I Blame Dennis Hopper Read Free

was an impressive two stories, sitting atop an old barn foundation that had burned to the ground years ago. The sleeping quarters were upstairs, accessed by ladder. The main floor featured a wood stove. The indoor plumbing amounted to a well pump with a handle that cranked water from the nearby pond. If you were inclined to bathe, there was an old claw-foot tub outside. You just had to carry about a hundred buckets of water from the pond to fill it. The roof was corrugated plastic, and plywood was slapped onto the front. When the chicken coop went up, my father threw a party to celebrate and invited all the neighbors. My mother described it as if it were fun. “We drank champagne and danced inside the chicken coop!” It was the last time we ever saw a bottle of champagne in our house.
    I remember that the first goat that arrived was named Samson. He came from a petting zoo and had been given away because he was unable to mate. And no wonder: Whenever you went near him he would butt you within an inch of your life. We learned to stay away from him. My mother loved Samson and used to say that he was “just troubled or misunderstood.” Like everything else, it all seemed out of my control, so I learned to play along as though our lives had become this fun, circuslike movie with “Dennis Hopper” now at its center.
    Such as the time I came home with my mom from grocery shopping to find that a “happening” was happening in the middle of our living room. There were hippies holding hands and singing “This Land Is Your Land.” My mom made her way through the throng to the kitchen to unpack the food, pretending that the happening wasn’t happening.
    My father got some help at The Studio from local college students. They built a garden, although I’m not sure they were supposed to be studying the pot plants that soon sprang up in the front yard. It seemed as if those students never left. The Studio was soon filled with college kids smoking pot; goats; nicer goats; and chickens laying eggs in their coops. Hippies spent the days making pottery. It was idyllic. They were going to change the world with those clay bowls, right?
    And let me tell you, those hippies were like rabbits. They kept multiplying. Tom the Hippie had brought Annette, who brought Jane, who brought Michael, who brought Sasha. Every third person seemed to be called Sasha, whether a boy or a girl. Naturally, there was a lot of free love. But here’s the thing about free love: It’s expensive! As The Studio grew, so did the speed with which we slipped from being rich and privileged and comfortable to being poor and on food stamps. For my parents, this was a life choice. But I was becoming aware that my life choice was to still be rich and privileged.
    My mom baked me a beautiful little girl’s birthday cake covered with sunflowers. She made the mistake of bringing it down to The Studio, thinking that we could share the celebration with the hippies. Before I could even blow out the candles, a hippie on a motorcycle grabbed a handful of cake. Suddenly, all the hippies were grabbing cake, stuffing a child’s birthday cake into their mouths, not even aware of their actions. More and more after that it seemed that my mom stayed up at the house.
    I remember the day my mother first said we were poor. We were standing on the hill above The Studio. My mother was literally and metaphorically looking down at my father, who was frolicking with all the hippie girls. They all had these cool ponchos, and I really wanted a poncho of my own, but my mom said, “We can’t afford it. We’re poor now.”
    It was the first time I had ever heard her use that expression, and it didn’t sound good.
    â€œWhat?” I said. “I don’t understand.”
    â€œWe’re poor now. We’re poor.” She repeated it over and over again, as if it were a news bulletin, and then she pulled her coat around