The Oregon Experiment Read Online Free PDF

anarchist. And his weed. Holy shit, Naomi. I’ve heard of this Oregon homegrown. Communes and cults in the hills. Free love, organic lettuce, killer dope, and they don’t pay taxes. Welcome to my fieldwork. We’re living on the fringes.”
    “Couldn’t you drop out of society
after
we unpack the nursery?”
    “We’ll name our baby boy ‘Free’ and dress him in black onesies.”
    “Let’s just start with the kitchen.”
    “I’m starving,” he said.
    “There’s grain bars in the car. And get the cleaning supplies from the trunk.”
    “I could go for a doughnut. A glazed doughnut. I can’t remember the last time I had a doughnut. Or chocolate glazed. With steak and eggs, and—”
    Suddenly she was crying, her hands in fists by her cheeks. “I’m freaking out in this place, and you promised you’d help me make it work, but instead you’re acting like this is high school.”
    He reached his arms around her, but she pulled away.
    “For God’s sake, we’re having a baby,” she said. “In Oregon.”
    “It’s gonna be okay. Let’s just take a breath and—”
    “I don’t want to breathe. I want to get the kitchen unpacked.”
    He needed to settle her down. It’s what she relied on him for. His reassurance. But he was too stoned and couldn’t trust his judgment to not say the wrong thing. She turned back to the sink, and he said, “I’ll get the 409.”
    From the driveway he could see the anarchist at the top of the ramp, sipping on his soda. Scanlon grabbed a grain bar from the car and tore the wrapper with his teeth as he lifted the box of cleaning supplies onto his hip, the whole time watching Clay. The asshole had busted the window right in front of him! Performing, Sam would say. Scanlon would stay close to him, see him again soon, and he’d let him act up, then discover whether there were any real principles behind the antics.
    He wouldn’t even try to explain to Naomi that getting stoned with him today was the first step in building trust that could lead to primary source material for his book and get them back to the East Coast. Much of the criticism of his
Domestic Policy
article had been unfair, though some of it—especially that his critical perceptions had been compromised by his sympathy for the movements he wrote about—probably had some merit. But it wouldn’t happen again, because his analyses would now be unassailable. He’d no longer have to guess what, for example, Pacific Northwest anarchists believed. He had a live one. And he would never again endure the humiliation of last spring’s issue of
Domestic Policy
, in which the first seventeen pages were devoted to five scholars in the field brutally slaying his article from the previous issue. To remain a player and not let the beating force him into the hall of shame from which scholars often didn’t emerge, he needed a quick, impressive publication, and the kid stomping down the metal ramp in black combat boots, shouldering the mini bureau containing silky puffs of Naomi’s bras and panties, lacy nightgowns and slips, was just the sort of source that could make it happen.
    In the kitchen he slid the cleaning supplies onto the counter and swallowed the rest of the grain bar.
    Naomi tore open a Mayflower box. “Utensils,” she said, pointing to the end of the counter with a spatula. “Start with that drawer.”
    Scanlon sprayed. He smelled the 409 fragrance that said
clean
, and could almost taste the antibacterial solvents. He scrubbed the drawer, digging at years of crud in the corners and wiping it all away.
    After a time Naomi was standing beside him with fistfuls of knives and forks. “That one’s probably done,” she informed him.
    Edmund pounded across the living-room floor and set a dish box down in front of the fridge. As he walked off, Scanlon turned to Naomi and whispered, “We should smoke pot more often.”
    “For Christ’s sake.” She arranged cutlery in the plastic organizer.
    “I mean
after
the