The roadside cafe is art deco and aquamarine. They serve date shakes, date cream pie. I-8, we're closer to Mexico than Gila Bend or Yuma. Today it's not 120. But it's hot as an oven and too dry to sweat. Tony's sleeping in the bunk with the truck idling for the AC. If nothing else would drive me out, it would be the vibration. The vibration of the truck eats plastic. It eats everything eventually. And I have my dog. I have Tip who's on the lamb. Vicious Dog Propensity. He's a marble merle between a Chou and a Australian Sheperd. An ankle nipper. And Tip needs to get out. Even with the sun rays horizontal on the brown desert rocks, I need shade like my life depends on it. One more time I walk past the No Trepassing. Tip and I walk right under the dates. Pow: a living ceiling of fans spreads high over our heads. Not one weed grows in the thick sand between the palms. We saunter avenues. There is a whispering. Ditches of water bathe the roots of trees. Birds sing in the branches. Light hushes, twinkles behind the curtain of fronds. Tip and I, in the courtyard of an Oasis. I laugh out loud, but quietly.
In the morning, I will take Tony to the gift shop. Boxes of Medjool, Khadrawy, Halawi.
Tony is skeptical. Tony is from a fishing village on Cape Cod where the houses are white. Whales are gray. Only the lobster are red.
Dates are ancient. They contain magic.
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