Free Spoonwood by Ernest Hebert Page B

drunk, but my anger breaks, replaced by the horror of what I have done. I’m suffocating, just as Birch must be suffocating.
    â€œWe have to turn around,” I say.
    I do a U-turn in the middle of the entrance ramp, almost run into a car coming in, and highball it back to the gas station. I leap up into the dumpster. My first thought is that he’s gone. All the plastic bags look the same. I start ripping through them, but carefully. Third bag, I find him. His eyes are closed, his flesh warm to my touch, his body still. I flick his nose. His arms fly up and he cries out “Hey, watchit!” or words to that effect. It’s the happiest moment of my life. In that dumpster I break down and weep, as much for myself as for Birch. For the first time since Lilith died I feel real.
    We drive on to Brattleboro. I pour out my story to Cooty, who listens as he always does—in delighted confusion. For Cooty there is no such thing as usual. Cooty never learns from experiences outside his ingrained habits; even the most common event is new and exciting for him. Accordingly, he can never tell common from uncommon. For Cooty every day and every action is like a walk in a mine field. With an attitude like that a man must go crazy. Which Cooty did. But he came out the other side of crazy serene. Somewhere along the line he’s taught himself to appreciate chaos. Because everything is perpetually new and strange for Cooty and because he’s stopped being afraid he can enjoy every moment as novel and entertaining.
    â€œYou didn’t like Howie and Elenore and Mrs. Salmon trying to take Birch for themselves, the fighting, I expect,” Cooty says in his own mysterious, half-crazy, half-insightful way. “You were thinking Garvin might be Birch’s real father, not you. You got mad, the mad was you. The mad took it out on Birch, like mad does, going for the little weakies, and you met me, a weakie not mad, and me not mad made you not mad any more, and nowhere we are plowing down the highway, me holding this baby—nice, nice, very nice.”
    â€œThat about sums it up, Cooty, but I don’t know what to do. My anger scares me, especially when I’m drinking.”
    â€œYou know what I think, I think Birch was sent.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, old man?”
    â€œI never know what I mean. Words come out of me. I wish I had Birch for myself.”
    â€œWhat would you do with a baby?”
    â€œI would talk to him like I’m talking to you now.”
    â€œTalk to him,” I say, then repeat, “talk to him.” Possibilities open up.
    â€œYou going back to your folks’ place?” Cooty asks.
    â€œI can’t live there anymore—I just can’t,” I say. “I was thinking of a road trip, but now I’m not so sure. Cooty, if I go anywhere near a bar, temptation, I’ll just revert. Get a few drinks in me, and I commit rash acts. I left Lilith, I started a fight with a friend, and look what I did to Birch!”
    â€œYou know what the biggest troublemaker is? It’s electricity. Camp out on some forgot land where there’s no wires and you’ll heal yourself over time.”
    â€œForgot land?”
    â€œLand that nobody’s using. Move in. All’s they can do is throw you out.”
    I’m picturing the abandoned hippie commune on Lonesome Hill.

5
    FORGOT FARM
    A fter Dad delivers Cooty to the train station, he stops at Kmart and buys a baby car seat for the truck, some paper diapers, a set of bottles with baby formula, and a book on how to deal with people like me. The author is a Doctor Benjamin Spock. (No relation to the Star Trek guy as far as I know, but I do like to think that Dad had an idea to raise me on Vulcan principles.)
    The last leg of the drive to the former hippie commune is a mile up a dirt road that is not maintained by the town of Darby. It is barely passable in the summer and closed in the winter by snow