Igneous Range

There are few pleasures more terrible than the waking of the Sink on a summer morning. The air has warmth that seems to whisper of the heat of the day, yet comforts as it haunts. The light of roads, the farms, the combines, and the trucks are scattered over the flat expanse like boats on a great, placid sea. One imagines the machine of Valley agriculture to be a sleeping dragon, both terrible and beautiful, and like the dragon, never sleeping very deeply on its treasure mound.

Above the yellow haze of pre-dawn lights, a blue glow appears above the profile of the Range. The glow grows imperceptibly brighter, until spears of white light shoot skyward, heralding the impending arrival of the sun. When the sun arrives, everything is blinded, and the soft hues of dawn are usurped by the glare and deep shadows of the day. The driving becomes strained and dangerous. The dragon is no longer feigning sleep.

The drive from Mojave to Tehachapi is surprisingly short. This is because the lowest dip of the tail of the Range lies immediately beneath one’s wheels. Mehran looked up at the ridges, wondering whether the distant figurines were all joshua trees, or whether some of them were Indians poised for an ambush.

The descent into the Sink, though an easy, almost welcoming descent, is quite extended. There is no missing the fact that it’s a long way down. From the top, one enjoys a serpentine escort, as twin rails wind in broad coils and cut through the mountains. Leaving the breezy high desert behind, one meets a stagnant, purple blanket of trapped exhausts, herbicides, and pesticides. It is nothing new. Smog has been a companion of the Basin as long as fire itself, and it’s not just bad air that it traps.

Summer always arrives a little early in the Sink. The air is hot, dry, yet stale and sticky. Mehran came down with the valley fever as soon as his family moved into their new home. He sat coughing, looking out his bedroom window through the heat of the day into the viral suburbs. He’d come from the desert where he was accustomed to wandering in every direction and following every mirage with a boyish relish. Now he looked out from his aching eyes to see a maze of cubes, each an impenetrable fortress. He labored to breathe.

The mountain streams from the Kings to the Kern once knew the Lake like other streams know the ocean. The lake itself would spill over its natural spillways into the San Joaquin River in spring, keeping its water relatively free of salinity. It was not a park-like place. The lake was a massive breeding ground for malarial mosquitoes. Every summer, as the river flows dropped, the retreating shores of the lake would leave a plain of rotting fish carcasses where the lake had previously been.

Ever since the harvesters reclaimed the lakebed, it’s been hard to think of the lake in the same way. The maps today might represent the lake, but there’s no reason to label the Sink. It’s just the southern San Joaquin Valley today, but if you spend any time there, you can still tell the difference. You can still feel the lake water in the air every time you inhale.