Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

nelson, and snoozed.
    It had seemed like only a couple of minutes passed before I felt the car bumping up and down; it felt as if Eulie, for some reason, had decided to use the Erie-Lackawanna tracks the rest of the way home. When I opened my eyes it was twilight, and we were on local streets. Headlights were blue, streetlights were yellow, and, surprisingly, stoplights were red and green.
    »Where are we?« I asked, looking out the window, instinctively reaching for the lock, though there didn’t seem to be one.
    »Maplewood,« Eulie said. Her face was pinkish in the dash’s purple light.
    »What happened to it?«
    Eulie shook her head, and we stopped at a light as it turned red. A bug, or bird, hit the windshield; there was a bright colourless flash and a sizzling sound, and whatever it was, was gone. We were driving through a neighbourhood that must have been built in the teens or twenties – or would have been built then, on my turf – the kind with enormous old houses, and elm and chestnut trees on both sides of the street, and green lawns; cars in the driveways, and kids on the sidewalk. Eulie’s Maplewood didn’t look quite that respectable. Almost all the houses we passed – the ones still standing – were boarded up, or burned out. Some had collapsed in on themselves, but in a few there were lights on in the parts that were still standing. Most of the trees along the streets we bumped along were stumps, or stubby, or even broken off halfway up. The yards were worn into dust, or blanketed with little cars. Everything in the neighbourhood looked like the white trash had been sharecropping too long without a foreman.
    »This is a substandard area,« Eulie said, pulling out as the light changed to green; she must have seen the look on my face. »I’m gated.«
    I didn’t have the faintest idea what she meant, and was just as glad. There wasn’t anyone else on the street, whether walking or driving. If it weren’t for the lights I saw in the houses I’d have assumed the entire state had been emptied out. In another five minutes or so we drove up to a high concrete wall that blocked the entire street. Although I thought she’d have to get out and walk over and touch it, she didn’t; all she did was punch in some keys on the dashboard and a heavy metal gate in the middle of the wall rose, and we rolled through. Eulie’s neighbourhood seemed never to have been as well-to-do, but it was in somewhat better shape – every house, and every yard, was surrounded by a high fence of some kind – wood, iron, chicken wire – and every wall was topped with rolls of sharpened wire. There were no cars parked on the street; the owners kept their vehicles in the driveway, within each fenced-off perimeter.
    »Here we are,« she said, easing the car to the right. A beige metal gate opened as we rolled through it. She pressed a button and the car switched off. »Home,« she said, removing the steering wheel. The doors of the car sprang open and, within five minutes, I’d extricated myself. Now that it was night I was beginning to see stars in the sky, when I looked to the west; the clouds were clearing off. In the direction of New York, the heavens were fiery-red. Eulie tapped in another code on a panel attached to the fence, and opened the front door of her house. It was a little place, the equivalent of her car; there were four small rooms, but it felt comfortable. In her front room was a leather couch almost as long as the house, a low glass table; bookcases without books, a plant with blue and red leaves. On the wall facing the couch was what appeared to be a big grey mirror.
    »I need changing,« she said. »You’ve never seen TV?«
    »What’s that?«
    »Television.«
    I nodded, remembering her saying the word. »I’m curious.«
    She smiled. »Catkiller.«
     
    Once you got used to it, it was hard not to watch TV. Before heading into the shower Eulie showed me how the switcher worked and how to find the channels. She received four thousand and ninety-three; there were more, she said, but she didn’t want to pay to bring in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. For the first few minutes, it was painful to watch; the programmes that came on the air were louder than any movie I’d ever seen, even after I turned down the volume; and the pictures came so fast and furious that I didn’t see how anyone could make sense of what was shown. Then, suddenly, I got used to it. Watching TV was like watching a stew boil –