Lake Chabot

 Lake Chabot Road connects San Leandro to Castro Valley (or the other way around), depending on which way you’re heading. Freeways and other surface roads achieve the same result, but this road is for savvy locals and professional commuters. In an area that boasts 7.8 million people, where even the most remote roads are traversed incessantly, this 1.9 miles connector remains proudly remote and underused.

 

My daily routine of wasting time until evening, when it’s OK to sit in your room and play hearts, incessantly google “the best TV series streaming now” and peruse long-form journalism on Pocket app, which fills me with useless information (30 minutes before dawn, when the first rays of light illuminates the eastern sky, the sun is 6 degrees from the horizon) that I’ll never share, leads me to travel this road twice a day — once to get a soda from my favorite convenient store and another to drive back home.

 

Heading north on Lake Chabot Road, past the entrance to the lake, where a temporary digital sign pleads with park-goers to wear a mask and pack out your trash, and where I saw a homemade sign advertising a Down Syndrome picnic (in this gloomy world of ours, the sign filled me with hope), I reach down to the cup holder between the seats and take a long pull from my 44 oz. Diet Pepsi.  I bear right and enter the windy 1.9 mile stretch of road leading to San Leandro and then home.

 

To my right, Lake Chabot shows signs of late summer drought, its banks severely exposed and the water placid and heavy, dog-killing blue algae loitering near shore. Dirty, dry live oak trees line the road, traveling the short distance from shore to road, crossing the road and continuing upward, littering the burnt, amber grass with spiny leaves.

 

Near the halfway point, the road straightens out for 300 yards. A smattering of park cars line the right dirt embankment — mostly likely fisherman who use the gated fire road for free access to the park.

 

In anticipation of the straightaway, I accelerate into a bend. As I round the corner, I noticed a tall man standing on the side of the road, motionless and facing forward. About 200 yards out, slightly past the fire road, his right hand is pointed to the sky, bent 90 degrees at the elbow. His left hand appeared to be touching his abdomen. From a distance, I could tell he was skinny, tall, wearing a bright yellow Lakers tank-top and a surgical face mask covering most of his face. It wasn’t unusual to see people on the road, but it was unusual to see this man.

 

As I passed, his particulars came into view. In his right hand -- the one pointing to the sky – he delicately pinched the quill of an eight-inch bird feather between his thumb and index fingers. The feathers creating an ombre effect of brown, bottom to top. His left hand hovered over his abdomen, his fingers manipulated into the sign of the devil, reminiscent of countless photos of Tupac throwing the west coast sign. His eyes never wavered, staring straight ahead as I passed.

 

I watched him through the rearview mirror. Instead of breaking character, shrugging his erect posture, he continued to pose, remaining perfectly still. I looked away. When I looked back, he summarily turned toward the trees, like instructed by an Army Sergeant, and disappeared into the brush.