by James Frey
I love you so much.
She laughs.
Just eat your damn meal.
He starts eating, within a few bites there’s food on his hands and on his face and on the bib and on his shirt and on his pants, there’s food spread across the table. Maddie watches him more than she eats, he’s like a child who doesn’t know any better taking bites while there’s still food in his mouth, wiping the food away with his hands and streaking it across his face, holding the fork incorrectly picking up scraps with his fingers, he looks unbelievably happy and content. When he finishes his first helping he gets another, he finishes that gets another. While he’s working on the third she puts the pie in the oven warms it up. By the time he’s finished with his fourth, and the bucket of chicken is empty, she has a piece of warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream ready for him. He eats most of it with his hands when he’s done he licks the plate clean he has another does the same thing. When he’s finished he leans back in his chair, rubs his stomach, speaks.
That was the best meal of my life.
Maddie smiles.
Good.
I think I’m gonna vomit.
He stands and runs to the bathroom. Maddie watches him go he disappears from view she hears the bathroom door fly open hears him lift the toilet seat hears him, hears him. While he’s busy, she clears the table, puts the leftover food, some potatoes and some beans, about half the pie and half the ice cream, in the refrigerator. She closes the door hears him breathing walks to the bathroom. He is sitting on the floor next to the toilet. There are new streaks on his chin and shirt. She speaks.
You okay?
I think I need to go to bed.
Yeah, that would be a good idea.
He starts to stand she helps him. She washes his face helps brush his teeth takes off his shirt walks him to their bedroom puts him to bed. He wants to fool around she laughs and says no he says he wants a kiss she offers him a cheek he kisses it gently then tries to lick it. She laughs and pushes him away he falls asleep almost immediately. She walks back to the kitchen gets a couple magazines she bought at the grocery store more stories about the rich and famous their clothes and cars, their houses and vacations, their love lives. They’re still a few miles away. They feel a little closer.
Dylan wakes up the next day goes to work carries his first bag gets a thirty-dollar tip. Maddie has dinner, frozen hot wings and blue cheese dressing, waiting for him. They get into bed stay up late. He goes to work the next day carries two bags gets a twenty-dollar tip and another thirty dinner is waiting tuna noodle casserole again they get into bed. Their life falls into an easy routine. Dylan works, Maddie cleans does laundry cooks, when she’s not doing those things, she watches talk shows or sits by the pool and reads magazines. Dylan becomes a real caddie, learns how to advise golfers on distance to the pin, which club to use, how the conditions might affect their play. He learns to kiss ass like a champion he learns how to work for bigger tips he watches men make fools of themselves yelling, screaming, throwing clubs, breaking clubs, getting into fights with each other, betting stupid sums on a game they’re supposed to enjoy. Maddie expands her kitchen repertoire she learns to cook things that don’t come frozen or in boxes she makes her own fried chicken, ham and cheese omelettes, rib eyes in the broiler, catfish in a pan, she makes her own apple pie. They go to bed early stay up late. Though they try to save their money, and live as cheaply as they can, they slowly move through the windfall from the bikers. It dwindles to fifteen grand, to twelve, to ten, to eight. Dylan’s income, on a good month, barely covers the rent, they talk about moving somewhere less expensive neither wants to do it they love their apartment, their home, their dream, the reason they ran away. Maddie starts looking for a job something part-time during the day she applies to grocery stores, coffee shops, clothing stores, restaurants. She has a couple of interviews doesn’t get any phone calls. She applies to a beauty shop, to a pet store, there’s an opening for a cashier at the drive-through of their favorite burger joint, interview, no call. The money is dwindling they’re still fine but won’t be soon. Dwindling.
Dylan comes home after a long day two bags one was a doctor who blamed Dylan for most of his bad shots and only tipped him ten bucks the other a pen salesman who got drunk and yelled. Maddie has dinner on the table chicken parmigiana and pasta Dylan can smell a pie maybe cherry. There are candles on the table. The napkins are folded. They sit down before they start eating he speaks.
What’s the occasion?
Why do you think there’s an occasion?
Is that a cherry pie?
Blueberry.
He smiles.
Candles, napkins, a new dish and a new pie. It’s an occasion.
She smiles.
What do you think it is, Sherlock Holmes.
You get a job?
No.
Had a good interview?
No.
Is it an anniversary of some kind that I’ve forgotten?
No.
A birthday?
She laughs.
No.
What is it?
I’ve decided something.
What?
You know how I read all the gossip magazines while I’m at the pool? Yeah.
And they’re all about these famous people, actresses and singers and models and stuff.
Yeah.
Well, I think that I want to be an actress.
An actress?
Yeah, I want to be a movie star.
Really?
What do you think?
If that’s what you want, give it a shot.
She smiles.
It’s not what I really want.
No?
I got what I really want.
What’s that?
I’m pregnant.
On October 17, 1929, construction begins on the Los Angeles Stock Exchange. The founders of the exchange intend to make it a rival to, and ultimately replace, the New York Stock Exchange. On October 24, 1929, a day commonly known as Black Thursday, the stock market in the New York Stock Exchange sees the largest one-day drop in its history. On October 29, 1929, a day commonly known as Black Tuesday, the equities markets in the United States collapse. Three weeks later the Los Angeles Stock Exchange goes bankrupt.
The city center. The bustling downtown. The urban core, the central business district, the immense skyline. The beating, beating heart of a major metropolitan area. The view from a distant highway it is usually signaled by a wall of steel, glass and concrete towers a beacon to those drawn to the hope of something more with dreams of greater lives those with outsized ambitions too large for small towns. As is the case with most of the world’s megacities, the City of Los Angeles was founded by a major water source. As it grew, the water disappeared, was drawn beyond its capacity and vanished. Smaller cities in, around and on the outskirts of Los Angeles were initially folded into the city to provide water, and later because they needed the water that Los Angeles brought in via the aqueducts. Instead of starting in a central point and naturally, over a long period of time, growing outward, multiple central points, the Port of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Burbank, Century City, Hollywood, East Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Gabriel and South Central Los Angeles, were placed into competition with each other. Some thrived, while others did not. Central government and cultural institutions based in downtown Los Angeles remained, but business and industry moved to safer, less crowded areas where commutes for workers were shorter and more convenient. Residents of downtown moved out of the area because the jobs were elsewhere. Highways originally built to provide access to downtown became hubs that led travelers to other destinations. The real estate market collapsed. Buildings and land were purchased at cut-rate prices by developers who put up skyscrapers that sat empty. The vacuum created by fleeing residents was filled by massive populations of homeless addicts and alcoholics. Established immigrant communities became small islands that more closely resembled the immigrant countries of origin than they di
d southern California. During daylight hours many of the streets of downtown were empty, after dark they were filled by the addicts and alcoholics. And so it remained for forty years. There are changes afoot now, slow changes, but so it remains. Here is an examination of downtown, where it has been, where it is now, and where it is going.
No one knows who came up with the expression Skid Row, or where it originated. Might have been Seattle, maybe San Francisco, some say Vancouver and others say New York. And while all of those cities have Skid Row neighborhoods, and continue to argue over and claim title to the term, downtown Los Angeles has, without debate, the largest, most settled and most dangerous Skid Row neighborhood in the country. Though it has always been there, in some way, in the early ’70s the City of Los Angeles formally adapted what they called a policy of containment. Containment meant taking the worst of the city’s transient and homeless population, and containing them in a single area. It was believed, and some still believe, that by containing this population, it would be easier to police them, easier to monitor them, easier to help them. For thirty years, many of the worst, most addicted and most violent men and women in the city were taken to Skid Row, sometimes by police, sometimes by court officials, sometimes by employees of shelters and missions in other parts of the city, and left there. Once there, without money shelter or help, they had to fend for themselves, which usually meant fighting, stealing, using, and often killing.
Spread across fifty square blocks on the eastern side of downtown, Skid Row has somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand residents. Thirty percent of the residents are HIV positive, 40 percent are mentally ill, 50 percent have STDs of some kind. Sixty-five percent have felony records and 70 percent of them have drug and/or alcohol addictions. Seventy-five percent are African American, 80 percent are men, 98 percent are unemployed. There are missions and transient hotels on the edges of Skid Row, they ring it, surround it. They feed and house almost 6,000 people a day. The rest live on streets covered with grime, which, according to tests conducted by the health department, is twenty-five times more toxic than raw sewage. They live in cardbox encampments, tin shacks, they live in tents and sleeping bags, they live on the ground. They yell at each other, scream at each other, sleep with each other, do drugs and drink with each other, fuck each other, kill each other. They live amongst garbage, rats, excrement. There is no running water and no electricity. The only available jobs, and they are always available, involve selling drugs and selling flesh. The local police department is the busiest in California. The local fire department is the busiest in the country. Ninety percent of the people who live on Skid Row, die on Skid Row. City Hall is less than a mile away.
In 1885, a Japanese sailor named Hamonosuke Shigeta opened the first Japanese restaurant in the United States in downtown Los Angeles. Over the course of the next ten years three more opened, as did a Japanese gambling parlor and two Japanese brothels, one of which featured geisha girls imported from Japan. In 1905, after four more restaurants, two markets, another gambling house and three more brothels opened, the area between First Street and San Pedro Street in downtown started being called Little Tokyo. In 1906, 4,000 Japanese immigrants moved south from San Francisco after the earthquake decimated the city. In 1907, just before the Federal Gentleman’s Agreement banned foreign immigration, 15,000 Japanese moved to Los Angeles. Almost all of them lived in or around Little Tokyo.
For the next thirty years, Little Tokyo grew expanded thrived, it became the largest of three established Japanese communities in the United States, with almost 40,000 residents. Anti-Japanese sentiment, which was strong all over the country, but particularly strong in California, forced Little Tokyo to become self-sustaining and highly insular. And although Japanese immigrants were prevented by federal law from owning property, temples were built, markets expanded, Japanese schools established. At the time of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, it encompassed sixty square blocks of downtown Los Angeles.
Just after Pearl Harbor, Executive Order 9066 was issued, which granted the federal government the power to incarcerate anyone of Japanese descent living within sixty miles of the west coast of the United States. One hundred and forty thousand Japanese Americans living in California, Oregon and Washington were rounded up and interned at what were called Assembly Centers, but were essentially jails. Little Tokyo vanished. The buildings, owned by white Americans, but inhabited by the Japanese for two or three generations, were empty, and the streets, once filled with Japanese immigrants, were silent.
When the war ended, and the citizens interned at camps were freed, around 3,000 resettled in Little Tokyo. Laws that had prevented ownership of land were lifted, but buildings remained empty, and what was once a vibrant, dynamic community more or less died. In 1970, with the hope that a revitalized area could become a point of access for Japanese investment and businesses, the City of Los Angeles officially designated a seven-block area as Little Tokyo, and started the Little Tokyo Redevelopment Project. The Japanese did not come back in large numbers, but a number of Japanese companies opened their first American offices in the area, one opened a hotel, and the community that still existed was consolidated. Today, Little Tokyo remains contained within the area designated by the city. There are markets, restaurants, temples, the hotel is still there, there are shops that sell Japanese clothing, furniture, art. Unlike times past, there is no worry that it’s going to disappear.
Need jeans? Got ’em. Actually got 600 different brands. Need a skirt? Tens of thousands of choices. Need shoes? Hundreds of thousands of choices. Need a bag, a belt, a hat, jewelry, a watch, a scarf, luggage? Got it all, got it fucking all. Need sunglasses, perfume, cosmetics? Need sportswear, formal wear, maternity clothes? Need a bathing suit, a tie, some underwear? Maybe you need a lacy pair of panties, or a corset, or some thigh-highs? It’s all there. That and so much more, so very much more. It’s called the Downtown Fashion District, and it’s ninety blocks of fashion. It can be overwhelming to think about, and it’s absolutely mind-blowing!!! Ninety fucking blocks of fashion. Yes, it’s true. All in one place. Ninety blocks.
The Downtown Fashion District began its life as the Depravity District. In the 1800s its streets were lined with bars, brothels, opium dens and gambling houses, local hotels rented rooms by the day, the hour or in fifteen-minute increments, gunfights were common. One of the main thoroughfares of the district, called Santee Alley, which is now noted for its counterfeit bags, belts and DVDs, was named after a prostitute known to have sex with as many as fifty men a day. Many other less industrious women would take twenty to thirty men a day. Opium, and later cocaine, were openly sold and openly used, alcohol flowed like water (and because it’s LA, at times there was actually probably more alcohol than water), pickpockets and thieves flooded the streets. It is believed, though not confirmed, that the first Donkey Show was staged in the district, and it is believed, though not confirmed, that the first bondage and S&M dungeon in America opened in the district. If it could be done, regardless of how disgusting, perverted, ridiculous or Satanic, it was done somewhere in the district.
Because of the number of working women, and sometimes men or young boys dressed as women, that were in the area, clothing shops started opening. Most of them specialized in what might be called evening wear, others sold fake police uniforms, nun’s habits and priest’s vestments, animal costumes, clown costumes. At the turn of the century, when opium and cocaine were outlawed (yeah, they both used to be legal, woohoo, woohoo), and alcohol and prostitution became the area’s primary businesses, the number of clothing stores grew. In 1920, when Prohibition was instituted, almost all of the bars and brothels were closed, or moved to less obvious and more discreet locations. The clothing stores remained. Others moved in, and clothing factories were set up in empty buildings. Many of the women who had worked in other capacities in the buildings became seamstresses, cutters, or did laundry. Labor was cheap and available, property was cheap and available. Within a few years, the district acquired a ne
w name.
Today there are more than 2,000 clothing wholesalers and 4,000 retail shops in the area. It is considered the West Coast center of clothing manufacturing and wholesale fashion. It has its own brands, its own celebrity designers, its own fashion shows. And while the industry is shrinking in the rest of the country, because of the continued availability of cheap property and cheap, often illegal, labor, it is growing in LA. You need a pair of socks? They’ve got ’em. Rubber boots? Absolutely. Are you a plus-size shopper? No problem, and the same goes for petites, and every size in between. And if you need a costume, something you don’t want your friends, neighbors or coworkers to know about, well, you can still get that as well.
The Downtown Toy District. Twelve square blocks of fun, fun, fun. Bright colors, loud noises, flashing lights. No description should be needed for this part of the city. Imagine a humongous toy store. Imagine cars occasionally driving down the aisles. Every now and then there might be a police chase or a mugging. That’s the Los Angeles Toy District.
The only area of downtown Los Angeles that truly resembles the core of a major metropolitan area is Bunker Hill. It is, geographically, the highest point in downtown Los Angeles. It is also covered with skyscrapers, which can be seen, on a clear day, fifty miles away. It is crowded, the sidewalks are packed, there are cars parked on every curb. It’s noisy and dirty, but not foul. There are people awake twenty-four hours a day. It was initially developed, in the late 1800s, as a high-end residential neighborhood. At the time, the primary business and banking districts of Los Angeles sat just below, and the Los Angeles River ran along its base. Victorian mansions were built and sold to wealthy businessmen and their families, and a private train ran up and down the hill. As immigrants began coming into the city, and the rail system made traveling into it easier and more convenient, many of the residents left Bunker Hill for Pasadena, Beverly Hills and Bel-Air. By the end of World War I, most of the mansions had been converted to apartment buildings. When business began leaving the area, the apartment buildings became flophouses. During the 1930s, when the ring of highways, freeways and interstates that surround downtown Los Angeles was being built, the neighborhood was cut off and isolated. Many of the flophouses became uninhabitable. They were often used as sets for horror or crime films. More often, real scenes of horror and crime occurred in them.
