I’d been instructed to knock on Kevin’s door. His place was a somewhat-attached structure beneath mine. I suppose it was a house with two apartments, but it didn’t read that way. Kevin would give me the keys. His stage name was the White Space. The realtor, Kathi, spoke of him the way that a certain type of white woman speaks of a Black man who’s achieved fame.
Before knocking I took a walk around the property. Kathi was right. The view was theatrical. Every time we spoke I pictured her at an outdoor table in the sun, nibbling gravlax. I felt sure that if I got to know her, I would hate her.
Beneath the mountain you could see the ocean and on the other side of the canyon the slim rectangles of the city rising behind the trees. The skyline was underwhelming. I walked to the tallest point of the property. It was miles above the car-phoned traffic. There was a delicate mist that must have been the clouds. When I was ten, my aunt Gosia told me that was where my parents were. Up in the clouds. But are they together up there? I would ask, and she would get up to wash a dish, or shut a window.
There was a large firepit at the highest point. It looked medieval with its big rocks and charred wood. There was a giant store of firewood under a black tarp. A Michelob beer bottle filled with rainwater.
I noticed the canvas yurt in the valley a few hundred feet below me. Down a grassy path in the other direction there was a small red saltbox. It looked like a glorified potting shed, something you bought at a home improvement store but larger and more elaborate. It was the only area with grass on the property, on account of the oaks. Everywhere else the ground was dry nut brown, but around that big potting shed it was moist and green. There were two flower boxes full of marigolds flanking a Dutch door. I worried the tiny home belonged to the landlord. I didn’t want to be so close to him. But Kathi hadn’t mentioned that sort of proximity. Not at all.
I peeled the dress away from my body and it clung back down with the gum of my sweat. I would come to learn there was no respite from taking a shower in the Canyon. It was a matter of moments before you turned a t-shirt translucent.
I knocked on Kevin’s door. I heard some bluesy rap and after a few moments I knocked again, louder. He cracked it just a quarter of the way, then blocked the view with his frame. It smelled like tinctures inside.
—Miss Joan, peace and welcome to the neighborhood. He was very tall and good-looking and his eyes were friendly. He didn’t look at me. He looked through me like I was barely there.
I extended a hand and he stepped outside and closed the door behind him. I’d seen him onstage, crouching with a mike. Strobes and girls in Lycra short shorts. The man in front of me looked like he’d never spoken loudly or danced.
—How was the drive?
I said that it was good.
—Man, I love that drive. It’s been too long. Planes trip me out.
He made wings of his long arms. By now my scalp had begun to sweat.
—Planes trip me out, too.
—You want your keys, I imagine? You need some help moving some things?
—I’ve got movers coming, thanks.
—All right, all right. I ain’t got no lemonade to offer. I didn’t bake no meringue pies. But I’ll get something to you. This is gonna be nice. You’ll like it here, Miss Joan. We like it here. We’re like a small family. You met my man Leonard? My boy River?
—Nobody.
—Whoosh, he said. The lady swoops in—his palm dove down and sliced by my waist—under cover of night. I’mma get your keys, Miss Joan. Let you get settled. Let you get your house in order.
When he returned, he handed me two keys held together by a twist tie.
—Mailbox, he said, pointing to one. House, he said, pointing to the other. No, wait, other way around. He laughed delightedly. I’m all turned ’round today. Forgive me, Miss Joan. I recorded all night. I do that and then sleep all afternoon. This is five a.m. for me.
I took my keys and our hands touched and I shivered and I thought, oh for God’s sake. I looked at him and he considered me; I could see him taking my measurements. Then he smiled. He was over it.
Along the drive I had been wanting to sleep with a real cowboy, someone without social media. Sex made me feel pretty. By the time I reached Texas the trip was almost over. The man I fucked was named John Ford. He wore a western shirt and placed my palm over his zipper in the lobby of the Thunderbird. The walls were aqua and there were cowhides on the floor. He said he’d once worked on a ranch. But it turned out to be a Boy Scout trip he remembered like it was yesterday. He was in liquor sales out of Chicago. He’d never heard of the film director who shared his name. Or Monument Valley, where the films were made, the soaring westerns I watched with my mother. He belched twice, too loud to ignore, and ordered the flatbread pizza with balsamic onions. But his name was John Ford.
3
INSIDE THE HOUSE IT SMELLED of toothpicks. What is it about moving into a new place that makes you want to kill yourself? I imagine this isn’t true for women with labeled boxes. Women who own flyswatters, who store their winter clothes for the summer. Me, I had my mother’s eyelash curler. I had old yellow lotions from stores that no longer existed. My unpacked boxes would stay unpacked. Full of mementos, full
