If you hold the city to your ear, you can hear the subways rattle against your boots and taste the sweat in the wind breathing down your spine.
At night, LA throbs with high pressure and productive partying. It’s weird and tired around six in the morning. Around seven, everything acts normal again; feet pad the halls, cars turn on, vernal night-lights fade, and enterprise commences. Domestic talk resumes loudly from the freaks of suburbia. Business is vigorous as ever. Chinese Americans litter the narrows with shiny toy cars and trim leather wheel covers.
I perch on my rooftop at sunup. It’s damp with dew and filthy with squirming worms, but I’m not squeamish. I rope my lyrics out on a line to dry, along with a light acoustic strum. The morning silence isn’t broken. My words scatter with the filtering breeze and clog of the brewery until a train snorts and rears in mad concentration near the walkway.
It’s Monday. Men beat the traffic to scurry away from the shape of home. It’s liquid gold rush on the 210. On Wistaria, monster mansions raise their sunroofs and the denizens tan topless. You never wonder where the neighbors go. Everything in our area is synced towards the epicenter, the crux of every pulse of every satellite and hybrid, which is the Lane.
Tonight, I meet Jeremy and we go to a nearby motel. He just slays me dead sometimes. He brought me a car-charger for my e-cig, because last time it shuddered out like a tired gardener.
He just tugs on the hook of my jeans when I drive up. “Take your clothes off,” he says.
I do. He does too. And it’s pleasant. Nothing too memorable.
Afterwards, we meet a few friends and go to Lucky’s Pub. I chain-smoke, a quality I consider unattractive. Jeremy is designated driver.
He drinks. So I don’t.
We end up veering off night plans and head to a bonfire in the center of Garden Grove. It’s a crowd and a blur of cocaine. I see two models I went to school with, one of whom won’t eat anything with a face, but shoots heroin like a champ.
I drive the four of us to my house by dawn. The cars start. Blue rays flicker on, casting a gauze of grey spotlights from the triple-decker window panes.
Jeremy is the only one who isn’t complaining for a more adept driver and aspirin.
“Aspirin is a miracle, if you think about it,” he injects out of nowhere.
I nod. Jeremy lists miracles sometimes.
“So is Siri. I synced her to call me a backchamber poop-eating dumpstertrashcan. Listen: Hey Siri. What is my name again?”
“Backchamber poopee-eatin-ngdumpst-hertrash can.”
He cracks up. I nod.
I pull into my driveway. My brother is probably still asleep.
“Look how sick-nasty Siri is. Look.” Jeremy is on a roll. He yells into the phone, “F#@& ME HARDER SIRI. F@#% ME PLEASE. I NEED IT.”
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid that is something I cannot do,” automates the response. Jeremy dies. He can’t stop.
I nod. Jeremy is a tool sometimes.
Outside are men fighting the tide to be the first to run from the shape of home. Little tykes on four wheels scurry away from the more dramatic slopes. Every available spot of curb is taken up around Wistaria.
Our house is dirty with leftovers, groggy visitors, and vodka-soaked couches. My brother is still asleep on the balcony, a bottle of gin next to his head. I sprain my ankle when I get to the granite flooring and curse the gods for the invention of yoga mats. I don’t understand why they’re laying about. The Nintendo is my main concern: it is in the pool.
If you pick the sound out, you can hear a hundred Hispanic maids groaning, and a thousand conservative upper-middle rebels moaning over the angst of another cold, heartless Tuesday.
LA is an implicit magic spell. It’s a treasure of a hometown. It isn’t magic over you, or even inside you. It becomes you.
At night, LA throbs with high pressure and productive partying. It’s weird and tired around six in the morning. Around seven, everything acts normal again; feet pad the halls, cars turn on, vernal night-lights fade, and enterprise commences. Domestic talk resumes loudly from the freaks of suburbia. Business is vigorous as ever. Chinese Americans litter the narrows with shiny toy cars and trim leather wheel covers.
I perch on my rooftop at sunup. It’s damp with dew and filthy with squirming worms, but I’m not squeamish. I rope my lyrics out on a line to dry, along with a light acoustic strum. The morning silence isn’t broken. My words scatter with the filtering breeze and clog of the brewery until a train snorts and rears in mad concentration near the walkway.
It’s Monday. Men beat the traffic to scurry away from the shape of home. It’s liquid gold rush on the 210. On Wistaria, monster mansions raise their sunroofs and the denizens tan topless. You never wonder where the neighbors go. Everything in our area is synced towards the epicenter, the crux of every pulse of every satellite and hybrid, which is the Lane.
Tonight, I meet Jeremy and we go to a nearby motel. He just slays me dead sometimes. He brought me a car-charger for my e-cig, because last time it shuddered out like a tired gardener.
He just tugs on the hook of my jeans when I drive up. “Take your clothes off,” he says.
I do. He does too. And it’s pleasant. Nothing too memorable.
Afterwards, we meet a few friends and go to Lucky’s Pub. I chain-smoke, a quality I consider unattractive. Jeremy is designated driver.
He drinks. So I don’t.
We end up veering off night plans and head to a bonfire in the center of Garden Grove. It’s a crowd and a blur of cocaine. I see two models I went to school with, one of whom won’t eat anything with a face, but shoots heroin like a champ.
I drive the four of us to my house by dawn. The cars start. Blue rays flicker on, casting a gauze of grey spotlights from the triple-decker window panes.
Jeremy is the only one who isn’t complaining for a more adept driver and aspirin.
“Aspirin is a miracle, if you think about it,” he injects out of nowhere.
I nod. Jeremy lists miracles sometimes.
“So is Siri. I synced her to call me a backchamber poop-eating dumpstertrashcan. Listen: Hey Siri. What is my name again?”
“Backchamber poopee-eatin-ngdumpst-hertrash can.”
He cracks up. I nod.
I pull into my driveway. My brother is probably still asleep.
“Look how sick-nasty Siri is. Look.” Jeremy is on a roll. He yells into the phone, “F#@& ME HARDER SIRI. F@#% ME PLEASE. I NEED IT.”
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid that is something I cannot do,” automates the response. Jeremy dies. He can’t stop.
I nod. Jeremy is a tool sometimes.
Outside are men fighting the tide to be the first to run from the shape of home. Little tykes on four wheels scurry away from the more dramatic slopes. Every available spot of curb is taken up around Wistaria.
Our house is dirty with leftovers, groggy visitors, and vodka-soaked couches. My brother is still asleep on the balcony, a bottle of gin next to his head. I sprain my ankle when I get to the granite flooring and curse the gods for the invention of yoga mats. I don’t understand why they’re laying about. The Nintendo is my main concern: it is in the pool.
If you pick the sound out, you can hear a hundred Hispanic maids groaning, and a thousand conservative upper-middle rebels moaning over the angst of another cold, heartless Tuesday.
LA is an implicit magic spell. It’s a treasure of a hometown. It isn’t magic over you, or even inside you. It becomes you.
