Alas, my brain isn’t the only part of my body that’s not cooperating. Short of a surprise visit from a bear or a forest ranger (neither likely on Long Island), there’s nothing like a systems failure to bring you down. I’m finding it hard (well, maybe “difficult” would better describe it) to comprehend. I mean, I know there’s a first time for everything, but at the lusty age of eighteen?
Despite Tinsley’s best efforts, it’s just not happening. Finally, we inch apart and readjust our clothes. Tinsley plucks two Benson & Hedges from a red metal tin, lights both, and hands one to me. I pull my legs up, rest my chin on my knees, and wish I were anywhere but here. Not only not in these woods, feeling humiliated, but here in this lost, bereft, fretful place in my life.
Sitting cross-legged, Tinsley gazes up at the dark trees. Crickets chirp. From somewhere nearby comes the hoot of an owl.
“What are you thinking?” she asks softly.
“What makes you think I’m thinking anything?” I appreciate her concern but can’t say I feel like talking right now.
“You’re always thinking, Lucas. Even when you pretend not to be.”
“What are you thinking?” I ask petulantly. Can we please not focus on me?
“I asked first.”
“So? I’m asking second.” It comes out harsher than I meant.
“Don’t be like this, Lucas. It’s not my fault. It’s not your fault.”
She’s right. If it were just my dick, it might be acceptable (on a one-time-only basis). But it’s not just that. It feels like my entire fucking life isn’t working. And I can’t pretend not to know why. Whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
So if this really is the first day of the rest of my life, does anyone mind if I get off at the next stop?
“I’m sorry. I’m just . . . It’s hard to explain.”
“Did something happen with your girlfriend?”
I feel an involuntary grimace and take a drag of the Benson & Hedges. A dog barks somewhere in the distance. “Is it that obvious?”
“It is to me.”
So I tell her about Robin and Samuel. Remarkably, Tinsley doesn’t take offense at learning that the person who just failed to have sex with her couldn’t consummate because he was thinking about his (former?) girlfriend.
“It wasn’t because you weren’t able to visit her, was it?” Tinsley asks.
I shake my head. Once again I can’t help thinking back to the morning Robin left for camp. Did she already know she was going to break up with me? Was she looking forward to seeing Samuel? Seriously, Lucas, does it matter now?
It’s late. We pull into my driveway. The Spitfire’s top is down. The stars are out. Here and there among the houses on my block, a single bedroom light glows behind a curtain.
“Have you heard from Barry?” Tinsley asks.
“Not recently.” The pointed angst and frustration I was feeling in the woods have diminished, thanks in no small part to Tinsley’s frank and mellow attitude.
“Think he likes it up there?” she asks.
“Guess I’ll find out next week.”
“At the festival?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I heard on the radio that they’re expecting something like forty thousand people. It’s going to be such a blast.” She sounds wistful.
“Maybe you can still get tickets.” It’s within driving distance, if grounded does indeed mean no trips on the family airplane. (Wait, they can’t really have an airplane, can they?)
Tinsley sighs. “I think I’ve kind of pushed my mother to the limit this summer.”
The Spitfire’s engine is running, so this isn’t meant to be a long goodbye. I lean over and give her a quick kiss. “Thanks for the movie. Sorry the rest of the night didn’t work out.”
Tinsley reaches up and strokes my hair the way a mother might. “I wouldn’t worry, Lucas. Something tells me it’s not a permanent condition.”
I can’t help smiling. “You know, in some ways you’re a pretty amazing person.”
“Just in some ways?” she teases.
A moment later, I’m watching the Spitfire’s taillights grow small and dim in the dark. Tinsley insists that she doesn’t want to be tied down, but sometimes I wonder if she really means it. It does feel like we have a real connection. I briefly flirt with the notion of pursuing her in a more meaningful way, but the kind of deep yearning I feel for Robin isn’t there with Tinsley. She’s smart, perceptive, and exotic, but also, something tells me, capable of being dangerously fickle and capricious. It’s moments like this when I miss Robin — with her even keel and thoughtfulness — the most.
I noiselessly let myself into the house, take off my boots, and tiptoe down the hall past Mom’s bedroom. For the first time in years, I hear typing from inside.
“Come, come!” Milton’s father herds us into the kitchen. It’s Milton’s birthday, and Arno, Tinsley, and I have come over to help him celebrate. Not that I’m in a celebratory mood, but I’m game for anything that distracts from the thought of what Robin’s up to with the moose herder.
Milton’s parents have accents. They were both born in Austria. A lot of families in our neighborhood have put additions on their houses since moving here in the late 1940s and early 1950s. My parents added the attic gym, third and fourth bedrooms, playroom, and fallout shelter. Arno’s parents expanded their kitchen and garage. But Milton’s house is still mint 1948. So are Milton’s parents. Mr. Fischer is an electronics engineer and amateur inventor whose glasses have thick black frames, whose shirts have short sleeves, and whose pants have cuffs. His mom is a physics professor at Adelphi and wears pointy horn-rim glasses and pleated dresses with petticoats rustling underneath.
On the Fischers’ kitchen counter is a boxy chrome appliance with a door and two dials. Milton’s told us that his father works for a company that is developing a new kind of oven. Mr. Fischer wants us to watch while he puts a stick of butter on a glass dish inside and turns a dial. The machine hums loudly for a minute. Milton’s father opens the door and takes the dish out. In it is a yellow puddle.
“Every time we have a visitor, I lose another butter stick,” Mrs. Fischer laments.
“So . . . it’s a butter melter?” Arno asks, puzzled.
“No, no. It cooks!” Mr. Fischer cries excitedly. “Without heat! We call it the Radarange.”
“How?” I ask.
“With microwaves,” Mr. Fischer explains. “Set at a frequency to agitate the water molecules. They vibrate, creating their own heat.” He hands me the glass dish. “Feel.”
The glass is cool. I dip my pinkie into the melted butter. It’s hot. It doesn’t make sense.
“Groovy, Mr. Fischer.” Arno pats the top of the Radarange. “What’s one of these babies go for?”
“Four hundred ninety-five dollars.”
Silence. I paid $300 for Odysseus. Arno said his father forked over $350 for their new color TV. Why pay nearly $500 for something slightly larger than a bread box that heats stuff? Why not just use an oven?
Mrs. Fischer claps her hands. “Everyone into the dining room.”
The heavy wooden dining table is set with dessert plates and glasses. In its center is a pitcher of milk and a pot of coffee. The white cloth napkins are trimmed with lace.
“How quaint!” Tinsley gushes, primly placing a napkin on her lap.
Milton is struggling not to stare at her. When we arrived, she gave him a full-frontal hug and gaily wished him happy birthday. Then she held him at arm’s length. “Oh, you’re so cute!” Rarely have I seen Milton look so flushed and dazed.
Tinsley’s dressed for the occasion in a pink, yellow, and orange flower-pattern minidress that barely covers her buttocks. She’s wearing high white go-go boots and those round purple glasses. As usual, her neckline is revealing, and you’d have to be severely farsighted not to notice the absence of a certain support garment.
The Fischers are models of old-world hospitality. Of course, they’ve known Arno a
nd me for years, and Mrs. Fischer is used to longhairs from teaching at Adelphi. Mr. Fischer is more or less oblivious to anything that doesn’t involve blueprints and calipers. Most people in our neighborhood use their garages for cars, but the Fischers’ is a workshop of table saws and lathes. Mr. Fischer’s hobby is inventing things. His specialty is handles and grips. He created something called the Finger-Lock knife handle that you can actually find on some knives in stores. (Maybe he can recommend a good one for digital amputation.) He also invented the Fischer Grip for glue guns and electric drills.
Mr. Fischer turns down the lights. From the kitchen, Mrs. Fischer begins to sing “Happy Birthday” and we all join in when she emerges with a chocolate cake with seventeen candles. Sometimes I forget how young Milton is.
She sets the cake down in front of her son. “Make a wish.”
The birthday candles bring out the freckles on Milton’s face. His lips are pressed tightly together and his eyebrows slant inward and down. “I wish Rudy was here. I wish something could be done to stop this stupid war. I wish someone could bring back all the human beings, not only American soldiers, who’ve died needlessly. I wish someone would take all the politicians and corporate bigwigs and generals and line them up and —”
“Please, dear,” Mrs. Fischer interrupts softly. “Just blow out the candles.”
“Sure we’re allowed to build a fire?” Milton’s looking around nervously in the dark. We’re on the beach in Bayville. In the moonlight, small waves lap against the shore. I reassure him that they have bonfires up and down the beach and shoot off a ton of fireworks on the Fourth of July.
The beach is a mixture of pebbles and sand. Tinsley’s sitting next to Milton with her arm around his shoulders, being affectionate and extra sweet. She’s treating him like a long-lost little brother. Nobody asked her to take on that role, but Milton’s dazzled, so it’s a nice birthday present.
Arno and I are on our knees, scooping out a depression for the fire. We learned to make fires the year pre – Rat Fink Johnny convinced us to join the Boy Scouts. Arno and I reluctantly agreed, even though we thought that earning merit badges was stupid and that the Scout master was a jerk because he always insisted our uniforms be neatly pressed, our ties knotted properly, and our shoes polished.
He knew we didn’t like him and was keen to find an excuse to boot us out of the troop. He finally got it on an overnight campout after Arno and I told some eager new Scouts that earning the Hole Digging merit badge by shoveling the five required holes in under two hours was way faster and easier than the First Aid or Personal Fitness badges, which could take months to earn. As specified in the Boy Scout Handbook, the five holes were: narrow and deep, wide and shallow, a circle, a square, and the famously challenging S shape. At first, the newbies went full bore with their foldable army spades, but by the third hole, they were bushed. No one managed to dig all five holes in the allotted time.
One of them must have said something to the Scout master. A few days later, Arno and I got the boot. (There’s no such thing as a Hole Digging merit badge.)
Rat Fink Johnny went on to become an Eagle Scout, of course. (His parents bought the Encyclopaedia Britannica.)
Using driftwood and a whole lot of liquid fire starter, we get a pretty good blaze going.
“Burn, baby! Burn.” Milton mutters the mantra from the Watts Riots of a few years ago, when a large swath of the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles was burned to the ground in a protest against police racism and brutality.
“Oh, come on, Milty-Wilty,” Tinsley coos, squeezing his shoulder. “Don’t be a downer.”
From a cooler, Arno produces Dixie cups and a bottle of champagne he liberated from the home refrigerator. He toasts. “Happy birthday, Milton. Just think. A year from now, you’ll be able to drink legally.”
We sip champagne and roast marshmallows. Arno’s brought a portable radio, and he and Tinsley sing along to “Alice’s Restaurant.” Being at the beach at night reminds me again of that last time Robin and I made love, up in Maine. The throbbing gash she’s left in my heart is bright red. I can’t stop blaming myself.
When the champagne bottle is empty, Arno lights a joint. The disc jockey on the radio is talking about the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which won’t be held in Woodstock or Wallkill but at White Lake, in the town of Bethel, New York. He names all the bands scheduled to be there, including the Who, which the DJ says is the hottest band on the scene right now.
“Damn right!” Arno says gleefully.
“You know Dylan’s gonna be there,” Milton says. “He lives up there.” Dylan is Milton’s and my absolute favorite songwriter. We both bought Blonde on Blonde the day it came out. I played my copy so many times it wore out and had to be replaced. Dylan hasn’t appeared in concert since his motorcycle accident three years ago. At first there were rumors that he was crippled, brain damaged, even dead. Then reports began to filter out that he was alive but in seclusion (and other rumors that the “accident” was a ruse to cover up a mental breakdown). Regardless of all that, to see him at the festival after all this time won’t just be a blast; it will be historic.
Even though the festival is just ten days away, I’ve been too distracted to give it much thought, other than to occasionally get excited about the unparalleled lineup of bands that are scheduled to play. But sitting here around the fire with my two closest friends, I’m reminded that the original plan was for the three of us to celebrate the end of summer before going our separate ways.
“Suppose you leave the acid home?” I ask Arno. “We could have such a bitchin’ time hanging out and grooving on the music without you running around trying to unload two thousand hits. Then you can take all that acid to Bucknell and be the biggest dealer on campus. You’re worried about making friends? You’ll have more friends than you’ll know what to do with.”
Arno looks like he’s actually considering it.
Tinsley sighs a bit dramatically. Despite what she said the other night about pushing her mother too far, I sense that she’s fishing for an invitation.
“You can still get tickets.” Arno gestures to the radio. “He said there’s a number to call.”
“Murray Hill seven, oh, seven, oh-oh,” Milton recites.
The rest of us stare at him. We’ve just polished off a bottle of champagne and have nearly finished the joint. I don’t remember the DJ saying anything about a phone number.
When a burst of firecrackers comes from down the beach, followed by laughter and voices, we all turn to look. It’s hard to see in the dark, but it sounds like a bunch of guys.
Snap! Crack! More firecrackers flash and spark, followed by loud talk and laughter. Now we can see their silhouettes. Crash! A bottle smashes against a rock.
“Maybe we should go,” Milton says.
“Why? We have as much right to be here as they do,” Arno says.
But when the group down the beach grows quiet, I feel my chest compress. Something tells me they’ve noticed our fire.
Footsteps start to crunch on the pebbles and rocks. They’re coming.
“We better split.” Milton rises to his feet.
“Slowly.” Arno starts to get up. Tinsley and I do the same. Whatever buzz we’d gotten from the champagne and the J instantly evaporates, replaced by the sober chill of fear. Still, Arno takes his time with the radio and cooler. He wants to send the message that we’re not scared and that it’s just a coincidence that we’re leaving as they approach.
The crunching footsteps grow louder and faster. “Hey!” one of the guys shouts. “Where you think you’re goin’?” There are six of them. They’re around our age — or maybe a little older — wearing T-shirts, jeans, and work boots, their hair greased back and spit curled.
The GTO is parked on the street about thirty yards away. We might be able to reach it before they reach us, but I doubt there’ll be enough time to get in, start up, and escape.
One of the unburned pieces of driftwood we collected for t
he fire is roughly the length and thickness of a baseball bat. I pick it up.
“What’re you doing?” Arno whispers.
“Get in the car and go,” I tell him in a low voice.
“Are you crazy?”
“Just go! Come back and get me later.” Heart galloping, I turn to face the approaching horde, my body feeling like a thousand volts of electric current are flooding through it. I don’t know what’s impelled me to make a stand, but I’m thinking of Robin and how I’ve failed her. How I’ve failed myself. How pissed off I am at me. How tired I am of living in a world where the powerful impose their wills on the meek.
Arno goes about twenty feet more, then stops. I mouth the words Keep going! at him. Tinsley and Milton continue toward the car.
The hoods stop a dozen feet away from me. The leader is the smallest, but muscles bulge under his tight T-shirt. “Where you runnin’ off to, hippie?”
“We aren’t running anywhere,” I tell him, gripping the stick tightly but keeping it at my side.
“Looked like running to me,” the leader says. “You afraid of something?”
“Whoa, check out the hot chick.” One of them nods at Tinsley, standing beside the GTO in her short dress and white go-go boots. Milton’s with her. Arno’s still about halfway between me and the car.
“That is some choice hippie piece of ass,” says another.
“I get it.” The lead hood leers. “You don’t want to share.”
Shit! Why didn’t Arno and the others go when they had the chance?
The gang steps closer. Even with this stick, six-to-one odds really stink. Then again, if I get the crap kicked out of me, I might not have to go all the way to San Francisco for my deferment. Surely the army doctors in Brooklyn will be compelled to flunk me if I show up in a body cast. But then I think of what happened to Barry. Nothing about this is funny.
“We don’t want any trouble,” I tell them.
“Too late, hippie boy,” the leader says. “You ain’t from here. You come to our beach, leave your fire burning. Leave your bottles and cups. What do you think we are, garbagemen?”
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