Soon after Ellis got thrown out of college, he moved into a small commune about ten miles out of the little college town of Pullman, Washington. What a rat hole it was. There were only three young men left that could stand the meager conditions. All the women had left, maybe more because of the men than the conditions, but at any rate Ellis made the fourth human body to anoint the place, along with three dogs, a dozen or more chickens, several cats, and one large gilt pig named Effie, named after an infamous ex-landlady from a couple of his new roommates' past.
         Well, Ellis became the fourth young, single man to room up in this place, that all the neighbors and the land lord called "The Hippie House", and the tenants referred to affectionately as "The Farm". This run down old farmstead had housed several generations of hippies as they passed through the University system, and it had a reputation for drugs and wild parties that could last for days. The place consisted of several dilapidated out buildings, including a fairly large barn, an old machine shop full of junk and garbage from any number of previous tenants, and a granary that served as storage for leftover items from those who had lived there in the past, but couldn't pack away all of their belongings when they left hurriedly to avoid the law or the rent. There was also a house, or should we say two houses hooked loosely together by a small breezeway that contained the back door. Inside the main house on the first floor was a large bright kitchen, a bathroom, a small parlor with a television, a couch and a couple of chairs, and a small room off to the side where the stereo lived. Up stairs were two small bedrooms. The rear house was in the process of falling down, or being torn down, or maybe it had never been finished at all. It was hard to say for sure.
          John and Duncan, both college students at the time, had taken rooms in the upstairs of the main house. Fred had fashioned living quarters out of the shambles on the upper floor of the rear house. He had a bed of sorts with open springs and a moth eaten mattress, where he could throw down his sleeping bag and a sack of old clothes he used as a pillow.
          This rear house had no source of heat, and with winter coming on, Fred spent only nights in the building. The rest of the time, he hung out in the main house, which was heated by a beautiful round parlor stove that Ellis and his first wife had stolen from an abandon Moose Lodge during their college days in Cheney, some sixty miles to the North. This handsome, round, up-right, parlor stove was not only ornamented with more chrome and fancy casting than any other stove he had ever seen, but it was also the most inefficient, poorest heating stove he had ever been around. It was truly sad that something so beautiful could leave you so cold when you needed its warmth the most.
          This place was a dream come true for the kind of self-inflicted poverty that Ellis had chosen for the next three seasons. He was from an upper middle class family, and had been brought up to respect money and affluence far better than he showed during those months at "The Farm." The place was a hovel, and yet, he would look back on it with fonder memories than any other place that he would live. He probably laughed more and worried less that any other time in his life, and though he had little in the way of economic means, he had much in the way of pleasure and inner comfort.
          When Ellis first came to the place, he had just returned from a trip to Mexico, and was looking for a place to hole up for the winter. A friend had told him that several people had just moved out of "The Farm" and they may have room out there for him. Ellis hitched a ride out there and talked to John, whom he had met one time before. He said sure, and Ellis moved in. It was as simple as that. Moving in was easy as well; he took off his packsack and sat down. His ex-wife had lived there up until about a month before, and when she left, she had left their large mutt dog there, so he had one long time friend to welcome him home, as it were. Fred and Duncan, whom Ellis hadn't met yet, had gone to town for groceries and beer if they could find any, according to John, and he was welcome to make himself at home on the first floor of the rear house.
          Ellis opened the squeaky door to the rear house less than half way before it came to a stop against something on the floor behind it. He was too wide to get through with his pack, so he set it aside in the hall before entering the darkened room. Once in, he could make out a dim light coming from the second floor, down the staircase that ended in a small landing. There was no other light in the room as far as he could tell, and as he felt on the wall beside the door for a light switch, he became aware of a musty dank odor that lay heavily in the air. It wasn't an awful smell, but one that reminded him of a damp attic that had been shut up for too long without an airing. In a short time his eyes adjusted to the darkness and with the aid of the soft light from up the staircase he discovered that the door was blocked from opening fully by an engine block and several other parts off a car of some sort. Next to the engine block was a large wooden workbench that took up the rest of the wall the door was on, and in front of the bench were several cardboard boxes of what looked like books and magazines. There was also a motorcycle and some paper sacks of old clothes along with other things too numerous to account for strewn everywhere about the floor. There was, however, a clear path leading from the partially open door to the landing at the foot of the stairs, where Fred must have passed many times going to and from his room upstairs. On the wall before him at the foot of the stairs was a doorway, blocked from opening by a box of books and several concrete blocks. As his eyes continued to adjust to the low light, things appeared that were hidden at first, and on the far wall to his right emerged a book shelf that went from floor to ceiling containing a dozen or more tin cans and an equal number of glass jars full of nuts and bolts. Next to this were six to eight boards nailed neatly on the wall, as if to cover a hole.
          He went to the far wall where the closed door was and began to clear away the debris. Opening the door, he found it led to another room, smaller than the first with deep shelves on either side, creating an isle between them that led to another doorway. The door hung open and askew from only the top hinge, and several boards were missing from the walls, leaving the room exposed to the elements. As he turned and walked back into the first room, he thought, "This is it. This must be his room." With both doors open to the light from outside, he could see the full extent of the clutter for the first time, and it wasn't a pretty sight. He had dived into many a supermarket dumpster in search of dinner, which were less of a mess than this. As he pondered how much of this junk he could dispose of and how to arrange the rest, the dogs all set up a racket of barks and growls, and presently a car drove up in the driveway.
          Ellis walked back through the room and out into the side yard in time to see two fellows about his age emerge laughing from a beat-up multi-colored Volvo, dating from the early 60s. The driver was dressed in a bright Hawaiian shirt, tan pants, and scuffed up saddle shoes, and carrying a small brown paper sack that he held up high away from the dogs as they bounced playfully in front of him. The passenger had a string potato sack half full of various vegetables in one hand and a half gallon of cheap red wine in the other that he too held high as he closed the door to the car with his foot and yelled loudly, "We're home, and we scored big."
          John had just come out onto the front porch and stood leaning on the post that held up the roof. "What's in the sack, Fred?" he called, throwing a pan full of leftovers out into the yard where the chickens made short work of cleaning it up. Fred didn't answer, but seemed to dance with the dogs as he waved the sack back and forth above his head.
          Fred and Duncan hadn't seen Ellis yet, but John had and he pointed his way with the pan he was holding and said, "This is Ellis, he lives here."
          "Hi," Ellis said, stepping out from the shadow of the lilac bush and into the bright afternoon sun.
          Both Fred and Duncan looked in his direction a bit startled by his presence and grinned like a pair of children with a new toy. They lowered both the sack and the wine, and Fred said, "Hi! Where you from?"
          "Right here, pretty much," Ellis said. "Just got back from Mexico for a couple months, and need a place to hole up for the winter."
          "Can you pay the rent?" Asked Duncan, as he tucked the bag of vegetables under one arm and twisted off the cap from the wine and reached the bottle out toward him.
          "Some of it, I expect," Ellis said, taking the bottle and inspecting it before raising it to his lips.
          "Yeah, far out," said John "every little bit helps. Hey Fred, is that what I think it is in the sack?" he continued as Ellis handed him the wine.
         

Copyright © 2007. Ed Gnaedinger.