Granite Bold Can Be Too Bold

While traveling, I found myself in a very particular situation, the kind of event that makes you readjust in your seat and sit up straight, as if a parent has just scolded you in front of your friends while you were trying to act like the big kid on the playground.

Like many searchers, I had become fixated on an idea. It was the kind that kept me pacing back and forth, trying to decide whether I should follow it through.

By then, I had spent five days in the heat without a shower. I was sunburned, sleep-deprived, and suffering from chapped lips and a possible case of delusion. My truck, once spotless, was now packed with gear I did not need, empty 7-Eleven sandwich wrappers, and a suitcase full of clothes that carried the unmistakable scent of the previous week’s events.

Finding a place to camp had become its own ordeal. Every option was either more expensive than I wanted, too small for my setup, or burdened with enough rules to make a white rabbit lose its mind.

When I was not at base camp, most of my time was spent speed-hiking, stopping only long enough to read signs along the trails.

Eventually, luck gave me a campsite closer to where I wanted to search. I woke early, somewhere around four in the morning, knowing I would have the trails to myself for at least a couple of hours.

Before setting out, I opened a bottle of anti-inflammatory medicine and took a few tablets to ease what I believed were shin splints from all the walking. By then, I was beginning to forecast my body’s response to the day ahead.

I walked to the trailhead of one of the oldest trails in the area and began searching.

Several clues had led me there, and I finally had enough time to look carefully. The only problem was that it was still dark, which meant I had to move slowly. The possibility of an animal stepping out of the shadows felt very real.

As I approached the oldest section of the trail, I stopped to read the nearby signs. One explained that people who had once lived in the area had used parts of the site as a kitchen.

My excitement went through the roof.

I had time. I had the trails to myself. The clues had brought me to this general area, and I could barely contain myself. I had come this far. I had to trust them.

I started walking around and almost immediately noticed something unusual.

A cabin stood tucked beside the trail. At first glance, it looked like every other cabin in the area.

Except this one had the number 42 on the door.

I paced back and forth, trying to make sense of it and decide what to do next. Eventually, I called my wife, Jess.

When I checked my watch, it was 6:30 in the morning.

I told her what I had found.

Jess reminded me that buildings were out of play. As interesting as the cabin seemed, she said, I should probably write it off.

I replied with the sort of sentence people use moments before making a poor decision:

“In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.”

Then I remembered a line from the poem, one I had never felt completely certain about:

“I wait for you to cast your pole.”

What did “cast your pole” mean? Raising an arm?

What if it meant I needed to knock? Raise my arm, and just knock.

After all, I was at the end of the poem and I had nothing else.

“What if the poem is telling me to be granite bold?” I said to Jess. “What if I’m supposed to be brave and take the chance?”

Jess then gave me the best advice anyone gave me during the entire trip. In hindsight, I should probably start listening to her more often.

She reminded me that it was 6:30 in the morning and that, if someone was inside, I was going to make them extremely angry.

Disregarding this excellent advice, I walked up to the cabin.

It sat directly beside a public trail on public property making it fall somewhere between, not making sense, and a shoulder shrug.

I may or may not of had the audio play in my head. “LLLLEEERRROOOYYYY JEEEENNNNKKKINNNSS”

I raised my hand and knocked.

I am not sure what I expected to happen. I simply felt that I needed to take the chance. What could go wrong?

At worst, no one would answer.

At best, Justin would emerge with balloons, a sriracha band would begin playing, and streamers would fall from the trees.

I waited.

And waited.

Then I heard someone speaking inside.

It was a woman’s voice, quiet, but unmistakable. An interior door opened. Footsteps followed. They grew closer.

Then the front door handle began to turn.

I stood there like a child waiting at the bus stop on the first day of school.

The door opened a crack, and a woman’s head appeared.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

I had no idea what to say.

My mind emptied completely.

She repeated herself while I stared at her, my phone still pressed to my ear. An awkward silence settled between us as she took in the sight of a strange man who looked as though he had crawled out of a gutter and knocked on her door at 6:30 in the morning.

Finally, I gathered enough confidence to speak.

“Uh…if you don’t know, then no.”

I sounded like a boy trying to speak after his crush had unexpectedly said hello.

The woman stared at me.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she said. “It is 6:30 in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I managed. “I understand, and I apologize for the inconvenience.”

Then, apparently having exhausted my remaining supply of brain cells, I added:

“I just needed to know.”

Her expression shifted from irritated confusion to a deeper and more complicated confusion.

I walked away.

Behind me, the door shut.

Trespassing had never crossed my mind. Neither had entering private property. But that poor woman probably posted on Neighbors that morning about a deranged man wandering through the park and knocking on cabin doors before sunrise.

“You’re a dumbass,” I heard through the phone.

In the confusion, I had forgotten that Jess was still on the line. She had listened to the entire encounter unfold in real time.

I returned to base camp expecting park rangers to swoop in at any moment and arrest me, if not for knocking on the door, then simply for looking and possibly smelling like Bigfoot caught ding-dong ditching red-handed.

The encounter forced me to recalibrate.

The area was only the general location of my search. The cabin was not remotely connected to my solve. I had seen a shiny object and chased it, leaving reason and judgment somewhere back on the trail.

To the woman I disturbed at 6:30 that morning, I apologize from the bottom of my heart.

The saying “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take” still rings loudly when I think about what brought me to that place.

But now it comes with a small warning attached:

Before taking the chance, make sure you are still operating somewhere within the boundaries of reality.

“God Damn it Leeroy”