feeling that he should return home. Rapidly the feeling became a strong
hunch, the hunch became a conviction, and the conviction became a
compulsion. He absolutely had to get home.
He drove too fast, weaving in and out of traffic, taking chances, which
was uncharacteristic of him. If a cop had stopped him, he would not
have been able to explain his desperate urgency, for he did not
understand himself It was as if his every move was orchestrated by
someone unseen, controlling him much the way that he controlled the car.
Again he told himself to flow with it, which was easy since he had no
choice.
He also told himself not to be afraid, but fear was his unshakable
companion. When he pulled into his driveway in Laguna Niguel, the spiky
black shadows of palm fronds looked like cracks in the blazing-white
stucco of his small house, as if the structure had dried out and split
open in the heat The red-tile roof appeared to ripple like overlapping
waves of blood his bedroom, sunlight acquired a coppery hue as it poured
through tinted windows. It laid a penny-colored glow in stripes across
the bed off white carpet, alternating with bands of shade from the half
open plantation shutters.
, Jim switched on a bedside lamp.
He didn’t know he was going to pack for travel until he found himself
taking a suitcase from his closet. He gathered up his shaving gear and
toiletries first. He didn’t know his destination or how long he would
be gone, but he included two changes of clothes. These jobs-adventures
missions, whatever in God’s name they were-usually didn’t require him to
be away more than two or three days. He hesitated, worried that he had
not packed enough. But these trips were dangerous; each could be his
last, in which case it didn’t matter whether he packed too much or too
little.
He closed the suitcase and stared at it, not sure what to do next.
Then he ‘d, “Gotta fly,” and he knew.
The drive to John Wayne Airport, on the southeastern edge of Santa Anta,
took less than half an hour. Along the way he saw subtle reminders at
southern California had been a desert before the importation of water
through aqueducts. A billboard urged water conservation. Gardeners
were planting low-maintenance cactus and ice plant in front of a new
southwestern-style apartment building. between the greenbelts and the
neighborhoods of lushly landscaped properties, the vegetation on
undeveloped fields and hills was parched and brown, waiting for the kiss
of a match in the trembling hand of one of the pyromaniacs contributing
to the annual, devastating wildfire season.
In the main terminal at the airport, travelers streamed to and from
their boarding gates. The multi-racial crowd belied the lingering myth
that Orange County was culturally bland and populated solely by white
AngloSaxon Protestants. On his way to the bank of TV monitors that
displayed a list of arriving and departing flights, Jim heard four
languages besides English.
He read the destinations from top to bottom on the monitor. The next to
t city-Portland, Oregon-struck a spark of inspiration in him, and he
went straight to the ticket counter.
The clerk who served him was a clean-cut young man, as straight-arrow as
a Disneyland employee-at first glance.
“The flight to Portland leaving in twenty minutes,” Jim said. “Is it
full up?”
The clerk checked the computer. “You’re in luck, sir. We have three
open seats.”
While the clerk processed the credit card and issued the ticket, Jim
noticed the guy had pierced ears. He wasn’t wearing earrings on the job
but the holes in his lobes were visible enough to indicate that he wore
then regularly when he was off duty and that he preferred heavy jewelry.
When he returned Jim’s credit card, his shirtsleeve pulled up far enough
on his right wrist to reveal the snarling muzzle of what appeared to be
a lavishly detailed, colorful dragon tattoo that extended up his entire
arm. The knuckles of that hand were crusted with scabs, as if they had
been skinned in a fight.
All the way to the boarding gate, Jim wondered what subculture the clerk