Where eagles dare

This life takes courage.

Late one winter night, a car pulled up outside of a downtown Hamilton crack den.

I got inside.

I knew right away that I was in for a very bad time. It didn’t matter what the driver — a family friend I hadn’t seen in forever named Jesse — told me. He had been asked to pick me up. He didn’t hesitate, driving hours in the snow to deliver me to my mother’s house.

As a former addict, he assured me it would get better.

No, it wouldn’t.

He probably thought he was going to save someone that night.

Not me.

I had a piece of dope clenched in my hand the whole way home. Insurance.

My mom greeted me at the door. There were tears. There were fresh sheets on the bed. And, Jesus, look at all the food in the fridge. Honestly, I hadn’t eaten anything for days except for some No Name pretzels in a bowl swimming with cockroaches. Actually, they weren’t even pretzels. They were too cheap to come tied. So they were just sticks.

Imagine then how a full fridge appeared to this 144-pound praying mantis. The very next morning, it was pancakes!

But nothing could warm me to the idea of never getting high again.

With every day that passed, I scrawled a number on a mirror. One day clean… 2 days… 3… 4…

And fuck, I lost that piece of dope I had been holding onto.

I felt like a prisoner scratching out numbers on a stone wall. How long would I have to wait until I could feel that high again?

In that time, I shuffled through Costco and Walmart and specialty bakeries with my mom and sister. They were regular people with regular money, but they seemed so rich to me. Like they could buy anything they liked.

And the message was clear: ‘You can have all of this too, dear boy. The only thing you have to do is not do something.’

Indeed, all I had to do was not smoke crack and I could have my own place, a car, a big TV, every subscription streaming service under the sun. I could have normal friends too. Maybe even a girlfriend.

And my response to the easiest deal I had ever been offered in my life? Get me the fuck out of here.

Give me a life on the margins. Weird people. Profound experiences. Desperate moments.

Give me a vivid life. Not the Bulk Barn version.

I had only been in this Barbie world for a few days, when Jesse sent a message. Would I like to come and visit him in the country?

Well, I figured, anything would be better than writing numbers on a mirror. Maybe I could leave early and sneak in a visit to some old acquaintances in nearby Hamilton.

But only moments after arriving at Jesse’s place — a sprawling property with a trailer, green houses and even a pond — I started getting new ideas. You see, Jesse doesn’t live large. In fact, an ordinary person might mistake it for an imperceptible existence — a lone man, small home, big land. He collects his own water, makes his own electricity, and kills the chickens he eats.

“They only have one bad day in their entire life,” he says.

Wouldn’t we all like to have just one bad day?

Jesse used to have plenty of them. But I don’t want to tell his story for him. In the end, he found his way to this place and began living clean. The kind of clean that begins with the soul.

It’s a weird life. Vivid. And free. Free from the things addicts have to do to themselves to have the flimsiest facsimile of the way he feels every day. He’s connected to himself, the natural world around him and even the stars.

Indeed, Jesse is a scholar of stardust — literally a sediment that falls to Earth that he collects from rooftop membranes. Together, we peered through magnifying glasses at his celestial harvest. Every grain of dust seemed a universe unto itself.

He showed me the mushrooms he harvested. And the bright, sweet vegetables he grew. We drank his homemade apple cider.

I left him that day, my head full of strange new ideas about how to live in this world. I thought a lot about Jesse’s outdoor bath tub. What an ingenious way to bathe not only in that simple wooden tub over a fire — but in the surrounding forest and starry sky. Maybe he could feel the stardust falling on his own naked body. Yes, naked outside. Who could see him but the moon? She knew how to keep a secret.

About 10 months later, I visited Jesse again. He looked younger. Duke the Golden Labrador was there — maybe the most joyful dog I’ve ever seen. But who wouldn’t be happy in that place?

We walked a ways into the forest, reaching the edge of a gentle river. And there we watched a family of bald eagles take flight.

Jesse found something among the fallen branches and acorns below. A giant feather.

He presented it to me. And somehow, it feels like the greatest gift ever.