Free Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand Page B

year. There's a few lobster boats. Bugs migrate to
deeper water in the winter, so it slows down about now. In the summer there's a
bunch of people here—yachts, windjammers. But you want to get off the islands
in a hurry, you need a power boat. That way you can catch your flight back to
Florida."
    "Sounds
good to me."
    Toby
laughed. "Oh, it's not that bad. Not nowadays. Fifty or a hundred years
ago, then that would be bad, I guess."
    "What
the hell do people do out there?" I squinted at the islands. "Besides
fish. I mean, what do you do?"
    "I
go back and forth. Bring supplies out to the islands. I'm a carpenter, and I do
heating systems. There's a lot of rich people around. Summer people. Used to be
everyone left after Labor Day. Now some of 'em stay on till Thanksgiving, but
they don't winter over. Summer people, I mean. Islanders live here all year
round. But they don't need me to do their work for 'em."
    He
rested the oars and lit a cigarette, cupping his hands against the spray.
"Aphrodite, I've done some work for her."
    "How
long you been here?"
    Toby
exhaled a plume of blue smoke. "I came in 1972. Used to be a commune out
on Paswegas, it was pretty well known back then. I came and hung out there
awhile, ended up staying."
    "A
commune? How long did it last?"
    "Not
that long. Few years."
    I
zipped my leather jacket, shivering. "I wouldn't last a week."
    "People
been living on these islands a long time," Toby said mildly. "The
Micmacs were here for thousands of years. But no, that commune didn't last
long. None of them ever do. I guess that's why they decided to rename it an
artist's colony. That was more successful. For a little while, anyway. That's
why they call it Burnout Harbor."
    I
made a face, and Toby said, "Hey, I'm surprised you didn't know about
that. If you're coming to see Aphrodite, I mean. She kind of started the whole
commune thing, her and her friends."
    He
fell silent, smoking and staring with narrowed eyes across the reach of blue
water. Finally he said, "That's what brought a lot of folks here. People
from away. Back-to-the-landers. That's why I came, actually. I studied at the
Apprenticeshop, boatbuilding, but a lot of the folks I met then, they were real
hippies. There was a lot of communal-type living going on. A lot of runaways.
College dropouts. Kids from Boston and New York. Even kids from California.
Some from around here. They wanted to, I don't know what—build their own yurts?
Raise goats? Whereas Aphrodite was more into art and, well, kind of a spiritual
thing, I guess you'd say. Oakwind, that's what she named the commune. That's
when I first met her."
    "Wasn't
she kind of old for the whole hippie scene?"
    Toby
frowned. "Well, no, I don't think so. And she was really good-looking back
then."
    I
did the math in my head: Kamestos was born in 1936, so ...
    "Well,
okay," I conceded.
    "There
were a lot of artists." Toby took a final drag on his cigarette then began
to row again in earnest. "A few photographers. Couple of writer types who
were friends of her husband; one of them stayed on. Everyone smoked a lot of
weed. There was a lot of acid. Aphrodite owned a big chunk of land on Paswegas,
her and her husband. They'd let people squat on their property, build these
little shacks and stuff. A few still live there; locals call 'em the cliff
dwellers. Aphrodite's husband, he was dead by then."
    "Did
you know him?"
    "No.
He killed himself. I never heard the whole story. I guess he was gay, and maybe
that was an issue, or maybe it was drugs? Some weird stuff went on at Oakwind,
the whole place kind of imploded. Everyone just went their separate ways after
that."
    I
rubbed my arms. "What kind of weird stuff?"
    Toby's
gaze grew remote. He turned to stare at the green and black mass of Paswegas
looming in the distance. "Out on the islands, every couple of years you
get a witch hunt. People go crazy, cabin fever. Winter especially. Lot of times
it's directed at a schoolteacher, someone from away. Back