Barstow

There are buildings in the purple distance, barely discernible in a faint moonlight. Their nondescript squat roofs render them similar to all the other ranch huts that have dotted the desert since Bakersfield. They are almost beyond mentioning, but they continue to outgrow the proportions typical of a horse stable. In a second glance, they appear back-lit by an unearthly glow. Their silhouettes are rendered in a foggy orange. The driver speeds closer, the buildings grow larger.

He is close enough now to make out the words –or for him, the familiar partial-boxes of what appear to be words- on a sign fixed atop one of the buildings: “Ranchero Granada Metal Works”. One of those English-Spanish hybrids, evident of Spain’s once-ownership of the land, it might as well be German for all the driver can tell.

“Ranch! Ah’v never seen a ranch lit up like this. How do th’horses git ta sleep a’night?!”

The corrugated metal walls of the warehouses –out of place on any ranch- continue to expand in length and height, and they look as if they will come right out onto the road and block the driver’s way. A yellow, weathered sign is briefly caught in his high beams. It reads, “Caution- Slow Moving Vehicles Ahead”.

The entire works is lit up like day. At the point where the giant warehouses abut the highway, there is a gated entrance and a guard station. Beyond those, massive stadium lights rise up, holding vigil in an orange haze. There is all manner of steam, dust, and smoke brewing up from within the light, giving it the effect of an enormous cauldron. The sight is so overwhelming that the driver hasn’t yet noticed the sour sting of sulfur and other, more putrid gases. Now it clears his nose and brings tears to his eyes.

“This’s Ga’awful.” The latticework of smokestacks and gangways become a blur as the driver’s eyes water over and he has to fight just to keep them open. The trusty Chevrolet pickup, however, is impervious to the stench, and carries on, determined and quaking.

A fog horn, rattling the gut of anyone around to hear it, brings the driver back to the road. A wall of pipes atop a truck-bed, stacked lengthwise, blocks half the highway, no more than fifty yards from the driver. He can make out some sort of dark barrier ahead, but not much more than that.