They are building one of those data centers out past the feed store, on land that never grew anything but mesquite. It is the largest building I have ever seen without a single window. I drove out to look at it on a Saturday with a thermos of coffee, the way my grandfather used to drive out to watch them pour the foundation for a new church.
I want to be honest about how much I understand. I don’t understand any of it. I couldn’t tell you what a data center does, whose information is in it, or why it needs to be in our county instead of somebody else’s. A young man at the gas station started to explain it to me, and I stopped him. I didn’t need the explanation. I could see the fence.
That fence tells you everything. It is tall and new and very well built, and there is a man in a little booth whose job is to make sure nobody goes in. Anybody who protects something that carefully must have something worth protecting. I find that reassuring. Most of what really matters in this world sits behind a fence I’m not allowed past.
Texas is a big energy state, and centers like this one are adding a great deal of new demand on the grid. Some people find that worrying. They wonder who keeps the power on a hot afternoon when the building and the neighborhood both want it. They wonder whose bill goes up to pay for the new lines. I wondered about those things too, for about as long as it takes to finish a cup of coffee, and then I stopped. A man who keeps asking who pays for progress has already decided not to welcome it.
If my light bill climbs a little, I’ll think of it as a housewarming gift. When a new family moves onto the road, you bring them a casserole. You don’t ask them to bring you one. This is a very large new family, and it eats a great deal, and I would not want anybody to say Texans were stingy at the table.
I suppose a place like this needs water to keep cool, the way anything that works hard does. I don’t know how much, and I’d feel rude asking. You don’t count what a guest drinks.
There will be people at the county meeting with questions. There always are. They’ll want to know about the noise and the power and the wells. I won’t be there. I’ve noticed that the people who ask questions at county meetings rarely get the building, and I want the building. That is one reason I’ll vote for my party’s man for the Senate this fall. I want things to go on the way they are going out past the feed store, and my sense is that the other fellow would want to stop and ask who pays for the new lines.
I drove out again this morning. The man in the booth waved, and I waved back. I still don’t know what he’s guarding. I’m fairly sure it isn’t me.
D. M.