Where Serpents Lie (Revised March 2013) by T. Jefferson Parker Page B
Authors: T. Jefferson Parker
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have been an artist’s conception of Everyman. I folded the sheets neatly and put them in the inside pocket of my sport coat.
Back inside I got another drink and made the rounds. I put in a good word for our part of the sheriff’s budget with Lucille and Ingardia; they control our purse strings, sort of. I suggested to one of the Disneyland executives that some kind of abused kids’ night might be a nice PR stunt for the theme park and the Sheriffs. I felt good. I introduced Ishmael to a Times editor I know, with the idea the editor might want to hear about the new Sheriff Department Web site that Ishmael and some of his cohorts are working overtime to establish. Ish silently fumed at my farming out a media source to him, which pleased me. I bought another drink for myself, and one for Peter Stowe, who works for the Irvine Company, which is the county’s largest landowner. We talked about this new “developer/environmentalist” agreement that would set aside certain county acreage to preserve endangered species, while opening up other parts of it for houses, industrial parks and what have you. The Times and the Register —Orange County’s two major dailies—had both recently gushed about the sexy way the builders and the environmentalists had jumped into the same bed. Basically, the Orange County press is for developing the county until the last blade of grass is gone, though they publish photo-heavy, love-the-land features that suggest otherwise. To me the new land agreement looked like a good deal for the Irvine Company, and I said so, and Peter Stowe said, smoothly, “Of course it is, or we wouldn’t have made it.”
I smiled and clicked his glass in a fit of bonhomie I immediately regretted. Truth be told, I kind of hate the Irvine Company and all the development interests who’ve had carte blanche in this county since the beginning of time. It really was a beautiful, logical, functional place once, and I sorely miss that era. I grew up here and I feel vested in this place: my family is here, my blood and history, my dreams and disappointment, my co-mortgage—shared with Melinda. So I’m a little dour about people like Peter Stowe, and his easy confidence, and the way that people like him and companies like his always, always get what they want here.
Orange County has a rural, agrarian history, but it has become a tightly packed grid of suburbs that even now—and I’m not sure why this is—continues to be an in-demand place to live. The traffic is as bad as Los Angeles County, our neighbor to the north, and the air is every bit as contaminated. Crime rates are high. Property is expensive, though not as expensive as it used to be. The developers and county politicians are trying to jam a new international airport—fifth largest in the nation—down the throats of about a million people in south Orange County who voted against it. A few people will make a lot of money from it, though there is a perfectly good airport—just recently opened—about five miles away. More customers, is what it all boils down to. County “business leaders” brought us to this saturation point with earnest vigor, and they have not stopped yet. They’re not really leaders; they’re opportunists with an eye, always, on the bottom line.
The governing board of supervisors, for instance—of which Ingardia is the newest member—is a drowsy but powerful group of men and women who have been selling off county interests to developers for the better part of a century. The board’s names and faces change with the years, but their collective history is a discernible thing. A few years ago they were so enmeshed in their own concerns—like hobnobbing here at Tonello’s—that none of them took the time to understand that our near senile tax collector-treasurer was taking insane gambles with public money. Of course, he lost a lot of it—close to $2 billion—and the supervisors quickly denied responsibility for the problem. When
Back inside I got another drink and made the rounds. I put in a good word for our part of the sheriff’s budget with Lucille and Ingardia; they control our purse strings, sort of. I suggested to one of the Disneyland executives that some kind of abused kids’ night might be a nice PR stunt for the theme park and the Sheriffs. I felt good. I introduced Ishmael to a Times editor I know, with the idea the editor might want to hear about the new Sheriff Department Web site that Ishmael and some of his cohorts are working overtime to establish. Ish silently fumed at my farming out a media source to him, which pleased me. I bought another drink for myself, and one for Peter Stowe, who works for the Irvine Company, which is the county’s largest landowner. We talked about this new “developer/environmentalist” agreement that would set aside certain county acreage to preserve endangered species, while opening up other parts of it for houses, industrial parks and what have you. The Times and the Register —Orange County’s two major dailies—had both recently gushed about the sexy way the builders and the environmentalists had jumped into the same bed. Basically, the Orange County press is for developing the county until the last blade of grass is gone, though they publish photo-heavy, love-the-land features that suggest otherwise. To me the new land agreement looked like a good deal for the Irvine Company, and I said so, and Peter Stowe said, smoothly, “Of course it is, or we wouldn’t have made it.”
I smiled and clicked his glass in a fit of bonhomie I immediately regretted. Truth be told, I kind of hate the Irvine Company and all the development interests who’ve had carte blanche in this county since the beginning of time. It really was a beautiful, logical, functional place once, and I sorely miss that era. I grew up here and I feel vested in this place: my family is here, my blood and history, my dreams and disappointment, my co-mortgage—shared with Melinda. So I’m a little dour about people like Peter Stowe, and his easy confidence, and the way that people like him and companies like his always, always get what they want here.
Orange County has a rural, agrarian history, but it has become a tightly packed grid of suburbs that even now—and I’m not sure why this is—continues to be an in-demand place to live. The traffic is as bad as Los Angeles County, our neighbor to the north, and the air is every bit as contaminated. Crime rates are high. Property is expensive, though not as expensive as it used to be. The developers and county politicians are trying to jam a new international airport—fifth largest in the nation—down the throats of about a million people in south Orange County who voted against it. A few people will make a lot of money from it, though there is a perfectly good airport—just recently opened—about five miles away. More customers, is what it all boils down to. County “business leaders” brought us to this saturation point with earnest vigor, and they have not stopped yet. They’re not really leaders; they’re opportunists with an eye, always, on the bottom line.
The governing board of supervisors, for instance—of which Ingardia is the newest member—is a drowsy but powerful group of men and women who have been selling off county interests to developers for the better part of a century. The board’s names and faces change with the years, but their collective history is a discernible thing. A few years ago they were so enmeshed in their own concerns—like hobnobbing here at Tonello’s—that none of them took the time to understand that our near senile tax collector-treasurer was taking insane gambles with public money. Of course, he lost a lot of it—close to $2 billion—and the supervisors quickly denied responsibility for the problem. When
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