“Baby”

Every time I go up to the place where my parents live, I think “my God, it’s beautiful.”

I also think, “my God, there’s fuck-all to do.”

Every time I tell people stories about the place where my parents live, at some point or other they usually say some version, “my god, it sounds awful.”

I thought about that today, as ash was falling from the sky, as the sun turned so orange I thought I stood in light streaming through a Chagall window, as I read the news that German far-right groups have declared a national leader their “savior.”

I thought about it especially when I heard the story of one “Baby” — otherwise known as Clarissa, or maybe it was Carissa, but in any case not Clarice — whose hobby is to steal cars and then leave them burning on the Big Bend Road. In fire season. When I heard the gun shots traded between what the locals swore — swore! — was just a game a of grab-ass between the Mexican cartel and the other half of the rancheria, the one they weren’t paying ground rent and water leases to for the privilege of growing everybody’s favorite all-natural herbal remedy, the one whose cultivation has led to an astonishing growth of algae in the local waterways. I thought about it when I saw a bloody moon rise at 11 p.m. and a bloody sun rise at 6:30.

My god, the stories are so scary they don’t even sound true.