Yesterday, I got pulled over by a cop. And she was a dyke, a monster dyke. There was absolutely no point in flashing a smile or in any way trying to be charming. From the moment, the taco slider approached my window I saw the disdain for me in her eyes. And, trust me, it was returned, but that’s because of her authority status and not her lesbianism. I love lesbians as much as the next guy but I’ve hated cops since Detective Reemer, head of Wayne, NJ Narcotics, wrongfully pulled me over in my friend’s Z-24. He appropriated Mikey’s sporty Chevy after he arrested him for possession of LSD. Not a fan of jah love. You can’t help bitterness when you get pulled over by your best friend’s car, now slutted out as this obvious narco. He then lied, searched and pushed me around Route 23 in an all-encompassing FU to the Constitution. My impression of law enforcement has been a slight skewed since that moment. And naturally, this muff bumping civil servant gave me a ticket for no less than no-seat belt.

This was my excuse. I went to Jamba Juice to buy beautiful Molly a juice that which she was craving. And I’m helpless to not please her. While I was waiting on line, I got a call on my cell. It was my superior and, apparently, she was having some problems with her posterior. So, a quick hello was insufficient. And since I was already an hour late to work I had to keep her on the line a few extra minutes while I brainstormed for an excuse to justify my tardiness. At that point, I was unwilling to face and admit the somber and woeful destination of this mornings traveling adventure south on Sepulveda. So when we got back into the car, Molly smiling at my glib and unconventional conversation with a coworker, my hands were full, juice and cell. I barely had control of the wheel. But as I explained to fuzz Mary, I am an excellent knee driver, very common on the mean streets of LA. Then to make matters worse, the juice spilled on the console. Apparently, the cup holder of my Mazda Protégé is no match for the robust Styrofoam cup that contains a Berry Lime Sublime from Jamba. I was chibbing and cajoling with the boss while cleaning and driving. Molly sat back in smiling observation of the scene. I simply hadn’t had the time or the hands to clip the belt in the midst of all this hidden emotion, humor and juice. I should have been honest and told the cop that I was driving Molly to the airport, not knowing when I would see her again. I should have told her about the fantastic time I have when she sits next to me. I should have told her about the things I see in her eyes. But I was still in denial, so I went with the distractions. Sir Licks A Lot held her end of the bitch bargain and wrote the writ.

I need distractions, distractions like The Vista Theater on the corner of Sunset and Hollywood. I sit in the third row and await The Aviator, a classic movie about classic people in a classic theater. It reminds me of the airport. It reminds me of Howard Hughes Center. It reminds me of dropping Molly off at the airport. The spins in my stomach like an airplane in turbulence, dropping out of the sky in a rainstorm. I look up with Beck playing Summer Love and I have a moment, one that passes like all others. A feeling that is lost in the chronology of a lifetime, more fleeting than a rainy morning in the Los Angeles desert. It pains me to think of the type of time that is beautiful, beautiful sadness in reflection. I look blindly for doors into the future, feeling the white walls of an empty room. I’m at the Vista, looking over the second row seats, red, seeing the future and it’s blank. The curtains are drawn. Red. The screen is white beyond the drape because the movie hasn’t started. Howard Hughes, Sepulveda Blvd. The airport is where I drive to on the way to my future and my eventual past. I left Molly at Terminal One, America West. We hugged in the car. I kissed her on the cheek. I knew she was about to cry. I kissed her on the lips. I turned around and got in my car and headed north on the 405. That’s when the knot started. Not a knot that measures speed on an ocean vessel or the kind of knot that keeps the sails hoisted but the kind of not that is negative, the knot that forms in the realization of fleeting time watching Molly fly. And it’s only now starting to melt away like worries coming off my fingers, tapping the keys, waiting in the theater for the cinematic planes of the Aviator to fly me away. I escape to the sky, like Howard Hughes, like movie screens, like Molly on the way back to New York. Beck plays. The album got leaked and Drew handed me a copy as we walked out the door on the way to Jamba, before the cop pulled me over. I used to be funny. But I don’t always express it like a joke. I believe in the classics like Rilke and Eastwood and Howard Hughes. I’m complex like the Rachmaninoff 3, an episode of 24 or a girl. I lament and I think Poe is hilarious. It happens like a Santa Ana wind, drying my cracked hands from heat like cold bitter nights crack my hands in January Manhattan. Take me away, movie. Take me into the Vistas so I can forget this beautiful pain. Show me a view that is not what I can see myself, this blank screen. Show me Molly again, in my arms.