Chapter 14

Everything went smoothly at the beginning of our adventure until the young poet. The old flapper rose with us and fixed breakfast, making a plate for the poet. We had said our goodbyes the night before to Mother and Grandmother, but Grandmother awoke before we left and hugged her lover and me. She remained as quietly emotional as mother and I. It must run in the family.

Banging on the poet's door finally got him awake. His grumbles and not unlocking his door made me think about busting it down. Finally he opened it. "I'm not going. I've got a date. Give me some money," he said.

"You're breaking your date. Get dressed," I said, searching for clean clothes and throwing dirty ones into a duffel bag. He dressed slowly and went to bed. "Get up you lazy faggot," I grumbled. His eyes shot open, hating me. "I'll be the first one in the fire when they burn the saints," he said and smiled mystically. I shook my head. He stuffed his writings, blank books and a sheaf of paper, into his soft leather shoulder bag, his one proud possession, and we headed out of the City. Looking ill, we let him sit with the ranger up front. The ranger must have been uncomfortable. "I don't bite much," said the poet. "Can we make a stop?"

"No," said the Amazon. He hadn't brought his works anyway.

We crossed under the Hudson via the Lincoln Tunnel. "My hometown," mumbled the ranger when we emerged in Union City.

"Do you want to visit your old house?" asked the Amazon.

"They probably razed it. I don't care," said the ranger.

We headed west, than north relieved to leave the urban sprawl. Driving slower and finding every bump in the road found recompense in beauty and fresh air. We stopped several times at creeks and meadows. None of us minded. None of us knew our destination. On the edge of meadows at the tree line, the young poet searched for a plant whose roots contained an esoteric curative. Anywhere of the slightest interest the ranger jotted a quick map and wrote its benefits and problems. Fried chicken, coleslaw and potato salad whipped up by the old flapper provided our picnic. The sun descending behind the Catskills put us in shadows.

Reentering New York State and finding civilization, we ended up at West Point Army Academy. "My dad's alma mater," said the ranger. His father had been a major in the first war. Hotels and restaurants emerged out of the sea of green. We checked into a hotel. We rented three rooms. The Amazon, my sister and I stayed in their biggest room while the ranger and the young poet had their own. After dinner we strolled through the Academy grounds and thoughts of military school flitted through my brain. Images of the stiff, kindhearted general parading as a young plebe made me smile.

Gathering in my room, hunkering over the maps and notes, all of us except the young poet discussed what we'd seen so far. He remained in bed looking pallid and nursing a bottle of bourbon like a child. In the end we decided to keep looking. We talked about staying awhile for the poet, but he insisted fresh air did him a world of good.

We decided that the next morning we'd create a pallet as soft as we could make it and purchase a sleeping bag and have him ride in the bed of the truck. "We should buy the whole kit and caboodle," said the ranger. "We need a tent or two and sleeping bags."

Kicking the poet out of our bed once our meeting ended the ranger took control of him. He ended up staying up most of the night with the suffering poet, telling him stories of the woods. The poet listened as fascinated as he could be and the ranger found the poet's questions brilliant routes into stories he hadn't thought about in ages. In other words, they bonded.

The women and I bonded as well physically. Feeling my own discomfort from lack of drugs, a couple pulls off of the poet's bottle and the gentle ministrations of my lovers did wonders. After teaming up on me, we teamed up on the Amazon. The night ended with me fucking my sister doggy style while she dug into the Amazon's pussy with tongue and fingers, bringing us satisfying conclusions. Except for the last fuck and my second orgasm, we kept it slow and quiet. Walls were thin. The squealing bed when I abandoned myself to the frenzy of the moment thrusting furiously into my sister for a couple minutes created the biggest noise. It was late. Thankfully no one complained.

Breakfast done, we headed to the Army surplus store on the edge of town and let the ranger choose. We bought the narrowest mattress we could find for the young poet at another store. The truck bed got full. Lastly we stopped at a Laundromat and washed all the poet's clothes except what he needed to wear to not be naked. I kept company with the ranger as he drove, the girls joining the poet in the back.

We headed north and had an actual destination. The Amazon's mentor, the journeyman carpenter told her about a community called Woodstock with a history of commune experiments during the previous century and artisans moving there recently to create various things such as textiles and pottery and carving and musical instruments and jewelry.

We found it interesting and looked at clapboard houses to buy, large and well built, with significant acreage surrounding them. The community consisted mainly of refugees from the City like us. They were industrious and like minded and free thinking. A school being built with plans for experimental education that my daughter could enroll in in a few years encouraged living there. Past the edge of town we found a field to plant our stakes and camp for a couple days.

The ranger was the most disappointed. Aesthetically it could have been better. Farmland surrounded the town. He hoped for more woods.

My misgivings came from the residents. I found them too like minded for my taste and though free thinking, a rift of character or attitude could spell disaster in a small town. Though nice, the community aspect bothered me. I sensed a lack of welcome for my pretty, soft face and my clothing which continued to be the highest fashion in leisure. I couldn't help looking my best. The Amazon in flannel and jeans and army boots, my sister being irresistibly cute and the rugged ranger fit in. The wild haired and wild eyed and decrepitly clothed and facially and bodily suffering poet presented a City sinner to be saved by the rural artisans. I looked irredeemable.

Of all the problems, the ranger's proved the easiest solved. When we headed north we entered beautiful woods filled with babbling creeks. His contentedness when we hiked was palpable.

We stopped in Albany to stay for a night and discuss. My misgivings couldn't be rectified despite the Amazon's relentless seduction. I certainly didn't mind her attempt, though our neighbors might have.

We headed south from Albany along the eastern side of the Hudson River, the land of old money mansions. We found one open for the public to see how the other half lived, the capitalist barons and baronesses and their vast estates from a past century. I dreamt of plantations instead of gaudy gardens growing sustenance instead of tobacco and cotton, lorded over by an enlightened dictator, my little Republic. The family of the old flapper's ex-husband could have almost afforded it early in the century. When I told her my fantasy later, it amused her. "Too much work," she said. "I have my castle in Montauk already."

Arriving in Germantown, a small, poor town of which there had been more than a few, the area seemed destined for destitution having little employment possibilities, the sun set. We sat beside a small river draining into the vast Hudson and watched. I fell in love. The Hudson School of artists had painted majestic romantic visions of tall soft mountains and shafts of heavenly light or sunsets such as the one we witnessed from or near where we sat. Once the rows of clouds looking like fiery breast bones across the sky faded to gray against a blackening deep maroon, I wandered the town.

The sparse residents glanced unwelcomingly at me and my odd group. Somehow it didn't bother me. We were strangers.

On the other side of town we discovered a large boarded up house, not nearly as well built as the houses in Woodstock, and across a dusty, pockmarked road, the tar paving losing itself to the earth, a pasture lined by woods dipping steeply towards the great river.

"Could we camp here?" I asked the ranger.

"Don't see why not," the ranger replied.

"What about a fire?" asked the Amazon.

"That might be a problem. Maybe there's some campground. I'll see if anyplace is open."

We stopped at a bar off of Highway 9. No one knew about campgrounds but suggested an inn nearby.

We found the Annandale Inn a couple miles down the road, a charming old clapboard building with a bar and restaurant and some small rooms above. In the bar area a fireplace remained cold because it was summer. We asked if it could be lit, offering to pay extra. The barkeep saw the ragged condition of the poet and agreed. Sitting by its warmth, sipping chicken noodle soup and two shots of bourbon, shivering despite the fire, the poet distracted himself with talk.

"I wish it was a campfire. It does wonders for the imagination. I'll imagine it here. I feel like shit, but I'm thankful. The cure is worse than the disease. A kingdom for some dope, to paraphrase the bard."

"How appropriate," said the nosy barkeep. The place was slow.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"You know, Bard, Bard College."

"What's Bard College?" asked my sister.

"It's just down the road," said the barkeeper.

"You didn't notice the signs?" asked the young poet. We shook our heads. "A great poet teaches here." We didn't recognize the name. Princess would. She probably knew him. "He's too academic for me, too much influenced by the crazy fascist Pound. But it's good for a professor. Uses Greek and Latin in his poems. It's a good literature school."

"I've heard it's great in pretty much every subject," said the barkeep.

"What subjects are those?" I asked.

"You know liberal arts."

"Art?" asked my sister.

"Yeah, and sciences."

"They teach painting?" asked my sister.

"I would think so. And drama and music and dance."

"Film?" I asked.

"I don't know. Probably."

"So you miss the students?" asked the young poet.

"Yeah. Summer school just ended. We got some regulars," the barkeep gestured towards a couple stools occupied by alcoholics. "But the students keep this place alive." He left us to take the order of a professorial gentleman. The young poet nudged me and asked me to invite the gentleman over.

After introductions, the professor taught mathematics but didn't look it, he looked too cool, he asked about the young poet's health.

"No I'm not well, but I will be," said the poet. He asked about the great poet.

"He lives across the traffic circle, him and his wife. It's a nice house. The wife throws parties when one of his comrades comes here for a reading or recital. Last year we had a novelist teach and he stayed with them. It's a big house."

"I wish I felt up to visiting," said the young poet. "I admire his work."

"It's late anyway. He can be a bit standoffish but his wife is gracious. You could visit tomorrow," said the professor.

"Could you point out the house?" I asked. He and I went outside and he pointed at a big house.

"Shouldn't he be in a hospital? What's wrong with him?" asked the math professor.

"I can't say," I said. Not feeling great myself, I resembled an Olympic athlete compared to our ailing poet. Mostly I felt unnerved and uncomfortable in my skin.

"You mean you won't," said the professor. I nodded. "I guess it's none of my business. You sure he'll be alright?" I nodded.

"Do you know anything about real estate around here?" I asked.

"Not really. Why?"

"I was in Germantown. We're looking for a place, a workshop. The big girl is a carpenter and the cute one is an artist. I'm a writer and make film and, well, I want to farm." He didn't laugh, but he probably would have if he knew me better. He looked incredulous. "There's a pasture with woods that drop off to the river and a boarded house across the way."

"I know what you're talking about. There's a path leading from campus to near that spot."

"You wouldn't know who owns the land?"

"It might be Bard property," said the professor. "We own the rights to a lot of the land in that direction. I don't know if it extends that far. What kind of farming are you talking about?"

"Natural farming without the poisons for subsistence and to maybe sell in a farmer's market or a place that specializes in healthy food. I want to build a hutch for chickens and have some grazing space for a goat."

"I don't know about the zoning. You should probably talk to officials at the county seat. I think it's in Red Hook. If you want to find out about school property, you should go to the President's office. Have you seen the campus?" I shook my head. "It's nice. It's a good school. Are you planning on going to college?"

"I hadn't thought about it," I said. "Do they teach film here?"

"I heard we're thinking about it. I'd love to show you around, but it's late and my wife is hungry. Pregnancy will do that."

I nodded and smiled, remembering the old flapper fattening up. "Congratulations," I said.

His sandwiches had been ready for a couple minutes. I apologized for delaying his wife's satiation. "I enjoyed the talk. Maybe I'll see you around."

"See you," I said, joining my odd group.

"Was it hard to point out?" asked the poet.

"We talked," I said.

"Tell him about your friends," said my sister.

"Yeah, okay," said the young poet. "It was the subject of the evening and keeps getting interrupted." He scowled gently at the barkeep who shrugged and zipped his lip. "Remember I said I had a date when you got me out of bed to go on our little adventure?" I nodded. "I wasn't bullshitting. I met this man. He ... wanders in the same circles as me, you know. He's quite a character, a southerner from Missouri, a great storyteller, probably makes up half of it. Anyway he told me about this group of poets at Columbia. Like him most of them don't attend. There's a young man who does. He's like the fulcrum. Like the princess, his dad is a noted poet." I didn't recognize the name. I began to understand the frustration of people like the princess, her father and the young poet. Most great writers remained by and large unknown. "Yeah, so this Jewish kid, he's pudgy, too poor to be fat, but has the potential, black curly hair and glasses, either nondescript or funny looking, but he's got that impossible to figure thing called charisma. Poets are drawn to him. He and many of his group have the same views sexually as me."

"A made to order harem," I said.

He laughed. "Fuck you, but, well, yeah, maybe. I'm going to have to get a lot prettier than I am now."

"We're working on it," said the ranger surprisingly. Their friendship kept growing.

"I appreciate that," said the young poet. He looked sternly at the barkeep. "Do you get my bent?" he asked.

"You should see some of the prancing dance queens," said the barkeep.

"I'd love to," said the young poet. Laughter caused a cough.

"Another bowl of soup?" asked the barkeep.

"The last one wants a quick exit," said the young poet. The barkeep pointed to the nearby toilet. The young poet removed the West Point blanket and refused assistance and staggered to it.

"Thanks," said the Amazon to the barkeep.

"Your young friend looks like he could use a drink," said the barkeep. "What's your poison, kid?" I had been drinking tonics with lime. He must have figured I was underage, but felt safe.

"A couple shots of brandy would be nice," I said.

He poured Courvoisier VSOP. I didn't complain. It didn't cost us more. And he already earned one of the bigger tips if not the biggest of his career.

When the young poet returned looking slightly better, he resumed, sipping a new bowl of soup. "So these guys at Columbia, I was thinking about joining their clique, maybe dragging the princess along. There's something new going on with them. And maybe I could get them to come up to the country. If I meet the great poet, maybe they could meet him too, but mostly so we could go roughing it. Maybe the park ranger could show them some sights, go camping, a little nature for the City boys."

"That's a lot of ifs," I said. He shrugged. "But what about your southern gentleman? Doesn't he constitute a potential threat to your well being?"

"Give me a month. I don't want to go through this shit again."

I had an inkling of empathy. Magnifying the way I felt ten times approximated his condition I figured. I shivered at the possibility.

"We should head up," said the Amazon. The barkeep gave her the bill. She gave him a fifty. "Keep the change," she said. Opening the bill to let her see the denomination, he asked if she knew it. She smiled and nodded. "Thanks," she said. The speechless barkeep nodded and smiled. Our motley crew headed for bed.

As usual the girls and I had the largest room, still pretty small. I thought about getting another. The girls had a cot brought up instead, filling it. Once we relaxed, I shared the bed with my sister while the Amazon made do with the cot, I asked, "Who's going to be the face?"

"What do you mean?" asked the Amazon.

"I mean would any of us be taken seriously?"

"Money talks," said the Amazon. Her father staked us for initial costs, a graduation present he had promised, and the old flapper planned to help out for whatever time we needed before becoming self sustaining.