The worn treads of my bike do not take well to the streets of Bakersfield, Indiana- a place known, colloquially, as ‘Fast-Food City.’ The pavement darkens half a mile outside its borders, appearing wet despite the driving sun and releasing thick vapors that hang lethargically as a low fog. A small brush fire burns on the side of the highway, emitting angry hisses as I empty the contents of my water bottle into it. The flames spread until I stomp them out.
There are more fires leading to the exit ramp, fires that would require more than the work of a single man’s boots. I ignore them and take shallow breaths as I pass through the smoke.
The bike skids coming off the ramp but I hold a wobbling balance and blame the poor visibility. It skids again at a stoplight, the tires sliding across the road as though caught in an early autumn’s frost. I stop, again, and run my fingers across the asphalt. They come away slick with grease.
‘‘Fast-Food City’ is home to a neon skyline and a rubbery, prismatic sunset. To say that pictures do not do it justice would be misleading, because the pictures are beautiful and, in a just world, they would reflect the degeneracy of the place that once called itself ‘Bakersfield.’
The fall of Bakersfield proper began in 2012 with the completion of a spiraling highway off-ramp that fed into its outskirts. Unsurprisingly, the few fast-food restaurants there began to see a dramatic uptick in drive-thru business and their growing fortune caught the eye of the city’s entrepreneurial crowd. Something went wrong (what that something is has been fiercely debated in economic circles) and the growth of Bakersfield’s fast-food industry hit no upper limit.
When the few vacant lots had been filled, the need for on-the-go burgers and tacos and dippable pancakes was still enough that it was lucrative to transition existing businesses to meet the new demand. Coffee chains expanded, like a cancer, to consume the grocery stores they had once been embedded in. Banks began to deliver sub sandwiches through their aging pneumatic tubes. The sewage system began to clog with oil and fat.
‘Fast-Food City’ exists in a sort of capitalistic feedback loop. Its infamy now attracts as many customers as its restaurants and it chugs along, adapting to the strange niche economy with the purchase of specialized machinery to warm its congealed arteries in the winter and to regulate the apneatic release of its hostile atmosphere.’
The roads become perilous with a slick, rainbow sheen so I pull off to the side and proceed toward the center of the city on foot. I am the only one walking and I attract the uncomfortable gaze of passing drivers- they watch me weave my way around gray puddles and collected piles of fryer scrapings. My clothes grow heavy and my mouth accumulates an uncomfortable coating from the air.
Most of the restaurants I approach have been sealed up except for one or two drive-through windows. Through the film on the glass doors I can see that many of the dining areas have been converted into dormitories. The businesses themselves exist in ‘neighborhoods.’ There will be nothing but cheap tex-mex for a few blocks before some invisible border marks the edges of a sandwich district.
I squeeze through an alleyway and into something that must have once been a massive parking lot. Now it’s dotted with coffee booths, each manned by a single barista. They, at least, seem open to serving a man on foot. The woman I order from is friendly. She doesn’t let on that there is anything strange about this place or work. I want to ask her where she sleeps- whether she grew up here and knew Bakersfield before the fall. I’ve worked customer service, though, and I know what it’s like to be asked personal questions by a stranger. I know what it’s like to have my place in life outlined by a person I serve. I’m not here to save anyone or to tear them down. I’m here to see the fountain in the middle of town and to wash the greasy coating from my insides with a coffee and to leave.
The woman points me in the right direction and offers me a day-old scone, which I tuck into my bag for later. I make it to the fountain just as the sun begins to set and watch its strange transformation. The water, or what was once mostly water, slops thickly into the base at daytime temperatures but congeals at nightfall, exiting the top in yellow, sputtering curls until the pump can no longer handle the strain and grinds to a halt somewhere below. Come morning, the fountain will warm and be fully functional by the time the restaurants are changing out their breakfast menus.
-traveler
