T. Boyle - Drop City

Somewhere there, in the space between Amsterdam and the Place de la Concorde, the crows started in, a bawling screech that came out of the trees and circled overhead as the big glistening birds dive-bombed an owl they'd flushed from its roost. “The owls get them at night when they're helpless, did you know that?” Marco said, glad for a chance to change the subject. “That's what that's all about. Survival. And imagine us-imagine if there was another ape species here to challenge _us,__ and I don't mean like gorillas and chimps, but another humanoid.”

Alfredo didn't seem to have anything to say to that-he believed in universal harmony, brotherhood, vegetarianism, peace, love and understanding. He didn't want to know about the war between crows and owls, let alone apes, or the way the crows mobbed the nests of lesser birds-sparrows, finches, juncos-to crush and devour the young. That had nothing to do with the world he lived in. “Heavy,” that's what he said finally. _Heavy.__

They bent to their work, the silence broken only by the persistent slice of the shovels, the tumult of the birds running off the edge of the sky until the pedestrian murmur of Drop City began to filter back in: the goats bleating to be milked or fed, the single sharp ringing note of a dog surprised by its own hunger, the regular slap of the screen door at the back of the house-and underneath it all, like the soundtrack to a movie, the dull hum of rock and roll leaking out the kitchen windows. “Listen, I really appreciate your doing this,” Alfredo said, pausing to straighten up and arch his back, the fine grains of dirt clinging to the flesh in a dense fur of sweat. “Taking the initiative, I mean. I know you've only been here like two weeks or whatever, but this is a trip, it really is-it's what we need more of around here.”

“Sure,” Marco said, “no problem,” and the shovel never stopped working. It felt good to be doing something, making something, putting his back to it till there was nothing left to clutter up his head. Drifting was fine. To a point. Lying up in a treehouse with a book, that was fine too. And dope. And women. And music. But right now, in this ditch, under this sun, it was the tug of the physical that mattered, only that.

“You know, I was at Thunder Mountain before this-me and Reba, that was before we had the kids. Or no, Che was like one or maybe a year and a half, I don't know. But mainly what happened was everybody just wanted to ball and do dope, which is okay, don't get me wrong, but it got to the point where nobody wanted to tend the garden or make the food. The chicks, I mean. Because they're the key to the whole thing. If the chicks don't have any energy and don't want to, you know, wash the dishes, sweep up, cook the meals, then you're in trouble, big time. There's nothing worse than having all the dishes piled up and the pots and pans all crusted and dirty, and then everybody milling around like what are we going to do about dinner, man, and that's where it all breaks down, believe me.”

Marco had no chance to respond, even if he'd wanted to, because when he looked up he saw Sky Dog sauntering across the lot with Lester and Franklin in tow. Or no, it wasn't Franklin-it was the other one, what was his name, Dewey, the war hero. They didn't say anything, didn't wave, didn't smile, just kept coming across the weed-strewn lot in a slow, sure amble, miniature explosions of dust riding up the heels of their boots. Alfredo looked up too, just as the three of them reached the far end of the ditch and stood there staring down like executioners. The phrase _Digging your own grave__ popped in and out of Marco's head. This wasn't going to be a happy occasion.

“Hey, Alfredo,” Sky Dog said, “I wanted to talk to you.”

Alfredo spread one palm flat at the top of the ditch and came up out of it then, wiping both hands on the bleached-out fabric of his jeans, trying for a grin. “Hey,” he said, as if he were happy to see him, “what's happening, man?” and he snaked out a hand for the soul shake that never came.

And what was Sky Dog? Five-ten, five-eleven maybe, a hundred seventy pounds, tanned till his skin was a sheath of gold, a single blue vein painted down the biceps of each arm, his eyes lighter than his face. He wore a Fu Manchu mustache that trailed a good three inches below the line of his jawbone. Usually he was in jeans and an embroidered blue jeans jacket with the sleeves removed at the shoulders, the humble hippie farmer adorned in humble hippie chic, but today he was a dude, dressed up in a paisley shirt and a silver scarf fed through a little gold hoop at his throat and a pair of elephant bells that swallowed up his feet. “I want to tell you I'm pissed off,” he said, and his face went the color of liver before it hits the pan, “because if you think you can just vote me out of here or whatever, you're crazy. And to send this fucker”-a gesture for Marco-“to be your errand boy because you don't got the balls-”

“Come on, Bruce, come on, you know I wouldn't do anything against you, me of all people”-Alfredo had his arms spread wide in renunciation-“but you've got to know we can't run the risk of the law coming in here, and whether you had anything to do with that girl or not, she could still go straight to the Sonoma County sheriff and say anything she wants, and we don't even know who she is or where she is-”

“Aw, fuck it, man, listen to you-you're nothing but a hypocrite. I mean, listen to yourself-_if you had anything to do with that girl.__ Yeah, I did. And so did Lester and Dewey and a couple of other guys-including that little shit, Pan, or whatever his name is. She was asking for it-no, she was begging for it, like let's get stoned and ball and get stoned and ball some more, and do you guys have any weed? — and I'm not apologizing to anybody. There isn't a cat on this property that wouldn't have done the same thing, am I right?”

Lester said he was right. Dewey said nothing, but his eyes were lying in wait.

Sky Dog-or Bruce, that was his name, _Bruce,__ and to know it was to know the shibboleth that would cut him down to size-let his voice ascend the scale into the upper register of complaint. “I've been here, what, eight, nine months? And you send this fucker here”-again a finger stabbed at Marco, down in his hole-“who's been here like a week to tell _me__ I got to go? Well, I'll tell you, I'm not going anywhere, not even if Norm himself comes knocking on the door, and you want to know why, I'll tell you why-”

That was when Marco stopped listening. He was thinking about a dog his uncle once had, a husky, one brown eye, one blue, the single wildest canine ever domesticated, like no other dog Marco had ever seen. It didn't want to chase a ball or do tricks or go for a ride in the car, it never fawned or licked your hand or begged at the table, and when it was thrust into the company of other dogs at the park or on the broad humped lawn out back of the school, it wouldn't budge, barely deigning to lift its leg or take the exculpatory sniff. But when it was pushed, when another dog crowded in too close with a ratcheting growl and a thrust of its shoulders, the thing erupted-no warning, just a pure fluid rush of violence so sudden and absolute you couldn't be sure you'd seen it. The other dog, no matter how big, wound up on its back, and his uncle's husky-_Lobo,__ that was his name-was locked at its throat.

Twice now, in the space of sixty seconds, Marco had been called a fucker to his face, and twice was two times too many. Before _Bruce__ could air the remainder of his grievance in his high nasal wallop of a voice that was absolutely pitched to the key and tenor of the blues-_and no doubt about it, the boy could sing__-Marco reached up and took hold of his left foot, right at the heel of his boot, and jerked it out from under him. In the next instant, Sky Dog came down hard on the edge of the ditch, and in the instant after that he was sputtering and thrashing at the bottom of it, and Marco, with all the calm deliberation in the world, watched his own right fist rise and fall like a piston as he bent to retool this particular _cat's__ features in the most unbrotherly way he could imagine.