There must be 500 or more kids here. Booths have been set up along the Loop to distribute arboreal information for eager young minds. I sample a few of them, and come away with pamphlets and fliers about careers in forestry, forest fire prevention (with some poor oaf dressed in a Smokey the Bear costume), invasive plant species, courses offered by the Botany Department, and preservation efforts in the Brazilian rain forest.
A few tubas and drums from the Ole Miss Marching Band are meandering through the crowd, playing (for some reason or other) “Camp Town Races,” pine saplings are being given away from the back of a panel truck parked by the Law School, and a speaker is on stage delivering a lecture about Mississippi hardwoods, while being soundly ignored by every living soul in the Grove here today.
The figure attracting the greatest attention, by far, turns out to be the Ranger, who’s choreographing a pack of maybe two dozen squirrels to climb the trunks of oaks, single-file, in spiral formations, all the way to the uppermost branches, where they then proceed to leap, one by one, through clear air to the tip of another tree, a dizzying gap of maybe 15 feet. Miraculously, all of them make it to the other side and descend, in a mirror single-file spiral back to the ground, where they gather around the Ranger, awaiting his next command.
The man’s battered cap sits brim-down on the ground beside him, but the kids don’t seem to be aware of its purpose. I dig in my pocket and find a wadded dollar bill, two nickels and a dime, which I drop in.
A few of the students follow my lead with spare change, but most begin to slink away from the scene, realizing that not all forms of entertainment today are free. And in any case, a new attraction has begun: The witches have arrived with drums and tambourines, and they’ve formed a circle beside my favorite zazen oak.
Raven Bright is already addressing the crowd by the time I reach the spot, talking about mother worship, Gaia, earth consciousness, and next Monday’s Beltane celebration in a farm field a few miles outside of town they’ve been invited to use.
It’s going to be an all-night festivity, starting with a bonfire lighting at sunset on Sunday and ending with the marriage of the May Queen to the King of the Forest at dusk Monday.
Everybody should come, she says. Run away from home, skip school, lie to your teachers and your parents.
By the time she’s stopped talking and begun leading her coven in the ceremonial dance, the teachers and the parents themselves have converged upon the scene, commanding their charges to back away, ordering them not to watch.
The kids aren’t listening to their elders, most standing around in stupefied adolescent wonder, but a few of the cooler ones rocking to the rhythm of the drums, sharing conspiratorial grins with the coven and with one another. They seem to think this is college. This is cool. This is life.
I spot Drs. Goodleigh and Stevens on the edge of the circle, and make my way over to sidle by them.
“Gives you some hope for the future,” Stevens says. “They’re certainly more open than most of our own students.”
I have to disagree. “They’ve just been caught off-balance. For all they know, this sort of thing happens here every day.”
“Doesn’t it?” Goodleigh replies. “I’m starting to wonder.”
~ ~ ~
Saturday, April 29
Morning. Sounds of heavy equipment in the ravine. I wake, sit up, crawl across the bed to my little window, and look out to find a backhoe digging a pit in a clearing it’s made through the brush.
Blake and Joan sleep on in the back bedroom, apparently undisturbed by the ruckus outside. Blake’s been without alcohol since the night after his return from New Orleans, and is following a regular schedule Joan designed for him that includes ten hours a day writing the dissertation, in two-hour increments interrupted for meals, walks, errands in town, music, and, if he’s been good, sex. Lights out by midnight, eight hours sleep in his actual bed, and then back to work in the morning.
I put a saucepan of water on the stove for my cup of Tasters Choice, pull on a shirt and a pair of shoes, and step out into an early morning with a dew point so high that my breath fogs as I climb the hill to join Mr. Duck and Septic System Man around the corpse of yet another dead cow.
“For those of you keeping score at home,” Duck says to me, “this makes five since the end of summer.”
“I’d say this dead cow business has officially become redundant,” Septic System Man adds.
“Any time I choose, I could be somewhere else entirely,” Duck comments. “Leave all the dead creatures here you want – wouldn’t be my problem anymore.”
“You’re thinking to leave Oxford?” I ask.
“Damn fool is planning to set out after the Guru Maharaj,” Septic System Man answers.
“Who’s that?”
“Just some fat boy from India.”
“Satguru of the Divya Sandesh Parishad, if you don’t mind,” Duck replies. “Lots of folks are saying he’s an incarnation of the divine. Don’t bother to comment on spiritual matters you lack the capacity for understanding.”
“That true? You’re thinking about moving to India?”
Duck shoots me a scowl. “Hell no. Why would I do that? I’m moving to Colorado. New mission outside of Denver.”
“What about the trailer park?” I ask. “What happens to us?”
“An investor has expressed an interest ns purchasing it. Made a very generous offer.”
“Investor,” Septic System Man scoffs. “What’s here to invest in? Seven rusted trailers on a 30-degree grade of fallow ground on the edge of the world.”
“I didn’t claim it made any sense,” Duck says. “Only that somebody’s really eager to acquire this property. And before you ask, I don’t know who it is. Wishes to remain anonymous. I’ve only spoken with his agent.” Duck takes a final draw of his Marlboro, tosses the butt on the ground and stomps it out. “Now, if you boys are done chatting, why don’t you grab a hoof each? This cow ain’t gonna bury itself, and if we wait much longer the Widow’s gonna wake up and want to pray over it.”
~ ~ ~
Sunday, April 30
Vicky the Tupperware saleswoman is behind the register at Leslie’s Drugs when I stop in to inquire about the crowd of well-dressed old people boarding tour buses on the Square this afternoon.
“Today’s the Pilgrimage,” she informs me.
“I keep hearing that word,” I say, “but what in the hell’s the Pilgrimage?”
She blinks at me. “You’re talking like some kind of stranger to this town. The Pilgrimage of Homes, honey. You know, the day when all those old houses are opened for tours – the L.Q.C. Lamar House, Rowan Oak, Cedar Oaks, all those big homes along North Lamar.”
“Good lord. Where’s the attraction in that?”
“I don’t understand it myself,” Vicky admits. “But people come all the way up from Jackson and down from as far away as Nashville to see it. I reckon folks just get bored on Sundays, likely because of all the blue laws.”
I follow the buses and the foot traffic up North Lamar. Every third house seems to have a queue of tourists in its front yard, along with signs on the walks announcing picturesque names of each place – Widow’s Lookout, Primrose Park, Lafayette Abbey, Charterhouse.
Pairs of Southern belles dressed in antebellum gowns and holding baskets of flowers flank each gate, welcoming guests and checking tickets. Sorority chicks, all, offering a feast of décolletage in satin, brocade and lace. I pass along the sidewalk, smiling at everyone, and am met with glances askance – clearly, the odd hippie out in this highbrow company – until, unexpectedly, someone calls me by name.
I wheel about to discover Rose stationed at the gate of Lafayette Abbey, dressed in a scarlet ball gown with a plunging neckline. She curtsies to me. I respond with my most humble and gentlemanly bow, regretting that I have no hat to doff in courtesy.
“Pahdon me, young lady,” I say, “but ah I could not help observin’ that your epidermis is showin’.”
“I feel like a clown in this outfit,” she says under her breath as I step beside her. “But I couldn’t say no to $50 for an afternoon’s work.”
She gives me a map of the open houses all around town – two of them on Tyler Avenue – and then advises me to be off, because I’m starting to attract attention.
She thwacks the back of my head with her fan as I turn to leave. “Skeedaddle, ragamuffin!” she shouts, to the delight of the crowd.
The Square seems to be even more congested on my return trip. Van Buren, though, is strangely empty, except for Old Jeff, who’s out front of the Lyric pasting up a movie poster to the billboard for a new Clint Eastwood flick that looks interesting. “Play Misty For Me. – The Scream You Hear May Be Your Own.” More buses on Taylor Avenue, though, idling by the curb, scenting the air with diesel exhaust.
I pass one crowd at a house called, for the day, Parson’s Walk, and another naming itself The Manse. And then I arrive at a third, not on the map but clearly drawing quite an audience.
The sign out front announces that this is Buzzard’s Roost. I know it better as our old commune, and I recognize the southern belles on the sidewalk as two of Garrett’s partners during our Earth Day heist, now wearing the gowns I helped them steal.
In their wigs, makeup and padding, they make fairly passable young women, so much so that the tourists seem not to be able to identify what, exactly, is wrong with these strange belles, though they strongly sense that something’s amiss.
I join the queue that’s waiting on the sidewalk. Inside, we’re greeted by an actual southern belle – Cindy, looking radiant – who ushers us into the parlor. A full-sized Confederate flag has been draped from the head of the stairway, for one authentic touch, but Jimi Hendrix is blasting from stereo speakers, and the place is decorated in beanbag chairs, lava lamps, beaded curtains and day-glow posters.
The batch of new guests I’ve entered with have just begun to take it all in, with little mutters of “Oh, my” and “How odd” and “Have you ever” when Garrett strides into the room. He’s dressed as a Confederate officer – a colonel, I’d imagine – and is carrying a stirrup cup with a handful of mint peeking over the brim. And a bullwhip.
“Welcome to Buzzard’s Nest,” he begins. “Mah ancestral home. Constructed in 1831 by my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, the honorable Augustus T. Wanker the Fourth, who arrived when this land was still wilderness to establish an outpost of civilization.
“Now, ya’ll,” he continues, “are welcome to look about the house and the grounds, but bear in mind as you do that although this is my ancestral home, not a single Wanker has passed a single night under this roof since 1862, following its desecration at the hands of Yankee soldiers.”
This news is met with a little gasp and murmurs of condolence from the group.
“General Grant – may he rot in Hell – bivouacked some junior officers here followin’ the glorious Battle of Oxford. Reports at the time claimed – and I apologize in advance if any of this language offends the ladies present – reports claimed that those Yankees ambulated all about the house, dormiated in the upstairs bedrooms, and masticated in the dining room. Yes, I know, it’s shockin’ to contemplate the level of depravity of northern savages.”
Cindy interrupts him with a request. “Colonel, our guests might like to know something about the furnishins’ in this here room.”
“Well, General Grant stole all the original furnishins’ – nothin’ but a craven, drunken thief. For the past century, mah family’s rented our home to various tenants, who generally provide their own furnishins’. As you’ve probably ascertained by now, the current residents are a bunch of no-count hippies. Let me tell you, if there’s anything in this world as noxious as a Yankee, it’s a hippie. Why look, here’s one now.”
This must be Andrew’s cue to enter the room, and he does, wearing a Beatles wig, a pair of frayed bellbottoms and a tie-dyed t-shirt. Garrett releases the bullwhip, letting the thong, fall and popper drop to the floor, while he tightens his grip on the handle.
“You there!” he shouts as Andrew halts mid-step, directing a look of terror at us. “Ah told you hippies to stay away from the house during the Pilgrimage! Damnation! If you can’t obey mah rules, you must face mah wrath!”
Garrett lifts the whip above his head, preparing to strike. Andrew falls to his knees, hands lifted in supplication. “Don’t beat me, Colonel! Have mercy!”
Garrett is swinging the whip now, in faster and faster circles. The visitors have started making a retreat for the kitchen door.
Cindy leaps forward and seizes Garrett’s arm. “Colonel, no! Don’t you remember what happened the last time?”
“What in the fuck is going on here?” a new arrival – someone we hadn’t notice entering the house in the middle of this tragic scene – demands of us.
Cindy gasps upon seeing him. Garrett drops the whip in surprise. Andrew rises from his knees with a silly grin and an outstretched hand to greet an old friend.
Here before us stands our own prodigal son – James – out of jail and home at last.
Part 9. The Bridge
May 1- June 1, 1972
Monday, May 1
I’ve just stepped out of Bondurant Hall after closing the Museum for the night when I spot Garrett’s bus coming toward me along Magnolia Avenue.
Garrett’s not in it, but Andrew’s at the wheel, with Cindy in the passengers seat, and Nick, Suzie and Clamor in the back.
“Get in. We’re headed to the Beltane ceremony,” Cindy calls.
“You know where it’s being held?” I ask as I climb aboard.
“Not exactly. But we’ve got directions.”
The directions are written out in pencil across a sheet of loose leaf note paper balled up in the left pocket of Cindy’s amazingly tight jeans. Halter top season has apparently returned. I’m sorely tempted to lean over the front seat and lick one of her bare shoulders.
Suzie and Nick give me news of the pregnancy. They’ve moved to a bigger place, two bedrooms this time, one for the nursery that Suzie’s already furnished in her head, expecting to have some actual furniture to put in it after the baby shower.
“Next weekend,” Clamor adds. “You’re invited. All you boys are invited. No sexual discrimination here, so long as ya’ll bring shit for the baby.”
Andrew and Cindy are haggling over the directions – Cindy leading him down blind corners to incorrect intersections, Andrew snatching the directions from her in an attempt to correct her navigation errors, Cindy complaining that he’s driving on the wrong side of the road (“Get on the right! This isn’t England!”), Andrew flinging us all about with sudden stops and hairpin turns around roads that seem to get narrower and more rustic with every passing quarter mile.
I’m not paying much attention, until we pass my trailer on the right. “The place we’re looking for,” I call to the front seat, “What’s it called?”
“Happy Valley,” Cindy calls back.
“Tenth of a mile,” I tell Andrew, “a left at the mailboxes.”
A few minutes later, we’re there. But we’ve missed the ceremonies. Maybe a dozen people are left, milling about the ashes of what must have been a once-considerable bonfire, but enough litter lies spread about the field to suggest a much larger crowd, now departed.
“You’re too late,” Dottie Carroll says, pulling a ten-gallon cooler on wheels behind her up the slope toward the road. “Wedding’s over.”
“Wedding?”
“May Queen to the Green Man. It was beautiful.”
Suddenly, the Widow is standing beside me. “Weddings always make me cry,” she says, shotgun slung over her shoulder. “Ya’ll best leave before dark and the dogs. I’ve got beer at my trailer.”
I decide to do one better. “I’ve got Jack Daniels at mine.”
“Your trailer it is, then.”
The trailer park is dark when we arrive. We straggle down the hill single-file, with the Widow a
t the rear, performing guard duty. The wood of the old milk crate Blake and I use as a doorstep creaks and threatens to collapse under each guest as they make their entrance. When I flip the light switch, half a dozen mice scuttle across the floor for cover, darting between the feet of the assembled – and somewhat startled – visitors.
Flop, lying in her customary spot in the center of the room, wakes, casts one slitted eye in our direction, grunts, and farts.
Cindy is the first to express her concern. “Oh, god, people actually live like this?”
“Mr. Duck’s trailer park,” the Widow Woman allows, “is not, in general, well regarded for its accomplishments in interior design or hygiene. But even by our admittedly low standards, these boys are a disgrace.”
Nick has already begun to draw Suzie back through the open doorway, no doubt fearful that the sheer squalor of the place might trigger premature labor.
“None of you have been to visit me here,” I suddenly realize.
“You never invited us,” Andrew says. “Now we know why.”
“Grab the bottle and we’ll drink at my place,” the Widow suggests.
Everyone seems happy to leave.
~ ~ ~
Tuesday, May 2
Becky pokes her head in to say hello on her way out of Dr. Goodleigh’s office. I’ve been at my little table in the Museum for upwards of half an hour, trying to subdue my curiosity over her repeated visits.
“Sixteen days till the hearing,” she reminds me. “Can’t wait.”
“Be there, or be a toady to the Lyceum,” I add.
Goodleigh has typing that needs to be finished this morning, so I have an excuse for entering the office a few minutes later.
“A gift?” I ask, spotting a pink candle in a new porcelain holder with Japanese-style design of cherry blossoms on graceful brown branches.
“A little girlie for my tastes,” Dr. Goodleigh admits, lifting it for a closer examination. “But she thought I’d like it.”
“You two are getting pretty thick,” I remark.
Goodleigh leans back in her rocker to regard me. She’s wearing her leather vest with the fringe today, her IUD earrings, and a lemon-yellow scarf tying her hair back into a ponytail. “If this is your way of pumping me for information about that girl, you should already have faced the fact that you’re not getting any. If you want to get close to her, don’t bother trying to go through me. Just ask her out.”