Chapter32: A brave new world?
I woke to darkness and a stiff mattress under my back.
The sounds from the night had faded away, replaced by
rattling in the hallway and the suggestion of morning I could not see from my
windowless room. Voices, carried from the hall, muffled by the thin walls, were
full of the efficiency of a hotel staff, strangers moving around outside,
scaring me the way the dark streets had the previous night during my walk from
the bus depot.
The dimly lighted digital clock on the dresser read 9
o’clock and I vaguely recalled the desk clerk telling me check out was at 11.
Weary from the trip and the late arrival, I had gone to
sleep in my clothing, except for the wrinkled suit jacket that hung on the back
of a wooden chair near the dresser.
The stench of the bus, with all of the cigarette smoke and
sweat, clung to me and my clothing. I could do nothing about the clothing. But
I forced myself up and into the bathroom for a shower, the scalding water and
the harsh bar of soap driving some of the stink from my pours.
I reluctantly put my soiled clothing back on, recalling several
of the clothing stores I had passed the night before, and after checking under
the bed for my briefcase, I went back out into the hall to the elevator and
back down to the lobby where a day clerk who had replaced the night clerk
didn’t look twice at me as I made my way out to the street.
Unexpected warmth hit me after the overzealous air
conditioning of the hotel, thick with the stink of auto exhaust, a choking,
thick smog that clung to the city’s streets like a thick cloud, not thick
enough to blot out the landscape, but enough to smear it, as if out of focus.
It filled my lungs, so, each breath was a chore to take as if I was drowning.
In daylight, the landscape seemed less daunting, the dark
allies and deteriorated doorways seemed more pathetic than threatening, the
gargoyles of the night turning into gray people garbed in rags, each aged less
by time than by habit, drunks and junkies mostly, staring vaguely at me, some
holding soggy coffee cups looking for change, others staring at the air itself
lost in some private vision.
The neon store signs lost their luster, while other more
pedestrian signs I had missed during my nightly sojourn advertised a host of
products and services, massage parlors, shoe repair stores, cheap electronics,
cigar stores (some even with wooden Indians out front), cut rate clothing
shops, check cashing facilities, and more.
Although downtown looked a lot like Manhattan, it was an
older Manhattan, lower buildings (none more than six stories along these
blocks) and a Manhattan carved out of the 1930s and 1940s, more brick and
mortar than glass, offices (many for law firms or doctors) situated on the
upper floors with signs posted in some of the windows. But also, a ragged
imitation of Manhattan, buildings long passed their due date, crumbling at the
edges.
Sirens wailed in the distance, although the predominant
sound rose from the traffic, huffing and puffing automobiles and trucks, caught
in the grid lock of cross streets like flies caught in a spider’s web, adding
even more fumes to the already intolerable air, but also adding the honking of
horns of impatient drivers.
Some of the stores broadcast music from speakers above their
doors, mostly Latino tunes, but also some pop tunes from one of the local radio
stations, the DJs interrupting to advertise some business out beyond the
boundaries of downtown, with a few news breaks talking about some anti-war
protest ongoing back east in Washington DC.
The late hour brought out people, too, men and women dressed
for office, but also a parade of poorer folks, black, white and Latino, pausing
to look in the shop windows. A number of women, clearly poor, pushed baby
carriages, while at almost every corner people lined up at the bus stops
waiting for one of the yellow buses to take them elsewhere.
The stench of cigarettes and stale beer wafted out from the
open doors of street side taverns as gray men wearing work clothing clustered
around the bars inside for their eye openers, figures as still as statues as
they lifted their shot glasses to their lips in this morning ritual, while not
quite as grim as the slumped figures in each ally, sad none the less, much like
those I used to see on the Bowery back east.
It made me ache for coffee. I dug through my pockets until I
came up with a quarter and they searched
the line of stores
for one that was not a bar, a peep show, or a pawn shop, struggling to read the
signs above each metal awning, until I could find one that indicated a greasy
spoon. I peered into one dark space and found that it was a shoe shine shop
with an oil painting of John F. Kennedy framed on the back wall.
Finally, I came to a
small metal fronted building that stood between two pawn shops, the panels
painted white and blue, but both so rusted out the place looked painted red. I
pushed open the glass door -- stained near the handle from hundreds of other
dirty hands pushing through before mine.
Inside, the air smelled of coffee and cooking eggs, as a
different population of workers crowded the counter, hovering over steaming
mugs rather than stained shot glasses, although their expressions looked
remarkably the same, each with the burden of the day still ahead of them.
The narrow shop had two counters, one running along the
mirrored right wall, the other on the left with the grill, cash registered and
coffee urn behind it. None of the people – mostly men – looked up as I eased up
to a spot near the register.
A bulky, somewhat cleaner man made his way down behind the
one counter, refilling coffee mugs along the way, stopping in front of me.
“What can I get you?” he asked gruffly, not rude so much as
indifferently, as if he had seen too much to be bothered by a new face showing
up in his establishment that generally saw the same faces come and go daily.
"Coffee," I
said. "To go."
The gruff man nodded and paraded back to the coffee urn,
plucking a cardboard cup from a stack, filling it with steaming, sizzling brown
liquid, a spoon full of sugar and a splash of milk. He slipped me the coffee. I
put the quarter on the counter where he retrieved it with another grunt.
Nearby, a cigarette machine glinted in the morning light,
most of its slots empty, although it still had a few packs of Marlboros,
renewing a craving I had had since my running out during the last approach to
the city on the bus the previous night.
I had no more change and did not want to ask the gruff
counter man for change and so headed back out onto the street, sipping the hot
coffee as I made my way back towards the Army & Navy and other stores I had
seen during my walk from the depot in the dark.
The coffee had the same oily taste of greasy spoons back
East, slightly burned and bitter, maybe a bit weak from the same grounds being
used again and again. But the warm liquid revived me, even though it also made
me realize how hungry I was. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten, at
some point on the road, some rest stop after Phoenix, but before the state
police had stopped the bus to inspect for foreign fruit.
Clothing first, then food, I thought, and plodded on.
Again, I was struck by how much downtown resembled
Manhattan, but an old Manhattan, the Manhattan my friend Hank and I had
searched for long after the city had turned into towers of glass, knowing this
place was doomed to the same fate, and despite all the winos and junkies, the
strip clubs and eye opener bars, the second-hand shops and bail bondsman, I
didn’t want to see this go.
The big difference, of course, was the time of year, and the
fact that with the approach of Thanksgiving people here walked around wearing
short sleeve shirts or less, not the scarves and earmuffs I might have expected
for November back east. Although a few “normal” trees lined some of these
streets, the slender stalks of palm trees rose high overhead distorting any
illusion I might have had about walking the streets of New York.
Morning had brought out the panhandlers, perhaps even the
same gray people I had seen slumped and sleeping in the allies the night
before, wrinkled and dirty palms held out to beg for coins as I passed, palms I
ignored if only for lack of change.
Old women pushed rattling shopping carts down the sidewalk,
bags of rags spilling out from each like some contemporary version of the
Grapes of Wrath, like Oakies carrying their possessions from corner to corner,
ignored by the people lined up at the bus stops, not even eyed by the cops
parked in patrol cars at the curbs, as if they did not exist.
When I reached the army and navy store, I dropped my half
empty cup of coffee into the trash, and headed into the front door, piles of
merchandise stacked to both sides with small cardboard signs advertising sale
prices: canteens, backpacks, black army-style boots, field uniforms the like of
which I had worn in basic training.
Inside the store, the air had the smell of mothballs and
dust, a choking air that made it difficult to breathe with four aisles running
front to back, all overflowing with gears as if preparing for war: sleeping
bags, pup tents, fishing gear, camp ground cookery, mosquito netting and a
variety of clothing for every potential climate, including a polar exposition –
frost bite protection right here in the middle of LA.
I found a pile of jeans and picked out three pairs that I
hoped would fit, and some pin-striped button-down long sleeve shirts, several
t-shirts, some underwear and then out of a very dusty box, a pair of cowboy
boots, carrying these to the rear of the store where a middle-aged man with a
military-style crew cut greeted me, his gaze studying my short hair.
“What branch?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You served in what branch of the military?”
“In the army,” I said, not wanting to pursue the
conversation.
“Were you overseas?”
“Do you mean, Vietnam?”
He nodded.
“No,” I said. “I served stateside in a medical company
helping wounded vets.”
The man’s eyes widened, reflecting a bit of the dim light of
the mostly hidden florescent lights running around the ceiling. He gave a stiff
nod.
“Damned hippies,” he mumbled. “I suppose you heard about
them protesting in Washington.”
“I saw something on the news,” I said, then motioned towards
the pile of purchases I had dumped on the counter. “How much?”
He got the hint, took my money, then after I insisted,
bagged my clothing, watching me the whole time as I made my way down one of the
crowded aisles back out of the front door, a grim figure faded into the dimness
behind me like a ghost.
For some reason when I got out to the street again, I was
drawn to a nearby leather store. I needed a coat, if not for L.A., then for the
trip East again when I made my way to Denver, where the temperature was bound
to drop below 70 degrees. I had seen the leather jackets in the window the
night before.
The interior of this door was significantly brighter, aisles
lined with an assortment of leather and other jackets, and a variety of other
leather gear including boots in boxes along the walls. A stout man slightly
older than me greeted me with a smile and a quizzical expression when he saw me
looking at the heavier jackets.
“You won’t need that in this climate,” he informed. “Unless,
of course, you’re planning to join a motorcycle gang.”
“I’m not buying for this climate,” I said. “I have to go to
Denver shortly and I want something that will keep me warm.”
He recommended several, and I tried on a few, then a heavy
black jacket with a lot of zippers drew my attention, nothing any upstanding
biker would wear, but it looked good to me, and when I tried it on, it felt
good and snug.
“Do you want me to bag it, or do you want to wear it out?”
the clerk said.
“Bag it,” I said, taking up the rest of my possessions for a
hurried walk back to the hotel. It was getting close to 11 and I needed to
check out.
When I got back to my room, I found people in it, two house
maids stirring up the dust with brooms and dust rags.
“I’m not through here yet,” I told them, alarmed by the lack
of privacy, and by the fact that the edge of my brief case showed from under
the bed.
“We’re only doing our job,” one of the women said in a thick
Latin accent.
“Do it after I’m gone,” I said, ushering them out, and
slamming the door once they were safely in the hall.
I pulled the brief case out and opened in the bed. The
bundles of cash seemed untouched.
But the whole thing unnerved me. I couldn’t stay here
knowing other people could come and go as they wished.
I just didn’t know where else to go.
I thought about going back to the bus depot to book a trip
to Denver, but felt nervous about that option, too, thinking it was just too
soon. Three days was not enough time. If they police were looking for me, they
would certainly think of my going there. The more time between my crime and my
arrival, the better.
I also wanted some place here I could come and go from
without having to worry about maids or others rooting through my possessions
while I was gone.
I packed my stuff, filling my nearly empty suitcase with my
new clothing, then made my way back down to the lobby where I turned in the
key.
But once on the street again, I had no idea of what to do
next.
In New York, I would have sought out a subway, which did not
seem to exist here. I could have hopped on a bus but needed a destination.
Then, I saw a cab at the curb, and approached one.
“I need to find an apartment to rent,” I told the drive, a
broad-shouldered man with red hair and an accent I soon learned had come out of
Boston. “Do you know any cheap places around here?”
“There are some cheap places in East L.A.,” he said. “But
that part of town is almost as dangerous as around here.”
"I'm in no position to be choosy," I said.
"Just drive me to the most likely place you can think of."
"Sure
thing," he said and pulled the car away from the curb with a screech of
wheels, drawing a glance from the corner cop as we passed, but not from the
bums or street urchins, and within moments we passed out of their world, and
into a new world called East L.A.
Comments
Post a Comment