Rancho Duro had started in the early Noughties as a homeless encampment on the hardscrabble ground of a demolished grain elevator. It expanded, partially contracted, expanded more as the nation’s economy fizzled and sparked. By the time Clay arrived it had swelled to twelve acres of tents, plywood huts, and camper shells only a mile and half west of his mother’s house.  

He approached a woman sitting on a hard chair unraveling a sweater.

“Your mother? She’ll be an OBG,” the lady said, examining his bike. “So, I’d start over at Pacheco.”

He removed his sunglasses, met her eyes. “I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Pacheco’s so-called because it’s near to the elementary school of that name. It’s over in that direction.” She pointed. “They got better facilities there for folks like your mom.” 

“Like my mom?”

“No offense, but, what are you, sir? Pushing forty? So your mom, she’s gonna be an OBG.”  

He took a deep breath. He couldn’t blame the grim reality of Rancho Duro on this woman. He’d just have to hope that Mom didn’t live here. But where did that leave him, and more crucially, her? “An OBG?” 

“OBG’s your Oldie But Goodie. Now, if you jog left of the camper over there and try to weave your way straight, when you get to the mare turn left, keep asking for Pacheco.”

“The mare?”

“Yeah, the mare.”

“What’s a horse doing in the middle of… this?” His arm swept across a swath of the plywood, canvas and tin can city.

The woman laughed so hard she dropped her half-undone sweater. He waited to find out what was so funny. Finally, the last few spasms subsided and she said, “Not clip clop mare, speech-making mayor.”

“The Mayor of Sacramento lives here?” Why did he feel dizzy? 

“No, Mayor of RD. Once upon a time she ran for Big Mayor, you know, Sacramento itself. That was some time ago.”

 “What’s with the sweater?” he said, after a long sigh; something about her busy hands, the sweater disappearing, got on his nerves.

She shook her head “No yarn now so I just keep knitting and unknitting. Kinda sums it all up, doesn’t it?”

He made his way in and out of the make-shift alleys. OBG’s, young families, teenagers hanging out, sullen prime of life unemployed men and women, all engaged in keep-busy activities, cards, knitting, darts, guitar picking, scavenging projects, rock tossing games. In no time he had perfected the Rancho Duro nod, curt, sympathetic, with echoes of “can you believe this?” and “we’ll get there”. 

He had no trouble finding the Mayor’s tent. It attracted a flow of people to the end of an orderly line. The Mayor was a large black woman. She sat in a deckchair in the shade, listening, nodding, but taking in the scene. He returned her vague bow. Hers said, You’ll be in this line before it’s over.  

After nearly an hour a card player escorted him to a cart man whose job was to deliver USG meals to the sedentary OBGs.

“I know an Elaine,” the cart man said. “She’s in a camper over in WTF. You’re her son?” 

He grunted and nodded at the same time. So, Mom actually lived here, unless it was a different Elaine, living in the California equivalent of a South African township. 

“Her house has been taken from her.” 

“Mine too. We tried to fight it, Hetty and me, but…”

The walk took forever. Abruptly his guide rolled out his hand and stepped back. That lady sitting right there was Mom? No, it couldn’t be? His mother, always a stylish dresser, wearing a shiny blue track suit? He could imagine one of her wry comments. I’m too old to go out for the Olympics. She sat in a fold-up chair in a strip of sunlight between her camper shell and the tent next door, her right arm resting along the chair, hand dangling, her lapis lazuli ring catching the light. At least the locusts hadn’t stripped her of that.    

 “Mom.” She wasn’t asleep but didn’t respond. A blue tarp threw a bouncy submarine light over the dirt area in front of the camper and a picnic table, on top of which sat a bony-faced man, late teens, with quick jittery eyes and long brown hair that fell lankly from a haphazard central part. 

“Mom,” he said again.

She rubbed her forehead as if a rash was there. The young man hopped down and ambled over to her. “I think you’ve had enough sun, Elaine. Let’s get you some shade.”

“Where’ve you been, Bruce?” 

“Been right here.”

The kid got her to her feet. The way he handled her, the contact familiar, gentle.  “Elaine?” he said, after he’d relocated her under the dancing blue tarp world. “Elaine? This man just called you Mom.” 

Bruce disappeared into the camper, left Clay alone with her.

“Remember me, Mom?”

“’Course I do.” She squinted at him uncertainly.

“I’ve cycled all the way from San Francisco to see you,” he said to fill the silence.  

Bruce came back out of the camper with a fold-out chair, handed it over.

“And who exactly are you, Bruce?”

Bruce raised his hands in mock arrest. “Just a neighbor comes by from time to time.” 

“Bruce here looks after my interests.” A sudden burst of clarity, which took her more focused eyes to her son. “C’mon son, give your mother a peck or two.” 

Already she was fading, her eyes clouding over. A rank and musky odor as he kissed her, no trace of her normal perfume. The knees of her track suit were stiffly accordioned, her zip-up top stained with food. 

“Are you getting enough to eat, Mom?”

“Uh huh.” 

“What happened to Mrs. Hernandez?”

“Does she live around here?” she asked Bruce. 

“She’s probably back in Mexico,” Bruce said. He sat on the picnic table, body hunched, throwing his face forward, gaunt in the tarp’s blue light. 

“Mexico’s better than here?”

“Just as fu… messed up, only they’ve had like two hundred years to know how to deal with it.”  

 Clay looked up into the clear sky, trying to come up with more questions, trying to convince himself they were worth asking. A low chatter from the tent next door, the sound of cards being shuffled, and from somewhere a baby starting to cry with the loud insistent whine of a being that has figured out that what it needs is not on offer.

“What about medication?” he asked Bruce. “She needs that thyroid drug.”

“Levothyroxine. Only factory that’s making it is over in India. There’s some boat supposed to be on its way. I check every week. Don’t I Elaine?” 

Elaine followed a starling as it coasted to a perch on tent line next door, her eyes clouding over again. 

“But what about now?”

“We’re doing every other day until the ship comes in.” Bruce glanced at him, met his eyes. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Muller approved it. She’s the retired nurse that covers WTF.”

“WTF?”

“This part of RD is called that ‘cause its next to the Waste-to-Fuel plant.”

“And the boat’s on the water? You know that?” He sighed. Why was he giving Bruce such an inquisition? This overgrown gamer had obviously done a lot more for Mom than he had. “I can’t believe it’s the third world that’s coming to our rescue.”

“Yeah…”