4. The Glass Path

 

4. The Glass Path

“He lives out here, the old man and his two dogs.  I ‘m not sure, suddenly he just appears.  That must have been him we saw moving around last night.” Glynda said.  For a full five minutes they had watched whoever it was stumble tentatively through the darkness before the light blinked one last time and went away.  “Come on, I want to show you something.”  The sleeping loft was surprisingly spacious, Jason thought, wishing that he had drunk less wine.  A little hard to get out of.  “What day is it?”

“Ha-ha, I know.  Monday.  The election’s tomorrow.  What time do you have to be at the Library?  Did that time change mess you up?  It did me.  Come on, let’s go.”  She was right, mornings were getting prettier these days.   The sun was up over the hills now, giving the vacant land to the south of them a softer, more inviting look.  Two crows circled the eucalyptus tree and flew on.  He held Glynda’s hands as they stepped down the bluff to the service road below.

“It’s got to be the weirdest beach ever.  We won’t go down there, it’s old roadway rubble and grotty metal things buried in the sand and stuff that has washed ashore.  But the birds like it.   I see oystercatchers and turnstones a lot of times.  There’s a lot of broken glass, which is what I’m going to show you, especially down at the other end.”

“They always come out here.”   A row of bushes took over where the tall grass ended, but you could see the path worn by the old man and his dogs close up when you got there.  “Those crows were scanning for the redtail that likes to sit in the eucalyptus.  This whole area must have been bulldozed in at some point.”

“Yeah, your theory,”  Jason said.   “Could be.  We used to buy our Christmas trees from a lot down here. Big family fights over exploitation and pagan observances.   Are you still planning to be in Santa Barbara at Christmas?”  I don’t know yet, she said, about the best she could do.  “Because,” Jason persisted, “I’m still thinking, I might come down.”

She felt suddenly helpless, as hopeless as ever, she hoped it didn’t show.  “That would be splendid,” she said.  Even with the thousand dollars.  He was right, she didn’t really want to go, could it be that he now really did?  “Native plants people have been pulling weeds again, I see.”  Tangled heaps of wild radish lined the bay trail, the work of John and his crew.

They walked by the big willow tree that Glynda had noticed before and descended a short path to the shore.   Here the bay waters ended, restrained by a rocky barrier.  Parallel to it, a large concrete storm drain emerged from the landfill and poked out into the water.   A short gravel beach arched away, sparkling in the morning sun.  “It’s glass!  Sea glass.  See how worn it is?”

“It’s the action of the pebbles, of course,”  Jason explained.  “Wow.”  There were four colors, five if you counted clear.  Lighter than stone, the shards had been worn flat and heaped upward by high tides.  You could almost see the physics involved.  He reached down and let a handful of the small pieces dribble through his fingers, white, green, blue, brown.    “Wow.  I never knew this was here.”

“I saw the light glittering off the beach from up on the trail,” Glynda said with some pride.  “There’s just so much of it.  I wonder if they had a glass factory here or something.   A little further down the beach is where I got those shells.”

“See,” Glynda said, “It’s eroding.   A hundred feet or so down the steep bank began, layers of dirt and stone interspersed with bits of glass and ceramic.   Maybe it’s all landfill.  Oh my god, look, the rim of a buried tyre.   I feel quite like an archaeologist.”

In fact they could see the evidence of digging—heaps of loose dirt excavated from the base of the six-foot tall coastal bluff with sticks and screwdrivers by those who seek intact noxema jars and liquor bottles, perhaps even an antique or two.  It’s very therapeutic.  Glynda had met a couple of these “delvers,” on her walks, Scott and Carmen, Scott picking at the bank industriously while Carmen sat and smoked pot.  Scott had found a lot of intact bottles, she told Jason.

Jason still couldn’t get the hydraulics off his mind,  Rounded and polished like gemstones by the constant action of the waves, the gleaming shards were strewn along the shore in casual natural ribbons.  He stooped again to retrieve a particularly interesting piece, hesitated, nearly put it into his pocket, then let it drop.  Then he remembered.  “There was a pile of colored glass like this back on the trail.”

Scott had thought perhaps a factory, she summarized.  She also talked a lot with the fisherman, who liked to cast for “stripers” when the tide was high.  “Did you see something else back there?”

The traces were faint but unsubtle, a scattering of clear glass shards, untempered by time, lay on top of  this summer’s bent grass growth on the interior side.  This way.  Jason and Glynda exchanged glances.  “You first.”

It’s really not that scary, though watch your step.