The ArcLight Hollywood is a famous theater on a famous intersection choked by famous traffic.

It’s impossible getting to the Cineramadome at Hollywood and Vine without taking the clogged arteries that surround those L.A. hearts.

Tourists, street performers — and aggressive panhandlers — teem at the intersection, which serves as a sort of catch basin for the city’s human jetsam. You have to brace yourself for the slow stop light parade you take to get in. And out.

Fortuna demanded I do both recently. And though I left a couple hours after I’d arrived, traffic hadn’t eased. If anything, the Hollywood night crowd was arriving before the afternoon crowd could get out.

There’s a certain…pandemonium…to it, the kinetic energy of all those bodies bouncing off each other like charged neurons.

The windows are down. The music is loud. I feel some of that energy, though insulated by steel and glass.

Suddenly, I sense something breaching what science calls the ‘iron womb’ mentality.

An actual person. Walking straight for the car.

The typical brace: steel yourself to nod, acknowledge, look them in the eye. But don’t let them start the story about running out of gas. Or just short of bus money. And for god’s sake, don’t let them touch the car.

Hispanic guy, early 20’s. Unseasonably warm, and denim jacket, over a hoodie, seems like a lot. Now a few feet from the car, stopped at the red light.

Suddenly, he stops and kicks a pizza box on the ground next to an overflowing trash can, his target all along.

The box gives slight resistance. He bends over, opens the box, takes out the slice of un-eaten pizza that’s inside, and begins eating it as he crosses the street.

I watch him walk, a guy who probably figured what a good turn the day had taken. When do you luck into a free dinner?

And I think: why must the reality of his everyday wake me to the dream of mine?

I drive home, windows still open, but music down. I want to feel more, awake maybe, to it.

You never know where you’ll find that pizza box.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3xdeatlwYk

xxx