He would lay in his bed on hot summer nights when it was 110 degrees and cough on the dry air wishing he was dead he felt so suffocated by the endless nothing that was Bakersfield. He lived a loveless, alienated, heartbreaking life in the desert. His father had left. His mother was concerned with other things. A desert isn’t like a forest, where a person can escape amongst the trees, creeks, and escape at the sight of a deer or an animal scurrying up a tree. It isn’t like living on the edge of the ocean where a person can swim, see waves crashing in, and look at the sun rising or setting on an endless blue stage. It isn’t like growing up in the Midwest amongst farms where one sees endless corn and beans being grown to provide sustenance for humanity. The Rust Belt even though it has its streets of rusted factories, cities full of empty houses, it is still wooded and a short drive by car can get you to the forest, large rivers and to The Great Lakes.

But these are not the conditions under which everyone achieves a sense of satisfaction; not everyone looks to become “quiet and easy.” There are people, in fact, who would describe such ostensive certitude—the ability to indicate success via pointing—as matters of mimicry and obedience. Or as something boring.