The Best People in the World (14 page)

Across the lake the sun was sinking behind yet another ripple of mountains.

We still needed to unload the trailer.

Shiloh said, “I don't need any of the things in there.”

Neither did Alice.

I decided to wear the same cruddy clothes tomorrow and the next day and the next.

Alice said, “I don't want to worry about what I wear. I want to be the kind of person who doesn't think about clothes at all.”

So the three of us unhooked the trailer and towed it beside the house.

When it was time for bed, Alice and I undressed in our new
room. I looked at her naked body. She lay down on the bare bed and pulled me on top of her. Her wet mouth tried to eat my ear.

 

In the morning there was no sign of Shiloh or Alice's car, but a pile of furniture was gathering in the yard, two dressers, three kitchen chairs, a twin mattress, and a pair of skis. Our friend had discovered the dump.

A little before noon he came over the hill with an ancient refrigerator lashed to the roof. It had a handle like a slot machine.

“What good will that do without electricity?” asked Alice.

Shiloh said one word: “Wait.”

Before anything could be brought inside, we needed to air it out; it had to lose the scent of being cast off and take on the scent of being saved. We took the dresser drawers out and let them warm in the sun.

3

All the Parts That Make the Whole

As far as Alice and I were concerned, beams, boards, windows, and doors made a house. Shiloh uncovered the mysteries. He opened a valve in the basement and there it was, water. But how, asked Alice, had he known which valve to open? How had he known it was shut? It was simple; if the water had been left on, then the pipes would have frozen over the winter. Simple. And another thing, did we understand that the water was flowing without a pump? Did we know what might cause that? He'd deduced that there was a spring-fed collection reservoir at some higher elevation, on the slope above the house, perhaps. We wanted to go see it. We couldn't just go see it; it would be underground; it would be below the frost line. And what was a frost line? Oh, man, said Shiloh.

With a claw hammer and lineman's pliers tucked inside the waistband of his pants, Shiloh climbed the utility pole. The possibility of seeing him electrocuted foremost in our minds, Alice and I had told him we preferred to live in darkness. There were principles involved, he explained. Did we know, on a basic level, what electricity represented? Work in a can. The juice ran through the wires whether
he tapped it or not. If there were no hydroelectric dams or coal generators or nuclear reactors, only miles of wire, power would flow through them regardless. That can't be true, said Alice. It's a fact of magnetism, said Shiloh. It seemed that Alice had run into the limit on her education.

After a few minutes of tinkering, Shiloh climbed down the pole.

“You're a genius,” she told him when he showed her hot water in the tub. “You're a genius,” she said, and she pushed the two of us out the door. “Oh my God,” she said. And we could hear her naked body slip into the water.

4

Housekeeping

According to the seed packages, we were late putting in the corn and peas. On the road to town, small plots already showed leafy green rows. Alice and I picked a flat area above the house that got lots of sun. We staked out the boundaries for an ambitious garden. The roots of the grass were so tightly packed that I took to sharpening the blade of the shovel with a file. Alice came behind me and broke the clods up with her toes. It was a tedious process. When the sun got too high, we'd wander off together. We had nothing but ourselves to distract us from the black earth. We wound up with a tiny garden. But who were we trying to impress? We decided to be satisfied. We buried all the seeds.

And Shiloh, our pole star, was nowhere to be seen. Gardening didn't interest him. He preferred small parts, springs, and gears. From the dump he'd rescued a mantel clock, a handsome thing made of shiny brass and tiny screws. Shiloh had illusions about getting it to run. He'd sit in the kitchen and inventory the parts. When a small assembly did some perfect thing, he'd call me inside to be his witness. “This we call a pinion gear,” he would say. Or, when he found two initials engraved on the casing, “The clockmaker knows his work will survive him so he's left this message for you and me.”

At the end of the day, Alice and I would lean against the house,
watch the sun drop beyond the lake. Porcupines crossed the road above the house. Once or twice deer entered the meadow to graze. Their dun hides made them nearly invisible. It was easy to imagine that they were always out there watching us.

 

On a night when a full moon prevented me from sleeping, I listened to the porch swing creak. I put on some shorts and went down to see Shiloh.

“Hey,” he said.

I sat beside him on the swing. The moon had a way of making the sky seem colder than it really was. It was a matter of acclimatizing yourself to it, or so Pawpaw claimed. He would sleep out on his porch late into the winter, sometimes not coming in even when the temperature dipped below freezing.

“You like tea?” Shiloh asked.

I did.

He had me wait while he went inside. When he came back he had two cups. He held something under my nose. Mint.

“It grows by the side of the house,” he said. He crushed a few leaves between his fingers and dropped them in our cups.

I tasted the bitter tea and lemon and then the graininess of the sugar.

The two of us sat on the swing, not rocking because it made too much noise, just drinking our drinks, letting our eyes travel from the empty road to the empty field and up, to a night sky so poached by the moon that only the brightest stars were visible.

“I went to see Gregor yesterday.”

Shiloh waited for me to respond.

I said, “Was the goat still there?”

“Of course,” said Shiloh. He pushed his foot against the porch and the swing rocked a few feet. “They really want us to stop by for one of their dinners.”

“Alice and I have been pretty busy here.”

“Well, the food is free and I'd like to take another look at those houses. This place is going to be a brute to heat come winter.”

“You think you're going to go?”

“They're trying to figure out a way to live in the world, Thomas. And it's a moral and sustainable way. I find that pretty encouraging. I won't mind seeing some new faces either, no offense.”

“Alice found that initiation thing a bit much. She's not even sure Bob Seger has a brother.”

“Can I offer you a piece of advice?”

I was all ears.

“Be her boyfriend, but don't be her boy.”

“And who's her boy?”

“The same dope who buys her regiment.”

“What regiment?” The only woman for me.

“All I want is for us to go over there and get a free meal. They invited all of us. Opening their homes up to strangers is a matter of decency to them. It's not based on religion. They recognize that people are basically good. It's something I believe in very deeply. It's why I'm an anarchist.”

“Shiloh,” I said, “what do you mean by anarchist?”

“I mean that I don't believe in hierarchies. I don't believe in power structures. I don't believe in people telling other people what they should do. People know what they should do, basically. It means I'm for people. People who are against people, those are the people I'm against.”

The whole time he was speaking his voice sounded very optimistic, very positive, but I also had the sense that he weighed more than all of the stars we could see, that he had this astounding mass and maybe even his own gravity—I could feel myself getting pulled toward him.

“If we go over there, they aren't going to make us do anything?”

“No. They won't make you say an oath or something like that. It's just a picnic. I just felt like, since they invited us, we couldn't not stop by. I mean, I know Gregor's a bit of a windbag, but don't you think he means well? Maybe he's got an exaggerated sense of his own importance in the scheme of things, but who hasn't been guilty of that? Not me. Not Alice.”

“What about her?”

“I'm not speaking badly of her, Thomas. We all have different ideas about how the world works. Is it significant that you and I are awake and she's asleep? I mean, if someone asked me that, I'd have to give it some hard thought. Maybe we're the same kind of people and she's something else. I'm not saying that for a fact—I'm just theorizing.”

“She's just really tired.”

“And then someone might say that you were with her all day long and yet you're not tired.”

“I'll go. But I can't make Alice go if she doesn't want to.”

“You have no idea what you can make her do.”

I went back upstairs hoping what he'd said was true.

 

But before we left, Shiloh wanted us to participate in a ceremony. Each of us, in turn, got a hand massage while the others looked you in the eyes and said what they thought were your most admirable qualities.

I didn't see the point.

“The point,” said Shiloh, “is to do it. And, after we've done it, well, maybe then we can find some point.”

Alice thought it would be fun.

I had never done anything like it before, so I was the first recipient. Alice worried my hand, bending to kiss each finger. Shiloh ran his thumbs up and down meridians in my arm. I found it impossible to ignore their eyes.

Shiloh asked me if I was comfortable.

I asked him what he was doing. He said that by shunting the blood in my arm, he could cause me to experience whole-body sensations of heat and chill. And—whether it was his technique or the power of suggestion—I felt it.

“I never feel as though Thomas judges me,” Alice began.

“He's a decent cook.”

Alice credited me with a well-developed morality.

Shiloh insisted there was something special about the quality of attention I paid to things.

“Thomas never loses his temper.”

“He has an elegance,” said Shiloh.

“He's moral.”

“And a good kind of cautious.”

White teeth. An understanding of human nature. Attentive. Curious. A wonderful kisser. A confidant.

Their fingers kept reassuring me that this wasn't a trick.

Shiloh recognized in me a healthy suspicion of authority figures.

Alice trusted that I couldn't betray her.

I believed in the basic goodness of human beings. I was gentle. I valued personal integrity over societal conventions.

“I need him here,” said Alice.

Shiloh dropped my hand. “My turn.”

We switched spots. He flexed the muscles in his arm.

“Shiloh stands up for what he believes in.”

I said, “He's self-reliant.”

“People look up to him.”

“He plans for the future.”

“I've never seen him afraid.”

What I hadn't imagined was what it was like to stare at the person you addressed. I saw in Shiloh an eagerness. “He understands the way machines work.”

“He's direct.”

“And funny.”

“His voice is sexy.”

I said, “Birds could nest in his sideburns.”

“No one can keep a secret like Shiloh can.”

“He's looking out for us.”

Shiloh nodded, as if this was a burden that he accepted. He still held Alice's hand and so, rather than wait for him to move, I did.

“Well,” said Shiloh, “I don't think it's a secret: if Alice isn't happy with the way things are going, she changes it.”

“I've never seen her mad.”

Alice frowned at me. “Start over.”

“She's sexy when she's angry.” I ran my fingernails under her shirt sleeve.

“She believes in the decency of people.”

“Alice is generous.”

“Changes don't frighten her.”

“Every time I look at her, she's more beautiful.”

“People know to trust her.”

“She's easy.” I paused. “To talk to.”

“If there's a proper name for something, she always knows it.”

“Alice has poise.” Her eyes were much calmer than Shiloh's.

“She's selfless.”

“We owe this house to her.”

“You can't credit both of us for the house,” said Shiloh.

“I didn't,” still looking at Alice.

“She won't tolerate injustice,” said Shiloh.

“Ms. Lowe is a teacher.”

“When no one else would take me in, Alice offered her house.”

“Apartment,” Alice corrected.

“See?”

“The way she drives with both hands and never whistles.”

Shiloh stood up. “We should get going, if we're going at all.”

Alice turned her head a few degrees. “Of course we're going. I can't wait to see those maniacs.”

“Well, don't call them maniacs.”

“I was being facetious. You know what Thomas calls that place? The Sound of Music Commune.” She leaned over and kissed me.

“Gregor calls it DWG,” said Shiloh.

“What does that stand for?” asked Alice.

“Doing It with Goats,” I said.

“Down with God,” said Shiloh.

Alice furrowed her brow. “Seriously?”

“It's his whole philosophy.” Shiloh didn't quite look like himself. He'd tucked a long-sleeved shirt into a pair of work pants.

“You would know,” said Alice. “Thomas and I haven't been sneaking out to meet with these people.”

“Of course not. You're only interested in each other. I'm tired of your whispered conversation, your conscientious sex. This house has never been emptier than with you two in it.”

That last remark echoed.

“I'll just go alone,” said Shiloh.