The Desert is an Ocean
Keeler, California, is a town of six residents, two of whom are brothers
‘A car lay on its back outside, tires upward like the arms and legs of a helpless baby or a flipped-over armadillo’
Crazy Jay is a sweetheart, but don’t let him lock you up in that jail
It was a cold day, but heat never really leaves the desert. The sun is always there to lick you, to make you sweat. Even in the desert night you feel it, the urge to sweat. The brothers were beet-red and angry. “I liked it because it was quiet down here,” one brother told me. “I’ll tell you something, though. The arsenic will eat your silverware, turns metal into white dust.” The windchimes were screaming. The second brother turned to the first, away from me, and added, “Tell that girl she’s got a Borg implant.” The ride home I felt feverish, worried I’d swallowed remnants of arsenic while sipping from their coffee cans. A part of me worried that there really was an implant in my head — that the second brother was some kind of a desert oracle. That he had seen a falsity, a deficiency in me. That it took living in the middle of nowhere and drinking arsenic to see the inside of a city slicker’s skull. I learned later he was referencing Star Trek. Keeler, California, is a mile-long town …