Before I describe this life changing trip, I should paint two precursors to it, that made the thing happen. The first is a glimpse of my time in the hills, colorful but in part miserable, prompting me to take this getaway Louie and Robin offered, which was a trip that radically changed my life.
“Sunday Dec. 9th, 7 p.m.: Tuesday through Saturday work and health at ‘K’s ranch. Lindsey shows up Thursday, 6 p.m. I was much by myself till then, working or eating or sleeping and re-reading ‘Gibbon’s autobiography’ with great delight. Lindsey and I sleep ten hours a night out of boredom, with work and rusticity passably interesting. I took an enjoyable little hike with her yesterday, though through wretched, gray weather and light rain part of the time. I had a ‘Loeb’ Greek anthology with me and read her some poems. Saturday eve. I went to the trailer alone and lay awake at twilight in the gloom, thinking about my future. I thought of doing lines but didn’t, not wishing to join the two girls in the cabin gabbing away.
“No such resolve this morning. This day I harbored and nourished and vented a nasty, irate, dissatisfaction with most things…going over recent griefs with Lindsey, rambling in fits of ill humor, which is strange because I rarely feel this way after doing lines. In fact, they promote the opposite, good will and forgiving contentment…I’m not composed for this degree of rusticity. I can live rudely and roughly if need be but I’m very sensible of the loss that comes with it. I’m cultured and civilized to the degree that dirt and poverty repel me. The cold, the bad light (flashlight reading), the distraction of pet animals, the loud, ugly noise of the generator, all contribute to ruining my study. There is a poverty here that even affects the intellect…This isn’t a place fit for books. One of the cats just brought in another dead mouse. ‘K’ would laugh but I hate the barbarity of the situation.
“I was thinking today how rural places attract faulted beings. We know how poverty in a place (educational and opportunity-wise) affects people. The best move away and the worst stay on. But the rejects of cities (of society), come here too, by default. Few are driven here by virtues and strengths (though cities grow ever more repulsive). Most come from a prior, pressing poverty in themselves, to find ease and a place in this emptiness to match their own and the companionship mostly of animals.
"Small towns are even worse. At least hermits have a self-sufficient identity, though narrowly bounded, like tiny islands. The townspeople in cultural wastelands are more like timorous mice, just plain ignorant. This is an uncharitable view and only one side, but it has some truth to it.
“Out here the food is better, the air cleaner. Life is more robust and healthier. Only in pests and dirt and distant medical facilities is it worse off. The company and culture is worse, poor to almost non-existent. To sum it up, healthier living but more cow-like, stupid and boring.
“The wide open spaces and prospects elevate one’s spirit. The long walks, the cold, the hard work numb the senses and often the mind. The noble savage was always a hollow myth to me. Look at truly rural folk, the Hillbillies and Appalachian folks and see what a wretched, starved, disfigured band of animals they are.
“I never had a desire to live in the wilderness, hardly even a desire to visit it. Now I know why. There’s little worth contemplating. Nature is ‘grand’ for a few minutes at postcard points. She is animal and vegetable, rugged and extremely cruel mile after mile, seasonal, stupid, slow, dull and harsh, and all of these qualities are contagious to anyone who stays here”.
So you can see I was not a ‘happy camper’.
After my trip to Mexico a week later I never went back to work there. But I made her a deal. She could move anything for me and she needed what I had. I set her up with Lindsey, gave her to her as much as one could and she served me well over the next six months, having to visit me for her needs once a month and deliver me of mine, for clean cash, which she did, magnificently, in fifteen minute transactions, driving to Marin. She doubled her money with what I gave her and even paid me for the lessons I taught her, a tithe of what she made, but quite a bit. I was glad to have met her and just as happy to forget her six months later.
So it is with relationships of very disparate beings, thrown together by chance in an isolated cabin. You may talk a great deal with tender human sympathy at first, full of curiosity for such a different type of mortal and fellow sojourner on this earth. But with each talk the obvious gap between the two of you only widens and you both soon realize the impossibility of any closer bond. Then you part ways, your minds satisfied that any further talks are purely futile. That’s when I spiced it up with Lindsey for one last work session there, which worked out perfectly in more ways than one. Now there were two round asses in tight jeans in front of me I had no desire to pinch.
After that, fifteen minutes once a month completed our social and business transactions. The profit in money for both of us each time was huge, so you might think a glass of wine or a pleasant chat at a table and an exchange of news was in order. But it wasn’t. We shook hands after she handed me a paper bag full of bills and I handed her a packet and a few boxes of bottles.
I never even asked her how Lindsey was doing. Our conversations went something like: “Great, see you in a month. Goodbye”. She came and went. Everyone has a time limit they can relish in another person’s company. Think about it honestly in terms of a week’s time span and then assess all your acquaintances, family and friends. With some you can spend days happily, with others it’s hours, with others it’s only a few minutes.
The last time I saw her was in early July of 1986. It was my last such transaction with anyone. We shook hands as wordlessly as before. She left. I walked from my den the few steps to my bedroom, put the tens of thousands away and was done with that profession forever, or so it seemed to me, an end of an era.
She was an impeccable business partner those last six months, perfect, always on time to the minute and cash ready to buy whatever I had, to the last iota. I respected her and thanked my good luck and Louie’s friendship for introducing us. She was a rarity in this business. I’d heard a hundred tales of woe and cheats and thievery from all my other friends, whenever large amounts of money were concerned. But the fact that she adopted Lindsey (who was deranged), and kept her, showed a flaw, a weakness in her which we all have. It’s called ‘love’. I bet it took her down.
But who am I to talk. I fell into a similar affair as soon as I left them together in the hills.
