The Commune

“Shucking corn in the rain” was the latest euphemism making the rounds at the commune, but none of us could reach an agreement on what it actually referred to, if anything. There was a bit of a fracas amongst various factions, fractured and fractious. Things came to such a boil that Roger called for an emergency community meeting, but to our general relief a surprise mudslide destroyed the Peace Pavilion (and buried Roger’s Volkswagen Cabriolet) and it was canceled. Then Bob piped up, suggesting we rent a tent and some folding chairs and set them up in the clearing so that we could have sort of a combination emergency community meeting and memorial service for Roger, and everyone’s mood went into a tailspin. This included the mood of Roger, who pointed out to Bob that he, Roger, was not dead, that it was in fact somebody else’s body that had been dug out and pulled lifeless from the vast muck of the Cabriolet, specifically the corpse of an as-yet-unidentified hitchhiker, a male Caucasian between the ages of forty-five and fifty, approximately five foot ten and a hundred and sixty pounds and whom Roger claimed to have picked up by the side of the road on his way home from tai chi and invited back to the commune for our Saturday bean supper. Unlike Roger, the Unknown Hitchhiker had been unable to disengage his seat belt quickly enough to exit the Cabriolet and flee the immediate area upon the sudden arrival of the mudslide.

Now, as we were standing around bumming out about Bob’s suggestion about the tent and the folding chairs, a few of us noticed that Eddie’s rash had returned, but this time it was on Wanda. Coincidentally, it had only been a few days earlier that the sheriff, investigating the recent and mysterious disappearance of Wanda’s husband, Troy, had discovered during a routine door-to-door search what appeared to be a crudely fashioned voodoo doll resembling Troy inside of Eddie’s microwave oven. Eddie claimed it was an overbaked sweet potato from last Thursday, although the resemblance was uncanny. The sheriff brought him in for questioning, just in case. Eddie chose “Modern French Colonial History” for his category. A nonnative-speaking jury was quickly rounded up at the bus station and, blindfolded, hauled into the parking lot of the courthouse on the back of a flatbed truck and submitted to a taste test. Two out of three preferred the instant Ethiopian blend. The others were allowed to return to their homes. Eddie was released in the care of his high school gym teacher, Mr. Gilhoolie, who had been bused in from Bridgeport as a character witness.

As we milled about in the clearing gloomily awaiting the arrival of the tent and folding chairs a young doe appeared at the edge of the woods, raised her right hoof, and made a circular motion three times in our direction. It appeared to be some sort of a sign. Jerry was almost certain she was trying to order a Ballantine. The deer was gone by the time he came back from his cooler with a couple of Miller tallboys, the best he could do. “May as well be shucking corn in the rain,” Jerry muttered, popping open the flip top on one of the tallboys. I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about. I wanted to hit him, and hit him hard.

It was nearly dusk when the tent and the chairs arrived, and Bob, sensing some general resistance, suggested we could skip the emergency community meeting altogether and in its place have movie night a few nights early, followed by the memorial service for the Unknown Hitchhiker — Roger’s memorial service having already been canceled, by Roger — and this was met with not general, but much more specific, relief. Bob hauled out his projector and screen and once again showed us his prized reel of rare early film footage of the Paramus World’s Fair of 1896, where the exotic midget contortionist Little...