Scene Report
I think about how, 25 years ago, when I was writing down notes and stories that would eventually become a book about living on this block in this city, there was more action. More yelling. More loud music. More chaos. This has been replaced, largely, by the sounds of construction when an old building is torn down and a grotesque new box is erected in its place. Also landscapers. They come on Monday morning and make buzzing machine noises.
But every once in a while, there are Wild Things. This morning there were six party teens standing directly under our kitchen window, passing around a pink BuzzBallz Biggie. Just now, I had to go to the internet and find out what that round object was called and why a group of people might want to put all their mouths on it. The website for BuzzBallz made me verify my age and that took awhile because I had to scroll down a long time to get to the year 1964.
The kitchen window was open and I made sure to clank the pots and pans I was washing, just to make them look up at me looking down at them, so we could all inspect each other a bit. At the sound of my clank, two of them fixed a stare at me, trying to make me look away. I do not look away. I monitor this block.
A BMW with the doors open was excreting some mumbly hip-hop. I stood at the sink thinking, "All of you are going to fail your finals." I stopped watching Euphoria for a reason.
Two young women and four young men. Three of the young men were the kind of twinks who call everyone "bitch." The fourth was tall and, based on the evidence, the boyfriend of one of the two women. The evidence: the gays kept calling him a boyfriend. Also a cuck. "Your cuck boyfriend here," they said.
Then they all started passing around an orange prescription bottle of pills. Soon, one of the young women lost her legs and the boyfriend picked her up to carry her two doors down the block. The demon twinks scattered, driving off in their own cars to endanger morning commuters. I made some toast and tea.
An ambulance, a firetruck, and three cop cars arrived very quickly and I stood on our balcony with my toast and tea. Then they took her away while the boyfriend stayed behind and talked to the cops. I assume she'll be fine because nothing felt urgent from where I stood, Cedars Sinai is not far away, and she was being tended to from the moment she dropped to the ground. The photo above was taken by me from our second floor balcony.
There is no point to this story other than it was an excuse to tell you that Alonso Duralde sat at the dining room table saying, "Kids, I have this Mr. T album you should listen to about not doing drugs and being nice to your mother."
