Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
timesstopandbuyusicecreamconesdippedinchocolate,andforthisalone1havealways
felt a special fondness for the place. So I was pleased to note, as I rolled into the town on
this fine September morn, that there were still windmills whirling in many a front yard. I
stopped at the square and got out to stretch my legs. It being a Sunday, the old men from
the square had the day off-they would be on sleeping-in-front-of-the-TV duty all day-but
in every other respect Pella was as perfect as I remembered it. The square was thick with
trees and flowerbeds of blazing salvias and glowing marigolds. It had its own windmill,
a handsome green one with white blades, nearly full-sized, standing on one corner. The
stores around the square were of the cereal-box architecture favored by small-town stores
throughout the Midwest, but with gingerbread cornices and other cheery embellishments.
Every business had a solid, trustworthy Dutch name: Pardekoopers Drug Store, Jaarsma
Bakery, Van Gorp Insurers, Gosselink's Christian Book Store, Vander Ploeg Bakery. All
were shut, of course. Sundays are still closely observed in places like Pella. Indeed, the
whole town was eerily quiet. It was steeped in that kind of dead silence that makes you
begin to wonder, if you are of a suitably hysterical nature, if perhaps everybody has been
poisoned in the night by a leak of odorless gas-which even now could be taking insidi-
ous control of your own central nervous system-turning Pella into a kind of Pompeii of
the plains. I briefly imagined people from all over coming to look at the victims and being
especially enthralled at the worried-looking young man in spectacles on the town square,
forever clutching his throat and trying to get his car door open. But then I saw a man walk-
ing a dog at the far end of the square and realized that any danger was safely past.
I hadn't intended to linger, but it was such a splendid morning that I wandered off down a
nearby street, past neat woodenframed houses with cupolas and gables and front porches
with two-seater swings that creaked in the breeze. There was no other sound, apart from
the scuffling of my feet through dried leaves. At the bottom of the street, I came across the
campus of Central College, a small institution run by the Dutch Reformed Church, with
a campus of red-brick buildings overlooking an ornamental pond with an arching wooden
footbridge. The whole place was as tranquil as a double dose of Valium. It looked like the
sort of tidy, friendly, clean-thinking college that Clark Kent would have attended. I crossed
the bridge and at the far side of the campus found further evidence that I was not the only
living person in Pella. From an open window high up in a dormitory building came the
sound of a stereo turned up far too loud. It blared for a moment-something by Frankie
GoestoHollywood,Ibelieve-andthenfromsomeplaceindiscernibletherecameabooming
voice that said, “IF YOU DON'T TURN THAT THING THE FUCK OFF RIGHT NOW
I'M GONNA COME OVER THERE AND POUND YOUR HEAD IN!” It was the voice
of a large person-someone, I fancied, with the nickname Moose. Immediately the music
stopped and Pella slept again.
