I’d rented a flat in Hollywood, right opposite the Chevron I’d been working in. It was an easy commute. Of 20 to 45 seconds, depending on traffic. But long before that I’d realised that if I was to stay in LA I’d need wheels. There are no tube trains, no real trains (only really slow ones that go, like all the way to Kansas and pull about 140 carriages of mainly freight) and the buses are shit. And I was in America, where every one of my dream cars had come from. And where all anyone really wanted to drive, in 1981, was a VW Golf. It was the right-on aspirationalist’s vehicle of choice. Preferably a little-engined diesel. The Prius of its day. And to add insult to injury, over there it was called a ‘Rabbit’. The days of ‘gas guzzlers’ were dead! Small, neat and European was the way to go. Unless you happened to be a small, neat European, in which case what I craved was ‘muscle’. And funds were limited. Fortunately, the Golf/Rabbit that I really didn’t want was expensive. Foreign, economical and very in demand. Whereas a 1973 Pontiac Le Mans with a 6-litre V8 engine and the size of small cruise liner (but with worse steering) was yours for 200 dollars. Because no-one in their right mind wanted such a thing. With petrol at OVER A DOLLAR A GALLON!!!! So that was my ‘ride’. And even with 150,000 miles on the clock, I never had a moment’s bother with it.

I changed job to telesales. And I would suggest that if anyone ever suggests this as a career move for anyone you know, punch them hard and run like the wind. Its a terrible job. I did two in fact. One was a complete con, selling ‘futures’ in ‘strategic metals’ to people who didn’t have much future and needed a ‘position’ in strategic metals (titanium, ruthenium, basically military metals) like the proverbial fish needs his bicycle. A month after I left the office was shut down by the FBI for a whole host of naughty things. The other job was selling jewellery supplies to jewellers in Idaho and Nebraska and Wisconsin who struggled with my accent. And that was without the rhyming slang.

People kept coming into the petrol station telling how they were in telesales and made millions. ‘Then why are you driving a car older than mine?’ I wanted to ask but was too polite to do so. But I gave in and tried. And fucking hated both of those jobs. Which is why I became a professor.

Meanwhile I moved into a much nicer flat, in a much bigger block on Hollywood Boulevard. I liked Hollywood. It was sleazy, edgy but always fun. My mate Robert lived in this block and it had a lovely swimming pool. Robert’s mate Craig was coming over from London and so Craig and I became flat-mates. Just like that. And at the pool there were always loads of people. All young. None of whom seemed to ever work in any way that I would define it. Hence it became a social centre. A sit-com with a constantly changing cast. Robert and girlfriend Debi, his friends from London Nigel and Philip, with his girlfriend, Bonnie, and, eventually, once they arrived from New York, Steve and Joey. The mystery men.

Mystery? Because they spent all day every day by the pool, yet had been sent to LA ‘on business’. Then about once every 10 days or so they’d get really excited and tell us they were working that night!!! But wouldn’t say what they were working at. And they had a small, spare bedroom in their flat that was forever locked. We thought ‘hit-men’. Gotta be. The room’s where they keep the guns. And dead bodies. Steve was a big, burly New York Jew, Joey was thoroughbred Long Island Eye-talian. Obviously ‘connected’. Obviously.

But then Bonnie’s friend Susan arrived from Indiana. The Hoosier State. Another fucking mystery; what is a ‘Hoosier’? No-one knows. But they named the state after it/them anyway. And Susan was interesting. In a bit of a ‘wow!’ kind’a way.

Happy next day

A xxxx