I.
i paid the extra hundred for a last-minute night flight virgin air ticket for a late-arriving flight to LAX its a short rental car drive to playa longa and into the arms of old true friends they were happy to hear of my out-of-character request for a spur-of-the-moment visit finally they said yes,! finally!
i might still make it on time to register for the conference we spoke of too late for a room at the hotel a day early for L&N’s last gig on time for a meeting for coffee near japantown with new-acquaintance writing women in the heart of this now-strange city and one earmarked freed-up day will take me traveling solo pilgrimage-like back to an old life at the ocean
will LA skies still be grey? will ocean front walk concrete still reek of piss spilled wine coppertone sweat and new danger? what will i recognize? will the 25th avenue beach tri-plex still be standing? are any of the different houses once holding artist and musician brothers and sisters recognizable? will fear having me looking over my shoulder at every turn over every speedway bump i was fearless when i left this town now i know better
this journey has me wondering: are today’s ducks even allowed to deposit duck-shit on now-arty overpriced, terribly quaint canalwindingpaths? are duckling babies even allowed to float on howland or linnie canals anymore, where once they nested in ruins of old rowboats tied to crumbling docks? will tiny cottages third floor boardwalk apartments side and one-way streets trash-filled alley ways and sidewalk avenues look or feel like anything i once knew christ, in those days, i moved every six months for awhile there can i find my way to each one? so much to remember old favorite restaurants now surely defunct two libraries/ refuge two old art studios /1971 quake blowing out or in studio window glass we were never sure two blocks apart countless storefronts a house on a street called hill in ocean park full of someone’s childhood and someone else’s tragedies after 19 years the oddness will be to see what’s gone and what might still be standing there are ghosts to visit a city to view through new/old eyes business to discuss and story to talk with old poets one a wise old poetess letter-writing, old-style friend the other my memory-keeper pal & new partner in the crime and the business of letters and storytelling there’s no revenge or blood to extract in this town no one left to waste time with the only wait will be for respecting and remembering attendance for yom kippur at moe & esther’s old synagogue maybe we’ll even find time together for a lox/ bagel /cream cheese brunch near the beachfront land barons is zucky’s still around? this may, too, complete the cycle of ending blood’s ties and resuming relationship with chosen family whirlwind-style
II.
three days is a short amount of time to journey with such an agenda in mind i should bring a small bag an old, half-empty journal from last days in venice half-filled with memories and writings from half-filled remaining days as a local in that town
tomorrow it will be good to get out of dodge away from the yelps and cries of the puer aeternus back in myself to what’s left and what’s important while it still is
III.
too much coffee maybe too much wine at the wedding has me jittering out of my skin and this plastic chair while i’m waiting its been years since i’ve hung out at sfo on a saturday night back long ago now defunct PSA Airlines had weekend midnite flights from LAX to SFO for ten bucks a pop the waiting room like this one was filled with hippies mostly running in and out of the terminal to smoke pre-flight and the flight itself was one big stoned out whoopin gigglefest that was in the decades before 9/11 turned travel from fun to paranoid nightmare got a slight case of the nerves tonight a little shaky from little sleep this week wonder what it would be like to have a private jet meanwhile, security slammed the laptop’s bucket down so hard that even i was seeing stars
IV.
the crazies come in threes here i keep checking my reflection behind this town’s funhouse mirrors to see what beckoning must be tattooed on my forehead that’s inviting and drawing them in like magnets to the metal moths to the flame they must sense similar precarious edges barely below surface closer moving in they approach seeking kindred spirit a bond in the near-madness a dollar for the next hit they’re all needing a piece of something find me! touch me! beg from me! sing to me! the forehead must be flashing in neon today they can sense fresh meat from somewhere else billy says i smile too much make too much eye contact with them i tell him, “someone has to”…
small blondes barely peekin’ their tiny perfect blonde perfect heads over the steering wheels of their giant range rovers or escalades or hummers or merecedes SUVs the bitches would rather cancel their next botox appointments or run you down in lieu of stopping for humans in these crosswalks this is no walking town anymore just crazy sunday in this city of fallen angels
bill explains that there’s a transit system now in this town says if i blow off tomorrow’s workday we’ll park the rental and he’ll guide me through it from downtown back to the beach for later in the day he says he’ll hold my hand show me how much better LA looks from the window of a train whizzing you by it all in a near-blur he says he can kill time getting drunk on both main streets waiting for me while i take care of things needing great care
my hands may hold a little food another shinto CD never sent a mahler favorite pens and the cursed notebook if our nerves hold up in that first moment beyond initial contact we’ll chuckle about it all laugh the stories and cruel lines away it might even all seem funny by then amid the chaos of the real human tragedies maybe we’ll decide what to do next with this fat pile of letters maybe we’ll decide nothing
its harder here than i imagined everywhere is enemy territory every step a land mine of unfamiliar memories they say if you dreamwalk time through a life in someone else’s town it will eventually seem less and less like your own
V.
blondie’s ridin on the metro-o-o is stuck in my head we only could remember the chorus but managed to sing it/scream it as we laughed and ran into the almost-empty echoing car when these doors spit me out i’ll be standing in a near downtown somewhere i haven’t stood in over fifty years fifty years! turns out the westside line is non-existent its still in debate but mondays in venice aren’t sundays in venice so after this coffee date with talented beautiful angry young asian girl writers/poets let’s drive back toward venice later instead
i like those bars better, says bill all that main street sawdust makes me sneeze but all that human wasteland in the downtown morning bars in that neck of the woods make my pen run dry leaving wet circles on blank page next to the sweating beer glass i’ll be crying at midnite over the downtown bars over the empty-eyed and strung out this is why i live near the coast it could be me walkin those circles when it all comes back to me at midnite yes, it tends to make me cry
its ok i’ll drive us home to playa longa when i’m done i won’t be long
VI.
we jokingly argued about curbside dropoff vs. parking lots and airport goodbyes …. thank god i lost…. we hugged and held on at the security gate…..knowing that with we crazies, one never knows if there will be a next time…. bill asked me over pre-flight keoke coffee if i was happy with the outcome of this journey….was there an outcome? hard to tell…. life throws these curveballs…. sometimes your glove is up and sometimes you simply get hit in the head …but that hit can wake you up sometimes bloody and bruised, dizzied from the new knot and swelling …but the concussion makes you see things so differently….we are lucky , you know, that after all the damage we’ve inflicted over the years that we’re not quite as far gone … still, i’m saddened by the aging of my old pal…. by the loss of spirit…. and the absence of words that we’ll never see or feel again in our lifetime ….but sometimes its just enough to make an old man happy with a visit… a few humble gifts…..words in the holy days of atonement … sometimes a visit is enough to make you realize the folly of a dream …you were right, bill said, you never wanted to make a buck off his blood but you got waylaid into someone else’s world for a minute…losing sight of yourself…trust what you know, who you are trust
what
matters
