Devil Wind
written by: Tracy Shawn
Maureen Wilder fingers her puka shell necklace. As the feverish October morning presses down, her throat constricts. She wonders why the dread has gotten worse. Maybe it’s because of having turned seventeen last week—the age she had always imagined she’d finally feel at ease. The age when everything was going to make sense. But nothing, so far, has changed.
She scurries to her VW bug and revs up its engine. With their high-pitched voices squeezing through the radio’s static, the Bee Gees croon about staying alive. Maureen frowns, but she doesn’t want to take her hand off the wheel to change stations and hopes the next song won’t be disco. Wind jets through the window, whipping her straw-colored hair across her face. The car strays just a bit over the yellow line. Still, she jerks the wheel and taps the brake. She must keep everything steady.
Even though her back is sticky with sweat, goose bumps tingle her forearm, a weird reaction that happens every time the Santa Ana winds forge their arid flight from Mojave Desert to the coast. She doesn’t want to be late to first period, so she steps on the gas. But just as she’s about to enter Pacific Coast Highway, Maureen slows down and turns the car around, surprised by her own actions. She has never ditched school before.
Once she’s back on the driveway, she sits in her car for several minutes, enjoying the thought that no one knows where she is. Then, with a conflicting sense of exhilaration and regret, she heads back to the house. After she shuts the front door against the morning’s light and enters the indoor dim, Maureen wonders if she’s made a mistake. If she had gone to school, at least she would have been around other people. But it’s too late now. Resigned, she plops her backpack by her feet. For a moment she stares at its ink-stained corner against the white shag carpet and smiles. She knows how much this would upset her mother, Joy, whose ongoing unhappiness envelops her like an invisible shroud. Though Joy (Maureen likes to refer to her mother by her first name when she’s not around—even when it’s just inside her own head) is as skinny as a snake, she’s staying the week at some weight loss spa in Ojai.
Her father is supposed to be traveling alone on one of his business trips, but Maureen guesses he’s brought his newest secretary along—probably somebody with some sunshiny name like Susan or Linda. Even with her parents’ bedroom door closed, she’s heard her mother questioning him about late-night phone calls and innuendos that have slipped out of the cocktail-party mouths of his partners’ wives. Yet he always talks her mother down, always convinces her that she’s overreacting. How pathetic Joy is in her eagerness to swallow his lies. But Maureen has often wondered about her mother’s cloudy logic and self-defeating decisions. For instance, why Joy named her own daughter after Maureen’s paternal grandmother, a sour-faced old lady who dotes on Maureen’s father—but despises Joy—is beyond Maureen. She’d never name her own kid after someone who couldn’t stand her.
Shrugging, Maureen imagines changing her name once she moves out. But right now, she’s stuck under her parents’ roof. She slogs into the kitchen and opens the fridge. Tilting her head, she wonders if she should invade her mother’s Tab supply but remembers the saccharin aftertaste; instead, she pours herself a glass of cold water and mixes in a tablespoon of Tang. She saunters from kitchen to living room, fighting back a sudden urge: What if she let the Tang slip from her hand? How satisfying would it be to watch the orange liquid seep into the frosty-white carpet? She shakes her head, grips the glass.
Sighing, she tells herself she needs a distraction, something to make her feel as if she’s part of the world. She turns on the stereo’s receiver and dials the knob until a decent song comes through. Over the speakers, which stand like mini black towers sinking into the shag, David Bowie sings about a young American who questions if he’s still too young. Maureen warbles along but then stops—even if she’s all by herself, she’s still embarrassed by the sound of her own voice. She glances at the couch but is too antsy to sit. Though the music is blaring, the house seems fairytale still—a place where nothing real is ever going to happen. A gull’s cry permeates through the French door. She steps within inches of the threshold and presses her forehead against the smooth heat of the glass, craving escape.
She heads to her bedroom to find the nest of bikini, terry cloth shorts, T-shirt, and towel tangled next to her beanbag chair. Quickly, she whips her clothes off and then wiggles into her beach garb. An unexplainable panic makes her feel as if she isn’t moving fast enough. She stops briefly to scrunch her toes around the plastic bands of her green flip-flops and races to the front door.
Once outside, the rush of nervous energy subsides. The way sunlight gleams off the driveway makes it seem like summer has returned. She smiles, takes a deep breath, and wheels her bike from the garage. But when she notices her neighbor’s eucalyptus tree with its silvery-gray branches, she stops. Maybe something bad will happen if she doesn’t go to school. Her heart races, and she tries to soothe herself by envisioning how easy it would be to forge a tardy excuse. Eyes stinging, she rolls the bike back. Before she opens the garage door again, another thought invades: Maybe something bad will happen if she does go to school.
Against the wind, she pedals to Zuma Beach. She tells herself that she made the right decision, though her skin tingles in a menacing way that makes her wish she could jump out of her own life. Eyes narrowed to the glare, Maureen turns into the parking lot and surveys the wide plain of sand. On a weekend—or any day in summer—Zuma would be packed, but today there’s just some scattered moms by the shore, their little kids scooping sand into bright plastic buckets while a scattering of surfers bob on the ocean, waiting for the next set of waves. She spreads her towel on dry sand, lies face up to the sun, and melts into a warm, dreamless sleep.
By the afternoon, Maureen’s skin is already a shade browner, and the Santa Anas are blowing harder, creating plumes of offshore spray against the backdrop of sapphire-blue ocean. Without hesitation, she runs into the ice-cold surf, dives under a swell, and swims beyond the breakers. Near the kelp beds, she floats with eyes closed, inhales the briny air, welcomes the warm wind across her face. For several minutes, she remains an anonymous creature with no thought. Yet too soon her fingers, numbed to the point of white achiness, can no longer move, and she comes back to herself. She swims to shore with head out of water. There’s a faint orange hue in the sky, most likely a layer of L.A. smog blown in with the wind.
After she emerges, the odor of faraway smoke makes her scan the beach, but she doesn’t see any bonfires. The moms have packed up their umbrellas and taken their sun-browned kids to the showers by the side of the parking lot’s bathrooms. The surfers, though, are still in the water, their wetsuits black and shiny like seals.
Wind lashes against her skin. The smoldering scent of trees and brush invades her lungs, and a small, dense fire cloud appears over the lowest peak of the range. This isn’t a bonfire down the beach, she realizes, but unseen wildfire behind the Santa Monica Mountains. She unlocks her bike, telling herself that it’s probably some spot fire that won’t even make the news, but still strains to ride faster, the pedals pressing against her flip-flops’ thin rubber soles. In less than a mile, the sunlight is dimmer, the scent of fire, sharper. By the time she gets to her house, a billow of smoke mushrooms over the mountains. It expands so quickly that Maureen wonders if it’s going to be as disastrous as the 1970 fire. She was just a kid then—that girl with the pageboy haircut and huge bucktoothed grin—who never worried about what was going to happen next.
Under the muted sky, Maureen knows she should get ready to evacuate, but freezes. A coyote stares at her, its light green eyes wide and wary. Up close, this straggly creature looks smaller—and heartbreakingly vulnerable—compared to the everyday flashes of early-morning coyotes trotting with their wild confidence through the brush.
She holds her hand out. “It’s okay.”
His gaze steady, the coyote backs away. Then he bolts, his scrappy body fleeing down the road. Maureen’s throat closes in, but she will not allow herself to cry. In the thick air, she finally wheels her bike into the garage, and just as she turns around, her eighteen-year-old neighbor, Sonny, pulls up.
“We better get out of here,” he calls. “You want a ride?”
She runs up to his van. “I can drive myself,” she says, inwardly cringing at the nervous crack in her voice.
“Where’re you going?” Sonny raises his eyebrows and smiles as if there were nothing to be concerned about. Maureen likes how white his teeth look against his tan face.
She stalls, unsure of her answer. Everything around her has become murky gray, and cornflake-size ashes are already drifting down. “I don’t know…”
“Look at the air; you don’t want to wait any longer,” he says. “You better get in.”
Maureen finds herself nodding, even though she wants to grab some clean clothes—and shouldn’t she take her mother’s jewelry box and fancy silverware? But her eyes are burning so badly that the thought of turning away from Sonny—if even for a couple of minutes—and his waiting van makes her feel as if she’d purposely be jumping into a regret too big to forget. Without a word, she climbs in, and before she can find the metal buckle to seatbelt herself in, Sonny takes off.
“Man, this feels like it’s gonna be a big one,” Sonny says over the chugging engine. He peers out the windshield, his sun-blond bangs hanging over one eye.
Even though her mother has repeatedly told her to never take rides from Sonny because he’s a “pothead,” Maureen feels safe in the rattly van with its smell of beach tar and coconut-scented surf wax. After an uncomfortable silence, Sonny turns up the volume of a Bad Company cassette and “Run with the Pack” blares so loudly that it’s no use trying to talk.
Maureen knows that it’s not so much Sonny that her mom has a problem with, but his mother, Tricia. Constantly referring to Tricia as “that desperate divorcee,” her mother has never invited them to any of their potlucks, is always spouting out digs about how over-frosted Tricia’s hair is, or how unbecoming her miniskirts look—especially when Maureen’s father is in earshot. Maureen steals a glance at Sonny’s profile and wonders if he ever gets lonely, too.
Right after the cassette ends, Sonny turns into the entrance to Zuma Beach and parks the van so that it faces the ocean.
The sky has grown far too dark for the time of day. Maureen taps Sonny on the arm. “Don’t you think we should keep going?”
He rolls down his window but immediately coughs and rolls it back up. “We will.”
She holds back from coughing herself. “Do you have someplace for us to go?”
“My dad and stepmom live in Venice,” he answers. “But first, I want to see if the fire makes it over the range.”
“I guess that would be cool,” she says, not really meaning it.
A family with three little kids bouncing around in the back of a station wagon pulls up. The worried-looking mom makes a rolling-down motion, and Maureen cracks her window an inch.
“You two better get out of here,” the mom yells.
Maureen clears her throat and gives the lady a thumbs-up. The lady shakes her head and scrunches her eyebrows together. Maureen turns to watch the blank-faced husband as he backs their station wagon out, while the lady continues to glare at them, her angry-looking mouth spouting unheard words. Maureen guesses that she’s complaining about how so many teenagers are burnouts, sure that she and Sonny are perfect examples.
Sonny jabs her shoulder. “Look,” he says, his body turned toward the mountains.
Just a couple of miles north, against the black-gray smoke, flames rage through chaparral.
“How can that happen so fast?” Maureen wonders out loud. “We better go.”
“We’re right next to the beach. We’ll be okay.”
Outside their window, the ash-colored water looks like an entirely different ocean than the one Maureen had swum in just a short time ago. “Let’s not stay too long.”
Sonny’s eyes widen. “God damn, the fire’s acting like a crashing wave; check it—” A hacking cough interrupts him. He cups his hand around his mouth, and in a raspy voice continues, “These winds really whip things up.”
The flames surge down the mountain much faster than Maureen thought possible. She whispers the words, “devil wind,” the phrase her mother used after the Malibu Canyon fire blackened acres of land and killed almost a dozen people who didn’t have time to get out. Although his face is still turned toward the mountains, Sonny keeps one hand on steering wheel. Neither one of them utter a word while they watch the descending flames. When it reaches PCH, the fire has become tsunami-sized, and in what seems like seconds, roars across both south and northbound lanes. Maureen can’t believe what she’s seeing. Fire jumping over the asphalt expanse of highway shouldn’t be possible.
“I wonder if our houses will make it.” Sonny’s tone has become small and hesitant, making him sound like a little kid who just woke up from a bad dream.
Maureen keeps her gaze on the fire. “Looks like it’s going to burn all the way to the water. It’s so big—and I haven’t even heard any fire engines yet.”
Sonny nods. He backs the van out, his left eyelid twitching. He turns south on PCH and changes cassettes to some ‘60s band Maureen has never heard of. Patiently, he follows the line of traffic, and after a couple of songs, sings along. Maureen likes how he doesn’t seem to care how out-of-tune he is. He trails off quickly, though, and turns down the volume. “Where’s your mom?”
“She’s in Ojai, and my dad’s on some business trip. What about your mom?”
He shrugs. “She’s on some casting call in L.A. She got it in her head that she’s going to act in soap operas.”
“That’d be cool.”
“It’s not going to happen. She’s testing for a part that’s way too young for her.” He clears his throat. “Her schemes always seem to self-destruct.”
***
They watch the news from his father’s house in Venice. Scenes of fire against night sky flash on the screen while they dine on Bugles and Squirt soda. Sonny’s father and stepmother are hanging out with neighbors in the kitchen, their clinking glasses and laughter floating over the newscaster’s sober voice. When he announces that some homes have burned, Sonny and Maureen lean forward. Before they can find out where, Sonny’s father shambles into the room and turns off the TV. A toad-shaped man with hair tied back in a stringy ponytail, he glances at Maureen but doesn’t acknowledge her.
With an audible gulp, he swallows the rest of his sangria and then nods slit-eyed at Sonny. “Your mother just called. I told her you’re fine—she’s staying the night at some motel.”
“Why didn’t you let me talk to her?”
“I thought…” his father studies his empty glass, “I thought it would be good for you take a break.” He pinches off a heart-shaped leaf from a nearby philodendron and mutters the word “loser” as if he’s talking to the plant. This and the potato-white fat of his feet bulging from the straps of his black leather sandals make Maureen want to spit in his face.
Sonny looks straight at his father. “She isn’t a bad person,” he says, “she tries.”
“Trying?” his father’s voice raises. “Your mother’s way of trying is just another trick she uses to make people feel sorry for her.”
Maureen notices Sonny staring at the pointed edge of the withered leaf pinned between his father’s sandal and the parquet floor. If only she knew what to say. If only she knew how to help.
“At least she cares,” Sonny whispers.
“You need to stop buying into her pathetic, poor-me attitude. You’re eighteen now.” Sonny’s father extends his arms as if to emphasize his point, the awful, tan-striped polyester shirt stained with crescents of armpit sweat. “You’re old enough to see through her bullshit.” He walks away, swinging his wine glass upside down by its stem.
As Sonny watches his father’s retreat, his mouth turns so downturned-sad that Maureen wonders if she should kiss him but ignores the impulse.
Finally, he smiles, flashing the kind of grin that would make anyone think he found it all too funny. “I guess you can see why I don’t live with him.”
“I think your mom is really nice.” Maureen wonders if she should try to call her own mother at the spa in Ojai, but can’t remember its name and figures that if Joy had even heard the news, she knows Maureen will take care of herself.
“I better turn the TV back on,” Sonny says.
The news has ended, and they sit hypnotized as the theme song for Charlie’s Angels starts to play. Slowly, but surely, they fall asleep by the TV’s drone, scrunched on opposite ends of the couch.
While it’s still dark Maureen wakes up, her heart sprinting as if she’s had a nightmare. She hears Sonny stir.
“You awake?” he whispers.
“Yeah, I don’t think I can get back to sleep.”
“Let’s get out of here,” he says. “Let’s go home.”
***
With barely a glance, officers wave them through the roadblock after Sonny flashes his driver’s license. They drive up PCH, the smell of soot permeating the van. Small patches of still-glowing embers pit the hillsides while burnt shrubs stand, charcoal skeletons against the dawn’s hazy-blue light.
When they enter their street, Maureen holds her breath. All the houses are standing. Yet, as they go down the road, one house has been transformed into a gray-black pile, while a row of houses next to it are left standing whole as if nothing has happened. It looks as if some kind of random wrath has been sent down from a careless god.
They pull in front of where their houses should be. Maureen’s is unscathed, its white stucco walls standing straight and alert. But Sonny’s home is gone. She stops herself from telling him that it’s going to be okay.
He lowers his head on the steering wheel. Maureen touches his back, staring at the empty space where the eucalyptus used to assert its branches across the sky. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she sees a lady with shovel in hand, hobbling over the charred ground that used to be Sonny’s home. The bent-over woman looks like Sonny’s mom, but she appears much older and smaller than the chipper, head-held-up-high lady Maureen had just waved to the other day.
She nudges Sonny. “Who’s that?”
He lifts his head, and his jaw tightens, yet his mouth crumbles. “It’s my mom.”
They climb out of the van into charcoal-scented air. His mother doesn’t seem to notice them and trudges farther into the ashes, her petite fingers gripping the shovel’s splintered handle.
“Mom,” Sonny says in a soft voice.
Tricia’s head jerks up, her face pale and eyes swollen-red. “Sonny…you’re here.”
She’s wearing tight, rolled-at-the-ankle jeans and a sleeveless blouse, reminding Maureen of a worn-out Marilyn Monroe. Tricia wipes her nose with a tissue matching the same delicate pink of her shirt. Sonny leans in to give his mother a hug.
Stiffly, she gives him a quick pat on the back. “Listen Sonny, we’ll get through this,” she says. “I’ll figure something out.” Maureen can tell that she’s trying to convince herself more than she’s hoping to console Sonny. Tricia looks back down and turns over the paper-thin remains of their home.
“Mom, what are you doing?” Sonny shakes his head, an odd mixture of sadness and anger flashing in his eyes.
“I’m going to find my jewelry.”
Sonny exhales, his face to the sky. He turns to Maureen. “At least the Santa Anas have died down.”
She remembers the coyote’s gaze and imagines bolting down the road herself. Instead, she takes Sonny’s hand and leads him to her garage, so they can each grab a shovel and help sift through the debris of years.
The End
- Devil Wind - July 3, 2025
- We Were All Here - October 10, 2023
