With a mouth like dust
And a tongue like rust
And down, down, down.
Lower than earth
Deeper than graves
I must have been back
Down in Morgantown.
I dreamed
I dreamed a dream of dreams
And woke as Sergeant Pepper.
All wrapped in light
And feeling right
And high, high, high.
Higher than mountains
Higher than air
It was all so right
In Spacious Skies.
“That’s what you wanted?”
Jessie was silent for a moment. She’d forgotten the power of Dave van Ronk’s singing, especially when he used his whispery voice. But that was only part of it. “Yes,” she said. “That’s what I wanted. Is Morgan near here?”
“Morgan?”
“The town in the song.”
Dave van Ronk started singing “Cocaine.” The man lifted the needle, put Bob Dylan back on. The song resumed at the exact point of interruption.
“Why do you ask?” he said.
“I thought the song was about a commune in Vermont. I’m looking for it.”
Wind rattled the windows. The man reached into the pocket of his lumber jacket and took out a joint. He lit it, took a deep drag, held it out to her. Jessie shook her head.
“You’re not rejecting my hospitality?” he said, smoke curling out of his mouth. The question sounded funny, but there was nothing humorous about his tone. “Everyone’s in such a hurry these days.” Slowly he got off the bed, replaced the van Ronk record in its cover and gave it to her. “I won’t keep you.”
Jessie didn’t move. “Is it about a commune in Vermont?”
“Maybe,” said the man, raising the joint to his lips; the smells of marijuana, sweat and wood smoke acted on the tuna balled in Jessie’s stomach, nauseating her. “I mean, could be.” He held out the joint again.
The soft red eyes were on her. They knew something about Spacious Skies. But first she had to take communion. The wafer was in his hand. Jessie took it.
She hadn’t smoked marijuana in years. She brought it to her mouth, inhaled hot smoke and passed it back to him. He waved it away.
“Take another hit. Live a little.”
The phrase—Barbara’s words coming from his mouth—paralyzed her for a moment.
“Something wrong?”
“No.” Jessie inhaled a little more and held out the joint; this time he accepted it.
“Good shit, huh? Homegrown.”
Jessie didn’t feel a thing. “Was there or is there a commune called Spacious Skies?”
The man took another drag, sat back down on the bed. “There was. How come you’re interested?”
“How come?” she repeated. Then someone pounded a bass drum; an organ came in like a far-off wail; guitars, electric and acoustic, made the air vibrate in metallic and woody ways; and a raw scared scary voice, not Bob Dylan from People magazine and MTV but Bob Dylan back then, started to sing: “Visions of Johanna.” It took her away on musical roads that divided and subdivided in her mind.
“Good shit, huh?”
Jessie looked up, into soft red eyes. “Yes. It is.” All at once her voice sounded very young, like a teenager’s.
“Come have a seat.”
“I’m fine here.” Where? Leaning against the desk; blackened roaches in a beer bottle; stacks of bills and letters: “Dear Mr. Flenser,” she read, “Your account is now five months overdue and we can no longer …”
“You know, I dig your taste in music. Your musical likes and dislikes, I mean. ‘Visions of Johanna.’ A world in itself, right?” He sang along in a very light, high voice, but in tune and surprisingly sweet.
“Look, Mr. Flenser—”
“Call me Gato.”
“I’d like to find Spacious Skies.”
“How come?”
“How come? Because …” But the music grabbed her again, much harder than before: she lost her feeling for the desk, the floor; she lost her sense of smell, for the sweat, wood smoke, marijuana; her vision shrank to a soft red smear; all was hearing—she bounced along the bass notes, felt the thump of the drums in every fiber, lingered in the meaningful bent silences that marked the guitarist’s long runs, came face to face with the raw scared scary voice.
This was tedious.
It was just an old record. Straighten up. She pushed herself away from the desk. Wobble, wobble.
“Homegrown. But I’ve been breeding selected plants for fifteen years. This is the best shit you’ve ever had. Right or wrong? Be objective.”
“You’re asking me to be objective and stoned at the same time?”
Gato began to laugh. He kept laughing until his body shook with it. Jessie felt like laughing too, but she didn’t let herself. Once started, she’d never stop, and it would be the furthest thing from laughter. She took a deep breath to clear her head, but got caught up in the process of breathing: how the air felt cool in her nostrils, warmed as it dipped down into her throat; how she filled like a balloon, ribs stretching, bra straps tightening.
After some time, Jessie realized she was holding her breath. She let it out. Deflating. The man on the bed wasn’t laughing anymore. He was watching her.
The man on the bed took the elastic out of his hair and shook it loose. “It is good shit,” he said. “But more than that, we’re sharing it.” The record finished playing. “What do you want? More Dylan? Or how about Leon Russell? You make me think of him—that zippy way he plays the piano.”
“I’m not zippy.”
“No?” Gato’s fingers wound themselves into his long hair. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“That’s okay. But if you know anything about Spacious Skies, please tell me.”
“See—that’s zippy.”
“For God’s sake.”
Gato glanced at her. He looked hurt. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you so interested in Spacious Skies?”
“I want to go there.”
“Why?”
She toyed with telling him the truth; given her state of mind at the moment and the way he was, it might take days. So she said, “I’m writing a story on communes.”
“Yeah? Who for?”
“Rolling Stone.”
Gato perked up. “You work for them?”
“Free-lance.”
He bit his lip. “Do they pay your expenses?”
“It depends.”
“Maybe the information is worth something.”
“Maybe.”
“How much?”
“Twenty,” Jessie said. It seemed to be the going rate.
“Make it thirty.”
“Split the difference.”
“Okay.”
“Where’s Spacious Skies?”
“Where’s the money?”
“After you tell me.”
“How do I know you’ve got it?”
“Because you looked in my wallet when I paid the eight ninety-five.”
He sank into thought, biting his lips again. “You’re a sharp chick. You know that? Zippy, but on you it’s good.”
“Spacious Skies,” she reminded him.
“Amber waves of grain.” He laughed. “Shit,” he said. “Funny how quick the mind is.” He shook his head at the wonder of it. Long twists of hair fell over his face. “Two human beings in a room with a record player and some grass. What else do you need?”
“The information.”
Gato laughed. For a moment Jessie feared another laughing binge, but he came out of it quickly. “Okay, okay. The song. ‘Spacious Skies.’ Words and music by Artie Lee. A somewhat mysterious figure in the music business—seems to be his only song. They say he lived on the commune for a while, but that was before my time.”
“Before your time?”
“Here. I spent three years in Marrakesh.” He lingered
on the word.
“Who says he lived on the commune?”
“Dudes. On the other hand,” he said, holding up a finger like a logician splitting a crucial hair, “the woman says she never heard of him.”
“What woman?”
“Blue.”
“Who’s Blue?”
“Woman from the commune. Only it’s not a commune anymore. At least it wasn’t the last time I talked to her.”
“When was that?”
He bit his lip. “I guess it was around the time Exile on Main Street came out.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s the last time I saw her. She came in the store. The old store. I had the old store, then.”
“Where was that?”
“Bennington.” He made it sound dreamy, like Marrakesh. “They dug music in Bennington.”
“This is Bennington, isn’t it?”
“Not the old Bennington. Now it’s all …” He searched for a word, but soon gave up, falling silent.
“Is the commune near Bennington?” Jessie asked.
“It’s not a commune anymore.”
“What happened to it?”
Gato was looking down at the floor. “What happened to everything?”
“Is the woman still there?”
“What woman?”
“Blue, you said.”
“As far as I know.”
“Have you been to her place?”
“Not when it was just hers. Back when it was a commune, I was there once. Sticky Fingers.” He used album releases to keep track of time, the way Cro-Magnon man watched the stars.
“Was Artie Lee there then?”
“No. I told you. He’d been and gone. If the song’s about it at all. You can’t always tell.” He perked up again. “Manson thought the White Album was about race war, right? Which is bullshit: it’s about death. So that chick—what’s her name—got forked for nothing. Can you dig that?”
What the hell are you talking about? Jessie wanted to say. But she asked, “Do you remember where the place was?”
“Right off Route Eight. Third left after the stop sign.”
“What stop sign?”
“At Nine.”
“The stop sign at Eight and Nine?”
“Right.”
“Is that far from here?”
“Why are you asking me all these questions?”
“I told you,” Jessie said. “I’m doing a story on communes.”
“But it’s not a commune anymore.”
“That’s the point of the story.”
He laughed. He laughed and laughed. Jessie watched. He looked like a windup troll toy, run amok. “The point of the story. The point of it. Point. Point. Oh, wow. You’re really something.”
Abruptly, the laughing stopped.
Gato Flenser lit another joint. He gave her the soft red look, holding out the joint. Jessie pushed away from the desk, crossed the room, took out her wallet and gave him twenty-five dollars. He let it drop.
“Do you have to go right away?”
“Deadline,” Jessie said.
He nodded. “I don’t want your money.”
“Keep it.”
Jessie picked up the van Ronk album. She walked out of the back room, out of the gloom, into the cold wind. Before the door closed, a needle scratched vinyl; music followed her down the street. The volume on Gato’s record player was turned up high. Leon Russell did have a zippy way of playing the piano.
18
Route 9 unreeled like a long movie about white lines. No plot, no dialogue, no characters, but it absorbed Jessie like Citizen Kane or The Seven Samurai. Only when a car honked or flashed by would she remember what she was doing and glance down at the speedometer, to find the needle dipping down to forty, thirty, twenty-five miles an hour.
The pressure behind her eyes slowly eased. By the time she reached the stoplight at Route 8, the fog had lifted from her mind, leaving her somewhat like a country after a long drought: dry-mouthed, inert and wanting a shower. In her case the weather had been internal, and any famine mental.
A mailbox marked the third turning on the left. No name appeared on it, nothing but faded homemade decorations: blue flowers curling around what might have been a peace symbol; the paint was too weathered to tell.
After a few hundred feet, the road narrowed abruptly and the pavement ended. Jessie steered around the ruts and bumps, up a long hill lined on both sides with bare trees and banks of fallen leaves. At the top of the hill, she stopped the car. A broad meadow lay on the other side, stretching to a wooded rise in the distance. Tucked into a clearing at the base of the rise was a farm: white house, red barn, unpainted sheds. Spacious Skies. Jessie looked up: the sky was a single low dark cloud, like a cast-iron lid over a simmering pot, and darkening with the approach of night. She drove down the hill.
The house looked better from a distance; big and rambling, it might have been something long ago. But now the white paint was peeling; water stains darkened the dormers; and the porch sagged. Jessie parked beside a rusted engine block and a heap of bald tires, climbed the steps and knocked on the door. Nothing happened.
She knocked again, harder. No one opened the door. No sound came from inside. “Hello?” she called. “Hello?” Silence.
The door, heavy and scarred, had a crescent-shaped window at eye level. The glass was cracked and held together with masking tape. Jessie peered through it.
She saw into the front hall: a high-ceilinged room with faded wallpaper and a bare wooden floor. A down jacket hung on a wall hook; stairs led up into darkness.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Jessie walked around the house, thinking a car might be parked on the other side. There was no car, just a dirt yard with a fat brown turkey pecking in it. Jessie crossed the yard to the barn.
This wasn’t the kind of barn Norman Rockwell would have liked: most of the red stain had faded away, lingering only in patches like a skin disease; the boards were warped, cracked, rotting. There were no windows to peek through, and the big sliding door was closed. Jessie knocked, but got no answer. She didn’t hear shifting hooves or the flapping of clipped wings. Had the farm been abandoned? Only the presence of the single turkey said no, and the down jacket in the front hall.
Jessie reached for the handle of the barn door. Entering someone’s house without permission was wrong, but what was the rule on barns? City people couldn’t be expected to know. Jessie slid the door open.
The barn was almost empty: no horses, no cows, no birds, no hay, no machinery. Just cobwebs and a big hump under a tarpaulin at the back. Then she looked up. And saw—
What?
A second-rate reproduction?
An oversized joke?
Or the Sistine ceiling of a hippie chapel?
The ceiling of the barn was covered with an enormous painting of the album cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. John, Paul, George and Ringo, and all those other faces, heads and in-jokes, blown up bigger than life-size. They gazed down in silent splendor, frozen in 1967. The signatures of the artists were strewn among the red flowers that spelled “The Beatles”: Digger, Hank, Jojo, Jim and Ruthie, Blue, Oddjob, Hart, Rama, She, François et Marlene, Disco, Stork, Sunny, Lara, Susie, Cityboy, Pat, and others she couldn’t read—the paint, applied directly to the wooden boards, was fading.
Jessie stared up at Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for a long time. Then she walked through the shadows to the back of the barn. She wanted to see under the tarpaulin. It was coated with dust and mold. She raised one corner.
There was a car underneath. A blue car, the same shade of blue as the BMW. Jessie tore off the tarpaulin in one jerk; but it wasn’t the BMW.
The car was a Corvette, shiny and unmarked. Jessie was about to replace the tarpaulin when she realized there was something odd about the car. It was immaculate, but not new. The design reminded her of the model Buzz and Todd drove in “Rout
e 66.” The blue Corvette must have been as old as Sgt. Pepper.
Jessie opened the door and checked the odometer: eighty-seven miles. It was what it seemed—an old car that had hardly been driven, with a Vermont vanity license plate: PAT 69. Jessie covered it with the tarpaulin and went outside.
The turkey was still pecking at the dirt. All at once it straightened, twisted its head around, paused. Jessie heard a car approaching. She walked quickly around to the front of the house.
A scraped and dented pickup was bouncing up the road. It stopped beside Jessie’s car. A woman got out of the cab. Clothes: flannel shirt, down vest, peasant skirt, hiking boots. Face: broad, with even features. Hair: salt and pepper, parted in the middle, hanging down to the small of her back. Makeup: none. Jewelry: a big gold hoop in one ear.
The woman faced Jessie: “Looking for something?”
“A woman named Blue,” Jessie said. “I was told I could find her here.”
But Jessie already knew she’d found her: the woman had eyes of Wedgwood blue, clear and hard as porcelain.
“By who?” the woman asked.
“A man who owns a record store in Bennington.”
“Not Gato?”
“Yes.”
“Shit. Is he still around?” Jessie nodded. The woman gave her another look. “If you’re in real estate, you’re wasting your time. I’m not selling. I thought all the agents knew that.”
Jessie shook her head. “My name’s Jessie Shapiro. I’m not a real estate agent. I’m looking for someone and thought you might be able to help me.”
“Who?”
“Pat Rodney.”
“Pat Rodney?” Jessie felt the clear blue eyes probing hers. She herself could read nothing in them, although there was something familiar about Blue. She couldn’t identify it. Perhaps she was simply a familiar type—earth mother—grown older and harder.
“That’s right,” Jessie said. “He used to live here, didn’t he?”
“Did Gato tell you that?”
“No.”
“Who, then?”
Jessie’s mind quickly sketched in a lie involving Rolling Stone and communes recollected, but she abandoned it. Hadn’t the truth swayed Buddy Boucher? Yes, but he had children. Jessie had seen no sign of children at Spacious Skies, few signs of life of any kind. She went with the truth anyway.
“Pat told me himself,” she said. “He’s my ex-husband.”
Hard Rain Page 15
