• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The next morning while Vincent warmed up the car we hugged and kissed good-by. When they left I felt a huge sense of relief that Vincent and his move move move was finally gone gone gone and I hadn’t blown up at him. I was looking forward to Virginia’s return and dwelling on the promise of fresh love that was in our parting.

I had started to feel slightly nauseated when we first came down from the farm, but the morning Vincent and Virginia left, something was drastically wrong with my plumbing. The night before, Jack, our Vancouver friends, and I had gotten blown away on grass and developed a craving for ice cream. I went to the corner store and bought gallons of the stuff. I had a great time picking out flavors, staring at the carton, tasting it through the cardboard with my eyes. It took me quite a while and the man running the store was staring at me as hard as I was staring at the ice cream. In any event I ate an incredible amount of ice cream and the next morning my stomach was dead. It just stopped working. I gulped down air and burped it up to try to figure out what the problem was. What came up smelled like no burp I had ever smelled before or ever heard of. I just wasn’t processing anything. Things were just putrefying in there. I tried to bring my stomach back to life with yogurt, vitamins, and intestinal flora pills, but nothing seemed to work. I swore off ice cream forever.

After a few days Jack and I had done everything that was on our list and a few things that weren’t. We headed home.

We went to the bar at Lund for lunch and had a few beers and some fish and chips. I gulped down some air and burped it back up. The putrid taste was going away. Beer and greasy fish and chips were succeeding where yogurt and vitamins had failed. After a few beers I decided to give Barnstable a call, collect of course, doing my bit to defuse the new family fortune before it could hurt anyone.

The news wasn’t really news at all. I had expected it for quite a while. Dad had permanently moved out and had a new woman in New York. How fucking typical. I thought we were supposed to be a creative family. They assured me that they were fine and strong and I assured them that I was likewise. We all said love love love and hung up.

Jack and I spent the night with the people at Prior Road. It was a pleasant evening, talking about farming, food, money, changes we were going through, possible cooperative ventures, creating closer ties between all the hip communities in the area. I remember a tall red-haired girl playing classical guitar and an ex-medical student stitching up a goat’s ear. Jack and I passed around some dope and fresh cabbage—scarce items, much appreciated.

Then I lay back thinking about how everybody who came up to the farm usually spent a few days with the runs or stomach trouble. We guessed that maybe there was something in the water up there that some people’s systems couldn’t adjust to right away. But with me it was the other way. Every time I left the farm I seemed to get some sort of sickness. Maybe I had become addicted to something in the water or air up there and my stomach troubles when I left were withdrawal symptoms. I thought about Simon and how he talked about finding it harder and harder to function anywhere but the farm. The new life we were starting seemed to entail an unforeseen side effect, a fairly disturbing one: an inability to function in any other context.

I didn’t get very far thinking about all this. My mind kept getting caught up in the same circles round and round. Everyone else was sound asleep.

The next day Jack and I borrowed John Eastman’s boat, loaded into it the various goodies we had picked up in Vancouver, and headed up the lake. It was a nice clear day, the lake was smooth. My stomach felt almost normal.

Simon, Kathy, and Zeke gave us a joyous hugging welcome. There was still snow on the ground but it was melting away. It was only January but there was a definite hint of spring in the air.