Squatters in Paradise: A Yellowstone Memoir

by James Perry

  There was something unusual about this hike. It felt odd to be exploring this area of the Park so early in the season, while the distant mountains still retained a lacework of snow and the ground sagged under our footfalls like a wet sponge. We knew that we were the first hikers of the season on this trail and we breathed in the virgin scents of the earth like stone-age migrants crossing the land bridge between Asia and the Americas. It was easy to lose oneself in reverie out here, especially when one's conversation trailed away and nature took the microphone. We wandered through an ancient stand of dead pines, long ago denuded of their branches and whitened by the sun. They now stood tall among the debris of their fallen comrades and clacked together in the breeze.

  "Like bamboo wind chimes," Audrey remarked, breaking a long silence between us.

  We came across the remnant of a large, recently burned tree that resembled a giant human form. Audrey posed beside it in the same position so that it looked like her elongated shadow. The eeriness of the place began to sink in as each step brought us deeper into the enchanted forest.

  Then the trail disappeared ahead of us. In its place was a swamp. Water that was snowpack only days before covered the trail as far as we could see.

  I stood at the edge of this shallow lake and looked for another way around, but the water seemed to be everywhere. We decided to pick our way as best we could by leaping from fallen log to fallen log. It was slow going and I had to retrace my steps several times because a promising piece of deadfall had led nowhere. Then I saw Audrey wading ahead of me in water that sloshed up to her shins.

  “Isn’t that water freezing?” I asked.

  “It’s not so bad once you get used to it,” she said nonchalantly.

  So I hopped in. Icy water poured into my shoes like angry jellyfish and stung the shit out of my feet. I cursed Audrey under my breath as I sloshed ahead, wriggling my toes to make sure they hadn’t fallen off. But she was right. After a few minutes of pain my feet felt fine again. The water trapped in my boots was warmed by body heat and it insulated my feet from the cold. We plopped along until we reached higher ground, then removed and replaced our sodden socks.

  We enjoyed the speed of hiking on dry land again and made good time until we came across the reeking carcass of a bison. It was right in the middle of the trail, and the ground around it was spattered with white droppings from scavenger birds which had been picking at it. The odor was overpowering and we hustled quickly past.

  “That stench is going to bring every grizzly within ten miles,” I said.

  “They might already be here,” Audrey said reassuringly.

  That was the point where the trail simply petered out.

  In front of us was an impassable jumble of fallen logs while the view on either side of us held nothing but virgin forest.

  It could have been a moment right out of The Blair Witch Project, when the young hikers begin to realize they’re in mortal danger and start blaming each other for their predicament. We were, in fact, supposed to have had three people on this hike, but Robert hadn’t shown up at the meeting place so we’d gone ahead without him. It was a blessing. Robert was a fun guy to have around until things started to go wrong. In the dining room he could keep half the staff in stitches until he got triple-seated, then he became Mr. Hyde and lashed out mercilessly at his co-workers, management, God. If he'd been with us on this hike, this would have been the moment he'd have snapped. Screaming, he would have wound his fingers around my throat and Audrey would have had to brain him with a piece of deadfall. Instead, the two of us sat down on a log and studied the topo map until we found the secret passage out of the labyrinth, then made tracks away from the Minotaur.

  When we reached a large meadow we were faced with a different problem - live bison. Lots of them. An entire herd blocked our passage as we came into the clearing. A few of them turned their wooly heads to glower at us and emit displeased grunts. There was no way around them.

  “What now?” Audrey asked.

  I saw that the herd was split into two groups. There was a gap of about fifty yards between them. The trail was just beyond.

  “We could go there,” I said, indicating the gap.

  “Right in the middle of them?!”

  “I don’t think they’ll bother us,” I said, trying to sound persuasive.

  “Well...ok.”

  So we set off, leaving the security of the woods and exposing ourselves to an open meadow filled with large prehistoric animals which regarded us with hostile eyes. Off to one side of the meadow we saw a herd of elk which we hadn’t noticed before. As soon as they spied us they ran off; a bull elk holding his antlered head aloft as he pranced away as if trying to maintain his dignity in retreat. The bison, on the other hand, never moved an inch. They simply swayed their horned heads to follow our progress until we could see their bellies jerk with the annoyed grunts they gave at our approach.

  I felt like I was walking a knife edge. I simply did not know how these animals were going to react to our presence. My sphincter opened and closed involuntarily as we drew closer to the herd and finally stood between them. The trail was only a few yards ahead of us, but in front of us was a stream I hadn’t seen from the other side of the meadow. As I tried to gauge whether or not we could jump it I heard Audrey let out a cry.

  "Uh oh!"

  I looked up to see a bull bison walking toward us. He had detached himself from the herd to our right and was following the stream in our direction.

  “Jump!” I shouted.

  We both took a few steps back and then ran up to the stream, launching ourselves over the clear running water and hitting the ground in stride. We made the woods and instinctively dove behind the first tree we reached, panting and peeking around the trunk to see if there was a ton of agitated beast on our tails. The bison had stopped to watch us, but demurred at pursuit.

  From this point we marched onward like single-minded soldiers through miles of wooded trail, over deadfall and through rivers that had overflowed their banks. We had ceased to talk or notice our surroundings. Our bodies had begun to ache and we pressed on because to press on meant the hike would be over sooner. We consulted the topo map more often and thought of food - hot food, and lots of it.

  We reached the top of a hill and dropped to the ground, spreading the map on the grass between us. Below us was a meadow, and beyond that was a small ridge, and just over that was the Madison River and the end of the trail. We gathered up our gear and started down the hill, then stopped. The meadow was swarming with bison.

  Audrey and I exchanged exasperated glances and flopped back down on the grass.

  “Fucking bison,” she muttered.

  Then it began to rain. It had been alternating between cloudy and sunny skies all day, but now the clouds became darker and droplets began to pelt the ground around us. We put on our ponchos and sat in silence, watching the bison roam the meadow below. It was just a passing rain, sprinkling here and there, and we were warm and comfortable in our ponchos as we watched the Lewis & Clark scene unfold for the two of us. When the rain stopped and we got back on our feet, I felt revived.

  “How many people in America do you think have passed a rainy afternoon on a hilltop watching a herd of bison?” I wondered aloud.

  Audrey was too busy choreographing the bison from her hilltop perch to answer, swinging her arms like an inspired conductor.

  “You there! Move to the right! You've had enough grass! You! Get up! Don't make me come down there!"

  The herd slowly moved on and we passed unmolested through the final meadow. At the top of the far ridge we found ourselves looking down into the Madison River valley. In our haste to reach the road we charged into a gully and startled a couple of bison who initially ran away but then turned to face us.

  “Uh oh!”

  Human and bison squared off in a frozen moment. Man and beast exchanged appraising looks and, finding ourselves lacking, we slowly backed away, edging toward the sanctuary of some near
by trees. As we did so, we whispered bison-honoring mantras under our breath to keep the brutes at bay:

  Venerable One. Do not charge the puny humans you see before you.

  We wish only to pass through your Noble Wallow.

  Do not gore us with your Mighty Horns.

  Do not trample us beneath your August Hoofs.

  Then we darted into the woods.

  Below us was the road, and when we saw the sun glint off the metal surface of a passing car the spell of the wild was broken. The hike was already history and we talked happily about our past adventures even as we skidded down the dusty slope. We were alive. We were so alive.

  Accommodations

  THE accommodations for employees are varied, but only within the narrow parameters of communal living. Which is to say, they run the gamut from dormitories to trailer parks. The vast majority of Yellowstone employees live in dormitories, while those who live in their own self-contained RVs are generally retirees or young couples who want a little more privacy than the dorms afford and, in keeping with our looking-glass world, are regarded as having the classiest digs. There are the rare exceptions of course, such as the dishwasher who slept in an ice cave during the winter because he didn't like his roommate (and who kept moving his den every couple of weeks in order to keep the rangers from discovering his lonesome and illegal hideaway). We don't commute from outside the Park, either. The nearest town is thirty miles away and the nearest city - that can be called a city - is more than two hours' drive away.

  The worst dorm at Old Faithful is Laurel. It's the oldest, noisiest, most poorly appointed flophouse on location. If you're a first-year employee, you're probably going to be put in Laurel. It was constructed (or rather, re-constructed) from the remains of the Fountain Hotel, which had been built in 1891 as a first-class tourist lodge and boasted electric lights, steam heat, hot spring baths, and luxurious balls where ladies in silk dresses could dance with soldiers from the nearby Fountain Soldiers' Station. All this elegance came to an abrupt end in 1915, the year that cars were allowed into Yellowstone. Since the Fountain Hotel was built at the terminus of a day's stagecoach ride, it became superfluous with the advent of the automobile, which made it possible to reach the geyser basins in a matter of hours. Bypassed, the hotel closed the following year and was torn down in 1927, whereupon it was refashioned into Laurel dormitory at Old Faithful (minus any residual grandeur).

  The one advantage of this dorm is that it's located right behind the Old Faithful Inn, whereas the other dorms require a fifteen-minute walk to get to work. So you can sleep for an extra couple of minutes if you live in Laurel and still make it to work on time, which is a real benefit because it's hard to get any sleep at all in that place. There are other dorms on location which are in the same shabby category as Laurel, but they lack its reputation for being a party dorm, which has persisted over the years (and I don't think any of the other dorms can match Laurel's record for drug raids and arrests).

  I live in Larkspur. Larkspur is uptown as dorms go. It's the newest residence and offers the most spacious rooms, all with their own bathrooms - as opposed to the wretched community bathrooms of the older dorms - as well as vanities and locking closets. It looks more like a hotel than an employee residence. Still, the rooms are cubby-holes that have to be shared with a roommate and come with a long list of restrictions concerning things like candles, smoking, noise, cooking, wall hangings, and etc.

  The funny thing is that I've been living in dorms for so long now that I wouldn't know what to do with all the space of an entire house. One summer I decided to check out the local real estate market to see if there were any affordable houses near the Park, and while I found several I rejected them all after a short walk among the rooms thinking, "I don't have enough stuff to make this place looked lived in." I imagined inviting friends over and standing around the bare living room with its one papasan chair, holding our drink coasters in our palms as our voices echoed in the sterile space. I did find a small one-bedroom condominium that was already furnished and which was small enough not to scare me off, but it would have been too much like a dorm room where the only way to put a personal stamp on one’s surroundings is to alter the arrangement of the furniture. In the end I realized that my reluctance to buy any of these properties had more to do with location than anything else. That is, none of them were in Yellowstone. There's a big difference between the Park and its outside environs. The border towns lack the magic of the Park, and its residents tend to regard the Park economically as a roadside attraction that brings money into what would otherwise be a string of ghost towns. Settling in to one of these gateway communities would be like Humbert Humbert marrying Charlotte Haze in order to be close to his beloved Lolita.

  I decided to keep it simple and continue to let someone else worry about electricity, maintenance and repair. Besides, the only real drawback to dorm life is that you often don’t know what you’re going to get in the way of a roommate, which brings me to my next chapter...

  Roommates

  MY first roommate in Yellowstone was a pot-head. He used to work as a roadie for various rock bands and he’d gotten paid in weed – only the best: Maui Wowie, California sinsemilla, the occasional hashish. He’d gauge the success of his summers not in cash but in kilos (“’80 was my best year, man. Aerosmith. Five primo kilos!”). He worked as a room attendant and was fired halfway through the season for blowing off too many shifts.

  The following summer it was Daryl, a ladies’ man. It wasn’t enough for him to get a girl into his bed, he felt the need to put girls in my bed, too. He’d often bring a couple of willing young demoiselles back to the room and try to pawn me off on the one he was least interested in. Daryl was fired halfway through the season for coming to work drunk.

  I was a Resident Coordinator my third season and had a room to myself. I missed Daryl.

  Hector Francisco Velasquez Rodriguez was roommate #3. He was full of himself. “It’s all about machismo,” he would say. “American men are wimps. I don’t know how women can stand them.” I told him that I was gay just to piss him off. “Man, don’t tell me that! You’re kidding, right? You ain’t no fag. I can’t be livin’ with no homo, man. That ain’t macho!” Hector quit halfway through the season because he said that his boss, “a degenerate,” kept touching him.

  I was assigned my own cabin for the next two seasons since I was running the Grant Village employee pub [although they tried to give me a roommate, once sending an errand boy to surreptitiously ready my cabin for a new arrival while I was in the shower. I heard the racket as my belongings were being thrown about and stormed out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel to chase off the toady].

  Back at Old Faithful I shared a cabin with Derek, who was working at the Inn front desk. I was working at the host stand at the restaurant and we would often stay up late into the night sharing stupid tourist stories: “Listen to this! I had a guy tonight who said that if he wasn’t seated in the next five minutes he was going to call his Senator! Yah ha ha!” Derek fell in love with a co-worker, saw the affair go sour, and quit.

  Roommate #5, Tom, was gay. He was studying Shiatsu massage with a view to giving comfort to AIDS sufferers in his adopted hometown of Chicago. He said that I was the best roommate he’d had in the Park because, unlike previous cohabitants, I didn’t come home drunk and pee on him while he was asleep.

  Carolyn was roommate #6. My first female roommate. She was a fiery liberal with a strong sex drive that often got her into trouble. Once, at the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, she confronted a racist in a bar full of toughs who was collecting signatures on a petition to "keep niggers out of Sturgis." She chased him out of the bar, shaming him with an admirable drunken eloquence, then left with one of the hot young bikers that caught her eye. When she woke up in his tent the next morning she saw with horror that they’d been sleeping under a huge Nazi flag. Carolyn, a survivor, made it to the end of the season.

  Brian just wanted to be left alone, but
he was too good- looking to get his wish. A quiet, thoughtful guy who eventually joined the Peace Corps and served in Bangladesh, he was stalked and seduced by a lovely, unbalanced girl who kicked his ass in a fit of jealous pique during the Survivor’s Party at the end of the season.

  In ‘96 my roommate was Phil. That’s all I remember about him.

  Scott was my roommate for the next four seasons. He’d done way too much acid in his teens and was now interested only in sex and exotic drug experiences. One night he got his hands on some Amazonian tree frog excretion (don’t ask me how) and smoked it in the room. I left him alone for a few hours so that he could experience his “visions” and when I returned I found him prostrate on the floor lamenting that he’d just finished a two-hour vomiting jag. His only vision was that he saw me as a friend, which I never forgot. He was eventually removed from his position as a tour bus driver because of his penchant for running into things (once knocking out the power to an entire location when he backed his bus into an electrical transformer).

  Doug was always angry and never cleaned the bathroom.

  Dale would crawl into bed with his laptop after every shift and masturbate to The Brady Bunch on DVD ("Marsha! Marsha!! Marsha!!!”).

  My last roommate was Pete. He was a Food and Beverage Manager who decided to demote himself to waiter, preferring to make more money and not have to answer to anyone about his off-duty drinking. He bought a satellite dish and brought television into the room, for which I never forgave him.

  If I ever buy my own house, it will be for these reasons.

  Coffee! Coffee!

  AFTER a few months in Yellowstone, especially if you don’t have a car to get you out of Dodge once in a while, you become a bit starved for the simple things one takes for granted in the real world. Pets, for example. If a tourist happens to bring his dog to the Park - not as common an event as one might think due to all the strictures against domestic animals - the poor creature is virtually assaulted by cooing employees stroking the bewildered canine with hands that long for pets left at home. To us, dogs and cats are as remarkable as bison and elk are to the tourists. It's all a part of our looking-glass world. Take cities: most people leave the city in their leisure time to explore more natural settings, while Park employees head for them. We feel a bit like hillbillies loading up the old jalopy for a rare and exciting trip to town.