Chapter 15. Beatniks
It was Tuesday, the 15th, when the next big development happened. We were listening to the radio that morning, “House of the Rising Sun” filling our little cabin with its gritty sound, when they interrupted with a special news report.
“Chief Mulrooney, of the Essex Junction Police Department, announced just a few minutes ago that there has been a breakthrough in the case of the missing boys. A family member of one of the boys, another juvenile, has confessed, under intense questioning, that she knows where the boys might be. She has told the authorities that at least one of the boys had become obsessed with the so-called “Beat Generation” poets and authors, such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and she thinks that he, and very possibly the other boys as well, may have headed for Greenwich Village, in New York City, to try to find others involved in this radical subculture.
“The parents of the boys were at first very skeptical of this suggestion, but subsequent searches of the boys rooms and possessions found that each of them had one or more books by the authors referred to, and some of them had copied passages of the obscene poem, “Howl,” by Allen Ginsberg, on notebooks hidden in their closets or under their mattresses.
“The Chief noted, sadly, that he feared even more now for the boys’ safety, given the utter depravity of Ginsberg and the others. ‘If they’re still alive, they might now be involved in a culture of drugs and sexual perversion,’ said the Chief.
“Given the serious nature of this new information, and the probability that the boys are in another state, the Chief has asked for assistance from the FBI.”
Yes, yes, yes!!! Kelly had come through for us, in a big way. The FBI!! We couldn’t stop laughing with delight. We knew that, with the FBI involved, it was likely that we would be found soon, but we had already lasted longer than most of us had predicted, and we were elated that we had caused so much trouble. It was exactly what we had wanted to do.
Buoyed by the news, we had a good week in the cabin. Our spirits were high, we were tolerating each other reasonably well, and our daily routine was actually a lot of fun, for the most part. The radio provided music and baseball, the on-going farting competition provided endless entertainment, the card-playing every night was raucous fun (Rollo was up a thousand dollars already, on paper,) and our diet was sustaining us, even if it was a little boring. We had only had the one visit from Jimmy since we had disappeared, so there wasn’t much variety.
One of the interesting aspects of our diet was the research aspect. We had often speculated whether Rollo’s farting expertise was a result of the peculiar diet of his Italian household, or whether there was just something special about him that made him so outrageously flatulent. Tom had pointed out sometime during the summer that this would be a perfect opportunity to find the answer, since the four of us would be eating the same food every day. To our astonishment, and disappointment, it made no difference at all. Try as we might, we could not out-fart the Ass King.
That Saturday, the nineteenth, was a great day. We were celebrating two weeks of freedom, which was the maximum any of us had predicted we would be able to hold out. For the first time, all three of our supporters, Larry, Jimmy, and Roy, felt safe enough to hike out to visit us. They had a big load of food for us; loaves of bread, more hot dogs and baloney, potato chips, Ring-Dings, and, wonder of wonders, some cooked chicken legs that Roy had filched from the fridge. Those guys were great; our biggest enemies were boredom and routine, and just having something different to eat was a huge help to us.
Karl even showed up in the afternoon, walking in from Lost Nation Road with a case of Coca-Cola. What a treat! We thought we were doomed to drinking nothing but water.
We spent a couple of hours sitting on the rock ledge, eating and talking while we took turns standing guard. The kids filled us in on everything that was going on in the village and at school. They said that all our parents were getting really pissed and frustrated with the Police Department. Everybody had big hopes and expectations from the FBI, but all they did was repeat the questioning and reasoning that the police had done. They looked at the search results, but they didn’t order a new search because, just like everyone else, they were convinced we had run away.
The kids at school had a lot of different reactions. Some of them thought we had been murdered by the carnies and our bodies dumped in the lake. All kinds of lurid tragic tales were going around, the bloodier, the better. Some of them believed the latest; that we had run off to Greenwich Village, but, since hardly any of them had heard of the Beat poets, it wasn’t a very popular theory. A few actually guessed something pretty close to the truth – that we were hiding somewhere and would be back soon.
There was a lot of pressure on our friends, both from the “authorities” and from the other kids. But we had chosen our confidantes well, and nobody cracked.
To top off the day, the Yanks won, and climbed back into first place. Bobby Richardson had four hits, Mantle and Maris each homered, and Al Downing won, with Ralph Terry picking up the save. It had been a long time, and we felt like the world order was restored at last, and that we would cruise to the pennant and Yogi would be secure in his job.
After the guys left, we settled in for a Saturday night of music and cards, feeling very good about things.