The Wild Truth (24 page)

“Keep your voices down,” I would say, trying to contain the scene. “You two don’t want help. That’s why you keep having the same fight over and over again. You actually prefer this misery. I do not. Please leave.”

Eventually they would leave, but not until their tantrums had dissipated. I’d then apologize to any staff and customers who’d been in the line of fire. Luckily, Mom and Dad were out of town a lot during this time and would just leave me phone messages. And I, feeling obligated, would always call back.

I was grateful for their generosity and support, but their constant reminder of it was enough to make me regret the favor. I now felt like it had been offered simply to keep me appropriately aligned and permanently obliged to them. I was working hard to make my own money, and I was determined not to drown in the materialism Chris had warned me about.

I thought of how, when Chris and I were adolescents and my parents’ business became successful, they had purchased a deluxe Airstream trailer. Our simple camping trips to the Shenandoah were replaced, and we covered more distance by tires on pavement than with boots on dirt. We went to visit extended family instead of wooded trails. We stayed at manicured resort campgrounds in vacation destinations across the country. Chris would grumble that we were missing the best stuff by driving through it rather than walking into it. Once we were set on a long expanse of highway, it allowed ample opportunity for our parents’ attention to revisit the issue of debate that had sparked the most recent uproar. When we were finally settled for the night and one of Mom’s delicious hot dinners came out of the oven, Chris couldn’t help but reminisce about how much better everything tasted when cooked over a campfire, and how the sleeping bag and tent felt so much more rewarding after a long hike than our plush bunks in the back of the Airstream felt after a long drive. My parents considered his comments to be ungrateful and inconsiderate after they had worked so hard to provide us with what they regarded were the nicer things in life.

Before I was mature enough to make the connection, as Chris did—that the more luxury we had, the more fighting there seemed to be—I silently agreed with my parents. I only missed the natural settings of our past adventures when the weather and all other conditions were perfect. I thought Chris was crazy to prefer a tent over a climate-controlled camper, a bedroll over a mattress, a tree over a real, flushable toilet, and half-smushed SPAM-and-cheese sandwiches over Mom’s saucy ham casserole served with fresh-baked rolls and warm fudge brownies for dessert. We even had a television to watch and ColecoVision and Atari to play with. But Chris complained that the light from the campground made it difficult to see the stars, that the noise scared away the deer, and when he wasn’t trying to top his own record at the controls, that my Pac-Man obsession was disturbing his reading.

Not long after Chris left Atlanta, in what seems to have been a ceremonial offering after he’d abandoned the Datsun, he set fire to his remaining cash—he even documented it in photos and a journal, so important and symbolic was that act to him. Of course he had to earn money again later in order to eat and survive, but his complex relationship with money and possessions was easy for me to understand. Just as Chris had done before me, I resolved to never accept my parents’ help again.

ON MY TWENTY-SIXTH BIRTHDAY,
my employees gave me a small cake, some balloons, and a card that read:

We’d been through a lot together. The changes in the business, while for the better, were financially stressful on all of us, leading to adjustments in our personal lives as well. When I first bought C.A.R. Services from Fish, I ate mainly bulk foods from grocery warehouses and went without luxuries like cable television, visits to the hair salon, and tickets to the jazz concerts I’d once enjoyed regularly. But there were also plenty of opportunities to relieve the pressure with laughter.

One day a new recruit from a local parts supplier paid a visit to the shop. There was a sliding glass window between Cindy’s reception desk and my office, and we both watched as he came through the door buoyantly.

“Hi, there!” he greeted Cindy with a smile.

“Hello,” she replied. “Welcome to C.A.R. Services. How may I help you?”

“Well, I’m the new sales rep in town from Primary Products,” he continued, resting some suspension parts on the front counter. “We’ve got a new line of Monroe in stock. Can I speak with the owner for a few minutes?”

Cindy glanced over at me and I nodded my head.

“Sure. No problem.” She directed him with a wave of her hand. “First door on your right.”

I stood up to greet the man as he came into my large L-shaped office. “Hi, I’m Carine.”

“Hey, there!” he answered. “Is the owner around?”

“That’s me. What can I do for you?”

He looked around the corner. “Is your husband around?”

“No.” I paused and smiled. “I’m not married. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Oh, I see. Okay. Is your father here?”

My extended right hand returned to its partner in a fold as I curled my tongue and pursed my lips. I heard Cindy struggling to not spit out the pasta she had warmed up for lunch, her hand slapping against the counter.

“No,” I said sharply. “I am the sole owner. Now, what may I do for you?”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” He attempted a recovery. Then he crashed and burned. “I’m here to talk about auto parts. Maybe I should speak to one of the guys in the back.”

I looked over at Cindy, who now had both hands tightly clamped over her mouth, her wide, laughing eyes staring back with the same questions I was asking myself.
Is this guy serious? Did he really just say that?

I looked back toward the poor bastard. “I’m sorry, but you seem confused,” I said slowly. “Let me try to explain this again. I am the one who makes the purchasing decisions for the shop. I am the one who pays for the parts that you want to sell to us.”

He stared blankly at me for a moment, then fumbled to open one of the boxes in his hands.

“Wow,” I stopped him. “Are you really gonna try to sell me shocks and struts right now?”

“Oh . . . Um,” he stuttered. “I guess not.”

“How about you come back another day?” I suggested. “And when I introduce myself as the owner, you shake my hand, and we can move forward from there.”

He left with his head down and his strut between his legs. Cindy and I loved reenacting the story to the technicians for laughs, but it was also revealing, and it was just one of many incidents like it. If I wanted to succeed, it was clear I would have to turn what Fish considered a disadvantage into an edge.

A single female shop owner was unique, and it got people’s attention. We just had to earn their business. I would sit at the stoplights on my way to work each morning, watching the variety of cars pass by in every direction: a colorful compilation of metal, fiberglass, and plastic in every form; big and small, new and old; sports cars, sedans, trucks, family vans—obvious job security if you’re doing things right.

We were. The schedule was consistently booked solid and all new business came from referrals. I was doing fine without Fish—actually, I was doing better than fine; I was excelling.

I loved my independence. For the first time in my life, I felt completely self-reliant.

HAVING A CUSTOMER BREAK DOWN
and cry in the waiting room of C.A.R. Services was not a typical occurrence. But as I sat typing an invoice at the reception desk—wearing a T-shirt with a smiling car dancing above our slogan,
WE KEEP YOU AND YOUR CAR HAPPY
—I noticed Pam Stoltz starting to crumble. She was waiting for us to complete a state inspection on her Toyota Camry. Pam had been a customer for years and certainly not someone I’d describe as emotional when dealing with automotive maintenance.

“Hey, Pam? They did already tell you that your car passed, didn’t they?” I asked from my seat.

“What?” she answered softly. “Oh . . . yes, thank you.” Her eyes lingered for a moment on my concerned expression but then returned to her lap and the book she was reading,
The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss
—not exactly a tearjerker.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” I continued, “but are you okay? Is everything all right with Mike and the kids?”

She looked back up, her face flushed. “I’m so sorry,” she said and removed the book’s jacket. “I started reading this a few days ago. I knew I had this appointment with you and I wasn’t going to bring it, but I just haven’t been able to put it down.”

In her hands was a now-naked edition of
Into the Wild.
Her face wore the same expression that I’d first seen on the choir director’s face the night I learned of Chris’s death.

Into the Wild
was flying off store shelves at a pace no one had anticipated. Apart from my long talks with Jon Krakauer, I’d remained mostly silent about the story and my relation to it. It was a surreal experience every time a customer figured out that the protagonist’s sister was actually the same Carine they took their car to.

I was puzzled by the amount of attention Chris’s story received, and from such a diversity of people. And as interest grew, the number of questions grew exponentially with it. The article that Jon had written about Chris for
Outside
—“Death of an Innocent”—had generated more mail than any other in the magazine’s history, and now the book was proving to have the same powerful draw. Many admired Chris for his courage and felt inspired by his transcendent principles, his charitable heart, his willingness to shed material possessions to follow what he believed was the path to a pure existence. Others considered him an idiot and admonished him for what they felt was obtuse, reckless behavior. Some simply believed that he was mentally unstable and had walked into the wilderness with no intention of ever walking back out.

Chris had not concerned himself with the opinions of others, so I told myself the negative judgments shouldn’t bother me—and, for the most part, they didn’t. But when critics claimed his disappearance was little more than an incredibly selfish act of cruelty toward his parents, I took note. “Why would any son cause his parents and family such permanent and perplexing pain?” wrote one
Outside
reader. Another wrote, “. . . while I feel for his parents, I have no sympathy for him.”

My parents drank in the sympathy they received. They attached themselves to those who said things like “My son was selfish, too. How sad that yours didn’t live long enough to grow out of that teenage rebellion.” They still showed no accountability, no ownership over anything that had happened. When people asked them why Chris had been so angry with them, they just sighed and said, “Well, as Jon wrote, ‘Children can be harsh judges when it comes to their parents.’”

I was unsure if I’d been right not to allow Jon to write the whole truth about why Chris had left with such impudence. Then again, I didn’t feel that anyone outside the family was owed an explanation—and the family already knew. Plus, I still felt Chris would have wanted my parents to have the opportunity to prove that he didn’t die in vain. But with all the criticism and “Why?” questions circulating around me, it was tough not to shout from the rooftops the real reasons Chris had left the way he did. I wanted to explain that going into the wild was far from crazy; it was the sanest thing he could have done.

Chris had known exactly which emotional demons he needed to slay. He had observed firsthand how people often placed their own needs before others’, and he wasn’t about to do that himself. He loved people, and he wasn’t going to be a hermit for the rest of his life. But he needed some time and space to heal before he could grow too close to anyone. I believe that he would have approached his role as a husband and father with his typical quest for perfection. He was disciplined and determined enough to do whatever it took to get to a place where he could be open again. Far too many applied the cliché that he was
finding himself
—but Chris had known exactly who he was. I believe he had ultimately wanted to find a place in society he fit into while remaining true to that knowledge.

As
Into the Wild
remained at the top of numerous bestseller lists, my parents became more vocal about our family history, but they always made it sound as though Walt had divorced Marcia before becoming involved with Billie, eliminating the stem of our family dysfunction. They repeatedly claimed to have no idea why Chris had left, or why he had been so angry with them. They portrayed themselves as martyrs working hard through religious missions and charitable endeavors to bring honor to their son despite the terrible pain he had caused them.

I called them out, in private, on every infraction. I told them that Chris’s siblings would not stand quietly in the face of such disrespect. I warned that if they pushed the family too far, their veil was going to fall, and the rest of us would fall away with it. Dad would widen his eyes, then recite Bible verses and the commandment to honor thy mother and father. Mom would try to equate their position with mine.

“Oh, Carine,” she would say. “Isn’t it
you
who’s inventing things to protect your own image? You know, he left you, too.”

But I knew better. Even though Chris’s path and my own were so different and often didn’t intersect, we had shared an emotional parallel. I understood
why
our childhood had affected him so severely, yet he’d always been so strong in my eyes that I’d never expected it to. Perhaps, for all the abilities in which my brother had surpassed me, one I surpassed him in was resilience.

THE YEARS PASSED WITH ME WORKING
constantly at the shop and trying to keep my parents at a safe distance. I also made more of a concerted effort to connect with my brothers and sisters. It had been too easy in the past years to neglect those relationships. Outside of work, these were the people who understood me, the only people who made me feel like a part of something bigger than myself, something that I somehow completed.