In Chandler Country

California night. The Devil’s wind, the Santa Ana, blows in from the east, raging through the canyon like a drunk screaming in a bar. The air tastes like a stubbed-out cigarette. But why complain? The weather’s fine as long as you don’t breathe. Just lean back on the sweat-stained furniture, lights turned out, windows shut against the storm, and count your blessings. Another sleepless night, when every wrinkle in the bedsheet scratches like a dry razor on a sunburned cheek, when even ten-year whiskey tastes like sand, and quiet women in the kitchen run their fingers on the edges of a knife and eye their husbands’ necks. I wish them luck. Tonight it seems that if I took the coins out of my pocket and tossed them in the air they’d stay a moment glistening like a net slowly falling through dark water. I remember the headlights of the cars parked on the beach, the narrow beams dissolving on the dark surface of the lake, voices arguing about the forms, the crackling radio, the sheeted body lying on the sand, the trawling net still damp beside it. No, she wasn’t beautiful—but at that age when youth itself becomes a kind of beauty— “Taking good care of your clients, Marlowe?” Relentlessly the wind blows on. Next door catching a scent, the dogs begin to howl. Lean, furious, raw-eyed from the storm, packs of coyotes come down from the hills where there is nothing left to hunt.