The Ghosts Who Walk Among Us...

Lewis Straw woke up that morning to the smell of onions frying. His roommate, Von, was cooking breakfast; and the sly brown scent of the pearly vegetable transitioning from sharp to sweet hung like a mist in the morning air. Lewis found himself vaguely irritated. He didn't like having a roommate, and that first breath of wakefulness alone in his bedroom was one of the few moments of solitude he got in the course of the day.

January 1, 2007. A New Year. Of sorts. Lewis realized it was a relatively provincial way of looking at things- this was the first day of the next year for probably less than half the population of the planet; but it was here and so was he, and thus the resolutions began. There was a time when Lewis didn't make resolutions- in his youth he was arrogant enough to know that if he wanted to start/stop/accomplish something, he could simply Do It without needing to make a vow to himself on any culturally symbolic date. As he'd matured (or at least grown older) it had become clearer that his resolve wasn't so easily kept, and if he was to carry through to whatever conclusions he sought, he must have concrete challenges to overcome.

Lewis lay in bed with the ghost of breakfast present for companionship, and considered his short term options. He could masturbate, even though he'd made a resolution to quit. He'd made the same resolution the year before, and managed to hang with it for six weeks before breaking down at the end of a particularly frustrating Wednesday in February. The idea of starting a brand New Year with an unsatisfactory 15 minutes of resolutional failure was more than he could bear. Heartened by his show of moral fiber, he rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom.

His apartment had two bedrooms and two baths. The master bedroom had an attached bathroom, the secondary bedroom did not. Lewis occupied the latter, so each morning was a fresh gamble- did he walk to his bathroom naked (which is how he slept), or did he fumble around for a pair of sweatpants or shorts? The odds of his roommate actually being in the hall when he made the two step trip to his bath were relatively low, but he generally tried to be considerate- Lewis certainly didn't ever want to see Von's hairy ass parading through the apartment, and he assumed he felt the same.

Throwing caution to the wind, Lewis opened his bedroom door, peeked around, saw no other living creature, and skipped to the bathroom. He'd left the window open overnight, and there was a slight chill in the small yellow room. When his building was constructed in the late '40's, the secondary bathroom was given a tub, no shower, and no ventilation fan in the ceiling. At some point in the past someone had installed a shower head to the tub faucet, but neglected the fan. This resulted in a seriously humid post-shower bathroom, and although he kept the window open constantly, the walls were slowly disintegrating. Tiny chunks of plaster floated into the tub, swirling down the drain to find the ocean. For several years now he'd been dreading the day the entire wall peeled off while he showered, depositing him, naked and lathered, into the alley below. Alas, that day was not today.

Following his shower, Lewis shaved and brushed his teeth. Back in his bedroom, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with great purpose. The first of the month was payday, which meant it was also grocery shopping day. He'd been scraping by the past week on Ramen noodles and hors devours at holiday parties, and was looking forward to actually having food in the pantry. Not that this task would be accomplished easily. Logging on to the internet, he first looked to see that his check had arrived at the bank. Yes. Not much, and slightly less than the bills he had to pay, but he was used to that. Next he went to the Metro Transit website. Were the buses running on New Years Day? Yes. Not very often, but beggars can't be choosers.

The final stop of the morning on the information superhighway was the website for the 99 Cent store. Their hours weren't listed, but there was a phone number to call. The Latina who answered on the first ring informed Lewis that they are open on New Year's day, from 9-9. He would eat this day. Gathering his grocery list and wallet, he ventured in to the living room, where Reilly was parked on the couch, shoveling eggs into his mouth and watching college football. Silently Lewis tied his shoes and slipped out the door. The January sun shone warmly in southern California, and he basked in its glow as he trotted down the sidewalk.

The bus stop was two blocks away on Melrose, and by the grace of god a bus rolled up only five minutes after the scheduled arrival. Lewis let the emo chick waitress get on before him, and they joined the few other souls riding the big orange beast eastbound into the sun. The driver was a fat bald white guy who seemed to be talking to himself the entire trip. While it was not at all unusual to observe people talking to themselves on the bus, rarely was it the driver experiencing communication breakdown. Tuning him out, Lewis rested his eyes on the sharp grey corners of The City slowly sliding by. The emo chick waitress got off at Western. His stop was Hobart, where he walked another block east to his destination.

Lewis couldn't afford to shop at a real grocery store, so he took the bus into the fringes of the hood, where he rubbed elbows with Latins, Asians and Blacks at the 99 Cent Store. They used to eye him somewhat suspiciously when he wheeled his cart through the aisles, as though he were some sort of spy sent by The Man to keep tabs on their shopping habits. No longer, though. Now there were just as many whites folks looking for bargains, and he could blend right in. The economy was suckerpunching everybody. 20 minutes later, at the checkout line, Lewis sweated through the scanning process, taking a relieved breath only when the total was announced- 39 dollars. He'd allotted himself $40, and because he couldn't find a calendar with hot girls on it, only some with puppies and ducks, he'd squeaked by.

Back out on the street, he offered a small prayer of thanks when a bus met him at the corner. Lewis had spent an hour waiting there before, and so learned not to take the appearance of the bright orange beast lightly. At the back of the bus he found two adjacent seats, so he could sit and rest his bags at the same time. Near him were four teenaged girls, all chattering away about the night before. One of them got wasted drunk, and wasn't sure if she hooked up with a guy or not. Lewis idly thought about which of them he would hook up with. The Latina on the end first, then the white chick beside her, the Latina beside her, and finally the white chick on the other end. Right down the row, in descending order.

Perhaps he should've felt somehow dirty about imagining sex with girls young enough to be his daughters, but Lewis didn't. He'd come to realize that he was still 18 inside his head, and he strongly suspected he always would be. If he was 18 on the outside, he might talk to them and see which one was insecure enough to respond to his advances. Since his face was pushing 32, he merely observed. The first white girl (#2 on his mental list of fantasy encounters) caught him looking at her, and brazenly looked back. Lewis couldn't imagine that she found an old guy with his 99 Cent bags on the bus particularly attractive, but stranger things had happened. Or so he could temporarily convince himself. When he disembarked at La Cienega, he looked back to see her watching him through the window, her blue eyes gaining depth and mystery as she receded slowly into her future.

The Circus is in Town!

Hooray for Hollywood!
That screwy ballyhooey Hollywood
Where any office boy or young mechanic can be a panic
With just a good looking pan
And any barmaid can be a star maid
If she dances with or without a fan

So the song goes... And after 10 years living in the HollyHood, I've come to accept it as true. It is truly the screwy ballyhooey Hollywood. When people ask me how a man who grew up in a town of 800 people (and twice as many livestock) can stand to live in the middle of Los Angeles, the answer that comes to mind is pretty simple. The Circus is always in town.



Sure, the air is foul and traffic is fouler. Yes, the Plastic People rule the world here, and the velvet rope is in effect everywhere you go. Yet, yet, yet - I'm never, ever bored. Every single day there is something interesting going on. Every band in the world tours through L.A. Every movie plays here. All the traveling art exhibits make a stop here. Every type of food known to man is served here. If I feel like Ethiopian tonight, there's five restaurants within 2 miles I could visit. Same for Peruvian, or Hungarian, or Laotian. Want to frolic in nature? The Mountains are that way, the Ocean is that way, the Desert up there. All close at hand. Seriously, did you know that Los Angeles County is roughly the size of Delaware, and that 1/3 of it is state and national parks?

But above it all, the thing that keeps me here continually fascinated is the circus. The kaleidoscope of crazies that wander the landscape in an effort to provide me free entertainment. Last night I was on Hollywood Boulevard a few minutes after midnight. Over the course of 10 minutes I saw a man dressed as Jesus (I don't think he was the Real Christ, he seemed a bit white for that), two lovely women who took a moment to seriously consider a man's offer of $50 to "smell both your drawers", three cop cars and five cops joining forces to bust two teenage jaywalkers, and the various club kids, homeless and vampires who haunt the streets of Hollywood after dark. All in all, unparalleled entertainment value for a slow Wednesday in May....

Peace,

Patrick