The Santa Ynez are on Fire again

    The Santa Ynez are on fire, for the second time in a year. 

    Was it a glass shard on a hot day? A bad piece of wiring? A stray cigarette? Who knows, it’s all the same in the end.

    ‘Who’d want to live up there anymore?’ asked a neighbor, his face aglow in a nasty orange.

    Sirens wail below. Helicopters chop through the sooty, smoky air. 

    ‘There are no more houses left up there,’ another neighbor said to the other. ‘What’s there to save?’

    I went for a walk, mask on, through the ash raining down on my head, hearing the multitude of fire machines clambering or flying up the Santa Ynez on fire.

    I know a girl who lives in the thick of the conflagration up there. 

    The day is dark like the night. But the towering flames light up the dark like the day. 

    And I know more days are going to be like this.

The Commodore

    He was menacingly tall, with a jaunty captain’s cap on his head. And his ice-cold blue eyes chilled you to the soul. But he easily made friends in the bar at the end of the world.

    When he laughed - especially after copious dirty jokes - he had the thunder of Pan. 

    He bellowed cigarette smoke outside on the patio, and made a god-almighty sound during a football game. He asked for money often, which went to cigarettes and beer and jager shots. He was desperately poor, though told of past riches. 

    His name was forgotten a long time ago, so he had one given to him: the Commodore. He was a shocking man when he wanted to be, and was more shocking when he didn’t mean to be. 

    And when he died in that Airstream trailer he rented on a plot of land off of Camino del Sur, he was given a dignified send off by his few friends and me.

Tamales

    It’s one o’clock. The sound of metal wheels grinding against their rusted axles came to my ears. Her elderly, matriarchal voice calls out: ‘Tamales!’ 

    I walk towards my open window, looking down. She’s pushing an aluminum cart carrying a tray full of tamales wrapped in tin foil. She calls out again. There are no customers.

    I ask my neighbors about the woman as we sit around drinking and smoking that late afternoon. She’s a regular, they say, always comes to the building at one P.M. I ask if anyone buys from her: ‘No. No one.’

    The next day she arrives. I stand by my open window. I have a better look at her. She is exhausted, but pushes her cart with dignity. 

    ‘Tamales!’ she calls. 

    No one comes out for a meal. She turns to leave but I run after her, wallet in hand. We meet on the sidewalk. Her eyes remind me of my abuelita on the last day I saw her. ‘Cuanto cuestas?’ I asked.

    ‘Un dolar,’ she said.

    I brought the tamale back to my kitchen, unwrapping it on a plate. It’s still warm and smells good.

    I took a bite. A tear came to my eye.

Tale: b

    I decided to be alone in the place where light and water meet. 

    Below me, the sea laps; and above me, the sky moistens with fog. The eucalyptus trees whisper gently behind me. I look up and see the sun radiating coolly. There is peace here, I think. 

    Then, the hour comes. 

    Invaders rush towards the sea; their talk is drowning it. From the eucalyptus line, more come through - always in pairs; always in groups.

    The peace is gone, my peace. A frosty disk above in the sky is the only remains of that past.

Story: a

    It is chilly, but good. There are traces of heat left. I hear the gentle waves of the sea and the lazy cries of the birds above. I open my eyes. 

    There beyond me, the darkened outline of an island in the horizon. 

    The sky, rich with smooth lavender and creamy orange, burning dimly with yellow, until that dying disk cuts through the slit. 

    The horizon is living. And here I sit among the sand and vines, lighting a cigarette, contributing a little piece of me.