Trip Wire_ A Cook County Mystery - Charlotte Carter [9]
Annabeth Riegel, the rich girl, had once wanted to be an archaeologist. But she had dropped out, like Wilton and Taylor. Now she was taking acting classes several nights a week, hoping someday she’d be accepted at the Goodman Theatre.
The one commune member not in residence that night was Barry Mayhew. Not much was said about him. In fact, there was a bit of eye-rolling at the mention of his name. But I did get the sense that his contribution to communal life was a vital one, and that it was chemical in nature.
Between the cream of celery soup that started the meal and the berry pie that ended it, I heard enough of the bits and pieces of everybody’s story to kind of fit together how these people had ended up together:
Annabeth needed a head shot of herself and hired Dan Zuni, who was a gifted photographer.
Cliff arrived in town too late to get a room in the dorm, so he posted a notice at the Food Coop, where Mia just happened to be looking at a “couch for sale” sign at the same moment.
Taylor and Annabeth met at a party, got to talking about movies. He was looking for a place to live, he said. By the end of the week, he had moved in.
Wilton and Mia, strangers, were both at the 3 Penny Cinema the night it ran the underground favorite Chafed Elbows. He found the mitten she’d dropped under his seat. Their eyes met. After the movie, over bancha tea at the local health food café, they pledged their lives to each other.
One friend, one lover, one life folding into another. The freak network, as Wilton called it. “We always manage to find each other,” he said. “Soon as I met Cassandra, I knew she was one of us.”
After supper, Mia went off to her meditation class. I joined the others at a dingy club on Wells Street for a rare appearance by Otis Spann. We drank barrels of cheap red wine, and when the last set was over we hiked to the lot where Dan Zuni kept his wreck of a car, toking up all the way. Dan was going to drive me home, so everybody piled in and went along for the trip to Hyde Park. When Dan pulled into the driveway of the building where I lived with Uncle Woody and Aunt Ivy, I didn’t want to get out of the car. I finally did, though, and waved good-bye to them all.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I was too happy. Around three in the morning, I switched on the radio. That was sufficient to bring me down. Death toll for the week so far: 112. The figure sat in my mind. I began to picture them. One hundred and twelve dead American boys laid end to end. Missing limbs. Stomachs blown open. Some headless. Meat. And then there was all that enemy meat, the barefoot peasants who were kicking our ass.
I lit a cigarette, got out of bed, and walked over to the window. I searched the night for the house where Wilton’s parents lived. Maybe I’d meet them some day. Maybe they’d like me and I’d be the one to broker a reconciliation between them and Wilt.
We talked about Vietnam a lot, Wilton and I. I estimated a good 50 percent of the boys from the poor school I’d attended in my grandmother’s neighborhood wound up in ’Nam. Wilton figured nobody from his class at Francis Parker was there. But this brother he knew, Alvin, had been there. Alvin was outtasight. He was a real black man.
“I’m glad I’m not a man,” I whispered to him. The two of us were at a teach-in, listening to this legless vet speak about the war.
“Me too,” he said, and took my hand. “I’m glad you not a man, too.”
3
You can’t fall apart. That’s what I kept thinking as I watched the cops move in and out of our rooms.
Beth and Clea had not loved Wilt like I had. But they were falling apart. Useless. So I had to take a hand in things. I had to call the ambulance for Mr. Fish. I had to call the police for Mia and Wilt. I had to find the phone number of the laundromat and summon Taylor and Cliff back to the house.
My cool-cucumber act must have been working. Like the uniformed cops who first showed up,