19
Alone and on foot, I wandered through the garish streets of the city. I moved without purpose or destination, with the drunk's uncertain and aimless step. Like the sponge it resembled, my brain soaked up the sights and sounds, soon became sodden with the glut of sensation until the images were overlapping, blurred and meaningless. I walked. Around me there was the blare of horns, the swish of tires on pavement, the scrape and clip of feet along the sidewalk, the eager call and the murmured phrase. Overhead, the slow and heavy throbbing of a helicopter or, higher in distance and frequency, the whine and clap of a jet slapping through the sound barrier. Sometimes the rumble of an unseen train speeding along the monorail nearby, whistling shrilly as it neared a stop. At intervals the clashing sound effects and throbbing voices from a public telescreen, rising in volume and urgency as I approached, then fading slowly behind me. And always there was music, blaring from a loudspeaker, muffled by an intervening wall, exploding as a door was opened. The soar of a violin, the call of a trumpet, the crash of a drum, the croon of a human voice. All these followed me along the crowded streets.
The night was sound and it was light. Telescreens flickered in their harsh-hued colors. Ribbons of white tubing ran overhead, bringing the brightness of high noon to the streets, a brightness unrelieved by shadow or warmth. The hills were a mass of light clusters, like a field of white flowers in full bloom. And, as I moved away from a main thoroughfare, car headlights tore great gaps out of darker streets and, as they approached each other, seemed to fence like ancient warriors in swordplay.
I seemed acutely sensitive to all sensation. My eyes ached from the assault of light, my head reverberated with the Saturday night sounds, my body seemed bruised and battered from the jostling of the crowds spilling along the sidewalks. I moved deliberately away into darker, quieter streets, unconscious of weariness, hardly aware of the dull ache of the gash in my arm or the steady throbbing of my head. I stumbled aimlessly through the network of vast apartment projects and sprawling trailer parks, aware of life and laughter and shared enjoyment all around me, of the tightening kiss and the flushed angry face and the quiet amusement and the tension of waiting. I felt intensely alone.
I lost all sense of time. How many miles I walked I don't know. At one time I found myself in a section of the Culver basin of trailer courts that seemed familiar. I wondered if I had once lived here, if I could be near the site of the trailer in which I had grown up with my mother. I found familiar landmarks and, groping along the trail of memory, came upon unfamiliar streets and stores and shining new trailers. Too much had changed. The past was lost, all but a few traces obliterated by the indifferently destructive feet of progress.
Slowly the crowds withdrew. The clamor of the city stilled. Public telescreens clicked off, were seen as massive square patches of gray against the darker sky. The close-packed streams of cars thinned out. The sidewalks emptied except for the occasional straggler. Lights winked out on the hills encircling the city.
I walked alone, a madman, looking as if for the last time at the ugliness, the beauty, the raw scars of love and hate, the broken window of violence, the scented flower of affection.
As dawn broke, I left the normal world of humanity behind me. I caught an almost empty train to the top of the hill. When I reached my trailer, the sun, still invisible behind the eastern range of hills, had set the sky on fire. I stood on the step for a moment, casting a long, searching look at the sleeping city.
Then I went in and closed the door.