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"Hey Honey!" the blond lady calls in her voice, rough from years of cigarette smoking. She leans out the window of the passenger side of the late 70's sports car, brand unplaceable. "How far is Lompoc from here?" she asks.

I take the scene in, called back from my contemplation of the sea just after dusk. I shouldn't have parked at this overlook, I think, it says "No Parking Sunset to Sunrise." If there is still a little daylight, it isn't really sunset, is it?

"I don't really know," I apologize, the man whose frizzy blond beard and kinky hair tell me immediately he is a hippie throwback, looks back over his shoulder at her, and shakes his head.
"Come on," she cajoles. To me, "It isn't far, is it?"

"I don't know, 20 to 30 minutes maybe?" I guess and calmly look back over the sea.
"See?" she reiterates to her reticent companion. She wants him to go with her to look at her new house.
There is a light smell of tobacco and a large black truck sits to my left, windows cracked and voices and radio commingle. The ocean is a limpid grey like the color of my beloved cat, smooth, like the edge of a gurney, but the edges blend into nothingness. Across the water she claims that there is a sailboat, and asks him why he can't see it. He says it is an oil rig. In my head I agree with him. I don't see a sailboat either. There are no waves and I look down on the houses of the privileged few, the multimillionaire homes with perfectly manicured grass, intricate tile patterns on the roof, garden verandahs. I think of Carey's house on Cape Ann.

"Is that Campus Point?" he speaks 10 feet across the thick fog air. I keep my chin up, shoulders back, relaxed. "I don't know. "Maybe. I don't come here much."
"Oh?"
"I usually don't drive."
"You let someone else drive you," the woman interjects, playfully tilting her head out the window like a teenage girl, not at all like the 45 year-old woman that she must be. "You ever been to Chumash Casino?"
"No, well once, I mean, I drove by it once. No, I just ride my bike to work."
"I think it is campus point. I went to UCSB... graduated from there," he continues his speculation.
"Where's that?" she asks me.
I am suddenly keenly aware of the ten feet between us. The black truck has gone. Why am I giving them any information at all?
"Are you good with computers?" the Abby Hoffman look-alike asks.
I get uneasy, why oh why oh why am I trained to be polite? I start to imagine him as a Charles Manson double, his partner in crime playing the ditzy artist. I review the contents of my stomach, oh God, I shouldn't have eaten at the Habit, I envision the analysis of my stomach contents when they pull my lifeless body from the ditch.
"Not so much."
"Can you look up the **** you can see it's a collection of all kinds of prophecies."He babbles on about prophesies, George Washington's prophetic vision.
"When do the students start dumping their stuff over there?" she asks.
"In June." I try hard to keep everything within the realm of normalcy. Freud's Uncanny pops into my mind.
"They've changed things over there, huh? They have new bins for the stuff. I've gotten all kinds of stuff the students leave behind, televisions, computers..."
"The benefits of conspicuous consumption." I comment wryly.
"The catalogue is only $5, I bet it'd be really interesting reading."
"Right on," I hedge, nodding slightly, not moving, but flitting my eyes across the horizon, I could throw myself into the bramble over the cliff and catch myself before falling to my death, I think, I can't run down the hill, it is totally isolated. It is getting dark. What do I do?
"It's all gonna be over in 2 and a half years," he gleefully insists, "We're going to go to war with China over Taiwan."
"Guess we better live a good two and a half years then," I laugh, nervously, but hiding it well.
"You're from the East Coast," he states.
"Couldn't you tell?"
"Yes, you don't fit here, that's why I asked."
"She's from the East Coast!" he calls enthusiastically to his partner-in-crime. "You're the second girl we met today from there. The other was in Montecito."
"Right on." perfect verbal fodder. I offer nothing, I mark no visible linguistic distance, and yet, I concede to nothing. Cortazar has a wonderful essay about victims being complicit in the crime against them, walking down the dark alley, and resisting the urge to bolt because of decorum, politenes, God this is stupid, I need to get out of here, the darkness is almost complete.
"I made a flyer, all by myself."
"Nice." I begin to edge farther away. He doesn't move, if he does I'll bolt.
"I'm gonna go over and hand out thousands of them, I just ran out. Too bad, I'd give you one."
"No worries," I try to be as noncommittal and nonchalant as possible. I could run, I could run. Run where? Nowhere. The woman isn't interjecting her commentary, what if she's the one who binds the victims? What is wrong with me? I have read too many crime novels, but this is creepy. Creepy. I need to go. Now.
"Well," I say, as I wrap my hand tightly around my keys, brandishing them as secret weapons against this unnamed assailant, who isn't. The talk on Lacan comes back to me, the strangeness, the idea that a completely known situation can suddenly become strange, and this realization of disconcert is what makes us uneasy, it makes manifest our lack, "I'm gonna get going. Good luck." I say over my shoulder, as an afterthought, never fully turning my back as I walk across the street.
"To you too," he calls, never unfriendly, but the wild eyed look and talk about prophesy is enough to frighten me, there are plenty of perfectly nice madmen whose personal god tells them that they need nice young women to sacrifice. Images of the slack-breasted skins of flayed women that the Aztec priests donned in ritual war festivals that we were discussing just this afternoon fill my thoughts. My head feels light, like yesterday. I can get to my car and lock the door. If I lock the door I can get out of here, but it is a sharp curve, and I don't know what is up the hill, maybe a dead end. I can't afford a dead end. Better go back down, to civilization. "God bless you." Words that fall like steel rain. I have heard those words before. They always send a shiver down my spine.
I stride confidently across the pavement and sit quickly in the driver's seat, pushing the lock with my elbow and automatically locking all the doors. He calls and makes a motion for me to stop, acts like he is going to come towards me as he pulls at his back door. I ignore it, turn over the ignition, rev the engine and pretend that we haven't spoken. The spell of politeness has snapped, I don't have to be polite anymore, I am back in my car, my own space. I pull a hard U. I love my tight steering radius. They are left behind, the white car with black windows. I go a little too quickly down the hill, but I am back by the beach and then back near the highway. They are not behind me, I check several times. I resist the urge to call for comfort, there is no comfort anymore. I am going home to an empty house. Going home, going home alive.