Mallory's Camera

Cannery Row is a ghost town. Or maybe that town in High Noon just before Gary Cooper and Frank Miller battle it out. The streets are empty, there's a strange, harsh sunlight that no matter what the time of day seems to beat straight down.

"Oh, the Aquarium is hurting," said the enterprising young fellow who'd come into the Little Store to sell me – of all things – search engine placements. Honey, I may look like your Granny but I did that shit before you could stand up to pee, I wanted to tell him. Instead I blinked mildly and waited for more.

"Aquarium attendance is waaaaaay down," he continued.

"I'll bet," I said. "When the economy is this bad, the only fish you want to look at is one poached in white wine with a rosemary garnish."

"Look around out there," the young man said, waving his hand expansively at Steinbeck Plaza where nary a tourist had strolled for going on two hours. The Sunglass Hut: Empty. Alamo Flags: Empty. Fish Hopper Restaurant, deck overlooking the ocean: Empty. Jewelry Store featuring Lab Created Gems: Empty. Cheap Fleece Sweatshirts Made In China With Otter Insignias Tacked Hastily On To the Collar Store: Empty.

"None of you are going to be able to hold on to your businesses as bricks and mortar operations. The rent's too high, how will you pay it?" He grinned at me.

Some day you'll be old and desperate, I thought. Then we'll see how you like people pissing on your grave.

Though of course he was right.

Even when the lines stretched around the block, I never thought the Aquarium was enough of an attraction to sustain the medina of small businesses that had sprung up around it.

Now it isn't an attraction at all. Neither is Monterey. This is going to have dire consequences on the local economy: the only industry here is tourism, if it goes, so do all those jobs that service tourists. And then those jobs that service the people who service the tourists. And it's going. Pebble Beach golf holidays for middle managers? They're downsizing. Those refugees from the Central Valley heat waves? All in foreclosure.

Of course, empty stores are not vacant stores, at least not yet. Cannery Row has its share of those too, of course, a number that is growing daily. The lease on the American Gallery expires at the end of the month. Storefront's gone through three separate iterations in five years. First it was a teeshirt store. Then it was the sibling of an upscale Carmel gallery. Current owner purchased it two years ago.

"Their business model was flawed," he told me then. He was a rangy silver-haired gentleman sporting a huge turquoise belt buckle and a Bolero tie. He owned three galleries already in Sedona, Arizona. "They priced the art too high."

"You think?"

"I know. Young up and coming couples want to spend money on décor. Framed posters are cheesy reminders of their college days. But they don't want to spend so much on art that it will cut into the kitchen renovation they're dreaming of doing."

"How much do they want to spend?" I asked.

"Range is seven hundred and fifty dollars to two thousand," he smiled. I was disappointed that he didn't call me "little lady."

Seven hundred and fifty dollars seemed excessive to me for a kitschy seascape from a Chinese art factory, but what did I know?

Enough, as it turned out.

After the American Gallery closes, I doubt that anyone will move in to rent that space. And it's what you might call a flagship vacancy, on a busy corner, next to the Ghiradelli ice cream parlor, right across the street from another vacant storefront formerly known as As Seen On TV. It will leave a big gaping hole in the bright mantle of commerce.

I make it a point to spy on tourists when they walk past vacant storefronts. Here's what I see: the experience unnerves them, an introjection of grim economic reality into their quality happy time. Eight times out of ten, they'll cross the street to avoid the store.

When two vacant storefronts are right across the street from each other, I suppose they start avoiding the area altogether.



###

The Little Store itself is on life support. It amazes me every time someone buys anything, and people still do buy things – we've accumulated enough good will over the years that our regulars always make it a point to stop by every time they're in Monterey. We're actually busier than many of the other stores on Steinbeck Plaza. Which is pathetic when you think about it.

Yesterday a guy from Fresno came in. "Beautiful day, I decided to get on my bike and go for a ride. Didn't know where I wanted to ride to though. Then I remembered this store and thought, Aha! I'll go to Monterey!"

He beamed at me.

"But what happened to your store? It's so empty –"

I beam back. "Well, I had to make an executive decision. You know – while business is slow we don't want to stock up on products that no one is around to buy. They have a shelf life –"

Of course I'm lying. The reason I don't buy inventory is because I don't have the money to buy inventory. July, traditionally the month Cannery Row shops rake in the Big Bucks that make it all worthwhile, was a complete bust for me this year. I made nothing. Nada. Zilch. Niente. And July is what carries the rest of the year.

There are parallels here between the country's economic collapse and my own. Nobody came to Monterey in July because nobody could afford to drive here. Monterey is most popular with people who live in the Central Valley where the summer temperature flirts with Farenheit 100. Monterey's summers, you will recall, are gray and dreary. In order to afford home ownership – that most cherished of American dreams – many of these people had bought houses thirty, fifty, eighty miles away from where they worked. With gas teetering near five bucks a gallon, they were going broke just driving to work.

True, the wave of foreclosures had already begun in the Central Valley. But honestly I think it was the price of gas that turned it into a tsunami.

"What do you recommend?" said the guy from Fresno.

"Well, this is a great little sauce from an artisan hot sauce maker in Sonoma – it's made with sweet potatoes and habanero! This one is made from chile del arbo – it's the only chile del arbo sauce I've ever run across. And then there's this one, Crying Tongue, made from red savinas. That's our local hot sauce by the way – Sand City is Monterey's industrial annex –"

The guy from Fresno eagerly accepts everything I recommend. After he left the store it dawned on me I could have gotten another fifty bucks out of him. He wasn't buying hot sauce. He was showing support.

I'm thinking a lot about the difference between liquidity and solvency. It's a slippery slope.

###

In other news _______ made his intentions known. I was hoping he wouldn't.

"Why don't you have dinner with me?" he asked.

He's another Little Store regular. About a year ago I began to suspect that he didn't really like chile peppers all that much. He liked me.

"Dinner?" I say. I do the funny thing with my mouth. It makes me look ugly.

"Yeah. You go into a restaurant, they give you a knife and a fork. And food. All you have to give them is money!"

"I don't know," I say.

"What's to know? Either you're hungry or you're not."

"It's that easy, huh?" I say.

"That's right," he said.

But it isn't. ______ would want some kind of emotional connection with me. Dare I say it? Intimacy. Which I'm not capable of giving right now. Added complication in a life that's already waaaay too complicated.

I like the guy. He deserves better. That's why I didn't go out with him.