by J. J. Murray
Tina grabs Hen’s shoulder. “Look how far it is from his house. Who would carry him that far to drown him then carry his waterlogged body back up there? He would have had to be down here already. Why would he even come down here?”
“Maybe one of his cows strayed,” Hen says. “Or his dog. Maybe he got hammered and went for a swim. Maybe he drank some of that white lightning.”
“I don’t think Mr. Simmons drank, Hen,” Tina says.
“And they found him at his house, not down here,” Ayana says. She squats and smiles at the divers. “What are y’all looking for? Mr. Simmons’ butt prints in the mud?”
“Maybe he surprised some poachers,” Hen says.
“Poaching what?” Tina asks. “If the deer turn sideways around here, they’ll be invisible, poor things.”
“Well, maybe they were poaching turtles,” Hen says.
Hen is an idiot.
“And maybe someone only made it look like he drowned as part of some sick joke,” Ayana says. “Here’s the guy who won’t sell his land to make a lake. Let’s drown him in his hot, dry house. Ironic, isn’t it?”
I like Ayana. She’s the least hippie of them all, and she cracks off jokes like Mama used to do.
“I’ll bet he was poisoned or the government used some nerve agent on him,” Tina says.
“Why would the government want him dead?” Hen asks.
“So the government could get the land,” Tina says. “You watch. All this will belong to Jefferson National Forest in no time.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Ayana asks. “At least it would still be a forest.”
“They’ll clear-cut the trees and put in another Pine Lake for fascists who eat meat, kill defenseless animals, and drive SUV’s,” Tina says.
I want to compliment Tina on her leather belt and boots, but I don’t think she’ll grasp the irony. I pull Ayana to the back of the crowd. “So how is Solitude these days?”
“Hot and sticky,” Ayana says. “And how is your solitude these days?”
“I’m okay,” I say.
“It can’t be easy having your name in the paper like that,” Ayana says.
“I’ll manage.”
“Look at the fascists in wetsuits!” Tina yells.
“Those two never shut up,” Ayana says. “They talk all night.”
“Is that normal?” I ask.
“Tina is loud, but until Hen came, she at least kept quiet at night,” Ayana says. “But now that she has a new boy toy …”
I shudder. “Yeah.”
“I’m telling you, if Hen would leave us, we’d be better off.”
“Why?” I ask. “He seems harmless.”
“Since he arrived last week, he’s always talking about the lake,” Ayana says. “How we’d be able to bathe in the lake once they flooded the place. How good lake water would be for our skin. I kind of agree with him there. Our well water leaves me itchy. He says how great it would be to go canoeing and fishing off our front porch. How perfect it would be to sell our crafts to real rich people up from Calhoun to visit the lake. How convenient it would be to catch our meals from our own dock. How lucrative it would be to have a stupid marina and sell sodas, hot dogs, and bait to tourists. Hen is too much of a capitalist for my taste.”
“Granata nuova scopa bene tre giorni,” I say. “New brooms sweep clean.”
“You have to teach me Italian,” Ayana says. “That sounded so romantic. But what does it mean?”
“My grandma used to say it all the time,” I say. “It kind of means that newcomers are the most ambitious.”
“He’s ambitious all right,” Ayana says. “He even went to Princeton.”
That might explain Hen’s short hair. “The man who thinks there are such things as turtle poachers is Ivy League?”
“Yeah,” Ayana says. “He says he majored in chemistry, but he sounds more like an economics major. He says he never finished college. He says he let his mommy and daddy down somehow and they sent him packing. I doubt they disowned him. I’ll bet he could leave and walk right into a hefty trust fund. He’s such a poser. And he’s on such good terms with the police. He wasn’t at Solitude a day before the sheriff and the mayor showed up to talk to him.”
Two of the least visible people in Gray County showed up at Solitude to meet with an Ivy League hippie? Sheriff Morris and the mayor have wanted that commune gone for years since they claim it lowers the value of their nearby properties. “How is Hen on good terms with them?”
“You know that some of the people at Solitude—and I’m not one of them—some of them indulge in herbal, um, headache remedies.”
Translation: They smoke pot.
“And on a still day, you know, when the wind isn’t moving, kind of like today, it gets thick and potent. Last week, Sheriff Morris and Mayor Parsons came out to talk to Hen, and the sheriff didn’t bust anyone. Even the squirrels were flying high that day, and they aren’t flying squirrels. And that wasn’t the first time they visited. They’ve dropped by at least three times since Hen arrived.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea, and I don’t want to have any idea.” She looks side to side. “I can trust you, can’t I?”
“Always.”
Ayana sighs. “Ayana isn’t my real name, okay? There are some folks in Detroit who’d like to talk to me and provide me with some permanent bracelets.”
This serene woman is a fugitive from justice? It’s so hard to believe. “Why’d you choose the name Ayana?”
“Because it fits me,” she says. “Ayana means ‘beautiful blossom or flower,’ ‘well-spring,’ and ‘perceptive girl with large eyes.’” She smiles. “I am a beautiful, big-eyed, well-spring of knowledge.”
“The name suits you,” I say. “So the sheriff and the mayor come out and …”
“They take walks in the woods,” Ayana says. “The sheriff’s property is only about a half mile away from us, and I think the mayor owns some property on the other side of him. I don’t know what they’re discussing, and I don’t want to know, but they seem unusually tight, you know?”
“Strange bedfellows,” I say. “Oh, I didn’t mean …”
“Solitude isn’t like that, Gio.”
“I meant that it’s unusual for counter-culture and culture to mix.” Though I can’t associate any kind of real culture with Sheriff Morris and the mayor.
“I get your drift.” She stares at Hen. “What I least like about Hen is that we’re supposed to be vegetarians, right? He took the microbus out Monday night and said he was going to scout some firewood. Firewood, as hot as it is. He came back all greasy-lipped. I’ll bet he went to The Swinging Bridge or to The Home Place.”
Monday night, the night Mr. Simmons might have died, Hen was out in their 1973 VW microbus. He would have had trouble getting it through the creek since it only has seven inches of ground clearance. He could have walked across Gray Creek right in front of Solitude. Anyone could have walked onto The Simmons Farm, and no one would have seen them. Hen went to Princeton, which is in New Jersey. Melville is from New Jersey and just happened to be in the area when Mr. Simmons died. I wonder how far Princeton is from Bayville.
“I thought I was a space cadet,” Ayana says. “You still here, Gio?”
“Oh, yeah.” I am keeping my eye on Hen. “Have you always been a vegetarian?”
“I used to weigh close to three hundred pounds.”
Ayana is smaller than I am! “You look fantastic.”
“Thank you. But I don’t want to lose any more weight, okay? You gotta come fix that heat pump.”
Solitude has a heat pump? “Y’all have a heat pump.”
“Don’t you?”
A commune with a heat pump. “No. I have a box fan.”
“I pity you.” She closes her eyes as Hen and Tina argue their way toward us. “Man, they raise my blood pressure.”
“Why do you stay?” I ask. “I mean, other than not wanting to wear, um, bracelets.”
&n
bsp; “I love fresh, clean, free air.”
Tina waves her arms. I’m sure some leaves are wilting around her.
“Do they fight like this all the time?” I ask.
“Not at night,” Ayana says.
Ew. “I can’t believe …”
“That they’re a couple? Me either. They’re such opposites. He’s young and she’s old. He’s Ivy League and she’s poison ivy. Shrimp and whale, anarchist and capitalist, chubby and stubby.”
I laugh. “So much nothing is happening here.”
We hear a roar from the crowd and drift toward the creek.
“Look,” Ayana says. “They found … more fishing line.”
“And a minnow lure,” I say. “You want to go? I’ll take a look at your heat pump.”
“You got icy cold AC in that gas-guzzling killer of the planet of yours?” Ayana asks.
“Yep.”
“I’m in,” Ayana says. “Let’s roll on out.”
Chapter 15
Solitude is a collection of one-story log cabins, teepees, and a two-story A-frame surrounded by woodpiles, forest, and every insect known to the planet. When I park under the deck of the A-frame, I see old hippies working on walking sticks, carvings, and paintings from their plain plank porches. Most of them are in their sixties, and none of them shaves.
Even the women.
I also smell hemp, and not the kind of hemp you can use to make rope.
I take a screwdriver, a soft bristle brush, a mini-vac, and an empty spray bottle from the back of her Jeep.
“That’s all you’ll need?” Ayana asks.
“I’ll also need some water and some liquid detergent.”
“The last time we had it serviced, a technician brought a huge toolbox and this industrial spray stuff,” Ayana says.
“Watch and learn and never call a technician again,” I say. “It’s really easy. Where are your breakers?”
Ayana takes me into the ground floor of the A-frame and opens the electrical panel. I locate the breaker labeled “AC/HP.”
“The first step is to run the AC at least twenty minutes on a hot day,” I say.
“It’s been on nonstop for two weeks,” Ayana says.
“Second, you shut it off here and at the heat pump,” I say, flipping the breaker to the off position. “I’ll show you where the off switch is outside.” I hand her the empty spray bottle. “Put about a quarter cup of detergent in this and fill it with water then meet me at the heat pump.”
I have the heat pump’s metal shell removed by the time Ayana joins me with the cleaning solution. I show her the shutoff switch on the control board. “Always check to see if it’s really off. You don’t want it coming back on while you’re working.” I flip the switch off and then on, and the heat pump stays quiet. “No electrocution or missing fingers today.” I point at coils coated with dirt, dust, sap, and pine needles. “Look at your coils.”
“Nasty,” Ayana says. “Is that hair?”
“Might be.” It is. Long and gray. “Heat pumps are good at collecting debris.”
“That’s not debris,” Ayana says. “That’s half the woods. That has to be Tina’s hair.”
I hand Ayana the mini-vac. “You vacuum while I brush off the coils.” I use the soft brush to clean the coils while she sucks up the mess falling off the coils. “Next, we spray this highly non-toxic mixture of water and detergent.” I spray, and the coils foam up a little. “The toxic spray works better, but our mixture won’t stunt your growth or grow you another elbow.”
“And just … let it drip.”
“Into the drip pan,” I say as the foam falls off in globs. “That’s what it’s called.”
“I’ve known quite a few drips,” Ayana says.
“They have drips in Detroit? I thought Gray County had a monopoly on drips.”
“I think I’ve seen most of them, too,” Ayana says. “They like to stare at me.”
“Because you’re unique and beautiful,” I say.
“Because I’m black and beautiful.”
I smile. “That, too.”
I gently brush the coils and spray them again. “Vacuum the drip pan.”
“This is a wet-vac?”
“No, but it’s so hot most of the solution is already drying up.”
Ayana sucks up the filth.
“And now your coils are cleaner. You can go flip that breaker now, but turn the thermostat down to its lowest setting before you come out.”
“It already is.”
When she returns and flips the heat pump switch, it whirs to life.
I replace the metal shell and tighten the screws. “In thirty minutes or so, the coils will be completely dry, and in a few hours, you’ll notice a difference.”
“How often should we do this?”
“In dry, dusty weather, every forty-five days or so. But any time it’s not blowing cold air, come out and do this.”
“That was easy.”
“And you saved yourself a hundred-dollar service call.”
We walk upstairs to a great room full of beanbag chairs and rugs of every color of the rainbow. They seem to face—how can you tell with a beanbag chair?—a picture window that soars to the ceiling. “What a great view.”
“But you can’t see the view from these chairs,” Ayana says. “They’re murder on my back, too.”
The beanbag chairs look like overgrown lumps of Play-Doh. “Certainly colorful.”
“Not my idea,” Ayana says.
I try to envision looking out on a lake from this window. “If there was a lake, you wouldn’t be able to see it.”
“Nope,” Ayana says. “And I hope we never see it. The mosquitos are bad enough as it is.”
“And you wouldn’t have any solitude,” I say.
“I’ll have more now that you fixed the AC,” Ayana says. “I have to compensate you in some way, Gio.”
“Well, if you have another pair of those earrings …”
She beckons me with a finger. “Come with me to my workshop.” She leads me into her bedroom where breathtaking, poster-sized black and white photographs of rivers, lakes, ponds, and forests cover the walls and ceiling.
Ayana has a brown beanbag bed. I didn’t know they made these. It certainly looks comfortable. “Did you take all these beautiful pictures?”
“Yes,” Ayana says. “I’m a black woman from Detroit who thinks she’s Ansel Adams.”
“Beauty is beauty no matter who captures it,” I say, “and I would frame and put that Motts Mountain snow scene over my fireplace.”
“What’s over your fireplace now?”
“My great-grandfather’s Marlin Saddle Ring Carbine rifle,” I say.
“A rifle.”
I nod.
“I have the negative,” she says.
“You still use film?” I ask.
“I’m old-fashioned when it comes to art,” she says. “You can borrow the negative and get it developed and enlarged at Photo USA in Calhoun.”
“I will.” I need something in that cabin to remind me that it can be cold around here.
She pulls a massive plastic gray and green tackle box from beside a little dressing table with a wood-framed mirror. “Don’t laugh at my jewelry box.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She opens the top and pushes two sets of trays aside. “I’ve found that a tackle box is the best way to store jewelry because of all the little compartments.”
Silver and gold earrings and pendants fill all the compartments of three tiers on each side of the tackle box. There must be sixty pieces or more in this box. “You don’t sell these at Peace Goods.”
She picks up a silver pendant with vibrant blue stones. “Lapis lazuli and blue topaz. These are the real thing. I only work with sterling silver or fourteen-karat gold. Real stones, nothing fake. Internet sales only.”
“You have Internet here?”
“And we even have an indoor Johnny house.” She laughs. “We’re not as back
woods and backwards as you think.”
“You guys are more modern than I am.” Oh, there’s a cute set of earrings I must have. “Is that jadeite?”
She nods. “They match your eyes.”
“You know I would buy them if I had the money.” I wince. “I’ll bet they’re expensive.”
“I usually get around three hundred a pair for the earrings, up to five hundred for the pendants.”
I am in the wrong business. “Do you have an installment plan? I can afford half an earring a month.”
“I take MasterCard and Visa, too.”
I pick up the pair of curlicue silver earrings with jadeite centers. “The craftsmanship is spectacular.”
“Craftswomanship.”
I want these. “How long does it take to make a pair?”
“Oh, five or six hours,” she says. “You like them, don’t you?”
“I love them.”
She shuts the tackle box. “They’re yours. Put them on.”
I slip the hooks into my earlobes. “They’re so heavy.”
“That’s solid silver not that silver-plated stuff,” Ayana says. “Ever lose a cheap earring?”
“All the time.”
“It’s because they’re too light,” she says. “If you lose one of these, you’ll hear it hit the ground with a good solid thunk. They look good on you.”
I have made a new friend for life. I will need a jadeite pendant one day, too.
Ayana stands over an air duct in the floor. “Ah, yes. This is much better.”
“How does Solitude work?” I ask.
“You want to know about the sleeping arrangements.”
It had crossed my mind, but … “No. I want to know how Solitude is organized.”
“You’ve seen our organization. We fuss, we discuss, and we cuss. We’re no better than Congress. We all pitch in with the cooking, cleaning, and bills, and if you don’t, we pitch you out. As for the sleeping arrangements …”
“I really didn’t want to know that.”
“Love isn’t free here, Gio. Those days are long gone, forty years gone. You have to earn it and mean it here, and no one has earned it or truly meant it with me yet.”
“Me neither.”
“How long have you lived alone?” she asks.
Ayana is too perceptive. “How do you know I live alone?”