A Peek at 'Timon's Heights'

 

WHEN EVERYTHING WAS OVER but still stuck in the part of Bereshis where God begins to create the world, it was almost like coming out of a hurricane shelter, seeing ruins all around, and wondering whose home was left.

Almost.

There was the same uncertainty, the same fear of loss, the same unspoken "What happens now?" But instead of wondering whose home was left, you wondered who was left. You stood there thinking: Is that what Jesus thought when he walked out of the tomb? "Who's left? Who's still here?" Was he afraid to hear what the Apostles had to tell him? Did he dread walking along the streets, seeing who was sitting shiva?

And you recited (to yourself) the great litany of things that those no longer here would never do: find their dream house; get married; buy that new dress; lease that new car; repair the plumbing; repaper the parlor; sign the divorce papers; read the book they always wanted to read; write the book they always wanted to read; play guitar; play piano; learn another language; fail algebra; worry about who's dating who; be sad about not being liked; go shopping again; drink gourmet coffee again.

It had become a land of lies, lines, and empty shelves, but at least we still had coffee. The aroma showered the streets like the fresh, fragrant draft of a laundered sheet shaken out before the bed is changed. We began to create our lives all over again. In the last days of summer, as gardens shriveled into dusting powder, we came out to play.

A century ago the square-mile hamlet called the City of Timon's Heights was the flashiest playground on the Shore. Now it was the burnt-out bulb pretending to shine through the dust on a prism-skirted chandelier. The fancy department store that usurped the center of town had pupa-ed into million-dollar condos ringed by a moat of frowzy tenements and artsy eateries. And all that remained of the amusement-park buildings on the boardwalk were shells with hollow, echo-chamber innards framed by hallucinatory iron work gone green. The vaguely humped floors with their mosaics of an ancient Rome found only in silent movies were cracked from seismic rock concerts by bands recalled as up-and-comers, though they never went anywhere except home. People came here to savor those failures as well as the town's genealogy: a gallery of monied felons whose descendants lost legacies through immoral secretions of their own. Compiled, the histories were a town-hall mural of myths spread thick across the lobby walls. Here, projection mattered.

Once again the sidewalk cafes flowed into streets that trembled with a commotion too deep in the earth to be heard. Breeders of apathy sloped low in their chairs, sipping lattes, reading on smartphones of things they'd do nothing about. Mute boasters of mischief they were, dunking their minds in excuses, sucking the juice from one scene to the next, tasting what their friends might think if they spoke out or signed petitions or wrote letters to editors or donated to causes, never guessing their dumbness bound them to those who love lies, trust riches, and grow strong in evil, immune to God, the righteous, and mockery.