Raymond had looked at Jim once, sickness and fury in his eyes, and walked away. It was two weeks before he showed up at school again — flu, he said. Years later, Jim realized that what had made Raymond so sick wasn’t a virus at all, but deep and gnawing anger: at Lance for his stupid white arrogance; at Ernie for the stitches it took to close his stubborn macho face; at himself, for not trying to stop it, for knowing that no one would really win, for letting down Ann, and, most of all, for his failure to take a side, commit himself in this momentary crucible of life to a position that he could defend with dignity and truly call his own.
“They deserve something better,” said Ray. “But they have to earn it. Nothing comes free, nothing comes easy. You want your treasure, they want theirs.”
Jim guided the truck down Fourth, out of the barrio and into the white suburbs of Tustin, a city that, for years, had actually maintained a sign on this boulevard that read WELCOME TO TUSTIN — THE BEVERLY HILLS OF ORANGE COUNTY. Jim could remember thirty years ago, when there had been an odd bit of truth in this. There were big stately homes in the foothills, small ranchos tucked behind stands of eucalyptus and avocado overlooking mile upon mile of emerald green citrus groves. The smell of the orange blossoms-visceral, opiate — rose on invisible thermals. Main Street looked like a dictionary definition of itself — solid brick buildings housing the five-and-dime, the garage, the pharmacy, and an occasional Victorian manse converted to professional offices. But in the late sixties and early seventies, Tustin had sold out. Franchises now ruled every street corner — the Golden Arches, the Jack in the Box, the garishly unmistakable logos of oil conglomerates, grocery chains, convenience networks, and fast-food distributors — all bawling for consumer attention. It was astonishing to Weir, as he gazed out through the eye-watering smog, that in the city of Orange, just a few miles from here, a special plot of ground had been planted with orange trees so people in the future could see what they really looked like. They had literally paved over the trees and put up a tree museum. At some point, he thought, isn’t enough enough? The Beverly Hills sign had been taken down years ago.
Then onto the freeway at a crawl, merging at ten miles an hour into a slow lane doing thirty, max, a restless river of cars stretching from as far as he could see in his rearview all the way out of sight ahead of him, where they vanished, brake lights flashing and exhaust systems belching, into the dominating pollutant haze in the west.
And yet, incredibly, thought Weir, the beat goes on. Jack-hammers tore out old asphalt to widen the off ramps and add freeway lanes; foundation crews and framing teams scurried to cover the last inches of unbuilt land; developers crammed thousands of identical units over hillsides and small valleys while city councils and the Board of Supervisors approved it all from on high with furtive sweeps of the ballpoint. It seemed to Weir to be less the land of dreams than the land of disregard. It’s all for sale under the spacious skies, he thought, every last amber wave of it, view lots with a peek of purple mountain majesties, God shed his grace on thee.
“This why you wanted to get out?” asked Ray.
“Yeah.”
“People have to live somewhere.”
“I know that. I’m not so sure Virginia’s right, the way she looks at things. But I’m still young enough to pack it in and light out for the territory. She’s not.”
“Trouble is, there’s no territory left.”
“I guess we just eddy back, or maybe north,” said Jim. Friends of his had joined the rush into the Pacific Northwest and were now busy trying to shut the gates behind them, much as Virginia was doing in Newport. But the question remained: When do you stay and fight, when do you get out and quit complaining? Jim could think things through only so far. Maybe it was as simple as just following one’s heart.
But he was beginning to understand that Ann’s death had nearly severed some cord in him, a cord that once had included Poon and Jake, that connected him in blood and spirit with this place. There was in Jim a sense of things unraveling. It was down to him and Virginia now. And Ray, and maybe Becky. It felt like the Alamo.
Forty minutes later, they rolled down the peninsula and into the neighborhood, into the heart of what would soon become the Balboa Redevelopment Project, if PacifiCo and the other builders had their way at the polls, sank Virginia’s beloved Proposition A, and staffed the mayor’s office with friends like Brian Dennison, so eager to exercise the city’s power of eminent domain. Weir looked out at the huddled duplexes and small bungalows, the unassuming 1940s-style cottages, the boulevard palms that had grown to majestic height through the decades.
It was the opposite of the suburbs here: no uniformity, no franchised street corners, no “planning,” no slick production values at all, just the clean air that blew in off the Pacific, miles of thundering ocean butting up against the land, and the unrepentently modest houses that had stood here for half a century.
Jim had seen, in the papers, concept sketches of the redevelopment. The “theme” of the new Balboa was Early California, a faux mission look featuring red tile roofs, arching colonnades, and courtyards and fountains. The Eight Peso Cantina was a two-story restaurant called the Newport Sailing Club. Poon’s Locker was part of a financial-services minimal. Ann’s Kids was a sushi and burger emporium called Taka-Fornia. Virginia’s house was a maritime museum, to feature “elements of Newport’s historic past.” Ann and Raymond’s house was gone completely, airbrushed away to make room for a three-story parking structure that would be “architecturally integrated into the Early California look.” The pier would be made over with a mock-adobe material that was waterproof and “seismically forgiving,” and would feature a “five-star” restaurant at the end.
Weir remembered now that Virginia and Becky and a handful of other citizens had been arrested near the entrance of PacifiCo Tower for protesting this plan and ignoring repeated warnings by security. They had termed the project “Mission Impossible,” and gotten the local news stations out for the march and arrest. Cantrell had refused to file charges, and pointed out that they were less concerned with the opinions of the protestors than the safety of their employees, some of whom had been “harassed” by the I demonstrators.
Looking out at the old neighborhood, Jim could only conclude that it wasn’t right to change what was working fine to begin with.