The city was filled with suffocating combustion. A crowd of amygdala mandalas. Stratified people that occasionally met in violent ways. The screens were all I wanted. Skin to voice to wood to stone to fire to metal to letter to paper to lightning to remote to screen all when you wake up in the morning with your stimulant from hell. No more than a mere fleeting question of the hour drive to another flawed necessity. I was there with no solution to the philosophical problem.
It was the weekend again. Only teenagers and statistics were on the sidewalk. I walked miles among their houses gradually becoming more original as their age increased. I had forgot the purpose of my wandering by the time I reached the park.. The park was scattered palms and eucalyptus on a well kept green carpet of gasoline fodder. Naturally, there were newly renovated playground equipment near the parking lot. The houses were temples to money. The uniformity was intoxicating.
The sign said Buffalo Hills Park and it was an approximate square. I found the setting sun a relief from the heat that had burned me by then. No one was there to hassle my drunk ass. I could hear people’s televisions in a subtle cacophony. I crossed the street and stepped onto the grass. A light wind touched my face on contact. The wind wasn’t cool on the dry red skin.
I walked a few more steps and then took off my sandals. Redemption! Sigh and survey before moving to the center of the park. I looked up from my path to the indigo sky. Shit. I step in shit. The street lamps light simultaneously. I wipe the shit from my foot. Frustration gives way to intoxication and I continue with more attention. Once there I check for any further complications about the area and lay down. Cool strands of poisoned life ease the body from head to heel and I close my eyes.
BANG. SREECH! VROOM! I hadn’t expected gang activity here. I remain still and pray that I was out of reach of the lights. I slowly rise after hearing silence for twenty minutes. Darkness and dim orange blotches show no criminals or victims. I head toward a eucalyptus and pee. I’m almost empty when I see cop lights behind me in the parking lot. I zip up and piddle a little in my shorts due to the speed of the procedure. Turning around to see the floodlight.
I approach with hesitation. Once 10 feet from the sleek black and white Ford Crown Victoria I hear, “This park isn’t your restroom.”
“I’m sorry sir. It won’t happen again. It was an emergency, sir.”
“You will address me as officer from now on. Have you been drinking tonight?
“Yes officer. A little bit. I live just down the street.” I lied thankfully aware that the shit smell covered my heavy whiskey addiction and my clothes were not so disheveled as to indicate homelessness.
“What’s your name?”
“Simon, sir… uh officer” I pause and panic. “Simon Campbell”
“I live on Madison street, sir,” Remembering one of the roads on my way here.
“I’m going to let you off with a warning this time. Next time do it at home.”
“Yes, officer, I will”
The light turns off and faint traces of the light linger.
“Thank you.”
He says nothing and ducks into the car slowly. I barely hear him say, “fucking junky.” I make my way to the surrounding sidewalk and put on my sandals. Where the hell am I? Without hesitation, I turn left out of liberal guilt. The cops drive past me slowly. Reflections obscure their faces. I hear laughter from within. Though it is not pure evil it is ridicule and I walk on with an attentive mind to walk like I’ve had three beers. I perceive that the neighborhood is quiet. The clout of dinosaur zombies on the main artery thinned until the sound of televisions was more prominent. Soon this too succumbed to the sound of wind. When the wind was gone I had stopped walking and was feeling the merry-go-round I had swallowed.
In bitter pill I find the urge to talk to myself. “Yes sir pig sir. I’ve got poison on my skillet, sir.” The spite feeds my legs and I become mobile. Quiet in Los Angeles isn’t paranoid it is loony tunes, but I talk like I’ve had a third of Mckenna. “ Would you rather I choke on my vomit, officer sir.” I talk within at first and then it progresses into a liability. Silence again plays sickness in my paisley brain. I look at the sign above me. “ort Manleigh Circle and Newport Hill… wut th fck.” Irvine is near. I could pass for a college kid still or at least their drug dealer.
I forget why the hell I went for a walk in L.A. during the summer. This is the point where most people start to bargain with God about how they will never drink again. I have been there and have found the solace to be wanting. The nausea is torture at first and then pain well served by a just social Darwin. As if prompted by an accuser I turn around say, “At least I’m not making more of me.” I walk on like an expectant corpse. The trance of walking without direction in a Caucasian enclave gave me power over the ill hobby that cradled my time. The moments of lucidity secede and recede into what feels like a life.
Soon I see a few trees, a lawn with a splatter of yellowing grass and a sign that reads Harbor View Nature Park. I slow my wandering to wonder at nature. I sit at the edge of the lawn on the sidewalk. I’m not alone. In the orange street light I see a skinny black woman in a tight running outfit. Her hair is a loose Afro that bounces with a casual stride. She is smiling with a sober eye on me. I fake a small smile and say, “howdy.” Her smile continues without her teeth and she says nothing. Standing on the grass, she raises her arms above her head and lifts one foot to her other knee. She remains balanced like this for a few minutes and then snaps her head to the side with a crack, moving into the next position. “Yoga huh? My ex-wife did yoga. I never had the patience or the flexibility for it.” She opens her eyes and glares at me without a grin. “Sorry, not another word,” I say before entering a partial lotus and folding my hands.