Palmdale, Los Angeles, California

BEN BRIAR

Everything in LA has changed since '84. This is what I noticed as I drove around in the old man's black Saturn. It was a car that was a prototype back then. Then it went on to be introduced in 1990. And now it has died out, reduced in population but heightened in antiquity.

It wasn't mint or in any condition close to good though so I doubt Victor could ever sell the thing. To everyone, it was an item of the past. To me, it was a piece of the future and I was driving it around in the city of the future.

In the 1980s, LA was quite polluted. The air was barely breathable, and the landscape represented extremes of juxtapositions: homes and apartments directly contiguous to the industrial areas such as refineries and freeways.

It still smelt the same so maybe that pollution aspect is still hip and now. I rolled the windows down to come to this conclusion.

Roads were complicated now. Intersection over intersection into roundabouts into three lanes, four lanes, hell - even five lanes. If I was any more incompetent and less adaptable, I would have been pulled over by the cops and then gotten my registration checked.

Speaking of law enforcement, Palmdale had a mix of people now. Meaning conflict is what that means. Meaning the cops are more bountiful. Meaning some more dirty cops can be paid off by opposing sides of conflict. Turf wars and the like. There are even interracial feuds like black gangs shooting up the neighborhood. Not shooting up people, just at the sky in neighborhoods to see who can sound the loudest or wince the least. Then they can pay off those dirty cops to turn a blind eye while they shoot up neighborhoods. Then those bullets they shot in the sky fall to the ground and end up killing the neighborhood anyways or at least damaging property or injuring civilians.

And I see them in the corner of my eye as I drive the car past alleyways and around sharp corners. Teenagers who are coquetry without skateboards or bubble gum or mullets or curls. No, not those people. The tweakers hidden in the grime of this city district. Selling to these teenagers. Getting high with these teenagers. Being teenagers.

A few blocks later and a couple turns in the direction of Jennifer's mom's house, there are aerospace workers, wearing their uniforms and everything, out on footpaths munching down on cheese steaks.

Is it lunch already? I checked the time. It wasn't. So shouldn't the people with the position of securing our lives employing space travel, since our world is dying, be focused on their jobs instead of taking unscheduled breaks? And our world is dying, I know because the pollution is worse than before. I lied, it's much worse. I can smell it like I said. Red light.

But pollution won't be our dreadful end, it will be the black gangs in those rough neighborhoods. They will be the death of us. Or it will be those tweakers in those crystal alleyways. Extinction is upon us by word of the stoned. Why does our end beset us? What matters is what saves us each time. Then the end would be matterless. Green light.

I step on the gas and the black matte gleams when it is hit by that sunlight that was hiding behind trees and clouds.

If the desert was sand and heat, Palmdale was the imitation of it. A few urban square kilometers surrounded by rural land. Cactus's under the shade of rocky mountains. Roads leading out had tumbleweeds rolling past those sandy swept surfaces. Dry canyons and arid valleys crashed together against curved ridges.

I pulled up to Jennifer's mom's house. I can't remember her name, which is strange since it's probably been a day for me in relative time.

The house was a classic Cali bungalow. It was in ruin with front lawn grass sprouting onto pathways. Graffitied by hooligans no doubt in every color imaginable. Rot and mold ate away at the foundation and pale walls. The roof was fading away and crumbling at the edges.

I deigned to call Jennifer so early. I needed to find out what happened first. I turned off the engine and left the keys in my pocket as I got out of the car. The neighbor, an old woman, was peeking through her window at me. She looked familiar but I couldn't quite place her. I'll circle around to her, I thought.

I opened the small ivory fence gate to the bungalow, walked through the overabundance of long grass, crept up the porch and opened the front door which wasn't locked. The lock had been hammered into pieces, evident by the little fake rusted gold nuggets on the porch.

Using some guile, I left the door open for the old woman to follow me in which was unarguably her next plan of action after eyeing me. And I was certifiably correct as I now saw from the windows of the bungalow.

She walked through the front door cautiously, peering ahead while I was at the windows.

"What do you want," I said, "why are you spying on me?" She appeared shocked to see me.

"Oh, gave me a fright you did." My hand gripped the edge of a table.

"Well, I'm not exactly the simpatico type."

"I just wanted to tell you that you won't find anything in here," the woman said. "It was ransacked a few years ago. Right under my nose, it was." I shook my hand of its tenseness and also the unbelievable coating of dust. The epicanthic fold in the old woman's eyes creased strikingly.

"You look... familiar."

"Likewise," I said.

"No, you look like someone famous," she murmured. "Or used to be famous." She stepped closer to study my face.

"I'm afraid you might have me - "

"Mr Briar?!"

"Now keep it down," I said. "You want the whole street to hear?"

"If it really is you, I'll let the whole world know!" she exclaimed. A desperate sigh escaped my throat. "But how? I went to the mortuary and I saw your body. Do you remember me?"

"No, sorry. Wait - you saw my body?"

"I was the girl next door, still am. Jennifer's friend. Does this mean Jennifer is alive as well?"

"Alive and well - but the mortuary - you saw my body?" I asked. A feeling of enmity suddenly spiraled into my mind and heart. If she were to respond with another question, I was going to lose it. If she didn't keep her voice down, it would be salt on a wound.

But I guess she deserved the answers she had been waiting decades for.