I angled myself away from the wall, pumping semen onto the transparent shower curtain. The little spurts left clean places wherever they landed, clearing downward pathways on the filmy plastic before disappearing into the drain.
I coasted into one of the available parking spaces attached to my mother's government-subsidized apartment complex. The place was located in the far northeast corner of town, next to a massive field of salt grass. A train track ran alongside the road, throwing the place into a thunderous rumbling for short periods. The train served the numerous chemical plants in the area exclusively, freighting industrial materials into and out of the plants.
Horrible stories circulated about the contents of the trains when I was growing up. The words stenciled onto the sides of the cars were too long and too alien to pronounce. Over the years, a dozen train cars exploded, flooding entire neighborhoods with lethal gasses and forcing the evacuation of hundreds. Industrial accidents had killed three of my friends' parents. Once a field of cattle were found dead because a train passing through their pasture leaked chlorine gas. The entire herd suffocated in the middle of the night. Sometimes when I was trying to sleep, I could see them lying in the damp field, convulsing. I could hear them lowing and bellowing.
Not everything made in the plants was toxic, but that didn't seem to matter. Vacuum-sealed tanker cars often carried tons of small plastic pellets. These were shipped out to locations across the country and melted down for injection-mold operations. The pellets were compressed for shipping and a train car full of them ruptured during my sophomore year in high school, killing our quarterback's father. Tiny pieces of plastic. When the vacuum seal on one of the tankers cracked, the resultant explosion shredded the train car completely, tearing the man to pieces and showering the area with white pellets. Someone from school drove by and said it looked cool, like snow.
I switched off the Lexus and sat behind the wheel, looking at the complex through dark-tinted windows. It had been built by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. All the people who lived there were ostensibly too old or otherwise incapable of making it on their own. The buildings were ugly, made of pale brick and the cheapest possible building materials. None of the structures had more than one story, giving the entire place a squat profile. Electrical and telephone wires crisscrossed overhead and occasionally something triggered a flight of marsh birds from one of the surrounding fields.
I glared out over the grounds, watching an old woman hobble from her unit to the central building, probably to check her mail. She wore slippers and a flower-printed dress, and there was a scarf tied around her head. I shook my head, wondering what she did every day, whether there were people who wanted to be around her, or whether she was just miserable and isolated, too broken to carry on a reasonable conversation.
Visiting my mother here for years, I knew that many of the residents weren't even old. Many of them were drug addicts who managed to hoodwink the bureaucracy operating the complex. Like my mother.
I locked the doors and walked across the parking lot. As I passed a dumpster, a younger guy approached me, very lean and ropey like a racing dog, wearing nothing but a loose pair of shorts and high top sneakers. He was so pale that an extensive network of veins showed from beneath his skin.
“Hey, want some smoke?”
“No, I'm all right. Thanks.”
He seemed to forget about me, continuing along the sidewalk without response, rounding the corner of the closest building.
I walked up the path leading to my mother's front door. A strip of masking tape was stuck to the plate bearing the apartment number. The tape was peeling up at the edges and someone had pinned it in place with rusted thumbtacks. In faded script, the tape said RAMONA
I coasted into one of the available parking spaces attached to my mother's government-subsidized apartment complex. The place was located in the far northeast corner of town, next to a massive field of salt grass. A train track ran alongside the road, throwing the place into a thunderous rumbling for short periods. The train served the numerous chemical plants in the area exclusively, freighting industrial materials into and out of the plants.
Horrible stories circulated about the contents of the trains when I was growing up. The words stenciled onto the sides of the cars were too long and too alien to pronounce. Over the years, a dozen train cars exploded, flooding entire neighborhoods with lethal gasses and forcing the evacuation of hundreds. Industrial accidents had killed three of my friends' parents. Once a field of cattle were found dead because a train passing through their pasture leaked chlorine gas. The entire herd suffocated in the middle of the night. Sometimes when I was trying to sleep, I could see them lying in the damp field, convulsing. I could hear them lowing and bellowing.
Not everything made in the plants was toxic, but that didn't seem to matter. Vacuum-sealed tanker cars often carried tons of small plastic pellets. These were shipped out to locations across the country and melted down for injection-mold operations. The pellets were compressed for shipping and a train car full of them ruptured during my sophomore year in high school, killing our quarterback's father. Tiny pieces of plastic. When the vacuum seal on one of the tankers cracked, the resultant explosion shredded the train car completely, tearing the man to pieces and showering the area with white pellets. Someone from school drove by and said it looked cool, like snow.
I switched off the Lexus and sat behind the wheel, looking at the complex through dark-tinted windows. It had been built by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. All the people who lived there were ostensibly too old or otherwise incapable of making it on their own. The buildings were ugly, made of pale brick and the cheapest possible building materials. None of the structures had more than one story, giving the entire place a squat profile. Electrical and telephone wires crisscrossed overhead and occasionally something triggered a flight of marsh birds from one of the surrounding fields.
I glared out over the grounds, watching an old woman hobble from her unit to the central building, probably to check her mail. She wore slippers and a flower-printed dress, and there was a scarf tied around her head. I shook my head, wondering what she did every day, whether there were people who wanted to be around her, or whether she was just miserable and isolated, too broken to carry on a reasonable conversation.
Visiting my mother here for years, I knew that many of the residents weren't even old. Many of them were drug addicts who managed to hoodwink the bureaucracy operating the complex. Like my mother.
I locked the doors and walked across the parking lot. As I passed a dumpster, a younger guy approached me, very lean and ropey like a racing dog, wearing nothing but a loose pair of shorts and high top sneakers. He was so pale that an extensive network of veins showed from beneath his skin.
“Hey, want some smoke?”
“No, I'm all right. Thanks.”
He seemed to forget about me, continuing along the sidewalk without response, rounding the corner of the closest building.
I walked up the path leading to my mother's front door. A strip of masking tape was stuck to the plate bearing the apartment number. The tape was peeling up at the edges and someone had pinned it in place with rusted thumbtacks. In faded script, the tape said RAMONA
Similar Books
