The Lie of the Land (1/2) By Steve Rudd

(1/2), (2/2).

So I ran. I ran, and I ran, and I ran. Nothing means anything when eagerly anticipated phone calls never come. All those wasted Sundays slumped beside the phone add up. Ah, heartbreak. You've got to hate it. But you've also got to take it. The hardest thing of all is resisting the urge to break the ice, to ring first, to put words into your mouth as well as into hers. But she just stares. She just stares at the phone ringing off its hook as though the act of answering it might be construed as the first sign of weakness.

At least weakness is better than the debilitating bleakness of yet another lonely day in which the dubious highlight is a pulse-quickening, mid-afternoon call. Even if it is somebody selling windows on the other end: the far side of insanity. Oh, the nature of unrequited love strikes fear and loathing into the hardest hearts. Everybody wants to be loved; nobody wants to be overlooked. Hence, risks are taken. Sometimes the risks are stupid yet worth taking nonetheless. Telling somebody you like them like that isn't a crime. In some circumstances it's worse.

Believing that America would proffer a shard of emotional salvation, I skipped over the Atlantic to San Francisco and took the Pacific Coast Highway south to LA. Craving a modicum of decadent glitz and glamour, Broadway satisfied my lust to unearth old Hollywood in all its decrepit glory. The only stars to be seen on the pavement came when I was kicked to the floor by three youths. You could say I took a beating. Likewise, you could say I asked for it, sauntering on the dark side of the dead thoroughfare long after night had tripped and even longer before dawn dared to materialize.

Looking for a quick fix, a hard hit, I failed to remind myself that the drugs don't work. For a short while they mollycoddle the pain, sure, but the come-down threatens to kill me religiously. So, a ruined friendship in my wake, the fallout of which I feared I might never adequately recover from, I abandoned England, hoping that Bush's notion of freedom conspired to liberate my optimistic soul from my depressed mindset. Needless to say, it didn't. The notion didn't even exist. It was, like so many other things, a demented figment of my work-shy imagination. I only realized as much in the instant that my head smacked the potholed pavement. Pain ravaged my entire body; I thought I'd cracked up.

I wasn't financially crippled by any means. I mean, I had money. I simply preferred the thrill of living off the grid for a while so nobody could keep tabs on my whereabouts. A low profile has always suited me, and the prospect of sleeping rough in parks filled me less with fear and more with unbridled exhilaration. Purposefully putting my life on the line, past concerns for personal safety weren't awarded a second thought. I did choose a different park every night, though, so I couldn't be seen to be encroaching on anybody else's territory.

A sucker for the warm breeze that often streams down off the Hollywood Hills, I spent my days walking, pounding the streets of downtown LA like a native of the city. I had nothing better to do. Time, for once, was my own, and one day I set out early enough to walk all the way to Venice Beach.

Staring at the ocean, I wondered why any romantic entanglements I had always seemed to end in disaster. Was it me? Was it something I said? Tallying the number of women I'd loved and lost depressed me even more so I catapulted that train-of-thought into the Pacific without further consideration. Let it fester, I mused; let it mutate. Retracing my steps to Echo Park, I found a cell phone on a sidewalk. Its screen was scratched, but it worked. I no longer had any use for a phone, but I stooped to pick it up regardless. It was ringing; I thought I might as well answer it. I chuckled with glee at the prospect of teasing the caller, pretending to be whoever they aspired to speak to.

'Hello,' I drawled, dubiously disguising my English accent. 'Richard, is that you?' the woman shrieked. 'Sure is. What's up?'

Continued .... Next Page (2/2)

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