It was this way:

a cluster of us, waiting
for a signal to change,
the brown-skinned man next to me
proclaiming Prada on a t-shirt, his green cap
says why not? my shoulders bare to the heat
but for aqua straps then a writhing thing turned up
by so many sharp shovels of hard digging
pushes her way into us.

It was this way:
the effort of arms cranking wheels
depletes the reserves she's gathered to get here,
head lolls, matted hair resting on a navy blouse
with yellow flowers hanging open
limp empty breasts cracked nipples
laying on her distended belly like animals,
bare filthy feet, bruised and bloody toes
unbearably delicate poking out below
two calves contained in blackened casts,
skin patterned with a constellation
of blue-edged sores, purple broken flesh
too much of it for any explanation,
spills over the plaster, over
the sides of the battered chair dragging
a pink skirt painted with brown shit
in the remaining spokes of one wheel,
her eyes closed, through white cracked lips she says
sounds that don't come
from human mouths, is missing the second finger
on her right hand, is wearing one silver dangling earring,
has a newspaper, and a bible on her lap,
flies ring a buzzing halo around her head.
It was this way.

She is our raw wound, oozing
every terrible thing we've thought
or said or done, or haven't,
our every private shame dissected, laid out
naked on the slab of our legion of failures,
gaping pit from which we are unable to climb out,
terrified to step into.
She is how we try and drain the sea
with a straw.
And we look away while we watch
for the white light hand raised, like a benediction
we don't deserve and it comes and we take it, we
cross the street, no backward glance,
the white hand guiding us, safe.


It was this way.

We have forgotten what she looks like already.

"...a ringside seat" or-- why i'm writing this stuff

carey mc williams is one of the finest writers of non-fiction on california. he was a progressive intellectual, committed to racial & ethnic equality, healthy politics, and the advancement and protection of civil liberties. he was the editor of the nation for 20 years, and has an astonishing body of work to his credit.

but though i am a southern california native, i didn't know any of this when i began exploring my downtown la neighborhood, and came across these words carved into a long, low curving wall at pershing square:

" My feeling about this weirdly inflated village in which I had come to make my home (haunted by memories of a boyhood spent in the beautiful mountain parks, the timberline country, of northwestern Colorado), suddenly changed after I had lived in Los Angeles for seven long years of exile. I have never been able to discover any apparent reason for this swift and startling conversion, but I do associate it with a particular occasion. I had spent an extremely active evening in Hollywood and had been deposited toward morning, by some kind soul, in a room at the Biltmore Hotel. Emerging the next day from the hotel into the painfully bright sunlight, I started the rocky pilgrimage through Pershing Square to my office in a state of miserable decrepitude. In front of the hotel newsboys were shouting the headlines of the hour: an awful trunk-murder had just been commited; Aimee Semple McPherson had once again stood the town on its ear by some spectacular caper; a University of Southern California football star had been caught robbing a bank; a love-mart had been discovered in the Los Feliz Hills; a motion-picture producer had just wired the Egyptian government a fancy offer for permission to illuminate the pyramids to advertise a forthcoming production; and, in the intervals between these revelations, there was news about another prophet, fresh from the desert, who had predicted the doom of the city, a prediction for which I was morbidly grateful. In the center of the park, a little self-conscious of my evening clothes, I stopped to watch a typical Pershing Square divertissement: an aged and frowsy blonde, skirts held high above her knees, cheered by a crowd of grimacing and leering old goats, was singing a gospel hymn as she danced gaily around the fountain. Then it suddently occured to me that, in all the world, there neither was nor would ever be another place like this City of the Angels. Here the American people were erupting, like lava from a volcano; here, indeed, was the place for me - a ringside seat at the circus."

if it hadn't mentioned Aimee Semple McPherson's name, had instead, say, britney spears', or paris hilton's names been carved into the stone, it would have still seemed new. it was as fresh when i first saw it as it had been in 1946. i doubt that anyone will ever say it better, and i know that no one will more perfectly describe why i too, am in love with this city of angels.

as i explore this "weirdly inflated village" of mine, it seems i can't walk a step without stories finding me...a veritable big top complete with tightrope walkers and giants, tattooed ladies and clowns and snake charmers. i decided to share some of those stories.