goodnight doggie.

“	It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen.	”
—Raymond Chandler, "Red Wind"

suburban breezeways are moaning tonight as dry desert air heads southwest across socal. the wind farms between here and palm desert with their propellers facing the coming sun. tomorrow i have a date with the pasadena/los angeles courthouse. a ticket i got last month is due tomorrow and like a proper twenty something i left it to the last minute. the hollow gastank in my car was also left out of mind until just now. i knew the car needed food but today was sunday, today in a fleece sport jacket playing chrono trigger, the afternoon peppered with snacks and naps. like i said, the tank was empty and there was no way i was going to do it tomorrow morning. i left the house still wearing my jacket, having traded my gym shorts for some denim cursing myself for not having grabbed my gloves and hat. the wind was a tease of what would be in the coming days. the santa anas were called the devil's breath because of the heat they brought in from the desert. it's the angst of the dying upper class in palm valley and an invitation for trashed twenty somethings to invade indio's coachella groaning through my suburban sprawl. i needed gas and i needed gas tonight. whatever fumes had fueled my honda back from school would have to take me to the corner store for gas. across the street, movement. the air likes to play tricks, turning hedges into raking fingers with lonely voices. there it is again, a bear of a dog. white. labrador. i whistled and waited for the glance from a friendly puppy. marking trees and scratching his feet on the grass; probably belongs to a neighbor on a night walk. plus, it's spring and my mom spent the day with the garage open, if he had been out and about all day he would have come up to say hello. into the car and off to the mobil.
the first week of school is always the worst. parking feels like getting teeth pulled and if you have not been fortunate enough to add classes early you will be doing a dance that involves multiple classrooms, professors, and rejections. i was going home from an afternoon/evening class around and traffic back to the freeway was a clusterfuck. these were kids who hadn't gotten classes were more than likely sitting in their cars disappointed and hopeless looking forward to sixteen weeks of entry level jobs in lieu of studying. there was one cawice lately, am i a reactionary person? do i simply respond to input? ther in particular up ahead being a nice guy. a white late model accord letting cars pass in front of him near a lane merging. my lane on the other hand was inching as his was stopped dead and the third merged in front of him. three, four, five cars. what a nice kid. as cars eight and nine i was able to look into his car. asleep! this kid was asleep! i started honking and motioning for someone else to notice. it was only about seven but i was sure this guy had spent the last twelve hours running room to room getting no after no for having a too late registration da- wait. what if he's narcoleptic?! my flailing and honking got the attention of a girl in a sedan. CALL 9-1-1 i gestured. phoneless i had no way to alert anybody and was worried mr sleeps would kill someone if he got on the highway. my lane continued forward and i left him behind. sedan girl puts her hands in the air with face both worried and smirking saying either "no phone," or "i don't know." should i stop? how could i wake him up? what if i park in front of him and when he wakes up his first reaction to a tattooed man standing in the street at his window is to slam on the gas? i can't afford that. minutes of deliberation i am down the street turning onto the highway. oh man, i hope everything is okay with him. the tank is full and it's freezing out. time to go home.
pulling in the dog is still playing cat-at-scratching post on the lawn across the street. unwilling to let an opportunity to be kind/helpful/not lazy i walk across the street and call to the labrador bear. hey puppy, what's your name? what are you doing out? hunched over but gripping him by the collar i walk him around the house and pull the gate shut behind us. no tags, great. i hope you weren't dumped in the area by a "family." it's a terrible night to leave a dog is a strange neighborhood, and how dare you take advantage of someone like that, jerks. well, i'm not looking forward to a night of howling and scratching so i take some lunchmeat and benadryl and prepare some hors d'voers.