In the third year of Trump’s presidency, Los Angeles has given up.
The only ones enjoying life were the tourists and wealthy conservatives, but LA is broken. The vibe of the entire city changed from the last time I was there. I didn’t even recognize the city. The laid back easy going attitude and networking love that I was exposed to is replaced with this desperate rage bordering on suicide and murder. It reminded me of back East but worse somehow.
And the long periods of awful weather punctuated that furious melancholy. The heart of the city had been ripped out. A terrible nihilism swept the land and the LA that cared was burned in the fires that eventually ripped through it. Will LA ever be what it used to be? Minimum wage is 15 bucks, so I guess they’re headed in the right direction.
Finding food was easy in LA. I ate once a day, but the meal was hearty and sometimes surprisingly delicious. The food kitchen in Hollywood is a miracle of nature. The volunteers were young kids, some quite attractive. I was so embarrased to take the food, but they made me feel welcome. Sure you had some who looked at me in weird shock. No man. I’m not researching a role. This is homeless me. I am no other me. Right now, I’m writing this on Christmas Day. So that means the soup kitchen is handing out 20 dollar bills. That’s the America I want back.
I remember going to the parking lot of a building around the YMCA once a week. They handed out blue tickets and you waited in line to get a free chicken dinner and a bag of goodies. They brought out young kids to give away the fruit and snacks, and pumped them up before they did. Good. The poor kids deserve to feel good for their charity. Most avoided my eyes, too ashamed to witness failures at life so young. There’s no worse feeling than inadvertently scaring a kid.
I wanted to be part of a program that helped the homeless find a job and housing, but of course I didn’t qualify. My Visa expired when I was twelve. So what the fuck was I supposed to do? Blame it on my parents but they’re dead and gone. I’m an immigrant so that means I ain’t entitled to shit in this country. No government assistance. No food stamps. Nothing.
I live afraid all the time. There’s never been a time I haven’t been afraid. June and I tried to get married, but could never live long enough to save the money that we needed to make that happen without trouble from the government. Now, Trump is president and I wonder if I’ll be able to stay in this country. 28 years here! And I’m still not entitled to shit! Journalism is dead, so I thought you should hear it from the horse’s mouth.
The American Experiment is on it’s last breaths and I’m afraid sometimes that – unlike the 30’s – there’s no coming back. Mother Nature howls in agony as the Fat Cat’s count their stacks. The Law is made to favor the fever of greed. Is there really a way out of this? Only God knows, but he went out for a pack of cigarettes millennia ago. We are on our own in the great unknown…
We bounced around a great deal. One AirBnB was a tent in the back of someone’s house. After the horribly chilly nights, the place was a godsend. We made palta: smashed avocado with a drizzle of olive oil and lemon and a pinch of salt and paired it with toasted baguette. What a bounty! We ate vegetables and fruit. We cooked our famous meat sauce. We even had breakfast and coffee. That was eight months ago. A Chicago born Thai lived there with his wife, who eyed everyone suspiciously and looked like something out of the Addams Family. His name was Ryan, and he was once the star of an Indie film in Chicago by a respectable Director, I forgot who. Now, he taught at a university about acting, though never quite making it himself. He took a liking to the desperate couple who held on, waiting for two things that were never going to happen.
Kyle was also there, the older guy in the tight jeans and leather jacket who got taken to the cleaners in a divorce and now he was trying to run his business while jumping AirBnBs. He restored films with his people, but the divorced bled him dry and his friends were nowhere to be found. Kyle cheated on his wife and when he admitted it, she nailed him. Still, he was a cool dude, and we got along with him just fine. His passion was music and anything about aliens. He had a son who was into EDM. We talked at night about obscure cinema and Aleister Crowley.
A flamboyant French Canadian gay man was also there named Pierre. He was the other long termer. He was a writer too. A lover of horror.
“Horror is my life. Oh my god, I l-love horror.” Pierre sounded like a French Truman Capote on a happy bender. “It taught me not to be a-afraid and cope with – uh – many tragic things. So much tragedy I tell you. Much. My friend lost her son to pills. Uh! Horrible. My other friend in Ontario k-killed himself. Uh!” He moved his hands around in emphasis and hugged himself tightly. “Uh! Sorrow everywhere. I broke up with my boyfriend of seven years. Horrible breakup. Horrible.”
The way he pronounced ‘horrible’ made me almost laugh. He frequently said that word, more often than he thought.
“No!” Pierre continues, as June and I listen. “I h-had to get out. So, I sold my whole life and decided to travel. My dream was to live in Paris, but uh! The cold. It’s unbearable. I hated it.”
We start laughing and he enjoyed the conviviality.
“It was h-horrible. That damn city has the best – the best – public transport, but no heater in the buildings? What the fuck is wrong here?”
We laugh together. He really enjoys our company and talks about how disgusting Montreal is. He then tells us that he is from a really wealthy family. His mother was a model and father some kind of bureaucrat, ambassador maybe. They met at a party and the rest is history. The reality is probably much less glamorous I’m sure, but Pierre has stars in his eyes when he relates the story.
“I’ll tell you guys because I like you: I used to stutter really bad as a child. I h-had bad anxiety all the time. They didn’t even let me answer the phone. I couldn’t answer t-the door when people knocked. It was horrible.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” June said, looking on with empathy.
“Thank you sweet. But I’m much better now. When I lost – what I thought – was the love of my life, can I tell you something?”
Pierre leaned in but I already knew what he was going to say.
“When I lost – or thought I lost – the love of my life, I tried to commit suicide. The ambulance people found me and were able to save me. After that I was in a hospital for psychological treatment. Uh! It was horrible. I did not like it. But I realized I wanted to live. I wanted to see my art on the big screen. I wanted to see the world. So I wrote a screenplay and it won first place in a contest. That was when I decided to come to Los Angeles. A magical city! I love it. Magic everywhere. But it’s so hard. It’s so fucking difficult. And the homeless. Uh! I don’t understand it.”
“It’s a broken system here.” I said. “A lot of Europeans don’t get it either, but their systems are better. You don’t get the benefits you get there: close-to-free college, travel, work exchange. Here, you can work hard your whole life, and still get canned.”
“Canned-?” Pierre looked confused. “What is this?”
“An expression.”
“Ah! Yes, of course. I love American expressions.”
“Canned means fired.” I continued. “Too many mergers and monopolies here, and it’s deep in government too. You can work for a company for decades and not get retirement or anything you’re entitled to. No priviledge whatsoever.”
“That’s h-horrible.”
“This is America.” June says with a sad smirk.
And they laughed the laugh of the damned.
DanCarvalloSays 