Drop City

peeling potatoes, hauling frozen buckets of human waste out to the refuse heap, living day by day through the slow deterioration of everything she cared about, everything she'd built and fought for, and maybe she'd pile up stones in memory of Marco, the way the Indians did, and cry over the stones and her battered hands and the whole impossible naive idealistic hippie trip she'd been on ever since she left home. What a fool, she thought. What a fool she'd been.
    She thought of the money then. The three pale stiff silvery green notes wrapped up in the sock in the inside flap of her backpack, her insurance policy, cab fare, bus fare, air fare, the means to get out. Ronnie had got out, Sky Dog and Dale Murray, Rain, Lester and Franklin--and Norm was on his way. Verbie was living in town with Iron Steve in a rental with electricity and running water. Lydia was only parked here, the most temporary of arrangements, everybody knew that. And so why should she suffer? Why should she wear herself down in the thankless role of _chick__ and scullery maid? She got up from the bed and went to her pack.
    She dug through her summer tops, her cutoffs, sandals, a bundle of letters she'd meant to send, camping gear, books, suntan oil, three, four, five pairs of clean socks, her poncho, but when she reached into the inside pocket, deep down, at the bottom, there was nothing. It had to be a mistake. She upended the pack on the bed, went through every pouch, pocket and fold of clothing and laid everything out where she could see it, thinking she would hike the twelve miles to town all on her own, just follow the river like a highway, walk into the Three Pup and offer to pay one of the bush pilots to fly her out, Howard, maybe--he would do it, no problem. She'd offer fifty and keep the rest for a one-way ticket home--not to Florida, not to Hawaii, but home--and she saw herself sitting back in the reclining seat, eating a hot meal off the tray, prepackaged food, civilized food, and her mother standing there at the gate at Kennedy with Sam and the dog, and her father, if he could get off work. She started to cry then. She couldn't help herself.
    For a long while she just sat there, staring down at the pattern of her things spread out over the bed. Then she went through everything again, sobbing deep in her chest, rubbing at her nose and eyes with the back of her sleeve. Then she got up and searched round the cabin, peering down the length of the shelves, fanning through the paperbacks, though she knew she hadn't moved that money--not unless she was losing her mind, not unless she'd been sleepwalking or dreaming herself into another dimension. She retraced her steps. Searched through the empty pack again and yet again and finally used her penknife to take the lining out of the pocket, but what she clenched in her hand was only nylon, navy blue nylon, manufactured in Taiwan.
    The money hadn't vanished into thin air. It hadn't grown legs and run off. Someone had stolen it, that was the only conclusion, some thief, somebody who'd had the nerve, and the leisure, to go through her things behind her back--Merry, Maya, Jiminy, Marco. But no. She couldn't believe it of any of them, and besides, no one had known the money was there--it was her secret, her secret stash. She was desolated. This was the end of brother- and sisterhood, this was the way it played out. In betrayal. Selfishness. Meanness. In thievery. Where was the flow in that? Where was the breakthrough? It came to her that everybody must have had a secret stash, something they were holding out on for their own selfish little reasons, even Marco, even Merry, and so it was only logical that they would suspect each other and rifle--that was the word, wasn't it?--rifle each other's possessions.
    Once more she went through everything, desperate now, flinging wrung-out socks and unfurled sweaters and spine-sprung paperbacks over her shoulder, and she was looking at the door and listening for footsteps as if she could hear them through the screen of the storm, a heartbeat away from _rifling__ Jiminy's things, Merry's, Marco's, when she thought of Ronnie. He'd been alone here, with Lydia, and if anyone knew her secrets Ronnie did, if anyone would have gone through her things, if anyone would even have thought of stealing from her, lying to her, cheating and two-timing and offering her up to teepee cats like a prostitute and playing the unwitting victim all the while, it was Ronnie. Ronnie had her