I was heading out of Portree when I picked up Jake.
It was still light, still bright. Visions of Rutger Hauer did not flit through my head (1). Picking up hitch-hikers is not something I do, as a rule. Not out of any suspicion. More because I have such a dreadful history with them.
Worst was the time I picked up a hiker 20 miles out of Glasgow heading south. Or we would have been if my car hadn't broken down soon after. Or, when it started again, we hadn't driven sraight into a two-hour traffic jam north of Carlisle. Or then broken down every 10 minutes when we finally started crossing the shoulders of England towards the north-east. I'd picked the guy up at five in the evening. We hiccupped into Washington service station at some time after 1.30am. The hiker had stopped talking to me about three hours earlier.
Jake, though, was just going to Kyleakin so it was only a half-hour drive and the car this time was thankfully in better nick (thankfully for me as I had a five-hour drive home ahead of me). He was from Paisley originally but he'd long since left. He'd walked to Skye up the West Highland Way and beyond. Him and his pony. The intention was to live wild. He rather likes the idea of becoming the Scottish Ray Mears. Not the Scottish Bear Grylls, he tells me. He doesn't like Bear Grylls. "Bear Grylls is an arse" I think were his exact words.
As we drove he pointed out the forest in which he lived rough when he first arrived a couple of years ago. Then the houses where the various members of the local mountain rescue team he was part of lived.
He'd been a soldier in Somalia, South America (2), Afghanistan and Iraq. He'd liked the jungle better than the desert. "I'm ginger. I burned up in the desert." Given the chance he'd have been a lifer in the army - 25 years. But he got pensioned out after being caught in an IED bomb incident. Even in the short time we were together it was clear he missed the life. The notion that you get up in the morning and don't know if you'll make it to the end of the day. The thrill of that. And there's me thinking it's a good day when I get to have a cup of tea in peace.
Some men go out into the world. They climb mountains, fight wars, live wild. The rest of us read about them. Then again, we're the ones keeping Ikea in business buying Billy bookcases. Which, in the long run, is more important, I ask you (3)? And more importantly, which way is it from here to Crianlarich?
FOOTNOTES
[1] You know, The Hitcher (1986). The one where Jennifer Jason Leigh … Oh, it's too horrible to say.
[2] Where British troops are sent for jungle training, apparently.
[3] I'm not seriously expecting an answer.
Twitter: @teddyjamieson
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