Brokenhearted in Bakersfield

 

1 - BROKEN HEART PARK

It’s hot in Bakersfield.  A lazy heat shimmers off asphalt streets laid out flat and wide across the urban sprawl.  Downtown’s filled with boarded quickie marts and storefront churches and dilapidated American Dream homes slammed up against vacant lots heaped with rusted machinery and a lingering sense of abandonment.  On the outskirts of the city, in a sheltering hollow of low brown camel back hills, set alongside an elevated concrete freeway, sits a collection of personal mobile homes called Broken Heart Park.

Broken Heart Park is about as quiet as you’d expect.  Oh sure, there’s nights when some damn fool will drink a little too much and just for the hell of it start shootin' out someone else’s windows.  Then the law will ride on out and haul him off.  Things have a way of calming down again, and almost before you can get around to checking your own place for bullet holes your neighbor’s been sobered up and released.  It’s all just an occasional trauma; it’s life in Bakersfield.

Today I woke up like I have a thousand times before, not sure if I was aroused to wakefulness because sweat tickled the end of my nose or because it burned after marinating in my eyes.  Either way, sweat is a lot like tears, they both evaporate real quick in a dry heat.  And Bakersfield is nothing if not hot and dry.

On most days the sun beats down on our trailer homes till they ain’t much more than tin sweat lodges.  It don’t matter if you got yourself a swamp cooler or an oscillating fan, the sweltering heat will drive most folks outdoors to claim a shady spot where the warm wind dries off perspiration.  I’m usually content to remain in the cool darkness under my coach and grab a little more shuteye.

But today I was determined to rise and shine, so I slowly rolled over in the sandy soil and jimmied my butt backwards until I emerged into the blinding afternoon sun.  While standing near the place where I’d concluded the events of the night before, I massaged my eyeballs with the palms of my hands and blinked like a broken stoplight till I could see in the bright light of day.

I saw familiar brown hills and the huge interstate with its roar of cars and trucks and exhaust fumes mixing with the breeze.  I always wondered if they built that interstate and raised it up so high for other people to look down on us, or was it there to remind us the world was going somewhere fast while we wasn’t?  I pondered on this when a spark of sunlight caught my eye, and Lord help me, I suddenly realized an untended can of beer was sitting on the iron steps leading to the front door of my trailer.  If this wasn’t a mirage it was plain criminal neglect.  I paused to peek through the can hole to make sure some damn fool hadn’t dowsed a cigarette in there, or a protein bonus with wings wasn’t floating dead on the inside.  Luck was with me.  This was a perfectly good beverage containing nothing more than pure golden suds.  I took a long pull on the warm brew and washed away The Stardust memories still coating my mouth.

You might note we’re called Broken Heart Park and not anything like Broken Heart Estates or Broken Heart Acres.  In the vast and varied world of manufactured homes and prefabricated living, Estates and Acres denote a cut above your basic Park.  You won’t find deluxe swimming pools or fancy barbecue pits or public laundry facilities here.  We’re more of a community of your fixed-income, low-income, and no income types.  Most neighbors here rent their trailers by the week, although there is an envied contingent of old timers who actually own their coaches if not much else.  In Broken Heart Park we have our pride, and everybody aims real high even if we can’t shoot too straight.  Why, it seems like a day don’t go by without some neighbor who’s got another car to strip down or who’s dealing copper pipes with no questions asked.

Considering my surroundings, I was truly amazed a can of beer was still perched unmolested atop my domicile’s stoop.  Usually you don’t dare set down redemption-value aluminum for fear someone would be recycle’n it even before you was completely through with its contents.

I sighed contentedly after another slug of free beer just thinking how much I’d grown to love my home.  And I have faith that as long as that interstate stands and the Three Horned Piss Lizard smiles, my heart will always remain here in Broken Heart Park.

Pray something exciting happens.