Santiago Canyon Road – Early Autumn

Posted on October 5, 2005 in Driving

Darkness right at the entrance of Santiago Canyon Road, where the tollway did its over the hill and under the street. The other truck — a dark Dodge — kept hugging the blind spot on my right, so I let him pass. As I sped through the narrows between the tollway and the county dump, a gust of wind slapped both of us. I saw him slide to the right and then swerve to the left to avoid a cop car pulling over a SUV.

I let the Dodge put some distance between us. My eyes muddied from the dirt mixing with the tears. We won’t talk about the condition of my nose. Bits of the chaparral found their way into my sealed cab, nesting in the corners of my eyes at times when I needed to make a critical maneuver. Somehow I managed to rub them clean and proceed in safety.

At the mouth of every side canyon, the Santa Ana shoved my truck to the right. Each thin valley threw out handfuls of orange sycamore leaves, tiny fires that only lit the night when my headlights flashed over them.