Drop City

around on the shelf behind the stove, looking for bowls, spoons, cups. “Made it last time through. What you do is you hack off a healthy chunk of that moose flank outside, fry it in bear fat with some flour and onions, salt, pepper, a little Tabasco, whatever vegetables you've got on hand--it was dried peas and lentils in this case--then fill it to the top with liquid, boil it down and toss your rice in. And voilà, Moose Stew à la Harder. And the beauty of it is, you just set the pot down on the floor when you close the place up and it's frozen like a rock inside of the hour.” He rubbed his palms together and held them out over the stove. “Roy taught me that.”
    “And now you're teaching me.”
    “That's right. Now I'm teaching you.”
    If he'd had his doubts--camping, _siwashing,__ in forty-below weather--the stew drove them down till he could begin to envision himself in Sess's place, at home out here no matter what the conditions, taking what the land gives you, living small and a million light-years from the suburbs and the compulsively trimmed bushes and the rolling lawns and ornamental trees, because whoever landscaped this place outside the window did one hell of a job and no denying it. The stew was delicious. He had three bowls and polished the bowl when he was done with the pilot bread Sess kept sealed in a glass jar on the shelf. There was coffee, with sugar and evaporated milk, half-thawed blueberries in thick syrup for dessert and three shots of E&J brandy each. They sat cramped in at the little table by the window and fingered their cups and watched the way the moon dodged and shifted and went about its business amongst the trees. They talked trapping, talked snares and baits, talked Drop City, talked women.
    “I'm not surprised, truthfully, to hear the nephew sprouted wings,” Sess said, “considering that girlfriend of his, because she's a downtown girl if I ever saw one.”
    “He'll be back,” Marco said, and even as he said it, out here with nothing but a makeshift stove and a half-rotten spruce wall to keep him from becoming another casualty of the country, the mortal punctuation to yet another cautionary tale, he doubted himself. When Norm had pulled out, all of Drop City went into a panic, and after the panic, they went into mourning. Norm was their rock, their founder, their guru--he'd brought them all out here into the wilderness with the irreducible power of his vision, his money, his energy--and now he'd deserted them. Star sobbed till Marco thought her ribs were going to crack. Reba ate Seconal by the fistful. Jiminy wanted to shoot the skis off Bosky's plane, handcuff Norm if necessary, anything, kidnap Premstar. Bill roared in Norm's face for a whole day and a half, and you could hear his voice starting up like a chainsaw every few minutes and falling off again till it was the defining sound of Drop City, available even to the last cabin out. And then the plane came and Norm and Premstar were gone, peace, brothers and sisters, and screw you all-- “Yeah,” Sess said, “I'm sure he will. If he gets another girlfriend.”
    Marco shrugged. They'd put out the lantern to save fuel and to give them a better view of the night beyond the window. “I don't know,” he said, “maybe we don't need him. Maybe it's all part of the greater plan.”
    “The greater plan? You're not getting mystical on me, are you? Here, have another shot of brandy. It's good for you.”
    “I mean, some people are serious about this and some aren't--Alaska, let's all go to Alaska, kids, and we'll dance to the light of the moon. You know what I'm saying? We'll see how it shakes out now that we're on our own.”
    “Lydia,” Sess said. “She's the one. If I had my pick, she'd be the one I'd go for. But don't tell Pamela.” He looked down into his cup. “By the way, just out of curiosity, did you ever--?”
    Marco shook his head. “Not my type. But I guess you heard she brought us a little present from Fairbanks, right?”
    “Present?”
    “Yeah,” Marco said, holding his eyes. “Crabs.”
    Sess leaned into the table. He was grinning. “You don't mean Alaskan king, do you?”
    “I don't have them,” Marco said. “And neither does Star. So that says something right there.”
    “Oh, you're hooked, brother, you're hooked. Your wandering days are over, all she wrote.” He lifted the cup to his lips, set it down again. “But seriously, you need a woman up here. If you're serious about the