The Pacific Had Changed Its Address

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The whole West Coast fell into the ocean on a Tuesday, and by Friday somebody was selling waterfront property in Montana.

That was America. Give it a catastrophe and seventy-two hours to find a stapler.

We drove south along the new shoreline in a turquoise convertible with one functioning headlight and an ashtray full of somebody else’s wedding rice. Alberta behind us. Montana ahead. The Pacific slapping at fence posts where cattle had lately stood around manufacturing opinions.

Beside me, Annie watched the water.

“I lived over there,” she said.

She pointed at a wave.

You couldn’t argue with an address like that.

Oregon was gone. Every wet little town, every moss-covered roof, every fellow who’d put DON’T CALIFORNICATE OREGON on his bumper and figured that settled the territorial question.

The Californians had come anyway, hauling patio furniture and the terrible suspicion that happiness might be cheaper farther north.

Now everybody was farther east.

The ocean had settled the argument without attending a single public meeting.

Down in New Mexico, New Los Angeles spread across the desert in a million separate attempts to get comfortable. Tarpaulins snapped above swimming pools dug without water. Former producers pitched disaster pictures to former dentists. A man sold maps of the drowned city, waterproof for an additional five dollars.

At night the refugee towers glowed turquoise and gold. They’d built balconies because people needed somewhere to stand and remember having a view.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were rewriting “Californication” on a plywood stage behind the water-distribution depot.

No one could agree whether the song had predicted anything.

A fellow beside the generator said prediction was easy after the equipment got wet.

The bass started. Somewhere in that huge exhausted camp a woman lifted both arms. Then another. Soon people were dancing between the water barrels, their numbered bracelets flashing, their bodies remembering something their paperwork had left out.

Annie climbed onto the hood.

“Come on.”

I told her I was watching the car.

“The car’s watching the ocean.”

And it was. Chrome mouth open. Headlights fixed on that impossible western distance.

I climbed up beside her.

For a minute I could almost see Oregon out there beneath the dark: kitchen tables, fir trees, a bicycle leaning against a grocery store. All those little arrangements people make with the world.

Annie put her hand against my chest to steady herself.

The hood buckled.

We laughed so hard the man guarding the water came over to see what we had.