Adventures in Urban Hiking

I’m not exactly sure what’s in the pipe, but I can guarantee it has a funny name—something like L.A. Woman, or White Widow, or Blueberry Kush. We take long drags. We hold the smoke in our lungs. We fill the living room with clouds that smell faintly like skunk. And then we head outdoors, through the backyard, past the chickens, sunglasses hiding our bloodshot eyes. We stick to the back alleys, far from the traffic, hidden from the hustle and bustle. There is no designated route—no little blue circles with black silhouettes of a day hiker telling us where to go. No red diamonds. No signs saying “Stay on Trail.” We go where we want—right, left, straight, another right, up a staircase, down a dirt trail. We pass urban artifacts, abandoned tires, light pole art, million dollar homes, hundred dollar cars, directional signs telling us that we’re far from everywhere. We hit the main drag—Haight Ashbury for Trophy Kids. The weirdoes are out, with their fixed-gear bikes and their fluorescent hair and their punk rock t-shirts and their backpack hydration systems and their tiger-print sunglasses and their urban-hiking footwear. They sell garbage on the side of the road, masquerading it as hip décor and vintage wear. They sell garbage in trendy restaurants with clever names, charging rich prices for poor quality. Temporary bliss is all we achieve as we dump that garbage in our bodies.
We stop at a hole-in-the-wall, where I give a few quick billiards lessons. We stop at a parlor and have a slice. We stop at a tavern that has a Founding Fathers theme. On the wall, George Washington crosses the Delaware. Behind the bar, the tender entertains us with stories of her drug-filled exploits. Her hair is grey and we are taken aback, because when you think about hard drugs, you usually don’t think about middle-aged women. “Have fun on your walk-about,” she says as we shuffle out the door. In the heart of the city, we pass urban wildlife—goats, bums, automobile enthusiasts, garbage collectors, a possible werewolf. “That’s not a werewolf,” Katelin says. “Prove that it isn’t,” I demand. She can’t. We head into the tunnels, where drunken men used to be shanghaied. Now, drunken men sit at bars and just get drunker. As do we. It’s dark when we leave. The street-kids are out, taking up space on the sidewalks, hoping for change. “Make us famous!” They yell as I snap a photo of them.  We stumble on a parade. Or is it a protest? It’s hard to tell. The police are out in full force. We light up, in the middle of the city, cops all around us. We don’t care. Neither does anybody else. We’re drunk. We’re high. We’re tired. Six miles from where we started, so we hitch a ride home, feeding singles into electronic jaws, pulling a thin yellow strand at our stop.