Sands Rising

by H M Wilhelmborn

  “We’re fucked,” Larry told me in his imitable way. “Used to be that you could relegate this kind of thing to the desert regions, to places where it’s flat and dry like the Plains, even Vegas. You could have even said that it was impossible here. I’ve spent most of my life in San Diego, and this sort of thing blows you away. Literally. People are calling it a sandstorm, but it wasn’t. It was a dust storm. There’s a difference.”

  I wasn’t going to seem ignorant, not in front of my boss, so I smiled and nodded in agreement. I’d worked for Larry for about six years at that point, so he knew when I didn’t know something and was smiling politely as I waited to research it later.

  It’s not that I didn’t know my job.

  I was the best person at it. But with a kid, and another on the way, you don’t care about the difference between a dust storm and a sandstorm. You care about what they’ll say about your child at the next parent-teacher conference (which were all the rage at my son’s day care), about saving for college, about life insurance in case something happens to you, and about whether you’ll stay up all night with a child who’s sick and is calling for his mom because his dad falls asleep while reading bedtime stories.

  “I always thought they were the same.” Larry sneezed. “But that was a dust storm, Janet. Lloyd, my oldest, is doing a paper on desertification, and he’s taught us that dust storms affect urban areas and sandstorms hit deserts. Sandstorms have larger particles, and dust storms have smaller ones. Anyway, we’re fucked, Janet. I saw Halley’s Comet in 1986 while we were visiting family in New York City. We used binoculars around 6 p.m. one night, and we saw something like a faint glow just above the horizon. That was a freak event. What happened last night is the new normal. Just look how depressing it looks outside.”

  I sat at my computer and went through the e-mails that had come in for Larry. I ordered tulips and chocolate for his wife, Albertine-Rose, and a bracelet from the “universe’s largest purveyor of the universe’s finest products,” Zanzivahl, for his mistress, Michelle. I drafted notes to be included with both gifts. I had Larry’s prescription for anti-depressants refilled and delivered it to him. Larry looked up at me, nodded, and smiled.

  “Keep thinking of that bonus.” He grinned. “Just think of that 10 percent, Janet.”

  I responded to some e-mails, and as I looked up again, saw the associate with whom I worked, Hannah Wellspring, standing in front of me. Hannah wasn’t entirely sure what had caused the dust storm. She’d been in the office until about 2 a.m. completing an appellate brief for Larry on a pro bono death penalty case out of Alabama.

  California had abolished the death penalty under Governor Etrusca Barrow, who had succeeded Governor Prune, and Larry and Hannah had taken on death penalty cases in other states since. The inmate we represented was due to be executed through nitrogen asphyxiation, which, Hannah said, knocks the individual immediately unconscious, and death follows shortly after that. Some states had moved to fentanyl, the opioid whose abuse was a leading cause of death in the opioid crisis, but Alabama preferred nitrogen asphyxiation.

  Our client was arguing that the lower court judgment against him was the result of ineffective assistance of counsel, and he was also arguing that death by chemical asphyxiation was a cruel and unusual punishment.

  Larry didn’t think our client would win, first, because ineffective assistance of counsel was so difficult to prove and, second, because the available evidence from animal slaughter, in which nitrogen asphyxiation was used, and from humans in the workplace who had accidentally inhaled nitrogen and collapsed, suggested a quick, painless death. Nitrogen asphyxiation was still an experimental way of killing people, so we hoped to prevail on appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.

  “The jury’s still out,” Hannah whispered at my desk. “I panicked at first, but you must always rule out alternative explanations before you settle on a conclusion, Janet. It is possible, even if somewhat unlikely, that last night’s dust storm happened because of all the military bases we have in San Diego. It is thus possible that a mini bomb blast of some sort or some nuclear cataclysm they were experimenting with on a small scale got out of hand. I ran a few searches late last night and found that in 2015 a mysterious light shot through the night sky here, and everyone thought it was the end times, or a nuclear bomb, or the alien mother ship.”

  Hannah adjusted her green-rimmed glasses, shook her head, and pursed her lips.

  “It turned out to be a missile test, Janet.” She nodded. “Anyway, I’m not retiring in San Diego. One, it’s still way too expensive here. Two, I don’t want the kids I’ll have one day inhaling nuclear or environmental debris.”

  I smiled at Hannah.

  She was the top student in her class at Condorvine College of Law, the most prestigious law school in the country. She had a gift for writing what Larry and the other partners called “the best legal briefs we’ve ever read from a young lawyer.”

  She wore form-fitting impeccably cut designer suits and designer pumps, which she ordered online. She was also kooky in the best possible sense. On Halloween her first year at the firm, she came dressed as a female superhero. When Larry told her that when she owns her own law firm one day, she can go bankrupt by dressing like her favorite cartoon character, she kept to the staid, formal wear expected of lawyers. After that, the most extraordinary things she wore were her designer eyeglasses with frames in every imaginable color.

  “Hannah,” I asked her as she stood at my desk, “do you think we’ll have another, um—”

  “Possible military blast causing a dust storm in San Diego?”

  “Sure. If that’s what it was, Hannah.”

  “Of course, anything’s possible, Janet,” Hannah said. “I’m surprised that it didn’t trigger an earthquake. We’re on the San Andreas fault. I honestly don’t know why anyone moves here. Anyway, it’s stressing me out. I must increase my comprehensive insurance coverage. There’s no way my car is getting totaled by environmental or nuclear debris. The federal government won’t pay for any damage to my car, nor will Mother Nature. I’m finding myself a boyfriend and am moving back to Cleveland. Just don’t tell Larry I said that.”

  Hannah adjusted her glasses and entered her office.

  Larry asked if Amandine or Andrew (whom we called “Andy”), the other cofounders of the firm, had come in yet. Amandine, I told him, was at a deposition in Modesto and would be out all day. Andy was taking the morning off.

  “Can you let me know when they get in?” Larry asked. “I want us to organize a fundraiser for the California Water Party sometime in the future.”

  “Sure thing, Larry.”

  3

  Can You Afford This?

  San Ysidro is named for San Ysidro Labrador, the patron saint of Madrid, Spain. From the mall at San Ysidro, you can look right into Mexico and see some of the life on the other side of the border.

  I always thought it strange that we bought our clothes at a large outlet mall abutting an international boundary.

  But who doesn’t love a good discount?

  It can make you forget almost anything. It certainly had that effect on me.

  At the outlet mall, I always went first to the “CLEARANCE” rack, aka the “FINAL MARKDOWNS” rack, aka the “SALE! SALE!! SALE!!!” rack, aka the “ABSOLUTE LAST CHANCE” rack, aka the “GET IT NOW” rack, aka the “MUST MAKE WAY FOR NEW INVENTORY” rack, aka the “ONCE IN A LIFETIME SAVINGS” rack, aka the “ROCK-BOTTOM PRICES” rack, aka the “WOW! WOW! WOW!” rack, aka the “TAKE ME HOME NOW!” rack, aka the “LOWEST PRICE EVER!” rack, aka the “NEVER AGAIN % OFF!” rack, aka the “YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS PRICE!” rack.

  I’m going to admit something a little embarrassing.

  Let me take a deep breath.

  OK.

  Here goes.

  I not only selected all of Mauru’s underwear, but I also bought them since I was the only one who ought to be appreciating the view, which I always enjoyed very much.
I don’t want to sound silly or petty, but I didn’t want to see Mauru in underwear with airplanes, boats, flags, Santa, trees, or rabbits on them, which he wouldn’t have minded at all. I also excluded all of the following. They were verboten. NO: briefs, low-rise briefs, mid-rise briefs, or high-rise briefs. SUPER NO: jockstraps. SUPER YES: boxer briefs, boxers, and trunks.

  Not only did I select Mauru’s underwear at the San Ysidro outlet mall, I also selected my own intimate wear, which Mauru helped choose. I also picked the clothes for Jon and Nate as well.

  I didn’t mind designer labels, but I didn’t go in search of them either. I was perfectly happy with a convincing knockoff that looked like the real thing, but finding a good knockoff probably ended up costing you the same in time and money as the price of the real thing at the outlet mall.

  One of my eccentric teaching assistants at the University of the Finger Lakes, whom I loved, once said that when future civilizations dig ours up we will have long turned to dust, but the designer handbags we love so much will tell part of our story on our behalf (she believed that handbags are made of such toxic materials that they are “all eternal”—don’t ask). She wondered if future civilizations will know, assuming no other records survive of us, what we do with the “tools” we call “handbags.”

  “Perhaps,” she ventured, “they’ll say we went hunting with these tools as bait or that we stored the animals we killed in them. But they’ll have to conclude that our hunting tools, the ‘handbags,’ were altogether too small and dainty to be practical. We will forever be known as the ‘Impractical Age,’ which is why we went extinct.”

  Over the years, I bought a few designer handbags at San Ysidro, but most of our money went to the kids. I loved my kids, but shopping with them at a mall was like taking feral cats to a store selling organic mice.

  One kid runs to the counter and pulls down that shiny new pair of slacks and runs around the store laughing and dragging the slacks as you chase and tell him to give the nice old lady at the checkout counter her slacks, Jon. He returns the pair of slacks eventually, which you present to the nice old lady with as many apologies as you can, and the nice old lady looks at you as if your kid has just escaped from the San Diego Zoo.

  Then the same kid, Jon again, decides to pull a stack of jeans to the ground and “hide” with a pair in the changing rooms. The other one, Nate, is screaming because, hey, you know, there’s nothing better than the sound of your own voice at the highest decibel you can imagine, especially when your mom has a headache, and your dad has just thrown his hands up in the air before collecting both hands behind his head, which he is shaking in disbelief.

  The screaming over, Nate falls asleep, and Jon comes out of hiding and pulls Nate’s ear because that’s another fun thing to do, you know, which wakes Nate up, screaming again, and people look at you like you’re just the sort of parents who end up on the evening news because a good and concerned citizen had no choice but to call the well-adjusted civil servants of the California Department of Social Services for you.

  Then it’s all quiet again on the children front, and you’re a lovely, peaceful family at which shoppers smile approvingly as you walk around the mall. Every so often, someone, usually an old lady, says, “Aren’t they such cute little buttons!” or “Oh, they’re little angels, aren’t they?” or “Aren’t you both just so lucky?” I always wanted to say, “Only if you don’t live with them,” but Mauru always got an answer in first, “Yeah. They’re just great. Thanks.”

  I think it was about eight years after the drought began in California, the same year the CWP ran again in statewide elections, got 43.9 percent of the vote, and lost to Governor Barrow and her party again in the general election.

  We’d just left the outlet mall at San Ysidro, using what we thought were back roads to get home faster, when we came upon a large and organized tent city. It was at least a couple of blocks in size.

  There were TV crews and a ton of people from the CWP. I’d say at least a hundred people or so were serving food, talking to people, providing medical care, and taking notes on electronic tablets.

  We slowed down.

  I recognized Anton Cola and Jeremiah Trehoviak from Eleena’s Story. Anton and Jeremiah were chatting with a fine man and a beautiful woman, who both looked like runway models, all of them dressed in CWP uniforms. The Army National Guard stood along the periphery as protesters with placards shouted about Armageddon, about those from out-of-state bringing “illness and death,” and about dust storms being God’s final judgment for America’s sinful ways.

  Jon wanted to know what was going on, and we told him that people were trying to find a new home for themselves because they could no longer feed and take care of themselves where they’d lived before.

  We stopped at the ConfiPrice close to our home.

  ConfiPrice only carried its own products, and it was known for high-quality, reasonably priced stuff. There was no price gouging there, workers were paid a fair wage with good benefits, and they were unionized. We bought almost all our groceries at ConfiPrice, which had stores throughout San Diego, and we also bought our baby formula and food there, sold under the store’s brand name.

  There were a few things we regularly bought.

  Mauru was Sardinian, born in Nashville, Tennessee of all places, and his family had moved to California when Mauru was three and Elisa, his sister, was about six months old. California was where there were openings for both a child psychologist and a Civil War historian.

  Mauru loved carbs, and so did I, which made us a carbs family: lots of pasta, pizza, and even, occasionally, potatoes. I also loved bread and baked goods, and so did Jon, who also loved the fresh buttermilk biscuits we bought at ConfiPrice. We had to train Jon to eat buttermilk biscuits sparingly.

  Life had many pleasures, and my husband and I enjoyed as many of them as we could.

  Let me just say that one of life’s real pleasures was buttermilk biscuits!

  Buttermilk biscuits with chicken in a mushroom sauce!

  Buttermilk biscuits with boerewors sausages in a creamy lentil sauce!

  Buttermilk biscuits with smoked salmon eggs benedict!

  Buttermilk biscuits with fresh strawberry preserves!

  ConfiPrice baked them twice daily, at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., and they were sold out by 5:30 p.m. Neither Mauru nor I were bakers—we left that to the pros—but we certainly did our part to keep at least a few local bakeries in business. (I’ll omit the part about how we once bought a bathroom scale, you know, that hideous little contraption that always makes you feel guilty, and we were forced to banish it from our condo in Rancho San Antonio for repeatedly being the bearer of bad tidings.)

  My husband’s metabolism allowed him to eat like an Olympic weightlifter, and he only put on weight in such a way that he seemed more muscular. My metabolism, however, well, let me say, no such luck.

  The “love jiggles” and “wobbles” meant that some parts of my body refused to stop moving at the same time that the rest of me did. They chose to wait for a fraction of a second more to elapse before they stopped moving, which made it appear, Mom once said in a cruel moment, like I was a little jittery. My weight, I can say with some pride, was like my bank account: only those who needed to know were granted access.

  Mauru stayed with the kids in the car while I ran into ConfiPrice.

  ConfiPrice generally charged around $5.35 for a loaf of whole-wheat bread.

  Penne sold for about $1.75 per pound.

  A dozen buttermilk biscuits sold for about $12.99.

  I walked into the air-conditioned supermarket with at least twenty-five aisles spread out before me.

  So much fun!

  Before the kids were born, I’d walk down every aisle at my leisure. I’d evaluate everything from the packaging to the appearance to the price, and I’d score everything on a scale from one to five. I’d marvel at all the countries whose labor made a supermarket so inviting, and I’d try as many new products as I could.<
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  Who knew that the cocoa in my favorite bar of chocolate was from the Ivory Coast, that the vanilla in my favorite soda was from Madagascar, and the corn I boiled and buttered with such pleasure was from Iowa. Who knew that my favorite variety of apple was from Washington State.

  (Linda Maywrot, who edited this entire book, almost deleted the preceding two paragraphs because she says I’m getting distracted. Well, Linda, I’m not getting distracted. I’m just having fun remembering the good times in my life. Oh, before I move on, I really ought to mention VLGEMP’s naughty poem called, “Squeezing Some Lychees at ConfiPrice,” which is such a riot, and it captures my relationship with ConfiPrice and supermarkets perfectly. If you can’t find it, I’ve left a copy of the original version, which is the best, with Linda Maywrot.)

  The air inside ConfiPrice was crisp and clean, and I knew that they’d filtered out the dust that often made us sneeze. I heard someone yell. It was a woman’s voice, probably in her forties or fifties.

  “Hell, no!” she yelled again in the baked goods section. “Bring your supervisor out here!”

  I walked to the baked goods section, where an employee dropped her head and looked for a supervisor.

  “Thank you for shopping at ConfiPrice,” the supervisor said. “I’m Tom. What seems to be the problem, ma’am?”

  “This,” the customer said, shaking her head furiously as she pointed at a loaf of bread, “is price gouging! I, I, I mean, I mean there’s absolutely no other way to describe what’s going on here!”

  “We value your feedback—”

  “Feedback!” She guffawed. “Feedback! Huh! Listen to this guy! Feedback! I’ve bit my tongue as you guys have increased the prices of all your baked goods. All of them. I never complain about stuff like this, and I’ve been shopping here—How long have you worked here? Go on. Tell me.”