The Moving Target

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The cab turned off U.S. 101 in the direction of the sea. The road looped round the base of a brown hill into a canyon lined with scrub oak.

“This is Cabrillo Canyon,” the driver said.

There weren’t any houses in sight. “The people live in caves?”

“Not on your life. The estates are down by the ocean.”

A minute later I started to smell the sea. We rounded another curve and entered its zone of coolness. A sign beside the road said: “Private Property: Permission to pass over revocable at any time.”

The scrub oak gave place to ordered palms and Monterey cypress hedges. I caught glimpses of lawns effervescent with sprinklers, deep white porches, roofs of red tile and green copper. A Rolls with a doll at the wheel went by us like a gust of wind, and I felt unreal.

The light-blue haze in the lower canyon was like a thin smoke from slowly burning money. Even the sea looked precious through it, a solid wedge held in the canyon’s mouth, bright blue and polished like a stone. Private property: color guaranteed fast; will not shrink egos. I had never seen the Pacific look so small.

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