by Greg Ames
Ashley nods her head. “Totally, totally,” she says, beaming at him.
I yawn. Yet another false turn. How can I possibly get my work done out here? The lighting is all wrong, for one thing. It’s too windy. Too many trees.
Dallas points at the charred walls behind us. “This church was built in 1846 by disaffected Lutherans,” he says. “We’ve held meetings in it twice a week for thirteen years. We’re not a cult. We don’t follow any particular religion. Whatever you want to believe is your own business. Like I say, this isn’t a cult.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” I say.
“What?” he says.
“Nothing.”
“Listen, man. We got cabins here,” Dallas tells me. “Larry and I built them ourselves last spring. Four people to a cabin. How it works round here. Take it or leave it.” He turns smiling to Ashley. “So we’d kinda prefer that you bunk up in them, instead of building anything new.”
“No worries,” she says and blushes again.
“Okay, cool.” He claps imaginary dust off his palms. “Why don’t I show you around?” Dallas guides us through the trees, swatting branches aside with his lean, powerful arms. Ashley stays close behind him. Dallas talks about a man’s need for self-sufficiency. He tells Ashley about his own desire to escape America’s deadly corporate fundamentalism. Ashley says she totally agrees.
Razor sharp twigs zing by my face.
“You, Toad,” he says at last, “you go over there,” pointing to a surprisingly nice-looking wooden bungalow. “You’ll be bunking with The Stork, Anton, and Boris.”
“Who?” I say.
Dallas laughs and disappears deeper into the woods with Ashley.
Seated on the wooden front step of my new home, a tall, ropy-limbed guy with a mulish face frowns at the tattered paperback in his hand. “Ever read Hawthorne?” he asks without looking up from The Blithedale Romance.
“Not that one,” I tell him.
“Hawthorne had no conception of what real communal living is like.” He closes the book. “Marcus Williams,” he says and rises to his full height. His legs alone seem about six feet long. “But folks around here call me The Stork. I don’t mind.”
“Todd Gronski. A pleasure.”
We shake.
Marcus rubs his glasses on the front of his tattered purple T-shirt. “So I see you met Dallas,” he says. “We’ve had some undesirables out here lately, college students trying to dig up dirt for their little campus papers, so Dallas likes to test newcomers right from the get-go. But don’t mind him. He’s good people. One helluva harmonica player.”
I sit down next to The Stork on the splintered step. “Pretty quiet out here,” I say.
“Yup,” he agrees.
A minute passes in silence.
“It’s nice and all, tranquil,” I say, “but I just worry that I won’t be able to get any work done.”
After five days I begin to pick up on patterns. A dark-haired woman named Francesca lives in the cabin next door to ours. She has a soft hoarse laugh that she isn’t at all shy about. Every morning before dawn Francesca stands naked on her front steps and stares up at the sky. I’m always up early, too. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve had trouble sleeping for more than six hours a night. I like knowing Francesca is awake with me. It’s comforting. But her shocking and exquisite nudity keeps me from focusing on my work.
Mornings she chops wood in the sun, or she works in her vegetable garden. A thick black braid swings across her narrow back. Her lean muscles flex and flash in the sun. I lower my eyes when she walks by, even when she’s in her cut-off denim shorts and tank top. Then I look up again quickly, hoping to exchange a meaningful glance, but it’s too late. She has already passed.
As the days turn into weeks, self-doubt assails me. There’s no good reason for me to be living out in the woods, crashing in a bungalow with three stinky-footed dudes who snore and fart in their sleep. The bodega is miles away.
Day after day it’s dirt and rocks everywhere you look, in your socks, under your fingernails, in the food, and jammed in your underwear. My hair is greasy, my skin always feels wet. We eat brown rice and bulgur and dried apricots and vegetable curry for lunch and dinner. I have mad diarrhea. And there are mosquitoes everywhere! And I never see Ashley anymore. She does some kind of sweat lodge thing with the women in her meditation circle. She never comes by my place for a visit.
Late at night I sit crosslegged on the roof of my cabin. The wind whips my long, greasy hair against my face. Each night I vow to begin my work the following day, but something always gets in the way. Indigestion. Poison ivy. Usually I just sit up here for hours and think about these mountains, all alive, like sleeping stegosaurs. We stomp all over their backs. Human beings are selfish, disgusting creatures.
The whole idea of sitting around and drinking beer and checking Facebook and Twitter now seems pointless to me. When you’re out here in the world, in nature, hearing the birds making bird noises, you have a different perspective.
One night The Stork calls up and asks if he can join me. He climbs up to the roof and tells me he’s been watching me. I have an independent frame of mind, he says. I’m not a blind follower like a lot of the people in the community. I’m not a people-pleaser. He says a lot of lost souls come out here thinking they’ll abandon the world of conformist doctrine, when, in fact, they’re just replacing one structure of control for another.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
The Stork talks about his blinding anger at the current administration in the White House. He lists all the ways that the President and his cronies have committed impeachable criminal acts.
After a brief silence, I tell him the truth. “I guess I was so focused on my work that I never had a chance to think very deeply about these issues.”
“I hear you,” he says. “I was the exact same way before I opened my eyes and ears to reality. But it’s no excuse. Remaining ignorant of the issues does not absolve you of the crimes being committed in your own name.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“Future generations will not distinguish between me and you and the secretary of state. This happened in our time, on our watch. And what did you do about it?”
“Not a ton.”
“We’re having a meeting in the church next week. I’d like you to show up.” He leans closer. “Not everybody here shares our opinions on how to effect change in this country. Have you ever fired a gun?”
“No,” I say.
“You’ll learn. Good night.”
After The Stork climbs down, I find myself meditating on life and death. I consider how each life is basically inconsequential, the briefest flash of light between twin darknesses. Death leans against a nearby tree, watching us, laughing at our petty concerns, and picking his teeth with a nail, saying, “Soon, soon.”
The following morning, Francesca accosts me on the steps of my own cabin. She claims that I am brooding, antisocial, unfriendly, a non-participant in the community. What’s my frigging problem?
I tell her that I’m shy.
“You’re too damn old to be shy.” She cocks her hip. Her pudgy belly peeks out from beneath her T-shirt. “Are you a man or a boy?”
“A man?” I say. “Definitely a man.”
She grabs my hand and shepherds me around the village, introduces me to a dozen people, tells them I’m a nice guy. Francesca makes it her mission to get me more involved in the community. “This is Todd,” she says. “He’s morose and insecure but very friendly when you get to know him.”
“What’s up? What’s up?” I say, hoisting my hand for high fives. “Guten tag, y’all. Right on. Solid. Solid as a rock.”
“He’s not comfortable in social situations,” she says. “He overcompensates.”
“Do I?” I ask her. I shut my eyes and quote William Wordsworth. “I wandered lonely as a cloud. That floats on high o’er vales and hills. When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffod
ils.”
A few dudes shake hands with me, their wrists cocked back for the free-spirit clasp, followed by a quick hug and a forceful pound on the back.
“Welcome, man. Yeah, I’ve seen you up on the roof of your cabin.”
“Tremendous view,” I say. “I’m getting way spiritual up there.”
“Right, right. That’s cool.”
“I’ll tell you another thing that would enhance my meditation.” I pinch my thumb and finger to my lips, toke on an invisible joint. “I’m ready to face that green-eyed demon again. Who’s holding the dank buds, baby?”
“Excuse me?” a man says.
“You know what I’m saying.” I grin at him. “The dank buds.”
“Franklin is a lay minister,” Francesca says, seizing my elbow. “He doesn’t do drugs.” She guides me away from him. “In fact, he’s quite outspoken in his opposition to them. Drugs are an escape from our all-too-real political predicament.”
“My bad, Frank,” I say over my shoulder. “The American Indian first showed us the way to this particular spiritual path, and I’m just following their lead.”
“Drugs are the scourge of modern American society,” he says.
“Drugs are a problem, true,” I say before Francesca pulls me out of earshot, “but I’m only talking about weed and alcohol and certain pills.”
I feel wonderful socializing with the gang. Francesca’s right. I have been brooding. I need to think less about myself—my own work—and more about others. Death can watch me all day long. That’s his business, not mine.
The autumn winds come cool and dry and fast, ripping arid leaves from the tree branches. The smell of wood smoke and peat permeates the crisp air. At midnight the sky is a braided tapestry comprising many subtle shades of color. Yellow-gray, streaks of indigo and silver. I have never seen skies like this before. Down below, in the distance, a bright red light shines. With the foliage now all gone I can see this strange red light glowing, pulsing. I don’t know what it is, but each night I meditate on it. I’ve decided it’s some sort of manifestation of a higher power.
Every morning I bring Francesca little gifts, usually small sculptures that I’ve fashioned out of dirt and dung, or knotted figures made from twine. Sometimes I pick wild flowers and leave them on her cabin steps. One night she invites me in for a bulgur and brown rice casserole. Afterward, we drink hot tea together and talk until morning. Francesca’s murmured agreements goad me into unabashed confessions. I tell her that I feel bereft much of the time, that I’m looking for a way into my life. She tells me private things, too: a DUI at sixteen, a nasty divorce in Austin, Texas. We talk about music, art, politics, past sexual relationships, dreams. In the past, when a new woman intrigued me, I would run the word MARRIAGE up the flagpole to see how it looked there, flying in the wind like the death’s head on a pirate ship. But it doesn’t scare me when I think about being married to this woman.
I wait, I watch, I plan my attack. Finally, I drop down to one knee in the dirt and say, “Francesca, let’s get married. What do you say?”
She takes hold of my shoulders and brings me back to my feet. She calls matrimony an archaic system that demeans women and turns them into property. “I’m not chattel,” she says.
I say, “Hell no. You’re so much more than that.”
But we compromise and decide to conceive and raise a child right here in the woods. We move into our own cabin and have unprotected sex many times a day. Thus begins the most wonderful three weeks of my life.
The Stork encourages me to show up at a secret meeting. “You won’t be able to vote on anything yet, and there’s a brief initiation,” he explains as we approach the site, “but I’m not worried about you. Hell, we can use some fresh input around here. It gets a little incestuous after a while.”
My old nemesis Dallas steps out of the church and lights a cigarette. He takes one look at me and blocks my path at the door. “Not him. Sorry, Stork.”
“Why not?” Marcus says.
“This guy is not one of us.”
“I can vouch for Todd.”
“This guy?” Dallas asks him. “He’s a poseur. Are you for real?”
“Real as the Captain and Tennille,” I say.
Marcus puts his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll handle this, Todd,” he says. “Come on, Dallas. You’re paranoid.”
“I’m safe and disciplined. That’s more than I can say for you.”
“You don’t have the final say in everything, you know. This is exactly the type of behavior we were trying to escape. And if we’re really going through with this, man, we can’t afford to be picky. We need all the manpower we can get.”
Dallas stares at something just over our heads.
Marcus turns his discouraged face to me. “Listen, Todd,” he says, but I wave away his explanations.
“It’s cool,” I tell him, and I walk alone back to my cabin.
“Secret meeting over already?” Francesca asks me. Smiling, she looks up from the bed, where she’s reading a year-old National Geographic.
“You’re beautiful.” I join her in bed. “This is everything I need. This is the sum total of my rebellion.”
“Come here, chicken legs,” she says. “Hold me. Keep me warm.”
The early months of Francesca’s pregnancy are easy. She chops wood with the same inimitable fervor as always. And I pitch in where I can. One afternoon I even help Dallas pour cement for a new church foundation. I’m not getting my own work done, and at times I get depressed about that, but I try to convince myself, as most young fathers do, that this new responsibility—the family!—is much more important work. At night Francesca and I fall into bed together, exhausted.
After six months of pregnancy she’s often winded and has to sit down on a mossy stump, her head bowed, breathing woof, woof. Now I chop all the wood while Francesca sits nearby, smiling and rubbing her belly and chewing on a stalk of grass. I make us dinner. I clean up around the cabin.
We survive the winter. Everybody in the village pulls closer during this time. We share clothes and food. Many of us struggle, including me, and some of us sulk for days and mock the entire enterprise (me again), but we do our best. When spring comes, we laugh easily and embrace our friends. Life seems glorious.
Then, to our horror, in the eighth month of her pregnancy, Francesca becomes seriously ill. Pale and clammy, running a high fever, she can no longer get out of bed. “Don’t touch me,” she growls. “I’m fine.”
After examining Francesca with a homemade speculum and a penlight, Dr. Roderigo pulls off his yellow dishwashing gloves. Sighing, he invites me to join him outside the cabin, where we can talk in private. “Meconium in the amniotic fluid,” he concludes. He places his firm hand on my shoulder and lowers his head. “I’m sorry.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
The moon looms above us like an enormous unblinking eye.
“The baby’s pooping in its own food. That doesn’t bode well, my friend.”
Francesca loses the baby.
We’re devastated. The entire village rallies around her, they are really supportive, but my Francesca is inconsolable. She locks herself in our cabin, refusing all attempts to help her. She tolerates me and allows me to share her bed, but I can see that even my presence makes her uneasy.
I sit crosslegged on the roof at night and seek answers from a silent higher power. Praying, I stare down into the dark swirl of rich evening colors. That’s when that red light comes to me again. I stare and squint, bring it closer to my consciousness where I can translate the glow into meaning.
RED LOBSTER, the sign reads.
Maybe we are not so deep in the woods, after all. My mind empty of delusion and desire, I can now hear car engines and shouting voices. There’s a honkytonk bar in the lot next to the Red Lobster. It’s called the Make Easy. I can read its sign, as well. Mud-caked pickup trucks are parked in the gravel lot. I shut my eyes and feel the hot wind stabbing me through this beauti
ful poorly made sweater that Marcus gave me many months ago. I need to change my life.
Francesca gets worse and worse. Her sadness debilitates her. She refuses to accept that death is part of life. She talks about our stillborn child, calls it Bethany. Eventually she chooses to leave the community altogether and move back to her parents’ house in Dearborn, Michigan. To regroup, she says.
There is a tearful ceremony on the night we decide to leave the village. Dallas speaks in glowing terms of Francesca’s unselfish commitment during “the lean, early years.” Everybody applauds Francesca. As she packs her things in our cabin, she says, “Stay in the village, Todd. You’re needed here. This is your home now.”
“I want to be with you,” I tell her. I’m ready to leave at a moment’s notice. I don’t own much. A few dung sculptures. A leaf collage I’ve been working on. What have I accomplished in my life besides loving Francesca? Frankly, I’m a failure in everything but my relationship with her. The truth is I haven’t gotten much work done out here. And so what? All I want now is that tame domestic life, the Volvo station wagon, the dinner parties with couples we both envy and despise, a front lawn that I hate to mow.
“You’re not listening to me,” she says. “I can’t be with you right now.”
I follow Francesca anyway. It’s difficult, though. We are both hitchhiking in separate cars. Every time I confront her in a rest stop or a motel along the way, she begs me to give her space.
“Okay, you’ve forced my hand,” I say in a Motel 6 parking lot. “I’ll even give up my work for you.”
“Todd!” she shouts. “Stop harassing me!”
A man unloading the trunk of his Buick pauses to watch us.
Harassing? I only want to be with her, to comfort her. But standing in that parking lot in a stinky communal sweater and another man’s shabby trousers, I feel like a fraud and a heel. “Fine,” I say to her. “Go!”
Still, I hole up in a motel just outside of Dearborn. To wait.
I need to regain the spiritual serenity I had once known in the mountains, on the roof of that cabin, but it isn’t as easy down here in the city. Horns honk incessantly. Drivers shout at you. Babies shriek while mothers chat idly on cell phones.