Maggie's Farm

by Sherry, John;

  While the farm was not actually in my legal possession, I could not make any specific proposition to Tugwell. Now, as spring wore on into summer, I brought the matter up with him and found him receptive to it. The essence of the arrangement I suggested was simply that I lease the farm to him for an intial period of five years with an option to buy the place at extremely advantageous terms. I would then arrange with the bank to re-finance the farm in such a way that the machinery purchase agreements entered in upon by Clyde could be paid off in full through a loan secured by a chattel mortgage on the machinery in question. Thus I would be responsible for one monthly payment to the same bank which would, in time, theoretically amortize both the chattel mortgage and the larger mortgage on the farm itself. In the deal I proposed to Tugwell, the amount he would pay me each month to maintain his lease on the farm would exactly balance the amount I must pay the bank to satisfy the mortgage payments and the taxes on the farm. Indeed, the mechanics of the process I had in mind would insure that the entire process would be automatic: Tugwell’s monthly payment would go directly to the bank. Thus, I would be absolved from direct responsibility for the farm although I would still be its owner. Tugwell would then have a period of five years during which he could decide to purchase the place outright at the predetermined figure we had discussed. Furthermore, during that period of five years, he would have the opportunity to reach a pragmatically-based decision as the farm’s outright purchase. Or, to be more precise, he would have ample time to conceive his own future plans for the farm and assess the farm’s potentialities in terms of the income it was bringing in currently. It was, I think, an entirely equitable arrangement. I was fairly certain that if we came to an agreement on the deal, he would decide to buy the farm within the five-year lease period. And as things turned out, I am happy to report that we did reach such an agreement and that Tugwell did actually purchase the farm outright in 1962.

  It is rather interesting to note here that the notification of Tugwell’s intention to exercise his option to buy the farm caused in me a severe, if highly temporary, trauma. Dorothy and I were living in Sag Harbor by then, poor as church mice but happily undergoing what was for me an extremely productive period. By rights, I should have been out of my mind with delight that the farm was off my shoulders forever and that we were in possession of the first un-earmarked capital sum of money we had ever possessed. I was not. I went through a month of deep depression before I awoke to consider my blessings. Post-parturitional pains, it seems, follow all creative effort.

  Because it took place at roughly the same time as the final sale of our farm, it is, perhaps, as good a time as any now to set down an occurence which passed between myself and O’Hara some years later. The underlying depression resulting from my separation from him did not and will not ever pass lightly from my spirit. There was not, for many years, a morning on which I did not awaken to a feeling of desolate loss, puzzlement and loneliness. The interchange which took place between us helped me to encompass and contain those feelings and perhaps even mitigate them. More than anything, have I wondered about the nature of friendship itself: what it actually is; what it actually means. “None other than himself, a greater knows,” says William Blake, as deep a diver into those murky realms where man, nature and God meet, as ever lived. Did O’Hara and I actually wish no more from each other than the other’s subservience? With the exception of that which passes between men and women, it seems true that the only deep attachments are those formed in youth. I know that the only attachments I have to other men presently are either social and business arrangements at one end of the spectrum and tutelary ones in which I learn or teach at the other. But the admixture of love I feel so profoundly in the case of women seems to have passed from beyond my grasp in regard to men. The most I feel in regard to men now is pride in those I have helped, shame for those I have hurt, respect for my equals and an irritated, despairing sense of responsibility for those who are not.

  O’Hara and I—for better or worse—refused each other subservience. But, in doing so, we heightened our individual needs for pre-eminence rather than having subjected those needs to synthesis. Our failure was that we could not (or would not) labor together further in the understanding of ourselves. Thus does friendship die.

  Our interchange took place over the telephone. I had been told by our mutual friend, Bill Murray, that O’Hara had returned to Wytheville and that he and Kate and their children were living there in the same house they had occupied before. I longed to ease the sore hurt of the past and I told Dorothy that I was thinking of calling O’Hara on the telephone. With that wisdom which knows wounds cannot be avoided and stands ever ready to bind them up, she counseled me to go ahead. I was nearly forty years old when I placed that call and my heart was as tremulous as that of a young girl. It was a person-to-person call in every sense of the word. I heard Kate’s voice as she answered and listened to the operator’s request for O’Hara. I waited while Kate went away to fetch him to the phone. Finally, his voice came over the line. There was a short pause and then he said, “What makes you think you have the right to speak to me?” A click followed as he hung up the telephone. Thus is friendship interred. There would be another meeting between us; but it would not take place for many years.

  The farm’s immediate future was settled by early summer of that year of 1959 and no further hindrance stood in the way of our departure for the environs of New York. I traveled to New York and with the aid of my sister-in-law found a reasonably pleasant duplex apartment located in the New Jersey suburban town of Bergenfield. The landlord wanted a year’s lease which I signed and bound with the proper advances and deposits, arranging that our occupancy would begin a month hence. I returned to Wytheville and we set about the hiring of movers and the packing of our belongings.

  Some weeks later, we watched the moving men lash down the last of our belongings and move off down the long winding drive by the creek. Dorothy then gave that beautiful house a final sweeping and we prepared to leave. My mother had long since returned to North Carolina. The aspirants to fame and fortune who drove out past our farm for the last time that day numbered five: Dorothy, my brother, and me, and our two daughters, Linda and Sylvia. In time, there would be a third daughter, Anne, whose name I mention now only because I would not like her to feel left out should she ever read these pages. With us also was Gordo, the Boxer, destined not to survive this penultimate uprooting.

  I smile now in memory of that group of pilgrims. There was much, in truth, of the family Joad in our equipage. An old, faded blue automobile which needed coaxing every step of the way was the best we could afford. It was of that class of vehicle in a state of decomposition so advanced that holes had rusted in the floor through which the children delighted in thrusting sticks to their great pleasure and my great exasperation. On we rattled up through Virginia, Maryland and, finally, onto the New Jersey Turnpike. Had I, from another car, watched this group passing, I would have given only short shrift to their chances of survival. Never has captain lived who felt less confident of his ability to bring his ship safely to port.

  And then, once rolling down the New Jersey Turnpike at our top speed of fifty, I began to take heart. I noticed that the cars tended to go by us in groups and that, within those groups, they seemed to fight for precedence, endangering themselves and others. Smiling at myself but with a certain seriousness of belief to which I still adhere, I formulated a dictum for the future: Go your own speed, I told myself, stay out of groups. It is certainly a good dictum for travelers on super-highways, and perhaps not a bad one for life. I can claim, I fear, to have obeyed it only moderately well.

  So ends this story of a defensive action. As in all defensive actions, blood had been shed and soldiers had fallen. But it was over now and, for better of for worse, the offensive action was about to begin. All that had taken place, as everything does which takes place this side of the grave, had now become experience.

  EPILOGUE

  My bo
yhood friend, O’Hara and I were both on the wrong side of fifty when we finally met again. He had the loan of his brother’s house in East Hampton and chose to get in touch with us. Kate had been to see us a short while before, almost as a herald of this coming embassy. Kate had lasted. She was still an impressive presence. God knows what drives her or leads her for I certainly do not; but she was still very much in the game. She and O’Hara were still married but seemed not to live together at the time. O’Hara, in fact, spent a large portion of his time roaming the country in the Volkswagen camper in which he arrived at East Hampton. He was extremely fit physically and thought nothing of bicycling from East Hampton to Sag Harbor merely to deliver an invitation to dinner or drinks.

  By this time of life, O’Hara and I had finally adopted—consciously or unconsciously—our various personae; his a distillation of his old style, a mixture of cynic and sardonic overlaid with a veneer of world weariness. Mine? I shall leave that to whoever has read these pages; some impression must by now have been gained.

  O’Hara and I met again at a time when each of us had achieved about the same degree of success, in neither case very great. He had by then published a novel and two works of social history, the first of which had been taken quite seriously. To my mind, his most intriguing achievement was a series of juvenile novels about the adventures of a big, awkward, alienated rich kid. This kid was right out of the class of 1941 at the John Burroughs School, fit to be an honorary member of that odd assemblage. I believe these books were quite successful. I have not seen one recently but I am sure another will be along soon.

  So it was that all between O’Hara and I ended reasonably well. As well as it could anyway. We corresponded briefly and did each other a few literary services. But time and long separation have cooled the great friendship of my youth. I keep watch for his works and wherever he is, I wish him well.

  What eventually became of our farm? In the early seventies, we paid it a visit. When Anne, our youngest daughter was about eleven, she and Dorothy and I decided to take a motor trip through the southeast. A visit to the farm was, of course, on the agenda.

  The closer we drew to the farm that day, the greater my nervousness became. We were going to see a place which, even though we had not owned it for many years, still remained a personal symbol of overwhelming importance. All of us want continuity; of this there can be little doubt. We want the objects we create, the children we breed and the thoughts we think to have bearing upon and use for the future. Yet we live face to face with the brutal fact that some things do not succeed, that people and ideas die.

  Our farm was among those things that do not continue. My extreme nervousness as we approached it that day must have been a warning that we would find the place moribund. Such was in fact the case. As we rounded the last bend and saw the farm stretched out before us, it seemed fine. The great red barn we had caused to be built dominated the scene; the pastures, green and lush in that season, rose to the ridge in the distance. But then, as we rounded the bend by the Kegley place, it was clear that our first house had fallen into dreadful disrepair. Across the creek, it was equally clear that the grade A dairy farm we had left behind was no longer in operation. The house was occupied but high weeds surrounded the barns and filled the holding pen. Rusting cars—those prime symbols of futility—were parked near the house. We did not tarry. Hearts achill, we drove on, remembering an adventure that had held our hopes at a time when they badly needed holding: when we did not yet know that a sort of homecoming awaited us in the future.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1984 by John Sherry

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-2840-0

  The Permanent Press

  4170 Noyac Road

  Sag Harbor, NY 11963

  www.thepermanentpress.com

  Distributed by Open Road Distribution

  345 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  www.openroadmedia.com