved back to our lane.

“Wait, what do you mean…” I began, but sensed I’d be ignored again.

After a few minutes, Jilly pulled into a gas station. As we stopped near a pump, I announced I’d take this opportunity to use the bathroom. I stepped out of the jeep, turned back to look at her. She was smiling. “Me too,” Jilly said.

 

As I turned away, she added, “Take care of yourself, Iceman.”

I failed to note her choice of words until I returned a few minutes later. The pump was there but no jeep, no Jilly. I wiped grimy sweat from my forehead, stood still for a few moments. First I was in disbelief; then I felt the gloomy weight of inevitability. I walked to the road and looked in both directions. I knew what I’d probably see, and then saw it. Nothing but a strip of hot blacktop in either direction. A queasy hole opened in my stomach; a black emptiness filled it.  

I pictured Jilly’s farewell smile, a loud fade of a promise; a sucker punch. I walked toward a payphone, digging into a pocket for change. 
                                                                                              ---

That September, Jilly was not among the staff returning to work for another school year.  I wasn’t surprised. 

After that year I moved on as well, making a major contribution to the teaching profession by quitting it forever.   

Thirty years later, give or take, I was traveling on business near the Catskills and found myself in the general area of our school. Not without nostalgic stirrings, I decided to drive there and check it out. I assumed the place had likely been shut down or demolished, and I wondered what stood there now, if anything. But as I arrived, I saw the school not only existed still, it appeared to be prospering. It had a gold-plated sign in front, and a sturdy brick façade instead of the peeling soft wood I remembered. I parked, left my car and walked closer, seeing an extension had been added, a single-story annex with a row of large windows. 

Affixed to the wall was a plaque:

This wing made possible by a generous donation from Dr. Jill Rooney, who served on our faculty with exceptional heart and professionalism, Autumn and Spring, 19__.

It cited a year I’d been there—and Jilly, too. I didn’t think “Rooney” was her last name, but she’d been the only Jill on staff, as best as I could remember. 

It had to be her. No doubt. As far as I was concerned.

I stood there, surprised; and recalled Jilly with some ambivalence. Then something kicked in, a change so swift it was like a shock. I wobbled backward and lowered myself onto the grass. I had no one to smile at, but I smiled anyway. Like when something of great value is lost, you can search your soul forever wondering what might have become of it. But if you ever find it, life can’t get any better. 

That last smile from Jilly—it was simply beautiful. The mood sticks with you for days. And never, ever completely dies.  

​

                                                                                         THE END

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