by Aiden Butler

There are five fundamental questions a writer will ask themselves when writing their own piece. The who, what, when, where, and why? As someone who has been writing for a while, I find myself asking these questions about everything. It makes things easier; it answers all I need to know. Who put those beers in my fridge? What beers are in my fridge? Where are the beers in my fridge – cause that matters? When did they put those beers in my fridge? Why did they put those beers in my fridge?

Who am I? When trying to think about what I want to do with my life, a twisting anxiety reaches my chest. When I discuss an interest in professing the art of writing to young minds in college, I get met with a “you can definitely do that” or a “you’d be a great professor.” But these feel like vague empathy, not dissimilar to when a kid tells their parents they want to be an astronaut or the president. Then, when I tell people I want to try my hand at being a federal agent, I always get met with the typical speech about the problems with our government (at my own annoyance of being trapped, listening to the same lecture for the fifth time). When I tell people I want to be a wildland firefighter, I get met with the universal “Oh, that’s interesting. You have a college degree, right?”

When planning a ski trip, the five fundamental questions come into play, without people realizing it. Who’s going? When are they going? Where are they going? Why are they going? What are they doing besides skiing when they go? I, on the other hand, plan ski trips very differently. When I call my friend to let them know where I am going, I get met with the five questions. Who is going? I don’t know. Where are you going, and where are you staying? Where there is snow, and I’ll be staying where I can sleep. When are you going? When it snows. What are you doing? Skiing on snow. Then I get met with the why. Why are you going on a trip that you haven’t planned? Cause I can? That’s the best answer I can come up with. The most planning I do is printing out the directions in case I lose my phone or it dies, which has happened before. I throw some pillows and blankets in my car, so I can sleep. My skis, so I can ski. And my toothbrush and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so I can stay clean and eat.

Why do I need a super-detailed, minute-by-minute map when the highway has signs? Those signs aren’t there for show. The first time I had to get home without a map was the time I had to learn how to navigate highways. The only directions I had were typed out on a Word document on my laptop sitting on my passenger seat, making me feel like a cop. Mile markers begin at the beginning of the highway with zero and end at the end of a highway with however long the highway is. The exit numbers, contrary to popular belief, are not random or chronological on exit. An exit with the number forty-five is an exit on the forty-fifth mile of the highway. The interstate numbers correlate direction and orientation. Interstate 40 West is an east-to-west-facing highway on the westbound side. Interstate 35 North is a north-to-south highway on the northbound side. Did you see that? An interstate highway must have certain speeds and gradients decided on by the Department of Transportation during construction. Less obvious, though, are the labyrinth of state highways, park roads, county highways, county roads, feeder roads, streets, avenues, points—the story of my life. That word document that got me home? Here it is.

Go to Wilson Gulch Drive
Take US-550 SOUTH
In Aztec NM, turn left to stay on US-550
In Bloomfield NM, turn right to US-64
then turn left to US-550
next hop on I-25 South
Take the I-40 exit to Santa Rosa.
Take the exit to US-84 to Fort Sumner
Turn left onto US-84 E

These nine lines are over five hundred and fifty miles of road. Typed as is, in a McDonald's parking lot with free Wi-Fi.

Why do I do what I do? The why and the what. That, I do not know. The inner workings of a mind, the outer workings of a soul. The interstate system, based on things like the speed limit and grade of a turn, determines the slope of a turn, called banking. They do this so you can make the turn safely, as the curve of the turn on the slope slightly drags the car back onto the road. That, well, that’s the story of my life. Used to be, at least. While I was driving my life, my mother was the banking that kept me on my singular path. When the department of transportation in my life suddenly passed, there was no one to ensure that the banking on the interstate was up to code. Now, with the new department, my life is a series of mountain passes. My mind, county roads and various small-town avenues, abandoned gas stations and towns with just a single stop sign. Every new mountain village I pass through, I learn something new about myself.

When I passed through these tiny, little mountain towns a couple years ago, I stopped at a brewery to have a beer. There was a man by the name of Wilson. We spoke for a time while drinking, and he invited me to play soccer in the morning. In the back of that car that was the size of a bathroom stall, I had soccer cleats. Who knew, in a random town, on a random day, with a random person, we would play a random game of soccer with a man I just met. I learned more about the man named Wilson; his very nature was random. A ski bum, like I was, got around by hitchhiking the remote mountain passes of Colorado. He spent most of his days sleeping on a stranger’s couch and working various odd jobs within the ski industry. With only himself, the clothes on his back, and a bag with minute things. The necessities of life. I thought, what a way to live. There is no with whom. There is no what. There is no where. Most of all, there was not a why. Cause he can?

However, when I asked him what his biggest regret was, he told me, “Man, I wish I had a wife. I wish I had a wife and kids and a house. If I died right here right now, the only people that would know would be me. I am getting too old for this shit.” He was in his forties. A balding, older version of myself.

A barren coldness
Takes the highway and the heart
Coldness never lasts

Every time that twisting anxiety reaches my soul, I find myself writing. Ah, the art of writing. You write when you are happy, sad, angry, or scared. In my case, these words here carry the weight of anxiety. I can’t call the Department of Transportation for updates on road conditions. 511 and 911. Neither works. Oh, the anarchy of life. Survival: every road is unknown. Survival: every road is dangerous. Survival: every move must have intention.

First step, graduate college.

Second step, find a good job.

When I look into my own mirror, it looks back at me. There is a problem that lies before me. The life of a wildland firefighter is one of adventure, service, and life or death. A single berm of dirt and the culling of trees is between myself and the hellfire. The fire mirrors a life of isolation. Long, exhausting hours. The bringing of hell on earth.

A mere berm of dirt. The culling of trees. The smoke in red-hazel eyes. The fire reflecting a path. The hazel eyes that see the path. The path to a new purpose. The red and black of the Texas Tech Double T. The red of the embers. The blackness of the destruction. One and the same. The fire in my eyes. The fire amidst the trees. One and the same.

Red
The color of passion.
Red
The color of fire.
Red
The color of blood

When I open my personal anthology at night, it looks back at me. The life of a professor is one of profound impact upon those you teach. What I would give to teach the art of writing to hungry, young minds. The pride of teaching an art.

A library. A study. A paper, a pen. A book, a lectern. I’m not here trying to solve the mysteries of the universe. I’m not here trying to put a rocket in space or build a bridge. I’m here to build a tower of Babel. A tower of books that tells me the mysteries of human existence. For knowing the human existence is knowing yourself. Knowing the human existence is knowing your enemies. When you understand yourself and not your enemies, your chances of victory in life are only half. If you know neither yourself nor your enemies, you will never win, only to be taken advantage of. But if you know yourself and your enemies, that is success.

Brown book
yellowing pages
dead authors
living authors
tell me your story.

When I open my closet to the different colors of tan, black, and olive green, it takes me back to the open laptops in the study room of my childhood. Drones flying over the border wall. The reds and blues of the car sitting in our driveway. The lectures are about not telling anybody what my family does. The lack of pictures of my own family. The lectures on how to break glass, how to fight, and how to detect lying.

The cold, snowy streets of Moscow. The sandy bricks of Baghdad. The rainy streets of Venezuela. Am I being followed? Am I not being followed? Every turn, every road. Every nook. Every cranny. Check them all. These eyes that see your language. These ears that hear your lies. These lips that lie, too. What am I even doing here? I can’t tell myself, nor anybody else.

Black and White
Grey and Grey
Black Gun, White Shirt
Grey skies Grey morals

Third step, die.

When I go on these weeklong ski trips with no who, what, when, where, or why, I find peace. I wake up and wax my skis in a random parking lot. I drive through winter storms, blasting Deftones. I park, and I ski for eight hours. I pack up, and I go eat. I go to the local brewery with friends. Then I sleep in my car. The frost on the windows, the morning McMuffin, the waxing. All a ritual, my own ritual. I feel at home. I don’t feel safe, but I feel happy. There is peace in the ritual.

O’ spring mountain winds
crisp winds, patting me to sleep.
Stickered helmets; cold beer, here

When I go back home to the house that I live in alone, I have my who, what, when, where, and why. Unhappiness in the mundane. I wake up, eat cereal and coffee, go to class, work on homework, go home, go to work, and go to sleep. For months on end. Will it ever change? Will it ever change if I am firefighting 5am-6pm, building lines in the dirt? Will it ever change no matter what I write on a chalkboard? Will it ever change by sitting in my cruiser eight hours a day, forcing myself to feel like I made a difference?

Dusty roads, an ode
An ode to your mistreatment
An ode to your dirt

The Espiritu Libre my mother searched for along the beaches of Texas, I search for in the mountains of North America. The Espiritu Libre might have worked in the counterculture of the past. However, in today’s world, it is considered a dangerous self-destruction. I am sure there are many things my mother hid from me. As it is, there are many things I have hidden from her. My desire to fight wildfires in the fringes of civilization is but one of them. On her part, her discontent of being stuck with me is possibly one of hers. But here we are. We are living the same life.

An interesting fate. An interesting cross of lives.

The intersection of highways.

The Department of Transportation is typically in charge of keeping the roads functional. Clearing snow, clearing rockslides, clearing car crashes, clearing bodies. The highway has no qualms about taking a life. The highway does not care if you are late for work. While life truly is a highway, with its ups and downs, it’s more than just ups and downs. The highway is life or death. The highway certainly did not care about taking me to jail that night I had a little too much to drink. That highway certainly didn’t care when there was a one-hundred-and-thirty-car pileup in the Dallas ice storms of 2021 that left six people dead. If only the highway had been closed the day that I was taken to jail. But no, the Department of Transportation made sure that I received my consequences. If only the highway had been closed that fateful Dallas day. But the highway did not care.

Indifferent roads
Indifferent avenues
Indifferent ways

When I look at the banking of the highway now, it’s less of a banking of the highway than a series of solid double lines, cat eyes, and arrow signs. While it is less efficient than that of the banking, it is no different than the mountain passes I have driven through in the snowstorms of an unforgiving, drunk, snowy January night. After all, now I just need to tread more carefully. Tread more carefully now that I have essentially already totaled one life path. As I am no longer the only one in my own life.

Frost-covered cat eyes
Black burnt arrow signs pointing
dust-covered marker

A long, unforgiving drive through the remote deserts and mountains of New Mexico, the solitary camping in the grand cliffs of the Pacific Northwest, and the ride of a New York City subway with earbuds in. The passing through many different jurisdictions of the Department of Transportation. Getting arrested, booked into jail, sentenced, and put in the corrections with the Department of Justice. The travelling through a bureaucratic system. The Department of Transportation and the Department of Corrections are two opposite departments. Quite literally not the same thing, but quite possibly the same feeling.

O’ cold concrete bench
Tell me a bedtime story please
bring me a highway

The travelling of lone mountain passes with a companion. Camping in the Alaskan bush with a companion. A bike ride past the gardens of Washington, D.C. with a companion. The Department of Transportation’s highways take us there. The maintenance of trails, the search and rescue of lost hikers, and the opening and closing of various trails based on safety standards. All done by the Department of the Interior. The Department of Transportation and the Department of the Interior. While there is some overlap, they are two different departments. When in combination, they are a very different reality.

Thousand miles of
road lay before US, her and I
road, sing us a song.

Not once has the Department of Transportation asked me such invasive questions. Not once have I ever felt nervous in the presence of the Department of the Interior. Not once have I ever asked the banking of a highway why it exists. Not once have I ever questioned the safety of a trail. That, I cannot say the same of the Department of Corrections.

In the phone call that followed with my father, who is the embodiment of the system, he told me but a few words. “Quite frankly, I am extremely disappointed in you. Whatever happens from now on is up to you. Get a lawyer, keep your nose clean, and cut the shit.” That was it. That was the conversation. Much less of a conversation and more of a you sit under a tree with bird shit on it, you get bird shit on you. Not really what a son wants to hear when I had frustrations to vent. But what I had to hear. Not much of what I wanted, but what had to be done. While that is the conclusion I have come up with in my life, There are five fundamental questions a writer will ask themselves when writing their own piece. The who, what, when, where, and why? As someone who has been writing for a while, I find myself asking these questions about everything. It makes things easier; it answers all I need to know. Who put those beers in my fridge? What beers are in my fridge? Where are the beers in my fridge – cause that matters? When did they put those beers in my fridge? Why did they put those beers in my fridge?