the shared green zone

Sometimes in the pre-dawn twilight, the neighbor tells me, you can spot the coyotes so close you can follow them. They prance right down the middle of the residential streets, weaving between the BMWs, Audis, Mercedes and Volvos on their way back to the green zone by the 101.

Coyotes in the city, making their home among the asphalt and cement, hunting careless housecats. It seems like every week the dog and I find a new sign posted somewhere among the picket white fences and manicured lawns: “Coyote” with a date, or an arrow.

And yet…

After prancing through the remnants of a birthday party in the park: the discarded French fries, the crumbles of birthday cake, the grouchy and overfed kids, the stack of presents, the dog and I find the bunnies again. They’re still living by the banks of the LA River, weeks later, growing in equal measure both plumper and more brave.


Their homeless keepers are still attentive, albeit displaced: they and their sleeping bags are gone from the park, moved elsewhere. As we cross the Moorpark street bridge we find them again, or perhaps anew: an encampment of shopping carts, discarded furniture, a mattress covered with a couple of dirty blankets in the dirt next to Moorpark. And there’s even a television: it’s been there for days, unplugged yet you can tell it's still waiting to watched, even in the dirt.







Perhaps they have their own code of streetwise respect, the coyotes who slumber by the freeway and the people who make their home right here in the dirt. They share the same hours of waking and hiding; they’ve adapted and learned what is expendable, disposable. And both of them, these people and the coyotes, may even hide among the same green zone shadows when they’re not prowling the neighborhood for scraps.