It is mid-afternoon, mid-September. He drifts through the mining district where rickety scaffolds burrow down into the undercity. The southern stretch of bungalows where latchkey kids skin knees against sprinkler heads. The ports where tuna purseiners are just now returning home with sad exhausted diesel drones. The salt refineries along the estuary, flanked by stinking brine sluiceways and evaporating ponds. The manufactured neighborhood (“Trigger Corner”) built for a movie that ended up getting made in Vancouver. The pupusas and ceviches of Little San Salvador. Young men running their hands over the bra straps of young women in Arboreta Alley. The animal squawks and roulette clicks of The Hole. The city winding things down.
A wind picks up.
