Hip Cities and Lost Souls

      "I'm going to find a job," Lance said, the empty apartment grinning back at him. Sarah had cleaned up the clutter clucking her tongue, refusing to bring up anything until she'd finished. And still, she glared at the holes as if they upset her future social agenda.   What would people say?   She'd wanted instant repair but settled for a covering of posters and wall hangings.   Later, she told Lance, You can fix them right.”   But without rent, later seemed like never. Lance said nothing of this. Maybe he could squeeze enough out of a paycheck to keep the place.   "A job?" Sarah said, pausing, a lock of loose hair hanging across her forehead and eyes. She brushed it away with her sleeve. "What kind of job?"   Her tone suggested the usual prelude to a fight. The word "Job" implied other things like an ordinary American lifestyle, something she appalled. "We're not starting in with this husband-and-wife st...

    Dan steered the van off the freeway three exits early into the tangled east end of Hollywood. Straights called it the Silver Lake district. The hippies called it "the other end." A quieter version of Hollywood Boulevard, less flashy, but with enough hip life to still be comfortable.   Dan's cough had grown progressively worse till he sounded as if he might die behind the wheel. Sarah perked up, her humor improving as the more familiar glitter of Vermont Boulevard appeared around them. But the edge had frayed for Lance, the psychedelic paint peeling from headshop signs, and record stores, and boutiques. He felt it coming to an end like the slowing wheels of a train long out of fuel.   On Hollywood, German delicatessens appeared, part of the older city that had moved aside to accommodate the hippies, their hand-painted signs seeming more real to Lance than any of the hippie stuff, popping out from their exile as the hippies vanished.   But the hippie...

    Lance had read about the Mojave desert his first time through it on the bus, a bit of tourist bullshit to keep his mind occupied over the long miles. He remembered being shocked by some of its information, about the short distances between the highest peaks and lowest valleys. And while the van came no nearer death valley than the bus had, the desert seemed terrible enough, stretching out on either side of the narrow road. The growing dark gave no reprieve to its utter isolation, blackness as bad as the heat had been as far as the eye could seen. There should have been lights. Lance was used to lights, except for that year in Nam.   The brochure had talked about transforming the desert, cattle ranches, fruit groves, grain farms tinting the land back to green. But if anyone had started such a project, no sign showed, only the occasional shack light glowing in isolated answer to the spread of uncountable stars.   The little green Lance remembered had come wit...

    The parking lot emptied quickly, dust swirling up as police cars vanished first, then the truckers-- rednecks slipping out, studiously avoiding the van and its occupants.   "Now isn't that a bitch!" Dan growled, leaning against the van with his hat pulled back. Before them, their things remained as the police had left them, piled into a single pyre waiting for a flame, the sleeves of loose garments flapping out of the open mouths of suitcases and back packs.   Lance said nothing about what he'd overheard. They didn't need to know and he could feel the eyes of the law upon him, the x-ray vision of justice that looked beyond his set of phony ID to the real him. Now more than ever he needed to get back to L.A., find himself a job, get himself north. Maybe he and Sarah could lose themselves in the woods, where Demetre might overlook them like he had overlooked them here.   "I suppose we should clean it up," Sarah said softly, sounding as stunned ...