Riding in Cars with Boys: An L.A. Story
I probably should have known that when a 76 year-old man in a 1990 powder blue Toyota Camry slammed into the side of our car on a rainy day, in L.A., that things were definitely not going to go as planned. The freak ‘weather’ and accident aside, the very act of riding in the front seat of a car with someone you’re not paying by time or distance is enough to make any New Yorker feel uneasy. As the debate between NY and LA always concludes, they have the sunshine, but we don’t have to get behind the wheel. Though I enjoyed my own brief journeys coasting slowly down the Hollywood boulevards — it is the one factor that seemed to truly separate us.
I’ve toyed with the idea of moving to L.A. since I began my career in NY, as I think many of us not strictly devoted to one coast often do. I thought that hitching my star to the future of publishing may be a fool’s errand and if I was going to do the Shylockian work of an agent I might as well go towards the hell mouth and make some real money at it. Nevertheless, fate intervened in my career and the fair maiden Manhattan has pulled me ever closer to her bosom. But to quench my curiosity, escape the cold, and avoid another NYE in NYC, I recently paid a visit to La La Land.
To summate the differences between these two cities into those that are vehicularly inclined and those that are not may seem unjust, but in truth in so many other ways they are quite alike. The same strata of wealth and celebrity exist, though individuals may be admired for differing qualities in each respective town. Both are cities of dreams, diversity, and escape, and we dictate what the rest of the country and the world view as entertainment. So, in many respects it does come down to cars and weather, geography seemingly being the determining factor.
In New York we meet our friends or lovers at crowded bars, desolate diners, on street corners, in parks, or at the top of an exhaustingly long staircase. In L.A. they arrive at the building where I stayed. Each time a new friend or suitor arrived I stepped blinking into the sun wondering just what I was looking for, not trained to see the people inside vehicles, merely the absence or presence of a light on top. As they chauffeured me around the city, pointing out sights among the strip malls, I felt almost trapped, like I would suffocate if I left the confines of their car before we parked safely at a destination.
So rarely do we share our subway ride on dates, or with any other party. We come equipped with ipods and books, or sunglasses if we feel like hiding the fact that we’re staring. We’ve come to individualize the process of transportation so acutely; it becomes almost if not palpably uncomfortable when we do encounter an acquaintance on our commute. The same I assume must to be true for the Angelinos in their cars, as they start and stop their way to work, and at home in the evening. Such a personal space that they in fact own or lease it for themselves. I felt like an intruder, like a guest who must behave as expected lest I offend my host.
There are no rules like that on the subway. Even when a one night stand awkwardly joins us on our commute, we both can pretend like it’s merely coincidence we’re seated together, enjoy our music and morning papers, and offer vague acknowledgement when the first of us departs. Alone with another in the car, the silences fill with awkward longing. Longing for meaning of the silences, meaning for the absence or presence of hands held or kisses exchanged, something we would only stealthily or brazenly attempt on the train.
In New York transportation forces us to be on top of each other, in L.A. it demands that we not be. But the closeness bears no more intimacy than the distance. If it was distance between one another that was all that had been keeping two people separate, it could be bridged in one brave leap of the heart. No, it is that insistence that our cities and our lives are so different that truly keeps us apart. I suppose nothing ever does go according to plan, when you come from two different worlds.
B.B. Nichols lives and works in New York. He has been writing Everybody Does It since 2005.
Appeared originally on Homo-Neurotic.com on 1/7/10
I’ve toyed with the idea of moving to L.A. since I began my career in NY, as I think many of us not strictly devoted to one coast often do. I thought that hitching my star to the future of publishing may be a fool’s errand and if I was going to do the Shylockian work of an agent I might as well go towards the hell mouth and make some real money at it. Nevertheless, fate intervened in my career and the fair maiden Manhattan has pulled me ever closer to her bosom. But to quench my curiosity, escape the cold, and avoid another NYE in NYC, I recently paid a visit to La La Land.
To summate the differences between these two cities into those that are vehicularly inclined and those that are not may seem unjust, but in truth in so many other ways they are quite alike. The same strata of wealth and celebrity exist, though individuals may be admired for differing qualities in each respective town. Both are cities of dreams, diversity, and escape, and we dictate what the rest of the country and the world view as entertainment. So, in many respects it does come down to cars and weather, geography seemingly being the determining factor.
In New York we meet our friends or lovers at crowded bars, desolate diners, on street corners, in parks, or at the top of an exhaustingly long staircase. In L.A. they arrive at the building where I stayed. Each time a new friend or suitor arrived I stepped blinking into the sun wondering just what I was looking for, not trained to see the people inside vehicles, merely the absence or presence of a light on top. As they chauffeured me around the city, pointing out sights among the strip malls, I felt almost trapped, like I would suffocate if I left the confines of their car before we parked safely at a destination.
So rarely do we share our subway ride on dates, or with any other party. We come equipped with ipods and books, or sunglasses if we feel like hiding the fact that we’re staring. We’ve come to individualize the process of transportation so acutely; it becomes almost if not palpably uncomfortable when we do encounter an acquaintance on our commute. The same I assume must to be true for the Angelinos in their cars, as they start and stop their way to work, and at home in the evening. Such a personal space that they in fact own or lease it for themselves. I felt like an intruder, like a guest who must behave as expected lest I offend my host.
There are no rules like that on the subway. Even when a one night stand awkwardly joins us on our commute, we both can pretend like it’s merely coincidence we’re seated together, enjoy our music and morning papers, and offer vague acknowledgement when the first of us departs. Alone with another in the car, the silences fill with awkward longing. Longing for meaning of the silences, meaning for the absence or presence of hands held or kisses exchanged, something we would only stealthily or brazenly attempt on the train.
In New York transportation forces us to be on top of each other, in L.A. it demands that we not be. But the closeness bears no more intimacy than the distance. If it was distance between one another that was all that had been keeping two people separate, it could be bridged in one brave leap of the heart. No, it is that insistence that our cities and our lives are so different that truly keeps us apart. I suppose nothing ever does go according to plan, when you come from two different worlds.
B.B. Nichols lives and works in New York. He has been writing Everybody Does It since 2005.
Appeared originally on Homo-Neurotic.com on 1/7/10
posted by B. B. Nichols at
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