“My buddy Len isn’t kidding around. This is his art. He melts down high-quality chocolate, chops up the mushrooms, mixes it all together, and makes those by hand.”
Each bar was a two-inch square, individually wrapped in metallic foil, with pretty paper labels on top. The labels had images of Hindu goddesses printed on the front and a Hunter S. Thomson quote on the underside that read: “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
“The one in the pink wrapper is dark chocolate with dried cherries. The gold wrapper is milk chocolate with honey. And Len wanted me to mention that he uses all organic ingredients.”
October looked sideways at me, playful and flirty. “There’s two. One for you and one for me.”
“We’ll see.”
“We’ll see,” she repeated, mocking my deep, humorless tone.
She smelled the bars and said, “I call the milk chocolate.”
The “Welcome” sign near the entrance to Humboldt Redwoods State Park has a John Steinbeck quote on it, something about how the trees are ambassadors of another time, but October said it felt more like a prehistoric place where time stood still.
“If a triceratops walked past me right now, it wouldn’t seem weird,” she said.
The air smelled of dirt, bark, and moss, and inside that miasma I could taste the ocean. It was in the wind that blew over the hill from the Pacific and kept the earth soft and damp under our feet.
We had decided we would hike around for a couple of hours, visit the specific trees we’d been talking about, and then find a motel where one or both of us would eat the chocolates. If all went well after they started to kick in, we’d go back out into the woods, let the magic unfold for a while, and at some point October would draw me again.
We started down the trail, and as soon as October saw the wooden platform that led to Giant Tree, she ran toward it. When she got to the tree, she stretched her arms out and said, “Nice to meet you, sir. I’ve heard so much about you from my friend over there.” Then she looked back at me and said, “Joe, he’s magnificent.”
“You look like a child next to that behemoth.”
We walked deeper into the forest, October and I both petting random, unnamed redwoods as we went along.
“Wow, look at this one,” she would say. Then we’d walk a few more feet. “And this one.”
Near Drive-Thru Tree, I asked her to turn around so I could take her picture. She stepped back into the naturally carved out tunnel that ran through the middle of the tree’s trunk, raised her arms into the air, and smiled.
That was one of only two photos I took of October back then. I must have looked at it a thousand times after I left California, and every time I did, I saw so much more than her face and body in it. I saw her spirit, the way she had seen mine. As if she were lit from within. Other times I looked at that photo and saw the future. I saw how careless I was with her. How stupid.
She said we needed a pic of the two of us together and motioned for me to stand next to her. Then she gave her phone to an older man hiking nearby, and he snapped a shot of us side by side, October’s arm thrown around my shoulder, my hands deep in my pockets.
We lost track of time in the forest, and the last tree we visited was the albino redwood. On our drive up that morning, I had predicted that Albino Tree would be October’s favorite.
“You were right,” she said as we stood beside it.
“Naturally. It’s the weird one.”
“You’re calling me weird?”
“I’m calling the tree weird. Then again, you once had me film you standing on your head reciting the Declaration of Independence.”
“Touché,” she laughed.
Albino Tree was tiny compared to the others—only about sixty feet tall—but it was exquisite, with white, frosty leaves due to its inability to make chlorophyll. Sometimes called the forest ghost, Albino Tree appears to glow when the light hits it just right.
October said Albino was her spirit tree and contemplated filming it to use in a selfie. “Cool or dumb? I can’t decide.”
“Cool,” I assured her.
She nodded and proceeded to record a long, static shot of the tree, though why she trusted my estimation of cool is one of my life’s great mysteries.
By the time we got back to the car it was after four, and we still needed to find a place to stay and get some food before we were ready for the mushrooms. I drove us back toward the highway while October used her phone to look for nearby motels. She found a place in Miranda, right on Avenue of the Giants, promising quaint cottages in the middle of a forest. She called the number on the website and booked us a two-bedroom bungalow with a fireplace and a kitchen and told them we’d be there soon. After she hung up, she said, “Judging from the price of a two-bedroom cottage, I suggest we don’t get our hopes up for luxury.”
I shrugged. I’d sleep in a muddy trench if it was surrounded by redwoods.
We stopped at a dodgy convenience store down the street from the motel and picked up some snacks. It was slim pickings in there, and we made do with what seemed edible, which was limited to a bag of tortilla chips, a small lemon pie in a box, and two bottles of water. October suggested we get beer too, but I told her we weren’t going to want to mix alcohol with the mushrooms.
As we were turning into the motel, October looked over at me and said, “Time for you to decide if you’re going to buy the ticket and take the ride.”
I didn’t say anything as I pulled into a parking space next to the small office, where a “Vacancy” sign blinked in
