Dan Wakefield - Starting Over - A Novel

“I mean, doesn’t freezing them add some harmful chemicals or something that they couldn’t eat?”

“By God, if we can eat them they can eat them.”

She started hurling packages of frozen haddock into the cart.

“That’s enough!” Potter said.

There were more than a dozen packages of the stuff.

“OK,” said Marilyn. “What else? What about bread?”

“They probably bake their own.”

“Maybe they don’t need anything .”

“Wine,” Potter said. “I’ll get some wine. They might just have dope. They don’t like hard liquor, but I think wine is OK.”

He bought a gallon of Tavola red table. It seemed very earthy to him, and therefore hopefully acceptable.

According to the map, the commune was a dilapidated brown small house with a garage whose roof was caving in. Potter was not so much surprised at the deteriorating nature of the place, if that was indeed the right place, as he was by its proximity to the world it was presumably trying to escape. It wasn’t far from the supermarket in town, and once here, you could see at least three neighboring farmhouses. Potter had imagined something hidden away, far from towns and main roads, far from anything.

It was the place, though.

A girl in a dirty blouse and torn jeans came to the door.

“Hi,” said Potter, with his best smile. “My name’s Potter.”

The girl only stared at him.

“Is Ted Featherstone here? He asked me to come.”

The girl turned in toward the room, and yelled, “Ted!” then walked away. Potter and Marilyn still stood outside, shivering. Featherstone appeared, looking a bit groggy and pulling a T-shirt over his head.

He looked at Potter blankly for a moment, then rubbed his eyes and said, “Oh—hey—yeah.”

“Well, I found it,” Potter said.

“Far out.”

“This is my friend Marilyn.”

“Hey, yeah—c’m in.”

“Thanks.”

Potter handed Featherstone the supermarket bag filled with frozen haddock and the gallon of Tavola.

Featherstone looked inside the bag. “Far out,” he said. “Listen, just sit down anywhere. I’ll get some glasses.”

Potter and Marilyn took off their coats, and looked around the room. There was one old chair with the stuffing coming out, but it was occupied by the sprawled body of a large, redhaired young man reading a comic book. There were pillows scattered over the bare floor and Potter and Marilyn each grabbed one and sat down. Featherstone came back with jelly glasses filled with wine. A girl walked in from the kitchen, and climbed up a rickety ladder to what was evidently a sort of dormitory floor above, with bedrolls.

Featherstone lit up a joint. “Wow,” he said, “you came.”

“Yeah, we really came,” said Potter.

He didn’t dare look at Marilyn. He was hoping things would pick up. Several other people passed in and out, glanced at them, and walked on, as if they had merely noticed a couple of spots on the floor.

“So this is it,” said Potter.

“Not everyone’s here right now—Roger, the older guy I was telling you about, had to make a run into town. He ought to be back.”

Potter inhaled furiously on the joint, wishing to hell it would stone him out of his skull, but it only led to a coughing fit, and he passed it to Marilyn, who puffed delicately, and drank more wine.

A tall, frail-looking guy with thick glasses came out of another room and Featherstone motioned him over. It was The Sandman himself, and, true to his image, he looked as if he was still half-asleep. When introduced to Potter and Marilyn, he nodded and yawned.

Roger, the older guy, came back from his run into town with a carton of Camels and some frozen orange juice. That made Potter feel better about the frozen fish. Frozen must be OK. For all Potter knew, frozen was beautiful.

The fish, however, were never mentioned again. Dinner was pumpkin-and-cucumber soup, and homemade dark bread. Four people, including The Sandman, sat at a round table. The others crouched or knelt on the floor.

“Let’s have some sounds, man,” The Sandman said, and the girl in the dirty peasant blouse put on a record. It was some kind of Rock, and blared out any other possibility of sound, which was actually a relief to Potter since the only other sounds were primarily those of snoring and farting.

Roger, the older guy, nodded at Potter and Marilyn when introduced but didn’t look them in the eyes, as if he didn’t want anything to do with people who were vaguely his own age. Right after dinner The Sandman summoned Featherstone into the back bedroom, which it turned out The Sandman had all to himself. He seemed to have all the rights and privileges of leadership except for the lack of a title and the pretense that he was just one of the others. Marilyn went back into the kitchen to ask if she could help with anything, but the dirty-bloused girl and a tall, rather pretty blonde said no, they were going to leave the dishes till tomorrow.

The dirty-bloused girl deigned to come out and sit by Marilyn and Potter on the floor.

“How long have you been here?” Marilyn asked.

The girl shrugged. “I wanted to go to South America, even found out about a job on a freighter, but they wouldn’t take me on, just because I was a chick.”

“That’s too bad,” Marilyn sympathized.

“You know it. I mean, it really shits when a chick can’t ship on a freighter.”

“Damn right,” said Potter, shaking his head.

He and Marilyn had more wine.

Featherstone and The Sandman came out. Featherstone sat down by Marilyn, but The Sandman explained he had to get back in that room, there was a little problem.

“What’s wrong?” Potter asked.

“It’s Andy,” said The Sandman.

“Andy’s just been here a couple months,” Featherstone explained, “and he’s not used to it yet. He isn’t into anything yet, you know, like creative, so he just sits around and looks out the window.”

“What’s happened to him—or happening?” Marilyn asked.

The Sandman yawned, and scratched at his head. “He’s having what used to be called ‘a nervous breakdown.’”

“Oh,” said Marilyn.

“What’s it called now?” Potter asked.

The Sandman smiled. “He’s freaking out.”

“That’s a shame,” Potter said.

Featherstone stood up, and said, “Listen, I ought to go back and rap with him, along with Sandman. Whenever you want to crash, there’s plenty of room up on the dorm floor. Take any bedroll. If it’s someone else’s, they’ll find another one.”

Featherstone and The Sandman disappeared.

“Listen,” Marilyn whispered, “let’s get the hell out of here.”

“What? Drive all the way back to Boston?”

“We can go to a motel.”

“ Where? ”

“Anywhere. There’s motels everywhere. Thank God.”

“You can’t just do that,” Potter said. “I mean, we can’t just leave.”

“The fuck we can’t! You think any of these creeps would know the difference, or care less?”

“Well. I ought to tell Featherstone.”

“To hell with the little fart. He’s busy playing medicine man.”

“Well. Maybe you’re right.”

They snuck out quietly, jumped in the car, and gunned their way back to the highway, giggling and cursing. They found a Howard Johnson’s motel, checked into a room with a color TV, and ordered club sandwiches and beers from room service.

The next time Potter saw Featherstone he apologized for having to leave without saying goodbye, and Featherstone said he understood, it was nobody’s fault. The Sandman had figured out that the bad vibes that led to both Potter’s departure and to Andy’s freaking out had been due to a full moon in Sagittarius.