Free Stereo

Late June, almost July, with perfectly warm weather and the night electric all around us. Cloudy, so that there were no stars to get in the way of our less celestial glitter. I had on blue jeans, a bikini top, and no shoes, with my newly cut hair tickling the back of my neck ever so often, like a strange, reddish-black presence always just behind me.

We rolled into the parking lot outside the tavern at maybe ten-thirty, while the lake stayed dark and reflective, shining halogen lights back at us. In Detroit Lakes, the cruising cars are usually gone by eleven; they've found homes in strangers' driveways or are positioned haphazardly along the curb, the owners inside the cheap clubs that decorate the strip.

Not us. We were going to be outside.

T carried the stereo speakers cradled in her arms, and we had some difficulty locating the converter to plug them in. After a short while we were perversely aware of how nobody in this silly little vacation town had ever heard this music before, that everything we were doing was intensely and maybe unpleasantly new for them. Even if it was, they came, anyway, in threes and fours (and one big group of eight, piling out of a domestic-looking minivan), the bass throbbing through high heels and sneakers alike.

Sam curled his fingertips around the back of my neck, perched in the bed of somebody's truck, a bottle of Guinness tucked between my knees. Somebody asked me: "Is this your party?" I said: "It's everybody's party, honey." Some girls with moccasins on came begging for a certain song, and we played it, so they brought us drinks every once in a while.

There was free beer, up until a point, and then we started charging. The girls--our girls--took to tagging the wall behind us with big cans of blue spray-paint that shimmered when it dried. REPENT! THE END IS NEAR. Underneath, in smaller letters, Mollie wrote: THANK FUCKING GOD.

At two, the cops came. There were too many of us to talk to at once, so they got out a megaphone and flashed their lights in our eyes. The throng of people didn't dissipate, but pushed together more tightly. I shouldered my way to the front and made sure nobody stopped dancing, no matter what.

"Who did this?" they wanted to know. No one said anything. The music was too loud. They told us to leave, so we did, slowly and unwillingly, until somebody kicked one speaker and the song cut out.

We moved on, and we left the stereo. That was the whole point.

Today a tornado ripped through Perham and narrowly avoided us. We had to sludge through huge oceans pooling on the dirt road and ditches to get to the stone cabin for safety, with the dog and the baby and the six-year-old and a group of strangers who were similarly seeking refuge. My jeans were weighed down with water and my thong sandals had come off in the sucking mess of mud somewhere. I stayed outside the longest, waiting. I wanted it to come.