Squatters in Paradise: A Yellowstone Memoir

by James Perry

  "I'm gonna buy me some socks!"

  Staying too long in the Park without venturing out occasionally can be too much of a good thing. To walk into a department store after a summer sequestered from the barrage of advertising that forms the background against which we live in a capitalist society can be dangerous for vulnerable waifs like us who haven't been jacked into the matrix for a while. I think of Robin Williams in Moscow on the Hudson playing a Russian defector who stands transfixed before the vast selection of coffee in an American supermarket. He claws at the tins in disbelief, crying "Coffee! Coffee! Coffee! Coffee! Coffee!"

  An oft-heard refrain coming from employees back from a trip to Bozeman, Montana, or Jackson, Wyoming, on their weekends is, "I just blew my whole paycheck." It's so easy to do. The gift shops in the Park are a poor substitute for the malls of the real world, although you can still find us poking around the aisles like glum children, hoping to find an article that isn't stamped with the word Yellowstone or decorated with an anthropomorphic bear. My family finally let me know after suffering many years of gift shop presents for birthdays, Mother's Days, Father's Days, etc. that they'd had enough:

  "No more Yellowstone-themed gifts, okay?"

  I should have realized it myself sooner, since every visit home revealed a curio cabinet that resembled more and more the dusty "Old Yellowstone Artifacts" cabinet in the West Yellowstone bookstore.

  We're suckers for Walmart. We enter the store the way a dehydrated cowboy in the movies approaches the horse's trough in town: plunging head first and gulping great hatfuls of filthy water.

  "Aaah! Just what I need - a fern for my room."

  "A breadmaker!"

  "A bean-bag chair!"

  It's a madness, and soon our cars are filled with junk we wouldn't look at twice in the real world, but which somehow connects us to that world we left behind.

  The next step in detox is when we realize that there's nothing we want in the trough. The first time that I wandered through a department store without buying anything - without even being tempted to buy anything - I knew that I'd become a dangerous person. I had come to the epiphany that awaits all those who spend time in quiet places: we don't need all this shit. The last thing a consumer-based society needs is some prophet coming out of the hills with that message.

  Fortunately, when the season ends and we return to the real world, couches in front of television sets all across America are re-occupied by former prophets laughing at sit-coms and eating Cheesy Poofs.

  Man Vs. Beast

  THE crowds were gathered around Old Faithful as usual, waiting for the eruption with cameras poised. But this afternoon there was a bonus. A bull bison was grazing nearby, moving slowly within range of the viewfinders. The colorful line of tourists, forming an aureole around the geyser, shifted their gaze from the steaming vent of Old Faithful to the slow advance of the picturesque beast. Several people abandoned their posts in order to snap a photo of the bison, but most held their ground, hoping that the animal would be thoughtful enough to situate itself within the frame of their cameras just as Old Faithful erupted. But as the geyser began to preview its eruption with a few preliminary splashes, the folks at the far end of the boardwalk realized that they were not well-positioned to capture the shot of a lifetime, so they emigrated en masse and began swelling the ranks of those closest to the bison. The boardwalk, being too narrow to accommodate such a concentration, soon overflowed with tourists (now become tourons) who sought a better vantage by abandoning the boardwalk entirely. Each step encouraged the next as people inched closer and closer toward the placid herbivore until, with a low grunt, the animal charged. Everyone scattered. Everyone, that is, except for the unfortunate old man confined to a wheelchair. Unable to go beyond the boardwalk, he had been relegated to catching glimpses of the animal through the crowd. As the last of the tourons cleared out of his line of vision he was treated, briefly, to an unobstructed view of an iconic American symbol bearing down on him in full fury. Untouched by the man's obvious handicap, the bison lowered its head and tore the occupant from his seat, tossing him headlong into a ditch and callously trampling his wheelchair underfoot.

  The moral of the story being, of course, a curt nod to Darwin's theory of natural selection. It is the old and the weak who are most often culled from the herd.

  * * *

  An acquaintance of mine who had gone to the backcountry office at Old Faithful to pick up a camping permit told me the following story:

  There was another backpacker ahead of him in the ranger station when he arrived, so he was passing the time studying a trail map of the Park when the radio behind the desk crackled to life. It was a ranger calling in a traffic jam in Hayden Valley.

  "Might be a bear jam," came the voice. "There's a lot of people here and they seem pretty excited."

  The backcountry ranger was listening now as well. After a minute of silence the update came in. The voice sounded disappointed and puzzled.

  “It’s just a coyote.”

  The ranger shrugged and returned to his paperwork while my friend turned his attention back to the map when the voice on the radio suddenly returned:

  "...with a poodle in its mouth."

  * * *

  Marmots are cute. They resemble fat groundhogs and can be found in most rocky areas of the Park and anywhere tourists congregate. They're the size of small dogs and will often stand on their hind feet begging for scraps of food. They accede to having their picture taken at close range and will readily eat out of the palm of your hand. It's hard to resist their antics and sometimes people will get the idea that they're too darn cute to be wild. This misconception leads to much amusement for Park employees who know that marmots not only carry ticks that can transmit Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but that temperamentally they more closely resemble the bunny rabbit in Monty Python's Holy Grail than any house pet.

  For example.

  While waiting for Old Faithful to erupt, a group of tourists was being entertained by the marmots which live underneath the boardwalk. One gentleman decided it would make a cute picture to hold one of the furry animals in his arms. He pretended to offer one a handful of food, then scooped up the unsuspecting rodent and smiled for the camera. In an instant he found himself holding a thrashing ball of sharp teeth and claws which shredded his just-bought Old Faithful t-shirt and bloodied his arms. He dropped the furious animal - or at least he tried to - and found that it had sunk its teeth into his wrist and wouldn't let go. Experiencing real pain now, he began to scream and punch the miniature teddy bear until it dropped to the ground and waddled angrily away under the boardwalk.

  My roommate, who worked at the front desk that summer, told me that this gentleman had turned up the next day holding his purple, swollen hand in a makeshift bandage while demanding that the rangers "put down" the dangerous beast.

  * * *

  Bats can often be seen cartwheeling around the upper reaches of the lobby at the Old Faithful Inn. The highest floor, which is a residential area for the bellhops, is nick-named Bat's Alley. To sit in the upper balcony and watch these acrobats put on their nightly show adds to the mystique of the place, as though one were in a haunted mansion. Occasionally, one of them will dart through the second floor balcony overlooking the restaurant and find themselves circling over the heads of unsuspecting diners. In these instances it's not unusual for a waiter to come charging out of the kitchen with a fully laden tray, only to be startled by a dark form rushing at his face. The bat will careen away as plates and covers go crashing to the floor. The tourists, who've settled in for a quiet meal, react to the intruder according to their personal inclinations; some find the appearance of a wild animal in this decorous setting to be delightfully incongruous, while others feel scandalized at having their dinner party crashed by a decidedly unfashionable member of the Park's ecosystem. Often a diner will realize there's a bat in the restaurant only when it actually flies in their face. A shriek will be heard and the other diners will turn
their heads and wonder what her problem is - too much to drink, probably - until they spot the uninvited guest for themselves.

  The job of removing the intruder falls to the dining room staff, who will usually wait for it to alight and trap it gently in the folds of a napkin and release it outside. If the bat refuses to stop its circulations around the dining room it becomes necessary to snare it - again, accomplished with napkins. As the bat nears, two or three employees will toss napkins in its path. The bat, confused by the sudden appearance of these obstacles, will usually fly into one of them and fall harmlessly to the carpet where it can be safely scooped up. Once however, with a bat thus ensnared, a touron leaped up from his table where several of his companions were in apoplexy over the appearance of this filthy, disease-bearing rodent with wings, and stomped on it. After having terminated the uncouth animal, he strutted back to his table like a returning hero. The employees, saddened by this tragic turn of events, removed the carcass from the dining room and took it into the kitchen. Curled in a ball and dark-complected, it looked remarkably like a buffalo wing.

  Yellowstone Romances

  YELLOWSTONE Romances, about which I’ve already spoken a bit, are not for the meek. They exist under the intense scrutiny of co-workers, dormitory residents, tourists, managers… everybody. The lead characters are generally able to drown out the world in love's first flush and ignore the welling whispers around them (as anyone knows who has witnessed a young couple in love) but sadly, such blissful ignorance is fleeting, and soon the background noise begins to orchestrate their affairs. Love is like an indulged childhood - everyone who has experienced it and lost it wants it back - and those who've taken center stage in these dramas know that they're its superstars with all the attendant basking-in-the-glow and complaints about loss of privacy. A friend of mine once told me that her love life always followed the same pattern: feast or famine. If she wasn't involved with a guy she was pretty much left alone, but as soon as she started hanging out with someone it was as if she'd been sprayed with some irresistible pheromone that made the male population go wild. She would move into the rarified air of the stars.

  Yellowstone couples provide much of the entertainment previously provided outside the Park by television, and their ups and downs are followed with a tabloid-like preoccupation. Few couples survive.

  There is another factor which contributes to the evanescent quality of these relationships. One could call it the magic of Yellowstone (which is lost when the season ends and one has to re-enter the real world), or less poetically - the wake-up call. Once the spotlight snaps off at season's end, stranding scores of Yellowstone lovers in an empty auditorium, it's easy for the players to leave the stage by different exits.

  Another friend who had formed a close relationship with a girl during one summer, returned the next season alone. I asked him what had become of his partner, with whom he'd been inseparable.

  "We lasted until about fifty miles outside the Park," he said wryly.

  They were supposed to have traveled to Denver, stayed at the house of one of her cousins, and then found work at a ski resort for the winter. The arguments began in central Wyoming and by the time they reached Denver they were no longer speaking. He dropped her off at the relative's house and drove on alone.

  None of this would seem of any particular note except for the intensity of these relationships while they were hot. I used to think that the couplings which began in the Park would only grow stronger once they had sloughed off the annoyance of being under a microscope. That they would be able to relax and have the freedom to enjoy each other's company in new surroundings, finding strength in having survived the ordeal of being a curiosity where every twist and turn of their relationship was sent through the rumor mill and staying together became almost an act of defiance. So why was it that the opposite was true? Why was it that when one of the players returned a year or two later, alone, they would scowl at the mere mention of their erstwhile lover's name? "Oh, her."

  I imagine that it's the same reason why deep sea creatures disintegrate when brought to the surface of the ocean: they actually thrive on the pressure. It's their natural environment, and once the pressure is gone they fall apart like wet toilet paper. All the talk about vanting to be alone is disingenuous. In the end, it's the genuinely quiet relationships that survive. The ones which provide entertainment for the rest of us get cancelled as quickly as an ill-conceived sitcom.

  Part Three

  Scott from Texas

  “THERE she blows!”

  “I can’t fit it in the viewfinder!”

  “I’m getting wet!”

  “It stinks!”

  “The animals don’t even notice!”

  “It was bigger when I was a kid.”

  “Stick your hand in the runoff. Dare ya!”

  “It’s dying now.”

  “Let’s eat!”

  In the dining room at the Old Faithful Inn the staff steel themselves for another geyser rush, the third one of the lunch shift. Tired bodies, drawn out of bed too early and thrown into the noisy environs of the kitchen and forced to deal with the petulant demands of hurried tourists, always hurried, prepare for the onslaught. The bussers set the last of the tables as the waiters take a long, pensive look at their quiet sections, the scene of so much chaos during the last geyser rush. In a few minutes their sections will once again be filled with people and these tables will resemble bird's nests; full of ugly, squawking, hungry creatures. The first of the tourists arrive at the host stand and begin the usual mantra: “Window seat! Non-smoking! Geyser view!” The hosts make a brave stand at first, explaining that they can’t slam the waiter who’s got the window tables, that the windows only face the parking lot anyway, but resistance is futile and soon the hosts are following the guests into the dining room, meeting the furious glances of the servers (“What are you doing? What are you doing!”) with apologetic and helpless shrugs. A tour bus shows up and disgorges its cargo of irritable New Yorkers who stagger into the dining room on canes and walkers and kvetch about their bowels and dietary needs to the servers who couldn’t care less and just want to get their order quickly off to the kitchen. No dice. They want Reuben sandwiches with the dressing on the side, and don’t grill it, and I don’t want any cheese, and what do you have besides french fries, french fries give me gas, and we’re in a hurry so tell the cook chop-chop and don’t forget my goddam mud pie!

  In the kitchen the server’s calm demeanor falls away as he shouts out the details of the latest asshole in his station while rushing back and forth for drinks and salads and carry-out boxes and monkey dishes for side dressings and I hope you choke on your Reuben you fucking harpy, just let me be there when your last artery snaps shut from that mud pie and the fork falls from your hand as you clutch your heart and pitch forward onto the table.

  Behind waiter’s alley lies the cook’s line; a narrow, sweltering section of hot steel and noisy industrial fans blowing away the smoke and stench from burnt hamburgers and grease traps. This small space being populated by an angry clan of misfits who mustn’t be seen by the general public. They regard the waiters with envy and loathing because the waiters make all the fuckin’ money so what do they have to bitch about? I’m the one up to my ass in grease, sweating over a hot grill in the middle of fuckin’ summer, all for six lousy bucks an hour. I’m the one who cooks the fuckin’ food, all they do is bring it out and make a big fuckin’ show of it. If I had a bullshit personality I’d be makin’ the big bucks too. I fuckin’ earn my money through honest goddam sweat. Jesus I hate this job.

  Meanwhile, the server is looking around for his busser. There are four tables out there who haven’t even gotten water yet and their orders have already been taken. The server can’t do everything and the managers are nowhere to be seen. Then he finds out that his busser is in the manager’s office and he’s just been fired because the rangers found some pot in his room.

  In the midst of all this, one of the waiters is doing som
ething absolutely suicidal. He’s up at the host stand asking for more tables. He takes them back himself; four-tops, six-tops, tour tables! He completely fills his station and even picks up a few extra tables that were seated in a closed section by mistake. The rest of the servers feel both thankful and bewildered: Why would anyone do that to themselves? Especially Scott, who’s never been treated with anything but contempt by management, who regard him as a slacker and refuse to give him any dinner shifts. The hosts smile approvingly - now there’s a waiter! - as he single-handedly removes the crush of impatient, scowling people closing in on the host stand. He patiently goes from table to table, taking orders, smiling at special requests which he dutifully notes in his book. Another emotion wells up in the servers around him. They feel shame. Here is someone doing his job amidst all the insanity and being professional about it, even charming. His co-workers begin to wonder if perhaps their complaints are illegitimate, maybe they are a bunch of whiners after all. They have a few moments of doubt as they dash about the kitchen, grabbing extra butter for table twenty-four, crackers for the kid at fourteen, more salsa for the two-top, reduced to butter-crackers-salsa, butter-crackers-salsa as they speed from station to kitchen.