respite (Pt. IX)
It doesn't take long for the boozy feeling of success to tarnish after the publisher meeting. We're barely to the first junction of foot traffic when the senseless jockeying and cross-checking starts with a renewed fury, shoved back into the thick of the bad noise and general misery of the show floor without proper re-calibration time. Hitting the ground running, and faced down with a baffling factoid of the e3 environment: no matter where you try to stand, your physical mass in scientific notation or whatever direction you happen to be floundering in, the fucking mob will inevitably be moving in the opposite direction. This pachinko-ball bullshit is enough to erode even the headiest sense of accomplishment like a belt-sander, and so it wasn't long before I was screaming at Dave over the sirens and rock music and constant murmuring.
"We need to get the fuck out of here. We need to eat. Now."
When your conscience begins to froth at the lips and eyeballs, you can't help but to feel a pang of genuine terror. The mood I was in could best be summed up as a werewolf coming down from a heart-shot of hard hallucinogens; hairy, furious, unconscionable, maybe a bit frightening. Dave and John did their best to steer me off of the show floor before I managed to kill again, straight through the nearest exit and out into the blazing, thick heat of the afternoon. Strangely, the weather over the last few days seemed to be moving in a sadistic retrograde to our moods; brief joy was met with relentless, carcinogenic death-air, our misery tempered slightly by clear skies and a seaward breeze. Los Angeles was mocking us. Maybe John and Dave couldn't see that, but I knew the basic venality of my hometown too well to be satisfied with any other explanation. The city was simply up to no good.
But at the same time, it seemed to be working to our advantage. The path was clear, and the traffic lights seemed to be green for miles in every direction. There was a healthy, tangible fear among the other mad dogs and gaming industry scum who had--whether intentionally, or by way of some wrong turn--also wound up wandering about in the noonday sun. A lot of them tasted like Okies; low-rent midwesterners and refugees from the red state bloc who'd blundered into whatever big score had wound up sending them out here to partake in this supposedly monumental event. They tasted like the same kind of harmless squares who you'd see standing on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, the answer to every lie they'd ever been told about the grand mysteries of Tinseltown carved into their stupefied faces as they sized up the rows of cluttered souvenir shops and tried to ignore the bitter smell of urine. For the locals, this is a kind of modern form of gladiatorial entertainment. The breaking of the tourist spirit. It's ingrained into the budding awareness of every child reared by the bitter loins of this cancerous city, as much a part of our traditions as chasing fireflies or snowball fights in more civilized and simpler parts of America. I couldn't go against my code in enjoying what was all around us as we put more and more distance between us and the gaping doors of the convention center; bodies strewn all over the benches and sidewalks, spent and mumbling to themselves about greener pastures and black magicks.
Nobody dared stray too far. These people had gotten a rude dose of Los Angeles hospitality during the morning crush to be the first ones to put their sweaty paws on a controller; any controller. It came on fast and loose, in all forms and denominations: a brigade of bums attracted to the smell of outsider fear, staking out the sidewalks and back-alleys, a frighteningly brown man thrusting out pamphlets for the city's finest strip clubs to anybody who'd made eye contact, a myriad circus of freaks, loners and fringe types asking questions and making demands. The morning push for the expo's front doors had the nervous character of a wildebeest pack, programmers and would-be web pundits clustering together, seeking safety from the human elements in numbers. Ignoring anyone too weak or too fat to keep up as they moved forward, ignoring the threat of traffic in a myopic and crude thrust towards some kind of cover. With the memories of that trauma still fresh and bleeding, the geek congregation kept close to their makeshift home. Buying shit-flavored catering food by the ton, hiding under trees. Staying well past the point of saturation and no return while they waited for the nerd-pod to form again and make its closing run for the nearby hotels, parking lots and transit systems. Just a few more hours... just a few more hours...
This suited my purposes just fine. I was in the mood for honest food, fast service, no questions asked and no eye contact made. And I knew just the place.
To hear Scanlon's tell it, The Pantry can be summed up thusly:
"Former mayor Richard Riordan is the proud owner of this downtown landmark. Those who swear by this place love the charbroiled steaks, oversized pork and lamb chops and daily specials like macaroni and cheese, plus the coleslaw and relish tray full of crispy vegetables on every table. Breakfasts are legendary: enormous omelets, very good bacon, pan-fried potatoes and thick sliced bread. The bakeshop next door is tiny, but the breakfasts are the same feasts and there are sticky buns, cinnamon rolls and brownies. This place keeps going all night long and it’s worth a visit for a taste of L.A. history. For those late nights when you have spent all your cash, there is an ATM on the premises since credit cards are not accepted."
The only two things any Los Angeles expatriate ever misses about the shell-shocked wasteland that he's fled from are as follows: pointless drives in the dead hours of the morning along the black coastlines and through the winding canyons, and the goddamned food. Everything else can be written off as a loss: the women, the culture, the sports and the so-called excitement of the urban sprawl all cut both ways. Intoxicating one moment, poisoning the guts of your soul the next. Hindsight may make you hate those things, but you can never shake the precious sadness of those long drives into the unknown, or the intestine-twisting taste of the house special at a dive like Pink's or El Coyote. The City of Angels may love a loser and a big lie, but it also brandishes its greasy spoons with a pride that's almost military in nature. I couldn't help but to feel some weird pang of nostalgia as we drew closer, towards the flyspecked windows and the battered old door; my first crumpled sense of homesickness. There were good memories here. Fine times, with forgotten people. |
