Chapter 7: Dell Street

I had driven past Dell Street for thirty years and never turned onto it.

On Sunday afternoon Lucy turned me onto it in my own van.

It sits on the far side of the tracks, five hundred and thirty feet above the sea.

It is three brick apartment buildings around a gravel lot.

That morning, with Saturday's train behind me, I had called the county emergency office again.

The same woman answered.

She said the emergency manager had phoned the railroad, and the railroad had said Harlan yard was inspected on schedule.

She said he could not close a rail yard on a date.

She also said he had moved the sirens, so that the first dispatch alert sounded them without waiting for a commissioner's signature.

"That's what a date can buy," she said. "I'm sorry it isn't more."

I thanked her, and I meant it, and I wrote it in the binder under Tab 11.

"Park by the dumpster," said Lucy. "Everyone does."

"I'd prefer the street."

"Dad, they're going to see you either way."

They did.

A boy of about eight shouted "Miss Lucy!" from a second-floor window.

By the time I had my seat belt off, six children were around the van.

Each one handed Lucy a drawing.

She took them all and slid them under her visor, where, I saw, there were already thirty.

"They draw the bus," she said. "It's always the bus."

"I didn't know you kept those."

"You didn't ask."

I let that go, because it was true.

The tenant meeting was in the laundry room of Building B.

There were twelve households in folding chairs, between a row of dryers and a bulletin board.

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