Driving around the mall parking lot in my hometown where recent development has put in two new movie theaters, both run by right-wing religionists. I realized that I have knowledge enough that, if I wanted, I could burn at least one of them down. Then again, they are new construction very high fire codes. Either they wouldn’t burn or my exceptional knowledge would single me out.
I drive out of the parking lot. In line at a new parking gate, I realize I never grabbed a parking ticket. I gun it through the gate when the truck ahead of me opens it. I worry for a second I did it too early and will hit a horizontal bar, but nothing comes of it.
My dad in the car has me drive through the neighborhood of my old home, towards the house itself. I’ve done this many times before. I’m more practiced than when I lived here, even. I cut through an older part of the neighborhood ( San Eljay) and peel out hard onto a perpendicular street without really looking. My dad makes no comment correcting me, though I expected he would.
It’s evident the neighborhood has changed a lot. At the corner, the sign for the development has decayed, breaking down and being absorbed into neighboring homes yards, chicken pens and such. My old elementary school has a short wooden fence around it, and the road past it has become a footpath.
At the end of the footpath is a clearing in the forest, where my family’s home was when I was a kid. It’s an odd mashup between Cathedral City and Eureka. The house itself is gone but a lot of our stuff remains — I take it that my parents have wheedled their way into storing stuff there long-term, but we’re here today to pick some of it up.
The site is now part of a trailhead inside a National Park though. There’s a long slope just beyond. Many people pass through on a daily basis, some unfriendly. I actually stop my sister from engaging in an altercation with some red-faced boomer. A bit more happens but details have been lost.