October 22nd - Afternoon
I ain’t had a drink today, Miss Megan, but I’ll be honest, I tried.
I’m sitting in a garage bathroom cause it’s the only place I could find with a deadbolt and four walls. I still hear screaming outside. Don’t know where you are or what’s happening to you right now but I hope you're alright, Miss Megan.
After what I saw on the overpass I wrote in my journal for a while and watched the fire department clear the 101. But I couldn’t sit still. Couldn't keep my hands from shaking. So I went down to Sunset looking for a drink.
And I’m sorry for that. Real sorry.
I intended to stick my hand out until I had enough change for a couple of tall boys. Actually, I thought maybe I’d get a bottle of wine instead of beer because maybe that wouldn’t be as bad. “Addict logic,” right? “Bargaining with the disease.” I still hear you. I’m still with you.
I will not drink today.
Anyway, I’m walking down Sunset with my hand out, but I don’t get a dime cause everyone’s distracted. People were tense, staring at their phones with dark expressions.
Then, all of a sudden, across the street, I heard this guy shouting, “Get off her! Get off her!” So I turn and see three people all tangled up, fists flying.
There’s this business guy - no jacket, but he’s got a nice business shirt - latched onto this big tall guy’s wife or girlfriend. Like, business guy’s mouth is on her face. It’s covering her mouth while she’s struggling in his arms.
And business guy’s eyes are dead. Shark eyes, like the girl on the 101.
So this girl... pretty little sundress and heels on, and she’s trying to push him off, but he won’t let go. She’s trying to scream but it’s muffled by business guy’s mouth on her face. And at first, I thought he was making her kiss him but then I saw the blood and realized he was biting.
Her boyfriend, the tall guy, he's got one hand grabbing business guy’s collar and he’s pounding him in the temple with his other fist. Over and over. Haymakers, all of them.
But business guy won’t let go. He just holds on to her like she’s a life raft. And this young girl he’s on, she's scratching his face, jabbing his eyes, clawing... But he don’t even react.
Finally, tall guy digs his arm around business guy’s neck and yanks his head back, ripping the guy off his girlfriend’s face, and all I see is blood spraying in the air. He’s got her blood all over his mouth and the girl’s screaming. She breaks free from his grip and stumbles backward until I can see her smiling.
But she's not smiling. Her lips are gone.
The guys fall into the street. The first car weaves around them, the second one plows right through. Tall guy bounces off the front bumper and goes up over the windshield. Business guy goes under, tumbling and turning, until the car spits him out the back, all blood and wrong angles.
And that's what broke the spell. Suddenly, everybody was screaming and shouting, so I turned and started sprinting. I ran as fast as I could down Sunset and it felt like the rest of the city was with me. Left side and right side, the addicts and the hipsters and the soccer moms, cause when you're screaming and running it's all the fucking same.
But we only get a block before we run into another fight. Two valets got this heavy woman on the ground, blocking the sidewalk. They’re holding her arms back, shouting in Spanish as her shark eyes roll around in her head.
LAPD shows up in a patrol car with the sirens going. People are crowding the street with their phones out and these two young cops get out all wide-eyed. They just start shouting. No clue what’s going on. They got their damn guns out and they're pointing them at whatever.
Sirens are going off five feet away from me. There's car horns. Glass breaking. And screaming, screaming, screaming. So much noise I couldn’t even think. So I ran til I couldn’t run no more, Miss Megan. I just didn’t know what else to do.
When I stopped to catch my breath I saw smoke and heard gunshots about a block away. Still wasn't safe. I’d heard about a junky spot, somewhere you could shoot up in peace, a bathroom in a parking garage by the Guitar Center. I couldn’t believe it when I got there and the door wasn’t already locked, figured there’d be people hiding out already. Got lucky, I guess. So I slammed the door shut and turned the deadbolt.
I just been writing since then. That was a few hours back and I still hear screams sometimes. I hear sirens. Sometimes gunshots.
Didn't eat today. Nothing but some handfuls of sink-water. But that’s alright. I can hold out. I know how to go without food when I have to. I’m lucky that way.
Hope you’re doing alright, Miss Megan.
October 22nd or maybe 23rd, it’s real late right now.
Dear Miss Megan,
I will not drink today. Not even thinking about it.
Sat in the bathroom for hours and hours. Not sure how long exactly but it was a long damn time.
At some point the lights went out. I figured they were timed for when the garage closed but when I stuck my head out the door and looked around, I realized that all the electricity was out. Whole damn block. Couldn’t see nothing.
I didn’t see nobody and my stomach was gnawing at me, so I walked back down to Sunset and I don’t even know what to say about it. The street was full of deserted cars, overturned trash cans, small fires, and dead bodies.
It took me back to bad times, Miss Megan.
I didn’t have much of a plan as I walked around. Thought it might be a good idea to check the trash bins for something half-eaten so I looked behind a couple restaurants. Didn’t want to go inside if I didn’t have to.
It was a sight, though. The whole strip was empty. I saw shadows running in the distance but none of the usual traffic. Plenty of cars but nobody driving. Nobody walking the streets. Nobody.
So I’m creeping down the sidewalk when I see this flickering orange glow in a parking garage up the way with a rolled-down cage covering the entrance. It’s all locked up. So I walk up, quiet as I can, and start whistling like a teenager at his girlfriend’s window. I throw some pebbles. Just trying to make enough noise to get someone’s attention.
After a bit, this head peeks over the side. Can’t see the face. Just a shadow against the red and gray sky. It says “What you want?” A woman’s voice. Real rough, like a smoker. I don’t like asking for help, you know, but I didn’t see much choice in the matter. So I ask if she’s got room up there for one more. I tell her I don’t need nothing but a roof. And I tell her I’m a gentleman. She just laughs at me for saying that. Tells me to go around the side and climb up the pallets.
So I went into the alley, climbed up some pallets that was stacked there and crawled over a cement ledge into the garage. Stood up, looked around, and saw the whole place was deserted. I walked up until I got to the third floor and found two ladies sitting on some cardboard in front of a little fire. They got cans of tuna and asked me if I wanted some.
So how do you like that?
The girls were Penny and Allison. Homeless. Or unhoused. Whatever. They seemed like they was a couple but I didn’t ask. Said they been living together for about three years now.
I asked them if they got any idea what’s going on and they showed me their phone. I saw headlines about a virus or a disease or something. Some videos of more street fights and a stampede at The Grove. I saw a video of people tearing each other up in Times Square. Fires burning through Chicago. It was bad. But there weren’t no real answers. No one knew why.
Penny says they saw a guy who got tore up by a crowd of those people. A whole bunch of them walking around together. Penny’s got a smoker’s voice. Big girl. All bundled up in a hoodie and Cookie Monster pajama pants.
Allison’s smaller, with tan, stretched skin. Long brunette hair on top of this wiry frame. They had their pipe with them but luckily they didn’t drink.
They’re telling me all about how they hid out in their car all morning. Put sunshades and blankets over the windows like they were stealth-camping and just hunkered down right in the middle of all the panic and the screaming and the gunfire. I thought that was pretty lucky. I told them about the bathroom I was in and they thought that was real lucky.
They said in the late afternoon, their car started to fill with smoke. They thought it was on fire, so they jumped out, grabbing handfuls of their stuff. Then they looked up and said the building beside them was all up in flames. Top to bottom. Four stories. And the whole front, the facade, was crumbling down onto the street around them.
The streets were too jammed with empty vehicles to drive away, so they ran. Allison knew about the garage.
So we were talking and eating tuna when all a sudden we hear voices. People down in the street getting loud. “Help! Help us!“ I get up to look and Penny tells me to sit my silly ass down, but I do it anyway.
Stick my head out, and there are three people down below looking up at the garage. They saw the fire light so they’re yelling up at us. I tell them to shut the hell up before someone hears them but they’re all panicking real bad. So I tell them to go around to the pallets, just to keep them quiet.
Penny cussed at me for this but I didn’t care, she didn’t own the garage. Allison chilled her out a little but I could tell they weren’t real happy.
So these three shadows come walking up the sloped garage drive. Two guys and a girl. Pretty soon we found out their names were Kurt, Steve and Brit. And right away, the girls and I can tell they’re not like us, you know what I mean?
Kurt’s in a fucking suit. No tie. Sweaty as shit. Carrying a messenger bag full of papers and stuff he don’t need. He’s maybe 45 or 50? Hard to tell, cause I think he had some work done. Still, he’s all outta shape and outta sorts.
Brit was about 20 or so, wearing a skirt and sweater with some sneakers. Eye makeup was all cried off. Had one of those fancy metal water bottles in one hand and a phone with a dead battery in the other. She was in a real bad way. Couldn’t hardly talk. Just barely keeping it together.
Steve was in khakis and a button up. Twenty four or five maybe. Looked like he worked in an office or something like that. Kept his hands in his pockets. Little bit quiet but he seemed alright, I guess.
We get to talking and it’s a bad scene from the get-go. Right off the bat, Kurt’s trying to be in charge of whatever this is, but Penny and Allison are like “fuck that.” Penny tells this dude: “You are a guest in our garage.” Then Kurt says: “You don’t own the place,” and they’re like: “You don’t like it, get the fuck out.”
So not off to a great start.
Finally, I jump in, making my voice all deep like my drill sergeant was. “Hey! We gotta keep it down. And let’s get this fire out. We don’t need nobody else finding us up here. Why don’t we backtrack to the alley, find some cardboard to sleep on, and we’ll rest for the evening? We can figure out the rest in the morning.”
At first, Kurt was gonna be a dick to me, but I think he was just too tired to argue. It’s hard being out in the sun all day if you ain’t used to it. So my little speech worked and they all agreed to do what I said, which was wild. Felt good keeping the peace like that.
So we were walking back down to the ground floor when Brit asked if there was a bathroom cause she hadn’t pissed since she left the coffee shop (I think she’s a barista). Allison pointed her to a stairwell and told her to pick a corner but Brit couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t go. Penny and Allison snickered but I figured she’d get over it sooner or later.
We got down to the street level and raided the dumpsters, grabbing the cleanest boxes we could find. Steve and Brit pitched in and helped as best they could, but Kurt could hardly bring himself to inhale down by the garbage. Then Allison said she’s got some extra cans of tuna if somebody wants one and Kurt said he’s a vegetarian.
So I think the new guys are gonna have a rough time.