American Elsewhere

CHAPTER FIFTEEN




Wink is not perfect. Its residents are well aware of that. But then, they say, no place is perfect. There’s always a few mild irritants you have to put up with, no matter where you go. So Wink is really no different, is it?

No, they say. It really isn’t.

For when night falls and the blue lightning blooms in the sky, things change.

It is something in the very air. Suddenly the Googie architecture and the pleasant white wooden cottages no longer look so spotless. Streetlights seem dimmer, and the neon signs appear to have more dead insects clogging their tubing than they did during the day. People stop waving. In fact, they hunch over and hurry back inside with their eyes downcast.

It is very regular to have strange experiences at night in Wink. For example, in Wink it is common to wake up with the powerful feeling that someone is standing in your front or backyard. It is never known to you whether this stranger has come to your house in particular, or if he or she is watching you and your family; the stranger is simply there, shadowy and still. What is most exceptional about this is that all of it is conveyed only in feeling, an irrational conviction like that of a dream. Most people in Wink do not even look out their windows when this occurs, mostly because they know doing so would prove the conviction true—for there is a stranger on your lawn, dark and faceless and still—and moreover, seeing that stranger has its own consequences.

There are houses in Wink where no one ever sees anyone going in or out, yet the lawn is clean and the trees are trimmed and the beds are full and blooming. And sometimes at night, if you were to look—and of course you wouldn’t—you might see pale faces peeping out of the darkened windows.

In the evening in Wink, it is normal for a man to take the trash out to the back alley, and as he places the bag in the trash can he will suddenly hear the sound of someone speaking to him from nearby. He will look and see that the speaker stands behind the tall wooden fence of the house behind his, and he will be unable to discern anything besides the shadow of the speaker’s figure and the light from his neighbor’s windows filtering through the pickets. What the speaker is whispering to him is unknown, for it will be in a language he has never heard before and could never mimic. The man will say nothing back—it is crucial he say nothing back—and he will walk away slowly, return to his home, and not mention it to his wife or family. In the morning, there will be no sign of anyone’s having been behind the fence at all.

In the morning in Wink, people frequently find that someone has gone through their garbage or left footprints all over their lawn. On discovering this they will set everything to rights, replacing the garbage or smoothing over the grass, and they will not complain or discuss it with anyone.

There are very few pets in Wink. The few pets people own are decidedly indoor pets. The outdoor, wandering pets are unpopular, for they have a tendency to never come home in the morning.

On the outskirts of Wink, where the trees end and the canyons begin, people often hear fluting and cries from down the slopes, and, on very clear nights, one can see flickering lights of a thin, unnerving yellow, and many dark figures standing upright and still on the stones.

They are trying to remember. They are trying to remember their home, where they came from. And they are trying to remind themselves that now, this is home, here in Wink.

The residents of Wink know about all these things, to the extent that they wish to. They tolerate them as one would a rainy season, or some pestering raccoons. Because, after all, no neighborhood is perfect. There will always be a few problems, at least. And besides, people can make arrangements, if they want.