Time Was: Recriminations

Right here where we’re standing used to be a proper god-damned street before those sons of bitches down in the state capital decided to run the interstate highway through the godforsaken middle of nowhere forty miles south of here.

Used to be if you wanted to drive across the country up this way you had to go right through town, straight down this very street. Cars and trucks were rolling through here all day and all night, and up and down the entire length of the town there were thriving businesses. Time was this town had one of the biggest grocery stores in the northeast corner of the state. We had grain elevators at both ends of town, a nice old movie theater, and passenger train service to the east, west, and south.

We lost the damn railroad even before the interstate came along and put the final bullet in our heads.

This here is the godforsaken middle of nowhere now. They killed off all the little towns around us first, and when all those people who used to come in from all over to do their shopping pulled up stakes we didn’t have a prayer or a pot to piss in. We absolutely did not have a fucking prayer. Once they opened the interstate to traffic the high school didn’t last five years.

Now? Well, shit, you can see for yourself what’s left of the place. We’re just another scrubbed-out third world village in what used to be America.

You know anybody who wants to buy a sorry-ass little town?

(Laughs)

Hey, you have a happy Thanksgiving. When you close your eyes and fold your hands be sure to tell God you’re thankful you don’t live here.