It was all woods until he got to the top of the hill, where the road dropped off in a sharp slope into town, like it was meant to go somewhere else but had fallen off. Where the trees stopped and a little town began, the déjà vu was strong.
The feeling only grew as he coasted down to the stop sign at the bottom and onto Main Street proper.
It was like his hometown. Just a little bit of traffic. Mostly at main intersections and a couple pedestrians. There’s chain gas stations at opposite ends and in between a handful of empty storefronts, dark inside with dusty windows, alternating with ones full and painted bright to make up for the others.
And if you look around and between them you can see the gaping abscesses where the steel plants and tube plants and other mills were, from where they were pulled.
He drove out the other end, over a little bridge where the Mahoning was skinniest and just hoped the magnet in his head would draw him to where he needed to be.
– We are an Old Town
