Season of the Witch

by James Leo Herlihy

  I wanted to be in the parking lot, sitting in his station wagon, when Hank got off the boat.

  There were two minor flaws in my plan. One, all the doors were locked, so I had to sit on the hood waiting for him. And two, he wasn’t alone. He had three people with him, two longhaired guys and a chick. One of the guys I recognized from class, a bright, tall, slightly fat kid named Terry. He and Hank were deep in conversation when I spotted them, the other couple was trailing along behind.

  My first thought was Get out of here, fast. But by the time I picked up my notebook and got it into my bag, it was too late to escape. When Hank saw me he stood stock still and stared, mouth slightly ajar. And then he did something beautiful. He smiled at me. I was tremendously relieved. (Why did I expect to be humiliated?) I went to him and held out my hand. He shook it firmly, acting as if I were an old friend he was delighted and surprised to see, and introduced me to the others. The two I didn’t know were called Cissy and Cosmo, a pair of Scorpios with far-out eyes. His were pale gray and hers were brown. Cosmo was tall and slender and blond, and full of high restless energy.

  Hank said to me, “You come to cook for us?” But his eyes seemed to be saying, You come to make love with me? Whichever he meant, I felt that yes would cover it.

  I’d never seen Hank happy before. All the way to the farm, whenever he looked at me, I felt he was seeing something that had been produced by a magic wand. After a mile or two I was completely over any disappointment I’d felt because he wasn’t alone. Terry and Cissy and Cosmo seemed to be pretty good heads and I was glad it was all turning out as it was.

  Conversation on the way home was full of excitement. Terry was expecting a big inheritance on his 21st birthday. I didn’t hear the exact amount, but I guess it must have been in the millions, because he was hoping to buy a huge piece of land somewhere and start a new nation on it. Communes you hear about every day, but new nations are rare. And yet they all seemed to be dead serious about it. They were hoping some poor nation in South America would sell a piece of itself, or maybe one of the big countries would come up with an island somewhere and donate it just for the sake of getting rid of the longhairs. The new nation would be called New America, and it would be patterned after the U. S. as it was at the time of the first revolution. At first I thought Hank was just flattered at being consulted, but he kept asking more and more questions about Terry’s ideas, his political philosophy, etc., and gradually it dawned on me he was really hooked on the idea.

  When we got to the farm, Cosmo and Cissy lost all control. They were like a couple of wild things just let out of a box for the first time. They ran in and out of the barn, squealing and exclaiming and wow-ing. They rolled in fallen leaves and dropped them in one another’s faces. They chased the chickens and quacked after the ducks and threw sticks for the golden retriever. Hank’s face as he watched them kept filling up with emotion that caused his jaws to tighten. I began to feel that each present happiness of his life set off the memory of some past pain. And he didn’t know how to handle it. All he could do was chew his own teeth and swallow his own heart and try as best he could to hold himself together.

  I started getting the vegetables together and Hank and Terry went into the house for more talk.

  Terry had a folder full of drawings to show Hank, plans for the architecture of New America. He’d been accumulating information on low-cost building techniques that were being developed by some of the communes out West. Someone from the Kingdom of Endor in Boulder knew how to build a Bucky Fuller-type dome house out of pentagram-shaped scraps of metal for less than $200. And someone else knew how to take trash and press it into building blocks ten times cheaper than concrete and twice as strong. Hank studied it all carefully and asked dozens of questions.

  Terry’s idea was to invite representatives of all the existing communes to a great convention to make plans for the new nation. I’d heard of some of them—the Hog Farm, the Brotherhood, Drop City, Endor, Mount Shasta, Strawberry Fields—but the list was two pages long. I had the feeling Terry was probably a reincarnation of some great empire builder of the past, one who’d worked off all his greed Karma and was ready now to dedicate his genius to mankind.

  Hank said, “Where will the money come from? Your inheritance is not enough.”

  “It’s enough to start. And all we need’s a start. The rest will come when it’s supposed to. Watch what happens when word gets around. Rich, powerful, turned-on people all over the world will want to help. And I don’t mean just John Lennon either. There are people everywhere just aching for a chance to make something real and beautiful. Men with a genius for government who haven’t been able to function because they’re not corrupt, millionaires sitting on fortunes they don’t know what to do with, guys with fantastic engineering skills who aren’t interested in building another A & P or patching up Chicago because they care too much about the future.”

  “You believe there are such men?” Hank said.

  “I know there are! Some I’ve talked to myself, others I’ve heard about! They’re everywhere!”

  We heard a scream and went to the window to look. It was Cissy having a giggling fit. Cosmo was helping her climb a tree and must have touched her funny bone. They were as naked as Adam and Eve before the fall.

  Hank said, “Is this what the new nation is for? Nudism?”

  “No isms,” Terry said. “No nudism. No clothesism. Just people living the way they want to.”

  “What happens to people who don’t want to look at naked bodies?”

  “Are there people like that?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I guess they’ll have to—turn their heads.”

  “Or form their own little tribes,” I said. “Couldn’t they do that?”

  “Sure,” Terry said.

  “All right,” Hank said. “What do I do when the police come?”

  “If there’s a fine,” Terry said, “I’ll be glad to pay it.”

  “Paying the fine is easy. But I get fired, too. Then what?” At that moment Hank had a lightning quick change of heart. “Never mind. I don’t care. I like to get fired. Let them play. They don’t hurt nobody.”

  Hank sat down at the table again. “I wonder if I’m too old for new countries,” he said.

  “No, sir,” Terry said. “I know you’re not.”

  “How you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “Okay. Maybe you’re right. Let’s smoke some marijuana. Maybe I get younger.”

  Terry broke out a joint and we smoked it.

  A few seconds later Cissy chased Cosmo through the kitchen and they went flying up the stairs panting and squealing with joy.

  Hank pointed after them with his thumb. “Who’s that, the secretary of state?”

  Terry laughed. “Cosmo’s studying dentistry.”

  Hank nodded. “That’s good. We need dentists.”

  “You said, we.’”

  “I must be crazy.” Hank began to stack the drawings and put them back in their folders. “Let’s get this out of the way. My head’s too full. I want to think.”

  “And I’d like to take a nap. Okay?”

  Hank pointed to the stairway. “Go find a bed.”

  Terry went upstairs. And the minute he left the room, my heart went cold. Hank and I were alone together. And I was scared.

  I concentrated as hard as I could on peeling the potatoes, grateful to have something to do. Hank was watching me and I knew it. For a long time neither of us spoke, and the longer the silence continued, the more careful I was with the potatoes. I longed to see his face, but something kept me from looking at him directly. I tried to think up some small talk, but I was afraid my voice would betray the panic I felt. What’s wrong with you, Gloria? I asked myself. What’s happening to you? But no answers came. Hank made some sound, but I couldn’t interpret it without seeing his face. It was a kind of sigh, low and guttural and deep.

  “What are you thinking about?” I said. I was surpri
sed to find my voice functioning normally.

  “You.”

  Oh, God! What am I doing here? What will happen to us?

  “Me?”

  “Your hair. It’s like my mother’s. Your hands, too.”

  Tell him why. Tell him why. Tell him why.

  I put down the potato and the paring knife and looked at my hands.

  “Come here,” he said.

  No! Don’t go near him. Tell him who you are first.

  But I didn’t listen to myself. Instead, I picked up a dish towel and dried my hands. Then I walked over to him and stood in front of him, looking at him. There was so much going on in his face, I lost myself for a moment in wondering about him. He seemed to be straining after a key that would make his whole life come together in some true and comprehensible shape. And I knew he was hoping to find it in me.

  He took hold of my wrists and studied my hands as if he’d never seen anything so strange and wonderful. Then he placed them against his face.

  “Smooth, too,” he said. “And cool.”

  The contact with his face set off some dreadful reaction deep in my stomach and my heart was beating so hard I had trouble breathing. I didn’t know what was happening, but I longed for it to stop. It was like some ghastly sadness, but much worse. I remember once waking from a nightmare, I found my mother slapping me for all she was worth. I tried to explain to her some nameless grief I felt, but she went right on slapping me. The frustration was so frightful I thought it would kill me. And that’s how I felt there with Hank, trying so hard to force the truth out of myself, but unable to. And the reality of what he’d suffer when I did kept slapping me and slapping me. But not hard enough to make me speak. And yet it kept getting worse.

  With my hands still on his cheeks, held there by him, he raised his eyes and looked into mine.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  I had no voice left, but I managed to whisper, “Who am I?”

  “All of you. Them, too.” His eyes glanced briefly upward, indicating the second story of the house. “I don’t understand,” he said. “All these plans. All this young hope—in my house. I see it. With my eyes, I see it.” He shook his head. “But I don’t believe it.”

  Then he pressed his face against me, against my bosom. “I know the world,” he said. “Good things don’t happen. Not any more.”

  I said, “Yes they do, they happen all the time.” But I don’t know where that came from, because all I wanted to do was to scream and run.

  Please tell him now, I begged myself. Please, please, please. It’s already too late, but tell him now before it’s really too late.

  One of my hands was free. I touched the top of his head with it. “Hank, listen to me.”

  “Ssh ssh ssh! Dreams can’t talk. You’re a dream.”

  “No. No I’m not.”

  “Then why do I feel so good with you?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes. Tell me.”

  “Because you’re my father,” I said.

  I could only see the top of his head. For a moment he seemed awfully still, almost as if he’d stopped breathing.

  Then he said, “Oh, I see. And you’re my little girl. Is that it?”

  He thought I’d been making up a lovers’ game.

  I knew I had to go on with it now. But not like this. Not with his head on my breast. I disentangled myself. “Excuse me, Hank.” I walked over to the sink and picked up a peeled potato. There was a big eye in it and I found myself wanting to cut it out. Instead, I dropped the potato in the sink and looked out the window, forcing myself to speak.

  “I’m Gloria,” I said. Then I realized he wouldn’t know that name, or if he had, once, he wouldn’t remember it now. So I said, “You’re Hank Glyczwycz. My mother is Irene O’Malley.”

  As soon as the words were out, I knew I’d done something dreadful to him, but it was such a relief to know they couldn’t be taken back that for a moment I felt only pleasure. I just stood there and grabbed the edge of the sink as hard as I could. I felt his eyes on me, but I didn’t know what was going on in them and I was afraid to look. Then I heard him say, “Detroit,” and I said, “Yes.”

  There was a tremendous thump and crash behind me. I spun around and saw him standing with his fists clenched. He’d knocked over the table and one of the chairs, and seemed to want something else to smash. He was pure white, as if his blood was frozen with anguish deep inside of him.

  My hands were pressed against my stomach, and he was staring at them. Then something changed in him. He cocked his head to one side and stood with his shoulders hunched, jaws clenched, and scanned me all over through narrow eyes. I still wasn’t sure what was happening, but I knew I’d brought him pain and confusion so excruciating he could hardly endure it. At first he wasn’t breathing at all, but then suddenly he began to take in short little gasps of air, letting them out with a rasping sound, almost a growl, like a badly damaged animal.

  There were footsteps on the stairs. Then Terry and Cissy and Cosmo were standing in the kitchen doorway, looking, trying to understand what was happening. The water for the potatoes started to boil on the stove, and I thought, We’ll be standing here, just like this, when all the water’s boiled away, and then the kettle will burn and still no one will move or speak, and we’ll go on standing here forever.

  But Hank did speak, finally. He said, “Get away from here. All of you. And take your New America with you.”

  Terry said, “Man, if you could just tell me what . . . “

  Hank moved toward the dining room. They stepped aside to let him through. He kept on going, and then we heard him climbing the stairs. As soon as he was gone, I thought, Now I can turn off the flame under the potato water. And when I’d done it, I took the kettle and moved it to the side of the stove. When the water stopped boiling, I started to cry.

  Cissy came over to me and put her arms around me. The boys picked up the kitchen table and set the chair straight. Then Cissy said, “Cosmo? Terry?” And the three of them stood in a circle around me, holding me.

  There was a gas station about a half a mile away. Terry went inside and telephoned for a cab, and while we were waiting for it to come, we sat on the curb and felt the sunset and talked.

  I didn’t tell the story very well, but they asked questions and I answered them as well as I could. Their questions helped my head a lot, because I said some things I didn’t know I knew.

  Cissy said, “Do you suppose it would’ve been better if you’d told him who you were right from the start?”

  And I said, “Yes, because then he wouldn’t have had anything to do with me. He’d’ve thrown me out, like he did just now. And I wouldn’t have hurt him so terribly.”

  Cosmo said, “They’re like that. They really are. They won’t let you tell them the truth. And if you tell them anyway, they clobber you.”

  “It’s funny, though,” Terry said. “If he liked you before, how come he didn’t like you better when he found out who you were?”

  “I guess it’s the bed part,” Cissy said. “He wanted to go to bed with you, and that must’ve messed up his head.”

  “That’s it!” Cosmo said. “I’ll bet anything that’s it.”

  “Incest,” Terry said. “They’re scared shitless of incest.”

  “Poor man,” Cissy said. “Imagine what he’s putting himself through right now. Do you suppose there’s something we could do? Why don’t we go back and tell him we love him?”

  Terry said, “I don’t think we better, not right now.”

  “Why not?” Cissy said.

  “I couldn’t,” I said. “I’d feel too ashamed.”

  “What’s to be ashamed about?” Cosmo said.

  “I deceived him.”

  “You had to.”

  “No, I didn’t. I could have left him alone.”

  “You wanted to get to know your father,” Cosmo said. “Is that some crime?”

  “You know what I think it is
?” Terry said. “I think it’s life. I mean it’s not always us that’s wrong, you know. Sometimes it’s just life that screws us up.”

  “Nah, it’s him,” Cosmo said. “They don’t have to get that uptight. They just let themselves. I say fuck ‘em.”

  Cissy put her hand on his. “Oh, Cosmo, you don’t mean that. Do you?”

  “No. I guess I don’t actually. They can’t help it.”

  Terry said, “This sky is fantastic!”

  “It really is,” Cissy said.

  “The whole planet is,” Terry said.

  We looked at the sky for at least a full minute. Then Cosmo said, “I’ll bet this is one of the best planets of all.”

  “You mean in this solar system?” Terry said.

  “No, man, I don’t mean in this solar system. I mean in any of ‘em!”

  “That’s what I think,” Terry said. “I really do. I really think Earth is really special.”

  “You bet your ass it’s special. This isn’t just some little leftover planet. It’s got everything, for godsake. Can you name me a one thing it hasn’t got?”

  Cissy said, “Peace.”

  Terry said, “It’s got some peace, hasn’t it?”

  Cissy said, “That’s true.”

  When the cab came, Terry said he wanted to go back to the farm and see if Hank was all right. When we got there, the driver said he was sorry but he couldn’t afford to wait for people. Terry promised him an extra dollar and that made it all right—so Cosmo and Cissy and I waited while Terry went inside.

  He was in the house less than a minute. When he got back into the taxi, Terry told the driver we were ready to go to the ferry, but he didn’t say anything about Hank.

  By the time the cab got turned around and on the road again, I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

  “Is he all right?”

  Terry didn’t look at me. “He’s all right. He’s got a bottle of whiskey.”

  “What’s he doing though? Is he just drinking it?”

  “Mm. He’s already put away quite a bit of it.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Not much. He wanted to be left alone.”