The Tortilla Curtain

“So what of it?” the man said.
    _“What of it?”__ Kyra threw the words back at him in astonishment. “Don't you know you could've killed the poor animal? Don't you care?”
    “Kyra,” Delaney said.
    She threw him a furious look and turned back on the man with the ponytail. “They could take the dog away from you, are you aware of that? Animal Control, by law, can break into any vehicle with a pet locked in it and--”
    Something happened to the man's face beneath the dead blue discs of his glasses. His jaw set. His lip curled. “Why don't you just fuck off, lady,” he said finally, and he stood there rigid as a statue, holding his ground.
    “Now wait a minute,” Delaney said, stepping forward, the purse and briefcase still clutched in his arms.
    The man regarded him calmly. The dog had begun to whine. “Fuck you too, Jack,” the man said, and then he very slowly, very deliberately, eased himself into the car, shut the door and rolled up the window. The locks clicked. Delaney pulled Kyra aside and the Jeep was gone, a belligerent cloud of exhaust left hanging in its place.
    Kyra was trembling. So was Delaney. He hadn't been in a fight since high school, and for good reason--he'd lost that one, badly, and the humiliation of it still stung him. “I can't believe--” Kyra said.
    “Me either.”
    “They should lock people like that up.”
    “I don't know why everybody has to be so, so”--he was searching for the right word--“so _nasty__ all the time.”
    “Urban life,” Kyra said, and there was a depth of bitterness to the pronouncement that surprised him. He wanted to say something more, wanted to pursue it, have another beer, a cup of coffee, anything, but she glanced at her watch and gave out a gasp. “My god,” she said, snatching the purse and briefcase back from him, “I've got to run.” He watched her hurry up the sidewalk and disappear round the corner at the front of the building, and all the gloom and anger came up on him again.
    What next? he thought, sinking wearily into the car seat. He hadn't sat there half a second before some moron was honking behind him, and he jerked the car angrily out into the street, ignoring the manufacturer's warnings, and roared up Ventura Boulevard for the canyon road.
    He was in a rage, and he tried to calm himself. It seemed he was always in a rage lately--he, Delaney Mossbacher, the Pilgrim of Topanga Creek--he who led the least stressful existence of anybody on earth besides maybe a handful of Tibetan lamas. He had a loving wife, a great stepson, his parents had left him enough money so he didn't have any worries there, and he spent most of his time doing what he really wanted to do: write and think and experience nature. So what was the problem? What had gone wrong? Nothing, he told himself, accelerating round a car trying to make an illegal U-turn, nothing at all. And then it came to him: the day was shot anyway, so why not go straight out into the hills? If that didn't calm him, nothing would.
    It was barely two. He could go out to Stunt Road and hike up in the hills above the ocean--he wouldn't have to be back until five for Jordan, and they could go out to eat. He turned west on Mulholland and followed it to where the houses began to fall away and the stark naked hills rose up out of the chaparral, and he cranked down the windows to let the heat and fragrance of the countryside wash over him. For once, he'd have to do without his daypack--he always carried a smaller satchel with sunscreen and bottled water no matter where he went, even if it was only to the supermarket or the Acura dealer, and he glanced over at it on the slick new spotless seat beside him. If he went home for his things he'd have to deal with the fence people--somebody new, somebody Kyra had got through the office--and he just wasn't in the mood for any more hassles today.
    When he got there, to the place where the trail crossed the road and a narrow dirt parking strip loomed up on the left, he cut across the blacktop and eased the car in: no sense in scratching it the first day. There were no other cars--that was a good sign: he'd have the trail to himself--and he stepped out into the grip of the heat that radiated off the hills with all the intensity of a good stacked split-log fire. The heat didn't bother him, not today. It was good just to be away from all that smog, confusion and sheer--he came back to the word--nastiness. The way the guy had just said “fuck you”