For the longest time, I cursed God and crocodiles.

There is a way to hike up the long backside to the very top of the terraced cliffs. My dead friend Joe once said the path is for cowards. I’ve been a coward for over a year now, taking the easy way up. It’s from up here, on top, that I can also gaze across the lake stuck between someone’s heaven and hell.

Today I am on a long windy road through the picturesque valley and foothills into the Sierra’s. The road knows it’s way to the area's most popular swimming hole at Eagle Lake, California. Eagle Lake is due west of Lake Tahoe. It's late September. It’s the time of year that California's skies are bluest, the infamous rolling hills henna fire wicks.

It’s early. The sun has commenced a slow burn over the crest of the Sierra’s. Cumuli appear sooty and snag on the horizon, not so much grey as depressing. Showers are forecast to scrub away any remaining stains by noon.

Brushy oak and Manzanita glint in shades of green to sienna. With each paved mile, I inhale the scent of the land along Highway 50. As I power the windows down further, the smell is of feted crape paper leaves, and over-ripened blackberries drunk in fall clusters. I imagine each cluster a fist of thorns, as bloody as bar room knuckles.

It’s early Sunday, the 19th of September. I'm driving in the direction of one last swim and a late climb at altitude. My destination is the cliff. It’s 6:30 A.M., the time of day when most people leave you alone. For someone who struggles with the anxiety, the contour and undulations of blacktop are comforting.

Most county and state highways tilt south this late in the season, toward colleges in big cities. They lean away from the endings of vacations and midsummer back to college anticipations. This time of day, they're nearly emptied, the roads, drained of bi-directional traffic.

It’s the time of year most of the boys and girls of summer have headed down below. Fact is, some have already made it to their respective dorms, at California Universities and colleges.

Most travel the I-5 artery, as it pulses through Santa Clarita, Sylmar and into the heart of San Fernando Valley, and further south, to the City of Angels. Dorm managers at Pepperdine and Loyola of Marymount await the arrival of student’s. They act as over caring doting aunts and uncles.

Yet there are others, some third-year students who drift along in the currents of Interstate 80, less inclined to hurry to apartments that need cleaning. Their destinations are much shorter, southwest, in the direction of Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Bay. Their travels this beautiful day have arrivals waiting for them at fine liberal arts schools, each brandishing cursive poetic cursive like Pepperdine, Stanford and Saint Mary's.

I was a freshman at CSUS that year. I might be a junior this year. It’s taken me a year to even think about going back to school.

~~~

There's something about the weather in Northern California that keeps us outdoors, even as snow swallows buildings in the dead of winter.  

Returning for one last summer is a thing up here, at least after completing freshman year. It's a gut-check of sorts, a personal litmus test. It’s one way to determine if you can still make time stand still, exactly as if you are still part child.  Pre-sophomore summers in Northern California are a rite of passage.

For me, the end of last year’s summer didn't stand still. It froze in place. I missed the first two weeks of class. The rest of the month was a rock slide. I was forced to return home, too much on my mind. I was called a drop out by family and friends.

~~~

Since the accident, I haven't been able to think much about attending college. Well truthfully, not at all, until just recently. All the obsessing in my head hasn’t left much room for self motivation or studying. Let alone killing straight A’s.

Here’s how my psychologist put it, "A one year break from college is just what was needed. Let’s be honest, Levi, it’s been slow, but you’ve made steady progress haven’t you? By the way you’re your times up. Be sure to pay the balance due on your account on your way out. I’m thinking it’s around $235.00."

My psycho-therapist loves to ramble on and eat up my time. He wag’s on and on about his new golf cart often, this so called Electric Phantom. It’s either that, or he redecorates his condo in Telluride.

I get the feeling I’m just a monthly credit payment.

~~~

In Northern, California it's the soft side of the wind that we truly remember, the easy times. It’s something we obsessive most after we joined the thick of things at our respective colleges. Some of us miss the whiskey gold sunlight, as it slowly pours its darkening amber over the backside of the craggy Sierra’s, other’s miss the lack of responsibility. All of us miss our sense of place once we leave for good. And, most of us who have completed Freshman College choose to leave for good. I was an exception.

One thing for certain, before most of us leave for good as sophomores, that last summer of hesitation, we enjoy the pristine waters at Eagle Lake. Some climb the cliffs.

The west end of the lake is where the jagged granite knifes itself into the belly of the Sierra’s blue sky. The breathtaking granite is a rugged feature, a difficult terrain to navigate or to ever forget. Its columns of granite climb straight up. In the evenings, as the sun is setting, they resemble charcoal chimneys’ out of Dante’s hell. Falling is what it feels like, when I look up.

Our final summers are the perfect sojourn. Our memories will forever remain vivid and exquisitely intact in our rear views, as we move out into the roadways of our some days.

Too soon the summer ritual ends. That’s the time of year we grow into true sophomores. Those of us who choose to mature never really look back again, rarely return home. It’s the way life intends it to be.

In June and July, most that have completed freshman year, the hunks and college girls swim Eagle Lake. Though never spoken, it’s agreed to, year after year.

Each summer the vast waters and shores act to confirm the advanced maturity of the girls over the boys. Or, maybe they just jade quicker. Every summer the players change, but never their faces or the Shakespearean drama.  

By the first weekend of August, the rocky shores are bronzed dark in boys and grown girls, each and every one lurking in the shallows of testosterone and estrogen.

For their part, the girls bask in their wonderful, brown complexions. They lie in patches on the sandy beaches in their fashionable fuchsias and limes. Expensive one and two pieces swimwear that rarely sees water. They take shade under their Wayfarers, pine and the building architecture of late summers cumuli. Each gentle summer, the weather at altitude blesses them with ease and plenty. It’s here they perfect the ‘O’ shapes of their lovely mouths, dress rehearsing varying shades of Matte Revolution lip gloss.

All of us boys laze juvenile crocodiles. We sport our gaping mouths to avoid overheating. We quench our scaly dryness with volumes of beer. We line the banks of the Nile in wary clusters, warming and tanning our chevron scaly backs.

Each one of us wears a reptilian mask. We lie in wait for any mistake the girls might make, any splashing of water. We live for nothing, if not the excuse to enter the frigid waters and dine. 

Hope exists as a toothy longing of want and need. In truth, most of us half-men would settle for flirting. But the girls are smart. They rarely give us boys a look.

The local joke, each late summer, is that even the Atheist boys learn to pray. They pray to false gods they don't believe in. They pray to cynical angels for place and purpose. They pray for just one opportunity to speak to the opposite sex. A kiss would be a miracle.

All of us boys broil and burn, fuss with our sticky tanned real estate. We covet circumstance, any opportunity or excuse to jiggle our gluteus maximums or pectorals. For us, each long day is a testosterone fueled, crocodile circus. We balance the high wire of ego using our long, thick tails.

At our crocodilian sideshows we display the complicated flaws of natural selection. Like scaly car salesman, for a small tip, we will seat you in front row. There, it’s easier to watch as we sell you the lies of survival of the fittest.

Joe was the only boy who really commanded their attention, the attention of boys and girls. Unlike the rest of us, he was fluid, void of skips and hitches. His maturity wasn’t an act. He was adept at demonstrating authentic intentions. Something all of us admired. He never acted stuck up because he was headed back to Harvard in the fall.

I had a hunch I’d be visiting his successful ass one day, somewhere in the Hamptons, or somewhere on a piece of expensive real estate along the eastern seaboard, ions away from the small towns in Northern California.

By late summer, most of us boys can’t get a girl to lower their shades and bat their eyes at us, let alone shoot us a wink. The exception–you got it, my best friend Joe. But, by the end of that last summer, my boy Joe was gone. Worlds crashed.

For the remainder of us, after, we bronzed over cheap magazines and melted from glistening sweat. Gone were the delicious thoughts of getting laid.

Most of us boys headed home most nights, after, predictably disappointed, sporting crocodile shoes, belts, and matching wallets, sun chaffed scaly backs and tails. It wasn’t the same without Joe around.

As the summer girls evolved, their thoughts focused straight ahead, down south. To a fault, they were laser beam intent on professional careers. They had their minds fixed on futures beyond the topographies of small towns. Predictably, one day they would reside in cities with such elegant names that sound like fine art: San Leandro, Brentwood, and Palo Alto.

For most of us boy crocks, our futures, at least for the time being, would remain carnal and cringe worthy.

~~~

Next Monday, after a year away from college, I might be headed back to CSUS. So what if it’s a state college and all I can afford? So what if I’ve missed a whole year getting my shit together?

But today, this glorious day, I park my car in the remote gravel parking lot, next to the tall granite walls. The rim of the lake this late in the season is layered in memories, and water table lines.

The Eagle Lake Cliff’s have been carved out of granite, a castle of jagged crags. At the remote west end of the lake  columns of granite are perfect for climbing. The lake below as advertised is ideal for fishing and swimming. The view of the water from the top of the climb is mostly flat and calming.

At the bottom of the lake, deep in the dark, time has marinated for a full year.

I'm back though.  My intention is to climb, again, although alone.

I inspect my gear, check, the weather is perfect, check, and if I felt more alone, I would disappear, check. I'm here to hopefully move forward in life somehow after the fall.

I’ve been at a standstill the whole year, unless you consider moving forward working as a fuel attendant at Costco. At work this summer, over thinking is something I’ve really gotten good at. I mostly watch cars being filled with gasoline, and the locals moving along with their lives. But at least the work has paid most of the rent and therapy bills.

I truly surprised myself.

I’m halfway up the chimney at Devil's Tower. Oh, not the real Devils Tower, that's in Wyoming. Devil’s Tower is a National Park. Our vertical rock here climbs 700' straight up toward heaven. Every finger and foot grip is slippery with fear.

The name Devil's Tower originated in 1875. Colonel Richard Irving Dodge had lead the expedition.

The local Native American’s had originally named it, "Bad God's Tower." To this day, the regional signage lists the monolith as, "Devils Tower." It’s too expensive to change all the signage and add the apostrophe.

I'll always remember Joe as that missing apostrophe. One year ago this month, he fell out of the sky.  His fall was soundless, as silent as a hyaline musical note.

I climb, spider fingers in cracks, nearly ten feet from the top. After the longest time, I finally pull myself up and stand at the top. At the crown of the granite staircase, I allow myself to enjoy the glorious panorama once again. I listen as the wind as it hisses through the beautiful green castles of timber. I watch as the yarrow suns taffy slowly softens, melts over the edge of the horizon.

I allow myself the embarrassment of shaky legs and arms, the letting go of loss, tears. Somehow I know I will be able to return to college this next week. Yes, as a sophomore. Maybe now I’ll grow into an adult, less for wear. I’ll save my best crocodile interpretations for Cosplay conventions.

For the longest time, loaning Joe that climbing rope had been a noose. Somehow I sense I’ve been forgiven by my friend and that he’d want me to forgive myself.

I raise my gloved fist into the belly of heaven, "Here's to you, Joe!"

Dan A. Cardoza has an MS Degree in Counseling. His poetry, fiction, and nonfiction has appeared in Across the 45th Parallel, University of Oregon, Apricity Magazine, University of Texas, BlazeVOX, Bull, California Quarterly, Call me, University of Alabama, Cleaver, Consequence, Entropy, Gravel, Hamilton Stone Review, Hiram Review, In Parentheses, OJA&L, New Flash Fiction Review, Poetry Northwest, Running Wild Press Anthology, 2021, Spelk, White Wall Journal, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada and Your Impossible Voice. Dan was nominated for Best Micro Fiction, Tiny Molecules, 2020 and Best Poetry, Coffin Bell, 2020.