The Salvage Yard

(First published February 2015)

That stoner's stupid junk pile sits right in the middle of my limited access arterial.

Sammy Simpson rapped his Perea High School class ring on his desk a couple times and Ace rolled his eyes.  Sammy had started doing the ring thing after watching House of Cards.

All he cared about was getting his road. Access through from the freeway was impossible.  His father, Alva, had sold-off large lots without easements and those owners didn't want or need a six lane road. Neither did Cozy Y Ranchette owners in the valley. Who would?

That left the the old gas station and salvage yard north of the hacienda. And that big pile of crap.

It was a huge and made of wrecks: cars, trucks, buses and military vehicles. It started after Chocky got a grant to clean-up the place after the restaurant burned. All those rusting hulks were drained and stripped and arranged for  permanent removal. Only that last part never happened. So the pile got over 180' high and the base covered a half-acre.

It got to be sort of a tourist attraction. A paved path led between and up through the Chevys and Fords and Volvos. At the very top was a terrace and school bus apartments he rented on Airbnb. People got married up there.

The way he did it with contrasting horizontal bands of brown rusted cars and white enamel refrigerators and stoves, from a distance, it looked like a castle.