An old diary entry ~ just after 9/11
Filed under Journal
DIARY ENTRY September 2001:
This place is like hell. I arrived in LA tonight after a hot lonely week in Arizona. It is three weeks after the bombing of the Trade Towers. There were guns at the airport.
I wore my ‘Terrorism sucks’ t-shirt. It drew a few smiles and comments and was a free ticket through security. Bummer if I was a terrorist. Anyone with an Arab name not so lucky. A long line of dark businessmen were being frisked at every metal detector. Still, it was still plainly obvious you could smuggle a weapon if you wanted. Scissors were ok.
My flight was with American Airlines. I had to walk a path through bunches of flowers and cards of sorrow to book in. Reality check. I had felt like a spectator until now. I watched the two Arab looking men on the plane with suspicion and was bemused by my thought it was best to take a knife in the guts if I had to. Too much TV, too much propaganda.
It’s 5.50pm when I arrive at LAX. I call the Hotel taxi for a lift. I keep calling until 9.30 amongst a constant flow of stressed flustered Americans. I notice a girl with a backpack doing the same and enquire if she is waiting for the same ride. With a scottish accent, she acknowledges. Nice to have someone in the same situation to talk to for a while. Recently separated and seeing the world on her own. I wish I had guts like that. The taxi finally arrives and we share a ride into town. I get dropped off and told to pay $20 for the ‘free’ taxi ride from the airport. Sorry no Englaise. Fine, great, whatever.
It’s midnight. It’s Hollywood Boulevard. It’s a scary freak show.
Bag ladies. Glaring lights. Drugged out bums and swaying homeless people. I stand out on the raving crowded street like a beacon with my red backpack. At my feet is Jay Leno’s star. There’s a big glob of spit on it. I don’t know where my hotel is. Just a row of tattoo joints and sleazy souvenir stores. I get shoved by a vagrant. A guy stuffs a cheap US flag t-shirt at me. ‘Support the New York fire fighters.’ Yeah right. I see a small ‘hotel’ sign over a small door going up and I’m up the stairs in a flash. It isn’t the sanctuary I’d hoped for. Musty. Moth eaten. I have to step over someone in the hallway. Asleep I hope. Should have jumped off at the Scottish girls campground. Too late now. There’s no office. Just a long corridor of stained walls and doors, some with numbers. Then someone yells at me from a side room with a strong east european accent. I walk through and yes there’s a desk of sorts and a group of people talking. Russian maybe? They all shut up when I open my mouth to say I have a reservation. Silence apart from the barking street below. On my left is a ratty brown sofa. On the ratty brown sofa is a stereotype American college jock complete with blazer and bowl cut. Lying with face in the college jock’s crotch is a flaming pink haired stumpy girl in pyjamas. Looks like she has an ulcer. Sitting next to her is a beautiful young Nordic girl, silent, and standing in the corner is a scruffy thin unshaven guy.. At the desk is a bright coloured blonde girl. She looks at me like I just walked out of the girls toilets, but smiles a bright LA white smile. Uncomfortable pause. My common sense says ‘Not safe here’ but I’ve nowhere else to go. “I have a reservation for the next week”. I just make the sentence and the pink girl blurts out in a thick Italian accent ‘How old are you!?’.
I pause. ‘29’
‘What month were you born’
‘September’
‘I’m 29 too! I’m younger though’
I smile. Thanks for that. She smiles a crooked evil grin.
‘Don’t worry about her’ the American jock says. He isn’t American. Dutch I think. ‘Ah, how many nights are you reserved for’ the blonde behind the desk breaks in. She talks in a seductive slow Russian accent like she just walked out of a Bond movie. I think I see foam at the corner of Pinkies mouth.
‘4 nights’ I say regretfully. ‘Private room’. The net said the hostel had mainly bunk rooms with a few private rooms. So glad I booked one now. There is a gasp around the room.
‘Private room??’ the scruffy guy says. Another Russian.
‘What? Are you thinking you are getting a woman??’ Pinky spits. She scares me.
‘No, I just like my sleep’ I say apologetically. She buries her head in Not-a-jock’s crutch, then eyes me. ‘Put him in my room!’ I know I’m not particularly attractive so this should be an ego boost but it’s quite terrifying. By the oblivious expressions around me though, it’s quite normal.
‘Can I have … money please’ the Bond girl says. And now I feel like I’m walking into a trap, but it’s this or the street.
‘Is Visa ok?’
The group exchange glances. Scruffy eyes me again. ‘What? You don’t have cash, travellers checks?’ (What, so you can steal them?)
‘No, but I can get cash tomorrow?’ I’m not sure who I should be talking to.
Bond girl is the consummate unfazed professional. ‘Visa is fine’. How lovely that accent is and how normal she seems. Something’s not right.
‘I am no good tonight because I have a cold but tomorrow you sleep with me.’ Pinkie again breaks the flow. I’m starting to adjust. Not-a-Jock laughs, then assesses me. Jealous?
Reluctantly I give Bond girl my visa and watch intently to make sure no extra charges are rung up. Unnervingly, she dials the phone and gives my card and personal details to someone in Russian. The group stares.
‘Noo Seelander. I don’t know any’ Scruffy says.
‘Is like Australian’ Bond girl says mid phone call.
Pinkie continues to drill me about where I’ve been and when I leave.
Then they discuss in hushed tones which room I should get, giving me the impression some of the bodies may not have been removed yet. I get a key.
‘You sign receipt tomorrow ok?’
‘Sure’. I’m already backing out of the room.
‘I am room 42.’ Pinkie yells after me. Strangely I’m just down a few doors.
‘Good luck’ Not-a-Jock calls.
Up another flight of stairs I fumble with the door. A dazed looking girl walks past, eyes me, stops, introduces herself and asks my name. She takes my hand with a dipped smile and a curtsy. ‘Nice to meet you’. I don’t know what aftershave I put on, but I could make a fortune. I slip inside and fling the door closed. Door locked. I find the pull light…
It’s a strange sensation. It’s the hotel room in all those old detective movies. The one they inspect. The crime scene. Minus the jazz and voiceover. The police siren is there though.
Dirty brick walls. A coin locker, a barred window with wrecked venetian blinds, a space like a cupboard with one broken clothes hanger, a small tin bin, and a mangled double bed, springs shot from years of abuse. There’s a faint smell of puke. The notice on the door says ‘lock your belongings’. The notice on the window stays ‘throwing objects is against Hostel rules, instant ejection, no refund’. There are a lot of no refund signs.
I’m not sure if the linen is brown and clean, or brown and dirty, the light is so dim. My stomach is sure it’s hungry. It’s a tough decision to head out again for something to eat. I take a breath and head out onto the street. Don’t make eye contact. Keep your head down. It’s like every person that never made it in Hollywood came here and went mad. I take a glance up and see great lights shining into the sky as seen in the 20th Century Fox intro. I see construction works and rubbish everywhere. To think they’ll hold the Academy Awards across the road from here in a couple of months.
An Oasis. The Golden Arches loom a block away. I speed walk past a mumbling old lady with a blonde wig, smeared bright silent movie makeup and a trolley. So does a tall gangly guy.
‘Hey, hey man, hey, hey, hey, HEY MAN!’ I can’t avoid him and flash eye contact. He points. ‘Look…look at her man! She’s FUCKED!’ He laughs and twitches. ‘I bet she auditioned for the Wizard of Oz about 30 years ago!’. I think he’s probably right. He cackles to himself, slaps the head of a beggar in a wheelchair and swaggers off. I head for the crossing. ‘Help an old negro man sir’. A sad cripple reaches out. That one hurts. How did he know I felt for the persecuted minority.
Finally I make MacDonalds. Just a bit of sanity. People are sitting around. And some are lying. There are trolleys of junk. The food counter is closed. After midnight, McDonalds becomes a homeless shelter. How caring. A dark guy sits in a cubicle counting a large number of vitamin and supplement bottles. Others are crammed into the spaces with their sleeping bags and wine, eating scraps. I leave.
Another block down, my home favourite, Burger King. Please be normal. I realise I’m doing it all wrong. Look local. Look mean. Head up, eyebrows down, slightly manic. It works. The biggest man I have ever seen standing is wedged into the door of a bus. A couple of vagrants are pushing from behind, the whole vehicle rocking. The first thought that I should write this down, but I figure everyone would consider me prone to exaggeration. Burger King.
No vagrants. Dirty but no vagrants. I eat quickly as eccentric people come and go. It strikes me I’m the most unusual person here. I visit the toilet on my way out. A large toned black man is standing at the basin washing and whistling. He has no shirt on. He has no pants on. He’s ‘washing’.
‘Oh I’m sorry’ I say on my way back out.
‘Nah it’s OK man, come on in’
I edge past him into the toilet cubicle. I realise I am not street savvy. The toilet is covered in mess and the walls are splattered with … stuff. Brave the black man, brave the black man. I walk crisply back to the hostel. Maybe I can switch to the Banana Bungalow in the morning. As I walk up the stairs, Bond girl calls out.
“You sign receipt now … OK?”
I ask her if it’s too late to shorten my stay. It is. No refunds.
After I sign my receipt, I decide maybe having a chat would bring things into perspective. She’s from Estonia. Loves Hollywood. I ask what the best attractions are. She gives me a list of all her favourite girl bars, how much she adores Swedish girls and where she picks them up. Raging lesbian. I feel Amish.
I retire to my concrete bunker, climb into the damp creaky bed and write this madness away with what you’re reading now, then drift off.
At 1am there is a bang on the door. The scruffy guy tells me a bunch of people want to meet me. Having vowed to sample the culture and being half asleep, I go. Idiot. A few steps down the hallway we enter a dim candle lit room. Seated around the walls are a collection of bizarre individuals. I’m pointed to a space next to Pinky…
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Warning – poetic abstract thought.
What is it that makes us? In these last few days I have seen so obviously the desire in all of us to connect in some way, any way, with those around us. Strangers we are, yet bound together by the simple fact that we are same. Made of the same flesh; bound by the same intricate emotions. So much you can see in a person’s eyes. Many new eyes I’ve seen in this short time, all burdened by experience, yet softened by a similar tint. A yearning to connect. The sweet quiet Polish girl, Agnes, alone in a strange place, the beaming old Mexican man who pulled me down to him on the bus to talk, the bizarre Italian girl with the pink hair who called me her boyfriend and said nobody loved her. What powerful things, eyes. I am learning to read them now. The time they spend focused on yours. Guarded. Open. The way they explore the mind during thought. The many many emotions they can relay in so much as a flicker. And behind them is that deep embedded desire to connect. Why is sex the only way people look to be one with someone. When simply looking into someone’s eyes can tell you so much. And give you so much.