Excerpt 00

L.A. called me. It called me in class one day in fourth grade. I was sitting in my chair staring at the clock. I could see it, for once, because I had glasses for the first time in my life. My vision had always been terrible though I didn’t know ‘til my visit to the Doctor. I missed out on a lot of basics because I couldn’t see the chalkboard unless I squinted hard, and even then it was hit or miss. I didn’t ask for clarification of the things I wasn’t getting because I was the new kid in town, so I did my best to keep a low profile. Everyone had pencil to paper and the carbon scratches were all I could hear. I was supposed to be scratching away as well probably, but I was fixated on the sliver of the second hand that I could now see so clearly. I watched it glide around the face, distinctly straight and precise, yet fluid in its rotation. I focused on the minute hand next, seeking to detect its motion. Suddenly, the minute hand seemed to flow like the second hand and twenty minutes passed in the span of 20 seconds. The bell rang and class was over, and the all the hands seemed to resume their proper speed. I walked into the hallway and knew that I was moving to Los Angeles. I pictured myself there as a matter of fact realization that I would be there, not as an idea, or a goal I had suddenly aspired to.

One day, while driving down Highland Blvd. on the way to emcee at the Mad Hatters, I suddenly felt a “ping” of sorts. I thought “this is my life” and I started looking around wildly for signs of where I was. I saw DeLongpre Avenue, I saw Fountain Avenue, and then I saw a billboard for the Los Angeles Times. “I’m in L.A.” I thought. Then I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that I had long hair. “I have long hair,” I thought. I looked at the open topped Land Cruiser I was driving. “I drive a Jeep,” I thought. Then the ping faded. I was once again driving to my regular gig in the town I had lived in for a year. Then I thought of fourth grade and I thought I heard pencil scratches, but it was sub aural. Beneath the resonant growl of the six-cylinder engine, below the hum of the tires, beyond the audible buzz-hum of the city, I felt the sound in my being. Imagine an electro-metallic grinding sensation as a life form. I felt I was hearing a colossal note, tremoring for generations in a living score beyond time. Then I thought my pervious thought had been quite odd, and wondered what people would think if they knew what I had thought.