(Engineering) Error Jodi Scott Elliott
We calculate new lives for ourselves in his car, rewriting old equations and solving for possibility. Together it seems we can engineer any aspiration, and the sprawling city echos our ambitions with her own promises. It’s magic. Headlights, taillights, and the neon sign hanging in the doughnut shop window glitter like stars in the night. When he’s driving, there’s even glamour in the gutters and the sidewalks and the auto shops. And for the first time since I moved down here, I finally understand the charisma of all these palm trees. And yet, this abundance of palm trees lining so many boulevards, conjuring a tropical oasis, do not normally thrive in such an arid climate. No. The trees require more water in the soil. Water not naturally found anywhere near Los Angeles. Water self-taught civil-engineer William Mulholland had to find in Owens Valley 233 miles away. Water William Mulholland siphoned through the Los Angeles Aqueduct at 5,311 gallons per second. And if Mulholland hadn’t, the city wouldn’t be the recognizable inspiration we pass by from neighborhood to neighborhood. These long tours of the city only have one catalyst, his phone call to me—but not mine to him.
And I never know what time or day or with what unknown variables he’ll call, so I abandon my last pack of cigarettes. I cannot discourage the compression of his lips to mine. I also forgo lacy or silky underwear. He doesn’t like the idea that I might be willing before he’s had a chance to convince me, so I wear cotton girlie panties, something so wholesome it feels like they’re not supposed to be seen by anyone but my mother. Those are what excite him. When William Mulholland first turned the valve for the aqueduct, he told Los Angeles residents, “There it is. Take it.” And so they did. Rows and rows of thirsty little orange saplings shot up from the ground and grew into an army of capitalist soldiers. Los Angeles swelled with miles of asphalt, lush lawns, kidney shaped pools, studio lots, and celebrities. All the while Owens Lake shrank and shriveled and puckered into mud and then turned into dust. I don’t pull my hand away from his when he shifts into reverse or back into drive. My knuckles turn erogenous under the friction of his thumb, as he figure-eights around their tiny peaks. I don’t tell him this. It’s my innocence he finds sexy. He wants to be the one to sully it. It’s no fun to sully something already dirty.
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