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college to a home that was now inland, or “relatively inland,” as Dad would say. I would not have said “inland” so much as “in the woods.” The new house was surrounded by trees at the end of a dead-end road that stopped at the woods. The name of the dead-end road was Shady Lane, a very apt description.
    I don’t know if Dad and Mom picked out that house together, but I assume they did, and with its view of nothing but woods it struck me as a very odd location to move to after living all those years on Narragansett Bay. But at the same time it was a sort of cute and very manageable house, something they could easily retire in, with two baths, a master bedroom downstairs for the coming of old age, two bedrooms upstairs for when we were at home, and a two-car garage attached so no one had to walk out of the house to get into their car during foul weather.
    By the time I arrived at the new house Dad had pretty much moved in all by himself and was slowly beginning to unpack and start a new life in spite of the fact that Mom was away at the sanitarium. I had just graduated and had brought my sensuous college girlfriend Melissa home with me, but it wasn’t working out very well. I think Dad was jealous. He made us sleep in separate rooms and kept a constant ear out for any odd sounds, which made me feel very inhibited. I kept trying to drag Melissa into the woods to make love but she would have none of it. She was not the outdoor type. I did manage to eat her once while she lay on a moss-covered rock, but the mosquitoes and Dad calling us in for a rare steak dinner cut it short beforeeither of us could really complete ourselves. At college we had been sexually voracious together, but now all I was getting was Melissa’s annoyance at how I was treating her like a sex object. She said, “You only pay attention to me when you want to get laid.” I knew she was right. Now that I was home, or rather at Dad’s new home, about to be Mom’s new home as well, I began to realize that I didn’t need Melissa as a friend because I still had Mom. I was just waiting for Mom to get out of that rest home so I could talk with her. I wanted Melissa for my physical needs and Mom for my emotional needs. And although Melissa didn’t openly talk about that split in me, I think she intuited it and reacted accordingly by withholding her sweet body favors.
    We said goodbye with no real plans to reconnect. We were just living our lives as if we’d go on forever, and ever be young. I drove Melissa to the Block Island ferry and she was off for a summer of fun and waitressing on Block Island.
    The next week I was called up for my army physical. I made up my mind right away that I was simply going to act crazy, or because I had the perfect role model, I was just going to act like Mom. I had to start convincing myself that I was crazy, which was a tricky little game because if you’re not careful, pretty soon you don’t know if you
are
crazy or if you’re just playing at it. I would actually go off into the woods and rehearse my madness like I was getting ready to play King Lear. As a kid I used to go off into the woods to hunt or masturbate, or on calmer days just to walk and enjoy and try to teach myself how to hang out. But now I was going off into the woods to shout and roll on the ground and act crazy. Besides preparing me to beat the draft, this became a wonderful sort of organic release, as though I was creating my own therapy. Sometimes I’d even bring a tambourine along with me and end up dancing in my underwear or naked like some demented shaman. That was only when I was deep in the woods and felt really alone. Most of the time I had the feeling someone was watching me. Maybe God was there watching me.
    I beat the draft the morning Mom came home from the sanitarium. I almost didn’t beat it, because someone who had a beard like mine went a little crazy right in front of me. I must say his act wasn’tas good. He probably