discreetly wild

I drive down Vine and turn onto Hollywood Boulevard.

Every time I come to this city I get the feeling that I never left. Of being born here. Of having parents who were born here and died here, suddenly, while grilling ribs in the backyard of their little house in Santa Monica and staring at the blue ripples of the pool. Worn out, intoxicated, bored with time pouncing on every object and rendering them ridiculous. I had memories of several lives that had never happened. Friends shot by mistake, women crying because everything was different, parties discreetly wild. A lot of missing people who went on to lives elsewhere or simply retreated into their own interior. I turn on the radio looking for some music. A guy talks about redemption, eternal life, sacrifice. He is convinced that someone is watching his steps all the time and evaluating his thoughts. Advertising interrupts him to advertise dog food. The guy goes back to talking more and more unhinged. He has an express wedding business in Las Vegas, an ex-wife who torments him and a son addicted to meth. I picture him in the toilets of the radio station, snorting coke, constipated, scared to death. I drive down Fairfax toward Culver City. I turn off the radio and ask Lev to put on some music, the soundtrack to a movie set in space and promising  something hard to deliver.