CHAPTER 35
Woodstock. Communes. Pig Farm. Marxist Collectives. Women’s Groups. Gatherings. Covens. Sects: religious, political, social, sexual, crazed…it was a Time—with capital T—a Time of Grouping. New groupings. Old groups reinterpreted: “The Modern Church.” Or revived: many Revivals—some smoked, some joked—“Yippies of the World Unite!” Purges: many purges of the not-hip, termed not “in” even if being “in” meant being outside of whatever you’d ever known before as “in.” Some heralded a New Age. Others seeing not Progress but Decay—a New Paganism, meaning the emergence of fundamental denial of whatever the Progressive group held to be fundamental—here, meaning Western Civilization. Some thought they were “counter,” others “novo,” and others “retro.” So retro that they were novo which was counter. It went like tha—The Sixties in the Seventies.
The Corn was not unaware of every pitfall in every step which wanted to move towards a freedom: “What does the slave know but enslavement? So how can he, she desire to become anything but a slaver? Isn’t that their model of freedom?” Implicit was: “our model.”
So there was criticism and counter-criticism and meta-criticism and hyper-criticism…blah, blah blah….
Dalores told them: “Look, I’ve heard it all, from you, from others, even from my inner voice: Why bring a baby into this world? …Ya know, I don’t know why. It’s just that I can’t not. Like I can’t stop breathing. Like—go here with me—I just don’t breathe but we’re all being breathed as each other breathes.
Sure, sounds like shit, maybe. But when you’re pregnant you know—no, not know, you become weird like that. Not really different but special. You become special. And everyone else becomes special.
Okay. It was Red Fox’s...this, this family thing.”
Family—it was agreed: “The way it is today, no guy wants family.” Just the buck and fuck. Open the bay doors and drop his load. Bombs away!
They argued all night, many nights—nature or nurture? Men are aliens. At least strangers, they all agreed. “The disappeared ones.”
Dalores was prima facie evidence: “State Exhibit Number One.” Pregnant—without man around.
What did Frank do? Anything
“Maybe it isn’t even physical, like seed, ya know,” Pat speaking, “maybe it’s just they get us thinking this way, so we get that way. Like they’re imagining selves or something—not really of our flesh, just starters, like catalysts. Maybe.”
“He’s in there. Let me tell you, he’s in there!” Dalores.
“But if all we need men for is a nanosecond—good name, Nanos! Ha—then they don’t necessarily have to be family. Does anyone think a prick adds anything, anything “fathering” which each one of us couldn’t do?”
Suppose it’s a boy?!
“Meaning?”
He’ll see other dads and want to know where his is.
“Only if we raise him calling them fathers and us mothers. What if we call ourselves fathers, all the time…and just mother him?”
Should I confess? Admit my dreams. That I can’t purge them. That he comes to me at night. That we fuck. That we take our child and run away?!
“The problem is we’re just not raised to be dicks!”
“Cocks of the walk!”
“Fuckers!”
“Gangbanger!”
“Studs!”
Stopstopstopstopstopstopst ....
“How much of a man do you want to become?”
Do we want to become men or manly at all?
“Family. It’s just this damn word. It’s so simple, so common—so compelling. Our bodies seem to give us the answer—we’re both, both sexes. We’re many people, personas, masks, however you want to phrase it. It’s not like we have a choice. If we want to be individuals, we have to be family. Isn’t this where it all goes?”
Dalores did tell them. “I love your touches. I am deeply pleasured by your tongues, your arms, you longing gazes. You make my body a temple, a holy place. I become a sacred pool into which you dip...in which you are healed...and I am wholed. This I cannot be less clear about…but, I miss Frank.
I almost can’t say...what it is I miss. It’s not logical, you probably know this. Fuck! It’s just some fucking magic, Sisters. Just some fucking magic...and I can’t break the spell!”
So, it was decided. A new method. A new approach. A new discipline. A new way of being present.
Two days a week they go out and relate to men. Each at their own level—back into marriages, forward into new relationships, lateral moves back to old arrangements with new melodies.
“Making present”—this becomes their term...making themselves present to themselves through embrace of the fuller world...intending as they go about—developing intending relationships with others: seeking robustness.
All this outside of the house.
Despite the dangers, they agreed to hold the house separate. “Not cut-off, but a place within. As each of us is within the other’s body and heart and soul—even as we enter into other bodies and hearts and souls. It will be difficult—but ain’t love a bitch!” Hearty laughter all about. A shawl of pain embracing them.
On August 6, 1974, Dalores gave birth—their presence was multiple.
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