“Three weeks left in August. Then I go to my college, and you go to yours. Where did the summer go?” I griped.
My best friend, Chuck, and I were lying on the carpet of the TV room waiting for my mom to make us some sandwiches.
“It is a rotten shame to graduate high school only to work all summer at a full-time job,” Chuck moaned. “Becoming an adult stinks. We’ve had no time for anything fun.”
Chuck and I were both 18, both had girlfriends and were both fearing the change of moving into college life.
“We’ve got to do something even if it’s our last adventure together,” I noted remembering all our escapades growing up together. The boy scout years were especially filled with near misses and brushes with the law.
“You know, we could load our stuff in my car and go on a road trip,” I suggested.
“You have a Chevy Vega.” Chuck reminded me. “We’d be walking home.”
“Ok, how about this weekend we do an overnighter. We take your dad’s Willys Jeep up to Twin Lakes and hike to the top of Winchester Mountain. We can watch the sun set and rise on Mount Baker and we can sleep under the eaves of the Forest Service lookout.”
“Sounds intriguing. A light-pack overnighter. The weather is supposed to be clear. We should have a great view. Just us or should we invite the girls?” Chuck winked.
Just then, my mom walked in with a plate of sandwiches.
“I heard that. No girls!” She said glaring. “Why don’t you invite Gabby? He is about to leave soon too.”
“Because mom. The guy never shuts up,” I reminded her.
Gabby wasn’t his real name. His name was Sean Sinclair. He was given the nickname because he could not or would not stop talking. He didn’t necessarily talk about himself, which would have made him a target for strangulation, but he talked about everything. Riding with me in my Vega, I would put in ear plugs, pull my hoodie over my head, and turn the radio up to block out his chatter. I asked him once why he talked so much, and his reply was that he was afraid of the silence.
“I think it would be nice if you would share some guy-time with him too. I feel sorry for him,” she said, giving me that look that means, “I’m going to make you feel guilty until you ask him.”
Friday afternoon, we were driving up the rocky, pitted road to Twin Lakes. Chuck maneuvered the Willys so as not to put a boulder through the oil pan or break an axle. The noise inside was insufferable. Not the squeaking of the leaf springs or the rattling of the windows but the constant monolog from Gabby who was sitting in the back on the sleeping bags.
We reached the parking lot at the Winchester Mountain trailhead at 5:30 pm and the setting sun was starting to cast shadows on the Twin Lakes. We gazed up the mountain and could see the Forest Service lookout 1300 feet above us. Grabbing our backpacks, we started the climb up the switchback trail.
Winchester Mountain Lookout
The lookout was built by the Forest Service in 1935 and was the home to fire spotters during summer months. Their supplies were packed in by horses from the Highway miles below and except for the gold miners who worked the Lone Jack Mine, it was a lonely existence. The spotters were responsible for finding fires north into Canada and east into the Mount Baker- Snoqualmie National Forest. Today the lookout is maintained by Mount Baker Hiking Club volunteers.
Three quarters of the way up, the trail cut through a snow field which, at this time of year was mostly ice. We carefully watched our footing, for to start sliding on the ice would mean a fast ride down the mountain to the lakes below all the while pin-balling off stumps and boulders. At 6:30 we reached the summit and the lookout.
The unobstructed 365-degree view as the sun set was amazing. Even more amazing was the toilet, which was a seat on a pedestal out in the open with no walls. From there, I watched the sun set onto the western horizon until my legs went to sleep.
As darkness fell, we laid on our backs in our sleeping bags under the eaves of the lookout roof. There was no fear of rain because there was not a cloud in the very starry sky. There was also no wind. It was all very quiet. Just three boys on the top of a mountain surrounded by other large mountains. All very quiet indeed . . . except for Gabby.
Sedatephobia
The intensity of his chatter increased. On and on, louder and louder until Chuck lost his temper and yelled, “Sean, would you please shut up?”
“I can’t!” Gabby yelled. “I have sedatephobia! I have a fear of the quiet. I need to have noise in my head!”
“Sheesh! I am worried about bears, wolves, or a sasquatch and you are afraid of the quiet?” I asked.
By this time Gabby, who was lying in his sleeping bag in only his underwear, was sweating profusely and hyperventilating. Chuck looked at me as if I might know what to do, because we were totally unprepared for something like this to happen.
“Ok Sean. Let’s talk. Let’s make some noise,” Chuck suggested. But Gabby was now almost hallucinating.
“The mountains are so quiet!” he yelled and with that, he jumped out of his sleeping bag and started running, with no flashlight, no clothes, and no shoes. Apparently in his mind he was headed back to the car.
“Cripes!” I yelled to Chuck. “We’ve got to stop him, or he is going to run right off a cliff and we’ll never find him alive.”
We grabbed our flashlights and took off after Gabby. Now there were three boys running around the top of Winchester Mountain in their underpants. Luckily the moon was casting enough light that parts of the trail could be seen. Still, Gabby had a good size lead ahead of us and he was running in panic mode.
Yelling his name and sweeping the blueberry bushes and boulders with our flashlights we tried with all our Boy Scout tracking ability to find him on the mountain and on the trail downward. It wasn’t until we got to the snow field that we found him; he was halfway across, and he was stuck. The cold of the snow on his bare feet and the fear of slipping had brought him back to reality.
Chuck and I carefully walked out onto the snow field and stood with Sean. In the moonlight, the snow, the Twin Lakes below and the majestic Mount Baker in the distance were quite beautiful. This was a view we would have missed if we had only looked at dusk and dawn.
“Hey, we’re halfway to morning. Let’s go back to the lookout and finish her out,” said Chuck.
So, Gabby started gabbing and we went back to our sleeping bags. Chuck and I also talked until about three in the morning when Gabby finally dozed off. Then all three of us slept soundly, totally disregarding the worry of bears, wolves, and sasquatch.
I didn’t even know there was such a thing as sedatephobia but suddenly it all made sense. So, from that time on, Gabby was not called Gabby. We only called him Sean.
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2 replies on “The Monster was Silence”
Sounds like a magical and crazy night!
Like usual, this was again a good story, I didn’t know there was something like sedatephobia. Even though, as I think about it, my brother -in-law could have had it. He was just a pain to live with.