South Village Read online

  “I’ll look tomorrow,” I tell her. “Thanks.”

  Marx crosses our field of vision. I nod toward him. “What’s that asshole’s deal?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What’s his story?”

  “You don’t know about his family,” she says.

  “What about them?”

  “Died in a fire. He was a kid. Off visiting his grandparents, and his parents were at a cabin, and there was a forest fire. Turned out there was this tree-clearing operation and they did some careless thing that started it.”

  Huh. That casts Marx in a new light. I lost my dad to a mistake someone else made. I know what that can twist you into. Not that it’s an excuse. It certainly wasn’t for me.

  But if anything is going to push you into a lifestyle of hard activism, that would be it. And it would be hypocritical to hold that against him. He just needs to learn to control his anger before it controls him.

  “Well,” I tell her. “That explains some stuff.”

  She nods. “Want seconds?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  She dashes off toward the food table.

  I look at the numbers on the pamphlet one last time, tear off that page, stuff it in my pocket, walk past the fire, throw the rest of the pamphlet onto the nest of flames. Watch as the corners black and curl. The older couple sitting on a log by the fire—I think their names are Ginger and Robert—are cuddled up against a log, making out like teenagers, not paying attention to me.

  I wait until the pamphlet is all the way burned up before moving on. Dump my empty plate and utensils into the gray wash bin.

  With dinner mostly finished, people are assembling toward the main cluster of picnic tables. Someone pulls out Monopoly and they pair off into two-person teams. Packages of loose tobacco and rolling papers come out. I feel the tug of nicotine, my brain reminding me what I’m missing.

  That’s one of the nice things about this place. Too hard to go out for smokes. I don’t want to pay to stockpile them. And I can’t smoke a rolled cigarette without wanting to puke. The first few weeks were rough, and I may or may not have thrown a chair at someone during a nic fit, but now I rarely even get the urge.

  Maybe it’s the fresh air. Maybe it’s all the walking and the physical labor, and that feeling I sometimes get of trying to breathe through a wet sock, or in my case, a pair of shredded lungs.

  That was my sacrifice. I needed something. A life without vice is a life where you have to face the things those vices otherwise would have covered up.

  Anyway, I’ve still got my whiskey.

  Aesop appears next to me. He nods toward the Monopoly setup. “You want in on the game?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “C’mon man. You should play.”

  “I play Monopoly I’ll end up flipping the table. That is not a game for people with anger management issues.”

  “Will you at least stay out with us? If ever there was a night that we all needed to be together, this is it.”

  “Goodnight.”

  He sighs, more hurt than angry. “Night.”

  I grab a pink flashlight from the flashlight bin and head into the woods, the sound and the light fading behind me, until I’m on a walkway far enough out that I can click off the light and the world is so dark I can’t see a thing. Not my hand in front of my face, not the ground under my feet, not the trees looming over me. Not even the stars. The canopy is too thick.

  Of course, as soon as I turn the light off, as soon as it’s nothing but dark, I see it. Like my vision switched over to an old movie. The hole, and Wilson’s body crumbled into it, rainwater pooling where his arm was pressed up against the wall of it. His glass doll eyes, staring out at nothing, and the reason for that was me.

  The wave hits.

  Pushing me under. Roaring in my ears, threatening to pull me down into the dark. Filling my eyes and nose and throat. I’m tumbling, can’t tell up from down.

  I fumble with the flashlight, try to flick the plastic button on the side to turn it on, drop it. It clatters to the ground and I fall to my knees, sweeping my hands around, trying to find it. By the time I do, I’m crying. Still not breathing, my lungs about to burst.

  And then it’s there, in my hands. I click it on and I’m in the woods. A hostel in the middle of Georgia. Not underwater. Not being pulled deeper. Just in the woods.

  I pull my legs up and sit there for a bit until I’ve calmed down. Until my chest doesn’t feel like it’s swelling with water.

  Then I get up and walk.

  No monster bugs on the steps into the bus. I do a quick sweep with the flashlight when I get in, to make sure none of them broke in with plans to kill me while I was out. This is a thing that concerns me. I pull the cord that turns on the rope light running along the edges of the ceiling. The sun was good today. The solar panels soaked up enough I could squeak out a few hours of juice, not that I plan to be up long.

  Underneath the bunk there are two empty plastic whiskey jugs, plus the one on the table that’s half-full. I climb on top of the bunk and take a long, deep swig. It’s flat and sharp and hot.

  Man. Nothing says rock bottom like plastic jug whiskey.

  I look around at the battered metal on the inside of the bus, at my little pile of belongings. My ridiculous suspicions and my sad, quiet evening alone. My head already swimming a little. I reach up and turn off the light so that it’s pitch black. A slight breeze drifts through the netted window, along with the sound of insects and rustling leaves.

  And those two sets of eyes, peeking through the window.

  The silence is all-encompassing. Living in New York City, you live with the feeling of a television being on in the next room. An electric hum you can’t hear, but you can feel, even when it’s quiet. Even in Portland there was a little of that. The hum never stops. I always wondered what I would learn about myself when the humming stopped and the world went silent and I couldn’t hear anything but what’s inside myself. The things the hum was covering.

  I don’t like it.

  The jug of whiskey seems heavy enough that maybe I’ll sleep through the night. But I’m going to need to pick up more. I take another pull and pray it’s enough to drown out my dreams.

  My mouth tastes like I’ve been sucking on a dirty dishrag and my skull is a size too small. I turn my head and the muscles in my neck tighten in protest.

  No nightmares though. That much is a victory.

  I swing my legs off the cot and kick the empty jug of whiskey. I pull on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and put on my sneakers. On instinct I reach for my cell but remember it’s at the bottom of my bag, tucked away. I’m still not used to not carrying it all the time, though I do enjoy this moment of realization I have most mornings. I don’t need to carry a cell phone. That’s a nice thing.

  There’s a half-empty bottle of water on my desk. I suck it down, put that and the three empty whiskey handles into a canvas bag, and head out. The forest is quiet in every direction and the sky is overcast, washed in dingy gray light. No sun to make a guess at what time it is.

  After stopping at an outhouse and then a recycle bin to discard the jugs, I head toward the main domes, passing by the yoga clearing, where a dozen people are doing downward-facing dog on a rainbow of foam mats spread on the dusty ground. Moony is leading them, her black hair spilling over her bare shoulders. I’ve considered joining them. Some days I feel a tug in my lower back. Whether that’s age or sleeping on an old cot, I can’t be sure. Maybe I need to start some body maintenance.

  Alas, today is not that day.

  I pass the art space—a deck with a slanted roof held aloft by wooden columns. It looks like it should blow over with a slight breeze but somehow has been standing since this place was built. There’s a clay kiln, which is currently belching white smoke, and a thick canvas the size of a bedsheet stretched taut between bamboo poles.

  The canvas depicts a swirl of colors, like a wave curling up, one side of the wav
e a treescape, the forest reaching out and growing in on itself. The other side of the wave a starscape. They come together like they’re part of the same scene, but encroaching on each other in small measures. It reminds me a little of a van Gogh. But different. Bigger. Trying to find a middle-ground between two different worlds. I look at it for a little bit, because every time I look at it I think maybe it’s finished but it’s still a little bit different.

  Cannabelle steps onto the deck in a loose tank top and shorts, barefoot, holding a brush tipped in white, and taps at the starscape. Adding more stars to the sky. The trance breaks and I walk away, but she calls after me. “Hey Ash. C’mere for a minute?”

  I climb up onto the wooden platform. “What’s up?”

  “Why don’t you give me a hand. Pick up a brush. I’ve still got a few billion stars to go.”

  I shake my head. “Not my jam.”

  “You should give it a try sometime. It’s therapeutic.”

  “What’s the point of a painting that’s never finished?”

  “What’s the point of a life that’s never finished?”

  I try to come up with a wiseass remark, can’t, shrug, and walk away.

  The picnic benches outside the main domes have an assortment of people sitting at them, reading or smoking cigarettes or eating fruit. The smell of tobacco drifts my way and it smells a little like my old life. As I’m approaching Eatery something smacks my chest and falls to the ground. I stop and look down, see it’s a blue and white hacky sack.

  A couple of guests are staring at me, apparently having lost control of the hacky mid-game. I pick it up and Joe, an older guy with sleeve tattoos and a slight limp, says, “Little help?”

  I toss the hacky into the woods.

  “Watch where you’re kicking that thing,” I tell him.

  This results in some grumbling, which I ignore. Aesop leans out the front door of the kitchen and waves me over. Inside he’s standing with a little elf of a kid. Latino, probably no more than just out of college, big wet eyes and a little stubble on his chin, like he’s heard about beards and wants to know what the fun is about.

  “Ash, meet Zorg.”

  “Zorg?” I ask.

  The kid nods. “I am Zorg,” he says, with a swell of body-lifting confidence.

  Sigh. People like to shed their names when they get into camp. The real world doesn’t come to bear here. Mostly the nicknames are easy to remember, which is nice. This is among the more ridiculous.

  Though I used to hang out with a group that included Ginny Tonic and Bombay and Good Kelli and Bad Kelli, so who the fuck am I to talk?

  “I have to run and take care of something,” Aesop says. “I’m supposed to show Zorg around. He’s going to help me in the kitchen after you leave. Can you show him the ropes? I’ll be back in a half hour, tops.”

  Aesop is probably lying, that motherfucker. I can see it in his eyes. He says I need to be more social and sometimes corners me with folks so maybe I’ll make new friends. I want to go to the library but I’m not exactly in a rush, so I nod him off and turn to Zorg.

  “Do you have any cooking experience?” I ask.

  “Zorg does not.”

  “Look, you can call yourself Zorg and that’s fine, but let’s cut it with the third person just for right now, okay? I’m way too hung over for that.”

  He purses his lips and dips an eyebrow, like he is suddenly deeply suspect of me. “Okay. Zzz… I… do not. Do I need cooking experience?”

  “No. I didn’t have much. Aesop is a good teacher. Let me run you through the facilities.”

  I show him the cast iron stove, powered by dead wood from the forest. The electrical outlet for the occasional device we try to not use because we only have as much power as the solar panels suck up. Kitchen appliances are a hell of a drain. We can get two minutes out of the blender, tops. We run through the greywater sink and the water filter, which takes even longer than the greywater, and the whole time Zorg watches me like a lizard, his eyes wide and flat.

  After the tour of the kitchen, I figure I should show him the garden. Outside we find Gideon hanging upside down from a tree, shirtless, doing sit-ups. His face is red and he’s counting off very loudly, as if for our benefit, “Four… five… six…”

  “Wow,” Zorg says.

  “That’s Gideon. What you’re seeing right now tells you everything you need to know about him.”

  As we wander down the footpath Zorg asks, “So, everyone works here?”

  “Everyone works. If you’re staff you have a job and you do it and you get paid a little money. If you’re a guest you pay a little money for your accommodations and you pitch in on a chore.”

  “A lot of people come through here?”

  “Most people don’t stay more than a few days. That’s less an indictment of the facilities and more about demand. Lots of people want to come here.”

  “And how does the food service work?”

  “We do dinner every night. Full vegan, no exceptions. Most of it comes from our gardens, but we go into town for stuff we can’t grow. Pasta and things. We don’t do breakfast or lunch, that’s up to everyone else. We have two chest fridges. People are welcome to use the kitchen and to store stuff. Truth is no one does anything elaborate in there. Most people wait until dinner for their big meal. Everything else is snacking.”

  Something shimmers in my line of vision. I stop, put my hand out to block Zorg. I take a step forward and there’s a web spun across the trees lining the path, a spider the size of a large strawberry chilling right at face-level, its abdomen a brilliant explosion of stained glass. It would be beautiful if it wasn’t a giant nightmare spider. I walk around the trees, let the spider be.

  “Are there a lot of those out here?” Zorg asks.

  “Too many,” I tell him.

  We pass one of the outhouses, which is the size of a porta-potty, the outside graffitied with flowers.

  “So you pee against the trees and do your other business in there?” Zorg asks.

  “That’s the deal,” I tell him. “You cover it with sawdust. Works surprisingly well.”

  “Sounds scary,” Zorg says.

  “It is, a little. Check for bugs before you sit down. Took me two days to work up the courage the first time. Don’t wait that long. It’s not healthy.”

  We reach the garden. The canopy is cleared out here and the clouds have burned away, so the raised beds are drenched in sunlight. The temperature jumps noticeably as we step out from under the shade, enough I want to retreat. I lead him down the long rows, show him the vegetables and the herbs. The special plot we have set aside for Momma’s. The chickens peck at the dirt around us. I introduce them: Diana, Leah, Consuela, Mum, Joule. Mathilda is off causing trouble somewhere.

  Last stop is the goat pen.

  “And that’s Dana Cameron,” I say, pointing to a young, fuzzy goat chewing on something. “She’s mostly a pet and helps to clear land, but we do sometimes get milk for the non-vegans.”

  Dana looks up and makes a goat noise, goes back to chewing.

  “The goat has a last name?” Zorg asks.

  “I didn’t name her.”

  “This place seems kind of old,” Zorg says. “But Zz... I heard it’s only been open for about a year.”

  “It was built back in the seventies. It used to be called Middle Earth. Apparently the founders had a thing for Tolkien. It fell off, and people have tried to reopen it a few times, but it never lasted long. Tibo is making the latest attempt. He actually had some capital to invest, so I figure he has a pretty good chance of hanging in for the long run.”

  “It seems nice.”

  “It is nice.”

  “But you’re leaving.”

  He blinks his lizard eyes at me. I’m not sure why or how he’s asking the question, so I choose to shrug at him. “Can you keep yourself occupied until Aesop gets back to the kitchen?”

  He nods so I leave him in the garden.

  The purple curtain
on the library dome is drawn across the entrance, so I peek in to make sure the nude book club isn’t meeting. I also briefly wonder if there are so many nude activities during the colder months, or if this is a summer thing.

  This is my favorite of the domes. There’s a level of reverence here that doesn’t exist in the other domes, which are crowded and haphazard and sometimes dirty. Here, everything is immaculate. There’s one continuous shelf that starts at the floor and wraps up, running along the inside wall in a spiral to the roof, where there’s a skylight that brings natural light trickling down onto the round carpet and four wingback chairs placed around an Oriental rug. Off in the corner is a cluttered desk, which is occupied by Magda, bare feet crossed, wearing a tan sundress and tan shawl and tan ceramic jewelry that clacks when she moves. She looks up at me and smiles.

  “Ash,” she says.

  “Magda.”

  She places a finger to mark her place and puts the book down in front of her. “Looking for anything particular?”

  “The Monkey Wrench Gang.”

  She tilts her head. Curious.

  “Cannabelle recommended it.”

  As if on cue, Cannabelle comes through the curtain, wearing basketball shorts and a white t-shirt, her short hair wet and pushed back on her skull like a greaser.

  “Speak of the devil,” I tell her.

  “I wanted to come see if you got sorted,” she says.

  We both look at Magda, who’s frowning. “Sorry, I don’t think we have that one.”

  Cannabelle sweeps around the shelves, looking at the start of the spiral running along the floor, where the author’s name would be. “I could have sworn I just saw it…”

  “Maybe I should invest in an e-reader,” I tell them.

  “Do you know how much an e-reader costs the environment, in terms of plastic and manufacturing?” Magda asks. “Not to mention what they do to bookstores. Electronic books are putting booksellers out of business. It’s a tragedy. Don’t even joke about that.”