The Caliente Café – or CC's, as it's known – is a neighborhood bar that offers an extensive menu of American dishes with Spanish surnames. The food was probably the management's attempt to keep the patrons sufficiently sober to drive home without incurring any DUI's. The surrounding property had undergone a transformation since my last visit two years before. The restaurant is housed in an abandoned service station. The gasoline pumps and below-ground storage tanks had been removed at the time of the conversion, but the contaminated soil had simply been black-topped over and the resulting quarter acre of tarmac was used to provide patron parking. As time went on, the neighbors had begun to complain about the virulent seepage coming up from the ground – a chemical molasses fierce enough to darken the soles of your shoes. In the thick of summer heat, the asphalt became viscous and smelled like oolong tea – which is to say, smoldering tires. In winter, the surface seized up, buckling and cracking to reveal a mealy substance so caustic it generated nosebleeds. Stray cats were subject to wracking coughs on contact. Wandering dogs would suddenly stagger in circles as though in the grip of neurological dismay. Naturally, the owner of the property wasn't interested in paying the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to excavate this hellishly befouled soil, but the EPA had finally stepped in, and now the parking lot had been uprooted in an effort to remove all the contaminated dirt. In the process, numerous Chumash Indian artifacts had been uncovered, and the site was suddenly embroiled in a dispute among several parties: the tribe, the landowner, the city, and the archaeologists. So complex was this litigation that it was impossible to tell who was siding with whom.

It was a testimony to loyal patrons that for months they'd continued to tromp across this malodorous earth, endured delays and inconveniences, suffered picketers, public warnings, posted notices, fumes, muddy shoes, and the occasional pratfall just to get to their daily drinks. The parking lot was now fenced off and the path to the front door consisted of a narrow walkway of two-by-four planks laid out end to end. Approaching the establishment, I felt like a gymnast teetering on the balance beam before an ill-timed dismount.

The red neon sign that hung above the entrance still hissed and sizzled like a backyard bug light, and the air wafting out smelled of cigarette smoke and com tortillas fried in last week's lard. A shrieking duet of blender motors was accompanied by castanets of clattering ice cubes being whirled together with tequila and Margarita mix. The Caliente Cafe opens at 6:00 every morning and doesn't shut down until 2:00 A.M. Its further virtue is that it's located just outside the city limits and thus provides an ever-present refuge for off-duty police officers who need to unwind at the end of a hard day-or after lunch, or after breakfast.