with the largest concentration of biochemical, computer and technical research establishments, and PhDs per capita, in the entire U.S.A. It's amazing the stuff you'll read when you're bored shitless on a plane.
Rows of pristine, glistening, black or silver glass-fronted buildings sat on acres of manicured gardens with lakes and fountains--not at all what I had in mind for the American South after all the redneck jokes I'd heard over the years.
It took about fifteen minutes to get onto the belt line I drove clockwise heading north around the city, keeping my eyes peeled for signs for exit ten toward Falls Lake. The new money that this transformation had sucked
in was impossible to miss, with grand houses and new businesses fighting hand-to-hand with the old, and demonstrably winning. Smart new office blocks looked down on decrepit trailer parks strewn with abandoned cars and kids, both black and white, whose asses hung out of their dirty jeans, their parents fucked without the skills needed to take advantage of the new opportunity.
I got to exit ten in another ten minutes or so and headed north on Forest Road. From the map, I knew that the Falls Lake area covered about 200 square miles. It was a very long and winding waterway, with hundreds of inlets, like the coastline of Norway, just the kind of place you could disappear into.
After seven miles the road became a single carriage way Tall firs interspersed with smaller seasonal trees looming on either side. Four more miles and I reached the Falls ofNeuse and entered forest proper. The Falls was a small collection of neat little homes made of natural wood or painted white on the eastern side of the lake area. Even here, the new was winning out over the old and rubbing its nose in it. Tracts of land were being carved out of the woods to make way for 'communities' of enormous mansions to house the middle classes who were streaming in for the new Gold Rush of high-tech jobs. At the entry point into each community was a small, shiny sign announcing 'Carriageways' or 'Fairways,' and at each junction a barrage of real estate agents' signs directed buyers to even more land which was up for grabs.
I headed west on Raven Ridge, driving deeper into the forest. The new was gradually less and less evident, until it was the old that prevailed once more: dilapidated shacks with car wrecks for garden furniture, and rundown stores built of bare breeze-block, with peeling signs advertising bait and beer. I passed trailer homes that looked as if they'd just been dumped twenty or thirty meters off the road, with no paved access, just trampled ground, and no fences to mark their territory, just corrugated iron leaning around the bottom of the trailers to make them look as if they belonged.
Outside, washing hung on lines getting even wetter. Inside, probably, were the stars of the Ricki Lake or Jerry Springer shows. Fuck knows what the future held for them, but one thing was for sure: new carriage ways would be scything through here within a year or two.
The only buildings that weren't falling down or apart were the churches, of which there seemed to be one every mile along the roadside, standing very clean, bright and white. Each projected a different recruiting message on the sort of signboard that cinemas use to advertise their movies.
'You can't even write Christmas without Christ,' one said, which was true but strange to see in April. Maybe they liked to think ahead.
I drove for another twenty minutes past trailers and churches, and now and then the occasional neatly tended graveyard right on the side of the road. I came across a small green sign to Little Lick Creek. It wasn't the creek itself I was after, but the point at which it entered the lake, and where one of the spurs had the same name. Going by the waterproof hunting map I'd bought, there were two buildings in that area that weren't accounted for by a symbol on the map legend, so they were probably private houses.
I turned off the tarmac and headed down a gravel road that was just wide enough for two cars to pass. There was a steep gradient on each side, and the forest seemed to be closing in, the trees here even higher and more densely packed.
A sign chiselled into a slab of gray-painted wood warned, 'Firearms Strictly Prohibited.' Fifty meters farther on, another said, 'No Alcoholic Beverages.' Soon more friendly signs welcomed me to Falls Lake, and directed me to the car parks and recreational areas and hoped I enjoyed myself but only if I kept my speed to 25 mph.
Up ahead, a motor home as big as a juggernaut was bearing down on me. I noticed a small track that obviously took wheeled traffic, because there were tire grooves worn down on each side of a wet grassy central strip, but I didn't have time to get in there. I slowed and pulled over to the side of the road, my car leaning drunkenly to the right. The Winnebago was a massive vehicle, with enough canoes and mountain bikes strapped onto its exterior to equip the U.S. Olympic team, and the family hatchback towed along behind. A wall of spray splashed onto my windshield as it passed. I didn't even get a wave of acknowledgment.
I drove for another kilometer or so through the forest before I came to a large car park. Crunching and squelching across a mixture of gravel and mud, I pulled up next to a big map in a wooden frame. Pictures around the edge displayed various indigenous birds, turtles, trees and plants, as well as the tariff for the campsite and the inevitable: 'Enjoy your stay take only pictures, leave only footprints.' It was possible that I would be taking pictures, but I hoped I would leave no footprints whatsoever.
Driving on for another hundred meters or so, I caught my first glimpse of Little Lick Creek. It wasn't quite the picture postcard scene I'd been expecting.
Tall ranks of firs seemed to have marched right to the lake's edge.
The water was smooth and as dark as the clouds it mirrored, like the smoked glass of a Raleigh office block. Maybe when the sun was out the area was idyllic, but just now, especially with the trees so claustrophobically close to the water, the atmosphere was more like the brooding menace of a penitentiary.
Over on the other side, 500 meters away and on higher, more undulating ground, sat two houses. They were the ones I wanted to have a look at.
A dozen or so vehicles were already in the car park, mostly clustered around a wooden boat shed on the lake's edge that had been designed to look like a fort. Canoes and rowing boats were lined up near it in the water, plus the statutory Coke machine and another selling chocolate bars.
I'd watched a documentary once that claimed that the Coca-Cola company was so powerful in the U.S. that it had even got a president into power in the 1960s. I wondered how their mission statement compared with Ronald McDonald's. It certainly seems that no matter where you are in the world you will always be able to get a Coke; I'd even been offered one by a six-year-old on a mountainside in Nepal. Out trekking with Sarah in the middle of nowhere, a kid no older than eight came along the track with a tin bucket filled with water and about six battered cans of Coke inside, trying to sell them to the walkers as they made their way up the mountain. Sarah gave him some money but refused the Coke. She had this hang-up about cultures being contaminated by the West and spent the next hour bumping her gums about it. Me? I was thirsty and just wished he'd had Diet instead of regular.
As I drove past the fort I could see that it was manned by two young lads lounging in the shadows, who didn't look as if they were coming out unless they had to.
At the far end of the car park was a picnic area with built-in grills and a wooden canopy covering the seating. A family barbecue was under way; a bit early in the season, but they were having fun anyway. Granny and Grandad, sons, daughters and grandchildren all filling their faces.
Beyond it I could see the tops of brightly colored, family-sized tents. It looked as if each pitch was surrounded by its own individual little coppice.
I turned the car through a 180, so I was facing back the way I'd come, and drove toward the toilet block. I nosey-parked between two other cars, front against the toilet block wall, back to the lake.
Picking up the binos and bird book I'd bought at the tourist shop along with my maps, I got out of the car and locked up. Straightaway I was hit by the humidity; having air conditioning in a car almost makes you forget the reason you turned it on in the first place.
Everyone seemed to be having a giggle in the barbecue area. A boom box was playing some Latino rap, and even Granny was dancing rapper style with the kids. In the car to my right were a couple of senior citizens who'd no doubt driven for hours to get here, parked up at the lake and stayed in the car to eat sandwiches with the air conditioning going full blast and their hats still on.
I wandered down toward the boat shed, keeping an eye on the spur at the other side of the creek. The larger house of the two was on the left, with a gap of maybe 100 to 120 meters between them. There was no movement around either.
I went to the Coke machine and threw in a handful of coins. I didn't really want a drink, certainly not at a dollar a go, but it gave me a chance to look around.
