210 Freeway Eastbound
Los Angeles seems to reinvent itself after a good rainstorm. With days of dreary downpour finally over, the sun is out, the sky is a shade of blue I don’t recall, and the mountains show off now that their veil of smog has been removed. I want to roll down all my windows and breathe to the bottom of my lungs. Up ahead on a caged overpass, three girls face the oncoming drivers. Two girls dance in unison, arms above their heads, laughing, teeth visible even through the metal grates. The third girl leans on the cage and waves. I wave back, only I’m already where she can’t see me, my car propelled along with the flow of traffic. Please keep dancing, I think to myself as I punch the buttons on the radio until I find something with a beat. When I get home, I run onto my front lawn and twirl like I am five years old until I fall down.
405 Freeway Northbound
The tedious crawl of traffic finally breaks up as I move into the transition lane to the 101. Glad to be moving, I step on the accelerator, a little closer to getting home, or so I think in those few moments of speed. The traffic slows again up ahead and the same dull commuting haze fills my brain until something gold catches my eye. It’s a gilded bust somehow mounted on the guardrail on the right-hand side of the road, surrounded by weeds and trash and asphalt. Light catches the metallic paint and the curves of the form create shadows and texture. I wonder about the artist, sculpting, painting, and finally installing this piece on the side of the freeway. A drive-through art exhibit open to all, if you happen to drive this particular route. No valet parking, no wine and cheese, no small-talk with other patrons — just a quick view of the work of a nameless, faceless creator. I drive by the next day and it’s still there, and the next, it’s still on display. On the third day it’s gone. The makeshift gallery has returned to metal, and weeds, and trash, and asphalt.
Forest Lawn Drive
I used to love to drive this stretch from the 134 to Barham Boulevard when there were no stoplights to slow you down. Now that extra bit of time here, courtesy of the signals, helps me to absorb the thinning between two worlds. The person in a straw hat at the side of the road selling day-old carnations signals a shift in the atmosphere. Weeds and scrub fill the space on the right side of the road, while the left is home to carefully manicured Mount Sinai and Forest Lawn, unnaturally green, with flowers and balloons lovingly placed on many of the flat grave markers. The familiar white sign at the front of Forest Lawn that announced “One Call or Visit Arranges All” has recently been replaced with a somber monument, more like a headstone than a sign. It’s here, as I drive by the entrance, that I often notice a faint odor in my car. Sometimes it’s cigarettes; other times it’s like a person’s breath after a few stiff drinks; and on occasion, it’s a sweet, floral perfume. I picture lonely residents of the cemetery looking for a ride, or maybe just a little company, sitting next to me. They’re welcome, of course. Maybe it’s a faded diva, impeccably groomed, reclining in the passenger seat; or a gang banger, a skinny kid, really, with a veneer of toughness; or someone’s grandpa with curled fingers, and yellow teeth. As quickly as they hitch a ride, they evaporate, but still the feeling of a stranger, a visitor, a presence, lingers in the car as I turn the corner and continue over the hill.
Robertson Boulevard
Why is it when you’re running late that you get every red light? I look at the clock on my dashboard and tap the side of the steering wheel. “Come on, come on…” In the rearview mirror I see, in the car behind me, a burgundy mouth lip-synching the words to the song on my radio. I look closer and see a woman singing her soul out, like she’s alone in the shower. Chunks of blonde and black hair bounce and sway in time to the music in my car. “Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand. Just like that river twisting through a dusty land. And when she shines she really shows you all she can. Oh Rio Rio, dance across the Rio Grande.” She’s oblivious as my eyes stay on my mirror. I don’t mind waiting at the light now; I’m enjoying vintage Duran Duran and the show in the green VW bug behind me – a secret show in which the performer doesn’t even know she’s performing.
10 Freeway Eastbound
There’s something incredibly ugly about driving in the fast lane. Maybe it’s because it requires more concentration, being only inches away from the divider between you and the traffic rushing in the other direction. Or maybe it’s because the view to the left is asphalt meeting concrete barrier, graffiti-filled overpasses, and gray everything. But if you look closely, you’ll see plants growing up from an unseen space between the road and the barrier. Okay, they’re weeds, but they’re green, and they’re growing, in a space where there doesn’t look like there’s even a space, in the middle of a desert. The weeds seem to grow in groups, side by side, all different heights, some even taller than the barrier. The clusters look like they’re trying to imitate the downtown skyline, which comes into view, orange with the evening sun reflecting off the windows, buildings of all different heights, surrounded by asphalt and concrete, stealing the limelight from the little clumps of green pushing their way up through the grayness, flourishing against all odds.
5 Freeway Southbound
Traffic is stop and go in both directions. I fiddle with the vents until the air-conditioning hits me where I’m sweating most. Usually, you can hear the deep thump-thump of the bass of someone’s stereo cranked unbearably loud, but today I swear I can hear a saxophone. As I roll down my window, I’m assaulted by the heat and the stink, but the sound of jazz cuts through the junk in the air. My car creeps forward until I pass a beat up old Chevy. The windows are down and the passenger, wearing a stocking cap, eyes squeezed shut, focuses all his energy on his music. I don’t recognize the piece, but I close my eyes too and soak up the notes. Angry honking jolts me out of my trance and I realize that my lane has started moving again. My car moves forward, my windows close, and once again I’m sequestered in my cool, private, silent bubble.
La Brea Avenue
Next to the freeway on-ramp sign is a chain-link fence surrounding an overgrown lot. This fence is the sight of a roadside memorial made out of Styrofoam cups stuck in the holes and surrounded by flowers. The flowers tied to the fence are dead or faded and they sway in the breeze. The cup used to spell someone’s name; now it’s hard to read. Ana? Ani? Something like that. Who was she? What happened? The cups are dirty and turning gray. Some were placed in the shape of a heart. The heart is missing pieces, but it’s still recognizable. Will the heart ever be fixed, I wonder, or will it just disintegrate, bit by bit, until there is nothing left?
2 Freeway Northbound
Tonight, the lights of Los Angeles pale next to the brilliance of the fire in Griffith Park. Whole sections of hillside are being eaten by orange flames and unpredictable, random lines blaze their way in crazy directions. My nostrils burn. I’m mesmerized. It’s terrifying and thrilling. Helicopters drone and continue to drop water all through the night. I want to keep watching, but I can’t turn my head any more. Anyway, I’d better keep my eyes on the road, unless I want to end up in a fiery heap, becoming yet another anonymous distraction for the never-ending stream of traffic that speeds on to unknown destinations somewhere in L.A.
About the Author:
At the age of ten, Wendy was awarded third place in a writing competition in her hometown of Toronto, Canada. She then went on to develop a severe case of writer’s block that lasted for just over thirty years. This condition did not stop her from having a long and strange career in advertising which she eventually gave up to pursue her B.A. at Antioch University. Wendy spends most of her free time with her husband and daughter, and all three of them enjoy writing captions for cartoons in The New Yorker. She maintains that the three most important food groups are coffee, wine and chocolate.
