Tag Archives: desert

Non-fiction

Desert Creatures

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Here in this desert are plenty of animals. I never saw them when I was living in Los Angeles. I’ve seen roadrunners. They’re much smaller than the one in the cartoon, who’s the same size as Wile E. Coyote. Real ones are about the size of a robin but a little larger, with the long tail sticking up in the air. They can barely fly. They leap and glide a little before they land back down to the earth. I see them more in Indio than in Palm Springs. They must like the golf courses where ducks and geese settle along the small lakes near the fairways. I nearly hit one with my car once and would’ve felt guilty. Who wants to kill a harmless roadrunner?

I’ve also seen many hummingbirds flying around and sucking nectar. Such beautiful beings. I saw a green one yesterday. I was in the parking lot of a shopping center. The rain had just stopped. I could smell the water on the concrete while I sat on the curb and saw the hummingbird hovering in the air above me. It darted to the tree and disappeared. I listened to the cicadas buzzing in the tree. I thought it was the lights in the parking lot.

I’ve never come across any deadly creatures such as ratlesnakes or mountain lions. Thank God. There’s a reason I don’t go hiking in this area. I heard the desert is full of those predators. If I ever see one, I’ll run in the opposite direction. I won’t stop and marvel at their beauty. I would rather die some other way.

My apartment is full of insects I’d never seen before. One morning, when I left to walk to the coffee shop, I noticed a pink worm crawling along the wall next to my door. Pink. I’d seen many worms in my life, especially in my childhood, but never one with the color pink, which scared me. I don’t like to see creatures I’m not familiar with. The worm fell off the wall and landed on the ground, where it kept crawling away to hide from me. If I ever see one in my apartment, I’ll freak out. I was pretty sure it was a worm but not positive. It had sections like a centipede, which really disturbed me. There are other insects crawling in my apartment. I kill some when I get the chance.

Otherwise, I look for other animals in this desert town and hope to find something unique. I’m tired of pigeons. I want to see more exotic birds and mammals as well.

Non-fiction

Life in the Desert

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It’s half past six in the morning in the Coachella Valley, and it’s already eighty-five degrees. The heat will climb to one-seventeen in the afternoon today. I walk in this oppressive weather every day to get exercise. It doesn’t fail to make me sweat. I had to wash my shorts on Sunday because they were drenched. People must’ve thought I’d wet myself.

I walked for two miles yesterday and had to stop for water at a liquor store at Palm Canyon and Vista Chino. They sold water for four dollars. I remember when water was close to free, and drinking fountains were everywhere. Now I find them only at the gym when I go.

People have to drink fancy water because they can’t handle water from the tap like they used to. They deem it unsafe. I don’t think it’s going to kill them. It’s advertised on the bottles now: 9.5 Ph alkaline water. Kind of like the protein argument. Just how much protein should a human consume in a day? How much alkaline does a person need?

I used to drink nothing but that type of water. I would drive through noisy traffic in Hollywood for several miles just to pick it up from a health food store on Sunset Boulevard, but I stopped doing it after a while. It wasn’t necessary. Grocery stores started selling all sorts of alkaline water. Now I think it’s a bunch of nonsense and buy any old water. I don’t even look at the brand except Aquafina: something is wrong with that water. I don’t know what it is.

Anyway, I carried my four-dollar water another two miles back to my apartment in Palm Springs, past a few homeless people in this town. One of them slept on the sidewalk. The cement could cook a steak, and he was sleeping on it. I thought his shoes were missing, but as I walked past him I saw that he was using them as a pillow. I didn’t have any change to give him, but it wasn’t change he needed. He needed a bed and a pillow, which I couldn’t offer either, but he was doing just fine without them.

If someone lives in the desert long enough, they adapt to the heat like a lizard. I made it home and took a cool shower. My air conditioner was still running. The thing won’t turn off because it’s set to AUTO at seventy-six degrees. It shuts off when the apartment cools to that temperature. The problem is it never gets that cool. It’s that hot outside. I should raise it to seventy-eight. Only then might it shut off, but I doubt it.

My bill for last month was over three hundred dollars. It could be worse for July. The weather is hotter now than it has ever been since I’ve lived here. I can’t wait until September when it might start cooling down. It’s supposed to lower to one hundred degrees by next week. That would be like spring all over again if it happens. I might actually wear pants.

Non-fiction

Hotter than Bejesus

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I’m on fire as I’m writing this. It’s only six a.m., and the room is hot. It’s supposed to be over one hundred degrees in the desert today. My father said it was supposed to be 111. I can’t believe it.

I burned my ass yesterday on the curb when it was 107 at four in the afternoon. It was as if I was frying out there. It’s going to stay that way in the summer before the fall comes. Summer has just begun today. It’s supposed to be the longest day of the year, I heard. But how can that be? Anyway, I’m used to the heat. I’ve been living in hot climates for most of my life, so it’s nothing new to me. But the heat gives me a headache. I’ve been waking up with headaches every day this week, and I haven’t been able to go sleep very well.

At least I’ll go out of town tomorrow and stay in Goleta before I drive to Avila Beach where it’s cool and I can wear jeans. Otherwise, I’ll just keep burning. It’s miserable. Misery follows me like that kid in grade school who would follow you and you couldn’t be rid of him. He just tagged along and got on your nerves. What would I be without it? What would I be without worry? I have to worry constantly or else I’m out of control. And that’s no good.

The heat has followed me, too. My brain is fried. I wonder how it is in Maryland. What kind of heat are they facing? I know there are tornados in the country sweeping up cities, and I’m thankful I don’t have to live through that.

But damn this heat.

Fiction

Living in the Desert

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I moved to Palm Springs from Los Angeles this year and haven’t found my way yet. It gets cold in the mornings, to my dislike. I wait for the heat to come and bring me pleasure. As I sit here, outside a coffee shop in La Quinta, the cold winds burn my arms. It’s May. It shouldn’t be like this, but it is.

But it’s only six in the morning. I woke up at five like I always do. I set my alarm for that time. It’s a haunting piano tune on my phone. I should really change it because it scares me. I don’t know what to do with myself in the desert. Sometimes, I daydream about living in a trailer in the middle of the sand, saying, “Forget about a nice home and all those responsibilities,” and going to a trashy diner where no one knows me. I could go back to alcohol. No one has to know.

Where I live, crows dominate the apartments. I don’t know why they’re there. What’re they looking for besides dead squirrels? I know it’s a dark premonition when they fly around me, like a bad fate is coming my way, but I just deal with it as it comes. How tragic can the result be? The crows mean nothing. They’re just another bird.

I walk through downtown, past the little shops and restaurants. Summer is near, so the northern birds have escaped to Canada before the heat—the real heat—eats them up. I’m glad they’re gone and I have the desert to myself. They take up too much space.

I stare ahead at a gas station with the canyons in the background. Another crow flies by. What is it with these goddamn birds? They’re everywhere. The desert is what it’s supposed to be: barren. I don’t miss the traffic in Los Angeles. There’s none here, of course. No one wants to live here when it’s one hundred and ten degrees all day. I don’t mind the heat as opposed to the cold. I say that now before July when I’ll be sweating from the moment I step outside.

The cars begin to collect at the drive-thru. Coffee shops have them now. They didn’t used to. If you were old enough, you would’ve remembered them without one. People sat outside—hipsters, bohemians—and drank their cappuccinos as they talked about trendy bullshit. They smoked their cloves at the tables and snuffed them out in ashtrays. Now it’s all gone. Coffee shops go by corporate laws. They’ve chased away those people as far as I can see. Where do they go now?

I’m at Adams Street and the 111, the highway that leads to Interstate 10. The sun is brightening the brown canyons. Palm trees shiver in the cold morning breeze. I ate an egg sandwich this morning with an iced mocha. It had bacon on an English muffin.

Not a single soul walks by on the sidewalk. No cactus is around either, and cacti are abundant in the desert. But you know that.

In another month I’ll turn forty-seven. Being forty-six was a bitch. I don’t look forward to growing older.

The people are nicer in the desert. They accommodate me, but they’re not perfect.

The breeze is slowing down. Pretty soon, the heat will strike, and I’ll be sweating out here, wishing for the cold to come back.

The blue palo verde, the peacock flower, and the lantana wiggle in the wind. Some of the petals have been blown off, leaving just the green leaves. The sun hits my back, and I feel warmer now.

I’m going to hit tennis balls today on Mother’s Day. That’s if the tennis courts are open. You never know on a holiday like this.