Perry looked at her for a long moment. He was at the end of his fuse, trying to do too much, and she regretted having brought it up. "You do what you have to do," he said. :: The original shantytown was astonishing. Built around a nexus of :: trailers and RVs that didn't look in the least roadworthy, the :: settlers had added dwelling on dwelling to their little patch of :: land. They started with plastic sheeting and poles, and when they :: could afford it, they replaced the sheets, one at a time, with :: bricks or poured concrete and re-bar. They thatched their roofs :: with palm-leaves, shingles, linoleum, corrugated tin -- even :: plywood with flattened beer-cans. Some walls were wood. Some had :: windows. Some were made from old car-doors, with hand-cranked :: handles to lower them in the day, then roll them up again at :: night when the mosquitoes came out. Most of the settlers slept on :: nets. :: :: A second wave had moved into the settlement, just as I arrived, :: and rather than building out -- and farther away from their :: neighbors' latrines, water-pump and mysterious sources of :: electrical power -- they built *up*, on top of the existing :: structures, shoring up the walls where necessary. It wasn't :: hurricane proof, but neither are the cracker-box condos that :: "property owners" occupy. They made contractual arrangements with :: the dwellers of the first stories, paid them rent. A couple with :: second-story rooms opposite one another in one of the narrow :: "streets" consummated their relationship by building a sky-bridge :: between their rooms, paying joint rent to two landlords. :: :: The thing these motley houses had in common, all of them, was :: ingenuity and pride of work. They had neat vegetable gardens, :: flower-boxes, and fresh paint. They had kids' bikes leaned up :: against their walls, and the smell of good cooking in the air. :: They were homely homes. :: :: Many of the people who lived in these houses worked regular :: service jobs, walking three miles to the nearest city bus stop :: every morning and three miles back every evening. They sent :: their kids to school, faking local addresses with PO boxes. Some :: were retired. Some were just down on their luck. :: :: They helped each other. When something precious was stolen, the :: community pitched in to find the thieves. When one of them :: started a little business selling sodas or sandwiches out of her :: shanty, the others patronized her. When someone needed medical :: care, they chipped in for a taxi to the free clinic, or someone :: with a working car drove them. They were like the neighbors of :: the long-lamented American town, an ideal of civic virtue that is :: so remote in our ancestry as to have become mythical. There were :: eyes on the street here, proud residents who knew what everyone :: was about and saw to it that bad behavior was curbed before it :: could get started. :: :: Somehow, it burned down.