WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.260 align:middle line:90%


00:00:04.260 --> 00:00:06.427 align:middle line:90%
Wilmington, Delaware.

00:00:06.427 --> 00:00:09.630 align:middle line:90%


00:00:09.630 --> 00:00:12.390 align:middle line:84%
They've crumbled
before they were ever

00:00:12.390 --> 00:00:17.250 align:middle line:84%
finished, these
American cities, which

00:00:17.250 --> 00:00:22.920 align:middle line:84%
dreamed one day to be finished
cities and pronounced good.

00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:26.280 align:middle line:84%
Architecturally
speaking, the new world

00:00:26.280 --> 00:00:30.780 align:middle line:84%
turns cradles
directly into graves.

00:00:30.780 --> 00:00:34.350 align:middle line:84%
For instance,
Wilmington, Delaware.

00:00:34.350 --> 00:00:38.790 align:middle line:84%
As evocative of death
as any dig or ruin,

00:00:38.790 --> 00:00:44.820 align:middle line:84%
more sad for never having been,
more hideous like the cadaver

00:00:44.820 --> 00:00:49.680 align:middle line:84%
as opposed to the sleeping
stone of the sarcophagus on top

00:00:49.680 --> 00:00:51.900 align:middle line:90%
of it.

00:00:51.900 --> 00:00:57.360 align:middle line:84%
34 years ago, hitchhiking
north on Route 1,

00:00:57.360 --> 00:01:02.310 align:middle line:84%
I stopped for the night
in Wilmington, Delaware.

00:01:02.310 --> 00:01:05.970 align:middle line:84%
I remember I met an
old hobo that night

00:01:05.970 --> 00:01:07.860 align:middle line:90%
at the ferry landing.

00:01:07.860 --> 00:01:11.370 align:middle line:90%
I almost remember his name.

00:01:11.370 --> 00:01:13.200 align:middle line:90%
Now dead, of course.

00:01:13.200 --> 00:01:18.390 align:middle line:84%
I mean the ferry,
but also the hobo.

00:01:18.390 --> 00:01:19.806 align:middle line:90%
No matter.

00:01:19.806 --> 00:01:21.630 align:middle line:90%
No matter, I say.

00:01:21.630 --> 00:01:23.400 align:middle line:90%
It's no matter.

00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:26.340 align:middle line:84%
His coat came down
past those knees.

00:01:26.340 --> 00:01:30.240 align:middle line:84%
His pants went on
over his shoes.

00:01:30.240 --> 00:01:33.990 align:middle line:84%
A suit plucked
off a clothesline.

00:01:33.990 --> 00:01:37.890 align:middle line:84%
He taught me how to steal
a hen so that the farmer's

00:01:37.890 --> 00:01:39.660 align:middle line:90%
dog wouldn't know.

00:01:39.660 --> 00:01:43.590 align:middle line:84%
How to come up on her and
seize her by the neck,

00:01:43.590 --> 00:01:47.760 align:middle line:84%
and in one motion whirl
her about in the air,

00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:51.720 align:middle line:84%
breaking the neck, of course,
and twisting the wind pipe

00:01:51.720 --> 00:01:56.440 align:middle line:84%
closed, effectively shutting
off any cry for help

00:01:56.440 --> 00:01:59.190 align:middle line:90%
she might want to utter.

00:01:59.190 --> 00:02:03.300 align:middle line:90%
Give, perhaps, is the idiom.

00:02:03.300 --> 00:02:05.430 align:middle line:90%
That doesn't matter.

00:02:05.430 --> 00:02:09.150 align:middle line:84%
It doesn't matter that
we cooked a stolen hen

00:02:09.150 --> 00:02:13.470 align:middle line:84%
over a fire of branches
by the Delaware Bay,

00:02:13.470 --> 00:02:17.670 align:middle line:84%
nor that with the
squeamishness of the young,

00:02:17.670 --> 00:02:22.830 align:middle line:84%
I dismouthed the very raw
parts the fire hadn't even

00:02:22.830 --> 00:02:27.720 align:middle line:84%
warmed into my hand and
slipped them quietly

00:02:27.720 --> 00:02:34.470 align:middle line:84%
behind me into the seagoing
waters of the Delaware Bay.

00:02:34.470 --> 00:02:38.850 align:middle line:84%
In the morning, the sun
was out as I sailed north

00:02:38.850 --> 00:02:42.970 align:middle line:90%
on the ferry that's now gone.

00:02:42.970 --> 00:02:44.790 align:middle line:90%
I was 16.

00:02:44.790 --> 00:02:50.130 align:middle line:84%
Wilmington, Delaware was still
on its way to becoming a city,

00:02:50.130 --> 00:02:56.210 align:middle line:84%
and already very far on
its way to falling to ruin.

00:02:56.210 --> 00:02:58.000 align:middle line:90%