At the Hands of a Stranger (14 page)

Howard said, “You got a style about you, Mr. Hilton.”

“It's the style now, yeah, so—so no one's got pictures of me, either, but I got them. I got five thousand pictures of me. Yeah, five thousand pictures from 1990 on documenting everything on my daily life. Nothing unlawful. Nothing unlawful. Yeah, I've got it. I've got it. No one has a damn picture of me as far as I know, except mug shots, and no one has a single picture of me not under arrest. No one. Nobody.”

Howard burst Hilton's bubble. “I think actually Goddard has some.”

“Have you found some? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. North Carolina had two of me that a woman took, yeah. That a woman took in … in Transylvania County. Oh, you've come across some more? Well, I wouldn't be … I wouldn't be surprised because people are …” Hilton's thoughts tripped over each other. “…I'm like the Lone Ranger. What other pictures have you come up with?”

Howard said, “We got some pictures of you from … Is it out West somewhere?”

“Out West?”

“Rainier, I think.”

“You mean Mount St. Helens more than likely,” Hilton said. “I was at St. Helens, but I was at Rainier, too. I only spent an hour or two there.”

“You talked about wanting to be a guide or wanting to be a … teacher.”

“Someone just took a—a picture of me, huh? I'm not surprised. Someone took a picture of me, and I know who it was. It was another fucking woman. Women are just … There was a guy in
New York Times
Sunday magazine. He was of Iranian descent. American born and everything, but he was Iranian, and he was … decided he was a photographer and decided to do a project traveling to each state capitol taking pictures of it, and making a montage, and this and that.

“Well, he was taking an airplane to pick up his van for the first leg of his trip, and he explained what he was doing to a woman. She took pictures of him while he was asleep and snitched on him,” Hilton said. “At each capitol, security gets harder and harder. Security was waiting for him. They got him on the terrorist list. He was arrested several times and detained. Finally had to stop it because this woman took his picture while he was asleep and snitched on him. Okay?

“And so there's a woman in North Carolina at a picnic area,” Hilton continued. “She drove up. She's just a piece of white trash and her boyfriend apparently was driving, and I think she was drunk, too. She was acting like she was drunk. She was being very forward and everything. No real inhibitions. They drove up there, and she said out the window … I had, you know, my technical clothing on, as usual. Presenting my typical spectacle, you know, as, you know, I was being a spectacle … you know, doing my shtick, and she said, ‘And what is your costume supposed to be?' You know? She had a smart mouth, basically, and I said, ‘I am the prophet of microfiber.' But, you see, it never caught on. You can't even get this stuff anymore. It just fucking blew her mind. She didn't know what to fucking say.”

Howard said, “I was fixing to say you probably got her pretty good.”

“I'm almost sure the photograph was taken from where she was sitting, and I'm almost sure it was her, a piece of white trash. She takes this photo. She saved it for four months or whatever. She ain't nothing but a piece of drunk white trash herself. Okay? So I guess there's actually a lot of pictures.”

“This is what I'd like to know from you. One thing I'd like to know … where all have you hiked? Where all have you been all over the United States as far as—” Howard asked, but was promptly interrupted.

“Oh, I know what you're getting at, the unsolved murders.”

“I'm not talking about any
unsolveds
. What I'd like to know is how accomplished of a hiker are you?”

“I'm going to tell you something,” Hilton said. “I have never met anyone ever, anywhere, anyway, that has the time in the woods and the time on the trail that I have. I've never worked—full-time, anyway—in my life, except for the U.S. Army and for the six months I went straight [that] I worked full-time. Okay? In '79, '80, I worked six months. Other than that, I have never worked full-time. I was a criminal, okay? I was a career criminal, unlawful charity from '73 to '93. Okay? For twenty years. Okay? And so I've never worked full-time. I've been a criminal. I couldn't get up and go to work every morning, and I've just been a soldier.

“It took me until the '90s to really realize what I was doing. I was just replicating what I did in the army. I was doing field maneuvers. I was replicating what I did in the army. And I came to understand that I was just on perpetual field maneuvers is what I was. That's good enough, so I'll just do it as a career,” Hilton said. “Nobody, but nobody—and I've had the dogs, too, which means I always have a hiking companion. One thing that holds a lot of people back from getting a lot of time in the woods, again, is an activity is not valid unless you are with someone else. That's human nature.

“So, of course, it's hard. You ask ten people, ‘Oh, do you hike?' ‘Oh yeah.' ‘Hiking?' ‘Yeah. I hike.' ‘Well, let's go next Saturday.' ‘I got a wine tasting next Saturday, you know.' That kind of stuff, right?

“In other words, when the pavement ends, they get nervous. But I had the dogs … man, the worse the weather is—the more cold and nasty, wet, dreary, bitter, and windy the weather is—the better they like it. They're duck dogs. They're game dogs. They're bird dogs. And so I always had a hiking buddy. That was the revelation in our lives.

“That was the time I ceased to become the poor tortured sociopath that was trying to fit in but couldn't. That I never could, and would never be accepted, anyway …. I went from that to—to never being alone and understanding my place and purpose in life and the true nature of my personality, and what my fate was, which was to be alone. I came to understand that was my fate … to be alone. That was me. And to try to be something else would be to ensure unhappiness. Okay? And that really picked up in '91, when I started dog running, but it—it got going in the '80s, from '84 on. Ask Walter Goddard. He'll tell you, man—all the stuff I … Walter Goddard …. I'd go out into the woods every weekend and just … even around here is Gwinnett County, [and it] wasn't developed like it is now in '84.

“Oh my God, man, huge tracts of woods along the Yellow River and so forth. They're all subdivisions now, but you could just go hiking in Gwinnett County. Hell, they had a deer season in Gwinnett County, you know. And so I'd just been driven—like you're desperately … You guys are desperately running from it—your existential awareness. Well, in a sense I am, too, and I was a hobby runner before …. I started hobby running in '78, I told you, you know. That's how I met my wife. Long distances and everything. And I did that, and starting in '84, I discovered the North Georgia Mountains, and by then I had been pavement running for six years, and so the field maneuvers in the mountains was just replicating what I did as a paratrooper, and it was a new form of exercise. I'm telling you, when you're in shape, there's just something to a certain personality …. It's just something totally addictive to going like the Ever Ready bunny.”

One of the GBI agents tried to interrupt, but Hilton was on a roll, and kept talking, thoughts tripping and stumbling over themselves, drunk and falling, but occasionally giving a glimpse of himself to the agents.

“And entering the state that I call hyperfatigue,” Hilton continued. “When you enter hyperfatigue, it's sort of like a runner's high. When you enter hyperfatigue, the world is a different place. You're like a god. The very fabric of space and time is altered. You can do it, running real easy. Run over ten miles on a hot day. A vision quest. Yeah. The American Indians when they were young, the men, as a rite of passage, they would go without food, water, and sleep for a couple of hundred hours. Trust me, if you go one hundred ten hours without sleep, you'll hallucinate.”

“Been there?” Howard asked.

“Yeah.”

“We were talking earlier and you described yourself as a pro,” Howard said. “I mean, in talking about the eye of a police officer, when you and I encounter one another, I'm going to know you?”

“I'm a pro in that I'm not just styling,” Hilton said. “You see, the average civilian, their entire life is a style. Nothing is real. They're rock climbers. Yeah. Hiker. Oh, well, twice they've driven up to Neel's Gap and done the little last part of Blood Mountain and they climbed Blood Mountain. We're all different in that we even … Everything is virtual. We even virtually grieve. We even have virtual grief. We see the candlelight marches for Meredith Emerson and people show up. People that don't even know the girl. Most of them don't, and they carry the things and they … Hey, son, if they want to grieve … What about if they want to grieve, I mean, thirty-five thousand people a year get shredded, maimed, and beaten to death in car wrecks. Okay? What I'm talking about is a virtual grief.”

“You're saying it's like a ‘Support the Troops' sticker on the back of your Toyota?”

“Yeah. It's a virtual thing. It's a style. They're talking the talk and they're not walking the walk, and they're styling and that's why you see posers. That's my word. That's what yuppies are. They talk instead of do. They pose instead of act, because they're perfectly precious. Right?”

“Okay,” Howard said.

“I really started seeing that they were standing around perfectly precious and posing. They won't talk to you because they're afraid to. The yuppies work on the philosophy of ‘it's better not to say anything and let them think you're a fool than say something and let them know you're a fool.'”

“A little bit wiser,” Howard said.

“A police officer can see that I'm not just styling. All the hikers you see … they're dressed as depicted in TV commercials of what a hiker is supposed to wear. They're wearing all cotton. Only just now are you starting to see a little technical clothing. You'll see some hikers with a technical shirt on. In other words, a not cotton shirt. Okay. Or microfiber this and microfiber that. Just now. I was stunned. In 1990, when I got into the microfibers, I predicted the demise of cotton. I said jeans are finished. Jeans are just nothing but lousy, stinking rags. They're wet. God. I mean, they're heavy, anyway.”

“Soak up water,” Howard said.

“Oh my, they're never dry. They're heavy as can be. Uncomfortable compared to microfiber. Jeans? Jeans are out. Was I wrong?”

Howard said, “Everything old is new.”

“Man, it's a uniform. No one … ever …”

Howard guided the conversation back to Hilton's meaning about being a professional. “What's the attitude you take about your professionalism? Is it just extended to lifestyle?”

“I tend to try to systematize everything and break it down.”

“You're saying discipline?”

“No. Understanding. Whatever activity you do. Just like a police officer does. He just learns. Everything for a police officer, every kind of situation, everything, is systematized for him and he does it by the numbers,” Hilton said. “Except a police officer's training is just awesome. It's so varied. They're taught every kind of situation. The shoot/don't shoot training that police officers do these days. They use their own service weapons and actual sets. Constructed bank lobbies or parking lots and they use their own weapons. They wear armor, full-body armor similar to paintball armor, and they shoot each other at close range with their own nine-millimeter service weapons using a reduced power load and bullet. It's so awesome to see them do that.

“They'll shoot it out at ranges like that, man. It's just totally awesome, and they do it over and over and over again. So, as a result, you see some pudgy fuck police officer that, man, can handle a piece. Just fucking awesome, man. And they're trained all the way by the numbers, and that's what I'm talking about.”

“And as far as your own training or your attitude toward summiting a mountain or whatever?” Howard asked.

“It's all systematized. Even my walking is systematized. I have a block of instructions I can give you on how to walk. If I'm teaching someone about backpacking, I'm going to teach them how to hike. I'm going to teach them how to walk. I'm going to teach them how to dress, get dressed, and I'm going to teach them how to piss. You'd be surprised how easy it is if you're pissing to piss on your equipment. Your clothes or your equipment. You know, you got this … I'm going to teach you how to take a shit. Right?”

“Like, when you're planning to summit a mountain or whatever, do you come up with contingency plans, like ‘not making it by this certain time, then I'm going to go down to base camp.' That type of thing?” Howard asked.

“Yeah. And you do for purposes of equipment. You do the worst-case scenario planning,” Hilton said. “In other words, what if I fall and break a femur? What if the dog goes down? Hundred-pound dog. What if your dog comes up lame? What if you've got an old dog and he comes up lame? What you going to do? You can't leave the dog. ‘Stay here. I'll go get the sheriff and come back. Here's a flashlight. Here's a whistle. Here's a sleeping bag. Here's some food. Here's some water. Cool out. Listen for my whistle. Blow your whistle I'll have the sheriff with me.' You can't tell the dog that.

“The dog weighs a hundred pounds. What you going to do? What if you—you know—and you're not on the AT (Appalachian Trail). I only use the AT generally as a connector. I'll climb the mountain to the AT, take the AT along the ridge, and then come back down another way. Then you're really, truly mountain climbing. So you're cross-country. What you going to do if the dog goes down? What you going to do if the dog gets its foot sliced up? As I said, what you going to do if the dog gets a thorn? What you … and what else? Your glasses. Reading glasses, if you wear glasses. Okay? That kind of thing. It goes on and on and on ….”