The car in front of me stopped suddenly. It was one of those typically frustrating days in L.A., too, when you’re heading east toward downtown on a Thursday around five and Beverly Boulevard traffic is bumper to bumper. I turned my head to my left to see what the holdup was. Nothing – just another one-story building, a series of sad little storefronts all selling various cheap goods, brightly colored piñatas, fruit. Some cracks in the hideous stucco revealed rotting wooden frames. To my right I found the culprit.
A wild dog, a mastiff that looked like a cross between a Doberman and a St. Bernard, ran mad through the street. It was shaggy and mean, and looked large enough for a small child to ride. I rolled up my windows and signaled to merge left into an unclogged lane. I knew it was futile. Merging in L.A. traffic can be cruel. The other drivers all rolled up their windows and stared ahead, and pretended they didn’t see me. If they made eye contact then they’d be doomed; even the smallest acknowledgement that another human being exists could still create an obligation of petty kindness. The other L.A. drivers knew this, and guarded themselves. I sure did.
I decided to get aggressive and inch ever onward to my left, honking away as I did. After two or three other cars passed me with angry glares, I finally gained enough ground to just go for it. The car behind me honked incessantly. Tough for that guy, I thought. It’s every man for himself.
And on we crawled, all of us along the streets together, towards different destinations. I turned onto Alvarado and onward trying to make my way into Silver Lake.
•
I came all this way for this?
“So then I said, look buddy, she was coming on to me, and like, if you can’t keep an eye on your girl at a bar, well, then, ya know?” he said. He was dressed in military fatigues of that general beige camouflage color scheme. Black boots, pristine and polished. Not a single strand out of place nor a speck of dirt. He had blue eyes and an incessant, intense stare and spoke as though his words were marching with conviction over rough terrain. I silently nicknamed him Mr. Military.
Another shorter, plumper guy laughed and added: “Yeah for sure man.”
“Yeah,” agreed another guy.
“This is some party,” I said. I felt the situation called for a generic response and that line felt safe. Or safe enough at least, because no one responded to it.
The plumper guy asked Mr. Military: “So what was it like on duty?”
“Oh yeah man, it was like, hell. It sucked. You get up before sunrise and you go where your C.O. tells you to, you do what your C.O. tells you to. But like yeah man, you know, it’s for the country and the benefits are spectacular. Healthcare, education. Yeah, man. And besides, check this shit out.”
Mr. Military rolled up his sleeve and flexed his biceps. It was impressive, but not that interesting. I’d seen strong people before.
“Whoa, dude, you’re like buff!” said the plump guy.
“Yeah, man. War. What’s it good for? Getting pumped, that’s what!” said Mr. Military.
“You can get pumped without going to war,” I chimed in.
“What?” asked Mr. Military, feigning having not heard me.
“You can get pumped without going to war,” I repeated, a little more loudly, a little more slowly, annunciating every syllable.
“I fucking volunteered for our Armed Services while you sat around on a lounge chair sipping lattes and reading books,” Mr. Military began. “I worked and did bullshit for your ass. I put myself in harm’s way to defend your freedom and to keep you safe and to serve you.”
He beamed triumphantly at me.
“Did I ask you to defend my freedom?” I said to him.
“What?” he said. Again with the pretending to not hear me. Why is that a thing, pretending not to hear someone you think you’re better than? Maybe forcing someone to repeat themselves to you is a mild form of establishing power over someone, making someone do something or have to explain themselves.
“Did I ask you to defend my freedom?” I repeated as before. I continued: “I never asked you to defend my freedom. I never asked anyone to. That cloak of selfless service and morality you so cavalierly wear you achieved through pure arrogation.” I did not care much what he said or thought but figured it was polite to respond. But I didn’t feel like backing down, either. I made my statement and let him decide how to react for himself.
“What does that mean?” Mr. Military asked.
I thought I was pretty clear before but since he asked, I decided to explain further: “It means you have a martyr complex,” I said. “I don’t want or need you to protect me in any way. Not you or anybody else. I fight my own battles and I work for myself.”
“You’re an ungrateful piece of turd,” Mr. Military said to me. “It’s people like you why the terrorists and socialists are winning. You’re the reason this country is falling apart.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “Can’t argue with that. I’m going to get another drink,” I said, and turned toward the bar. I had to push my way a little through the living room to get to the counter where the drinks and plastic red cups were all arrayed festively. I grabbed a bottle of beer and a plastic cup and poured only half in. Plenty in there for me to sip slowly throughout the night.
I tried to make my way back to the conversation but then thought better of it. I looked around. Usually at parties I like to find one or two other shy guys or girls and just stick by them. Stick by people I understand. I did not see anyone like that, anyone quiet and alone.
“Hey there!” someone said to me. “Long time no see.”
I turned around. I hadn’t seen this guy in years.
“Jake! From the dorms freshman year, remember?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. I vaguely did. I raised my eyebrows in surprise, surprise to see him again.
“What’s that thing you’re doing with your eyebrows?” he asked me with a comically quizzical look. I grimaced. He added: “You find something funny?”
Clearly, I had no mastery of facial expressions. I feared to try body language.
Before I could muster a smooth transition he said: “So. Been a while! So what’s happening with you these days?”
“A little of this, little of that. Getting by, ya know,” I said.
“Doing what?”
“Scrounging around for legal work while doing a little accounting on the side. It’s as exciting as it sounds,” I said.
“I heard you were an artist now or something,” said Jake.
“Artist? Well I mean, like…I do some art on the side, with my free time.”
“Cool, cool. You sell any of your art?”
“Not yet.”
“Making any money at it?”
“No.”
“So what’s the whole like, deal?” Again with the comical, quizzical look. I wasn’t the only one bad at furrowing eyebrows. But I decided to let it pass and just take his words at face value. It made it easier for me to respond to him.
“If I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Simple as that,” I said. I gave him an honest and direct answer.
“Weird,” he said.
“So what are you up to?” I was desperate to change the subject and could think of nothing else to say.
“Oh man, just started work at an immigration law firm. It’s been a booming legal industry for a couple years now,” said Jake.
Then I remembered. He was a history major, like me. He was also into the student government on campus, back in the day.
“I can imagine,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Like bankruptcy law. A few years back when I first passed the bar, bankruptcy specialists were the only ones still hiring. Higher volume of work I suppose,” I said.
“Gotta make a buck,” said Jake.
“Totally.” That was true. “We have to take care of ourselves. A guy’s gotta eat.”
“But ya gotta earn, bro.”
“For sure,” I said. I paused for a second and naturally furrowed my eyebrows again in concentration, trying to remember more about the good old days, and then said: “So you went to law school, too, after college? I remember studying for that history final in the dorms way back. Boy those were the days. Man, how many orders of pizza did we go through? The delivery guy couldn’t believe we ordered that much.”
“Yeah, for sure, man,” he said. He didn’t follow up, didn’t seem to want to follow me down that conversational path.
The conversation began to bore me and I racked my brain for the socially acceptable way to extricate myself from that mess of dialogue. But I found nothing. Being aware of one’s own awkwardness means paralysis.
Then again, I came out here. Nobody put a gun to my head. I had only myself to blame and perhaps I deserved these series of excruciating moments.
“I need to get another drink,” I said. My drink was half-full still. What the hell, fill it to the top, I figured. I pushed back to the bar.
“Back already,” came a female voice.
I turned to my right and saw her there. She was cute. Freckles and large, wide glasses in that classic, nerdy hipster style. A bit on the pale side, short, and a little plump, but I know cute when I see it. And she was alone, and more or less quiet.
“I’m guarding the bar,” she said wryly, “and you’ve had enough.”
I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not; she spoke softly and the room vibrated to the sounds of dozens of simultaneous conversations. I tried to play it cool and responded: “I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough!” I said, and then quickly added: “One cliché deserves another!” I was almost yelling to make sure I would be heard.
She muttered a soft “excuse me” and fell quiet and failed to make eye contact; she averted my gaze.
My response might have been a little too much for her. Perhaps I yelled it too loud. Or perhaps my added line of “One cliché deserves another!” was taken the wrong way, showed I didn’t want to play along when all I really wanted to do was elevate the conversation beyond the clichéd opening. Maybe that was it – or maybe not. I did not know. What I did know was that I’m a shy guy and this girl was clamming up on me already. Sometimes trying to open up a conversation is like trying to crack open a safe. And my social skills were just not dexterous enough for this one. Fine. I’m not good enough to talk to her, I figured. Move on, now.
I poured in more beer of some other kind than the one already in my cup, and muttered an “excuse me” to the hipster girl, and made my way back to the rest of the crowd.
What I wouldn’t give to have an authentic conversation, I thought. Perhaps I should at least try to start one, or steer one in an authentic direction. But with whom? Mr. Military? Or Jake the Money Man? Or Quiet Hipster Girl? My options appeared limited. Everyone had their backs towards me, engaged in banal banter with their little groups.
What did any of that horseshit matter? I was bored by that point and had nothing to lose. It’s not like any of those people had any respect for me anyway. I doubted they ever would. Most I’d never seen before and probably wouldn’t see again; the rest I saw so seldom, and probably with good reason. Being a loser is a form of bravery, I mused. You can do whatever you want. And I wanted to be brave enough to be my authentic self. And brave enough to start a meaningful conversation. That thought brought a smile to my face.
I sidled back to Jake who was talking to some other guys.
“Hey welcome back. Full cup of beer, pleased to see that!” he said to me.
“You know it!” I said, and I put on the most shit-eating grin I could muster.
“This guy’s an artist!” Jake said to the other guys.
The others laughed.
“What’s funny about that?” I asked genuinely. I mean, on the one hand I knew why they were laughing; art is funny to the white collar crowd and doing work for free makes no sense. On the other hand, I still didn’t see why even that should be funny.
I added: “I’m a free man, guys. I can do what I want and what I do for free is how I reveal myself the most. I like blank spaces, white pages, things to draw on. Because what I draw is uninhibited. It’s total freedom. For earning a living I have to do what other people want me to, serve a boss or a client or a customer. But on paper, I can fly. I can take my head off my shoulders and use it as a bowling ball. Anything. That is more valuable to me than all the cash in the world. It may be fantasy but it’s sure as hell real to me. My apartment is where the magic happens. It’s full of books. Books piled high upon each other, stacked on overflowing shelves. It’s where I find inspiration, motivation, purpose. It’s a place where I know it’s okay to still dream. Few other places allow my mind to wander.”
“Holy shit,” said one of the other guys, “I thought he’d never shut up.”
I shut up all right. But at least I was my authentic self. And I still felt the freedom of loserdom abounding within me.
Mr. Military brought his cadre over to my side of the room.
“Shit, man, let’s head out of here and head to a bar!” said Mr. Military.
“Yeah, for sure!” said Jake.
Another bar? Why, there wasn’t enough alcohol here already? “Really?” I said honestly. I really was incredulous. Why go to another place to do the same thing?
I wanted to spend my life doing strange things with weird people. But instead I was here. My own fault. Why’d I come?
Mr. Military turned to me and said: “So what do you want to do?”
“Me? I want to run naked through a field of marshmallows,” I said.
“You think you’re funny?” said Mr. Military.
“No. Nobody’s laughing.” I added: “Not even at me.” I was less and less impressed with Mr. Military all the time.
“Oh, they’re laughing,” said Mr. Military with absolute conviction.
“I don’t hear any laughter,” I said. They knew they could do whatever they wanted to me because they knew I’d never treat them the same way they treated me. We were all free guys here. I ambled away from that crowd and saw someone I almost knew.
I recognized her from somewhere, but where? Or when?
“Hey, there you are!” she said to me.
“Holy cow! Long time no see!”
“You’re telling me!”
She was tall, thin, athletic. Makeup overdone, hair up in a bun, denim jacket. But those attributes weren’t clicking in my head.
“So what have you been up to these days?” I asked her, before she could ask me. I was back into social mode, or at least what meager attempts managed to pass for social in my own mind.
“Oh, just med school up in San Francisco,” she said.
Still, nothing came to mind immediately. An awkward pause followed, not too long, but long enough to let me jog my own memory.
I remembered she was a biochemistry major back in college. So I said: “Cool. So you did biochem as pre-med after all? I remember you were on the fence about that a while back.” All true. I can remember things about people, just about anything really, except their names.
“Yeah, totally,” she said. She offered no new information. That was a conversational dead end. Time to backtrack, retrace steps, find another way through this labyrinth of dialogue.
“So you’re just down for what, spring break now?” I said.
“Yeah, and thank goodness! Man med school is intense!”
“That’s what they tell me,” I said. I had a genuine interest; I could empathize. Law school was no picnic either. And besides, I liked how engaged she was with me. She made eye contact, for one thing. I don’t think Mr. Military ever did. He would look through me, it felt like.
“You went to law school after college, right?” she asked me. Another difference with Mr. Military. She asked questions. It was a dialogue, not a litany of bragging rights.
“Yup.”
“How was that?”
“Intense enough.”
She laughed at that. I chuckled with her. I liked sharing that laugh.
C’mon man, I thought, say something real. I said: “I’m proud to be out of my mind, you know.”
She laughed at that too. “You’re so funny! Just like back in the old days.”
I grinned.
She glanced around the room and then said: “Man look at Adam over there.”
She seemed to indicate Mr. Military, who now had a girl on each arm. She added: “You put Adam in a room with five girls and he’ll wind up having sex with all seven of them.”
“You mean Mr. Military?” I said.
“His name is Adam, you dunderhead!” she said teasingly.
I glanced around now. I asked: “Say what’s the deal with that Quiet Hipster Girl, the one with the hipster glasses?”
“Oh her? Yeah I dunno. I’ve seen her before; she’s friends with my friends I think. I think she’s just shy.”
“She seemed like she was too good to talk to me, ya know? Or maybe I was too loud for her. I don’t know. I failed to communicate with her in some way. Anyway, I’m kind of a shy guy, so. Yeah. That ain’t happening over there.” I stared down at my shoes, and noticed I had stepped in gum and that my right foot was partially stuck to the floor. I lifted my foot and the gum stretched but did not tear. I quickly put my foot back down and hoped no one noticed.
“You’ve been doing a bit of talking all night. Maybe she thinks the same thing about you,” she said.
“Why would she?” I asked.
“Oh, I dunno,” she said. “Excuse me,” she concluded, and headed over to Mr. Military.
I didn’t care if I didn’t fit in. It may be considered cool to fit in, but then again I didn’t care about fitting out, too. Either way. I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
I stood there alone looking for my kind of people again, shoe still in gum. I figured what the hell, give Quiet Hipster Girl another shot. Loserdom. Bravery. I can say whatever. It’s true that there’s a price to be paid for being your authentic self in public. Mockery, derision, isolation. I knew that price, and kept on playing.
Benjamin Chapman is a Los Angeles native. After graduating from U.C. Berkeley in 2008, he spent his time reading, writing, and bumming around California. He began studying law in 2009, spent a summer in Costa Rica studying international law, and returned to Los Angeles to continue reading, writing, and bumming around.