WILLIAMSTOWN — from “The Last Drop” a novella
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The Future. The last drop has gone. There is no more oil. Dusty Harkness walks toward New York City from Bennington, Vermont, in a world that seems on its last legs. Not knowing she contains the keys to its future.
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The high speed internet grid is going to make geography irrelevant and enable people to put down roots anywhere they wish and still earn a living. This will create a massive recalibration and open the door to the creation of new human settlements.
From The Notebook..
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Dusty was cold and it was dark. She was maybe a third of the way down the road toward Williamstown. Passing through Pownal, she saw no lights or other signs of life. She kept her eyes open for a sign that she had passed into Massachusetts. She kept thinking she might hear the sound of a vehicle. The silence was oppressive.
What options did she have? Frederick was dead. Morris the dog was more than likely dead as well. Staying alone made no sense. She did not want to be isolated. But there was nothing more alone than this darkness.
Then she heard something. She stopped. Up the road, toward Bennington, music, coming toward her. Quickly. And she recognized it. The song. The singer. How could there be music out here, coming so quickly? She looked back. She saw a beam of light, faint, through the mist. And then a contraption! A noisy machine, rolling along. Now fifty feet away in the misty night, Would it stop?
She stood there, not sure whether to be afraid or wave it down. Within seconds her choice was made for her. The thing stopped next to her. Seated on a makeshift board, at eye level, was the very Dale who had blown her off in Bennington. Emitting music next to him was an ancient CD player. The song was “One of These Days”. The singer Emmylou Harris.
“Fancy meeting you,” she said.
Dale did not reply. He simply shrugged and offered the faint suggestion of a smile.
“Does that work?” she asked, gesturing toward the contraption. It consisted of four small bike wheels affixed to the corners of what had once been a door. The only way to steer the unwieldy thing was by two lengths of clothesline that were able to influence the trajectory of the two front wheels. It was a work of shaky genius.
“It coasts OK. You have to push it up hills. It’s not very stable.”
“A little iffy,” she offered.
“I’m sorry,” Dale said abruptly.
“What for?”
“Walking away like that. It’s not easy to act right these days.”
Dusty had no sense of danger now. She realized that she would be better off in this darkness with someone rather than alone. She would accept whatever risks there might be.
“Why did you follow me?” Dusty asked.
“I don’t know,” Dale said. “Something about this idea of going forward.”
“It’s nothing I’ve figured out,” Dusty said. “The world is weird now. I need a city.”
“Maybe — “
Dusty laughed. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Dale got off of his seat and said, “Here.” He gestured for her to sit. “One at a time,” he said.
He pulled a wooden box from under the seat and set it on the ground.
She stepped up and felt this hand on her elbow as she to the seat. She didn’t say anything. A dim flashlight sat next to her.
The seat was nothing more than a board on some boxes. There would have been room for two. but with leg-tucking space only for one. There was room in back to stow stuff. He took her knapsack.
“OK. Here’s how it works,” Dale explained. “On a level stretch like this, it has to be pushed. When there is an incline you can coast. Uphill is a bitch. Sorry!”
Dusty didn’t say anything. Dale started pushing the thing slowly forward. After a few minutes there was an incline and he stopped. Dusty got off.
“Guess we both push,” she said.
Dale nodded.
They got to Williamstown at sunrise.
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Dusty had done some graduate work at Williams back in the day. The day for her was her years after Pawling, when she and Frederick were trying to find a rational way past the end of oil.
“Go ahead,” Frederick had said. “You’ll find a bunch of economists who still believe we can accommodate.”
“We’re certainly free falling,” Dusty answered. “I’ll be sure to offer a few Frederick maxims.”
“Be my guest.”
“You’re the one who said no one would listen.”
“There’s such a thing as being too right.” my dear. “Optimism in the face of perfidy with perfidy winning confidently, inexorably.”
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Frederick, back then, was irresistibly physical. A bear of a man with a touch as gentle as a falling petal. He had enveloped her and she had answered back.
Dusty shook her head. “Gone,” she muttered.
“Gone?” Dale asked.
“Nothing,” Dusty said.
They walked east to the Clark Art Institute but when they got there they blanched.
“Good God,” Dale exclaimed.
Before them, across a large, half-filled pool, was a welter of charred wood, shattered glass and broken marble, fragments of a noble structure burned to the ground. It once held priceless art.
They walked around the fetid pool to the inert remains. There was no one about.
Dusty’s eyes settled on the contorted metal of a smashed Degas bronze. A young ballet dancer.
“Beauty. Ugliness,” she said, shaking her head.
“Let’s get out of here,” Dale answered. “This is spooky. The whole thing is spooky.”
“What do you suggest?” Dusty said, with a trace of irritation.
“I don’t know. This is your trip. You know the town.”
They walked back to the main street and coasted “It” down a slight incline to Spring Street. There were a few people down the narrow way.
From a gaunt older man standing before a vacant old movie house, they learned that almost everyone had moved few miles east to the city of North Adams. The man knew nothing of conditions there.
“What do you do for food around here?” Dale asked.
The man shook his head.
“This is the pits,” Dusty said.
“They’re hoarding,” Dale whispered.
They made their way back to the old fraternity.
“So what do we do?” Dale asked.
“We could go to North Adams, get fed and head south from there. Or we could fast and get some rest and start for Pittsfield.”
“It’s your call,” Dale said.
“I have an idea,” Dusty answered with the suggestion of a smile.
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The fraternity house was open and empty. They walked back to the kitchen and hit pay dirt. There were tins of tuna fish in the cupboards and boxes of Cheerios and triscuits. The Cheerios were stale but otherwise edible. They found a can-opener and feasted on chunks of tuna.
Dusty looked at Dale. Dale noticed and turned his head away. It had welled up in Dusty since the night before. Attraction.
Dale was taciturn, twenty-something. One who walked away. But now he was following, seemingly open to whatever trip Dusty chose.
For herself, Dusty realized that this man, years her junior, might be a doorway to a time when she had known closeness in a way that had not been possible for years. She and Frederick had slept in the same bed as always. But he had gradually lost his capacities. She accepted that without question. They maintained closeness.
Dale betrayed nothing. He felt unhinged. He had always been off somehow, inclined to depression. These days, people simply called it “down” or “blue”. Or shook their head to signify they understood. The whole world was on edge. There was no edge to be found.
After they had eaten, Dusty said, “Come here.” She led the way to a small door off a hallway. It opened on a flight of stairs that led down to … what? “We used to come down here when I was a student,” she said.
“What’s down there?” Dale said.
“It’s where they met when this was a fraternity.”
Dale directed the beam of his flashlight past Dusty and saw only a wall where the stairs turned left. Following her, they came to a large open room. On the sides, a step up, there was cushioned seating. At the end stood a raised stage, carpeted and and empty save for a single, large wooden chair with a high back.
It took them only the time to walk into and across the room to reach a silent compact. They climbed the two steps up to the stage and quietly disrobed. She was more handsome than she knew and he was almost a picture of innocence, standing a few feet in front of her, half hard. He shook his head slowly.
“What,” Dusty said.
“You,” he replied.
It happened quickly from there. Soon they were on the carpeting side by side. She said, “Now.” Then, “Come in.”
Inside her, he felt he had entered a different world than he had ever known. This was nothing like other times. Those were times of anxious movement, determination, scrunched up effort, desperate trying. This was different: motionless. Silent. Dale felt all around him a force he couldn’t resist, inviting him to dive into a world he did not know. Out of stillness, from her, came a slow, repeated motion, subtle, faint. Then the moving stopped. And then came waves and waves that lasted an indeterminate time. Dusty smiled. She knew the feeling from way back.
It was dark when they came upstairs. Dale walked up to the second floor and there was silence. Dusty sat down in what had been a seminar room, sweeping dust with her hand from a small table.. She thought about what had taken place.
She felt little attachment to Dale. She allowed that truth to sit there. After thirty seconds of nothing, she closed her eyes. She woke up later in the darkness.
Dale had taken the flashlight. Dusty moved from the chair to the floor and used her arm for a pillow. She fell into a deep sleep.
When she awoke, she knew before she looked what had taken place. She raised herself on an elbow, turned and saw Dale’s legs suspended in the deathly quiet.
Dale left a note that simply said: “Nice trip. Good ending. Dale.”
Dusty turned the chair and sat facing Dale. She thought of Frederick. Two men. Two choices. Everything was all about choice.
She left Dale as he was. She walked into the dawn and pushed “It” down the drive. She headed south on Route Seven in the direction of Pittsfield.
Ω
Stephen C. Rose has written a number of books (Fiction/Non-fiction). You can tweet him here.
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