For those of you who are unaware, this house is across the street from a mall. What is now a Mecca of consumerism did not exist in 1976 when this house was built. It was just a giant plot of land that bordered a swamp. Growing up, I used to try to time the exact moment when the lights on the Macy’s facade would turn off for the night. Tonight it is 27 degrees outside and the parking lot–through disfigured bones of trees–is a cauldron brimming with fog. It looks like Thriller out there.
When the temperatures drop, when snow is in the forecast, it reminds me of how many cars pile up outside the house when the roads are icy each year. The speed limit is forty-five miles per hour, ridiculously high for the middle of a suburban town. As black ice coats the pavement you can stand out on the lawn and watch cars round the bend and break hard as they start to skid. Ultimately, they each glide into the tail end of another vehicle. The record stands at eleven cars in the span of ten minutes, including two police vehicles. I used to ask these strangers if they wanted to come inside from their broken and shattered heaps of metal and glass to use a phone, and my altruism always scared the hell out of the rest of the family.
Just down the street is the East Orange Water Treatment Center. Like the majority of this town, and New Jersey in general, it is built on swampland. Behind the parking area, in an inconspicuous looking lot off the side of the road, some company stores fresh mulch. Year round, you can see muddy tire treads marking the entrance-way. If there has been a recent delivery, on certain frigid mornings you can drive down JFK Parkway towards Route-24 and see steaming piles of shit.
When the Kraftwerk record stops spinning, I stop telling stories. Tonight marked the season’s first snowfall. Goodnight.
