Trader Joe's

Trader Joe’s

Santa Rosa, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

A sweltering breeze hissed among the grape vines soldiering in rows up the hillside. The earth and the grass baked and golden and high above the white orb of the sun left the farmer spotlit and shadowless as the riders approached. They came from several directions winding among the vines insouciant and lordly with their rifles and before them like some conquering general rode a man in spotless denim and wearing a ten dollar stetson. He pushed his black thoroughbred forward till the farmer could smell the hay on the animal’s breath. The rider stood the horse there and watched the farmer for a long time. Do you know who I am, said the rider.

Yessir.

My offer is more than fair.

Yes.

So sell.

I caint. This is all I got.

That is not true.

Sir.

You also have a family.

Yessir I do. I do have that.

The rider took a cigar from his breast pocket and smelled it. He looked to the West the coastal range serrating the horizon like some sunburnt palisade and beyond it a sea of fog formless and seething. He put the cigar away. Do you know what this country will look like in a hundred years, he said.

The farmer shook his head.

It will be houses packed together like sardines in a tin. And the folks who live here will all be drinking my wine. They will be drinking Two Dime Chuck like water and you and your kind will be long forgot. The rider sawed the thoroughbred around and rode away. The men remained in that dusty and cropped field intent upon the farmer their rifles gleaming blueblack their eyes shaded and unknowable and the only sound to break the metallic silence was the air shimmering and whispering, en route to the sea or some other oblivion.