South Village (Ash McKenna) (16 page)

“Hey,” he asks. “Have you seen Marx?”

“No. That reminds me, I’ve been meaning to beat his ass.”

“Well, no one has seen him since last night.”

M
arx’s tree house is on stilts, twenty feet up in the air, a long staircase leading to the door. Tibo and I stand outside, looking up. There’s no way to tell from down here whether he’s in.

“What do you think?” Tibo asks.

“Let’s go up and knock.”

“And if he’s there?”

“I’m probably going to knock him the fuck out.”

“Okay,” Tibo says. “I’ll go first.”

He climbs the steps, which are narrow enough I can’t follow next to him, so I go up behind. The wood creaks under our combined weight. Tibo stops at the top and looks in and says, “Huh.”

“What?”

He doesn’t answer, pushes the screen door and steps inside. I follow and it’s empty.

The layout isn’t too different from Crusty Pete’s tree house. There’s a platform for a mattress or a sleeping bag, and a makeshift desk. This one has a bookshelf. But otherwise it’s the same naked wood, same sloppy construction, random nails sticking out in stray corners. There’s not much to see, but I check under the desk, move the bookcase. Tibo asks, “What are you doing?”

“Searching.”

“For what?”

“Won’t know unless I find something.”

“Should we be doing this?”

I put the bookcase back and stand up. “The dude’s a ghost.”

“Right, but…”

“You own this tree house. Not him.”

“Fair point.”

I check along the walls and under the surfaces, to be thorough, but there’s nothing. Not even a stray piece of trash. It’s like walking into a hotel room before you put your bags down. Untouched. I hop up onto the platform and sit.

“Okay,” Tibo says. “He’s gone. So where did he go?”

“We should ask around,” I tell him. “See if anyone knows anything.”

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out…”

“No, I mean, all this,” Tibo says, waving a hand toward the outside. “You came here and put your head down like the rest of the world didn’t exist. You were clearly hiding from something, and it’s something you haven’t wanted to talk about, and I respected that. Now you’re playing detective again. What is it you want? To go sit alone on your bus? Or do you want to be a part of this community?”

“I never said I wanted to be a part of anything.”

“Except you’re acting like it. And on top of it, you’ve reached incredible new levels of dick. You live on a hippie commune, dude. You’re going to get hit with stray hacky sacks. It’s an environmental hazard. You can’t throw them into the woods like you did. Because then those people come to me and complain and wonder why my buddy from back home gets a pass on behavior that would get someone else kicked out.”

I shrug at him.

“What happened in Portland?” Tibo asks.

I shrug again.

“Where were you with Aesop all day?” he asks.

I shrug a third time.

“Why do you have so little respect for me?”

“I have plenty of respect for you.”

“Then be honest.”

“No.”

He narrows his eyes, stares at me hard. “You did something bad, didn’t you?”

I don’t answer him.

“You’re hiding. That’s why you’re here. Is that why you’re leaving the country?”

I don’t answer that, either.

I’m kind of hoping my tactic of not answering him will work out in my favor. But it doesn’t, because the longer he stares at me, the more he can see. The stereogram image comes into focus, until his eyes go wide and his mouth drops open.

“You killed someone, didn’t you?”

I don’t need to answer that one. It’s rhetorical. Instead I get up, push past him. Head down the steps and by the time I make it to the boardwalk I’m running, trying to outrace the waves. I’m running and running and then I trip, and I’m in the air and come down hard on my hands and knees.

The plank under me says:
The past can’t be changed, but the future is still in my power.

Fucking fuck. I hit it with the flat of my fist and a jolt shoots through my arm. I grab the corner and pull. It’s nailed down good. I brace myself, putting one foot on the forest floor, and put all my weight into prying it up. It tears free of the base and I pick it up over my head and slam it down once, twice, three times. On the fourth it breaks and splinters. I drop it and there’s a splinter of wood embedded in my hand. I pull it out and a thin stream of blood follows.

I sit there for a little bit to get my bearings.

Try not to think about whiskey.

I should go see the girls. I need to see them anyway. Maybe they have some booze. Maybe I can kill a few birds with less stones than there are birds.

S
unny and Moony live in the most remote tree house in camp. I know I’m within a hundred yards when I pass a wooden sign with words carefully carved into it. “If you don’t have an invitation, please turn back.”

I’ve never seen their place before, and I almost miss it. It sits close to the ground, and looks more like one of the domes at the front of camp. It’s nearly covered in a creep of ivy so it blends into the surrounding forest. Psychedelic curtains hang in the windows, blocking the view. I climb up the steps and knock on the door jamb.

“Who goes there?” calls a voice from inside.

“Ash.”

“Two minutes.”

I sit down on the step, look out at the green expanse of the woods. Run through the stuff I need to do if I successfully talk my way inside, because I’m sure I won’t have long. The door opens and Moony steps out wearing a robe she’s not doing a great job of holding shut, so I can still see most of her pale, awkward body.

She smiles, brushing her black hair out of her face, her cheeks flushed red. “Sorry, we’re in the middle of a session.”

“Yeah, about that. I need a favor.”

She tilts her head and smiles.

“Did those fed thugs make it out here?” I ask.

“They did not.”

“Good. I need some computer time. I don’t trust the house computer.”

She seems to think about this for a second, but ultimately frowns. “You know we don’t let people use our rig.”

“That’s why it’s a favor. I’ll owe you one.”

It’s a big ask. The office computer is a tricycle. The one here is a Ferrari. It would need to be. As I’m to understand things, they used to live in the real world, where they earned some good money and acclaim doing cam shows. They heard about South Village shortly after it opened and decided they wanted to move their operation here. But they wanted to do it on their terms, so they cut a deal with Tibo.

The hut was built custom for them, and they paid to install fiber optic internet and a dedicated feed of electricity. Only to them, not to the rest of the camp. That was Tibo’s decision, even though they offered to extend the lines to the main part of camp. He thought more robust internet and electricity were a slippery slope to turning this place into a Best Western.

South Village gets a small cut of their profits, as a form of rent. In exchange they get to live on the land, get access to everything in the camp, and maintain a level of privacy they hadn’t been afforded previously. Plus, they don’t have to do chores.

Besides the sign warning away visitors, everyone who comes to South Village gets a very stern warning about staying away from here. You normally don’t even come up to this place unless you’ve been invited.

Which makes me feel a little like an asshole even being here.

“A favor, huh.” Moony smirks. “What’s this I hear about night bacon?”

“Did Alex tell you?”

“She might have let it slip.”

“You want in on the bacon?”

“Both of us do. It has to be me and Sunny.”

“Is anyone here actually fucking vegan?”

She shrugs. “How long do you need?”

“Hour would be good.”

She whistles. “That’s a lot. Sunday is a big day for us. A lot of guys sitting at home with nothing better to do than to give us money.”

“Look…”

“Actually, maybe there is something else you can help us with.”

I nod, slowly. I feel like I know where this is going. Whenever someone gets that tone, it’s because they’re going to ask me to do something I’m not sure I want to do.

“We think there’s been someone outside at night,” she says. “The past few nights, we’ve been hearing stuff. Could be a squirrel, could be a person.”

“What do you want me to do? Sit on the porch all night with a shotgun?”

She shakes her head. “Keep an eye out. If you want to wander over here tonight for a few minutes, fine. You don’t have to move in. But, weren’t you, like, a private eye or something?”

“Listen, we’ll do a bacon party soon. Have you talked to Gideon? He’s the security guy.”

“Gideon insists on coming inside.”

“He’s kind of a creep, isn’t he?”

She nods. “He is. Let me grab Sunny. We’ve got an errand to run anyway.”

Moony ducks back inside and I sit down. More tasks to fulfill. This is like playing a video game and I’ve got side quests. But coming over tonight will be an easy thing to do. I figure it’s nothing. Nerves are running high, rustling suddenly sounds like footsteps.

Sunny comes out and as she walks past me, she points and says, “Night bacon.”

“Night bacon,” I tell her. “Got any booze on hand? I could go for a cocktail.”

Moony follows. She sticks one finger up in the air. “No. You have one hour.”

Dammit. “Okay.”

“Also, be careful about what you touch.”

“Double-got it.”

The two of them amble off into the woods and I step inside.

The air is heavy with incense. I can taste it. The room is dim, so it takes a second for my eyes to adjust. When they do, I am surrounded by dildos.

Surrounded.

In every size, every shape, every color of the rainbow. There are cartoon characters—Disney princesses and superheroes and figurines. Some are small and simple, others are large and intricate. A couple scare me deeply. They’re carefully arranged, like religious icons, glittering in the dim light on shelves that run the length of the room. There are two doors on the far end. Bedrooms, I figure.

In the middle of the room, there’s a massive Oriental carpet, on which there’s an assortment of plush, satin pillows. There’s a small stack of towels and a couple of bottles of lube off to the side, as well as a stack of board games. On the other side of the carpet is a half-disassembled Jenga tower, and a whiteboard with goofy names written on it—screennames, probably—with numbers scribbled next to them.

This makes me incredibly curious about the peculiar demands of guys who like to watch cam girls. I’ll need to revisit this.

At the other end of the room is a Mac, the monitor so big it could be mounted behind a bar playing a football game. It’s flanked by some big speakers and a couple of smaller camera rigs that are all wired into the monitor. There’s a chair set in front of it—I suspect for my benefit. I sit down, click on the desk lamp next to me.

First up, I open a web browser, drop into incognito mode so the computer won’t save anything I do, and get the cipher from my e-mail. I really don’t want to write this thing out since it’s pretty long, so even though I don’t see one, I click the printer button and pray. There’s a soft whirr off to my right. These girls are prepared. I take the printout of the photo, fold it up, and stick it in my pocket.

Next up, I confirm which edition of
The Monkey Wrench Gang
I need. Then I do a search for every bookstore in the area, come up with more than a dozen. Mostly used stores. I click on a website, find an e-mail address, write a quick e-mail with what I’m looking for, then send. Click, paste, repeat. I hit 11 in total. That’s a good start.

I do a quick check on Amazon. They’re not selling the edition I need on the main site, but find a re-seller who’s got a used copy for three dollars. The shipping information is a little unspecific—two to ten days. I click on it anyway, have it sent to Momma’s. A little insurance if the bookstores don’t bear out. And if it gets jammed up and arrives after I’m gone, fuck it, they can donate it to the library.

There’s a ping, so I click over to my e-mail and see my mom is requesting a video chat. When I left I promised I’d always answer when she called, which hasn’t been easy considering how often I don’t have a cell signal. I don’t get off camp enough to call her. This much, I owe to her.

But as I’m clicking the ‘accept’ button I realize my mistake.

A window pops up with my panicked face, and there is no mistaking that I am framed by the largest assortment of dildos ever assembled in one place.

There’s a small black cloth folded up under the monitor, and I drape it over the top of the computer, where the little green light is showing that the camera is active. My face disappears as my mom’s face appears.

She’s lit blue, slightly distorted. Her neat hair a little grayer than I remember it. This is the first time I’ve seen her since I left. There’s a tightness in my chest. That feeling of emptiness expanding and pressing itself out.

She looks around like she’s searching an empty room. “Honey, are you there?”

“Yeah Ma, I’m here.”

“I can’t see you.”

“I think the camera is busted. I can see you okay though.”

She looks so sad. That makes me feel terrible. Not bad enough to remove the cloth.

“So how are things with your friend down in Georgia?” she asks.

“Good. It’s hot. Ma, the bugs down here. Spiders the size of kittens.”

“It doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not bad.”

“Still planning your big trip to Europe?”

“Got my tickets. Leaving in less than two weeks now.”

“Well, that’s nice…”

Her voice trails off. Which means she doesn’t think it’s nice. What she wants is for me to come home. Even a quick stop. She also doesn’t want to ask me to do it, and I don’t want to offer. Home right now is a big bridge that’s been burnt down to embers. The reason she didn’t fight me leaving is because she knew I needed it, but I’m sure we’ve gotten to the point where she regrets it.