Palm Springs Noir by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

Author:Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE ANKLE OF ANZA

BY EDUARDO SANTIAGO

Anza

It took awhile for the concerned neighbors to settle down. After the scraping of metal chairs on the worn linoleum, and the greetings of neighbors who rarely saw each other, an expectant silence swept the room. This was Anza, a small community as far as population, but huge in terms of land. Most of it was worthless mountaintop—high desert they called it. Sand and scrub, and too much damn gravity.

But those of us who live here wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s peaceful and quiet, save the occasional meth lab explosion. And God-fearing country for sure. I turned to face them, each of their dirt-worn faces. There’s a look to us here, beady eyes from squinting against sand and wind, white, weathered skin, thinning hair, even the women, whose long gray strands clogged sinks all over Anza Valley.

The last time they gathered, Jimbo Lure’s cousin had come to propose solar farms. There was an expectation of wealth, as if everyone had an oil well in the backyard just ripe for the picking. But the more the proposal got into crystalline vs. thin film vs. photovoltaic, and words like extrapolation, the audience began to glaze over. Even if they all pooled their money and their land together, as Gordon Lure suggested, he was talking a million-dollar investment before profits. No one here was worth a thousand, let alone a million. No one here was willing to risk the rewards. Coming up on five years ago, that was. There are solar farms here now, but none of the people present were making the money. No one knew those who were profiting, silent partners and all that. But these people whose eyes were on me now, I knew them chapter and verse.

“I want to give you people a heads-up,” I said to them. I’m not used to public speaking, in fact I don’t speak much at all, but these were all people I know. “We have a cat burglar up in here. There’s no denying it any longer.”

There were many whats and what he says and speak ups. This is what’s called an aging community, too many of us on the sliding slope to eighty. We became hard of hearing from wearing old ears and having no one to listen to anymore save for the TV, which can be turned up or down depending on mood or need.

I repeated myself with a bit more vocal power.

“What’s with the cat shit, Dave? Ain’t she just a plain ole fucking burglar?” asked Don Donner, who had never uttered a sentence without a fuck or a shit in it.

“She has the nasty habit of sneaking into your home when no one’s there, locking up when she leaves,” I said. “Opens up your vehicles, takes a few things, locks it all up when she leaves. She’s meticulous, leaves the place like you left it. You just think you’ve misplaced things, but she took ’em. Will slip into an unlocked door, take your things while you’re asleep.

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