Whenever I’m in the midst of running errands in my hometown, the song “Subdivisions” by Rush often comes to mind. Its lyrics perfectly capture the boredom of Frazer, PA, a town that cannot hope to quench the wanderlust and longings of young adults. With little of interest and few ways of leaving, suburbia feels like a prison where one day blurs into the next. As last winter break dragged on through early January, every possible means of entertainment had been exhausted. There was nothing left to explore and no new experience to be had. The only recourse was to settle down in a bar and drag my mind to a happier pace with a few beers. Television and Ben & Jerry’s were my only comforts.

I thought about this as my friend Kevin and I cruised around in his beat-up Ford Taurus. The strip malls flew by as we motored around the highways of lovely Frazer, which is probably one of the top ten most likely places in the US to be the site of a Zombie outbreak. A place can be so generic and slightly disheveled that you get a sense of dread.
It became apparent very quickly that nothing new was presenting itself. All that awaited us was the same old Starbucks, the dirty, teen-infested mall, and the grimy bars, which would, no doubt, be full of nothing but men. However, something special happened. On that night, we chose not to compromise and instead to make our own fun out of whatever we could find.

After a bit of deliberation, two somewhat illegal but potentially thrilling possibilities occurred to us. The first option would involve a twenty-minute ride to Pennhurst, an insane asylum that was shut down in the early ’80s and has become a mecca for delinquents and graffiti artists throughout the whole Philadelphia area. The last part of the trip, however, would require us to sneak through a US Airforce hospital on foot in order to make it to the perimeter of the asylum. This seemed like too much of a risk, and the twenty minutes of driving would preclude us from getting drunk, so that idea was quickly discarded. The second option was more practical. A massive, fully operational quarry stood merely a mile from Kevin’s house. It was amazing that we had never considered going before, since it offered everything we were looking for: an alien place to explore that carried along with it a hint of danger.

With our plan in mind, we struck out for the beer distributor post-haste to grab the necessary cheap case of Lionshead. In retrospect, I feel like sturdy boots or a flashlight would have been more useful in a pinch, but we were young and confident. The case went in the trunk of my girly Eclipse and we hit the road. We parked on Forge Drive, a small street near my friend’s house, and we set out for the quarry.

The approach was simple enough: we started down from where we parked and made a few turns. We took turns shouldering the case, and both swilled a few beers. One road passed a small cemetery where Amish are interred. A small stone wall ensnares a little less than a dozen plots. The graves all date to the 1700s, and it looks otherworldly. Walking past it at midnight was a good way of getting ready for things to come.

As we paced towards the silt walls that lined the lip of the quarry, I got the idea of how it must have felt to charge a walled city in the ancient world. The walls of dirt were easily 50 feet high with a steep grade. Climbing them wasn’t easy. Kevin lost his footing near the middle of the climb and began to slide backwards, spilling a half-full beer all over himself, much to his disappointment.

After reaching the top, we stopped to take in the view. A crescent moon hung above the towns that line Rt. 30, which runs east to west across southeastern PA. Below the highway, the land spills into a gentle, wide valley that is dotted with trees and corporate parks. After we caught our breath, we started toward the shaft of the quarry. Trucks and other construction vehicles stood ahead of us sternly. Other obstacles provided themselves. The water that flowed into the quarry from the surrounding hills cut deep rivulets into the soil like cracks radiating out from a center. Brambles and scrub trees grew among the tiny streams, and we had to walk carefully. We fell several times and paid the price of getting covered in muck with the sharp scent of chemicals.

After hopping over our final brook, we walked the last few feet of flat ground and suddenly realized that the black abyss loomed before us. It was so dark that we didn’t even notice it at first, but once we got close, there was no mistaking the sheer emptiness. It was easily deep enough to fit a twenty-story building and probably much more so than that. The circumference, however, is what surprised me the most–Citizens Bank Park, home of the Phillies, could have fit inside it.

The quarry held my attention with an iron grip; I could not take my eyes off the large, black space that hung inside it. I stood in silence, taking in the expanse, and was only shocked out of this reverie when Kevin threw a bottle in the depths, and it exploded into sound and a rain of tinkling glass. I flashed him a half grin and stared back in the bowl of rock.

The space provided a great backdrop for contemplative thinking. The void almost symbolized a blank slate where anything could be conjured up and considered. While staring downward, I ruminated on my future and what would greet me as the years progressed. It was a strange time: Kevin was preparing to graduate, after which he would teach English in Southeast Asia. I had another year of school and after that—God only knows what. That night, we both reached a point where the silence and introspectiveness grew to be a bit oppressive and we talked about bullshit from the war to our favorite Marvel Comics characters (Wolverine and Deadpool, hands down). Some time later, Kevin turned to me and asked if I had had my fill. I nodded yes, and we slowly made the even more difficult descent. We both massively wiped out on our way down the hill, and we ended the excursion with bruises and mud-covered clothes.