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"What’s that expression?" he said to ht I’et soreat place I’ll expect a dinner invitation when you get back"

"Yeah, you kno much I love to cook"

"We’ll send out"

"Good plan"

"You call me"

"I’ll do that"

Truly, the best moment of the day came when I was finally by myself I locked the front door and then circled the peri sure the ere securely latched I turned out the lights downstairs and climbed my spiral staircase to the loft above To celebratein soiven me for my birthday It smelled like pine trees and rerade school At the age of eight, I’d often wondered whatsawdust on barf

I turned the bathroo out the ard the ocean, which was visible only as a band of black with a wide swath of silver where the h the dark The trunks of the sycamores just outside the ere a chalky white, the leaves pale gray, rustling together like paper in the chill spring breeze It was hard to believe there was somebody out there hired to kill me I’m well aware that immortality is simply an illusion we carry with us to keep ourselves functional from day to day, but the idea of a murder contract was inconceivable to alu ht, I slid naked between the brand-new sheets on ht Stars lay on the Plexiglas do patterns the Greeks had na Dipper, even the Little Dipper so that looked even reuys s on their backs near the Parthenon, pointing at the stars and bullshitting the night away I wasn’t even aware that I had fallen asleep until the alarlancing down occasionally at the er seat Joshua Tree National Monuo Desert State Park were blocked out in dark green, shaped like the pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle The national forests were tinted a paler green, while the Mojave itself was a pale beige, es shaded in the palest brushstrokes Much of the desert would never be civilized and that was cheering so fan of nature, its intractability amuses me no end At the San Bernardino/Riverside exit, the ar upward, like some vision of the future in a 1950s textbook Beyond, there is nothing on either side of the road but telephone lines, canyons the color of brown sugar, fences of ith tuainst theested that the ain

Near Cabazon, I pulled into a rest stop to stretch rassy area shaded by s and cottonwoods Rest rooms were housed in a cinderblock structure with an A-line roof I availedmy hands since the paper towels had run out It was now ten o’clock and I was hungry, so I pulled out my cooler and set it up on a table sole is you get to ht? Why not, it’s just you Lunch at 10:00 am? Sure, you’re the boss You can eat when you want and call it anything you like I sat facing the road, o

A kid,with an assortment of Matchbox trucks on the hile his father napped on a bench Pop had a copy of Sports Illustrated open across his face, his big arms bared in a T-shirt with the sleeves torn out The air was mild and warain, I passed the wind farenerated in acre after acre of turbines, arranged in rows like whirligigs Today, gusts were light I could watch the breezes zigzag erratically through the turbines, visible in the whihter-than-air craft Maybe, whenthe ele wind into power to drive ancient s, the character of the road begins to change again Billboards advertise fast-food restaurants and gasoline RV country clubs are heralded as "residential communities for active adults" Behind the low hills, mountains loom, barren except for the boulders bleached by the sun I passed a trailer park called Vista del Mar Estates, but there was no mar in view