‘Safety is a fairly fluid term when it comes to rating the safest parks in the U.S. and no choice exemplifies this subjectivity more than the number one ranking of ‘Bunker Field,’ a public children’s playground and astroturf park located far enough underground that it would remain undamaged in all but a direct nuclear strike. ‘Bunker Field’ is a proof-of-concept maintained by Bob’s Bunkers, a company that specializes in apocalyptic security for the obscenely wealthy. They advertise their willingness to take on unusual and luxurious designs without compromising on safety or efficiency and Bunker Park is the prime example. Its air is filtered and clean. Its water pulls from a deep well and can be stored for up to five years. It draws power from the solar panels on the surface and from the rotation of its merry-go-round. Its leaded walls are nearly half a foot thick, and when the klaxons start to sound, several doors will automatically seal the playground from the outside world. 

The actual physical safety of children at ‘Bunker Park’ has been called into question, however. Injuries abound, the playground taking notes from sturdy, 1950’s era designs and except that it is constructed entirely of reinforced steel, off of which children’s heads tend to bounce. The lights are designed to dim automatically when no movement is detected and local children have identified the sensors and will cover them to bring about ‘night.’ Then, they toss themselves about in the dark until someone inevitably catches a concussion on the edge of the brutalist play area or simply runs directly into the walls, which are painted in the style of Looney Tunes to look like the lush natural environment that would be cooked in a real nuclear event. Cell phone service is not available at ‘Bunker Park’ for obvious reasons, so injured kids have to be dragged to the surface before their parents or responsible older siblings can be notified. 

And then there are the doomsday guys.’

The doomsday guys clock me basically immediately and it takes them no time at all to conclude that I’m a third party. The first party is, of course, the parents with kids, of which there looks to be just two families. The 18 or so other guys probably thought they could blend in as vestigial uncles or whatever but didn’t count on there being other preppers with the same idea and now they’ve camped on the outskirts of the park with big army surplus bags and matte black rifles to protect the place when the doors come sliding down. 

I sort of thought I could pass as an uncle for the time it took me to look around the place, too, but the current demographic and the unfriendly welcome immediately pushes me into ‘tourist’ persona. I pull out a small and entirely non-functional digital camera, which people find way less intimidating than simply taking pictures on my phone, and I do my best to project an image of what I actually literally am, which is just a guy looking around. The trouble I immediately run into, however, is that the preppers don’t want me taking pictures of them and the parents don’t want me taking pictures of their kids. I try to sit casually on a bench and look at my phone before I remember there’s no service. 

Tension begins to rise. 

The parents, who were surprisingly chill about the militia guys, are suddenly standing just a bit closer to their kids. The militia guys are cleaning their guns at me. Desperate, I pull up the only game my phone seems to have installed and find that it needs an update. A child laughs somewhere near one of the walls. 

The bunker goes dark. 

I escape ‘Bunker Park’ unscathed and well before authorities arrive. News articles capture the relative chaos of the event, which involved a great deal of random gun fire and an unhelpful maze of very bright flashlight beams, all whipping around in an effort to locate me, I suppose, and eventually whoever decided it was a good idea to open fire in the dark. Only one injury came of the whole thing- a kid who ran headfirst into the reinforced concrete base of the slide on his way back to his parents. They’re quoted as being fairly positive about the park, despite the mess:

“He was going to lose those teeth anyway.”

-traveler

‘The information age has largely done away with mystery and those mysteries, those surprises, that remain, tend to be the scary, stressful unknowns that plague adulthood and leave us looking cynically in the rear-view mirror, wishing we had known a little better a little earlier and understanding, vaguely, that there are likely more cruel surprises ahead. Among the few soft surprises left is ‘The Random Button,’ located in an elevator in the U.S. Steel Tower in Pittsburgh. Locating the elevator can be a trial- it is not technically open to public use and is not among those that office regulars take normally. Travelers are encouraged to ask for the location of the restrooms and to follow the directions almost exactly opposite, which is difficult if the hired security is paying even a little bit of attention. There is something of an understanding among those who attend the U.S. Steel Tower for their daily grind- they recognize and seem to respect the need of travelers to find the elevator and will sometimes help. 

They will never enter the elevator themselves, however. 

The elevator is visually hostile. It creaks open and requires that riders open and close an inner gate. It shifts underfoot and seems to sag with any weight over 200 pounds, though a placard insists it’s rated to carry much more. There are a series of normal buttons in the elevator and two near the bottom of interest. ‘The Random Button’ is identified by an anachronistic ‘wacky face’ emoji. The button beside it indicates ’65,’ which is technically a floor above what actually exists in the U.S. Steel Tower. There is no information available on paper or online about what this button does, and such an informational black hole suggests that the result is so boring that nobody has ever cared to write about it, or is so disastrous that nobody has ever survived long enough to communicate the results. Travelers are encouraged not to press the button marked ’65.’ 

‘The Random Button’ does exactly what one might suspect: it chooses a floor at random and, when feeling playful, will sometimes cause the elevator to go up several floors and then drop down again as though teasing- as though making a decision on the fly. ‘The Random Button’ overrides whatever security might exist in the building, meaning that the elevator may stop at floors meant exclusively for maintenance staff. Some reports indicate the elevator may open onto random rooms. A busy conference hall. A bathroom stall. The fire escape at an uncomfortable elevation. These reports have not been verified, though travelers are encouraged to pause and consider their surroundings before making an exit. 

One other oddity: contrary to conventional wisdom, all signs near and within the elevator seem to encourage its use during a fire or a natural disaster. One report during such an event suggests the rider who, in their hurry, pressed ‘The Random Button,’ was deposited in the lobby of an entirely different building several blocks away and several days later, though to the rider, no time seemed to pass at all. Travelers, as always, are encouraged to pack sandwiches. 

You never know how long you might be away.

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

For all that I prefer being alone, I do reasonably well in crowds. My look is hostile and grungy enough that people don’t want to engage with me, but my frame is small enough that I don’t seem like an open threat. I have a method- one that involves looking directly ahead of me, past the faces of those nearby, and pushing apologetically through as though I have business somewhere ahead and the crowd is just an inconvenience. For the most part, people are happy to let me pass. Nobody wants to be alone in a crowd and nobody wants to be alone with me. 

I try not to think about it too much. 

‘It’s not so much ‘The Library of Forbidden Books’ that is interesting. Outside of a few old and rare tomes in their collection, the books on display are trivial to obtain online or in any number of other libraries or bookstores. No, the real actions takes place in the parking lot and in the sidewalks surrounding ‘The Library.’ This is where ‘The Ongoing Culture War’ is fought- a constant protests and sometimes skirmish that consists of a half-dozen or more factions, each protesting the availability of a book in ‘The Library of Forbidden Books.’ 

For instance, the more conservative parties take umbrage at the inclusion of sexual education books for children, even those that have been roundly approved by doctors and psychologists as age appropriate. The liberal leaning factions counter-protest for these books and, as an aside, have petitioned the library to remove children’s books that champion the so-called traditional family: straight, middle-class, gender-conforming, and (let’s be honest here), white. 

Then there are a number of smaller factions that represent the gray areas that most of us don’t want to acknowledge for complexity’s sake. There are those protesting the impingement of free speech by all parties, arguing that all books should be available and adding, in fine print, that maybe has to include those books that sexualize minors. There is a party devoted to ‘sensible’ age ranges, meaning these books should be available but just leave the kids out of it, right? There are the progressive conservatives that agree family models should be (so-called) traditional but maybe they ease up on the racial stuff and also women can win bread too- in this economy, don’t they have to? Then there are those people that arrive at ‘The Ongoing Culture War’ to, as they say, ‘stir shit.’ One particularly effective shit-stirrer nearly united the fractured parties in an effort to simply burn the library down and be done with it, but was stopped at the last moment by undercover police (who seemed to make up nearly half the crowd). 

A local donut shop has made a name for itself by sponsoring a time-out on Saturday mornings. They deliver free donuts to the center of ‘The Ongoing Culture War,’ the presence of which usually calms the crowd and facilitates a half hour of cautious, but amiable interaction between people who, moments before, were all but threatening violence toward each other. For this half hour, the crowd sets aside the many complicated signs they wave about to really broadcast the nuances of their opinions, and they eat donuts together in near-silence. 

Dan Leder, owner of Ledership Donuts, refuses to speak of this phenomenon and seems, at all times, to be under ulcer-inducing stress to not broadcast any opinions of his own. A step in the wrong direction could prove disastrous.’

It is stressful. Without anything to insinuate my own opinion on the library or on the state of the country, I worry that my nearness to one faction or another may be taken as agreement. Stopping to read a sign seems to signal skepticism. Even my far-looking tactic of navigating the crowd makes it seem like I’m ignoring those near me or endorsing those ahead. 

It isn’t until I turn to leave, though, that the vitriol comes on thick. Something heavy enough to hurt, but dull enough not to count as true assault, bounces off the back of my head and when I turn to see who threw it I find that a few of the fringe factions have registered my leaving as abandonment of their incompatible causes. I make the mistake of apologizing.

“I was just visiting!”

“This isn’t a zoo, man!” Someone shouts. 

“Take a fucking stand.” Someone else says. 

I grimace and do my best sorry, have to go face, dodging several more projectiles which, on closer inspection, are rocks wrapped carefully in cloth so as not to be injurious. Each has the word ‘shame’ sharpied across the surface. 

I return to the camper to find that someone has, rightfully I guess, pointed out that it is a gas-guzzler. A real fossil-fuel hedonist. They’ve pointed this out in spray paint on the side of the van and someone else has, in a different color, rebutted them, suggesting that the camper was very clearly a second-hand buy and a renovation and therefore is helping the earth and that most electricity for cars is generated using a measure of fossil fuels anyway. Someone else has painted a sad face under this. 

A new shame rock bounces lightly off the camper’s side. I pick it up as a souvenir and get on my way. 

-traveler

There’s no avoiding it. The interstate to Deep Dakota invariably cuts through ‘The Drive-Ing’ which is an annoying name for a series of billboards placed so closely and so carefully that driving by them at highway speeds causes something like a flip-book movie to occur up-and-to-the-left of the ideal driver’s actual focus, which is to say, the road. The owner and filmmaker of ‘The Drive-Ing’ changes them out regularly enough that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a repeat, but I’ve driven past enough to expect less of a movie and more of an amateur political ad or, worse, a take on religion. I tap the steering wheel as I wait for the show to begin, trying to decide whether I try to ignore it, which has proven nearly impossible in the past, or if I just watch the thing for full effect. 

It always begins the same:

‘PRESENTING’

‘This is the word that signals a traveler has entered ‘The Drive-Ing,’ a poorly named story medium constructed by a wealthy madman. ‘The Drive-Ing’ begins by flashing the name of a fictional and vaguely sarcastic production company- different each time. This, alone, normally requires ten or twenty billboards to accomplish, a show of the man’s dedication and wealth. Things are quickly to business afterward, however, because the man’s property does have its limits and ‘The Drive-Ing’ is hardly so beloved an institution that those locals who have to drive by it every day are willing to donate parcels of their own property. 

What passes for entertainment on ‘The Drive-Ing’ is a five minute scene with the same seven actors, many of whom are members of the man’s family. These scenes mostly play out comic-book style, there being no particular way of working sound into the experience, but the man has occasionally experimented with silent move dialogue slides which are admittedly classier but eat into the overall sign count.

As for the scenes themselves, the actors are often pictured performing exaggerated actions with exaggerated emotion, like a series of youtube thumbnails curated to drive home the moral of the month. These short scenes are catalogued by the sort of fans that get off on embarrassing content, and those archives can be accessed online. Of those that garnered national attention, there have been several anti-porn skits which seemed to run fairly racy themselves. Another insisted that fluoride weighs the soul down in regard to the likelihood of accessing heaven. Another that wireless internet caused most modern cancers and may also be linked to satanic practices. 

No matter how outrageous the content before it, the final slide is always a blessing upon America for its bountiful opportunities and its free speech and this sign in particular seems to win a lot of favor from the local government- enough that only the edgiest of billboards have been censored. The man revels in the occasional attention his system brings, he being a retiree with very little else going on. He can sometimes be seen jogging through ‘The Drive-Ing’ himself, looking up, gape-mouthed and the glory of his creation.’

This month’s story seems to be a PSA about neutering house pets but quickly devolves into an anti-vasectomy or overall anti-sterilization concept in which a man loses his wife to a more handsome and virile actor who, it is strongly suggested, is the first man’s lost masculinity. Several ghost children form a sort of Greek chorus, these being the children the man might have fathered if he had done the right thing and they are revealed to be a future president (boy), priest (boy), and loving housewife (girl). It comes together quickly in the end, the man clearly running out of slides before he could really get into the meat of the story. Finally the blessing shows and I’m free of it. 

Well, if not free, at least I don’t have to look at it.

-traveler

For as much as I rely on my nose- to sense danger or fresh air or food or failing personal hygiene- I’m not sure I’ve experienced or conceived of the smell-version of vertigo, of a aromatic confusion so profound that it becomes dizzying. This is what happens when I step into ‘The New Car Cave,’ where new-car smell is mined and processed and sent around the world. It nearly floors me and I find myself trying to brace on a grab handle that just isn’t there.

‘Exclusive, maybe, and valuable in its exclusivity, the mineral deposits that produce ‘new car smell’ are found only in a single small cavern in northwest Nebraska. ‘The (New) Car Smell Cave’ presents something of a chicken/egg problem in the small communities where car enthusiasts and speleologists mingle. There is no clear record of the cave prior to the rise of enclosed cars- no clear record of the discovery of the cave at all in fact. By the time ‘new car’ had been identified as an olfactory experience, the cave’s powdery crystals were already being used as a paste to polish chrome features of then-modern vehicles. 

Now, car-smell is like an addiction the world cannot shake. A new car without the smell just doesn’t hit right, and though the crystals are next to worthless, even in the scope of modern chrome polishing, the public requires their availability to signal newness in their purchases. 

‘The (New) Car Smell Cave’ is not to confused with ‘The (Old) Car Smell Cave’ in central Idaho (which is, geologically speaking, newer than ‘The (New) Car Smell Cave,’ though both were discovered around the same time). ‘The (Old) Car Smell Cave’ smells like the family that rots inside it and would sell very few cars indeed.’

This is, as far as I can tell, the only reference to ‘The (Old) Car Smell Cave’ in the entire book and a small amount of subsequent research has not identified any caves in Idaho that might smell like a dead family for some reason (except for one article that suggests they all do). Something isn’t right in subterranean Idaho, that much seems clear.

‘The (New) Car Smell Cave’ is technically private property but is barricaded only in the loosest terms by a skirt of chain-link that was practically begging to be crawled under. A sign on the other side advertises very reasonably prices for daytime tours which, had I known about them, would have saved me a great deal of trouble. I briefly consider sneaking back out and returning in the morning, but if I get this over with tonight I can start the long drive up to Deep Dakota early and maybe justify a long lunch somewhere. My stomach grumble and then goes nauseous with the car smell. I put one of several hard-hats hanging on a crude iron bar nearby and step deeper into the cave. 

For a mining operation, I’m surprised to find how little the natural cave has been modified. The floor is uneven and the ceiling drops close enough several times that I’m grateful for the helmet. I spy the first vein of ‘new car’ after about fifteen minutes and I pause to pull on a gardening glove that, as far as I’m concerned, just appeared in the camper one day. I drag my finger along the vein to break up the crystals and catch the powder in a little baggie as a souvenir. 

I’m taking my long lunch the next day when the server, a woman in her forties, stops to observe my work.

“That’s a tree?”

I look down at the rough, stenciled cardboard in front of me and nod. 

“And you’re going to cut it out with that knife?”

I nod again and look down at the hunter’s knife in my hand and then, for the first time, maybe, around the restaurant where several other people are watching me with what might be called interest but is, in some cases, fear.

“How about I get you some scissors?” She’s gone before I can answer. 

“Making an air freshener,” I tell the man in the booth ahead of me. I say it loud enough so that everyone can hear. “Just making an air freshener.”

-traveler