Arcadia Read Online Free PDF Page A

golden skin fades to a pallor, blue bruises press under her eyes. This Hannah looks at Bit as if she is trying to see him from a very great distance.
    Bit is chopping wood with Titus Thrasher up by the Gatehouse. He gathers the chips that spurt off the ax and puts them in a bucket for kindling.
    You want to talk about what’s bothering you? says Titus, and Bit says a low No.
    They watch Kaptain Amerika tool by in a croaky station wagon he has taken from the Motor Pool. The Trippie is going into Summerton for his psychotherapy, which the state pays for. Many in Arcadia are on food stamps or disability. When there’s been a long spell without new people to put money in the pot, welfare keeps them going. Kaptain Amerika was an English professor, but turned on too many times and messed up his brain. Now he sharpens his long beard into two points and wears a sarong made of an American flag. Bit had once heard Astrid defend him: Yeah, he is a creepo, this is so, she’d said. But he has his moments of lucidity. Bit supposes she’d meant the moments when Kaptain Amerika will shout: Uncle Sam wants me. Or, Nixon is the albatross!
    How come he’s called Kaptain Amerika? Bit says, watching the blue exhaust from the station wagon curl and fade. Not Professor Merton?
    Titus leans on the ax handle. He is steaming with sweat, his undershirt the color of a teastained mug. No woman lives with Titus to wash his things, so they never get clean, unless Hannah or another woman steals them when he is out. He smells like a turnip gone bad. He says, People get to choose who they want to be here. Part of the deal. Near everybody’s got a nickname they gave to themselves. People come here to become what they want to be. Tarzan. Wonder Bill. Saucy Sally. He flushes when he says the last name, and Bit studies his friend in silent wonder.
    A car pulls up the long dirt road. Titus steps to the gate, mopping his face with a bandanna. Four young men with fringed leather jackets and cameras in their hands pour out, slamming the car doors behind them. Hey, man, says one, and Titus says, No, no, no. You’re welcome if you’re serious about living here, man, but you’ve got to respect our privacy if not.
    Oh. Well, we’re on the paper at the college in Rochester? says one of the boys. And you don’t have a phone. We thought we might interview Handy?
    I dig his music, says a pipsqueak with red ears. He’s the American Original.
    The four grin, sure that admiration is their ticket inside.
    Sorry, says Titus.
    Come on, man. We’re hip, says another. He hefts a thirty-pound sack from the trunk. We brought some yams for the Free Store. Just let us poke around? We’ll be gone after dinner.
    A hardness comes over Titus’s face. We’re not zoo animals, he says. You can’t bribe us with peanuts.
    Yams, the boy says.
    Titus swings the ax to his shoulder and strides closer to the boys. They falter, break apart, only one holding his ground. At times, Titus has to be violent to keep the gawkers out. Bit is afraid to see his gentle friend turn into the ugly stranger he sometimes needs to be. He runs away. All afternoon, Bit stays in the woods, poking at icicles and frozen puddles until he is too cold to hold off going home to the Bread Truck any longer. When he comes in and puts his fingers on the back of her neck, Hannah shudders awake.
    Abe comes home shouting, the Children’s Wing is roofed! It’s plumbed. It’s insulated and airtight. The babies’ll have a place to live!
    Bit dances, and Hannah stretches to her full height, releasing her warm smell from her sweater and murmuring, That’s lovely.
    In the morning, sweet with snow, a train of women with mops and buckets walks up to Arcadia House. They will scrub and polish and paint it all, redo floors, re-plaster. Hannah goes with them. She is shaky on her feet, a cage of bones.
    Bit, honey, Hannah had urged, Go play with the Kid Herd in the Pink Piper, but he said No, no, no, no, no. He hadn’t seen