We Went to the Woods

by Caite Dolan-Leach

  Louisa rang the dinner bell (she had a literal bell that she’d hung outside the door of the big cabin) and we all swooped towards her. A tablecloth was produced, dishes were carried out, bottles uncorked. We didn’t have enough plates and cups, but many of our guests seemed to travel with sporks and dishes of their own, unclipped from carabiners hanging off belt loops. I ate my salad from a coffee cup, and drank wine from another. It was bright and puckery, and made my teeth feel red. But it was wine, and it was a gift, and even though Beau was seated between Fennel and Louisa, I was happy, content.

  “I mean, frankly, it’s people like us who have the responsibility to try to make a more ethical life,” one of the young men expounded. He had a raucous beard and wore a Carhartt beanie.

  “People like us?” Zelda said. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “I mean people who have education and some…economic flexibility. If we don’t try to undermine freewheeling capitalist expansion, then who can be expected to do it?”

  “So you’re saying our position of privilege makes its own ethical demands?” Chloe asked.

  “In a sense. I mean, it seems pretty obvious that we need to change trajectory or we’re all going to die in a freak tsunami.”

  “Or go out in a fiery blaze,” countered Zelda.

  “Or as victims of a GMO accident.”

  “Or deliberate conspiracy.”

  We giggled as we all offered up our own doomsday plots, ranging from zombie apocalypse to government takeover to chemical warfare.

  “What do you guys have in your bug-out bag?” the bearded young man asked us, though he directed the question at Beau.

  “Our what?” said Louisa.

  “Your bug-out bag. For your various SHTF scenarios.” Louisa just stared at him blankly. “Shit hits the fan? Your go bag?”

  “Ignore Jesse,” said Fennel. “He’s a prepper.”

  “And you can bet I’ll be saving your asses when the zombies do show up,” Jesse retorted. “I mean seriously, you guys can’t think this is going to end well.”

  “This?” Chloe said.

  “Civilization! Late-stage capitalism. Radical global wealth inequality. Corporate control of government—”

  “Yes, yes, we all watch CNN, buddy,” Zelda interrupted. “Actually, that’s a lie. None of us have TVs. We’re all perfectly aware of our situation. But we’re not actually going to change the world, any of us. We may as well just take out mortgages and keep buying and get to the end of this tragic little pickle we’ve gotten ourselves in. Rome is burning—pour me more wine!”

  “So you’re an accelerationist,” Jack accused.

  “Live fast, die young.” Zelda hoisted her cup in a salute, while Jesse shook his head in dismay.

  “Well, thank God we don’t all share your opinion. I mean, what are we all even doing out here, then?”

  “We are…living the good life,” Beau said.

  “Reclaiming the means of production?” Fennel asked, leaning in.

  “Beau tends to think of our quest as more philosophical than political,” Louisa explained. “An Epicurean pursuit of enjoyment, an Emersonian emphasis on self-reliance…” She waved her hand to indicate all the rest of Beau’s personal philosophy.

  “Do you all feel that way?” asked Fennel, grilling us. I buried my face in my coffee cup, not wanting to be put on the spot. When I was being honest with myself, I knew that my reasons were probably neither philosophical nor political. I felt sheepish in this crowd of people committed to changing the world; how to say that I wanted only to find out what I was meant to do with my life?

  “Some of us have general Marxist tendencies,” Louisa explained, happy to speak for us. “Obviously, we all have issues with capitalism as a whole, and we’re trying to carve out a space in which we can live better, ethically and politically.”

  “Conservation is key. Totally clutch,” Jack added. He was a bit drunk already, his nose flushed and his eyes glassy.

  “But you own this property,” Fennel accused. “You’re basically a feudal landowner.”

  “I think that’s something of a stretch,” said Louisa. “We don’t collect rent. We don’t have tenants.”

  “Oh, don’t you?” Fennel asked archly, looking deliberately at Chloe and me. “I must have been confused.”

  “Yes, I think you were,” Louisa said.

  “We want to eat good meals, shared around this table. We want to not be confined by heteronormative ideas of sex, family, and partnership,” Chloe said, coming to Louisa’s defense. “Not to mention that we want to avoid being wage slaves for the rest of our lives.”

  “Don’t you all realize how absolutely fucking ridiculous you sound?” Zelda asked. “We are a bunch of relatively well-off white kids—’cept you, Natasha, beg your pardon—most of us with advanced degrees and tolerant families. You want to fucking bolshevize the nation?” She cackled. “I mean, take all this hippie-dippie back-to-the-land bullshit to the ghetto! See how the poor oppressed masses like your suggestion that they learn to live on cabbages and turnips they grow themselves.”

  “I think you’d be surprised, Zelda,” Fennel said primly. “I think the exploited working class would be the most enthusiastic about learning how to avoid further exploitation by the ruling class. They’re not animals. They’re capable of rational thought.”

  “I’d like to state for the record that I did not call people from the ghetto ‘animals.’ That’s all you, Fennel.”

  “I feel like we’re losing some intersectionality here—” Natasha began, but Fennel interrupted her.

  “Give it up, Zelda. You’re not even part of the Collective. You sit there judging from your private estate and your little business. I wake up and live every day with the rhythm of the sun. We’re actually committed to living with the earth. You’re more privileged than any of us here.”

  “Probably right, Fen-Fen. And with that, I think I’ll take a walk around the pond. Do enjoy the wine, though,” Zelda added, gesturing to the bounty she had uncorked on our table. “As long as you don’t personally pay for the spoils of capitalism, your hands are clean.” She stood up and walked away from the table, weaving slightly. The sun was setting, and she disappeared into the gloom near the pond. We all sat awkwardly, not sure what to say.

  “She’s fun,” Louisa said finally.

  “She’s just a bit wild,” Jesse said.

  “And drunk,” Fennel added nastily.

  “I’m going to go talk to her. And maybe give Wyatt a quick heads-up,” Jesse said, getting up from the table. “Her boyfriend,” he explained.

  “More like her keeper,” Fennel snarked. I nibbled uncomfortably at my salad, spearing a piece of chèvre soaked in vinegar.

  “Anyone for seconds?” Louisa asked. “There’s more in the kitchen.”

  “Everything was delicious. Thank you guys so much,” Natasha said.

  “Our pleasure!” Louisa replied, and she and Chloe stood to begin clearing. Natasha and one of the other visiting boys rose to help.

  “You guys could become more involved in local issues, if you wanted,” I overheard Fennel saying to Beau. “You started to be, last year. I mean, I get your concern that we can’t change the whole world.”

  “You don’t accept that, though,” Beau said, smiling.

  “No.” She laughed. “But we can definitely change how things work around here, in our county. On our lake.”

  “Mack!” Louisa’s voice called from the cabin. “Can you do that thing you do with the cream?”

  I sighed and stood, press-ganged into whipping a bowl of cream with an antique manual beater.

  In the kitchen, Louisa scraped plates with an irritated intensity, while Chloe hovered nearby, ready to defuse her.

  “I mean, it’s not like we all need to have identical motivations,” Louis
a mumbled at one point. I knew Fennel was pissing her off, and I got the feeling that Zelda hadn’t overly endeared herself.

  “You know what matters to all of us. You don’t have to let her hijack our vision,” Chloe agreed. I spun the wheel of the rickety beater in the big bowl of fresh cream someone from the Collective had brought over. Apparently they had a cow. We had a tiny heap of strawberries left. But we would have to wash all the dishes in order to serve everyone. I heard a playful shriek from outside, and laughter. I listened hard for Beau, but his quiet chuckle was engulfed by the general sounds of bacchanal.

  “Ignore Fennel,” Natasha said on one of her trips inside with more dishes. “She likes to play at being the radical because her family is nice and conventional and middle-class. She likes to make a point.”

  “She likes to be self-righteous,” Louisa mumbled.

  Natasha smiled. “That, too, sometimes. As you know damn well, Louisa.” Natasha gave her a pat on the shoulder, and I wondered if she was referring to something in particular.

  When we returned outside with the dessert, it was full dark, and we had to fetch our little oil lamps and the handful of beeswax candles we had traded for at the farmers’ market.

  “Do you guys have a bee colony yet?” Jesse asked Chloe. She shook her head. “If you want, I could show you how to set one up and get some honey going. It’s not too late yet.”

  “That would be amazing!” Chloe said, genuinely excited. She’d wanted to start a beehive all along, but the notion had been shelved until we were more established. She liked the idea of the beekeeper’s suit.

  “Speaking of insects, have y’all noticed the ticks? We’re already crawling with them,” Jesse said.

  “I pulled a few off the dog this morning,” I answered.

  “There’s your damned apocalypse for you,” Beau said. “We’ll all go down in a swarming mass of deer ticks, bodies slurped dry by their little grasping mouths, the whole of the earth overrun by vast colonies of sucking bugs.”

  I continued to sip on my red wine, even though it contrasted unpleasantly with the sweetness of the cream and the strawberries. My head was swimmy, and I felt happily disembodied. I’d never been entirely at home in my own skin; sometimes looking in the mirror produced a terrifying sense of otherness as I failed to recognize myself in the sharp accumulation of angles and bones. I found myself explaining this, suddenly, to Fennel, who was sitting next to me.

  “It’s like, I look at my rib cage and think, That can’t be me. That just isn’t me. I try and, like, avoid my reflection. The antithesis of Narcissus!” I giggled tipsily at my own rhyme.

  “Body dysmorphia is a real thing, Mackenzie.” I flinched at her use of my full name. “A few years ago, I got rid of every mirror in my house and decided not to look at my own reflection for a year. It was amazing. I stopped worrying about how my body looked, I stopped wearing makeup, I grew these dreads….” She fondly patted her immense pile of hair. “Seriously. We overinvest in our appearance to such an extent that we actually become unable to recognize ourselves. This totally gendered alienation.” She sounded like she had made this speech a few times, and I noticed that she was drinking hot water, not wine.

  “You don’t drink?” I asked slushily.

  “I just don’t like feeling as though I’m not myself, you know. Being out of control can be, I don’t know, a little unattractive.”

  I opened my mouth to point out that we had just been discussing ways of distancing oneself from the pressure to be attractive, but I had no wish to argue or debate. Louisa would have seized on this point and pushed it until Fennel broke, but I wanted no brokenness. I wanted harmony, and agreement and cooperation. I wanted this night, these people, this piece of land! I was drunk.

  Before I realized what I was saying, I was suggesting that we light up the sauna. Beau heard my suggestion and latched onto it enthusiastically. Chloe, ever the self-designated fire maker, leapt up to fetch kindling and flame. Beau followed her, and I watched for a moment, ready to be jealous, before realizing that I was actually content, not envious. I had suggested something, and it was a good idea. I fought a wave of alarm at the thought of what Louisa would say, then decided she probably wouldn’t get terribly mad at me. It occasionally felt like I was so invisible that even my errors were somehow not my own.

  Hearing a splash, I realized that the inevitable skinny-dipping had begun. I had wandered towards the pond and started to undress before I recalled the state of the pond these days: on top of being still frigidly cold, it was murky and dark, and we hadn’t had the chance to get control of the algae situation. Frankly, we weren’t sure if there was even an organic, natural way to do this. The water smelled dank and musty, and given our lack of hot showers, I knew my hair would smell of it for days. And in all honesty, there was something about that pond that simply felt wrong. Since the little mishap Chloe and I had had on the ice, the pond had made me nervous. Like it was out to get me. I slid my bra straps back up my shoulders and turned to head away from the pond, encountering Natasha, who had stripped off her shirt and pants and stood in front of me in bra and underwear.

  “I was just rethinking,” I explained. “It’s a little scuzzy in there. And my hair…” I trailed off.

  “Oh, I don’t go under,” Natasha said, patting her tight, dark curls. “But I do love to swim. Gotta destroy the stereotypes.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look, you don’t have to worry about Fennel,” she reassured me.

  “Okay…?”

  “She won’t tell anyone. About you, I mean. She shouldn’t have mentioned it that day, when we met. It was really cruel of her. I can’t imagine that any of what happened was easy on you.” She knew. She and Fennel both. I felt a swoop of terror at the thought. I had tried so hard to run, to get away, only to find myself cornered by a dark pond, my shame stripped bare and undeniable.

  “I, uh, don’t really like to talk about it,” I mumbled. “It’s still…I mean, it’s sort of ongoing. I get a lot of emails.”

  “Seriously? Fucking people. I’m sorry. You were just…I’m sure you were just trying to do the right thing. I read your interview, on Slate. After everything aired.”

  “I asked them to take it down. The comment section got out of hand really quickly, and now I’m just…trying to move on.”

  “That makes total sense. And like I said, Fennel won’t mention it again. She has to work on her social sensitivity, if you know what I mean.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I said, ducking my head. “Honestly, I’m surprised you guys even bothered to stream it.”

  “We hardly ever do. But we watched it at the library on my iPad,” Natasha said, smiling. “Fennel couldn’t resist the premise. You know she grew up in Queens? Before she moved out to the Collective, she was trying to get an urban farm going in Astoria, and it just got so frustrating in the city.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I agreed. “Anyway, I have to tidy up a bit. Have a nice swim, though.” I moved off into the cooling grass, forcing myself to focus on the feel of it between my toes as I tried to hide myself in darkness.

  Collecting the rest of the dishes, I thought I would bring them to the big cabin and get the cleanup started, hoping to please Louisa before she learned that our guests would be staying a little longer. After a certain point, I knew, she would abandon her role as the Lady of the House and would bum a cigarette or start an argument, but probably not until the dishes were cleared. I stumbled around in the dark, looking for our remaining teacups.

  “Fuck,” I said as I tripped over something immense. I sat down on the ground too hard, bruising my tailbone. “The fuck.”

  “Merf,” said Jack.

  “Jesus, Jack. Did you think this was a good spot to nap?” I rose shakily to my feet.

  “Muuuufffff,” Jack answered.

  “Bloody hell.” I poked him in the rib cag
e, where he was normally very ticklish, but he barely squirmed in response. “Buddy, get the fuck up,” I said. His eyes fluttered prettily open, and I was struck by their blueness, paler than Chloe’s. Jack’s, though, were distinctly glazed at the moment.

  “So glad it’s you. Mack. You’re…great.”

  “Yes, I am. And you’re going to like me even more tomorrow.” I grabbed his arm and gave him a pull. He rose biddably, if not gracefully, and toddled unsteadily next to me. I hooked his elbow with my own and began to pick my way across the uneven ground towards his cabin. Given my own lack of sobriety, our itinerary was not entirely direct, but I finally led him up the steps to his cabin and tugged him inside. Jack seemed uninterested in climbing up to his mezzanine mattress without me, however.

  “Walk me home safe, Mack,” he said, eyes not fully open. “Almost there.”

  “Yes, we are. And once you’re there, you’ll be very happy. Up you go, Jack.” I nudged him towards his ladder, though suspecting that this ascent might be a little ambitious in his condition. I wondered how I would make it up into my own bed later. I could, of course, just stay here….I rejected the idea quickly. That wasn’t what I wanted. I continued to encourage Jack towards his bed until he finally slumped bonelessly onto the floor, his back propped up against the wall. I shrugged. He’d wake up in a few hours and creep beneath his blankets when he was good and ready. Still, I filled a glass with water from the stoneware pitcher—we each kept one in our cabins—and left it nearby, though not so close that his long limbs could destroy it. It would be very dark in his cabin when he woke up. But there was nothing I could do about that.