ALFORD — from “The Last Drop” a novella
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We do not need to be told how terrible things are. We do not need superficial instruction on how to recover. Oil and sprawl and building cars and houses is simply no recipe for a sustainable and prosperous economy. Viable local economies are the only alternative to a structure designed for anomie and ultimate stasis.
From The Notebook.
¶
Alford, in south Berkshire County, was where Dusty grew up. There and in New York.
There were three homes up a mile-long drive.
Over the years, the houses and the hill became more and more self-contained.
When everything went into free fall, this place — Harkness Hill — was almost self-sufficient. Deep artesian wells. Generators. Outbuildings filled with firewood. There was still oil in the ground.
The collapse came, just as she and Frederick predicted. The cost of extracting oil was now astronomical. Rising, unpayable debt eviscerated the markets. The the resulting paralysis was almost total.
Dusty coasted down the hill past Monument Mountain and took old Route 7 down to Route 183. She was amazed to see a place where she once bought produce still open. There were people there. The only thing missing were cars.
She wanted to stop but it was getting late. It would take her the remaining part of the day to get to the hill. She had no idea what she would find.
She was strung out. In Stockbridge she stopped at the Inn and found a basement room open. The old bar known as the Lion’s Den.. There were people sitting at tables. Behind the bar, a tall man poured what looked like a thick soup into cups. He nodded and people came forward and took the cups back to the tables. It was eerily quiet.
Rusty stood there and when the man nodded in her direction she came and took a cup. The soupy stuff was cold, but it tasted healthy to her. No words were passed.
Rusty wondered at the silence. It seemed that the world had reverted to a time when there was no bustle, no will to motion. She drank the cup standing and placed it back on the counter. The man nodded and she walked out and up the stairs. She looked at the porch that ran the length of the Inn facing the main street. Blades of grass poked up where cars had once rolled by. The church on the corner across the street seemed closed.
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It was still light when Dusty turned onto Alford road. Less than a mile now. Suddenly she saw down the straight stretch before her three bikes with riders going at speed as if they were racing. They were laughing and talking back and forth. Dusty stopped as they drew closer. When they saw her, they skidded to a stop, jumped off and giggled. It was not ominous.
“Where do you live?” Dusty asked.
“Back there,” said one, the smallest. He looked healthy, even robust.
“I used to live back there,” Dusty said.
“Where?” the tall one asked.
“Over the brook and up the hill. Way up,” Dusty answered.
“Jesus!” the third exclaimed. “Jesus.”
“What?” Rusty said.
“You can’t get up there now.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.”
Whatever she had said spooked the three. They were off before Dusty could reply.
She remembered how she had felt up there. Apart. Caught. Confused. But at the same time in control. Secure. Safe.
¶
Dusty still had the flashlight. She didn’t need it. She knew every step up the hill. She thought of it as a mile-long road drive but it was actually less than that. There was a level spot near the top where you could almost see the main house. Another home was visible across the field to the left. A third was hidden up a hill to the right. She climbed within view of the main house. She saw a light on inside. It was almost exactly as she remembered it. She turned the flashlight on to alert anyone to her presence.
Then she heard a pop. Simultaneously something struck the gravel a few feet from her.
“Jesus!” she cried. “This is my family home for God sakes!”
She saw two lights — flashlights? — moving toward her in the darkness.
“I’m Dusty Harkness,” she called.
She had not said her name in years.There was no response. She called out again, louder. “I’m Abigail! Abigail Harkness.”
A few feet ahead a man’s voice said, “Come closer.”
She saw him. He turned and motioned her to follow. They moved past the pool, across the lawn, and onto the flagstone terrace, She followed him through the side door. The man then went down the hall toward the library.
She followed him into the large room.
“Sit down,” the man said. He lit a candle, set it on a a nearby table and sat down behind it, looking across at Dusty.
“So you are the Abigail person.”
“And who are you?” Dusty said.
“You don’t need to know that,” the man said. “I work for your family. I keep the place from being vandalized. I mainly work for Jack.”
“God,” Dusty said. “I haven’t heard his name in years.”
“Yes. And nobody has known where you were, either. How long has it been?”
“I’ve lost track,” Dusty said. “It’s hell out there. They are throwing dead people in heaps in Pittsfield. Lord knows what goes on elsewhere. How are you surviving?”
The man ignored her question. He sat there silently. Dusty heard movement behind her but did not turn. She had no idea what was in store.
As it turned out, nothing.
“These ladies will see you to your room,” the man said, with no further explanation.
¶
Dusty ended up in her old bed. It was just as it had been. But obviously not. The place was a museum, Its occupants were retainers of some sort.
Dusty lay thinking. She had learned little. She inferred that her brother Jack had collected himself, got serious and succeeded her father. After what struggles, she knew not.
Her parents vanished from the scene during her Frederick years. Dusty remembered them as they were. Beautiful people with trophy children — she and Jack. Jack was impulsive and gung ho, Abigail reserved and thoughtful. The elder Harknesses disappeared to a place called Pink Sands in the Bahamas when New York City began to go into serious decline. Their obituaries were among the last to be published the last paper editions of the now defunct New York Times.
Three women had appeared in the darkness of the library. They were silent. One of them had led Dusty back through the house and upstairs, at the man’s instruction. Dusty had no sense who these people were or what they intended. She knew only that they knew who she was. She stiffened in the darkness. She and Jack were all that remained of her family.
Dusty made up her mind what she would do. She would be Dusty again. She would scoot out of this trap while everyone else was presumably sleeping. Having decided this, she herself dropped into a deep sleep. She dreamed of herself and Frederick, back in Des Moines, back in a time of hope.
Dusty woke to the sound of her own voice uttering an insistent no. She sat. She had no idea what in sleep had disturbed her so. She was still dead tired.
But waking was providential. She got up, pulled on her jeans and crept down the stairs. She heard nothing. She assumed the women were in the other upstairs rooms. She had no idea where the man was.
She gently opened the back door that led from the kitchen into an herb garden. Amazingly, it was as it had been. She walked softly to the drive and went down the hill on the back road that would connect with the main drive just above an ancient pine forest.
She did not see the man standing in the darkness. She never would. He did nothing. She retrieved “It” from some bushes by the bridge where she left it. She kept going.
Ω
Stephen C. Rose has written a number of books (Fiction/Non-fiction). You can tweet him here.
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