John O’Kane
In “Mining the States of City Minds,” a recent offering here, I introduced my approach to experiencing the texture of city life in Venice, California and writing up the resulting stories with a type of literary journalism. This kind of writing, with roots in the New Journalism of the 1960s, captures these stories as they happen in the streets and other sites of everyday life through scenes that are faithful to the action and events they emerged from. It lets characters speak for themselves, which gives the writing the feel of a fictional short story but also a more truthful approximation of the surfacing event through their differing perspectives or points of view. Like a Surrealist flaneur I amble through the city trolling for stories and find their potential elements in various clusters of activity, sometimes homeless camps, where these voices dramatize their challenging existences. They present the evidence that might lead to a larger story waiting to be told. My resulting scenes mix direct and indirect (playing undercover detective on occasion) observations and the reorganization of conversations. This is the ninth in my series.
In the first I capture the chaos ensuing from a crime in the streets, and especially the actions and impressions of one person suspected of committing it as he escapes. In the second I capture another scene in a park at night where several occupants confront the suspect and force him to move on. In the third I trace the suspect’s continued flight and his securing of temporary sanctuary. In the fourth I track his escape from there to the beach where he meets occupants of a camp who have created a kind of alternative, mini-society, and detain him as an alleged infiltrator. In the fifth I record his continuing experiences at this camp and his eventual escape. In the sixth I record his return to a friend’s place after this escape and his trek to the Dog Park where he encounters a woman who appears to be stalking him. In the seventh I record his reminiscences from the front yard of a house he stumbles on about the limits of street life but also how it helped him nurture a different existence and lifestyle. In the eighth I capture the moments after he surfaces from his reflections when he has a discussion in the house with activists he encountered earlier on the beach about their philosophy and how to improve the city. Here I record his return to a friend’s place where he recharges his batteries and contrives a new appearance before retracing his steps to the scene of the crime, hoping to rouse his memory.
Quotes From Among the Street Shadows
“Are you comfortable in my cramped and dusty attic?” Desiree asks. “At least you’re safe from the party crowd downstairs. I haven’t been up here since Annie and Rufus spent the night last summer trying to commune with ghosts.”
“This is like a palace compared to the places I’ve stayed recently,” Wyatt responds. “What happened that night? Did they get in touch with some netherworld?”
“They mostly met a cold and restless night of sleep, though they’ve garnished the tale a bit over time.”
“I’ve heard rumors of ghosts here but never thought much about it.”
“This space has a checkered history…there’ve been many deaths here. The previous tenant was found dead under very suspicious circumstances lying near the front door.”
“I’ve seen too many ghosts on the streets lately…coming out of the shadows. They’re making it difficult to…”
“…you looked like a ghost when you showed up on my doorstep. Now you’re…not the same. Who’re you trying to look like?”
Wyatt hesitates as if he’s not sure. He isn’t trying to look like anyone in particular. At least he doesn’t think so. He hasn’t considered what he really looks like for quite some time. Not long after he hit the street he found reflective surfaces around town that sent him signals about his appearance at certain hours of the day when the light was right. Like the bay window at a vacant house on 19th that he often passed on his way to the beach, or the plate glass windows of the businesses on Abbot Kinney and the Boardwalk, or even a flashing headshot from a pair of trendy sunglasses when he had the confidence to look directly at a passerby. He avoided mirrors even when he had access to them. He enjoyed the different impressions created from the mix of surface and light, the palette for the movie art he wanted to master ever since his uncle took him to the local cinema on Sunday afternoons back home. He could be subject and director of his own throwaway movie, capturing the action on the street. After a while he became quite creative. Once he passed a glimmering, new silver Mercedes parked over on Navy and a fisheye flash of himself appeared almost accidentally. He tried to recapture that moment through different looks during the varying illuminations of each day, never getting the same picture.
But with all the different options stewing in his mind it was becoming harder to remember what he really looked like. Especially what he looked like before he hit the street, when he was a reasonably well-adjusted seeker of the American Dream. He probably wouldn’t recognize that version if he confronted it now. After logging time on the street he had stopped even trying to look that part anyway and let himself creep ever more closely to a version of the street standard, but never fully becoming the typical street person, if there is such a beast. He simply wasn’t one. He had never slipped that far down. But was it possible that conditions unforeseen at this time could re-mold him?
“Anyone who doesn’t resemble my recent self,” he says.
But this demanded some real creativity. What would draw the least attention, prevent him from getting noticed? He would have to reverse the trajectory basted into his DNA by the entertainment industry.
He felt, more and more recently, like he had only been trying on looks over the course of the past few years anyway, so why not have another crack at it. He retrieved some of his stuff he was storing at a friend’s locker and did the best he could when he got back to Desiree’s place. After a numbing, marathon shower he braced himself for a look, feeling a sense of dread as he approached the mirror. But he saw only the fuzzy outlines of a figure. He was like a sketch yet to be filled in with life-like dimensions. He blinked and blinked, feeling that he must be hallucinating. Had he been out of it so long that he was now an ethereal creature, merely a metaphor in the recesses of his subconscious? Was this an opportunity to fill in the outlines with new content? Perhaps he could reinvent himself.
In his stupor he pulled his hair back into a ponytail and pondered what to do with his beard. Since he had had it for so long, he concluded, the best disguise would be one that lacked it.
As his physical substance was gradually thrown into relief during the next several days, the history he associated with it wasn’t. He felt like a blank slate. What could conjure this missing past and restore his full being? He recalled that he was not in the habit of thinking like this, trying to reconstruct his past and make sense of it. He remembered remembering that there were meaningful events and experiments back there. In fact, his talk with Evol and Yram at their house proved that some of the more recent ones at least were coming back. But now he wanted to know more about them. If he got lucky, using clever disguises and poses might lead him to recognize pieces of the past that bear some relation to his own and forge trails to his meaningful history.
Once he turned in a college paper that was all quotes. His defense of the failed grade to the professor was that he could never say what he wanted to say better than his sources. The grade didn’t get changed, but he felt the idea behind his argument was useful for life. Since it was becoming more difficult to be absolutely sure about anything these days, avoid pinning yourself down and defer to the people with more authority and the tried and tested poses that worked. Never leave home without reliable quotation marks. In fact street life did this to you. It fragmented your existence, made you into a temporary reference.
The least noticed person on the beach, he figured, would be one who looked mostly the same as everyone else and would not likely be stopped by the cops. The many wackos stuck out but the tourists blended into the mass and were treated like royalty since they bought stuff. He lacked the means for a shopping spree but he could play the part well. He had spent so much time despising, and evading these spoilers, who had made it so difficult to survive in the limited space he could access, and now he could mimic them. This would be time well-spent. He could retrieve those skills from acting class and get into the heads of his adversaries.
Logos! He had to wear as many as possible. They’re the sure sign of an adjusted member of society. He had a Dodgers cap among his belongings that someone from one of his camps had left behind. It was pretty soiled and scrunched up but he did a decent job of cleaning and pressing it with his crude tools. And he had a UCLA football jersey that he bought when he first arrived, holding onto it over the many months to remind him of some positive experiences. Luckily it was still in decent shape. What better signal could he send: a migrant to the area that comes to shop and is loyal to our local teams! Such a person would have to be seen as a true patriot and therefore immune from harassment. And support for sports put you in favor with the gods. Just don’t reverse the cap, he kept thinking. The cops were all over the suburban brats and gangbangers who mastered this pose. For garnish he wore a broken, but expensive watch he found on the street, and some trendy sunglasses borrowed from Desiree. To polish it off he carried a camera, a decent old Nikon he’d managed to hold onto since college. No credible tourist should be without a camera. He worked on the habit of constantly looking for scenes and pictures, and especially keeping the camera in front of his face. He refined the self-satisfied, oblivious-to-others look.
“Well, you don’t resemble any of the selves I’ve known. It seems you’ve succeeded.”
“Kind of early to tell…proof’s in the pudding.”
“Definitely avoid the scene downstairs…lots of people are looking for you. How did you get into this mess anyway?”
“It got into me. I’m not sure what it’s…all about.”
“The cops have been all over the neighborhood asking questions. Did you know that guy who was killed over on Indiana?”
“Sure, he was hard to miss…everyone knew him on the street.”
“Someone said you were the last one to see him alive and that you had an argument with him…threatened him.”
“Don’t know about that…but he argued with everybody all the time. Lots a folks hoped he would move on.”
“Ever think of explaining it all to the cops?”
“They’d never believe me. Guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Guess?”
“I can’t remember much…mind’s a blank about that night.”
“Anyone you know who could help?”
“I’ve been trying to find Willow.”
“I haven’t seen her for a while. Heard she might move in with someone in the canals. Why do you want to see her?”
“I think she was there that night and she must be able to tell me something. I’m worried about her…don’t understand what happened. Is she afraid of me?”
“I doubt that but…you think she can straighten it all out? The whole thing seems ridiculous. I can’t imagine you ever lifting a hand against someone.”
“I think she would. It’s crazy. I remember I was very upset about something then and there were all these new people around on Indiana and I was…nervous.”
“But you don’t remember anything at all from that night?”
“Not really.”
“Maybe we should get Jizmo over here to open up your mind. He’s been doing some edgy group work down the beach but he’s also started to experiment with hypnosis. If he can’t get it out of you then probably no one can.”
“I don’t know…I’ve never tried anything like that. Was he the one who had that séance one night a while ago down on the beach…Grateful Dead music in the background?”
“I’m not sure but it sounds like something he might consider doing. Anyway, I’ll introduce you. Meanwhile we have to keep you under wraps.”
“Yeah, I’m some kinda package! But I don’t know how long I can keep this up.”
“I’ll ask around and see if anyone knows where Willow is, or if anyone else might know something about what happened that night.”
“Not trying to sound paranoid, but I ran into this woman a few days ago and…she came otta nowhere and seems to be following me.”
“What’s she look like?”
“Hot model…possibly an actress. Don’t know why she would be interested in me unless…”
“There are more and more like that around here these days. You think she might know something?”
“I don’t know but I have to find her…make sure she…”
Piercing screams overlaid with sirens and then the sound of bodies scrambling interrupt their chat. Their eyes meet in panic. Wyatt moves to exit the attic, but hesitates, looking to Desiree. She freezes, groping for words.
“Let’s try to make it next door until I know what’s going on.”
She rushes Wyatt down the ladder into the pandemonium and they follow the trails to the exit, turning toward Speedway from the gallery into the bedlam of fleeing bodies. She urges him to catch up with Rhiannon’s group twenty feet or so up Dudley, and suggests he return later once things calm down. He trots up Dudley and makes eye contact with Rhiannon as she turns north with her group between two condos. The surrounding mayhem and the copters’ palsied light streams painting the area draw the good citizens from their televisions to witness the exposed perps below from their window roosts. Sensing the danger, Rhiannon steers them toward her friend Sheila’s pad above a large garage off Ozone where luckily the lights are on. Sheila shepherds them in with a welcome. Wyatt recognizes one of Rhiannon’s friends from her place the night he fled from Indiana, but she doesn’t appear to recognize him. Neither does Rhiannon. He decides it would be best to keep it that way and give his disguise the true test. They banter away, hoping to alleviate the stress from potential discovery. Sheila gets nervous as the ghetto birds continue to shuck and jive through the area and kills the lights. Wyatt swears he can see the whites of a pilot’s eyes through a crack in the blinds. Respecting Sheila’s situation they decide to search for another sanctuary. Most quickly follow Rhiannon to her pad. Wyatt feels it’s the perfect moment to re-explore the streets and possibly find a few mates…
John O’Kane has published over a hundred stories, essays and poems in a variety of venues, blogs regularly on Huffingtonpost, and edits and publishes AMASS Magazine. His most recent book is, A People’s Manifesto (2015). He has a book of short stories forthcoming in 2018.