“This… grass… was… grown… around… here…？” （Ben Hobart asking Tor）
“Yeah, the… crop… is… walking… distance…” （Quinn answering Ben Hobart）
“You… live… up… here… full… time…？” （Lou asking Tor）
“We… finished… building… a year… ago…” （Bari answering Lou）
Tor, you may notice, says virtually nothing. He has a story, too, but I can’t tell it—he and Bari are childless, and there are no intimates’ memories in the collective to scavenge from. Since Tor will pass away long before the era of Own Your Unconscious, we have only these glimpses of him through the eyes of his acquaintances.
There are still some mysteries left.
When widespread intoxication has been achieved, the group gathers at a long table. Or, rather, the men gather. Bari and the other women ferry to and from the kitchen, assembling a lavish vegetarian meal in bowls and on platters. To midwestern men whose days start with pork sausage and end with beef stroganoff or corned beef hash （or, better yet, steak or roast）， the phrase “vegetarian meal” is an oxymoron. What can it mean? For Lou, it means the most delicious repast he has ever imbibed in his life—although, given the stoned arousal of his appetite, hardtack and warm water would have prompted similar raptures. Bari serves squash and turnips and tomatoes from her garden, along with “tahini sauce,” something none of our visitors have ever tasted but can well believe was harvested from the Elysian Fields. Then come bowls of sorghum and buckwheat, chewy and wet and warm, served in towering piles that they devour in spoonfuls, with tufts of alfalfa sprouts and sliced avocados and Bari’s fresh-baked whole wheat bread.
As I watched all of this through my father’s eyes, I found myself asking a question he was likely too stoned or disoriented to ask for himself: Why? Why are Tor and Bari—and Quinn, for that matter—giving the red-carpet treatment to three squares who are entirely on the consuming end of the business? Well, how many reasons can there be? Money or sex: Pick your poison! For Quinn, it’s sex, which he’s had before with men at A-Frame （including Tor once） and which he’s hoping he’ll have tonight with Ben Hobart, based on nothing more than a hunch. For Tor, it’s money. He’s run through most of his inheritance building this place and planting ten acres of marijuana; he could use an investor or two. But there’s a deeper reason: Tor has thrown himself into creating an alternate world, but hardly anyone has seen it. As a person who feels most alive in the act of awakening others, he longs to witness his vision ablaze in new eyes.
Toward the end of the meal, the sun drops behind the mountains, leaving the redwoods silhouetted like iron cutouts through the windows. As if at a signal, the younger revelers leave the table and begin pulling instruments from the nook where Tor and Bari stow them: bongos and castanets, shakers and recorders and ukuleles, plenty of options for those who can’t carry a tune. The formerly naked girl appears with a clarinet that must be her own. Several people have guitars, and Tor carries a flute. They begin to leave the house, walking in twos and threes along a path that leads uphill through the redwoods. Lou and his friends are swept along into the cool, fragrant woods. Quinn dares to sling an arm around Ben Hobart’s shoulders, causing a rogue flash of electricity to judder down Ben’s spine. He glances at Quinn, deeply startled, and doesn’t move away.
Tim Breezely trudges along in the rear. He’d like a drink. Smoking grass has drained his vigor, and added to the weight of his invisible valises is that of a mandolin someone handed him to carry. He’s last to reach the hilltop. When he does, the redwoods give way to cleared land and it’s sunny again, final rays browsing among the serrated leaves of a waist-high marijuana crop. Tim Breezely’s mood lifts in this openness and light. The air has a dry, tart snap. A circle has already been cleared for bonfires on cold nights, and the group assembles there as if by habit, each putting down their instruments to take the hands of those adjacent before they sit. Emboldened by his earlier success, Quinn seizes Ben Hobart’s hand, eliciting jolts of sensation in Ben that approach the orgasms he has with his wife. Lou happens, just happens, to find himself beside the formerly naked clarinetist, but his legs won’t really cross; he hasn’t sat “Indian-style” since boyhood.