Gage

Living off the grid is challenging. Living off the grid with a six-year-old daughter is nuts. But to be fair, when I made the decision, I wasn’t in my right mind. My wife had just died, and my life was being pulled in a million directions.

Adley and I have been figuring things out as we go along. She gave me focus. She occupied my mind. She gave me a reason to live. Without that little girl, I would have let myself die in this remote cabin in the mountains of Colorado.

Sometimes I miss my music and the fans, but I’m sure they’re long gone by now. No one in the music business has seen or heard from me in six years. It takes a fraction of that to be forgotten but forgotten is exactly what I wanted to be.

“Miss Kitty says I have to find one hundred things for the hundredth day of school next week,” Adley says from her desk where she attends virtual school six days a week. Miss Kitty is her teacher, and she loves her.

“We can collect one hundred pine cones. What are you doing with the collection?”

“We’re havin’ a Skype class to show and tell ‘bout our stuff.”

“That’s cool, you want to start now? I was going to hike down to the store for some supplies. It’s supposed to snow tonight.”

She jumps off her stool shrieking, “Yes!” and my heart tightens in my chest. It makes me feel bad that she gets so excited about hiking down the mountain to shop at a dingy little supply shop. She doesn’t have much social interaction living on Blue Mountain, but it’s the only life she knows.

“Do you want to hike or ski?” It’s a stupid question I know the answer to, but I love the smile that spreads across her beautiful face when she exclaims, “Ski.”

“Good, I was hoping you’d say that.”

“But, we can’t get pine cones if we ski, Daddy.”

“We can get them later or tomorrow. The hundredth day of school’s not until next week.”

“Won’t it take a long time to get a hundred of them?”

“Baby, I know one hundred sounds like a lot, but it’s not. It won’t take long at all, I promise.”

That’s all it takes with her, a promise and a kiss. She’s the easiest girl on earth to please. I know it won’t always be this way, though. There will come a day when she will want to make real friends instead of squirrels and rabbits. She’s going to want to do things with them in town.

I hope by then people will have forgotten Apollo Mercury and his music, my music.

We arrive in town red-cheeked and exhilarated and prop our skis outside Jerry’s supply store. Inside, the warm air makes my face prickle as I look around waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dim light.

“Hey, beast! How ya doin’, man? I haven’t seen you for a week, thought maybe you two went on a starvation diet or something,” Jerry says from behind the counter at the other end of the store.

“Hey, Jer. No diet for us, just busy that’s all. We’re here now, though, and we need enough to get us through the storm that’s on the way.”

“Hi, Jerry,” Adley sings running to the counter where Jerry, the burly biker/teddy bear, hands her a giant sweet tart on a stick.

“How’s my favorite girlfriend? I missed you, little lady.”

She smiles from ear to ear. It’s clear my daughter has got a thing for bikers, and she’s only six years old. A fact that makes me want to keep her secluded on our mountain until she’s thirty.

She takes the sucker holding and waving it around like a wand. “I’m great, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, princess, any time.” I join them and lift Adley up to sit on the counter.

“What’s going on in the world, Jerry?”

“You really want to know?”

“That bad?” Jerry keeps me updated on the news. I have internet and a cell phone, but I choose to live as if I don’t. I wouldn’t have either if it weren’t for Adley. She has to be able to attend school, and I need a way to call for help if something ever happened to us.

“Yeah, mass shootings, government shutdowns, racist governmental officials, the country is a mess. More people need to live like us, bro, simple and off the grid.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more.”

Adley cups her hand around her mouth and whispers to Jerry, “Who’s that?” nodding toward aisle three where a woman is looking at a backpack. I can’t see her face, but she has beautiful long, jet-black hair hanging all the way down to her perky ass. She’s young and African American. I’ve never seen her around here before.

“The college is having that immersion program again. They hit the mountain two weeks ago. This is the first time I’ve seen that one, though.”

Fort Douglas is a nearby college where you can major in adventure education. It’s for granolas who want to run summer camps or lead hikers around on trails. I never could understand why people wanted to spend their hard-earned money on learning to do things they could teach themselves.

I didn’t study adventure education in college, and we’ve been surviving just fine on the side of this mountain for six years. I shake my head, and Jerry shrugs his shoulders.

“I want down,” Adley says, and I help her off the counter and start giving Jerry my list of supplies. He takes some of the things off the shelves behind the counter first. Then we venture off down the aisles finishing my list.

“You should be careful with matches, fire is a very dangerous thing,” I hear a woman’s voice say. I stand up from where I’ve been crouched down deciding what size container of dried milk I want to lug back up the mountain in my pack.

Adley is holding two boxes of long matches with her sucker hanging out of her mouth looking up at the gorgeous college student.

“Adley, what are you doing?” I ask.

“Nothing, Daddy, just getting matches for the fireplace.” Her big ocean blue eyes look panicked like she thinks she might be in trouble, but she has no idea why.

I look at the woman for an explanation raising my eyebrows. “Oh, I was just telling her to be careful and respectful of fire. I didn’t mean to overstep boundaries, sorry.”

I frown and hold out my hand to Adley. “Come on, baby, help me put our things into our pack.” I nod at the woman and give her a ‘thanks for looking out for my kid, but I got this’ look.

Adley runs down her aisle and into mine where she tosses the matches into a basket I’m carrying. She’s been lighting fires since she was three years old, with my help, of course. Kids who grow up in the wilderness for lack of a better term, are used to things like fire, the sharp blades of an ax, and guns. Who does this woman think she is telling my daughter fire is dangerous? I chuckle to myself thinking she probably paid fifty thousand dollars in tuition to learn that.

“Um, could I ask a favor?” she says when we reach the end of the aisle.

“Depends on the favor.” I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t especially like strangers. I’ve worked at changing my identity for years. I have a full beard and long hair, but the tattoos covering my body would give me away in a second to anyone who was a fan of Apollo Mercury.

“I uh, I need a new pack, and I don’t know which one would work best. I don’t have a lot of money to spend, and I’d hate to waste it on the wrong one.” She looks apologetic and ends with a small shrug of her delicate shoulder.

My boots clomp on the hardwood floor as I move to where she is. “What are you using it for specifically?”

“I go to Fort Douglas. We’re living on the mountain for sixty days. I have a pack, but it’s too small to carry everything I need for that long of a time.”

“Sixty days, huh? In a tent?” She nods, and my appreciation for the immersion program increases. They do teach them survival skills after all.

“I’d go with this one.” I point at a large black and blue pack that would serve her well. Her face falls.

“That’s what I thought. It’s too expensive. Is there another for less you think would work?”

“Nope. That’s what you need.” Her shoulders slump, and she blows out a sigh. “Okay, thanks for your help. I appreciate it.” She smiles a halfhearted smile and begins to walk away.

Something about the defeat in her eyes tugs at my heart. I remember what it was like to not have enough money. It’s been a long time, but I remember.

“Hey, you can put it on my tab and get me back later for it. It’s no problem.”

“Oh, no, I could never do that. It’s too much. Thanks, though, it’s nice of you.”

“How much do you have to spend?”

She shifts from one foot to the other nervously and answers. “One hundred. It’s all I have left of my student loan money. I thought my pack was the right size and…”

“Give me fifty, keep fifty, and let me help you with the rest. It’s not a big deal. Hit me up someday when you get a job.”

She looks at me and then at the pack and back to me. She’s considering it, but something’s holding her back.

“What’s your name?”

“Clover.”

“Yeah? That’s cool. So, Clover, don’t you think you’re going to get a fancy job hustling people around on trails or canoeing tourists down the river someday?”

“I want to open a summer camp for kids.”

Another hoity-toity camp for rich kids, I figured as much.

“Ah, well I can see your hesitation then. That’s going to take a lot of money. You’ll probably be broke for a few years. How about you take the pack as a gift from me, and in exchange, you let my Adley come to your camp for free for as long as she likes?”

She laughs, and it’s like music to my ears. I haven’t flirted with a beautiful woman for years. I didn’t know I still had it in me.

“Okay, but I’m going to make good on this deal. I promise. What’s your little girl’s name again?”

“Adley Mercury,” Adley says popping out from behind an end cap where she’s been eavesdropping. She turns to run toward the counter where Jerry is working on our order. “I get to go to camp, Jerry. A real summer camp!” she squeals.

“Oh wow, I better hurry and make good on this deal, huh?”

I look after Adley and feel the increasingly familiar squeeze of my heart. She’s growing up. She’s going to need things that will require me to be a part of society again.

“Don’t worry about it. She’s only six, she won’t be going to camp for years. You’ve got plenty of time.”

“Six? No way, she’s so petite. Kids start going to day camp when they’re five and overnight camp at six or seven years old. You’d better get her enrolled somewhere this summer. I won’t be ready by then, of course, but when I am, Camp Coexist is all hers.”

“Five? What kind of parent drops their five-year-old off at camp?”

She shrugs again, both shoulders this time. “All kinds. I started going to day camp when I was five, maybe younger.”

“Camp Coexist?”

“Yeah, I want to provide a low-cost camp where kids of all backgrounds are given the opportunity to work together and learn about one another’s cultures.” So she’s not a rich bitch, she’s a tree hugger. Good to know.

“I like it. So, six years old, huh? Is she going to be behind now? I had no idea they started so young.”

She looks me up and down finishing with a grin. “You live on the mountain, and you think she’s going to be behind on her camping skills?”

“I don’t know, maybe.” I have no idea what kids learn in camp. My parents never had enough money to send us to camp when my brother and I were kids.

“I’m sure you’re good. They start with basic things she probably learned when she was a baby. Have you always lived off the grid?”

Her question, although innocent, makes me bristle. I don’t like people asking me questions about my personal life. “She has yes. Come on, grab your pack. We need to get going. It’s supposed to start snowing soon, and I don’t want to get stuck down here.”

The snow isn’t supposed to hit until later on tonight, but I need to end this conversation before it gets any more invasive.

“Jerry, add a North Face Banchee 65 to my order, will ya?” He looks up surprised not only to see me speaking to a non-local but buying her a two-hundred-fifty-dollar backpack.

“Sure thing, Gage.” He’s smiling when he lowers his head to add the pack to my bill. I’m going to get so much shit for this next week when I come back.

“Gage, that’s a nice name. I like it.”

“Thanks, it’s not as original as Clover, but it does the trick.” She smiles and hoists her backpack over one shoulder.

Adley chatters on and on about summer camp with Clover while I pay, and Jerry helps me with my pack that is now stuffed full of food and supplies. I help Clover on with hers as it’s heavy even when it’s empty, and we all wave goodbye to Jerry.

“Thanks, you’re my saving grace, I don’t know what I would have done without this.”

“No sweat, happy to help.”

Outside the clouds are heavy and gray, and it’s already beginning to snow as we get into our skis. “You walking?” I ask when I see she’s wearing hiking boots.

“Yeah, we haven’t gone far yet. We’re supposed to start climbing tonight, but with the snow starting so early, I’m not sure what the plan will be now.”

“You should stay put until it’s over. It’s supposed to be bad.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Hey, thanks again for the pack. I swear I’ll pay you back.”

“Oh, I know you will. I’ll hunt you down if I have to. This one has the memory of an elephant. She never forgets.” I give my daughter a little shove, and she giggles.

“Maybe you can come visit sometime, Clover? We never get to have people over. We can bake cookies and hike in the woods.”

Clover looks at me for guidance, and I clear my throat. “Honey, Clover is in college. She’s doing a course where they have to live on the mountain for sixty days. She’s going to be busy learning like you do in your online classes. Do you understand?”

Her face clouds over, and she nods.

“But, hey, who knows, maybe I’ll run into you on the mountain. You live there, and I’ll be hiking all over the place. We’re bound to run into each other, and if we do, I’d love to bake cookies with you, Adley.”

Adley’s eyes sparkle, and she leans over to try and hug Clover while on her skis. Clover moves closer to make it easier, and I find myself hoping she will come across our cabin and bake cookies with my little girl.

It’s never been more apparent to me how much Adley needs a female role model beyond her online teacher, Miss Kitty. How could I have thought she would be fine growing up in seclusion her entire life? She’s missing so many important things because of my inability to deal with my past. I can’t keep denying her these experiences, but I don’t know how to live any other way since Constance died. The mountain was my savior, but eventually, it’s going to be Adley’s prison.