Cleveland was not in great shape. At first glance, it appeared that Cleveland was in the midst of its final death throes: infrastructure collapsing, stores closed and boarded up, Euclid Avenue-the great central street – dismantled, the asphalt torn and piled along the sidewalk, the left lane a muddy trench lined with orange construction barrels, the beautiful old buildings – May Company, Higbee’s – hollowed out, belts of empty lots and haunted-looking warehouses.
This had been ongoing for as long as he could remember – for years and years the city had been sliding into ruin and despair, people always spoke with nostalgia about the former glory of the city’s past, and he had never taken such talk particularly seriously.
But now it looked like a place that had been bombed and then abandoned. Driving downtown for the first time, he had an apocalyptic feeling, a last-man-on-earth feeling, even though other cars were driving a few blocks ahead, even though he saw a dark figure disappearing into the doorway of a ramshackle tavern. It was the feeling you got when you woke up and everyone you loved was dead. Everyone was dead, and yet the world was continuing on, austere and thoughtless, the sky stirred full with gulls and starlings. A blimp floated lethargically in the haze above the baseball field like an old balloon that had been discarded in a muddy lake.
From Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon (This book was amazing.)
photo: ©Michael Larkey 2010
photo: ©Michael Larkey 2010
photo: ©Michael Larkey 2010
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