The Summer of Our Foreclosure
By Sean Boling
Copyright 2012 Sean Boling
Chapter One
Nobody will ever tear down our housing development, no matter how long it ends up abandoned. Nobody will find any use for the land besides farming, and there is plenty of space around it that can be farmed without having to demolish a bunch of houses first. Instead I imagine our neighborhood as an archaeological curiosity in a distant future: each roof missing, reduced to a spread of splintered wood and gobs of buckled shingles scattered about what remains of the upstairs floors, the rest of the wreckage having tumbled through jagged holes onto the cement foundation and the crumbling countertops; tattered loose ends of drywall quiver in the wind as they cling to the exposed studs that still stand and mark the cage-like frame of each house; the doors and windows have held nothing for hundreds of years. People poke their heads through the openings, squinting in contemplation and in defense against the wind-blown, sun-baked climate, wondering why anyone would build such a large colony in such an arid and remote location. They extract themselves from the frames and stand up straight, turning to face the fence posts that have but a few slats still between them, looking through the gaps at the dusty plains that stretch for miles towards the doughy hills on the horizon, the same expanse that I used to have to peek over the fence to see, and they wonder not only why anyone would build here, but why anyone would buy.
All of us kids thought the same thing, too, when we first arrived; when it was new, when the signs still bragged rather than begged.
“It’s not here,” I recall saying to my father before we moved. “I’m looking right at the map where the roads you said meet and there’s no Rancho Hacienda.”
“It’s not a town, son. It’s a housing development. A brand new one.”
I enhanced the map on screen, zooming in as close to the point in question as possible, this time looking for a town somewhere near the intersection of the rural junction and county highway that Dad identified as our new home. Still nothing. Just the cross formed by the intersection. I widened the perspective again and in a couple of different directions I found a couple of very small dots with unfamiliar names I could tell had very few people or buildings. I found a larger, bolder dot with a familiar name that seemed rather far away from where Rancho Hacienda was rumored to be. I held my thumb and index finger on each end of the mileage scale at the bottom of the map and held them in the same position as I jumped from the intersection to the big bold dot. It took me several jumps of the space formed by my two fingers. I multiplied the number of jumps by the miles indicated on the bottom of the map and started to groan but was too bewildered to finish the sound. And that was a straight line between the two points, not even accounting for roads that would have to be taken.
“What does Rancho Hacienda mean, anyway, Dad?”
“Hmmm. I know Rancho is ranch. And Hacienda is I think like a large home with lots of land.”
“Like a ranch?”
“Yes.” Dad was trying to read between the lines of the Homeowners’ Association contract.
“So it means Ranch Ranch.”
“The development is only several months’ old. The site you’re using just hasn’t been updated. Try a different one.”
I did so, in fact tried several different map sites, and found only some railroad tracks passing by the intersection, indicated by a faint gray line with small horizontal lines along its length, looking like stitches keeping a wound from opening.
The drive created even more questions as the landscape grew more sparse, the valley widening and its floor flattening. I looked out from window to window, craning my neck to see around luggage and boxes that impeded my gaze. A sign of civilization would pass by and I would become intrigued.
“Who do you think put that there?” I asked as a red, white, and blue sign touting the name of a local political candidate stood staked into the dirt off the side of the interstate.
“Anyone could have,” Dad answered. “It may seem pretty deserted out here, but there’s people around. You get used to driving longer distances when you’re out in the country.”
“Are they going to have to take it down someday?”
Dad filled his cheeks with air and blew slowly out. “There was a town not fifteen minutes ago. The one with the McDonalds in the gas station. And there’s all these little roads we’ve passed by.”
“What do people do out here?”
“For a living?”
“For anything.”
Dad ignored the question. “Don’t worry, champ. It’s just different. I’ve taken this drive several times now, and it gets shorter each time. And more beautiful.”
Mom spoke for the first time during the trip: "We wanted it to be a surprise."
I saw a holding tank standing a couple dozen feet tall pass by on my side of the car. I wondered aloud what might be inside it, if it was still of use to anyone, and who would repair it if it broke down. But everyone was finished answering my questions, so we drove along in silence.
In between the freeway exits with their half dozen gas, food, and lodging stations clustered together with signs rising above them like a small group of protesters, the signs of civilization grew even more sparse. The ground was mostly fallow and sprinkled with tattered shrubs. Occasionally columns of leafy green crops hugging the ground would emerge, their lines passing by creating the effect of an enormous wheel of fortune spinning from a myopic perspective, as though I was just focusing on my section of the board as the wheel spun, hoping that I would hit the jackpot, that my luck would change. The spokes of the wheel would disappear and give way to more of the bleak high desert, then reappear again a few minutes later. The spin to nowhere started to hypnotize me. Spokes. Nothing. Spokes. Nothing. And then more nothing. And no jackpot.
Dad broke the silence with a "Here we are," as the car merged into an exit lane leading towards the latest huddle of fast food and gasoline. I snapped to attention and looked for houses, but there didn't seem to be any beyond the two fast food restaurants whose names I had heard of before but hadn't seen around our city, and the gas station with the mini mart attached to it. As we sank below the freeway and stopped at the base of the overpass, I peeked under the bridge and saw on the other side a vast parking lot with some big rigs parked in it, and a couple of gas pumps in front of a beige building made of cinder blocks that had "All Day Buffet" painted on the tinted windows. Still no houses.
"Good thing we have a gas station here. Mom and I have a long commute each day."
"Where are the houses?"
"Down this road a ways."
We turned right and gained speed, leaving the freeway exit business district behind and once again flying by sun-baked land interrupted by an occasional field in use. After a few minutes I was about to say "Not again," when I saw through the front windshield some illustrations of life that were not related to agriculture. An intersection loomed ahead, with a long, husky line of trees swaying in the wind on the left side, obscuring a large factory of some sort that I only assumed was there due to the three columns of smoke steaming up into the dusk. The road we were on disappeared into the treeless hills that rose like bread baking in the setting sun straight ahead of us on the horizon, while on the right side were houses. As we drew nearer, it was clear that the houses were very old and perpetually under construction, some appearing as though they may not be able to withstand the wind that blew up the dust along the dirt paths that separated them.
"That's not the development," Dad said with a slight chuckle. "We're up here." We turned right at the intersection, but I turned to look for proof of life in the old houses we passed. I saw a child with big
brown eyes staring at us through a hazy window, and a frazzled grey dog with dirty fur springing from each side of his snout trotted out from between two structures to watch us pass. I turned to look out the rear window, and the glimpses of life I had caught somehow made the rickety dwellings seem all the more abandoned, as though they were being haunted rather than lived in. I turned to face forward again and wonder if I had really seen those eyes, that dog, when out the corner of my eye on the left side of the car I noticed that in the clearing past the splintery neighborhood stood an old wooden loading dock that was falling apart practically right before your eyes. It had a platform that was bowed in various places and a ramp on each end. It was surrounded by discarded rusting equipment, including a couple of old railroad cars, which led me to notice the railroad tracks running behind the derelict station.
"Ta da!" chirped Dad, just as I saw the clearing with the old train station give way to a brand new concrete wall with fresh, clean rooftops rising above it.
The concrete wall scrolled onward for several seconds as though a film had just finished being projected and a blank white screen flickered hypnotically in the aftermath. An eye-level sign staked to a couple of wooden posts blemished the clean canvas: "Final Phase" it proclaimed in red. "Now Selling". Then came the wrought iron words bolted to the wall, "Rancho Hacienda". Then came the gate. We turned left to position ourselves in front of it, Dad using his turn signal in spite of no cars being in sight for miles ahead or behind us on the flat two-lane road. As we faced the black metal bars that sloped from smallest on the ends to tallest in the center, Dad reached out to enter a code on the keypad sticking out towards the driver's window. The gate then slowly swung open with an occasional brief squeal, and we obliged it by slowly driving through.
Again I found myself looking back rather than forward. I watched the gate start to close behind us. Beyond the opening, across the road, a vacant field spread in all directions for acres. Dried remnants of some sort of leafy crop were plastered to the ground in random clusters, trembling in the wind. Several hundred yards in the distance, a bit off to the right, it appeared as though a portion of the field was being used to grow a new crop. The two sides of the gate finished coming together. My view was obstructed by the bars, but I kept on looking, looking at the metal bars themselves now. Mom and Dad started to point at some of the new homes and announce their enthusiasm. I settled back into my seat and looked at nothing in particular.