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April 1971—Crown Point, New York
Remi nervously paid the toll and crossed over the Lake Champlain Bridge into Vermont, breathing a sigh of relief. He didn’t know how long it would take for the police to discover Jacqui’s body, but it would take a while for the Vermont staties to find out about it. Even longer for Massachusetts Police.
The kids slept soundly as he drove through the night, only waking when he stopped for gas. He bought a New England road map, some cigarettes, chips and twinkies, then continued on his way. He took the back roads around Middlebury and headed south and east. Eventually he reached a gravel area where he could pull off to the side of the road and stay out of sight for a brief sleep.
A piercing scream woke Remi. Julian needed tending. The girls stirred, and he told them to change the babies’ diapers and feed them. The sun had risen, but it was cold. Remi tried to start the car to get the heat going, but it took several tries for the engine to catch. They hit the road again, munching on junk food.
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The air quickly warmed up from the bright spring sun as Remi continued driving southeast. Surrounded by forests and a few small farms, the road meandered alongside hills and a stream. When he encountered an area with many cars parked along both sides of the road, he pulled over. They all got out and followed a group of hippies through the trees to a cascading waterfall. Below the falls, the stream was filled with skinny-dipping hippies. Along the banks were small groups of nude sunbathers. Marie and Angela burst out laughing.
Remi approached a guy who still had his clothes on. “Excuse me, what is this place?”
“Hey, man! This is the gorge! Come and party with us, man.” The girls stayed up on the hill, watching the spectacle while Remi followed the guy down to his group of friends. They were mostly naked and passed around a massive joint. Remi had seen guys smoking marijuana in the Army, but he never tried it. He chatted and smoked for a while to find out more about these people. “Why did you guys become hippies?” he finally asked.
A girl with big frizzy hair said, “We were sick of living with the old rules, so now we’re happy. Instead of being tied down like our parents, we go where we want, party when we want, and make love whenever and with whoever we want.” Remi couldn’t imagine having sex with such a hairy girl.
A naked guy with dark hair all over his body said, “Man, after two years in ’Nam, I knew I didn’t fit in back home. I was just looking for something different, you know?”
A girl with long, red hair asked, “What’s your gig?”
“My wife just died, so me and my daughters are looking for a change. Something different, I guess.”
“That’s tough, man,” said the red-haired girl. “Are you headed to the commune?”
“Commune? What’s that?”
The frizzy-haired girl said, “Communes are autonomous collectives where people work together for the good of the community. Sometimes I live at the Astral Plane Commune, and it’s cool. You should check it out.”
“Where is that commune? Is it near here?”
“Not too far. It’s near Farnum, I think. A ways past Greenfield.”
While they were smoking and chatting, Remi noticed a young teenage girl wading in the stream, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. After staring at the girl for maybe too long, he realized that he was feeling really stoned, and he liked it. He bought a bag of pot for ten dollars, and they threw in a packet of rolling papers for him. Remi went up the hill to the girls and said, “I’m really stoned, Marie. You drive.” He handed her the car keys.
“I can’t drive,” said Marie. “I don’t have a license, and I don’t know how!”
“Well, it’s about time you learned. Let’s go.”
Marie pushed down the gas pedal and turned the key. The starter motor turned over, but the engine didn’t catch. She stopped, and there was a strong smell of gasoline.
“Aw, you flooded it.” Remi only seemed a little concerned. “We need to wait five minutes and try it again. Only step on the gas a little when you start it.”
Marie waited a few minutes and tried again. This time the engine started up, but she was still gunning it.
“Whoa, take your foot off the gas once it’s started. That’s it. Let it warm up for a minute so it doesn’t stall out. Now put your foot on the brake and shift it into Drive.”
They got going down the road, moving very slowly. Whenever a car came from the other way, Marie swerved to the shoulder. Remi remained fast asleep. After a while, she became more confident and was going closer to the speed limit. She passed a sign welcoming them to Massachusetts, and the terrain seemed to flatten out to open farmland with cows, sheep, and horses. A few miles later, she reached the town of Colrain, which seemed like nothing more than a few houses. She crossed a small bridge over a stream and came to a fork in the road. She stopped, and the car behind her beeped its horn, but she didn’t know what to do. She nudged Remi awake and said, “Which way do I go?” The driver kept beeping at her, eventually passing by and yelling at her.
“Pull over to the side,” said Remi. He looked at his map, saw which way most of the cars were going, and said, “Go to the left. Go to Greenfield.” And he went back to sleep.
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Marie continued driving on a rural road surrounded by forests, farms, and orchards. She thought about pulling over and taking off while her dad slept, but they were in the middle of nowhere. Sometime soon they would get the chance. She pulled over to a farm stand that was selling eggs and flowers. Marie showed her map to a teenage girl with scraggly blonde hair and said, “Hi, um, could you tell me where I am on here?”
The girl looked over the map and said, “You’re right here. You want me to mark it?” She grabbed a pencil and put a dot where they were and circled it. “Where are you headed?”
“I guess we’re headed to this town here, Greenfield. Would we just keep going until we hit Route 2?”
“You could, but there’s a shortcut. In about a mile and a half, take a left on Brook Road and just keep going. I don’t think that road has a sign, so you might miss it, but that’s not a big deal. After a while, you’ll hit Route 2 anyway, so you just take a left there, and you’ll end up on Main Street.”
“Okay, thanks!” Marie did as she was told, but after a while, Brook Road became a scary dirt road. It was full of potholes, rocks, and curves as it followed the brook, with sections narrowed due to wash-outs. They were deep in a dark forest surrounded by steep hills and trees that had been toppled by landslides. She went slowly, but the shock absorbers were creaking severely.
The violent movements of the car combined with the shrieking cries of both babies finally woke Remi. He grabbed onto the car in fear. “What’s happening?” Angela stirred.
Marie kept her eyes focused on the road. “We’re on a shortcut to Greenfield, but it’s really rough.”
He saw that nobody was following them so he said, “Stop the car!” He took over the driving, and very soon the road became smooth, paved, and surrounded by well-kept farms. Then the car shook violently for a few seconds and died. Remi slammed his hands on the steering wheel. “God damn it!” Marie helped Remi push it to the side of the road, where he opened the hood. A small amount of smoke came off the engine. He unscrewed the oil cap, and he fell on his butt when it shot high into the air. More smoke poured out. “Get everybody out of the car!” he yelled.
The oil cap was smoldering in the field, so Remi grabbed a rag from under his car seat and picked it up. This was bad news. He put the cap back where it belonged and said, “We have to walk. We can only take what we can carry.”
“We can’t carry all this stuff,” said Marie. “We have to carry the babies!”
Remi looked at the map and asked Marie to show him where they were. “Here,” she said, pointing. They’d need to head east after Greenfield. “Let’s just take what we need for now, and we’ll walk to town and ask for help. We gotta be close.” Remi was worried. He was glad that he had some money. He didn’t trust banks, so he always kept all of his money in his wallet. They grabbed what they needed, locked the car, and started walking into town.