The End of the Trail, Part One

After a week in Bangkok, I was home. I walked back into the Jungle Adventure Tour Company compound, where I was greeted by some tanned white kid with a ponytail. He was wearing khaki cargo pants and real hiking boots. He said his name was Jim and he was going to be my tour guide.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you here to take the tour?” he asked in that particularly nice Mid-Western way.

“Yeah, well, not exact… I mean, I lead the tours. I’m the guide.”

“Oh, you’re Phil! Tom and Maow told me all about you! I’m Jim. The new guy.”

What was he talking about? I’d only been working here two months – I was the new guy.

“Sooooo, Jim. When did you start?”

“Well, I just came here to take the tour a couple of days ago, and next thing you know, they offer me a job. Incredible, huh.? I still can’t believe it!”

“Yeah… Can you excuse me a minute? Tom? Tom!”

I found Tom on his front porch cutting his toenails with a Swiss Army Knife. “Oh, you met Jim? Great guy, huh? Good guide, too. Already took a group out all by himself. No problems at all.”

I knew he was referring to my getting lost on my first solo trek. I wondered if Buddhists were supposed to give little digs like that. What was the karmic value of a dig?

“So, who is he? What’s his story?”

“I don’t know, he comes from Arizona or something. Some kind of naturalist, too. Knows the names of all the tree and animals.”

Tom slid the plastic toothpick out of the knife handle. He cleaned under and around his toenails. Very thorough. He glanced up at me, “Don’t worry, he’s not your replacement.”

I walked to my room to unpack, kicking rocks out of my way and muttering, “New guy? Coming into my jungle? I’m the Jungle Guide here. No fresh-faced punk in water-wicking wool socks is going to take my place. We’ll just see about this...”

To be continued…