House Hold: A Memoir of Place

12. Jefferson

234 12 Jef­ fer­ son After my ­ father died in 2005, he left us each some money. Any sen­ sible per­ son, es­ pe­ cially one who for ­ twenty years had been con­ sumed by wor­ ries about find­ ing an af­ ford­ able place in the city, would have used that money to buy a New York apart­ ment. It ­ couldn’t have ­ bought us much—a stu­ dio maybe or a­ one-bedroom far­ ther out into Brook­ lyn—but it would have­ stopped, once and for all, the cycle of real es­ tate anx­ iety. I al­ ways knew I’d do the im­ prac­ ti­ cal thing, ­ though—knew if my ­ father did leave me any money, I’d use it to buy a house in the coun­ try. ­ Stronger than the de­ mands of my New York life was a long­ ing for land—“acreage,” as my Wis­ con­ sin ­ friends call it.­ Stronger than the re­ al­ ity of daily life was the fan­ tasy of going back. At the time, I told my­ self that buy­ ing an apart­ ment would have been a kind of ­ betrayal. My ­ father ­ didn’t ­ really like New York and found real es­ tate here an un­ fath­ om­ able ­ rip-off. But the truth is my de­ ci­ sion ­ wasn’t ­ really a mat­ ter of hon­ or­ ing some un­ spoken wish be­ yond the grave. I would have done it any­ way. The idea of a house in the coun­ try came ­ loaded with mean­ ing from the start. I ­ didn’t miss the sym­ me­ try, the story com­ ing full cir­ cle. The man who had ­ created the great de­ fin­ ing space of my life was now giv­ ing me a ­ chance to pur­ chase a house of my own, a home that would, I hoped, give me those trees and those rooms I re­ mem­ bered. I ­ didn’t miss the irony ei­ ther. What af­ forded my re­ turn to the land was money made in com­ mer­ cial real es­ tate. Jefferson 235 Park­ ing lots had paid for my es­ cape, just as they had paid for the house on the ledge ­ thirty-five years be­ fore. In­ stead of the Mid­ west, Andre and I de­ cided to look for a cabin or a house in up­ state New York. Both teach­ ers, we could spend our sum­ mers there, and if it was close ­ enough, even go up for week­ ends. We spent over a year look­ ing—long week­ ends driv­ ing ­ around the Cats­ kills in the back of a real es­ tate ­ broker’s van. The bro­ ker, who had only just ­ started in the job, ­ didn’t seem to care much about ­ houses. ­ Mostly he sold hunt­ ing land to­ middle-aged men from New Jer­ sey. He ­ didn’t under­ stand what we were look­ ing for—­ didn’t under­ stand us. We’d ask for a nat­ u­ ral land­ scape, and he’d drive up to a house with­ out the stick of a tree, just a row of plas­ tic ­ gnomes lead­ ing to the door. We’d ask to see sim­ ple cab­ ins and he’d show us a spot­ less ranch house, the sim­ u­ la­ tion of a crack­ ling fire on the tele­ vi­ sion ­ screen. What was so dis­ heart­ en­ ing ­ wasn’t that these ­ houses ­ didn’t match our taste; the prob­ lem was that they ­ didn’t match our mem­ o­ ries. I can’t ­ really blame the ­ broker’s con­ fu­ sion: “Last time you said you just ­ wanted a ­ one-room cabin and now you say you want a ­ fixer-upper farm­ house.” If we were vague, it was be­ cause our de­ sire ­ couldn’t be ex­ plained by any of the words used by real es­ tate bro­ kers. We were look­ ing for the trac­ ings of an­ other time and place. Too often on that ­ house-hunt we ­ seemed to be walk­ ing into the dis­ ap­ point­ ing end­ ings of some­ body ­ else’s fan­ tasy. This was rural Amer­ ica, and like much of rural Amer­ ica, a place of great nat­ u­ ral ­ beauty and few jobs. We ­ toured farms that had gone bust—in one, a woman in her hos­ pi­ tal bed was ­ wheeled out of...