Daniel Groves

Novella

A reedy melody—tripping, banal— floats upon the incensed, disinfectant miasma that receives my slow, expectant constitutional along Canal. It’s catchy—the Parade of Chariots’ calliopede procession passes by (waves of Pacific Blue to pacify the Krishna kids); Ozzie and Harriet’s self-righteous dudes ride out their surfeit, bored; all Grecian Formula and Tiger Balm, a Mexi-Cali thug extends a palm tree’s shadow; and the brazen Gold’s Gym horde, in demonstrating monstrous, taut contortions of muscle (bound, if slightly, in a Speedo), draws sighs along our replicated lido. A groan to academic disproportions? Socratic irony? The great unknown guitarist jams, the cokeheads go coquettish to music from another fuming fetish— that belch of Hell’s Angelic monotone convulsing through a buffed-to-mirror chrome and leather-perfect, idling motorcycle, evokes a certain choked-up fin-de-siecle refrain augmented to a reverb Om. Out from the smog, for this august occasion, the Santa Monicas appear to bless the progress—swollen, now; I must confess a weakness for this alien contagion, its bouquet (vintage 1968), its public airing (teen-age Dionysian) in which, in concert with our Dietician/ Gurus, we privately asphyxiate. Boys will be boys… (this precious sense of pathos, this blind conviction that—the damnedest thing— the unlived life is worth examining). Past “PSYCHIC READINGS: 50 cents (5 pesos),” the setting sun sets up my parting speech— Like, later, man (the Valley diction)—said by guys named Will or Todd (pure Bill & Ted). I lie in wait for death in Venice Beach.   return to 1.1