The Totem 1979 (6 page)

He stood between the house and barn and shouted. No one answered. The horse was looking at him. Slaughter went over, leaned on the fence, and snapped his fingers at it. “What’s the matter? No one home?”

The sun glared down on him. The horse moved its hoofs as if to come across to him and then stopped, its head cocked toward the house. Slaughter sensed before he heard it. A constant, high, shrill whistle. It was coming from the back of the house. He walked along the side, looked through a kitchen window in the back, and saw it. There upon the stove. A kettle with a flame beneath it, steam escaping through the whistle on the spout. He found a door in back that led in to the kitchen, knocked but no one answered, went in and shut off the stove. He didn’t understand. He searched through all the downstairs rooms and then the bedrooms up on top. He thought that someone might have turned the kettle on and then lain down to rest a moment and then gone to sleep. But there was no one anywhere. The well-kept grounds, the freshly painted house. It wasn’t like the people here to go off with a kettle on the stove. Slaughter went out, checking through the barn, the sheds, and the garage, but there was no one, and he didn’t understand. What would make them leave a kettle like that? Why had they forgotten? Where in hell had they gone anyhow? The kettle had started shrieking only a while ago. They must have turned it on just before he came, so where in God’s name were they?

Chapter Ten.

Dunlap was hungover. He was slumped across the back seat of the bus. He had made connections with the nearest airport and had thought that he would take a taxi to the town. He hadn’t remembered to check his map, though, and was told that Potter’s Field was fifty miles away. No one would agree to drive him. It wasn’t just the distance. It was that the town was on the other side of all those mountains. Getting there was several hours. Better take a bus. “But I want to go there in a taxi.” They just shook their heads. This was something new to Dunlap. In New York where he came from, taxi drivers would grab the chance to go that kind of distance, picking up another fare and coming back. That was just the trouble. No one would be coming back. People took the bus. “But I’ll pay to have you go both ways,” he told them. They just shook their heads again. “All that driving through the mountains. We’ll stay here and save the cars.”

So Dunlap took the bus. He’d stayed up drinking late the night before in Denver, waking almost too late for his morning flight to here. The plane had propellers. It hit some rough air just above the northern mountains, jolting up and down, and sick already, Dunlap had barely kept his stomach down. He’d tried some coffee. That didn’t help. He tried some Alka-Seltzer, and it almost worked. Then he made a joke about a little of the dog that bit him, asking for a drink. At first the flight attendant was reluctant, early in the morning like that, but Dunlap made a point of it, and in the end he convinced her to sell him a Jim Beam on the rocks. That was just the trick. It went down sharp and made him gag, but it stayed down, and it seemed to settle his stomach. Two more sips, and he was fine. At least he thought he was, returning to his stupor of the night before. Another drink, and then his stomach let him have it. He was in the washroom, throwing up.

He washed his face, looked in the mirror at his gray wrinkled skin, walked back, and slumped, but he was glad to have it out of him at least, and he was sleeping, even through the turbulence, as the plane struggled through the clouds and jounced down for a landing. Waiting for the bus, Dunlap went in to the men’s room, washed his face again, opened up his travel bag, took out a bottle, and had another drink. He knew that he was classic: drinking all night, sick and yet in need of still another drink. All the same, he needed it, and if he did his job right, who could tell the difference? Just as long as he could function. That’s what you do? Function? Just about. He had another drink. He had another on the bus, his pint bottle hidden in his jacket pocket. He sprawled, feeling sick again, staring at the seat before him, and then sitting up, he glanced at all the grassland going past. It was flat at first, but then it started rising, sloping up to foothills and then mountains, fir trees angling off as far as he could see now, rocks among them, and at one point, looking out, he saw the guardrail and a straight drop down to boulders and a section of the road that curved around a ridge down there. An object came around the lower bend. He knew it was a car, but down that far it resembled a toy, and suddenly aware of just how high he was, Dunlap felt a spinning in his brain, a rising in his stomach, and he had to look away. Either that or throw up again.

He settled back in his seat, glancing at the people who were near him. Men in cowboy hats, women wearing gingham dresses (gingham-Lord, he thought that had gone out of style fifty years ago), old men in suspenders, all with sun-creased skin that looked a bit like leather. Two seats ahead of him, an Indian was looking at a magazine. The Indian’s dark hair hung to his shoulders. He wore a pair of faded jeans, a red shirt and a beaded necklace, his boots stuck in the aisle, showing cracked seams, rundown heels, and something on one side that looked distinctly like a piece of horseshit. Dunlap watched him as he turned the page. There was something strange about the photograph. It showed a naked woman, braced, her crotch against a tree. Dunlap peered a little closer. She was dark-haired, ruddy-skinned, exactly like the man who read it. And the language, as he leaned a little closer, wasn’t English. Christ, a pornographic magazine for Indians. He’d have to make a note about that. Clearly he could use it. Local color and all that. He squinted at the pear-shaped breasts upon the naked woman. Then the page was turned, and he was looking at a beaver shot. Dunlap thought of Indians and made a joke about a Little Beaver, shook his head, and took another drink.

What kind of place was this to build a commune anyhow? he thought. Why not east or maybe on the coast? At least he had some friends there. Well, there had been many communes in those places, but none had ever been like this. Besides, he didn’t choose his assignments. His bosses told him what to do, and he went out and did it. Maybe that was how they got at him for all the drinking that he did. Maybe. Still, he did his job. Or so he told himself at least. He’d have to clean the act up. That was sure. After this job, he would dry out, and he’d show them. Sure. Just as soon as this was over. He slumped so no one could see and had another drink.

Chapter Eleven.

The sign said potter’s field gazette. Of course, Dunlap thought. That almost slipped my mind. Gazette, for God sake. What else could it be? At least the building had a little class. It was mostly windows on both stories, shiny metal strips connecting all the panes. And clean at that, he told himself, thinking of the bus depot he had left. There were like-new imitation marble steps that led up to the all-glass door, shiny metal all around it, a shiny handle on the door. Dunlap waited for a truck to pass, then stepped off the curb, and started across the street toward the entrance.

The door turned out to be electrically controlled, swinging open with a hiss. The reception area was spotless, bright lights in the decorator ceiling, all-white walls, shiny imitation marble on the floor. What was better, the building was air conditioned, sweat already cooling on Dunlap’s forehead. He thought that this might work out, after all.

He glanced at polished metal counters on his right and left, desks and people typing at them.

‘Yes, sir. May I help?”

Turning, he saw a woman on his left, early twenties, thin-faced, attractive, her hair combed straight back in a pony tail. He smiled and leaned against the counter.

“Yes, I’m looking for a-” Lord, he couldn’t remember the name. Parsons. That was it. “I’m looking for Mr. Parsons.”

She stared at his wrinkled sport coat, at the sweat marks underneath its arms. Something shut off in her eyes. ‘Yes, and may I have your name?”

“Dunlap. Gordon Dunlap. I’m from New York on a story.”

Then the eyes were bright again. “Of course. He’s been expecting you. Take these stairs. The first door on the right.”

She pointed toward a flight of stairs beyond the counter, and Dunlap smiled, nodding, walking toward them. She wore a silk blouse, her bra quite clear beneath it, the two top buttons of her blouse spread open. Dunlap thought about that all the time he climbed the stairs. After all the women he was used to seeing with no bra, their nipples almost poking through their tops, this was exotic. He stopped and took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. To the left he saw a corridor of offices, their doors open, people typing, talking on the phone. To the right, he noticed a wooden door, the first wood in here that he’d seen. mr. parsons. editor. Dunlap knocked and entered.

Another woman, older, sat at a desk and studied him. ‘Yes, sir?” When Dunlap told her, she said, “Of course.” She went out through another door, this one wooden like the first, although the desk and chair and cabinets were metal. He waited. Everything was just as clean and shiny as downstairs. Through the windows, he could see the stores across the street. The woman came back, smiling, saying he should go in. Dunlap nodded, walking through.

Everything was wood in there, bookshelves, desk and chairs and tables, even the walls. No, not everything. A thick rug occupied a large part of the floor, and two of the chairs were leather. The difference was the same. This was more a study than an office. More than that, a sanctum. People summoned here would be impressed. Whoever summoned them understood the principles of power.

Parsons. He was smiling, getting up from where he sat behind the desk, coming around to shake hands. “Hello there. We expected you the middle of the week.”

“Yeah, well, something came up at the office. They wouldn’t let me go till yesterday at noon.” And then because he knew he’d sounded rude, “I hope I didn’t inconvenience you.”

“No, not at all.” Smiling again, Parsons pointed toward one of the well-stuffed leather chairs before the desk. “Have a seat. Can I get you something?”

“Coffee would be nice.”

Parsons pressed a button on the intercom and looked at him.

“Cream and sugar. Lots of it,” Dunlap said.

And Parsons put the order through. Then still smiling, Parsons sat back, his hands upon his lap, and waited. He was maybe fifty-five, husky, almost fat, but not exactly. Mostly he was just big-boned: massive chest and shoulders, hands as big as a heavyweight boxer’s. His head seemed extra large as well. Even with his bulging stomach, he seemed very much in shape, though, his skin as fresh and smooth as athletes in their twenties. When he’d come around to shake hands with Dunlap, he had moved as if he were a dancer or a man of half his size and weight. Dunlap was impressed. This man had a presence. More than that, he knew what he was doing. He had never once appeared to notice Dunlap’s wrinkled coat and ravaged face and eyes. Clearly, though, he’d been aware of them from the start. He was not a man who did things without thinking. The way he’d fixed this office so it stood out from the others. The way he sat, his expensive suit conspicuous in a town where everyone wore cowboy clothes, his blue shirt crisp and clean, his striped tie meticulously knotted, his hands upon his lap, leaning back and smiling, as if he were at his leisure (but he wasn’t). Dunlap knew he’d have to watch him.

“Yes, well, tell me,” Parsons said, still leaning back and smiling. “I know you told me on the phone. But just to help me understand, why not tell me once again?”

Dunlap lit a cigarette. “Well, we’re doing retrospectives.”

Parsons leaned ahead abruptly, pointing. “No, not here.”

Dunlap wondered what he meant. He looked around. He saw that there were no ashtrays and understood, standing up to crush the cigarette against the inside of a refuse can. “Sorry.”

“Quite all right. You couldn’t know.”

“Sure.” And now you’re up on me, you bastard, Dunlap thought, sitting back and going on. “Like I said, we’re doing retrospectives-“

“Newsworld

magazine?”

‘That’s right.”

And Parsons nodded. “Quite a thing. A man from Newsworld magazine to come here.”

‘Yes, well-“

“Must be quite a story.”

Then the door opened, and the woman came in with the coffee.

‘Thank you.”

“Certainly.” And she was gone.

Dunlap tried to continue his explanation. “We’ve been-“

“How’s the coffee?” ‘Just the way I like it.” “Fine.”

And Dunlap had lost count of how much Parsons was ahead of him. “The commune,” he was saying.

Parsons looked at him. He evidently hadn’t figured they would get so quickly to the point. His eyes narrowed. “That’s right. I remember now. You’re checking on the commune.” “The commune twenty years after it was founded.” “Twenty-three.” “How’s that?”

“Twenty-three

years since it was founded.” ‘Yeah, we figured that might make a point.” Parsons shook his head and frowned. “I don’t quite understand.”

“Well, the difference between then and now. Nineteen seventy. Dope and acid. Vietnam. Young people either going into politics or dropping out of society.” “But what about the commune?” “Well, we figured we would check on how it went.” “I still don’t understand.”

“It’s a way to measure how the country changed. All those fine young good intentions.”

Parsons made a face. “The new republic. That’s the thing they called it. Free love, free food, and free spirit.” Parsons made another face.

“Yes, but never mind the ‘free love’ business. That’s the part that people always pick at. What we want to know is what came out of all that.”

“You could have saved yourself a trip. I’ll tell you what came out of all that. Nothing. That’s what came of it.” “Well, that’s a statement in itself.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Parsons said. “Do you have that tape recorder on?”

Dunlap nodded. “Turn if off.” “But what’s the matter?” “Turn the damned thing off, I said.” Dunlap obeyed. “But what’s the matter? Listen, radicals back then are running corporations now. Either that or writing books about how wrong they were. Entertainers who dropped out and went to China are out hoofing on the stage again. Everything has changed. It’s a different world. What’s so wrong to talk about that? All the communes are long gone as well. But then none of them was quite like this. None of them had so much money, so much talent and ambition, coming out here from the coast, buying all that land and setting up to start a brand new country: Brook Farm in our century.”