won���t take it or because nobody here could agree long enough
to allow a corporation to get together enough land to build a
high-rise. Thank God we don���t have corporate shithouses that are
five, six, seven stories tall, the sort of things that are beginning
to deface Hyannis. We don���t have dead-ass, mall-architecture all
over the place. In that sense, the town is still very much the way
it was then.
CB: The eaves of one roof are tucked under the wings of a
neighbor���s house. There is a busy urban proximity we share because
of the closeness of the houses, yet you get this freaky isolation
you mentioned, walking down the street on those foggy evenings
where a candle in a window is the only light. It is like a movie set,
but without the overlit intensity of Hollywood.
NM: I wouldn���t disagree ��� it has that. A friend of mine came up
recently. What he was taken with ��� he���d never been here before ���
was the enormous sound of the wind down Commercial Street,
which I had never noticed. He said, ���You never noticed it! It���s as
if a jet plane is going by.���
CB: It���s not true you never noticed. You talk a lot about the winter
wind in Tough Guys.
NM: Yes, but not that sound, the example he gave. Since then I���ve
heard it. An extraordinary sound. Like a propeller whose blades
are 60 feet long is sucking the air down a huge tunnel. Anyway,
to go back to my first impressions: we were only here about three
days. Then we left. The following winter we got married, in ���44,
a year and a half later. All through the war, once I went overseas
HYLAND
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