Practical Demonkeeping

young, environmentally conscious residents decided that the name Harpooner’s Cove hearkened back to a time of shame for the village and that the name Pine Cove was more appropriate to the quaint, bucolic image the town had come to depend on. And so, with the stroke of a pen and the posting of a sign—WELCOME TO PINE COVE, GATEWAY TO BIG SUR—history was whitewashed.
    The business district was confined to an eight-block section of
Cypress Street
, which ran parallel to the coast highway. Most of the buildings on Cypress sported facades of English Tudor half-timbering, which made Pine Cove an anomaly among the coastal communities of
California
with their predominantly Spanish-Moorish architecture. A few of the original structures still stood, and these, with their raw timbers and feel of the Old West, were a thorn in the side of the Chamber of Commerce, who played on the village’s English look to promote tourism.
    In a half-assed attempt at thematic consistency, several pseudo-authentic, Ole English restaurants opened along
Cypress Street
to lure tourists with the promise of tasteless English cuisine. (There had even been an attempt by one entrepreneur to establish an authentic English pizza place, but the enterprise was abandoned with the realization that boiled pizza lost most of its character.)
    Pine Cove’s locals avoided patronage of these restaurants with the duplicity of a Hindu cattle rancher: willing to reap the profits without sampling the product. Locals dined at the few, out-of-the-way cafes that were content with carving a niche out of the hometown market with good food and service rather than gouging an eye out of the swollen skull of the tourist market with overpriced, pretentious charm.
    The shops along
Cypress Street
were functional only in that they moved money from the pockets of the tourists into the local economy. From the standpoint of the villagers, there was nothing of practical use for sale in any of the stores. For the tourist, immersed in the oblivion of vacation spending,
Cypress Street
provided a bonanza of curious gifts to prove to the folks back home that they had been somewhere. Somewhere where they had obviously forgotten that soon they would return home to a mortgage, dental bills, and an American Express bill that would descend at the end of the month like a financial Angel of Death.
    And they bought. They bought effigies of whales and sea otters carved in wood, cast in plastic, brass, or pewter, stamped on key chains, printed on postcards, posters, book covers, and condoms. They bought all sorts of useless junk imprinted with: Pine Cove, Gateway to Big Sur , from bookmarks to bath soap.
    Over the years it became a challenge to the Pine Cove shopowners to come up with an item so tacky that it would not sell. Gus Brine, owner of the local general store, suggested once at a Chamber of Commerce meeting that the merchants, without compromising their high standards, might put cow manure into jars, imprint the label with Pine Cove, Gateway to Big Sur , and market it as authentic gray whale feces. As often happens with matters of money, the irony of Brine’s suggestion was lost, a motion was carried, a plan was laid, and if it had not been for a lack of volunteers to do the actual packaging, the shelves of
Cypress Street
would have displayed numbered, limited-edition jars of Genuine Whale Waste .
    The residents of Pine Cove went about their work of fleecing the tourists with a slow, methodical resolve that involved more waiting than activity. Life, in general, was slow in Pine Cove. Even the wind that came in off the Pacific each evening crept slowly through the trees, allowing the villagers ample time to bring in wood and stoke their fires against the damp cold. In the morning, down on
Cypress Street
, the Open signs flipped with a languid disregard for the times posted on the doors. Some shops opened early, some late, and some not at all, especially if it was a nice day for a walk on the beach. It was as if the villagers, having found their little bit of peace, were waiting for something to happen.
    And it did.
     
    Around midnight on the night that The Breeze disappeared, every dog in Pine Cove began barking. During the following fifteen minutes, shoes were thrown, threats were made, and the sheriff was called and called again. Wives were beaten, pistols were loaded, pillows were pounded, and Mrs. Feldstein’s thirty-two cats simultaneously coughed up hairballs on her porch.