To Shake the Sleeping Self

by Jedidiah Jenkins

  We crawled into the tent and sat completely quiet. We heard the drum of hooves approaching, then barking—a lot of barking. Shit. They must have twenty dogs running with the horses to smell us out, to track us down. Soon I could hear men shouting commands to one another.

  “We should never have gone for a walk!” I groaned. We’d been seen. I broke the first rule.

  As we sat, hunched over and waiting, my mind ran through the scenarios. At best, we’d be booted from our campsite and left with nowhere to sleep. At worst…I thought about Harry Devert. The world had been kind to him. Then, in the random Godless world, someone murdered him. Was it my turn? Was my naïveté going to cost me my life? No one knows where we are. Who would find us? I had sent an e-mail two days before to my mom, so at least they’d know the general area. Maybe. And I had lured two young friends out here. What if they were murdered and I survived? What would their parents think of me? What is wrong with me that I am thinking of my guilt more than their lives? Feverish thoughts swarmed to the soundtrack of dogs barking. Getting closer. Closer.

  The dogs found us first. They rounded the last few bushes and surrounded the tent.

  The sound of hooves came next; the horses slowing to a trot. I peered out and saw a brown stallion with a blond mane and tail, sweat matting dust to its hide. My eyes must’ve been as wide as an owl’s. Parker and Ronnie were as quiet as mice.

  On the horse’s back was a sun-darkened man—deep wrinkles, a cowboy hat. He towered above me. In his arms was something bright and pink.

  This was my Harry Devert moment. I sat there frozen. That absurd moment in Jurassic Park came to mind. If I don’t move, he can’t see me. The cowboy sat on his horse and didn’t speak. He just looked. The dogs were barking, pleased with their find.

  Then I saw what the bright pink thing in his arms was. A little girl. She was small, probably three or four years old, and was wearing a jumpsuit as bright as an Easter Peep. She looked so out of place that I couldn’t comprehend the sight of her.

  The father said something and the dogs quieted. I kept staring out from the mesh of the tent, Parker and Ronnie holding their breaths behind me. Suddenly, the daughter said something in a high sweet voice. The father said something in reply, then he turned to me and said, in Spanish, “It is very cold here at night. I think you should come sleep in our house. Or camp in our barn. You will be more comfortable.”

  I looked at him in silence for what felt like a very long time. My heart was pumping so hard that I could hear the blood in my ears.

  “Thank you, señor, we are okay,” I said in broken Spanish. “Are we on your land? I am sorry. We are on bicycle to Patagonia. I like to camp. I am okay here. Is that okay? I am sorry.”

  He didn’t smile or show any emotion, then he said, “Okay. If you get cold, come to the house at any time. It is okay. You are welcome.”

  He turned his horse and called the dogs. The little girl in pink held up her hand and kept it there, a wave goodbye.

  I slept well and hard. In the morning, we woke to the sound of hooves again. The rising sun hadn’t yet made it over the ridge. I could see my breath in the frigid air. The man had returned, holding his child in his lap, and a greasy paper sack. I sprang from my sleeping bag, glad that I’d slept in my jeans for the cold. He handed me the bag, and this time, he smiled.

  I peered inside: freshly made doughnuts. He said something in Spanish I didn’t understand, but his face was open and smiling and his eyes sparkling. He could tell I didn’t understand, so he said simply, “My wife,” and gestured to the doughnuts. The little girl watched me, with her hand in her mouth.

  * * *

  —

  WE ATE EVERY last doughnut and packed up and headed back to the soft dirt road, and thanks be to God, within a couple miles the pavement returned. We cycled for three more days through the thorny wastes that now—thanks to the cowboy and the pink girl and the doughnuts—seemed more beautiful and simple than hostile. We slept in the thorns and drank boxed wine and enjoyed the smooth flat road. But I could see on the map that the long straight roads began to squiggle up ahead, and I knew that soon we would enter the mountains. First we saw giant snowy peaks standing alone, with green rolling mountains flanking them. No longer the impenetrable wall of the Andes, this was Patagonia opening up to roads and exploration. Then the desert ended, like a cliff, and we rode a long downhill into a green valley. When a sign welcomed us to “The Lake District,” I knew I had entered the Patagonia of my imagination.

  Laura, my Argentinian mom from Salta, had described the Lake District as one of Argentina’s crown jewels. She said that I would see other cyclists and tourists there, and find wonderful camping. The district contains natural glacial lakes, clear water, snowcapped mountains, and resort towns famous for beer, German-style log cabins, and excellent skiing. This was the Patagonia I knew from National Geographic, from photos and dreaming. The desert of thorns was behind us. Now we found ourselves surrounded by grassy meadows and aquamarine lakes fed by mountain streams. It was the Southern Hemisphere’s Alaska, Norway, and Nova Scotia combined.

  The Lake District alone would make Patagonia famous, but that is only the beginning. From there, you have thousands more miles of mountains, growing ever steeper, the wind growing stronger, the peaks sharper, the glaciers larger, appropriate gatekeepers for the end of the world. It all feels very cinematic, the last place for humans on earth.

  We arrived into the squiggly roads with shocking beauty. The mountains popped up like a surprise out of the desert. We jumped in a cold river and hopped from rock to rock. We camped next to the first lake we saw, carrying our bikes on our shoulders along a narrow hiking path to find a private spot. Families were on vacation, taking photos at the various overlooks and waterfalls. The first town in the Lake District we reached was San Martín de los Andes. It is a ski town with pubs and European-inspired hotels and ski shops. I made friends with a young girl from Buenos Aires who had taken a gap year to work at a bar in this little town. She was beautiful, with thick black hair and olive skin. Her English was excellent. We had a few beers and she asked me about America.

  “What do you think of America?”

  “I’m confused about it all right now. Have you heard about Ferguson, and all the racial tension and stuff?”

  “Oh, yes. That stuff doesn’t surprise me. America is good with race. Argentina used to have black people. Do you see any?”

  “No, actually. I haven’t seen almost any. Did they all move to Brazil?”

  “No. We killed them all. Black slaves made up almost half our country at one point. But then we only promised them freedom if they’d fight in war. And we sent all the men to the front lines of our war with Spain, and then our war with Paraguay. We killed them all. And then we only allowed Europeans to immigrate here. So, Argentina is worse with race. America will be fine.”

  “Whoa. I didn’t know any of that. Do people talk about that?”

  “People don’t know. They trust the newspapers, which are all lies. What do you think about Syria and the U.S.?” she said, leaning in like she was asking about secrets.

  “What Assad is doing is terrible. It’s so terrible. I don’t know if the U.S. is going to intervene. It makes me really sad.”

  “You believe that Assad is bad?”

  “Yes, doesn’t everyone?”

  “I don’t believe it. I believe it’s the U.S. coming in and lying, the newspapers are lying. The U.S. wants the oil in Syria, to control. I think Assad is maybe a good guy, and the rebels are U.S.-planted terrorists to disrupt. Like what the U.S. did in Nicaragua.”

  Whoa. There are so many ways to see the world. I tried to counter. “I don’t know. I’ve got friends in journalism,” I said. “I’ve got friends who work at NPR and cover the Middle East. They’re there. They see what they see and report it. And our news media is pretty antagonistic with our govern
ment.”

  “Well, that’s what they want you to think.” She leaned back and raised her eyebrows, looking down at her beer. Her body language pulled away as she realized I was another sheep in the system. I tried to bring her back.

  “What makes you think these things?” I asked.

  “It’s just the truth. The U.S. runs the world through coercion, through fake news stories, through control. Everyone knows this that’s outside of the U.S. They keep Americans arguing over guns and black people so they won’t look outside the country and see that the U.S. is an empire.”

  “Wow. That may be some level of true. Thank God I made it out, right?” I held my beer up, and she leaned back in to cheers me.

  “I mean, I’ve always wanted to visit the U.S.,” she said, somewhat reassuringly. “I want to do a road trip across it. It’s so famous, to do the U.S. road trip. One day I will. I want to see the empire before it falls.”

  “It is a beautiful empire,” I said.

  * * *

  —

  WE CYCLED SOUTH from lake to lake, town to town. Highway 40 is famous for its winding vistas, evergreen trees, spring-blooming trees, wildflowers, and log-cabin lodges. We rode by other cyclists and families camping on the edges of the lakes. We stopped for beer and conversations with tourists from Germany, from Chile, from Australia. We biked into an overlook that offered a crazy view of Lago Nahuel Huapi, a massive glacial lake surrounded by mountains. A man holding a sign, “Photos with Bruno,” sat beside a Saint Bernard puppy. Bruno was a blob of white and brown fur in his youth, and families had lined up, waiting with their happily anxious kids for a chance to pose hugging this absurd dog.

  We spent a week in this Patagonian paradise. It would rain for an hour, then stop. Then a rainbow would signal blue skies like a biblical promise. Sometimes we would ride through the rain. It was chilly but fresh. I could feel the end of my trip approaching. I wasn’t ready to reflect on it. I was in my animal skin, thinking very little, feeling a lot. I would ride for miles, looking down at my front tire, checking to see if it was getting low.

  I watched Parker and Ronnie as they rode. They were nearing the end of their stay with me. I noticed the freedom they felt on the road, free from the world at home and the routines they knew. This bike trip had become my routine now, had been for a while. I didn’t feel free. I felt normal. The United States now seemed different and strange to me. The thought of driving a car felt exotic. The thought of speaking English to anyone I met felt like a rare privilege. The idea that in the U.S., I could walk up to any stranger and speak freely, about anything, with thousands of words to choose from, and that they would understand—wow, that felt wild to me.

  We arrived in San Carlos de Bariloche, about fifty miles later, at the end of the Lake District’s famous route. It is the largest town in the lakes, with a popular ski resort and restaurants and hotels. At more than 100,000 inhabitants, it felt like New York City.

  We found a cheap hostel and set up shop. My mom had e-mailed her plans to come finish the trip with me at Torres del Paine. I was very happy to hear this. As much as our relationship confounded me, I always wanted to celebrate with her. I couldn’t put a finger on it, but I knew that my deepest wounds were the place of my deepest meanings. And she was ground zero. My salvation was somewhere inside her.

  She would fly into Punta Arenas, the biggest town in Chile’s deep south. She would rent an Airbnb and a car, and we’d hike and explore and take photos and celebrate. I had another month to make it to Punta Arenas. But soon after Bariloche, I would be leaving pavement again for 700 miles of gravel. Lots of cycling blogs talked about this stretch. It featured the most spectacular scenery, but the government had never bothered to pave it because too few people traveled there.

  In Bariloche it was Halloween, the night before Parker and Ronnie left. We had beers and a good dinner and recounted stories of doughnuts and downhill days. The next day they boxed up their bicycles and headed to the airport. In between our goodbye hugs, I could already feel the aloneness approaching. The final stretch. Just me and the road and my bicycle and Patagonia.

  * * *

  —

  FIRST THING, I went to a bike shop in town and bought fatter tires, twice as wide as any I had ridden on. They looked absurd and sluggish. They would slow me down for the next hundred miles of pavement, but I’d be thanking the Lord for them the minute I hit the gravel of the Carretera Austral. Instead of slipping and sinking in and ruining the tires, I’d be able to ride normally-ish.

  When I went to pay the bill, the woman behind the hostel counter hardly looked up from her computer. “Gracias,” she said, already worrying about something else. I had a coffee. I packed my bike. And I climbed on and began cycling. I was entering the final month of my journey, and no one was watching. Which, though lonely, felt poetically personal and perfect.

  The road south from Bariloche took me into ever more dramatic terrain. The mountains higher. The snow whiter. The trees taller and thicker. Rivers of sparkling clarity tumbled over boulders. Sheep became common on the hillsides, with just the occasional horse for aesthetic appeal. I camped some, but mostly I stayed in small hostels. There I’d meet backpackers, day hikers, weirdos, and escape artists. Being alone again gave me a sweet social freedom. I didn’t have a travel partner, much less a clique. When you’re sitting alone on the porch with a beer, a book, and a friendly face, almost anyone will talk to you.

  This has been a common experience for my whole life. Something about the way I hold my face, or my mediocre good looks, my unintimidating stature, my curious and friendly eyes, always leads strangers to talk to me. In any city, people ask me for directions. People ask me what book I’m reading. People talk to me, and I’m sure they don’t know why. They might say, “You seemed nice,” or “You look like you are from here,” but I bet they didn’t have the thought first. They just felt familiar with me. It has been a constant reminder of the hidden motivations of all our actions. The signals we send. The language we all speak and cannot hear.

  Five days out from Bariloche, I had wound my way around what must have been a dozen more lakes, mountains leaning right over the well-paved road, horses watching me roll by, and the occasional house or gas station. There were little towns with a few cafés and hostels in them. I was nearing the border with Chile, where the road would leave Argentina and dip into the famous Carretera Austral for a long while. From pavement to gravel for more than 700 miles.

  The last day to the border was spectacular. A meandering road took me through beautiful farmland and fields of lupines. These flowers were tall spears of purple, made up of hundreds of small purple flowers each, stacked on top of one another. The blue sky, the snow-topped mountains, the sky reflected in the cascading streams, and the purple flowers filling up the green fields made for a world so idyllic that I sometimes felt overwhelmed, even defeated by it. I couldn’t take it all in. The photos I took turned out dumb and dull. Nothing captured the colors or scale.

  While I biked, I was listening to a podcast episode of Fresh Air with Terry Gross. She was interviewing Jill Soloway, the creator of the show Transparent, an Amazon series about a seventy-year-old father coming out to his kids as transgender. The show documents his transition into life as a woman. I listened to this podcast enraptured by the evolution of gender, of pronouns, of culture. Terry Gross, a world-famous and seasoned interviewer, stumbled over the proper pronouns with Soloway, who lovingly corrected her several times. “He, I’m sorry, she,” Gross would say. “Or do they prefer ‘they’?” I remember Soloway explaining that some nonbinary people (between genders) preferred the pronoun they, to which Terry Gross seemed to be surprised. “It isn’t as difficult as people think,” Soloway said. “When your roommate is headed to the airport to pick up a friend that you don’t know, whose gender you don’t know, it isn’t strange to say ‘what time do they land?’ See how easy that is?” Soloway went on
to say that the show was inspired by her life, by her dad transitioning in his seventies, becoming her “moppa,” a combination of momma and papa.

  As I cycled past the tall purple flowers and over bridges, my mind sorted through the ideas of gender fluidity and identity. I remember thinking that the sight of a cross-dressing man, a man in women’s clothes, was funny to me. Strange and silly. I remember thinking, “Does he really think we can’t tell he’s a man?” I would snicker and think, “What a weirdo.” But then I realized, if I held hands with a boy fifty years ago, or even this year in certain places, wouldn’t people snicker and point and whisper or worse? What is the difference?

  An awareness of my own hypocrisy stung me. I hadn’t noticed this in myself. And from this thought, it spread in me an empathy for my mom, for the people in my church. If I, being in a category of oppression, could still mock another who is laterally the same as me, then how common must that hypocrisy be? And in being that way, they are not intentionally evil or bigoted, but groupish human beings wired to question difference.

  I thought of the power of storytelling, how exposure to this story of a trans woman was rewiring my brain. How Will & Grace had changed my young life. How encountering firsthand my sexuality had rewired the brains of some of my straight friends. Exposure to human stories reminds us that we’re all human. I mean real exposure. Listening, hearing. Not pointing from across the room. Engaging. And most of us are just trying to make it day by day without hurting anyone else.

  I still look at photos from that stretch of road and remember the sound of Terry Gross’s voice, of Jill Soloway’s calm surgery on my mind.

  Eight days after Bariloche, as I neared the border crossing, I spotted an Andean condor on the ground just off the road. A giant of a bird, the condor can stand four feet tall with a wingspan of eleven feet—perhaps the largest flying animal on earth. This one was metallic black with a white collar of feathers and a bald gray head. It just sat there in the field, not twenty feet away, looking back at me.