Wasted Year: The Last Hippies of Ole Miss

by Douglas Gray

  “In case of emergency, we will. Shut up and cuddle.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Wednesday, December 22

  I’m in the Oxford cemetery on winter solstice. Ahead looms the longest night of the year. Our warm spell has ended. A northwest wind has commenced. Scraps of snowflakes whisk their way up the hill to Faulkner’s grave.

  But some kind soul has left a pint of Johnny Walker, unopened, for Bill Faulkner.

  He wouldn’t begrudge me a sip – Bill, that is. I break the seal, drink. Well, maybe two sips. Maybe three.

  I replace the cap, set the bottle back where I found it, and sit zazen, watching as solstice darkness settles in across the world.

  ~ ~ ~

  Thursday, December 23

  I lie in my pallet until early afternoon, listening to the wind. Downstairs, I light the space heater in the parlor, set the unfinished bottle of Mateus and a plate of meat plus three by the couch, and curl up under a comforter with Herodotus, sipping and reading and nibbling, occasionally dozing.

  Just before dusk, I wake with a start to a noise that I believe, at first, must have been part of a dream I’m having about eating lunch with a group of carpenters around the wooden frame of a new house. I sit forward, strain my ears to listen, and am just about to sink back into the couch when it comes again – scratching, like a mouse in the wall or a squirrel in the attic. But coming from the kitchen.

  I pick my way through the darkening house, turning on lamps as I pass from room to room. Just over the threshold to the kitchen, I hear it again, plainly – something scratching outside the back door.

  It’s a golden retriever. I open the screen door to let him in. He sits in the center of the room, giving me a look until I open the fridge and set another plate of meat plus three on the floor.

  As he eats, I kneel beside him, passing a hand over the back of his head and down his smooth, long ears.

  “Citizen,” I say. “My old invisible friend. I’m so glad to see you, boy.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Friday, December 24

  Citizen and I finish Cindy’s meat plus three leftovers in front of the television. One of the Memphis stations is replaying Amahl and the Night Visitors. I fall asleep on the couch, wake to find Midnight Mass at St. Patrick’s happening, turn off the set, and drag myself upstairs.

  It’s still dark when I wake again, to Citizen pawing at my pallet. I’ve never heard him bark, and he isn’t barking now. But I think if he were any other dog, he’d be howling. Something’s wrong. He’s nudging me with his nose, trying to get my attention.

  I rise and slip my jeans back on. Citizen is out the door as soon as I open it. I follow him down the steps. A lamp is on in the parlor, one I’d turned off before going to bed. I turn the corner, step into the open doorway, and find Skoll sitting on the couch, Citizen bristling a few feet away, ready to attack (I think) if I give the word.

  I’m tempted.

  “I deedn’t think you’d velcome me,” Skoll says, “so I took the liberty of letting myself in.”

  I put a hand on Citizen’s neck to restrain him. He sits, with an electric tension humming in his bones.

  “Handsome animal,” Skoll remarks. “Vhat’s its name?”

  “Citizen. So you can see him?”

  “I can see him. Sure. Can you see him?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Is Chreestmas.” Skoll reaches into his suit coat pocket and sets an envelope on the coffee table in front of him. “From your papa,” he says.

  “I don’t want it.”

  “You don’t even know vhat it is.”

  “Same old present, every year. I give him high marks for consistency.”

  Skoll sighs. “Vamily is vamily, especially at thees time of year. They vorry about you, about vhat you’re doing vith your life.”

  “Take it back to him.”

  Skoll rises and begins to put on the overcoat he’s draped over the back of the couch. Citizen tenses, ready to spring, but I hold him back.

  “My instructions vere to deleever, not to return. Merry Chreestmas, Daniel. Oh, by the vay,” he adds, pausing in the doorway. “I have news. Your mother is expecting.”

  “Step mother.”

  “Step mother. Another child in the vamily. I thought you’d be pleased.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Saturday, December 25

  The air is cool, but the sun feels warmer for lack of any breeze to speak of. I have my shearling on, but leave it unbuttoned.

  I take Citizen for a walk to Dr. Goodleigh’s house. He waits for me at the curb as I enter to feed the cats – as she predicted, they’re all outside someplace – and then we go for a stroll across the deserted campus, onto the Grove, the Loop, the Lyceum, the Library and the Union, down the sidewalk past Bondurant and onto Bishop Hall, where we find a lone figure, the first person we’ve seen all day, sitting on one of the concrete benches outside the ground floor.

  It’s Dr. Sutherland, staring upward at the bare branches of a copse of trees between the buildings, and the clear sky beyond.

  “Mr. Medway,” he says. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas, sir,” I answer. “What are you doing out here?”

  I take the seat beside him. Citizen stretches across the warm walkway before us. I have no sense whether or not Dr. Sutherland sees him.

  “I’ve been reminiscing,” Dr. Sutherland says. “Last year, I tried to spend the entire Christmas break camped in my office. Too depressed to face the holiday. Do you remember that? It was shortly after Eve filed for the divorce.”

  “Sorry. I was in Virginia this time last year, and not in such good shape myself.”

  “Of course you were. Virginia. That had slipped my mind.” He gives me a smile with a sideways glance. “Actually, I don’t have much conscious memory of the past year. That’s probably a blessing. The past is past. The past is dead. Now is all that counts. You know,” he adds, reluctantly, as if giving this admission some forethought before saying it aloud, “I woke up this morning almost feeling happy. Imagine that. Happy.”

  “We’ve all noticed the change in you. What’s been going on?”

  Dr. Sutherland turns to me with an eager expression, moves a few inches closer to me, and drops his voice to a near-whisper, as if we were in some kind of crowd.

  “Experimental therapy. I told you a little about it at Thanksgiving,” he says. “If you can believe it, Russian experiments in brain wave modification. Highly classified. A little box, about the size of an old-fashion radio, with a battery and four electrodes to attach to your head. Extraordinary experience. The CIA smuggled it through the Iron Curtain, and decided to test it at Ole Miss, for some reason.”

  “Probably the same reason we got the pot farm,” I guess.

  “And what about you, Medway? Are you enjoying the holidays? Was Santa Claus good to you?”

  “A pretty girl gave me a book of poetry. And a kiss.”

  “Then you won this year’s Christmas sweepstakes, didn’t you?”

  “And my father gave me $2,832. In cash.”

  “An impressive gift. But an odd sum.”

  “It’s probably what he had in his pockets at the time. I’ll keep the book. Naturally. But I have to find some way to get rid of the damn money.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Sunday, December 26

  County Road 217, a wee bit over a mile past the intersection of Highways 7 and 30, also goes by the name Campground Road.

  I follow Mr. Duck’s directions, hang a right at the snow-cone stand (85 delicious flavors) and arrive at his trailer park just as the sun is setting over a ravine of dead kudzu.

  The park itself is nothing much to speak of – a scattering of singles and double-wides perched on the side of a ravine that could have been drawn by Al Capps. I decide to park on the side of the road instead of driving into the gravel parking area below, uncertain of my little car’s ability ever to make the steep climb back out.

  “Glad you made it here
before dark,” Mr. Duck says, by way of greeting. “Dogs have been pestering us the past couple nights.”

  “Dogs?”

  “Wild dogs. Packs of ‘em. I take care to have this with me after sunset,” he adds, indicating the Kolar shotgun in his hand. “Come in. The party’s already started.”

  The trailer is crowded. I’m handed a cold Falstaff, introduced around and left to talk to a pretty, well-built woman known simply as the Widow. She’s dressed in a denim shirt with the sleeves cut off to reveal an impressive set of biceps framing an equally impressive bosom. She’s not a natural blonde, but her eyes are almost the same shade of blue as those of Dr. Goodleigh’s cats.

  A soulful-eyed man who bears a disquieting resemblance to Norman Bates lurches through the crowd holding a Mason jar above his head. He stumbles over his own feet, trips, and collapses onto a couch, without spilling any of the contents of the jar.

  Mr. Duck shakes his head. “I told you not to bring that shit, Blake. This isn’t a BYOB. We’re just having a civilized, illegal beer bash. Did you test it before you started drinking it?”

  “Never fear. Blue flame, man. Blue flame,” he replies, lifting the jar in toast. He drinks to himself. “Never fear. Never fear. Never fear. Never fear. Never . . . .”

  “Hey, Blake,” the Widow asks, “where’s the Witch tonight?”

  Blake sits up and attempts to straighten his posture, as if sober. “The Witch and her cohorts are desecrating this most sacred season of the year with unspeakable acts of depraved black magic. I wouldn’t be surprised,” he adds, lifting a finger in the air, “to discover that they are responsible for these damn animal packs, which are not dogs at all but demons in the service of her dark lord.”

  “Who’s the Witch?” I ask.

  “His roommate. She was his girlfriend for a while, but they’ve been fighting. She seems nice enough to me. A little nutty, maybe, but all you hippies are nutty. No offense. Blake claims his trailer’s haunted with spirits, because of spells she’s been casting. They’re in the middle trailer. I live in the one at the base of the hill.”

  Blake rises from the sofa, shouts a toast to the dark lord over Waylon Jennings singing “Silent Night” on Mr. Duck’s stereo, and slouches away.

  “He’s completely different when he’s sober,” she assures me. “But that’s almost never. Genius, you know – IQ of 153. I suspect he’s trying to kill as many brain cells as he can, in self-defense. The Duck claims that mental illness is an inevitable side-effect of great intelligence.”

  “You call him the Duck?”

  “Have to. He’s never told us what his first name is.”

  “Lively group,” I comment, watching the festivities.

  “You should get to know us,” the Widow says. “We’re a hoot.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Monday, December 27

  Citizen and I are watching another Star Trek rerun – the episode where Kirk, Spock and McCoy are being tortured by aliens, only to have their wounds cured time after time by a mute empath – when the front door swings open, and Joan walks in with a paisley suitcase in her hand. The table lamp by the door catches the glimmer of raindrops in her hair.

  “I know James is away,” she announces. “I’m going to crash here for a few nights. Maybe a week. If you don’t mind.”

  It takes me a minute to answer, because my heart is in my throat. “Is something the matter?”

  “Suzie and Nick need some time alone, to work things out, if they can. You’ve probably heard that Nick got a job.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Teller at the First National. He says he’ll still paint, in his spare time, but the baby needs a father with a steady income.”

  “Oh, lord.”

  “Suzie, you can imagine, is not happy. They’re arguing a lot. But don’t worry,” she adds, turning to the stairs, “I’m a quiet guest. You won’t even know I’m here.”

  I return to the show and to Citizen, who’s resumed his nap by the couch. A commercial comes on.

  “Joan is going to be sleeping under the same roof as us,” I say to Citizen, “and we won’t even know she’s here? She can’t be serious, can she, boy?”

  ~ ~ ~

  Tuesday, December 28

  I’m reading the sign on the window of Dr. Hirsch’ empty storefront for the fifth time, hoping somehow it means something other than what it says.

  Opening Soon: Maranatha Christian Bookstore.

  A bookstore? What in the hell happened to the restaurant?

  I proceed to the Nickelodeon, only to find another sign indicating that it’s closed for the holidays. Makes sense – no students, no customers. In fact, the Square is deserted, and the first people I see this morning are two old women laughing in an aisle of the Jitney Jungle. They stop when they notice me.

  “Did you hear what we were saying?” one of them asks.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “That’s a blessing, honey,” the other says, “’cause she’s just finished telling me the dirtiest joke you’ve ever heard.”

  They start laughing again, at the memory of it. I purchase two containers of apricot yogurt, a Slim Jim, and a rawhide bone for Citizen, and head back to Tyler Avenue, passing Colemans on the way. There, in the middle booth by the window, sit Jimmy, Tiger and Ho, eating barbecue.

  Ho starts muttering when she sees me approach. Tiger stares at his plate. But Jimmy greets me with his usual, “Ocarina vermillion!”

  “What happened to the restaurant?” I demand.

  Jimmy shrugs. “The Baptists bought the building. They brought in a new tenant.”

  “Has Dr. Hirsch heard?”

  “He’s visiting friends in England. No way to reach him.”

  “You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. We hoped. It’s a good thing. Everybody wins.”

  “Except for Hirsch – he’s lost his investment.”

  Jimmy’s smile turns to a look of confusion. “No,” he says. “Everybody wins. That’s how we had it planned.”

  “We? Who’s we?”

  “Tiger. Me. Dottie. The Carroll brothers. Garrett.”

  “What’s Garrett got to do with this?”

  “It was mostly his idea,” Jimmy says. “He’s watching out for Dr. Hirsch. Didn’t he tell you? His plan – everybody wins.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Wednesday, December 29

  It’s pouring outside. Citizen doesn’t seem eager to go out in the rain, so I leave him napping by the space heater in the parlor and drive to Dr. Goodleigh’s house.

  I get soaked in the few seconds it takes me to get from the car to the back porch. I leave the keys hanging in the lock, enter Goodleigh’s laundry room, and pass on to the kitchen, where I’m confronted by the cats.

  They’re all here, inside. Waiting. Watching. Above my head. They’re on the refrigerator, on the range vent hood, in the cupboards, on the exposed rafters where Goodleigh hangs her pots, pans, colanders and whisks.

  One of the younger cats is batting, lazily, at a string of garlic cloves with its paws, but the others are sitting still as I enter. At first, only their eyes move as I step to the sink and begin to open the cabinet door where their food is stored. A few heads pivot when I set the cat food bag on the counter.

  Bending to collect the multitude of bowls from the floor, I hear the solid thump of a cat tail whack once against a rafter. They’re all craning forward from their various perches now, as I set the bowls around the bag, preparing to pour.

  I open the bag and am startled by a terrible sound. Melpomene is clicking her teeth together, right over my head. Her lips are spread in a wide, horrible smile, fangs bared, dripping saliva. She speaks.

  “Mmmmrrrraaaaaaaaauuuwoooooooyooooyooooooooo!”

  She springs. I duck. She misses my head, sails through empty space, and lands with a skid on Goodleigh’s kitchen table, claws scratching furrows into the wood as she brakes.

  “I’m trying to feed you, stupid!�
� I scream.

  Melpomene pivots, hunches on her back quarters for another leap, and hisses at me. I can smell her breath, sardine-scented, from five feet away.

  “Mmuummummummmrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaooooooooo!”

  One by one, her companions begin dropping from their perches, landing on the table beside her, on the counters, on the floor. They seethe about my legs, a roiling tide of flesh, fur, fangs, and claws.

  I wheel about, searching for an escape. My elbow grazes against the bag of food, and it topples forward and over, spilling Cat Chow onto the tiled floor. They all spring, as one, onto the mound of food at my feet.

  I jump, ass first, onto the counter, lift my legs to my chest in fetal position, away from the melee that erupts as all descend en masse onto the spill. From here, I can’t see the floor, but my ears bear witness the din of snarls, hisses, screams, thumps, bangs and roars of this feline feeding frenzy.

  When the sound dies down, I discover they’ve devoured four days of rations in as many minutes. Even the bag is gone, sliced to shreds. Now they’re slouching away from the scene of carnage, tails drooped and bellies distended, too sated to pay me any more mind. I lower my feet slowly to the floor and start across the kitchen. Stray bits of Cat Chow crunch beneath the soles of my shoes. In six steps, I’m at the door, and out into the dripping rain in two more.

  I sprint for the car, lock the doors behind me, and keep glancing in the rear view mirror the entire way back to Tyler Avenue. I quickly compose myself when I find Joan munching on a bowl of granola and apricot yogurt in the kitchen.

  “I put some of your goat cheese on my salad last night. My god! It was so good, I nearly had an orgasm. Where did you get it?”

  I struggle to keep the image of Joan having an orgasm from my mind. “A friend who’s living in North Carolina. She raises goats, and sends cheese every year for the winter solstice.”

  “We need a goat. Let’s see about buying one.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Thursday, December 30

  Deputy Hacker is at the door. “You’re coming with me,” he announces as I open it.

  “Do you have a warrant?” I want to know.

  He opens the screen door and steps in, uninvited. “Are you gonna’ to come peaceably?”

  “Not without a warrant.”

  “Have it your way.”

  For such a little guy, Hacker is surprisingly strong. It takes him only a moment to pin me, face-first, into the wall, hands behind my back, and another moment to cuff me.

  Joan picks this moment to descend the stairs, in a terrycloth bathrobe, hair loose about her shoulders. We both stop what we’re doing – Hacker restraining, me struggling – to watch her, and then he’s leading me outside.