South Village

by Rob Hart

  No flashlight. That’s bad enough.

  But my copy of The Monkey Wrench Gang is gone. So is the whiskey. The open bottle flung from my hand, the contents no doubt spilled into the earth.

  I don’t know which of these things is worse.

  The rope lights running along the roof of the bus cast everything in a sickly blue glow. Before my light option gets downgraded to candles, I need to make sure the cut on my head isn’t too bad, because blood is now dripping into my left eye. I pull out a shaving mirror and get close to the light. It’s small, near my hairline. Not so deep it’ll need stitches.

  There’s a first aid kit on the dash, next to the steering wheel. I get that, open it up, pull out some medicated wipes to clean it out, then use adhesive strips to close it. A few minutes and a few stings later, I’ve got it situated.

  I sit on my cot. Consider heading straight back for camp to confront Marx, who I’m going to assume jumped me and took the book. But if I do that I’m definitely going to beat him until his face looks like hamburger meat, and that’s not productive for anyone. I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold even though it’s warm and a little humid. I don’t have that security blanket of booze and it’s not a nice feeling. I try not to think too hard about it.

  Focus on the task at hand. The things I know.

  Pete dies. Pete has a secret code. I find the book that’s probably maybe the key to the secret code, and someone attacks me and takes it. Means whatever he’s planning, he wasn’t alone. Given Marx and his dumb fucking outburst, safe bet on at least him being a part of it.

  Next: The FBI, or at least we think it’s the FBI, comes storming in here, fucks up our shit, takes a bunch of stuff, quizzes us on militant environmentalists. Maybe Pete was with said militant environmentalists. Marx too. Clearly Marx didn’t give up anything during the interrogation, though it’s a little weird they didn’t keep him, and that they sent us back like nothing happened.

  Maybe they weren’t looking to do anything but scare us. It was all theatrics, meant to let us know they were on to the Soldiers of Gaia, and they were not fucking around. A little shock and awe to keep the hippies docile.

  Okay. Next.

  And…

  Fuck, I need a drink.

  There’s nothing outside but a huge swath of darkness, and questions I can’t answer, or don’t want to answer, so I pull my legs up onto the cot and yank the string to kill the rope lights. Close my eyes.

  Vow to not let my guard down again.

  And to pick up more alcohol tomorrow.

  The air smells green. The rain is still falling hard so I’m pretty sure we’re in no danger of being found. I toss aside the shovel, climb down into the hole I dug, and it comes up to the middle of my thigh. I figure that’ll have to be deep enough. I climb out, my jeans and boots covered in mud, and I go to Wilson. His neck kinked at an odd angle, his eyes glass, unblinking in the rain. The gray fabric of his sweat suit now dark gray, soaked through.

  How can a person be sorry and not sorry at the same time?

  I push the body into the hole and look at him lying there, water pooling in the crook created by where his arm presses against the muddy brown wall. His head twisted almost all the way around. I take his gun out of my back pocket and toss it in there with him, then begin to fill the hole in.

  There’s a sound behind me, and I turn.

  Chell and my dad are standing in the rain. Shoulder-to-shoulder, hair and clothes soaked. My dad nearly a foot taller than Chell. That’s the thing I remember most about him. He always seemed to be the tallest person in any room.

  And Chell. Red hair, somewhere between a flame and the fire engine rushing to put it out. Legs like poison darts, arms across her chest like a cage.

  They’re looking down on me, disappointed beyond repair.

  This is me, I tell them. What do you think?

  Dad, did you ever expect I would take your sterling example of heroism and twist it around until I turned myself into an agent of destruction?

  Chell, all those times you warned me to calm down, be smart—how upset are you now that I’ve proven myself unable to take your advice?

  You have to know I didn’t want for this to happen. Both of you. You have to know that. My regret is a mountain I can’t see the top of anymore.

  They don’t move, don’t say anything back to me.

  When I look down at Wilson, his head is turned back toward me, his eyes alive again, fixed on mine, and no matter how hard I try, I cannot look away.

  I’m already awake when the first light of morning peeks through the bus window. Sweating, exhausted. Wishing I could sleep and terrified at the prospect. I swing my legs out, stand up and stretch the kink out of my lower back.

  The dream is always the same. That moment when I buried Wilson in the woods, somewhere near Mount Hood.

  I wonder if anyone ever found him.

  For a little while I would read the Portland newspapers online, waiting for the day that I’d see an article about the body, and then about me. Because even though I did a decent job covering my tracks, I’m sure it wasn’t perfect. It all happened so fast, I must have missed something.

  After a little while, I gave up. I figure my mom would tell me if the cops were looking for me in connection with a dead body. She hasn’t said anything during our occasional check-ins, so I’m in the clear until I’m not.

  I feel like I’m underwater, figure some coffee might set me right. There’s enough light I can see, so I change, get my stuff together, check my head in the mirror, and seems I did a pretty good job of closing the wound. I step outside and head for the shower, which is empty. This is early, even by hippie standards. I clean up, head back to the bus, redress the wound, head for the main camp.

  Past the yoga clearing, which is empty, and the public painting project, which is also empty. I stop and look at the painting. Try to remember how it looked when Cannabelle was working on it. It looks like maybe it’s a little bit different now, but I can’t be sure.

  I step off the platform and pass Mathilda.

  “What’s up, darling?” I ask.

  She doesn’t look up from the thing she’s pecking at in the dirt.

  “Fine, fuck you too,” I tell her.

  The clearing in the middle of the domes is clear, but there’s movement in the kitchen. I step inside and find Aesop, in flip-flops and a t-shirt and jeans, scrubbing the counter, which has been completely cleared. His hair is tied back in a tight ponytail. The radio is working again. The Skatalites are playing low.

  I knock on the doorway and Aesop looks up and nods like he was expecting me.

  “Need a favor,” I tell him.

  He tosses the rag onto the counter and picks up a dry towel to clean his hands, waits for me to speak.

  “Got some errands to run in town. Think you could give me a lift?”

  He nods, slowly. “I have to pick some stuff up too. Can you help me finish up?”

  I climb up into the kitchen and grab my cell phone. Fully charged. Marx may have the book, but he doesn’t have the cipher. I pour myself a cup of coffee from the French press—god bless Aesop for having a batch going already—and peel my shirt off so I don’t sweat through it and feel compelled to change before I have breakfast.

  “Yeah, let’s get sexy,” Aesop says, pulling his shirt off, too.

  “What needs getting done?” I ask.

  He tilts his head toward the pantry. “Clear off shelves, wipe off shelves, restock shelves. Easy enough?”

  “Easy enough.”

  He looks at the bandaging on my hairline. “What happened to you?”

  “I’ll tell you in the car.”

  That seems to be enough. He goes back to wiping the counter and I get to work clearing out the pantry, keeping on eye out toward the clearing, in case I see Marx and find myself with the opportunity to smash his head in with a can of beans. I know I should be looking for him right now, but getting into town feels more important. Sobriety i
s uncomfortable.

  Aesop’s white Dodge Neon is immaculate, inside and out. The cars in the parking lot are covered with dust, bumper stickers, full of bags and receipts and accumulated life crap. Aesop’s looks like it was recently detailed.

  He starts the car and presses the Skatalites cassette he swiped from the kitchen into the tape deck, turns the car down the dirt path. We cross the bridge over the creek. I forgot to check that. It feels okay though. Maybe we can stop on the way back.

  We get out to the road and Aesop swings the car onto the asphalt.

  “Hell of an interesting two days,” he says.

  “That it is.”

  “What’s your take so far?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’ve been sniffing around and asking questions. Tibo told me what you used to do. That you were like a private investigator back when you lived in New York.”

  “That’s not exactly true,” I tell him. “I wasn’t licensed. I didn’t have an office. Just, sometimes people asked me to help them with things. I accepted money, or sometimes booze or drugs. I was comfortable operating on a barter system. I can’t claim I ever did this in any professional capacity. And I left that all behind.”

  “And yet, you’re still poking around.”

  I shrug. “No television. Not much to do. Gotta fill the day somehow.”

  We come up on the white cable bridge leading the road over some wetlands, the earth flat and stretching around us. Green for most of it, with the Atlantic Ocean off on our right. I love driving over this bridge. You live in New York your whole life, you’re not used to seeing so far. Something somewhere gets in the way. A building or a hill. The sky feels so much bigger out here.

  I turn on my phone. The screen lights up and I give it a second to figure out if I have any missed texts or voicemails. It seems no. It makes me a little sad, even though I’m not sure who would be reaching out, and for what. But turning on an empty phone when you’re in a strange place with a person you don’t know—it feels sad. I pull up the picture of the cipher and e-mail it to myself.

  There are a few e-mails waiting. That makes me feel a little better. My mom checking in. A notification that my passport application is being processed. Nice. Then it’s spam and newsletters. I delete as much as I can until the process strikes me as unbearable, then turn off my phone and stick it back in my pocket.

  “Something’s going on,” Aesop says. “I don’t know if the feds have anything to do with Pete. I have to assume it does. Too much of a coincidence for this all to be hitting at the same time.”

  “I figure the same, yeah.”

  “So what happened to your head? You said you’d tell me in the car.”

  I look out the window. Think a little bit about it.

  “Someone jumped me last night,” I tell him. “Out in the woods.”

  “Who?”

  “Didn’t see who it was.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Still trying to figure that out.”

  I feel bad lying. But I’m not sure how much I can trust Aesop. He seems to be on the level. Doesn’t seem to be taking a side here. If anything, he reminds me a little of me: Someone who’s happy to make it through to another day intact.

  “Given last night, my first guess is Marx,” he says.

  “Not a bad assumption to make.”

  “Man, this shit is getting out of control. If it keeps up like this I’m doing the same thing you are. Getting the fuck gone.”

  Palm trees appear on the side of the road. That means we’re getting close. Within a couple of minutes there’s a gas station and a chain restaurant, and a church and a strip mall and a supermarket. That’s about it. The road is empty, with most of the visible moving cars lined up in or around a Starbucks parking lot.

  We pass the liquor store and I nod toward it, tell Aesop, “First stop. Need to fuel up.”

  “No can go,” he says, blowing past it.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s Sunday. Not open today.”

  “What do you mean it’s not open today?”

  “Blue laws, baby.”

  “Yeah, but… I don’t recall ever not being able to buy there.”

  “You must never have went on a Sunday,” he says, pulling up to a red light. “Most counties in Georgia, you can buy booze starting at noon-thirty. But there are still a few counties where you can’t get it on Sundays. This just happens to be one of them.”

  “How far until a county where it is legal?”

  “Half an hour.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Aesop turns in his seat and looks me up and down. The light turns green and the person behind us gives a polite little tap on the horn. Aesop starts us rolling and says, “Not going to do that.”

  “Why the hell not? I’ll pay for gas.”

  “Because of that sound of panic in your voice,” he says. “That’s no way to live.”

  “You’re a priest all of a sudden?”

  “No, but I’ve been where you are,” he says. “Medicating with alcohol. You want to trash your liver and melt your brain into a puddle, that’s your right, but I’m not going to be a party to that. And I’m not going to apologize for it, either. What’s the next stop?”

  I suddenly like Aesop far less.

  “Bookstore,” I tell him. “Does that meet your high fucking moral standards?”

  “It does,” he says, cutting the wheel.

  The bookstore is less a store and more of a barn, situated on a rural road a little bit down from the church. Aesop parks and his is the only car in the lot. I’m a little worried it might be closed, being so early on a Sunday, but the sign on the door is flipped to ‘open.’

  We climb into the morning air and it’s quiet and clean, the sun shining, already stupid hot. I’m sweating, probably more than I would have been sweating, because I’m too sober. This liquor thing is going to be a problem. Maybe I can reason with him on the way back.

  First things first.

  We step inside and while it’s not exactly cool, it’s cooler than outside. We’re flooded with the musty smell of books, surrounded by shelves creaking and overflowing with worn volumes. There’s an older, curvy blonde woman seated behind a desk, reading a book I can’t see the title of. She looks up at us with deep eyes and a soft smile. She’s the kind of pretty that makes me feel like a little boy.

  She sticks a bookmark in her book and places it down reverently, turns a little and crosses her leg. Her sundress slips, revealing fish scales tattooed from her upper thigh down to her ankle.

  “Gentlemen,” she says, her voice deep, almost husky.

  “Hi,” I tell her, trying to sound smooth, failing. “I’m looking for a book. The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey.”

  She nods, points a finger past us, down a long row. “Fiction is right down there. Let me know if you have any trouble. I know we’ve got a few.”

  She goes back to her book and we head off.

  “That’s a good one,” says Aesop. “Been a long time since I read it.”

  We get to the fiction section and Abbey is right at eye level. There are two different editions of the book. I pull them both off the shelf. Neither of them are the same as the one I had. One is a hardcover, missing the dust jacket. The other shows four people riding in a Jeep. It’s a small paperback. Much smaller than the one I had. I stand there for a couple of minutes, flipping back and forth between the two of them, a little unsure of what it means that the editions are different, but feeling like that could be a problem.

  “Okay, don’t leave me in the dark on this,” Aesop says. “What’s going on?”

  Maybe talking this out would be helpful. Sometimes I need a sounding board and Bombay isn’t here. For as annoyed as I am with Aesop, my gut tells me I can trust him. My gut isn’t always so bad at that kind of thing.

  “Do you know what a book cipher is?” I ask.

  He nods. “I do.”

  “Oh thank fuck. Can
you please tell me?”

  He takes the hardcover from my hand, opens to a random page. “It’s a way to assemble a code. You have three numbers. First is for the page. Second number is for the line. Third number is how many words in it is on the line.” He shows me on the page, then runs his finger across the page. “Here, say we want to start the code with the word ‘blue.’ We do page number, then line number, then its place in the sentence. On and on and on until you’ve got a message. You got it?”

  I’m happy in one sense, to finally know what the hell I’m dealing with, and upset in another, because I think I am in trouble. I confirm that with the paperback edition. The word ‘blue’ in the hardcover doesn’t line up the same way with the paperback. Given the sizes and layouts and fonts, the whole thing is thrown off. It’s not enough to have the book. You need the right edition.

  I put them back on the shelf and head to the front, where the woman looks up at us again and smiles. “Find it?”

  “Yes and no. I was wondering if you have a storage room or something. Maybe some extra copies floating around? I’m looking for a particular edition of the book.”

  “Which one?”

  “Not sure. All I know is the cover. It’s a paperback, with a dead end sign and a winding road. The coloring is like a sepia tone.”

  “Harper Perennial,” she says. “Published around 2000, I think.”

  “You’ve got an incredible memory.”

  She tilts her head. “It helps. And I just happen to really like the book. Sorry to say, what we’ve got out is what we’ve got. And this is used books only. We can’t order, we just get what comes in. If I find one, I’ll put it aside for you.”

  “Thanks. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in town, but thanks.”

  We head outside and climb into the car. Aesop turns it on and cranks the AC. We sit there for a minute before he asks, “So what does this have to do with Pete?”

  “I found something in his tree house. A code, which that FBI asshole referred to as a book cipher. I also found out that Pete had been carrying around a copy of The Monkey Wrench Gang. I got the copy he’d been reading. The person who attacked me last night took it. The cipher is gone, too, but I took a picture of it first.” I pat my phone. “Still got that.”