Down Under

Riding the rails

My husband and I recently watched Strange Days, the title of which can also describe the time during which its creators, Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron, were married. What they lacked in longevity they made up for in assembling a cast of actors never seen in the same room together before or since: Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, and Vincent D’Onofrio. There’s a lot of acting going on in this dystopian fever dream and I can’t say I fully recommend it on the basis of its disturbing content. Disturbing content like: brutal sexual violence, brutal racial violence, Angela Bassett in unrequited love with Ralph Fiennes, and a scene set in the Los Angeles subway station.

Subway? In Los Angeles? Yes, except it’s called the metro, and I should know because I took it this week. I was temporarily without a car. A lot of people say it’s impossible to get around LA without a car, but that’s not true. It is possible, you’ll just be sweaty and late.

I needed to get from my house to Hollywood and then from Hollywood to downtown, a route that happens to align with one of the three offered by the LA Metro. I cheerily set off, giving myself an extra two hours for the journey. My enthusiasm started to flag somewhere on the thirty-minute walk to the station. It was hot, and like most walks in Los Angeles, you often find yourself the only person in a semi-industrial area, wondering if this is how you die. I immediately began to regret everything.

When I started counting the minutes it had been since I had seen another human being, the menacing futuristic steel of my local station appeared like a beacon. I’m not sure what the artist’s intention was, but the effect is very “what if a spaceship crashed between a gas station and a taco stand.”

Turns out you can read about the architect’s intention here.

I descended, comforted by throngs—well, more like smatterings—of fellow humanity. Predictably, every single escalator was not working, so I trotted down approximately 8000 steps to the platform.

It was about 4:30 PM, well into Los Angeles rush hour. The next train was expected in thirty minutes.

I’m always shocked at how empty metro cars are (not so much LA buses, but that’s a different story). You may not be able to sit but you can always comfortably stand, even at peak hours. Not a lot of great places to brace your body, however—the poles on the side seats don’t go all the way to the ground. When the car lurched, I went with it. 

I arrived at Hollywood and Vine (the Times Square of Los Angeles—disgusting, gritty, filled with people from other places walking like madmen) and to my not surprise all the escalators there were non-operational.

8,000 more steps trudged and I was at my destination, where someone asked, “You drove, right?” and I found myself saying with unexpected shame, “Um, I took the red line.” Where did this shame come from? I have no idea, but I feel confident in saying it’s modern society’s fault.

I got back on the train. We were solidly in rush hour. The wait time remained thirty minutes. On the platform, a man loudly sang and loudly played guitar. I felt a familiar twinge of annoyance. It was comforting, like a forgotten childhood memory. I pulled my novel closer to my face as if this would drown out the noise. And so I became The White Lady on the Subway Metro Platform Trying to Read Her Sally Rooney Book in Peace, just as God intended.

I made the journey to Downtown LA without incident. Emerging was disorienting—stone facades and empty storefronts indicating a once-prosperous metropolis, lost to the sands of time. Like Pompeii. If Pompeii had a Nordstrom Rack.

I don’t know where this is going except to say that taking public transportation in Los Angeles takes as long (or longer) than driving which doesn’t make a lot of sense given the main thing everyone hates about this town is traffic.

See? This city is so topsy-turvy maybe it is just the type of place where Angela Basset could pine for Ralph Fiennes.

Yup (source)

(Also, there are many residents of Los Angeles who rely on public transportation day-to-day, which is why it behooves us all to 1) take it and 2) improve it. Here’s a great essay on the subject!)