Ghosts of Los Angeles I

History’s randomness is what haunts; the way two unrelated stories immersed in shadow and question marks collide in some tangible way, totally unexpectedly, thrusting pathos upon the ordinary and the mundane, somehow leaving you with no answers even after the curtains of shadows are opened, often only momentarily, affording a glance of something you thought you’d never see.

More and more I feel like Los Angeles is America’s great undiscovered city. The conventional wisdom is that there’s no there there (Gertrude Stein’s famous quote, often erroneously attributed to Los Angeles, when in fact she was referring to her hometown of Oakland), a state of mind prevalent among even those who grew up there. Yet, the city’s shadowy history is enough to suck in thousands who have a hard time explaining – even coming to grips with – its relentless pull. Bunker Hill. Skid Row. The Black Dahlia. Ed Wood, Jr. The Manson murders. George Reeves. Film Noir. Robert Kennedy. Richard Ramirez. Even East Hollywood and Charles Bukowski.

At 5533 Hollywood Boulevard stands the Gershwin Hotel, formerly the St. Francis Hotel, built in 1926 near Western Ave. It’s the kind of pre-Depression throwback that adds so much character to a city –bricks, outdoor fire escapes, arched doorways, old windows. A prime candidate – if there ever was one in this city that cares so little for its history that you get the feeling it actually hates it – for the wrecking ball. I’ve snapped many a photo of it myself for no other reason than it’s a great old building, and I worry on every trip to L.A. that it may not be there the next time I come back.

The hotel, however, boasts a couple of celebrity guests. Although this hasn’t been verified, a woman working at the Gershwin in 2003 told author Matt Dukes Jordan that Bukowski stayed there a couple of times while he still lived in East Hollywood.

What has been verified is the presence of James Earl Ray, who arrived in Los Angeles in his white Mustang on November 19^th, 1967, with a spare tire full of Mexican cannabis and dreams of producing pornography. In less than five months, the spectre-like Ray would assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. from the bathroom window of a Memphis flophouse, but in late ’67, the 40 year-old southern racist was a character straight out of a Raymond Chandler novel: an awkward, angry, hypochondriac speed-freak who had spent as much time in jail as in the real world, comfortable only with prostitutes and down-and-outs, drinking and shooting pool in seedy dive bars. During his stay in the City of Angels, Ray got into a bar room brawl on Hollywood Boulevard, graduated from bartending school, took dance lessons in Long Beach, and had his nose altered by a plastic surgeon. For half his stay he lived in room 403 of the St. Francis Hotel. He checked out on March 18^th, 1968, and drove into history.

Strangely, Ray is exactly the kind of man Bukowski crossed paths with every week. It’s enticing to think that perhaps the two men bumped into each other during those four months in late ‘67/early ’68. Bukowski was living in his bungalow at 5124 DeLongpre at the time, and occasionally visited Le Sex Shoppe at 5507 Hollywood Blvd – just a few doors down from the St. Francis. At any rate, it’s the kind of fascinating historical footnote that most people visiting Los Angeles are utterly oblivious to, preferring instead to spend their time and money at Hollywood and Highland, an area where all history and heritage has recently been obliterated in the name of mega entertainment complexes and chain stores. I suppose you can’t force people to see the stuff that's genuinely interesting. And probably the story of the St. Francis Hotel wouldn’t interest them anyway. It’s a bum rap Los Angeles is stuck with – an ignorant, shallow population of locals and tourists, caught up in the tragic notion that L.A. is all about the Chinese Theater, and the Walk of Fame. And little else.

Sometimes life throws you a hard curve.

            I never wanted a dog.

            It’s got nothing to do with not loving dogs. Truthfully, I find animals infinitely more interesting, beautiful, graceful, intelligent and dignified than the whole of humanity. You can throw insects in there, too. I always find it much sadder when an animal dies than a human, and I find it particularly pathetic that selfish, thoughtless, greedy humans continue obliterating their habitats and wiping out entire species of wildlife, all in the name of sprawling forever outwards, blading everything in sight so that greedy developers and contractors can build ugly, cookie-cutter, pre-fab homes and strip malls and support their decadent lifestyles.

            But I never wanted a dog. My girlfriend worked on me for years, but I wouldn’t allow dog one into our house. Simple reason, too – I despise responsibility.

            And so does everyone else, if he or she is being honest about it. Personal space and a lack of stress in your life are important, but no one gives any thought to this. Instead, the vast majority of men and women have decided by their teens that they must 1) get married, 2) get a job, 3) buy a house, and 4) raise children. They do this because TV and religion – two of the most vapid, shallow, unenlightened forces on planet Earth – tell them that they’re losers if they don’t. A few years later, with screaming, out of control kids running amok, a 30-year mortgage, and a nagging spouse – and how can there not be nagging? You see each other every damn day of your life – they’ve had it. Enough shouting matches, and enough working a job you hate but have to fucking stick with because if you quit and try and enjoy life, your house is foreclosed upon, and your kids have no money for clothes and school. It’s just TOO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY to actually enjoy life on Earth, so lawyers are paid to handle the inevitable divorce. That’s why the divorce rate is so high in this country. Religious leaders, shoveling their special brand of total horseshit down everyone’s throats, insist that it’s because America has lost its moral center, and if we’d all just worship the invisible man in the clouds every Sunday, everything would be hunky dory. This is, of course, complete hogwash; humans simply aren’t built for precisely the kinds of lives that our lying religions foist upon us. No one, and I mean NO ONE is ready to settle down into a monogamous relationship in his or her 20s, and I’ll go one further: no one is ready for monogamy in his or her 30s, either. There are exceptions to this rule, but why do you think people who’ve been together for ten years argue so much? Why is there less and less sex and intimacy in long term relationships? Why do so many people get divorced? Simple, folks: because you’re young and have many, many wild oats to sow, and being with the same damn person year after year is friggin’ boring. It’s too much responsibility for a species that is inherently selfish. We crave spontaneity in our lives, and that’s the first thing to go out the window for good when you’re married with kids.

            So I never wanted a dog. I now have two. This is not because I finally sold out, caving in after years of browbeating from my battle-axe girlfriend. She’s not a battle-axe, and I’m never browbeaten. It happened because, on a cold, overcast day in November 2008, while suffering from a mild case of the flu, what appeared to be a four week-old puppy ran in front of my car in Peach Springs, AZ.

I was on my way to Los Angeles, taking some detours along the way. The main attraction was driving the old Route 66 from Seligman AZ to Kingman AZ. Peach Springs is on the old Route 66, part of the Hualapai Indian Reservation. It’s tiny and poor. Old, derelict buildings always follow a nonexistent economy, so I got out and snapped some shots of the buildings on the main drag. I walked around for 20 minutes or so, and noticed that Diamond Creek Road left the highway to the north, going up a gentle hill. I got into my car, turned onto Diamond Creek, and a Haulapai police car followed me. Naturally paranoid, I assumed he was keeping tabs on this white dude who was skulking around their turf, taking pictures of buildings that they would certainly fix up if they had any money. I felt like a fuckin’ idiot. What the hell was I doing, taking pictures of the plight? These people lived here, for fuck’s sake. I slowed and went 24 mph, and he slowed with me. Shit, I thought, he’s going to pull me over…

            About twenty yards ahead, running in my direction along the shoulder of the road on my right, was a tiny little puppy. It was running hard, saw me, and changed course, heading straight into the road. It was still running full-boar, so I slowed to a crawl, and still the little thing came at me. I stopped the car; it disappeared underneath. I turned the engine off, got out, and heard the puppy crying. It emerged from under the car, looking up at me, still crying. The cop pulled up on my right as I scooped the thing up. Still crying, it sucked on one of my fingers, looking for milk. It was cold, shaking the whole time. And it was pretty damn cute.

            “It ran under my car,” I said to the officer.
            “I saw it,” he said. “Is it ok?”
            “Yeah. Very cold, though.”
            Walking towards us, from the direction I had been driving, was a 40-ish woman. There was a lot of mileage in the wrinkles on her face. Must be the owner, I thought. Why would she let it get so far ahead of her? And why would she be walking a four week-old puppy?
            “Is this your pup?” I asked her.
            “No,” she smiled, petting the puppy. “I saw it running down the road. I don’t know who it belongs to.”
            We stood there. The puppy whimpered and I scratched its tiny ears.
            “What do you think?” I asked the officer.
            “The pound is down the road,” he said. “I can take it there for you. Unless you want to keep it.”
            “Will it get adopted at the pound?”
            “With all the strays around here,” he said, matter-of-factly, “it’ll probably get put down in a week.”

            I didn’t take the bait ignorantly. I figured this guy was probably pulling my chain, just wanting me to take the dog and be done with it. But in a moment of spontaneous, why-the-fuck-not? impetuousness – or idiocy, take your pick – I thought about my girlfriend and figured, fuck me. She’s always wanted a dog. I couldn’t live with myself leaving this creature here and never knowing its fate.
            “Look,” I said, “I’ll take it, but I’m on my way to Los Angeles, with nowhere to keep it. I’ll be back this way in five days, on Saturday.”
            “I’ll drive it to the shelter,” the officer said. “Give me your number, and I’ll have them call you. If they know you’re coming back for it, they’ll keep it for you until you get back. Just let them know what day you’ll pick it up.”
            I gave the officer my name and number, and handed the puppy to him.
            “Thanks,” I said. “No, wait!” I got my camera out of my back seat. “I want my girlfriend to see what we’re getting in to.”
            The officer held the tiny thing up, and I quickly snapped a photo that’s become iconic amongst my family: a down-and-out puppy in the hand of a kindly police officer in Peach Springs, AZ, wanting a home. The skin on its underside was wrinkled and unhealthy looking – this little guy had obviously been dumped when he should’ve still been suckling at his mother’s teat – but it appeared to have a penis. It also smelled bad, like it had stepped in shit. Not surprising for a stray. I looked at him and didn’t see poop anywhere on his body.
            “Where are you from?” the 40-ish woman asked me.
            “New Mexico,” I said.
            “New Mexico…” she smiled. The officer drove away, the woman walked on, and I got in my car and headed west on the old route 66.

            There was no cell coverage in Peach Springs, and for some time after that. Finally, on approach to Kingman, a couple of bars showed up on my trackphone. There was already a message.
            “Hello,” the voice said, “this is John at the Peach Springs Animal Shelter. We have the puppy you found, and if no one claims him, we’ll hang on to him until you pick it up on Saturday.”
            He gave me their number and told me to call him to confirm. I called him, then called my girlfriend at work.
            “What’s up?” she said.
            “Listen, do you still want a dog?”
            “DID YOU FIND A DOG?” she asked. Just the mention of it made her nearly lose her head; she sounded like she was freaking out.
            “A little puppy – he didn’t look to be more than four weeks old to me – ran in front of my car in Peach Springs Arizona.”
            “BRING HOME THE PUPPY.”
            “I don’t have him now, but the local shelter said they’d hang on to him until Saturday.”
            “BRING HOME THE PUPPY,” she repeated.
            “What if the cats don’t like him?”
            “THEN WE’LL FIND A HOME FOR HIM. BRING HOME THE PUPPY.”
            I didn’t feel like she was really listening to me.
            “Alright, I’ll pick him up on my way back. I snapped a shot of him – I’ll email it to you when I get to L.A. But this is going to be a big change.”
            “I DON’T CARE. I’LL BUY WHATEVER WE NEED. BRING HOME THE PUPPY.” And that was that.

Whatever I had got way worse in L.A. The coughing would not stop and my head was killing me. I decamped from my good friend’s downtown loft to the Highland Gardens on Franklin for 24 hours, just lying in bed. I was in a hallucinogenic state, somewhere in between consciousness and unconsciousness. My whole body ached. It was a fucked up scene: I had gone on a week-long vacation to L.A. for mental health purposes, to hunt for books and CDs, and couldn’t even think straight. After a little over three days of not even having the energy to walk 100 feet, I apologized to my friend and started back to New Mexico a day early. I left on Friday afternoon, and stayed that night at a Super 8 in Kingman. The next morning was an improvement – I didn’t feel like death. The girl at the counter directed me to a locally owned pet store in the northern part of town. Not the cool, historic part of Kingman, but the unending sprawl you see from the interstate. I bought a good-sized cage, a tube of treat-stuff they told me was high-calorie, a can of wet food, and a towel for the bottom of the cage. At noon sharp I met the gents from the pound in Peach Springs, took the puppy, and headed east.

After many naps, barking, peeing in the cage, and pit stops off of interstate exit ramps, we made it home. It was nighttime. I walked in the door, put the cage on the floor, and opened it up. Our three cats were not at all impressed (or happy), but the puppy jumped out, huge smile on its face, and ran all over the house. I swear it was as though this had been home all along, and he was simply returning from a long trip. He was instantaneously right at home. And my girlfriend hadn’t been blowing smoke out her ass when she said she’d buy “whatever we need;” there was hundreds of dollars of food, bowls, collars, etc waiting for the new pup. He also had a name: Angus, after AC/DC’s Angus Young. Angus was so tiny he struggled to get up the step and into our house from the backyard.

            On Monday we took him to the vet. He still smelled, and the claws on his right front paw were dark red; they looked like they had filled up with blood.
            “We think he’s got something…” we told the vet tech, showing him the claws. “THE ONLY THINGS HE’S GOT IS A TERMINAL CASE OF CUTENESS!” he said, and called all the other employees in to see the puppy.

            The claws had red nail polish on them. We never figured that out. There were other issues: a belly button hernia, worms (this is where the mysterious smell came from; it was his breath), and an infection. The infection was, in fact, vaginitus. Angus was a she. Her vagina was so swollen we mistook her for a boy. "Ok," My girlfriend said. “So we name her Agnes.”

***

The vet fixed her up, and thus commenced exactly the sort of headache that I worked so hard avoiding in life: the house training and obedience training of a puppy. Every Saturday to the puppy training classes. Frantic winter nights trying to get her to poop and pee when it was bed time, and we were exhausted, out of our brains. Getting the cats used to her. We took turns the first few months on puppy duty: from six to eight my girlfriend watched her, and I took over from eight until bedtime. It was like having a child. More than once I found myself wondering what the hell I had gotten into, not unlike a first-time father. But never once did I regret it; there was no way I was leaving a puppy that ran in front of my car in Arizona to an uncertain fate. Agnes was a member of the family now, and nothing was ever going to change that. Like so many dumbass accidental first-time fathers, I quickly fell in love with the girl. Life certainly wouldn't be a complete picture without her.

***

POSTSCRIPT

During week days, Agnes tore up anything we left out in the backyard. She needed a playmate. This time it didn’t faze me. We already had one dog; what difference did a second make? (I quickly found the answer to this question: checking account balance. Two dogs eat a lot of damn food, and have big medical bills when they have to go see the vet.) We took Agnes to the Animal Shelter and she played with five different dogs. The fifth, a sad, sad six month-old Shepard/Lab/Chow mix, hit it off famously with her, and we brought him home the next day. A Shelter employee named him Bomber, and it stuck.

This is it, though; no more damn dogs.