WHISPERS THROUGH AMERICA

It was just a shitty night. Guys got hammered and did things they regretted later. Soon it would be water under the bridge. 
— The Kid’s Diary 

Elijah texted in the morning to say “sorry” and “let’s meet again.” Trevor claimed not to remember everything that had happened. Just like that, the trio were back together.

They rode another bus into Venice, a far more welcoming and laid-back part of the city. It was the most picture-perfect beach the kid had ever seen, with a long, wide strip of golden sand and a thriving boardwalk. It was lined with shops, restaurants, food trucks, dispensaries, and the iconic Mexican fan palms spreading their branches high overhead. Colorful murals decorated every other wall. Beachgoers worked out at the open-air gym, played in the skatepark and at the basketball courts, and lounged on the sand. There were benches everywhere and even free bathroom and shower facilities. Best of all, the homeless were widely accepted and could exist freely without trying to conceal themselves. The kid was dazzled. 

The first night, a crowd of around fifty gathered to bang drums together at a circle of benches. The rhythm ebbed and flowed, sometimes joined by new people and sent in a slightly different direction, but always guided by the persistent throb of the first drum. It felt like a crowd of heartbeats all unified together in a single purpose. The kid had never really experienced live music, not the kind that had really moved him, and certainly not the kind that seemed to involve not only the musicians but also the whole crowd. The only place he had ever done that before was at the house of God; in church on Sunday mornings. He knew this was the kind of thing he would remember for the rest of his life.

The abrupt ending came as a bitter offense; some busybody had made a noise complaint, and the cops rolled up in a squad car, telling them all to disperse. The kid was spitting mad about it, in full fuck-cops attitude. Fuck cops, fuck society, fuck rude people who can’t let anybody else have fun. The kid was practically beating his fists in the air.

It took him a while to cool down. The equipment at “muscle beach” was deserted at that time of night, so the kid did pullups until his arms and shoulders became aching, useless strips of overworked meat for the next few days.

Later on, the trio of beach bums crawled under a low palm, with branches that spread wide enough to hide them from the cold wind and the eyes of passing strangers. This was the kid’s first night outside. In all his life, he had never felt he was missing out on anything by never going camping, but this time it wasn’t about fun and games; it was about choosing to suffer hardship. It was part of his self-destruction, and part of his training. He had never before had to wear all the clothes he owned, either. He layered them together into a stiff cocoon, then covered it all with a sleeping bag. He slept just fine.

The kid woke up in the sunshine with his new friends around him, no alarm to disturb him, and no sense of urgency to give him any stress. Nobody had been hurt or robbed. Just like hitchhiking, it was shockingly easy.

A woman walked up to them as they rolled up their blankets on the grass. She introduced herself as Mary, and said she had been at the drum circle last night. Now that she mentioned it, the kid did vaguely remember someone that Trevor had tended to after she briefly passed out. This morning, she told them all that it had been a spiritual experience for her. The music had done something she had never felt before. She said she felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders and she was free now to be her true self – unmasked, unburdened. The kid had never been around people that talked this way outside of church. Was she totally sane? He didn’t know what to think, but she was kind and pleasant. Why assume anything at all? Just roll with it, he told himself.

The Sunday night drum circle was out on the sand, away from the bustle of the boardwalk. As the sun touched the horizon, the group wandered out towards the small gathering of people and their drums. Mary joined them for that last night of magic.

The next morning was unbearably boring. The drums were gone for the week. The kid wondered why he was still there, feeling restless and caged again. The group had posted up at a circle of benches where they slept and spent most of the day hanging out.

The kid wandered around in various shops. He bought a T-shirt with a huge snarling tiger face on a black background which immediately became an enduring part of his uniform for the next few years.

Eli tried to get rid of some of the excess baggage he’d arrived with, hawking shirts and pants out of a suitcase for anyone willing to spend a buck or two. Few people ever did.

Trevor strummed on his guitar every now and then, but said he couldn’t get in the right mood to busk. The kid let him use his phone to call his mom every night for long conversations.

After a few days, this drained all the battery the kid had left, even on his external batteries. Trevor suggested a local library for charge – the preferred solution for homeless people in LA – but the kid didn’t know where to go for that yet, and he didn’t want to stray too far from the beach. When he got fed up with having a dead phone, he walked down the boardwalk and asked the first person he came across.

“Hey, tiger-man!” It was the sing-song drawl of a Jamaican hustler selling CDs. The kid almost walked on by, but then he gave it a second thought. The hustlers could be annoying and greedy, but the kid figured this one might be streetwise as well, at least enough to find an outlet.

“I’ll buy your CD if you can get my phone charged right now.”

“You got it brudda, I will help you out.”

The hustler found a vendor in a booth.

“Hey Rasta-man!” Was this how he greeted everybody? “Brudda need a charge on him phone, can we leave it here with you outlet for a while?”

The vendor grumbled something unintelligible and nodded yes.

They met back in an hour. The hustler wanted twenty for a CD, and then he gathered all his friends and they offered up their CDs, too. The kid had never known how to say no, even under the best of circumstances. He pulled out bill after bill until they all went away. Oh well – he figured – fair enough. He’d known what he was getting into. He’d agreed to it.

It was only the next day that, to his unbearable chagrin, the kid stumbled across the Abbot Kinney library on Google maps – newly opened after COVID. It was a twenty minute walk, and he could get as much charge as he wanted from an outlet at a desk, with air conditioning and comfortable chairs, too.

When he was back in Venice, the kid spent the rest of his time trying to enjoy just lying on the beach and sunbathing. Sometimes he set aside time to meditate. It seemed to impress Trevor and Eli, even though the kid was barely doing more than imitating what he’d seen in the movies: sitting down with legs crossed, holding his hands together in his lap. He would close his eyes and try to quiet your mind for at least ten minutes. It was crude, but effective. It did seem to help the kid calm down, and made him feel better about himself overall, as if he’d just had a spiritual bath. It also filled one of the functions of long sessions in prayer – to keep returning the mind to a single point of focus. In this case, the rhythm of the breath.

He’d gotten into it years ago, when he’d first stumbled across YouTube videos chronicling the legendary training of the Shaolin monks. Though he never imagined he’d make it there, the kid found the same fascination with these Kung Fu masochists as he’d found in Navy Seal training or the Olympic games. It tugged at his desire to prove his courage, both physical and spiritual, to endure any pain and rise to any challenge – to prove that he was not a coward. And on top of all that, he’d found that the bits and pieces of stretching and workout tips that he’d borrowed from Shaolin were actually a very good all-around fitness routine. Everything about it appealed to the kid’s sensibilities, and his growing extremism in his search for meaning. And besides, it was a way to kill time that felt halfway productive.

They had been hanging around for almost a week. The kid was constantly feeling trapped, even in this new paradise. Trevor had assured him that his mother would come through and help them out. His first plan was to get his van back from her, but there was a lot of unspoken business going on behind the scenes with his family. The kid was dissatisfied, but agreed to hang out for a while. It was the best thing he had going at the moment, and he should have enjoyed getting to know the freewheeling hippie culture there. All he could think about, though, was throwing himself into further trials and tribulations. That’s what he was there for. Not to enjoy himself, but to challenge himself. Everything else felt like a distraction.

I’ve spent too long on this god damn sand. Sand gets into every crevice in my clothing and every piece of gear. Nights are spent shivering under the wet breeze from the ocean. 

He wouldn’t have to wait long. The status quo changed again on Wednesday night. That was the night Trevor’s mom would finally come by Venice. A group of punks walked through earlier, hanging out at the bench circle, scrawling anti-fascist graffiti and chatting with Trevor about busking and music. Then another tramp stopped by to chat for a while, sitting on a low wall at the edge of the bench circle.

“This guy right here is scaring me, man.” He said, looking at the kid. He said his name was Patches, probably for his ragged, quilt-like clothing. He was just beginning a trip, and wanted reassurance that the kid’s vibes would not interfere with his.

“You got this tension inside you, like you’re waiting for something bad to happen. Like you’re preparing for war. Can I shake your hand, man? I just want to make sure you’re for real. Like you’re not gonna do anything, right? You’re friendly, right?”

The kid shook his hand and they talked, and he told the kid he should walk to the edge of the ocean and scream. It’s only about a hundred yards from the boardwalk, but when you get out there you’re swallowed by empty black space. The sky is featureless and infinite. The ocean becomes the whole world.

Even out there away from all the people, it didn’t feel like the right place to scream. The kid had always hated making noise anyway. It held the same weird mental block for him that made him freeze on unsteady ladders or flinch away from a harmless spider – a totally involuntary but severe compulsion to avoid being loud. He might as well have had a muzzle stitched into his face.

I walked out to the edge of the ocean. The waves are hypnotic … 

I can see how it could drive someone insane, or convince them to worship it as a god … 

I tried to figure out why I needed to be so close, mere inches from the breaking waves. I started playing with them, daring them to go higher, cover my legs and get my pants wet. I was spiteful. I wondered why I would hate the ocean, an inanimate thing … why would I talk to it as if it could hear me, could hear my prayer of spite and fury. 

It took me ten minutes to work up the courage to unzip my fly and do what I’d come out there for in the first place – take a piss on the edge of [god] the waves. Why was the ocean my god? Or was it simply God, the all-powerful? 

It’s easy to see why ancient people would have begun worshipping this thing, conducting elaborate rituals to give them some sense of bargaining control over the caprice of nature. You stand at the edge of those waves and you feel truly insignificant, and something in your spirit rebels at that feeling. It can’t be pointless. We can’t be motes of dust floating in a universe of cruel chaos. We have to have some higher meaning, deeper power. Or maybe that’s just the feeling the ocean gives you, when you stare at it too long. 

I bent down and washed my hands in another wave, then turned and plodded back across the sand. Back to my friends, civilization, light and life. Back to sanity. The ocean faded to memory like a bad dream.

Patches was gone when the kid walked back. Soon after that, Trevor’s mom arrived. She brought them a lot of food, sleeping bags, and a tent, but that was all – Trevor’s big plans for anything else were eventually shot down cold over the course of a loud argument.

While Eli and the kid were keeping their distance, another tramp came by to chat. This was Blake, a friend of Trevor’s from a while back. They’d randomly run into each other on the beach earlier, and agreed to hang out again. Blake was just arriving back in the city too, looking for a new job and to get reestablished after traveling the world. Much like Trevor, he was a seemingly limitless free agent, like a man who had cracked the code of the Matrix and breezed along through the edge of society without effort or care. He carried only a small canvas tote bag in addition to the clothes on his back, and his dog followed at his heel everywhere he went.

The new sleeping bag came in handy when Blake spent the night with Eli and the kid, halfway under the shelter of a lifeguard stand. Trevor left at the same time. He had worked out some kind of deal, so he said goodbye to his fellow tramps and that it was nice knowing them. The kid would never see him again, although they stayed in contact for a while after.

Blake, Eli and the kid became the new trio, with Blake as the new unofficial leader and guide through the city. He wasn’t the same swashbuckling adventurer that Trevor had been – he was merely going about his business finding places to sink his roots into now that he was back in the city – but Eli and the kid were invited to tag along anyway.

The first mission took them to the EBT office, where Blake and the kid shuffled through a bureaucratic labyrinth to get food stamp cards, while Eli guarded everyone’s luggage outside. When the kid walked out, the time available for walk-ins on that day had run out. He promised to come back the next day and watch Eli’s bags while he went in for a card, paying him back the same way. At this point, the kid had decided that Eli was fully trustworthy and reliable. He was already like an old friend, despite the fact that they’d just met a few days ago.

The kid announced to both of them, as they waited for the bus back to the beach, that he was leaving LA in a couple of days. He was unbearably restless. Now that the whole Venice Beach thing had blown over, he figured he was overdue for more traveling. Trevor insisted over text that hope was just around the corner, but the kid had seen enough. He would later discover that having delusions of grandeur dangled just beyond your reach is a theme of Los Angeles in general.

That night, they walked through West Hollywood with Blake. They got dinner at a sandwich shop and stopped to eat and rest on a nearby set of stairs, where LAPD rolled up to evict them. They had only been sitting for twenty minutes or so, but apparently a complaint had been filed. Blake told everybody to stay chill. The kid told one of them that they were just taking a rest before moving on to the next spot.

“Where’s the next SPOT?” The cop almost shouted.

“Hell if I know, honestly.”

The cop could have been a Navy SEAL; the kid didn’t know how to tell the difference. LAPD and the military both dressed up in battle-ready uniforms with steel plates over their chests. The kid was put off by the overzealous show of force, but even at the time, he reflected on how much LAPD must have to put up with.

Maybe the police presence was why West Hollywood was so clean. The kid knew they stuck out in the middle of the swanky shops and little organic grocery stores lining the boulevard. He was no less tense when Blake led them deeper into the winding, convoluted streets of townhomes and even more bespoke clothing stores. One of these stores had a nice garden out front. Blake thought he remembered something similar, so he went around to the back. There was a Zen garden set back from the street, with just enough shrubbery to hide three quiet sleepers. Blake showed them where they could plug in their phones to the strings of Christmas lights decorating one of the trees. Sitting together on the pavement, the trio smoked, drank, enjoyed a playlist on Blake’s speaker, and miraculously went unnoticed all night long. The kid was twitchy, scared, wary like a wild animal in a human city for the first time – but eventually he accepted the safety of the sheltered position he’d found under a bush. He had to sleep eventually.

Blake was going out for job interviews early the next day. The three of them said their goodbyes while dragging Eli’s suitcases onto the next bus back to Venice. Blake said he would rendezvous at the same spot on the sand where they’d slept the night before, but Eli and the kid would never see Blake again. They stuck around Venice beach only to wait, before even that became too much for the kid to stand.

I really need some alone time away from all this insanity, and I need another tarp, and I need to really take care of my feet, like in a hotel room or something, and I need to go travel solo. It'll be good for me. It's what I signed up for -- traveling, not squatting under a lifeguard stand. 

A woman clutching a dirty meth pipe was hanging around that night on the boardwalk, approaching the bench circle very gradually. The kid eyed her warily as she moved closer over the course of a whole hour until she was close enough to talk. The kid donated a hoodie to her, knowing it was the best he could do at the moment.

“You better watch out,” she warned him, leaning in close, “For some people … some people are demons.”

Her eyes shifted around her, searching for danger. “They’re not real, and you can’t tell. Nobody can tell. Only me and Jesus can see the whole truth.”

The kid saw the emptiness behind her eyes. He knew he was seeing someone so far gone that she no longer could tell reality apart from hallucinations. He was no expert on crystal meth, but he’d heard enough about it to recognize the signs. He wondered if she could be helped, or if the awful brain damage this drug had wreaked on her mind would inevitably lead to an early death. The kid used to regard things like that as unthinkable, but now they were right in front of his face. Eli agreed that it was ultimately hopeless.

They spent another night shivering under the lifeguard stand. In the morning, the kid gave Eli an ultimatum: he would be leaving the next day, no matter what else happened. He would accompany Eli back to the EBT office to get Eli a card, and then he would leave.

Trevor said he wanted to meet today but he never showed up. He also said Blake quit his job on the first day and he's nowhere to be found, now. Things are falling apart. It's past time already for me to leave. 

I feel like I should get more into the emotional aspect of things, but it's just been so much, all at once, and I haven't had time or charge enough to write it all down. Maybe I can come back and examine my memories from this time and write something more profound. For now, I just want to go be alone and let this simmer. 

And then I'm heading south. San Diego, here I come. 

The next day, they said their goodbyes. Eli had not been able to get an EBT card, but he got a free smartphone instead. He said he wanted to go back to his family in Illinois eventually, and the kid encouraged him to try. It seemed like the happiest ending for the brief chapter in Eli’s story that he had been a part of. The kid wished him the best, but he had other things to deal with. The mess inside his head was not even close to being untangled yet.

As he stepped onto a bus going back inland, the kid knew he was leaving behind the last shred of stability that he’d known and felt safe within. Soon he would realize all the blessings and curses of true freedom, unbound by anyone or anything else to care about but his own survival – and then he would begin to question the value of survival, too.