Behind a half-built mall guarded by rusting earthmoving equipment, a potholed asphalt-dirt road led to a row of narrow fir trees and a parking lot. Five cars, other than mine, four electric, and a flatbed, along with an ugly-looking garbage compacter that didn’t look up to the task of recycling. I already had the sense you get from a business park that never quite made it.

The smell when I got out of my car had a sourness to it, the breeze coming at me from the glorified pond they called a lake. It wasn’t garbage, but it wasn’t nice. Through the trees I could see the walkway led over water to a ramshackle “island” buttressed by large, repurposed faded-red buoys and a wall of reeds through which one- and two-story buildings stuck out at odd geometric angles.

A faded-green wooden sign by the walkway read “Unitopia.” With “Once we were wiser” smaller below that. This was the land of fading promise I was about to enter.

But, in the end, it wasn’t as sad as it appeared, just empty, deserted. Like a hippie version of a tech bro “university,” with a closed organic coffee shop and lunch place. A shared common space composed of spliced-together dodecahedrons made of glass in the center. More raised pathways and more signs for businesses that either had failed or never taken root. Piles of tires supporting pylons made me wonder if flooding had been a problem. The geodesic dome of 1970s science fiction movies here felt cutting-edge, but also oddly comfortable.

But the smell hadn’t gotten better, although I never found the source, and there was a creaking sway to the walkways that felt like being on a boat lashed to a dock.

Someone poked their head out of a bright orange door, then tried to pull it back in again before I could gesture to them.

Too late, and the man teetered there in the doorway like one day politeness was going to kill him.

“Where do I find the organic mechanic?” I asked.

The man winced. He had sleepy eyes and, despite the chill, wore the shorts, T-shirt, and flip-flops of a surfer.

“They don’t do that anymore.”

“But they’re still here?” I asked. Assuming we both meant the same “they.”

He winced again, and I realized it was just a tic in his face.

“Yeah, I think so.” I noticed a joint behind his right ear. Which didn’t inspire confidence.

“So … which way?”

Because it was a maze, and the arrows all seemed pointing different directions.

A shrug. “Any which way. Just keep going and you’ll find it. It’s at the end … You from the bank?”

I ignored that. Did I look like I was from the bank?

“What happened here?” I asked.

This time, the wince was real. A weariness that didn’t match his age.

“What always happens,” he said. “Shit got real. Then it turned to shit.”

I nodded like I understood.