Keep on the Borderlands; I, iii

It is impossible, I think, to overstate the enormity of the renovations undertaken upon our arrival. I remember being stricken by the very idea. Trees were uprooted and replanted elsewhere. Walls were painted. Walls were patched. All was wreathed in rope and scaffold. A dust cloud, low and consistent, obscured vision and elicited fits of coughing from the work crews, many of which took to tying cloth around their lower faces. I wasn’t sure what to make of this place. Arriving that first day, a shoebox filled with GI Joe figures, wandering the halls until I found the room that was to be my own. The walls were covered with hideous faux wood paneling. Beneath that were a different shade of paneling and several layers of patterned wallpaper. There was one window that looked out over the front courtyard. I sat in the corner and tried to expand my sense of things to include this place, this space. Debris from removed carpeting, bent nails and scraps of padding, a grainy particulate that had resulted from the rot of neglect and lingered in the air like peat. The flooring revealed was sadly damaged. On the ceiling was a rectangular discoloration from what must have once been an entrance to the attic, lazily patched. I took Beachhead from the box and he began scaling the wall, grappling from chip to pockmark in rugged ascent.

The people were generally honest, and boorishness was frowned upon. There were, after all, legitimate concerns to distract a body. These consisted of manning the walls, patrolling, and repairing the facilities. My days were often spent alone and away from the industry. The best play was the careful construction of battle scenes in which one force, well entrenched, repelled tireless invaders. Furniture, books, and blankets together formed complex military installations the assembly of which constituted the longest and most central of amusements. With no other playmates to spoil its rich integrity, my imagination crafted grand narrative arcs of drama and violent betrayal. Men loved and men fell. Hideous creatures burst forth from cave walls and shambling nightmares oozed in through the ether. It was so far beyond the intensity of ball catching or bike riding or other banalities so often suggested as a better use of this time. “Go make some friends,” they would say. “Play with your sisters,” they would say. I would, and in tree helicopters wielding stick guns and screaming out to the dying light someone would invariably get a skinned knee or wounded pride and, appealing to authority, end the game. The best trait was a willingness to be subsumed by my vision, which was clear and rapid, and only it could deliver what was wanted with consistency.