The Eden Express_ A Memoir of Insanity - Mark Vonnegut [24]
Fifty pounds of dried milk, thirty pounds of honey, fifty pounds of brown rice, twenty-five pounds of corn meal, pots and pans, the chain saw, some gasoline and an instruction booklet, lots of different kinds of flour, assorted vegetables, fishing stuff, axes, hatchets, machetes, a crowbar, hand saws, hammers. Millions of kitchen matches, sleeping bags, assorted clothes, buckets, plastic dishpans, a dish rack, twenty pounds of detergent, knives, forks, spoons, mugs, plates, bowls, a four-man tent, two tarps, fifty pounds of common nails, a book on carpentry, a few on gardening. Stalking the Wild Asparagus, The Whole Earth Catalogue, lots of novels and other books, some first-aid supplies and a book on that, a typewriter, my tenor saxophone, a beatup guitar, towels, mosquito netting, a wrist-rocket slingshot, twenty-five pounds of soybeans, fifteen pounds of lentils, two pounds of butter, four pounds of margarine and four of lard, ten pounds of assorted cheese, four gallons of soy oil, four of corn oil, four of peanut oil, everything Adelle Davis ever wrote, fifty pounds of dog food, several kerosene lanterns, five gallons of kerosene, thirty pounds of peanut butter, and miscellaneous. The boats were overloaded, with maybe half a foot of freeboard.
The boats. We had Blue Marcel and John Eastman’s boat. John was a local we had met at the marina who was to be one of our protecting angels. Moldy had consented to run a little that day, so she pushed John’s boat up the lake in her own leisurely way while Dick spun circles around her all the way up.
Had we forgotten anything? Well, if we had we could pick it up the next time we were in town. Who knew what the hell we’d need up there anyway? We had taken the big step. The others would become clear as we went along, just like all the other steps in this long, strange journey.
One step at a time, one foot in front of the other, has worked just fine so far. No percentage in changing our mode of operation now. It seems an awful lot like someone or something is doing a first-rate job of taking care of us. This whole project is a little nutsy—I mean, if you had told me a few years back. But look at the breaks we’ve gotten. Something or someone must have something in mind for us. Why fuck it up with overplanning? I think maybe whatever or whoever doesn’t care much for planners, or maybe it’s just that it finds them hard to cheer up. Whatever-whoever seems to need a little slack to work with. Well, we’ll make damn sure it has plenty of that.
In late August ’70 the farm became our home.
OUR NEW HOME AND FAMILY. Jack and Kathy signed on shortly after we got there. They were often referred to as the little people. Kathy was five feet tall at most and Jack hit maybe five-three. They had both lived in the same house I did my last two years at Swarthmore, but I still can’t say I knew them very well. They were good friends of Simon’s. Both were borderline blondes with blue eyes, but Jack with his scraggly beard was considerably more scruffy looking.
Kathy had a Wisconsin-farm-girl wholesomeness that years of heroin addiction wouldn’t have put much of a dent in. She had cheer-leader good looks and a soft Rubensesque femininity that contrasted sharply with Virginia’s tallness and spare lines. If you were to pick out someone at the farm to call normal, it would be Kathy.
Jack was generally quiet, but it was a strong rather than a shy quietness. He was into Zen and mountain climbing but in a very nonflaky way. If there was anyone at the farm with feet firmly on the ground, it was Jack. He had a much more tangible reason for being there than the rest of us, too. He was our official draft dodger. Kathy and he had been together since their freshman year.
Sarah and Beowulf were the next additions to our motley crew. More blue-eyed blondes. Sarah