Comfort Thomas

That First Frozen Night

The snow on Mount Desert Island was still more than two feet deep, with a covering that was crystallized into a hard sheet that crunched and cracked with every step. No one had passed this way all winter, and F. Red carefully tried to step into the trail made by Jacques-O. It was the back way to the farm.

“In Texas they would say that this was the long way ‘round the barn to get to the door.”

F. Red’s attempt at levity was a poor cover for his growing concerns. Leaping at the opportunity to join a filmmaker's commune in the piney woods of Maine seemed less of a great idea than another stoned fantasy. With his red hair down to the middle of his back, faded blue jeans and work shirt, brown leather round toe Frye boots, and red string kautuka his hippie costume was complete. All that and everything else he owned was in his backpack.

“Is that the house over there?” he asked pointing to the tan old, weathered barn. His nervousness grew dramatically at the sight.

Jacques-O did not stop, just looked over his shoulder wondering if he had made a colossal mistake.

“No that’s just the old barn. No one uses it anymore except the mice.”

The driveway was easier, and the multicolored VW bus made deep but walkable ruts. Jacques-O loved to initiate newcomers by bushwhacking a path through the woods. He passed beneath a snow laden pitch pine branch in the forest and gave it a good tug. The cold wet flakes fell in a new blizzard, covering F. Red’s red hair and face, melting down his cheek and clumping together on his glasses. He pulled his hand out from his leather glove and flicked the snow away so he could see.

It was 1971. The American war in Viet Nam continued as more than 500,000 people prepared to descend on Washington D.C. trying to stop Richard Nixon’s killing machine. The pictures of My Lai were burned by napalm into the consciousness of the country, and any claim that we might have held to the moral high ground was forever destroyed. It was no longer a battle between obeying and your President right or wrong or disobeying and telling the world you had a President who had his head up his ass.

The Buffalo Springfield summed it up in their song For What It’s Worth, “There’s battle lines being drawn, Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.” Khe San City was being abandoned yet again. F.Red still believed there was a new feeling in the air, a moment not yet born, a sense of what it really meant to be human, to be alive on this planet. He could not define it. He just knew it was coming.

The snow reminded him of the last piece he wrote for The Earthworm Recycling magazine before leaving Cambridge. It was about winter, about snow. About how underneath all the cold whiteness waited another green Spring. The last line "Only nature knows how to use death creatively" kept repeating in his mind.

He had instantly said yes to Jacques-O when he was invited to the farm. Jacques-O was his best friend, they were both hippies, and communes were where hippies lived. The reality was becoming increasingly unpleasant and scary. F.Red was born and bred in New York City. He was a city mouse. It was home, a place where you can always find the light switches even in the dark. Jacques-O told him there was no electricity at the farm. No toilets. No televisions or radios. No phones. And no light switches. Plus, it was cold. Very cold.

“It’s effing freezing. Is it always this cold?” F. Red asked.

Jacques-O turned his head a bit as he kept trudging through the snow. “Cold? Bro, this is warm.”

Holy crap thought F. Red, if this is warm, I’ll freeze to death. He had another question for Jacques-O.

“You said we needed to bath in The Cove. Where’s the cove?”

Jacques-O pointed his red mitten to the right.

“Over there.”

“It’s a little cold for bathing isn't it.” F. Red said aloud to himself thinking about the steaming hot showers he took every morning.

Jacques-O overheard him.

“You get used to it. You might even like it.”

“When does the water get warmer?”

Jacques-O stopped, smiled that impish grin that F. Red dreaded, and turned his face to look at him.

“Now. It’s warm now. I was bathing in it last week. We all were.”

F. Red’s brain stopped working at that point. The idea of being naked in this cold and jumping in the water was an impossible thought. They kept stomping through the snow.

“Why does no one use the barn anymore?” he said trying to make noise. The Maine woods were way too quiet for a city boy and the sound of his voice was somehow reassuring.

“We used to keep the horses there. No one rides anymore. Like I said it’s where the mice play.”

F. Red made a face that clearly expressed his disgust. The thought of mice playing brought to mind a memory of the argument he had with Cindy before he left about how a mice motel can be humane if it traps even if it kills mice. He remembered saying it was a nice way for them to go. A mice motel with beds and TV's.

Jacques-O interrupted F. Red’s mouse musing with a warning.

“Be careful here, deep puddles and icy patches under the snow. Spring is coming.”

F. Red looked down at his foot and noted that it was much smaller than the tread Jacques-O’s left in the snow. He was getting tired from all this tramping about and looked forward to being in a warm house. He was L.L. Bean equipped for snow, but it was still damn see-your-breath cold.

Just to hear his own voice again he asked Jacques-o a question.

“You told me that this was one of three houses?”

Jacques-O took a few more steps, turned and stopped.

“Yes. This,” he patiently answered, ”is my mom and dad’s house. Over on the east side near the cove is my Aunt Sissy’s stone house, and my Uncle Jean has a small cabin back near the road. Then there’s the barn. It was bought almost 26 years ago by all of them as a family compound. We used to come here every summer until Uncle Jean passed. Sissy hardly comes anymore, it’s too hard for her to get around.”

Jacques-O looked up at the treetops, perhaps saying a prayer to his Uncle Jean.

“And there’s The Caroline.” added Jacques-O.

“The Caroline is the boat?”

Jacques-O slowed and looked over his shoulder.

“The Caroline is not just a boat. She’s a 40-foot wooden sailboat, built in Newfoundland, waiting for us in drydock. We’ll take her out as soon as the weather warms.”

F. Red remembered leaning over the side of a Cape Cod whale watching excursion heaving his last 2 meals into the churning waters of Cape Cod Bay. It was the first and last time he had been on a boat. I am he thought to himself definitely getting the out of here before any boat trips.

“I can’t wait.” he said to Jacques-O with a measure of excitement far greater than he felt.

Jacques-O reminded F. Red of a rugged Mountain Man, all tall and skinny, muscled, and tanned from spending most of his time outdoors in Maine and Arizona. Hiking, camping, sailing, climbing. The top of his head was already balding and tanned, but his full beard balanced it out. F.Red was a tall and skinny redheaded, freckled, and Irish pale. He had managed to skip camping, sailing, and hiking in Manhattan. If Jacques-O and the others can do it, he thought, so can I.

He flashed back to the Polar Bear Club in Boston. He always wondered what happened when the shock of icy cold winter water grabbed you by the nuts. Maybe he could get through the weekend without trying it and then get back to civilization where the shower would always be hot and steamy.

“Is that smoke?”

Jacques-O looked up above the tops of the fir trees. “Donnie must have started the fire to warm the house in your honor Maestro.”

The soft sound of The Jefferson Airplane and Grace Slick softly faded through the silence of the woods. F.Red knew the answer but asked anyway.

“Jacques-O what is that playing? The Airplane? I thought you said there was no electricity?”

For a moment hope leaped and danced in F. Red's mind.

“It’s the boombox. Batteries. Jefferson Airplane. Grace singing “Got A Revolution!” Donny and Michelle’s favorite song.”

And Jacques-O started softly singing along with the parts he remembered.

“Volunteers of America, Volunteers of America, da-da-da America, Volunteers, Got to revolution, Got a revolution.”

F.Red knew this was a mistake, one of the many he has lately made. "It won't kill me to spend the weekend" he told himself. He also remembered Cindy's telling him to try and remember that on the other side of fear is everything he ever wanted.

Another hundred feet slogging through the unbroken snow and they could see the river rock chimney pouring out a thick stream of white smoke as the house came into view. It was the picture of Comfort Thomas Jacques-O had shown him in Cambridge. Red shutters on old windows. Faded wooden shake siding. The extra-long picture window overlooking the front lawn down to the cove.

It was on that front lawn where many months later Michelle would sit upon the granite boulder and turn into the naked acid dancing Shiva of many colors.

But that’s another story.