Mallory's Camera

Wandered around Salinas yesterday afternoon looking for cheap refrigerators. As sometimes happens when I'm driving around with a full tank of gas and my mind on empty, I had a sudden flash of what it might feel like to actually live in Salinas. Main Street in Flyoverville: charred grey light; concrete bunkers housing fast food joints, cheap furniture stores and auto supply warehouses; ugly eighties cars with dented chrome and the molting radiators, driven by predatory, oily-haired cholos. I had the radio tuned to NPR -- Donald Rumsfield doing the Afghan war's greatest hits. The American Dream is really a junkyard and there I was, trapped in it. Ah but life is something that must be undertaken without hope but without despair.