Devil may cry, devil may care…
LA is a different place now. Something's different. Ole’ white-sides is there, just where I left her, patiently awaiting my return. And there's a sense of it all being familiar, just not something I know anymore. A few days is all it takes. Nights driving down Lincoln, past streets I used to turn on. Waking up in a big, empty bed in a big, empty first-floor room that was always a bit colder than the rest of big, empty house. And I just mull about. Los Angeles is a city I remembered now, and it isn’t for me. The ride is over. It's time to pull the safety bar up now and walk down that path to where you see the picture of your face during the fall. But I don’t want to get off just yet. “Maybe another go around, Mr. Rideman?” “Well, I dunno, kid… “
I’m not even listening anymore. There’s just a few clothes to throw in the black duffle and I’m off running, galloping that Ford Explorer hard south on I-405 with the broken side-window breathin’ heavy and the sunroof vented. The California sun’s hot in mid-August, and it’s never really cloudy. When it’s hot in California it’s 80 degrees, and I drive in a tank top and flip-flops with that CD I love turned up real loud so I can’t hear the traffic. It’s all those songs from last year; all those parties, all those concerts. All the pretty girls we’d played with and the drugs we did and the laughs and the smirks and smiling faces. All those special little gems, spinning around in my dash, twenty-tracks long. The 405 merges with I-5 right in Orange County, but it’s barely a dream. My head’s in the clouds.
Then, bam! My eyes open and the sun’s coming in from a direction I can’t recall. I lift my head off the pillow, and, why, would you look at that, it’s a new bed, smaller, with a thin, white metal frame that’s twisted into little curlicues on the head, and it creaks when I move to roll out. First breaths smell different in a room you’re new to, and it’s curious so I take all in. Which isn’t much to say, as the room’s not much bigger than the bed, but it’s cozy and cute. And subtly girly because it’s so clean and the nightstand’s white wicker. There nothing on it except a girly lamp with a shade and a beat-up copy of On the Road with cracked old fold lines in the paper cover. Huh. Ain’t ever actually read this one before. The pages are thoroughly yellowed, so why not? I pick it up and take it downstairs into the kitchen, and Erica’s mom’s set down at the table drinking coffee. Monster’s mother always holds herself on a feather, she’s so light, and she looks happy when she greets me, “Good morning,” in that slow welcoming way that feels like a warm hug. Maybe that’s why I thinks she’s the most adorable thing ever. BB pops out of the downstairs bedroom around the corner and pretty soon we’re both making Dawn breakfast, because hell, it’s fun, and we both love her so much. Monster’s the last one out, and my soul feels like it’s in Santa Cruz again, in that grimy Western kitchen cooking up grub with BB and Monst. But the kitchen’s clean, and there’s no cob-webs in the windows, and the grass by the Jacuzzi is trimmed and neat, and the brick patio and padded lawn chairs try to hog the sunlight. It’s something to chuckle about and smile, this quiet hideaway tucked down a dead-end street in Laguna Niguel where we all felt at home. It’s something I’m just so giddy to sink into for the time being, like a bean-bag chair. No one’s sit’s too long in a bean-bag chair though. Not when they’re my height, it’s too awkward. I’ll move back to Santa Cruz, I think to myself. When Mike and Monster move back up before the quarter starts. I can get a job up there doing something small-townish. Yeah, that’ll be nice, I think.
