About a mountain

111 Pages·2010·0.614 MB·English

by  John D’Agata

MOUNTAIN
ABOUT A
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MOUNTAIN
ABOUT A
JOHN D’AGATA
W. W. NORTON & COMPANY
NEW YORK • LONDON
Copyright © 2010 by John D’Agata
All rights reserved
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
D’Agata, John, 1974–
About a mountain / John D’Agata.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-393-06818-4
1. Radioactive waste repositories—Nevada—Yucca Mountain.
2. Las Vegas Metropolitain Area (Nev.)—Social life and customs.
3. Yucca Mountain (Nev.) I. Title.
TD898.12.N3D335 2010
979.3‘13503—dc22
2009039295
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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To whomever I did not help.
It seemed to us that we were a very great people.
—T U S A
HE NITED TATES OF MERICA
Contents
WHO
WHAT
WHEN
WHERE
WHY
HOW
WHY
WHY
WHY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
WHO
I
f you take the population of Las Vegas, Nevada, and you divide that by the number of days in
the year, there should be 5,000 people in the city and its suburbs with a birthday on the same day
that Las Vegas began.
On the hundredth anniversary of its founding, however, Las Vegas had only gathered twenty-
nine of those people.
One of them arrived in a beaded blue headdress, her eyelashes sequined, her ruffled skirt torn.
Another stood smiling as he watched her while she preened.
There was a child in a knapsack. Its mother on the phone.
An Elvis showed up briefly. Turned out that he was lost.
A small family arrived carrying posters of their daughter: 1979–2005…IT WOULD BE HER
BIRTHDAY TOO!
All of us were there awaiting guidance from the city, assembled in a downtown fast food
parking lot, seven thirty in the morning, the beginning of the summer.
This was May 15. And I had just turned thirty.
“You of all people,” wrote the city in a letter, “know how special our city really is…[because]
Las Vegas is literally in your blood! Won’t you help us celebrate your bond with Las Vegas by
marching in this summer’s Centennial Parade?”
When a city official arrived, we were told what we should do.
“Smile!…Be psyched!…This party is for you!”
My mom was there to wait with me, but they asked if she would march.
“When’s your birthday, by the way?”
“Late July,” said my mom.
“Close enough,” she was told.
We were positioned behind the mayor, and he behind six horses, and they behind the color
guard from Nellis Air Force Base.
A young man with a shovel and a wheelbarrow marched beside us, stopping every now and
then to scrape up the horses’ shit.
“I’m from Atlanta,” said the guy who marched beside my mom and me. “But me and my wife
come out here once or twice a year to play. Guess that’s why they asked me. I don’t care, right?
I’ll march in their motherfucker.”
We marched past Kostner’s Cash, and we marched past Super Cash, and we marched past
Gambler’s Pawn and Loan, and then an empty lot.