The End of the World as We Knew It by Cole Nick

Author:Cole, Nick [Cole, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Publisher: Nick Cole
Published: 2015-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

November 21st

It’s about ten o’clock at night and I’m sleeping in a van, an old Volkswagen minibus. It’s part of a welfare hotel for refugees until they get their feet under them. I’m on level eight of a parking garage located beneath the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on the highest of Los Angeles’ seven hills.

I think they used to hold the Oscars here.

Not in the van. Up in the Dorothy Chandler.

Crazy, huh?

I got into Los Angeles late last night. The bus picked me up out in Riverside and then took forever to get to Union Station. The freeway was impassable from the wrecks and traffic jams of two months ago. Long silent trains of cars seemed forever frozen on the highway. You see a lot of broken glass. It makes you wonder.

When we encountered these impassable barriers, the bus detoured off through a break in the highway and trundled along side streets. The driver, smiling, seemed to know where he was going as we jounced along listening to Mexican music.

In the early evening, the bus labored up the last streets east of Los Angeles, crawling along narrow ravines through old neighborhoods where gabled houses stood guard in the twilight. Occasional dim lighting smiled wanly through the gloom. Then all of the sudden, we’re pulling through a makeshift wall into the flickering orange and neon-lit streets of downtown Los Angeles. The skyscrapers beyond the station are dark, but the streets around them are illuminated at odd intervals by running generators and light poles.

Most of the other passengers seemed to know where they were going, and soon I found myself standing alone as the driver exited the now silently ticking bus.

“No place to go tonight?” he asked, his Mexican accent thick and singsong all at once.

I shrugged.

“Hungry?”

I nodded.

“Follow me.”

We crossed the street and went down the block toward the edge of a brightly lit area I thought would be busier, but was strangely lacking in human presence. At the end of the block, I saw thin light spilling out onto a street corner. The signage above the building was dark, and I could barely make out the darkened Philippe that must have once burned bright and hot in the 1950’s Los Angles nights of neon and chrome.

At the front door, the bus driver, Alphonso as I would come to know him, said one word.

“Chili.”

Inside it was quiet. The floor was covered in sawdust and dishes were being cleared from long tables, as though a large group had only recently eaten and left.

We ordered two bowls of chili with onions. Cheese was unavailable, we were told curtly by an older woman wearing a vintage waitress uniform complete with a paper cap. There was pie though. So we ordered pie and two cups of coffee. When it was time to pay, Alphonso held out large multi-colored bills and laid them on the counter. I caught the words “Republic of New California” printed on them.

We ate and Alphonso read a newspaper that was little more than a single printed sheet.

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