On the drive there, I was sure we were going to die.
Harry drove with a certain madness that felt incomprehensible. While driving, his seat was leaned back so far that it almost looked like he was lying down. He had one hand on the steering wheel and used his other hand to gesticulate while he yammered on about glassblowing. "Yeah, so you gotta make sure the furnace is exactly the right temperature, or else your whole groove gets fucked up," he said while running through stop signs and going twice the speed limit. On several turns, he kept driving over curbs. "Fuck! Not again," he said after driving over his fourth curb.
The city itself had that same worn-down and lived-in attitude our neighborhood had. Many of the buildings looked almost a hundred years old, like they were gasping for air just from sitting there. There was graffiti on almost every corner. A lot of it was typography I couldn't read, and some of it were murals with distinct artistry. There was one piece that looked to be painted on the side of an abandoned warehouse. There was an old guy with slick, balding black hair and a white tank top with a gold chain that had a golden pendant of a shell. He was giving a thumbs up and winking. Next to him was a speech bubble that said "Ain't no place like Winston!"
We got to a stoplight that Harry miraculously decided to stop at. "So, we're in Winston County?" I asked him.
"You better believe it, buddy," he pointed his finger at me. "Best place in the whole Lower Forty-Eight. Born here, most certainly gonna die here."
"I don't know. It seems like this whole place is sort of—run down."
"Well sure it is," Harry waved his hand. "Shit hasn't been the same since FTC jumped ship."
"FTC?"
"Big company that makes computers and robots and all that. You hated those people, but they gave Winston a bunch of factory and warehouse jobs. Ever since it all shut down, only thing most people do here anymore is do drugs and get shot."
I found Harry's sense of pride in this place discomforting. It seemed that we probably would've been better off leaving, but I guess we all decided to deal with the devil we knew, even if that devil left too. Still, that might explain why I wanted to wipe my memories. Maybe I just wanted a fresh start. "Why would I hate them?" I asked.
The stoplight turned green. The recoil from Harry flooring the gas sent me farther back into my seat. I was quite surprised Harry managed to keep talking so casually. "You used to say all this shit about how they'd bug people's houses and phones and stuff," Harry said over the belabored whirring of the engine. "Kept saying that even when they closed shop here. Shit, you still say it. I think that moon dust might actually make you shut the hell up about it for a while, thank God," Harry weaved between cars.
I decided to keep quiet until we got there. Miraculously, Harry didn't run over another curb the rest of the drive. We drove through downtown and pulled into a street that was a large semicircle. On this semicircle street were a few large colonial-style homes, and each of them was littered with tacky medieval decorations. There were different coats of arms on each house, and each had a distinct color. In the middle of the semicircle was a large gravel parking lot. There weren't many cars parked there, so I wasn't worried about Harry hitting any cars while trying to park. I looked at each house's colors. The one on the far left was red, then green, then yellow, then blue. We got out of the car and Harry started heading over to the blue house. As we approached, there was a banner draped over a balcony on top of the front porch.
It was the same logo I saw on my laptop: a drawing of a sword that said "Excelsior" on it.
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