I guess everything got started when I realized that I had nearly two grand in my bank account. It sounds like a weird place to start but most folks my age would feel satisfied…hell, they’d probably be down right comfortable with the idea of two grand in the bank. But those are the folks that see two grand in the bank as an asset. All I see are two thousand little liabilities. Two thousand little reasons to continue working in my mind-numbing cubicle. Two thousand little temptations to save up another thousand little liabilities just to put a down payment on some huge liability. One that is liable to force me to stay in aforementioned cubicle just to make payments. Money is kinda like cancer, when the tumor gets too big; it’s time for a recreational biopsy.

So what I did was I called up my buddy, Conor, and asked him if he’d seen the Atlantic Ocean recently. He said he’d never and so we went. He hitched a ride down to Sacramento from Arcata where he was breaking up with his girlfriend at glacier speed while pretending to go to school. I packed up in the truck in the spare six hours and we split town the next morning.

I understand that just up and leaving town inside of twenty-four hours might sound irresponsible to a lot of people but that’s the kind of mood I get in sometimes. Especially when I start thinking about money.

It was the first half of January so we figured we should take a southerly route. So with all the gear stashed in the bed of my 95 Ford Ranger, we got on 5 and pointed the Stealth Ranger towards Los Angeles.

The “Stealth Ranger” is what I call my truck, on account of the fact that I’ve never gotten into any trouble with the cops while I’ve been driving it. You put me into any other automobile, I don’t care if it’s a Geo or a Cadillac, and I’ll get pulled over inside of ten minutes. There’s just something about the Stealth Ranger that makes me invisible. Hell, there’ve been times when I didn’t even know I was driving and the Stealth Ranger commandeered the wheel and got me home.

Anyway, the drive from Sacramento to L.A. is the most boring stretch of road a guy could get onto. It’s nothing but fields dotted with 76 stations and fast food joints but we were so excited, Conor and I, that we hardly even noticed. We were so excited that Monterey was already two hours behind us before we realized that we didn’t have anywhere to crash in L.A. So we pulled off at some rest stop to make a few calls.

There were a lot of old people letting their poodles crap all over the place and moms yelling at their kids not to touch anything in the restrooms. I was on the phone just outside the ladies room.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t had to spend about forty-five minutes on a payphone. I had to call up an ex-girlfriend of mine in order to get her brother’s number, who lives in Pasadena. Then I had to talk to his roommate to get his cell phone number. I have some opinions about cell phones but I won’t get into that.

I finally got a hold of James, that’s my ex-girlfriends brother, and he said we could stay at his place for the night. James was a cool guy in high school. I mean the kind of cool guy that’s in a band and everything. He moved to L.A. to get discovered or something, and had an apartment with a view of the big “Hollywood” sign. It wasn’t much of a view though because all the buildings kept blocking the bottom half of the sign. What he really had a view of was “Hol-y—od”. I don’t mean to complain but that sign could’ve said anything and I wouldn’t have known the difference.

Except for the view, L.A. was a pretty fun place. Conor and I skateboarded all over downtown trying to find a Dunkin’ Donuts and a video store. I swear, I saw more BMW’s and Mercedes that night than I have in my whole life. Even the dirty parts of town were crawling with rich people. It wasn’t too cold out but they all had the tops up on their convertibles and those tinted windows so you couldn’t see who was driving. Every once in a while A Jag or some Acura with a spoiler designed by the damn military would cruise past me and I’d look over to see who it was. Not that I would’ve known them. I just like to see who’s about to run me over while I’m skateboarding on the side of the road.

The thing was, all I ever saw in the tinted windows was myself. Skating along with twinkly Starbucks lights behind me or some dirty bookstore flashing those red neon XXX’s. Then I started getting a little goofy.

Every time a car went by, I started thinking that the windows were T.V. screen’s and I was the star in some movie about a kid who just quits his job to skate all over Pasadena. It sounds pretty silly but it’s true. I actually started feeling famous for a while. I don’t know why I imagined that stuff. I guess I just really felt like I was in Hollywood. Or maybe I was just bored because we still hadn’t found the video store.

I don’t know about you, but on a cool, dry night like that, I would have had all the windows down and no top. Things don’t look the same through all that smoked glass. Plus there was a lot to look at. Do you remember that Beach Boys song, “California Girls”? Van Halen covered it and did a way better job. The point is, they were talking about all these girls I was passing on the street. Not the girls in Sacramento or Davis or any other girls in California, but the girls right there in front of me. There were beautiful girls everywhere. They were coming out of the cracks in the sidewalk, I swear.

They all looked like the girls in make-up commercials or like they were on their way to try out for a part on Bay Watch. The kind of girl you can’t even strike up a conversation with because you’re afraid they’d just say that they like long walks on the beach and hot cocoa in front of the fire.

I yelled up to Conor and asked him if we were near the Playboy mansion. He was a ways ahead of me and it was noisy with all the cars honking and people everywhere. He didn’t know. He said he thought Huge Hefner lived in Chicago. Conor’s never been good with directions. I don’t even know why I was letting him lead the way, to tell you the truth. We still hadn’t found the video store.

I started thinking that maybe all those people with their windows up were all movie stars or important CEOs and didn’t want to attract the paparazzi or mess up their hair. To be honest, up until that point I’d thought that everyone was just being snobby. I had a preconceived notion about Hollywood people. I admit it. But as soon as I started thinking about that paparazzi stuff, I started feeling really sorry for all those guys with their windows rolled up.

I would hate to have to hide and look at everything through tinted windows just because I was rich and famous. I’d go nuts if jerks were always following me around snapping pictures and asking stupid questions. Then, if your hair gets messed up you might not get a part in some big movie just because you didn’t look right. Next thing you know, you’re not getting any of the parts you try out for because you’re nuts from running away from jerks all day. Without the movie star salary you can’t make the payments on all your movie star stuff. You’d probably shoot yourself when the repo-man comes rather than go back to being a regular guy. Yeah, I definitely started feeling sorry for everybody.

We found the video store. I don’t know what I was expecting. It was just a regular video store. I guess I thought there’d be something special about it just because it was a Hollywood video store. We rented some movie that James said was good and split. He wasn’t even with us but Conor and I figured he knew what he was talking about. What with him being in show business and all.

The trip back to James’s apartment wasn’t much different. There were these big palm trees up and down the middle of the street. Just like when you see L.A. on T.V.. Everyone still had their windows up too, but I wasn’t feeling famous anymore.

I was skating about half a block ahead of Conor, so we wouldn’t get lost. There was a bummy lookin’ guy sitting on some stairs that lead down to a big parking lot or something. I almost didn’t see him because I was skating so damn fast. I was getting kinda tired of being outside around all those cars and streetlights to be honest. But the bum said something to me and I stopped. He asked me for some change, surprise surprise. I didn’t have any and told him so, but I wished him the best of luck. Then he said, “Thanks anyway,” or something like that, “Have a good night, man.” I told him to do the same and he kinda frowned at me. He was the first person who’d looked at my eyes all night. It wasn’t really a frown. It was more like a smile with it’s pants on backwards. I smiled and skated off.