The Brooklyn Rail

Ulysses 3

I hadn’t been to my hometown in years. I hated it. Even this stop was simply for gas. I’d intended to keep going ’til New Jersey, where my fiancée was waiting. And yet, as I filled my tank at the old Exxon—one thing I could count on being there, despite the passage of time—I suddenly got the urge to poke around. Suddenly it was a novelty to be in my hometown, by chance, knowing no one, my parents long dead. The Monday morning winter street wore a desolate aspect, while miniscule changes among the downtown shops and restaurants imparted a feeling like a dream in which a familiar locale is slightly distorted, unreal.