saturday

I worked for 10 hours last night. And you know what's funny? I could definitely have gone longer. I guess the only reason I left was because I wanted to get a beer at Dillon's across the street so bad. So I asked to go - which they let me amidst total parking insanity - I changed into my street clothes and hopped across the street to Dillon's, which was packed, for a beer. I was mildly disappointed though. I mean, it took me 15 minutes just to get a beer (A Hoegaarden, which was $3 like every single beer they have on tap there) but even after holding the cold pint in my right hand, I was unsatisfied. There must have been 300 people surrounding me, and I didn't have the spark in me for a single conversation worth having. So I strode up the stairs and found myself standing facing a pool table and two men having a fight. On the table was a white cue ball and the black 8-ball, sitting equidistant in the center of the table. One man with his curly black hair was chanting "you lose! you will lose! I am the winner!" and the other half-smiling was less enthusiastic "fine I lose. I lose you win". I know little about pool, but i don't think anyone had won yet. It took 5 minutes for the second man to take his shot..and he landed the 8 ball perfectly in its opposite pocket. Like a good sport, he shook the guy's hand and that was that. I threw back my last gulp of beer, and waltzed out of Dillon's.

On the sidewalk, backpack slung over one should I could see the Capitol Records building glowing red and blue. A few stars twinkled between the city-lit clouds overhead, shining clouds in a silvery tint and few droplets sitting still in the air, like soft rain put on pause. A few blocks from my secluded march to the car I could hear the echoes of a city pounding to the beat of a Saturday night's life. Hollywood lives and breathes at night, especially on the weekends. Staring at the sky I thought about the valet boys I had abandoned for my one Hoegaarden, and almost regretted leaving my shift at their disposal. But 10 hours is a long shift. Long enough.

Magenta Misty sat nestled amongst dark cars in the crumbly filth of Yucca ave; a street I admire, tucked beneath the 101, 2-hour parking never checked. I slid down the driver's side rear window, lifted the latch and hopped in. and she started!! Misty started, and didn't even skip a beat. (After a full previous 24 hours of setting her sail in my mind, it was a miracle that now she'd lived twice again beyond her death - a death I'd conceded to two nights previous when her starter had failed and her engine unrevivable). The night suddenly tasted sweeter now that I knew i had a way home. I pulled away from Yucca, onto Argyle, under the freeway to Franklin, down through the empty streetlights of Los Feliz to the 5. Merged onto an empty freeway, and took the little trek back to Pasadena.

My saturday night.