Leaf Peepers

It's fall. We're in the mountains. The trees are golden. It's leaf peeping season. Of course, we aren't there to look at the leaves, but as soon as we turn up the mountain pass we realize, we are in the minority. The road, on which I had only ever seen a handful of cars, is packed with rental vehicles and Jeeps. Each Jeep we pass has the standard array of colorful ducks piled up on their dashboard.

People are losing their minds. They stand all over, taking photos of purple mountains awash in reds and oranges. People are parked in curves. There are tents in every pullout. It feels like a busy national park, not a desolate stretch of Forest Service land.

Eventually, we make it to the trailhead, where we see mountain bikers and dogs before cutting cross-country. We return to the car, hours later, having seen almost no one once we left the trail, and we find a group of college-aged kids and a puppy. The kids watch the puppy eat mud. They laugh.

We decide to go to the nearest town for dinner. It's a bougie ski town which I haven't been to since I was a kid. We drop down off the back of the pass and glide into the little hamlet just as the last traces of dusk dissolve into night.

The town is packed. We drive block after block looking for parking. We finally find a spot and slip onto the crowded sidewalks. We are not monied enough to be in the town, but we walk anyway, coming to a pizza place that is hoping.

The doorman, because this is the kind of place that has one apparently, says he can seat us immediately. We go inside, the walls crammed with all sorts of decorations and signs. Receipts longer than my arm dangle from the ceiling of the bar. In heavy black sharpie all of them read $1,000 TIP. A sign at the center of the bar says "For every $1,000 tip, the establishment matches $1,000 for the house staff".

And the house staff are beautiful, fit people, zig-zagging through the chaos. They all wear black. One server has a black restaurant T cut as a crop top, exposing just a sliver of olive skin before it's swallowed by high waisted back jeans. Another woman with the arms of an olympian wears a set of black overalls. Our waiter has a blond mustache and backwards black hat. He sprints between taking care of his tables. It's clear, these people are here to ski, and hustling at work lets them stay.

We eat our pizza. Surprisingly it is reasonably priced, although we are given a hard up sale to buy a margarita. I see them at other tables. The glasses are the size of my skull.

When we leave, the streets are dark. A woman spins flaming sticks on a corner, an electric sign by her feet scrolling: Tips because we are sexy??? My husband goes to use the restroom before our long drive home. I am left alone. A man in his forties exits the restaurant. He looks dazed. He wears the restaurant's black uniform, although it fits him like he's a past rip skater boy. His hair is a fading shade of black.

"Can I ask you a question?" I say.

"You just did," he says, looking directly at me.

"Can I ask another one?" I say without thinking.

"Looks like you just did."

"Why are all these people here?" I ask, ignoring the attitude.

"This is just how it always is."

"That's not true," I say.

I know this because while looking for parking, my husband told me several stories of the last times he'd stopped in this town and how he'd never seen this many people. The guy just stares at me.

"Is there a festival happening this weekend?"

"No."

We stare at each other.

"Well," he says. "There's the film festival. But these people aren't here for that."

"They aren't?"

He scoffs. "No."

"What are they here for then?"

He lifts his hands as if to say, Like I know but then he yells, "LEAF PEEPERS."

I step back.

He yells again. "THEY'RE LEAF PEEPERS. LEAF PEEPERS. LEAF PEEPERS!"

I watch him yell leaf peepers a few more times, his eyes no longer on me, but staring somewhere into the dark sky. I realize he's high, and the sound of him screaming leaf peeper is hitting a frequency he hadn't known he needed, but now that he's found it, he isn't going to let it go.

Finally, he tires of yelling. He wanders down the sidewalk before turning into the outdoor seating area of the pizza place.

The kid now at the door calls to me.

"You want a table?" he says, his words smooth and dulcet.

"No man. I just ate. I'm just waiting for someone. How's your night going?" I ask.

He chuckles. "We're busy as fuck."

And they are. Fucking leaf peepers.