It was ingenious and then some. I mean, to find a concept left in this world that glimmers with a crisp vigor. It found me as I was on my way to Grand Lux for the customary Southwestern Salad…resurrection.
She…it was sitting on the corner of Beverly and La Cienega, hunched either against a no parking sign or the wall of a bus stop…so remarkable, details of all this have gone clouded.
We’ll call her Jane. The city of Los Angeles has a fine community of the less fortunate. And Jane’s sign…if you’ll allow me to personify cardboard, brilliance boasted beautifully ragged and spazmatic black lettering, if that’s even personification.
Homeless has been done and done again. Believe me, I’ve seen all the angles. There’s Guy Who Walks Along the Sunset Strip With a Dog That Carries His “Spare Anything” Jar (probably pulls 75k a year). We’ve got Gasoline Eyed Guy Who Dances At the Top of La Cienega With a Sign, “Dance 4 Beer.” We’ve even got Unabomber Who Struts Santa Monica Screaming At Cars and Conspirators (all). Why do I keep writing about the homeless of Los Angeles? I don’t know. They’re there…and the West Hollywood lot deserves distinction from the lot of Hollywood and Highland.
But Jane...
Not only is she homeless, she has seizures. Like getting stupefied but left standing after Tyson’s left hook long enough to eat an overhand right. My, how undelicious does that sound? Not delicious. Not delicious at all.
And it all got me thinking…aside from the already incessant and stalking dialogue…what would my sign be if I had a sign on a corner of this lovely haunted universe?
"Blow me for Pez?"
…
Either and any way, Jane had inspired me. I reached into my pocket but she was sitting, sulking maybe even. Her sign notified me only of a lacking home and an unstable medical condition. She had legs, I saw…(talk about exhausted angles BTW). But inspired or not, what was I supposed to do, frisbee quarters at her forehead? I thought about pulling over…
The light changed. I turned into the Beverly Center and ran into Grand Lux. Thank goodness I had arrived when I did. The dressing was already tossed into the salad and any dilly-dally could have led to a significant loss of crispness in the mixed greens and reds and tortilla strips.
