Into The Wild

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Mom!

Mom! Help me.

What is it?

I wasn't dreaming, Walt.

I didn't imagine it.

I heard him. I heard him. I heard him.

I heard Chris.

- I heard him!

- I know.

No. I wasn't imagining it, Walt.

No, I did. He's... He's...

- I heard him!

- Billie.

That's about as far as I can get you.

All right. Thank you.

- You left all your sh*t on my dash.

- Keep it.

Suit yourself.

Thanks again.

Hey, hold on a minute.

Here, take these.

They'll keep your feet dry.

If you make it out alive, give me a call.

My number's inside the boots.

Thanks.

Hello?

Is there anybody here?

Guess not!

Two years he walks the earth.

No phone, no pool, no pets,

no cigarettes.

Ultimate freedom.

An extremist. An aesthetic voyager

whose home is the road.

"Hey, listen, old man.

Now, don't psychoanalyze me, all right?

"Shut up.

I'm taking you out to where we're going."

"Where you going?"

"I told you. We're going nowhere!"

So now, after two rambling years

comes the final and greatest adventure.

The climactic battle to kill

the false being within

and victoriously conclude

the spiritual revolution.

No longer to be poisoned

by civilization, he flees,

and walks alone

upon the land to become

lost in the wild.

... hard work and manifold contributions

to our community during their time here,

we salute you and offer all of you

one more round of applause

and congratulations.

Nina Lynn Lockwynn.

Vanessa Denise Lowery.

Christopher Johnson McCandless.

Regina Victoria McNabb.

I see them standing at the formal gates

of their colleges.

I see my father strolling out

under the ochre sandstone arch,

the red tiles glinting like bent plates

of blood behind his head.

I see my mother

with a few light books at her hip,

standing at the pillar made of tiny

bricks with the wrought-iron gates

still open behind her,

its sword-tips black in the May air.

They are about to graduate.

They are about to get married.

They are kids. They are dumb.

All they know is they are innocent,

they would never hurt anybody.

I want to go up to them and say,

"Stop, don't do it.

"She's the wrong woman,

he's the wrong man.

"You are going to do things

you cannot imagine you would ever do.

"You are going to do bad things

to children.

"You are going to suffer

in ways you never heard of.

"You are going to want to die."

I want to go up to them there

in the late May sunlight and say it.

But I don't do it. I want to live.

I take them up like the male and female

paper dolls, and bang them together

at the hips like chips of flint, as if

to strike sparks from them. I say,

"Do what you are going to do

and I will tell about it."

Here they are, Walt. Okay?

Who wrote that?

Well, could have been either one of us,

couldn't it?

Why is he letting Carine drive his car?

There's a lot of great poems in here.

I have to speak to her about it.

Sit down.

Excuse me. I'm going to get my son.

He just graduated today

from Emory College.

I'll get it. I'll get it.

Chris, hi!

We've been waiting and waiting.

You scared me half to death

jumping up there on that stage like that.

- Hi, Dad.

- Congratulations, Son.

- This is a big step.

- Thank you, Dad.

All right.

You're not supposed to be driving

in Georgia.

Why? I have my permit.

'Cause it's against the law

for a learner's permit

to drive in another state

from one's home state. That's why.

I didn't know that. I thought that if I was

with a legal driver that it'd be okay.

Well, let's...

- Are they going to continue?

- No.

I guess everybody's celebrating today.

- They're going to stay in the bar, right?

- That's right.

My grades are good enough, I think,

to get into Harvard Law.

Chris, that's wonderful.

That is a big deal.

How much do you have left

in the college fund?

Exactly $24,500.68.

Well, that's specific.

I had to go to the bank

this morning, Mom.

Your mother and I will be glad

to contribute the balance for Harvard.

That's right.

I've got to figure out

what I'm going to do.

I've got a lot of things

to pack and organize here first.

Your father and I,

we want to make a present to you.

We want to get you out of that junker.

What junker?

That.

- We want to buy you a new car.

- That's right.

A new car?

Why would I want a new car?

Datsun runs great.

Do you think I want some fancy boat?

Are you worried

what the neighbors might think?

Well, we weren't gonna get you

a brand new Cadillac, Chris.

We just want to get you a nice new car

that's safe to drive.

And you never know when that thing

out there just might blow up.

Blow up. Blow up?

Are you guys crazy? It's a great car.

I don't need a new car.

I don't want a new car.

- I don't want anything.

- Okay.

- These things, things, things, things.

- Okay.

- Everything has to be difficult.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Maybe that's not what he means.

Maybe he just wants his old car.

It's not such a big deal.

Thank you. I just don't want anything.

Chris measured himself

and those around him

by a fiercely rigorous moral code.

Bye, Chris!

He risked what could have been

a relentlessly lonely path

but found company

in the characters of the books he loved

from writers like Tolstoy,

Jack London and Thoreau.

He could summon their words

to suit any occasion,

and he often would.

I forgot to ask what quote he'd have

picked for his graduation dinner,

but I had a good idea

of who the primary target would be.

It was inevitable

that Chris would break away.

And when he did, he would do it

with characteristic immoderation.

"It should not be denied that being

footloose has always exhilarated us.

"It is associated in our minds

with escape

"from history and oppression and law

and irksome obligations.

"Absolute freedom.

"And the road has always led west."

I need a name.

Toward the end of June,

Emory had mailed our parents

Chris' final grade report.

Almost all A's.

A in Apartheid in South African Society.

A- minus in Contemporary African

Politics and the Food Crisis in Africa.

And on it went. Clever boy, my brother.

But by the end of July,

we hadn't heard anything from him

and my parents

were becoming unsettled.

Chris had never had a phone,

so they decided to drive down

to Atlanta and surprise him.

When they arrived at the apartment,

there was a "For Rent" sign up

and the manager said that Chris

had moved out at the end of May.

Oh, yes. He left two months ago.

So when they got home,

I had to hand them all the letters that

they had sent Chris that summer,

which had been returned in a bundle.

Chris had arranged for the post office

to hold them until August 1st,

to buy himself some time.

Did you know about this?

He didn't say anything.

I understood what he was doing.

That he had spent four years

fulfilling the absurd and tedious duty

of graduating from college,

and now he was emancipated

from that world of abstraction,

false security, parents

and material excess,

the things that cut Chris off

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