THAT SAME NIGHT, Laszlo Tuffdick drove west from his estate in the knolls of Amagansett and passed through the towns of East Hampton and Southampton (and Bridgehampton, the superfluous Hampton), cruising in his convertible white 1966 Ford Mustang past lawn ornament sellers, antique dealers, diners, boat yards, seafood purveyors, and high-end restaurants that catered to the black tux and white designer dress crowd. He glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. He looked cool in his black shades and black polo shirt, he thought, like Lou Diamond Phillips in La Bamba, before the plane crash. Ancient windmills spun in the breeze, and the whole of the East End reminded him again of a giant ornate miniature golf course. He imagined himself as a single white golf ball, rolling west along Montauk Highway into the gold fading rays of the sun, until he at last reached the shady periphery of the Shinnecock Indian Reservation, a remaining hunk of indigenous soil surrounded by oceans of posh anglo settler estates. Few outsiders dared venture here, save to frequent the annual powwow, but Tuffdick drove down East Gate Road past rows of single-story family homes, headed for the end of East Point Road, and the dense forests and marshes that stretched out into the Atlantic Ocean. Here he parked his car on the edge of the road and began the long trek into nature, following nothing more than a footpath for what seemed like miles. Families of deer from time to time leaped away before him, and he heard the cries and songs of strange birds. It was at the end of this path, upwind from the water, that he encountered Weetoppin’s hut. There was a small fire before it, filling the dusk air with blue smoke, and a pot set atop it that boiled with a sweet-smelling stew. “Weetoppin, are you there?” said Tuffdick. From the door of the hut emerged a young man clad only in a loincloth, the rest of him nude and greased with animal fat that shined in the light of the fire. These IT guys are all the same, thought Tuffdick. He said nothing though, and his only gesture was to brush a buzzing mosquito away from his ear. The man just stared at him a moment longer, then spoke. “Would you care for some nourishment?” he gestured to the pot. “Three sisters? Corn, beans, squash?” “No thanks,” Tuffdick declined. “I had some grilled swordfish at Massimo’s,” he said and smacked his lips. “Outstanding.” Weetoppin helped himself to a bowl of the broth. He blew on it, sipped it and looked over the fire. “Suit yourself, Tuffdick,” he began. “You know, I used to be like you, enamored of their ways. In their world, my name was Sean Dennis. Just a regular East End boy. If you didn’t know I was Indian, I could pass for Italian or Jewish. There was even a local Jewish girl who wanted to marry me, until she discovered the horrible truth.” “What was her name?” Tuffdick asked. “Yael,” Weetoppin answered. “We both went to Southampton High, then NYU. After college, I got a job as a quant at a big financial services company.” “Sweet,” said Tuffdick. “Worked on Wall Street for some years, then went into programming, made a fortune. Ever hear of eToro?” Weetoppin asked. Tuffdick nodded. “The company that Alec Baldwin is always pimping on YouTube?” Weetoppin crossed his arms. “That was all my idea. I still day trade, you know.” Weetoppin pulled a laptop from a nearby bag made of deerskin. “Wait, you have wifi out here?” Tuffdick asked. Weetoppin shrugged. “I can pick up a signal from Billy Joel’s house. Just made a fortune today on this freshly listed tech company.” “What’s their ticker?” asked Tuffdick. “I’ll tell you later,” said Weetoppin. “But first you have to deliver, Tuffdick. Do you have what I need? Can you deliver?” Tuffdick nodded and pulled a folder from his yellow Kånken knapsack. “Nice bag,” said Weetoppin. “It’s Swedish,” said Tuffdick. Weetoppin took the folder and opened it, scanning briefly through its contents. His eyes lit up, illuminated in part by the fire, and it was the first time that evening he showed any emotion. Then they resumed their glazed over, seen-it-all sad look. Weetoppin spoke. “We will take back this island, or at least our part of it,” he said. “This material you have on the Bryants is brilliant. Is it really true, about that photographer Garcia and their daughter?” Tuffdick grinned but said nothing. “They’re serious donors to the Democratic Party,” said Weetoppin. “See, this is the kind of material we need. This will help our cause but we need much more to accomplish this.” “Oh, there’s plenty more,” said Laszlo Tuffdick. “I’ve got eyes all over the East End, from Quogue to Orient. This tidbit came from a pair that runs a sweet shop in Sag Harbor.” “We leak this to Dan’s Papers or even The New Yorker, or threaten to, and we might really have something on these fuckers,” Weetoppin said. He gestured to his wigwam. “Step inside, stay a while,” he told Tuffdick. “I’ve got some other stock tips for you.”

–

Other East End Stories:

• Dinner with the Bryants
• Shinnecock Hills

ON THURSDAYS, East Hampton entrepreneur Ethan Bryant met with some other East End men for a round of golf at the Shinnecock Hills golf course, a pleasant stretch of green located in a piece of the adjacent Town of Southampton, which also happened to be the subject of a land dispute with the nearby Shinnecock Indian Nation, a matter that had never troubled Ethan Bryant much, as he was only vaguely aware of the presence of indigenous people on the South Fork, and in those few fluttering moments when he encountered any trace of their presence merely scratched his head and thought of something else, the stock market perhaps, or his vivacious wife Tilda’s extra-marital conquests. What most preoccupied Mr. Bryant though was his golf game, and, in particular, his rivalry with Ray Bright. Bright ran an army of illegal laborers, recent arrivals from Guatemala and El Salvador, who lived 10 to a room in the few lower-income neighborhoods that still existed on the East End. It was these workers, mostly males, who tended to the hedges and lawns of the local celebrities and intelligentsia, the hot-blooded nouveau riche and blue-blooded old money alike. Bright had built his empire with some shamelessness and ingenuity, but he had amassed enough of a fortune that the upper class was unable to ignore his achievements, being a major benefactor of libraries, museums, hospitals, nature preserves, and other public works. At 50, his hair was still thick and black, and he kept a short trimmed dark beard, as well as one silver hoop earring, which earned him the nickname “The Pirate” by both critics and admirers, an image he played up. Bright was the kind of man that a savvy investor like Ethan Bryant loathed, a man who had earned his wealth through such a simplistic business model. Their friendship was an uneasy one, but Bright was one of the few who was willing to put up with Bryant and his standoffishness. Privately, he regarded the pirate Bright as a stain on the pink polo shirt of Hamptons’ dignity, but Bryant was happy to accept his offers to golf for the very reason that there was almost nobody left who was willing to golf with him. There was also nothing he would enjoy better than besting that silver-earringed brute, he told his wife Tilda while lacing up his shoes in the morning before he set out for the big game at Shinnecock Hills. A third man would also be joining them, he acknowledged, a publisher from the city named Laszlo Tuffdick, who owned chains of trade publications that linked cities and markets across the world. Tuffdick was actually a half-Hungarian, half-Tuscarora Indian from upstate who had grown up in Buffalo, a relative unknown on the Hamptons high society circuit, and who was secretly advising some of the Shinnecock elders on their land issues on the side. Tuffdick too enjoyed a good Long Island golf game. But he had other reasons for going to the Hills. Tuffdick was out to obtain compromising information that could be put to good use. And so the three met in the morning hours under a hot springtime sun. By the end of the match, one would be in jail with a black eye and on the cover of the East Hampton Picayune Star. The other would have enough kompromat to blackmail the Towns of Southampton and East Hampton to his fancy. And the third would have played a very competent golf game for just some upstart East End lawnmower man. That rogue Bright was not half bad. Not half bad at all.

–

For more East End Stories, read “Dinner with the Bryants.”

I’D ALWAYS LONGED for some deep, fulfilling, forever connection, but these were hard to come by. Most of my loves were new age transients, spiritual hobos, riders of the rails. These free love devotees could see only about as far as the lights of the next city and that was all. If I was lucky, I might be made the centerpiece in some get-rich-and-famous scheme, or just coopted as an accomplice in the survival game. I offered flexible and accommodating company, and going along for the ride provided me with a thrill and some hope. Nevertheless I was left standing time and again at the stations in Bury St Edmunds, Roskilde, Bangalore with that dumbstruck look on my face. I was looking for something grander, but all I got was another ticket to ride. Forever could wait. Their resignation letters were of impressive boilerplate legalese. “It’s not you, it’s me.” “We’re just different types of people.” “Don’t worry, I’m sure your next sweetheart will be arriving soon, on the next train in from Tumakuru already, with a first class ticket on the Vishwamanava Express Special!” And so the latest of these next-in-lines saddled up her knapsacks and charms and disappeared into the chai and samosa porters and dust. I had a seat at a cantina where I ordered myself a plate of Dal Makhani and waited. The train was running on time, an off-duty conductor told me. It should be arriving soon.

I READ THE NEWS about America, but I don’t particularly feel like an American anymore. It feels distant and irrelevant to my daily life. I suppose I feel like a European, which to American ears sounds like having some finesse for bureaucracy, love of fine culture, and enjoyment of good cuisine, but to me means something like, a free and unfettered life. About a decade or so ago, when I was first living here for a stretch, I remember watching some program about UFOs in Europe. It had a horrible electronic music soundtrack, and I thought Europe was just so stodgy and weird, stale and decadent. It was so lived-in and boring that people had to indulge themselves in drugs and orgies just to get that tiny thrill or kick. Recently, I was watching a documentary on piracy in the Caribbean that made me revisit this feeling. This was an interesting documentary, because it showed the internal disagreements within the British Empire (nothing like hearing Charles Vane shout “fuck your fucking king” on his way to the gallows). At the end, the narrator said something along the lines of, “Some say Anne Bonny lived to see the founding of the United States of America.” And I thought, “So what?” Like someone read her the draft terms of the Treaty of Paris and she died happily? Who really cares? As a writer I am an American, in that I am not afraid and have a knack for publishing inflammatory statements that might disrupt society. As an uncultured American, there is almost nothing expected from you here. If you can even manage to tie your own shoes, it is a great feat in the face of these highly cultured Europeans. I suppose I enjoy the best of both worlds, and in and in the true spirit of the Golden Age of Piracy to boot. Maybe Master Vane was on to something.

IT STARTED OFF THIS WAY, some kind of coastal area, with me flying over beaches (and sunbathers) out along the coast, through patches of fog and wisps of clouds, and then landing in a cave complex built into the side of a cliff, like those high bluffs outside of El Pajar on Gran Canaria. The interior of the cave system was lit up with glowing stars, placed in dazzling geometric patterns. These had clearly been installed by human hand, and this turned out to be a new Estonian spa. Jüri the Singer was there with his chiseled good guy face, like some kind of Sinatra on the Baltic, playing some sort of aquatic bowling game with waves and silver metallic pins. I remember the woman at the desk in the spa said, “Oh, Jüri? He comes here every day now.” I joined him in the game. Later I found myself in a school, or some other kind of public building. Merike was there with some other musicians. We were about to leave, but I just couldn’t find one of my socks. I searched through all the cabinets and inspected all the hooks. Then, when I thought I had exhausted my search, who should I see but Jüri, the Baltic Sinatra, standing at the end of a row of lockers. He was leaning against the final locker quite casual, as if nothing was amiss. Jüri the Singer was holding my missing sock. “I believe you’ve been looking for this,” he said, tipping his fedora hat. I took the sock, put it on, and we left the building together.

IN THE WANING DAYS of ninety-three, there was an ice storm. There had already been successive snow falls, and a good base of white powder had built up in the yard. When the ice storm came it coated everything in glass. Icy tree branches tinkled in the wind like chimes. The yard became a rink, and Aidan and I played hockey on it, wearing nothing but our regular winter boots. Then it became a horizontal mountain face, because if you lied flat on the surface of the ice, you could look forward and pretend it was “up,” and that way, slowly, you could inch forward and pretend you were scaling a mountain, like real mountaineers in those glossy photos in National Geographic. “Hand me an ice pick,” I would call “down” to my friend Aidan, who also lied flat on his belly, and he would hand me a hammer, I would reach forward, drive it into the ice sheet, and pull us both along. On the morning of the new year, we went for a walk. We tried to walk around the bay, and came down that hidden gulley in between the Smiths’ property line and that abandoned mansion that had been taken over by a splinter Christian group, the one where there had once been a swimming pool on the second floor in the 1920s, before the water rotted through the floor. Once we had seen a woman dressed in the attire of a Catholic abbess standing on the point beyond there looking out at the sea. She just stood there, the wind making her black shawl dance. “It’s like one of those creepy seventies movies,” Aidan had said. At the end of the gulley, we turned toward the harbor and came around the coast of the bay, mostly sand and reeds. At one point, a flat stretch of shoreline stretched out. I took the first step and found myself waist deep in mud. The mud bubbled all around me, and I could smell dead fish and dead clams. Imagine if the seabed here was deeper, was my first thought. I would be dead already. My head would be beneath the mud. My body would stink like dead oysters. Aidan grabbed a tree branch and I took hold of it. He pulled me out. “I guess we can’t walk around the bay anymore,” I said. “Are you kidding me, man?” said Aidan. “You have to go home now. You’ll freeze!” We came back up the gulley, past the haunted mansion, then down the road to my house. Two girls we knew from school came walking from the opposite direction. “What happened to you?” One of the girls asked, motioning to the lower, browner, wetter part of my body. I was embarrassed and blushed. I had specifically hoped that something like this wouldn’t happen. “I fell in the mud,” I said. “That’s what it looks like,” the girl said. “Happy New Year.” That’s how that very weird year began. Soaked in dead clams and mud and eel bones and other kinds of pungent sea detritus. The ripe stink of the sea seemed to steam off my body. It wasn’t ninety-three anymore. It was ninety-four.

MY DESIRE is for you and I want you and you alone, but I’m not sure where this want comes from. It just appeared to me one day like you did. Now it’s my elujõud that wants to take root and blossom in the warmth of your conscience. Maybe it’s because it’s springtime now that such blooming energies are coursing through me. They flow through me, you see, up and out and through, though they are not of me, nor do they belong to me under my name. They aren’t mine, they cannot be, and I lack the words to truly express them. Even if we cannot say or write things though, it doesn’t mean that they do not exist. All I can think of is pulsating euphoria, all helices of the senses intertwined, so much that it would make one’s soul or heart sing and vibrate. All I can see is jellyfish floating in the stomach of the green sea, umbrella-shaped bells, dangling tentacles, propelling themselves toward tranquil eternity. The incandescent seeds of life traveling underwater, all so deliberately. There is nothing more beautiful than that.

ACCEPTING DEFEAT. The most challenging challenge. Giving up on a dream, a hope, a concept, a plan. Giving up on a connection, a friendship, a love. Giving up and walking away in defeat. Giving up on a core truth. If you give up on the truth, was it ever really true? Is anything true, or is the truth just something we tell ourselves to make it easier to sleep through the night? A fog of insouciance rolls in like the fog into San Francisco at dusk. The moisture of defeat. Maybe none of that was true. Maybe everything you ever thought was true was just a story. These were all just stories and there is no truth. There is only the fog in the city and acceptance of defeat. What else is there to do other than cruise into North Beach to get a bite to eat, order a strong coffee, sit and breath a while. Forget about defeat, forget about the truth, forget your own name. There’s no need for it out here. Out here, all you need to do is sit and breathe. How I miss San Francisco.

ON THURSDAY NIGHT, Garcia had dinner at the Bryants’ place in East Hampton on Long Island. Ethan Bryant, despite this solid Yankee name, was actually a city upstart who had started his career doing various illegal things but had navigated the family into legitimacy. Tall, strong, with short gray hair and a handful of a chin, he was nouveau riche of the finest crust and had all ten of his fingers in diverse endeavors. Restaurants, theaters, travel, film. I suppose one could say he was an entrepreneur, but there was no industry other than big money that claimed Mr. Bryant. His wife, Tilda, was the consummate socialite but privately restless. Tilda would often do very rash things, like buy tickets to some unknown Francophone Caribbean island and disappear for months on end. She very obviously indulged in affairs, including a fling with Eric Clapton, and it was said that Ethan knew but did nothing about it, concerned as he was with important phone calls, reviewing bottom lines, studying The Wall Street Journal. Like most things in East Hampton, their home was expensive yet somehow dull, dreary, and ordinary. A gray shingled colonial in the typical saltbox style, it was protected by looming hedges. Any such home in Merry Old Britain would be seen as a quaint but rather aged and boring estate, but its presence on the end of Long Island ensured its status, its secure place in the safe and ongoing transfer of European culture to American shores. These were the Bryants. They had everything and were admired. They were also deeply, deeply unhappy. Garcia showed up at the Bryant residence wearing a white suit he had tailor made in the Orient. He supposed to them, he looked like some kind of martial arts star. Of course, being a top travel photographer gets one invited anywhere in the Hamptons. Brunch with Gwyneth Paltrow. Afternoon tea at Roger Waters’ place. Even Dick Cavett begrudgingly had Garcia over once or twice, though in the company of people far more important than himself. The trouble with the Bryants was Tilda, and the trouble with Tilda was her zest for fun living. Tilda Bryant was a voluptuous society lady with gold hair and exquisite tastes. She was also more charismatic and engaging than her at-times slink-away husband. While eating, Garcia, a handsome Spaniard if ever there was one, looked at Tilda the wrong way, because Ethan chewed his food slowly and accidentally knocked his knife on the floor. Then Garcia must have looked at her again the wrong way, because Ethan dropped everything, stood up, and stormed out of the dining room. “Don’t mind Ethan,” said Tilda stroking Garcia’s arm. “Things have been so rough in the stock market these days.” Garcia was rather shaken and asked to be excused and found his way down the hall to the toilet. It smelled like old toilets smell in old colonial houses and the floor was covered with wrinkled stacks of The New Yorker from the Nineties. While he was in there, he could imagine Tilda going to either scold her husband or rub his shoulders as he gazed out the window at his trimmed East Hampton hedge. All this money, all this money and his wife still fucked Clapton in Antigua. Even if he bought himself a new woman, it still wouldn’t be love. Money was a prison. He had built himself a monied Hamptons prison. He had to keep it together though. Friday there would be a reception to support the East Hampton Library. Alec Baldwin would be there. While Tilda was meeting privately with her husband, Garcia wandered the crooked halls of the sad old house. Supposedly a witch had once lived here long ago, when it was also a tavern, but had become too powerful and the East Hampton town elders had her drowned in the village pond. At the end of the hallway, Garcia noticed a door was ajar. He looked in and saw their twentyish daughter sitting on the edge of an old antique bed, swinging her feet aimlessly. She had returned from the Boston Conservatory where she had been studying the violin. The violin case was at her feet. “You must be lonely,” she said looking at Garcia. “You have that lonely look of lonely men.” “That’s always nice to hear,” Garcia said sitting down beside her. “You even smell lonely,” she said. She had dark hair and was as captivating as her parents. Her name was Enid. Garcia reached over and pulled a book off the shelf. It happened to be Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin: Explorers on the Moon. The rocket was about to launch. On board were Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus, and the research engineer Frank Wolff. “I like the illustrations,” Enid said. They read the book together.

IN THE SPRING last year, I finally got my hands on a new bicycle from a shop on Kaalu Street in Viljandi, the one located above the laundry. It sat patiently for me in the corner, just the right proportions, just the right price, and inscribed with the tantalizing word Adriatica. The Adriatic is the sea between Italy and the Balkans, and it so happens that my forebears came from the coasts of these turquoise waters. That is how the bicycle spoke to me and we reached some agreement. Cash between me and the owners quickly changed hands. Adriatica was now mine.

This spring, I have used Adriatica to explore Viljandi, this town in which I have been anchored for all of the crisis. Days turn into weeks which turn into months and then turn into years. My children ask me questions like, “Do you remember anything that happened in April?”  I have my favorite routes. I know that if I take the bike down the hill to the lake, and then ride it all the way down to Huntiaugu at the foot of Männimäe and then back, my mood will improve. Even if I see some small town tragedies. Once I saw a Russian man sleeping in the grass, drunk. He was still clutching his mobile phone. Two Estonians passed him, discussed whether or not they should give him a hand and then decided to do nothing about him and walked away. 

I didn’t feel like doing anything about it either. 

If I take the bike into shady Uueveski, down streets like Lembitu or Ilmarise, my mood depresses. There are personal reasons for this, but it’s also harder to navigate in Uueveski. Uueveski also has more foliage, and so even on those few sunny days, it is dark in there.

A recent route has been through Uueveski and into Peetrimõisa, which is still unexplored terrain for me. The road into Peetrimõisa is dangerous, but if you hang to the side of the road and stay focused, you can turn quickly up streets like Sõstra or Kreegi. These streets are fun to explore. The neighborhood has both a rundown shantytown feel, but also is the site of relentless renovation and improvement. There are greenhouses where locals grow their own produce, ancient rusting Soviet trucks rotting in backyards. At one intersection, swings have been hung from a tree in a public park. Every other yard features a trampoline or batuut, the status symbol of any Estonian family. You must have a trampoline if you are going to pretend to be someone. 

There is no other say in the matter. 

On the weekends, when the Estonians are out, they try to find ways to occupy their time. We are told that life is short and time is of the essence, but it seems they have to find endless ways to entertain themselves with overly ambitious renovation projects that go nowhere, or just the never-ending act of burning brush, so that the streets are filled with the sting of white smoke. These scenes I encounter from the perch of my bike, which seems somehow decadent here. Shouldn’t I also be fixing or burning something? How can I waste my time just cycling around?

But I live in a town apartment, you see. The only thing to burn is old paper bags from Rimi.

From Peetrimõisa, I cycle up and around toward Karula, pausing at that old German graveyard down by the lake, the one with the mossy crosses and mossy stones. Du bist meine rettung. “You are my savior.” All this talk, all this talk about the Soviets and the Soviet era, and all through it these Germans have been sleeping here watching wistfully over Lake Karula, dreaming in eternity. No one minds them, no one thinks of them, and their graves are a mess. 

From there, I take the road back into town, past a military installation and some car dealerships. This angle of town also makes me feel lonely. That wind is blowing through and there is hardly anyone around until you get to Uku Keskus, that former prison that now brings so many people such joy. During the lockdown, if you waited and watched, you could even talk your way into Hawaii Express to pick up a bicycle pump, if you needed one, though technically they were only on call for orders. I remember how I used to come up here last year during the last lockdown and wear rubber gloves and a mask, as if I was doing maintenance on the International Space Station. Marek Strandberg had a YouTube video about how to decontaminate products. People were afraid you could get the virus from touching a magazine. I’m not as careful now. Maybe I should be, but in any case, I get back on Adriatica and ride.

I go to Paalalinn too, sometimes, to get some good dark chocolate from the supermarket there. I tend to avoid Männimäe, but not for any personal reasons, but because it’s not on my route. There is also Kantreküla, which yields surprises. There is always a street or house you somehow missed all the other times you have been through it. So much packed in a small town.

Then it’s down to the lake again, where I cruise along that cluster of modern houses in what I have been told was once a sheep pasture. I call this neighborhood “Little Reykjavík” because there are almost no trees there and it looks like the suburbs of Reykjavík, Iceland, that I’ve explored. Seldom do I see people in Little Reykjavík, and only if I peer through the windows can I see a family watching the news from a big screen TV, or maybe a man tinkering with a leased car. By the lake one day I encountered some Finns who were camping. Finns always seem a bit more robust and even a little eccentric. They are like the Estonians’ weird cousins. “Oh, yes, don’t bother with him,” they say about them. “Always been a little strange.”

There by the lake, I look up at all the houses on the hill and wonder if I will ever get back to the real Reykjavík. The hot public baths, the volcanoes, the funny cafes, the tasty soups, all those pretty girls. I suppose I could go, but it still seems complicated and there is always the danger that you might not be able to get back so I’ll have to settle for Little Reykjavík for now. 

It’s really not so bad here in Viljandi. We have the lake and we have our bikes. Sometimes I wonder if there is any difference between being there, here, or anywhere anymore.