Chapter One

I

When my brother wakes up and finds his best breeding dog gone—the one he most loves—and then steps out and finds his 1984 white Oldsmobile missing, it will be a good thing I am out of the San Fernando basin before dawn. Some mornings are like no other. As I drive down the north side of the Los Padres Mountains with a line of semitrailer headlights inching up the opposite lane, the desert spreads out flat before me. The lights of Bakersfield still glitter like an oasis lake reflecting stars I can barely see in the early morning light, and to the left rise the faintly visible Sierra Madres, whose snowy tops catch the still not risen sun.

When I stop at a gas station I use the bathroom but do not wash my hands. They still smell like Buster and I do not want to lose her dog scent smell. It has been a few hours since I stole my brother’s dog and sold her, and already I miss her, though there is no way I could turn back now. As I pump gas a family in a white BMW with plates that tell me they bought it in Newport Beach regard my brother’s Olds suspiciously. Which tells me they have had encounters with gangs before. They look sporty, the blond boys in back with their colorful windbreakers, crusted with salt and rolled up to their pale knobby elbows. Probably they are on their way up to Mammoth for camping. They look like they might be nice people, but the oldest one mad-dogs me while the gentle-faced smaller one holds on to his brother’s arm, then buries his face shyly into his brother’s shoulder. They probably think I am Mexican. I hook the pump before the car is filled and pay the attendant and leave.

Instead of taking the 5, I travel up along the eastern part of the state to keep away from the trucks and truck stops and the BMWs with Newport Beach blond boys, or anyone else who might recognize this car. I also don’t care for that highway with its dry brown grass that goes on monotonously for miles. It is worse than Palm Springs. You would think with so many people driving up to San Francisco or down to LA someone would plant trees along the road or something. They could make it a nice-looking type of plant you could harvest like broccoli or grapes or carrots. Anyway, this time I am not taking that road.

Here, on the eastern route, the asphalt is not black but a worn sun-beaten silver color and the yellow center line is so faded sometimes you cannot even see it. In some places sand drifts over the highway and you cannot tell exactly where the desert starts and finishes. The towns I pass through are small. Tumbleweed and sheets of sand traverse their streets and bounce off signs that look like they have not been changed since the fifties: Mobil gas signs with the winged horse; men’s clothing stores advertising Stetson hats and Wrangler jeans; coffee shops with cardboard squares inside the windows displaying handwritten specials. They are the sort of places my cousin Matt and his Jewish girlfriend like to go to, dragging along their enormous cameras and tripods, to take pictures of people they would not be caught dead hanging out with, but apparently like to look at. Through the fogged windows you can see people inside huddled over their cups, smoking. Noon comes and with it the heat of day. After driving all day I am hungry, but the diners all seem to know each other so I decide to wait for a fast-food place. Night falls, but I do not see any.

After the sun shrivels into the desert, everything below the stars turns black. In the dark, all I see is the desert and asphalt moving beneath my headlights. I do not go by any towns and so begin to worry about finding gas, but there are no cross streets so I do not know exactly where I am on the map. It shows a blank stretch of highway, and I am afraid I might be in it, though probably I am lost. This sort of a place is not supposed to be in California. There are no towns, no malls, no crowds of people, no nothing. No anything. On the black horizon I cannot even tell the difference between the ground and the sky. When I park to pee in the desert, it is so dark I cannot even see my hand before me, nor my shoes. It feels strange and with the howl of wind around me I start imagining coyotes or some other kinds of animals out here, and I wet my hands rushing to zip up and get back into the car.

II

Finally a dome of light swells above the horizon, and I wonder if it is a town or a car approaching from the opposite lane, the first in over an hour.

The first things I see are the lit fifties-era signs of motels and gas stations. One motel has a green and red sign and colored Christmas lights strung along the windows. I fill up with gas and look around for a motel because I am too scared to sleep in the car out in the dark. You never know what the locals might think if they found some stranger sleeping parked on their streets.

A station attendant sells me a sandwich that is wrapped in cellophane and tastes wet and cold after I have peeled off the plastic, and from where I park to eat it you can watch people across the street eating in the diner. Their dinners look better than the sorry thing in my hands. But the tables are full and the men smoke and I feel too shy to go in. There are a couple of older boys with their girlfriends eating, and a group of teenagers hanging out in the parking lot, empty except for their cars. The guys wear these cowboy boots and one of them has a Stetson, his boot heel raised and set on his truck’s chrome bumper. I did not know people like this existed in California. They look like they might even listen to country music. I keep in a shadow so they will not see me or Tomas’s car, but they do not even look my way. My sandwich bread is soaked with mayonnaise and the thin limp piece of lettuce bunches beneath the cold piece of ham. My teeth crunch on ice where it’s been frozen.

I throw the half-eaten lump into a trash can and drive around looking for a motel, but drive up and down the main street and peer down its side streets for ten minutes before realizing that all five of them have no vacancy signs flashing in red. Who would fill these places up is what I want to know. Maybe I should go out and park in the dark roads outside of town. But I am hungry and should eat something first. Otherwise I am liable to wake up in the middle of the night, and hate myself for being a wimp.

Twice I pass down the main street before the diner, peering into its lit booths with its men in plaid shirts and the coatracks with cowboy hats, and the teenagers out front with their pickup truck on huge balloon tires. All the other buildings downtown are dark. A piece of sheet metal clatters against a brick wall, the only noise apart from the distant whistle of wind in the desert.

As I get out of Tomas’s car, the dry desert air funnels through the main street buildings. It is bone cold, and I do not have a jacket but jam my hands in my pockets, hurrying towards the lit diner. A couple of boys and their girlfriends exit the main room and step into the little entry room’s narrow clutter of hanging coats. Their breath fogs. If they would only hurry up and get out of there, I might not have to run into them. Both boys wear plaid flannel shirts and the girls are blond, one with straight hair and the other with curls. The curly one is the prettiest and scares me the most, and it is her boyfriend whose eyes I evade as I near and enter. In my rush I bump into the pretty girl: even in my confusion I pick up the smell of her perfume amid the rich scent of hamburger grease. It is crowded like a closet in this room and probably I should have waited outside.

I’m sorry, I mumble.

Lifting my glance, I am surprised to see no hostility in her frosty blue eyes, only that she and her boyfriend seem curious, though her attention lasts only a few seconds before she rushes after her friend to tell her something. As they go outside clutching arms and laughing, none of them looks back.

Inside it is warm, like a bathroom after a long shower. The thick smell and sizzle of food is in the air. My glasses fog, and the room becomes a blur: the counter with men hunched over coffee and plates, talking to the waitresses; the booths so close together the families seem shoulder to shoulder; some tarnished plaques on the walls. There are no empty booths and I get the feeling a lone customer should take a stool by the counter. There is no sign telling a person whether they should seat themselves—probably everyone here knows already—so I wait around for a waitress to seat me, but neither of the women approaches. One seems in a hurry, but the younger one with a long rope of wavy brunette hair that sways against the small of her back stops by a booth. Although she holds an order book, she doesn’t write anything down but talks to the man with his family. She doesn’t seem to be in any hurry, her head tilted towards her shoulder as she laughs at what they say. Several minutes pass. Maybe you are supposed to sit yourself down, but it would seem foolish now to sit after standing all this time, so I do not.

I wipe my glasses, trying to busy my hands. Through the streaked lenses everyone looks mildly alarming, and they seem aware of me.

A woman seems to be glancing my way from the counter where she sits with her husband, but I pretend not to notice. Finally she calls out to me.

Honey, she says. You waiting for someone?

She wears a polyester shirt that bags over her stomach before tucking into her jeans, and a flower pattern is sewn in above her chest pocket.

No, I say.

She regards me curiously.

Well what you waitin’ for?

I shrug. A seat.

Well, hon, the booths are all taken. You better find yourself a place at the counter.

Okay.

I sit down and turn my coffee cup right side up and bury my head in the plastic menu, listening to the murmur around me and trying to take everything in without looking up.

I smell warm coffee and look up and the waitress with long brunette hair is filling my cup. She goes off before I can order, carelessly splashing liquid that runs caramel-colored down the white porcelain and puddles on the countertop.

I feel the woman with the flower pattern looking at me and she calls out from her table.

Honey, she says. Where you coming from?

Los Angeles.

Is that so?

I nod.

You visiting relatives here?

No.

So you got yourself a motel, honey, I hope. We got the car races up in Oregon tomorrow and all the motels are full.

That’s okay.

So you got a place to stay?

I shrug.

She looks at me and her eyes widen and she makes a frown and taps out her cigarette. Oh, honey. I hope you aren’t planning on driving on tonight. It’s a long way to Medford. Over a hundred miles.

No I’m not, I lie.

So you got yourself a hotel. Good. Your parents know you’re up here? They give you money to pay for it?

Sure.

And you found yourself a hotel.

It’s up the road.

All right then.

The waitress comes and I order some eggs and pancakes and she brings them and they steam in my face and I can taste the cheese in the eggs and put Tabasco sauce on my plate and dip them in and I even lick the grease clean off my fork. Then I drink some water and tip ice onto my tongue to wash out the good greasy taste and wait for my bill. The woman who talked to me earlier is trying to call to me again. It is no use ignoring her.

So where you driving to, honey?

Up north, I say.

This woman makes it sound like we are close to Oregon, which is about two or three hundred miles north of where I intended to drive, so it is probably better not to tell her that I am trying to get to San Francisco.

You going to Medford, honey? she says.

No.

Yeah, I didn’t think a young guy like you would want anything to do with Medford. It’s all old Californians up there. Retired.

To this I nod as if I knew where the place was.

Her husband has gotten up and paid the bill, but she does not follow him and seems in no hurry. The man takes a seat at the far end of the counter and asks the waitress for a glass of water, then does not drink from it as he stares at the wall.

The woman says: So you are going up to Portland, I suppose.

I do not contradict her.

Got a girlfriend there, I guess. Or maybe college. You look like you’re a college type.

This woman must be blind. I am years too young. Maybe it’s because around here there are no colleges and everyone from out of town must look like a college person to her.

You don’t seem like most of the rotten types we get from down there, she says.

Thank you.

It’s mostly trashy plastic types we get. All kinds of garbage.

It’s a crummy place.

She nods, approvingly. She signals to the waitress and asks her to bring me a chocolate sundae which she says I should try, and the waitress brings it and they watch me eat. It tastes like cool lumps of syrup on my tongue and I scrape the metal dish clean and then they do not let me pay for it. After it is gone I can see the dish marks on the countertop where condensation lay. The waitress runs a rag across it and it is gone.

So what motel you staying in, honey? the first woman says.

Oh, I’m just going up the road.

But what’s the name of the hotel? I hope it isn’t the Deer Trader.

Nope.

Where then?

I’m driving on tonight, I finally mumble.

What was that?

I’m driving on tonight.

Now that’s funny. I could of sworn you just said you had yourself a hotel room.

My fingertips cradle my wet glass of ice water. I just drove by one and thought I might take a room, I say. But then you told me they were all taken. So I guess I’ll drive on.

Well, drive safe anyway. I wish I could offer you a couch to sleep on, a sweet-looking boy like you, but my brother-in-law is visiting.

That’s okay.

She seems to want to say something but hesitates for a long time, looking at me. She finally says: I got a mattress on the porch you can sleep on. It’s a bit weathered—you know, yellowed from the rain—but it’s late and you might be tired.

Thanks. But I’m in a hurry to meet someone.

In Portland?

Yeah.

She nods half to herself and we are silent but still she does not go to her husband. Time passes. The door opens and lets in a cool curtain of air. The diners hug themselves and huddle against one another. There is the smell of biscuits I love so, like what Mom learned to fix my dad—the way Grandma Sullivan made them—and in this hot room the windows steam, and people talk across the tables. Finally the waitress comes and sets my bill on the counter, minus the sundae, and I wait awhile in the warm room with the smell and talk and clatter of dishes scraped clean but I get the feeling people are waiting on me to leave. So I pay at the register and stand in the warm doorway for a moment before entering the cool night and driving out of town. My fingers stick to the cold plastic steering wheel. It hurts to peel them off.

Behind me the town’s light sucks down into the darkness and then there is only the black desert around me when the car begins making jerking noises and, finally, twenty minutes later, breaks down.

III

When I wake up my back hurts from my seat’s awkward position and I sit up straight. To my surprise I am not surrounded by desert. Outside, long grass stands uncut at the roadside, in yellow clumps that form a nest for the newly risen sun, and barbed wire strung between old wooden posts separates a field from the road. The fields are hilly, some low sort of vegetation, with the early light glistening in ponds and irrigation streams like clear thread among quilted patches. A jackrabbit runs across the narrow road, darting into a patch of bush. Three deer leap over the barbed wire onto the road and jump to the opposite field and hurry up the green hills, becoming silhouettes against the blue sky. It happens so fast, when they are gone, I doubt I have even seen them.

I get out and stretch. The air is cold in my throat—mountain air—and my breath fogs, billows, and vanishes before my face. The Oldsmobile starts on the first try, which surprises me. Remembering what that woman said about being near Oregon, I decide to backtrack to Navarro. As I take the road the gas seems to sputter, so I try to coast most of the way in neutral. By the time I come into town the car is barely moving and I just make it into one of the only two service stations I have seen in town. They face each other and one looks more open than the other. An aluminum garage door with its slotted glass windows has been rolled up halfway and some guy sits inside behind a desk, and he has long beige hair.

I step into the cool dark room of cars raised towards the ceiling, into the smell of dust and oil. A silent television up on the wall lights the dust in flickering colors and shines on his face. My worn sneakers nearly slip on the smooth cement.

The man does not stand.

I ask him if he will take a look at my car. He peers at me curiously, then walks outside into the sunlight and stands as I pop the hood. He gazes inside it, hands behind his back, not touching anything, as if he were only observing.

I describe the way the gas felt when I touched the pedal, the sputtering motions. He does not volunteer anything, and finally I ask him if he thinks he knows what is wrong with it.

You say you bought gas last night? he says.

Yeah.

Could be bad gas if it’s true the car started sputtering after you bought it like you said.

So you think it could be the gas?

I doubt it. We don’t sell bad gas. Nobody’s complained, and believe me, people would’ve complained if we’d sold them bad gas.

He frowns at the thought of complaining people, and his red tongue comes out and licks at his chapped lip.

I didn’t buy it from here, I say. I bought it down the road.

He shakes his head. Same truck that fills that station fills ours. The only thing might be if their tank was almost empty. When it got filled it might have kicked up sediment. That could’ve clogged your feeder.

So you think that’s it?

No.

I wait for the man to say something more, but he only shades his face and tucks his long bangs beneath his cap, against his blistered ear. He never stops regarding me.

Well, so what do you think it is? I say.

No idea.

The man walks around Tomas’s Oldsmobile, peering curiously at the oversize tires, the lowered shocks, the white paint that covers even the chrome on the bumpers. At home it seems like a normal car to have, but here I feel like throwing a damned blanket over it. He touches nothing, like if he did he might have to try and fix it.

So do you know anyone who can fix it? I say.

He glares up from the passenger window, into which he has been looking.

Sure.

And who is it?

The man smiles to himself, shaking his head as if I had reminded him of something amusing.

You’ll have to ask the owner, he says. He does all the work.

Okay.

He ain’t here, though.

The man does not offer to tell me where the owner is. He just looks at me.

Okay, when will he be in? I say.

Oh, he don’t work on weekends. It’s Saturday.

You’re kidding.

Nope.

What about the place across the street? You know if they’ll open up today?

They won’t.

You sure about that?

The same guy who fixes everything here owns that place too, he says.

You mean it’s the same guy?

He’s my boss.

The station across the street is a Chevron, unlike this one, and looks newer, but I do not have any reason to doubt this man. I do not think he would lie mostly to get my business. The way he watches me curiously, he does not exactly seem impatient to get back to his desk.

So you mean no place is open here on weekends, not even Saturday?

That’s right, he says.

Look, I say. You think if I pay him he’ll come out?

Ha! Not on your life.

I tap my foot restlessly. But you might know where he is, where I might call him.

He’s out hunting, but if I gave you his number he’d kill me, the man says, with his amused-looking smile. He asks where I’m from and I tell him Los Angeles. That seems to amuse him more and he starts asking questions and I answer as few as possible and then ask him what he thinks I should do. He tells me that because it is the Fourth of July weekend I will have to wait until Tuesday and even then they might have to order a part.

You telling me I can’t do anything?

You can go down the street and yell at those guys who gave you gas.

Do they know how to fix a car?

No.

I ask him if I can leave the car in his lot and he says yes and I walk five blocks to the only pay phone in town. The air is dry and parched and dusty and by the time I get there filmy dust covers my tongue. There are only three men who tow in the region and one of them tells me he could put a hundred miles on my brother’s AAA card and charge me for the rest. He recommends towing across the state border to Medford, Oregon. But he cannot make it before one o’clock.

I do not feel like yelling at the guy at the station that sold me gas, and I do not want the attendant to ask me why I have not yelled at them, so I do not return to my car but sit on the parking lot’s low cinder-block wall, chin on my palms. Across the blacktop, with its yellow clumps of brittle weeds pushing through asphalt cracks, is the diner. In the daylight I now see it is a shiny chrome color, built in the shape of a large trailer, and inside slanted sunlight outlines shadows over mostly empty booths. A back door is open, the sound of sizzling grease comes to my ears, and there is the sharp smell of burning hamburger patties, which makes me approach. But a woman sitting at the counter comes into view, and although I cannot see her face, it is possible that she is the woman I talked to last night. I do not want her to know I am not in Portland, Oregon, with some girlfriend. So I walk into the residential streets and try to keep in the shade of occasional trees—running from one patch of them to another—across hot bright sidewalks, just killing time. Through the warped screened porches, sometimes I can see that the owners have left their doors open. Something you would not see in my neighborhood.

A thick, sticky pollen seems to fall from the branches, whose leaves hang limp like algae. As I spoon frozen yogurt I bought at a convenience store, I carve white moons from the yellow pollen-covered surface. It leaves a dusty taste on my tongue. Sometimes kids run by me, always white and unattended by adults. Two girls with a bicycle trying to teach a boy how to ride it without training wheels. Two boys who stop me and ask for advice on baseball cards even though I am a stranger. One block in particular seems like a good place to live, and I find myself coming back to it. Behind the houses, farmland stretches out green and rolling. Wind catches and clatters a loose porch screen, tapping pleasantly. To live here it must be cheap. Mom could sleep by the front windows here, without worrying about any Johnny Guerro types; she could even sleep out on the porch on warm summer evenings. The stars would be visible and clear above the leafy treetops and the streets quiet and careless. There could not be too many jobs here, but anything beats her current job and surely houses could be bought for cheap. During the rest of the afternoon I wonder what kind of lives the people in these places must have, where the young people go at night.