A Toilet Flush Homecoming

As most people in LA are transplants, the mass exodus occurs around December 20 and re-entry occurs gradually, spanning from just after Christmas day up to the first Monday of the New Year. This year, I was one of the flock – flying off to see family in a faraway land – and returning just yesterday to this city that always welcomes me in its own way.

There’s magic in seeing the swaying palm trees from the window of a plane, especially if your flight departed from somewhere very cold or where there was snow on the ground, and even more especially if this place is a more than 10 hour flight away. That thick brown haze on the horizon is also magical in its own way, in all it alludes to.

I typically take the bus from LAX – and there’s usually a memorable bus driver to make me feel at home. Yesterday, the Flyaway driver laughed at some guy asking if Union Station was in Van Nuys. Then he told everyone to put on their seatbelts. When all the passengers turned to find a shoulder strap, he chuckled and announced that the bus didn’t have seatbelts.

After a ride down the 105, I walked to where I’d catch my next bus home. Waiting for behind the station at Cesar Chavez and Vignes, there was a taco truck and a homeless man sitting at the bus stop wolfing down a taco. When he got up to throw his wrapper in the garbage can near where I was standing, he exchanged words with me before running across the street.

Homeless man: “Did you work for First Charter Bank?”
Me: “…wha?”
Homeless man: “Yes you did, bitch!”

For the final leg, I often haul my suitcase up the street. This does garner some looks, mind you, but yesterday no one seemed to notice. They were all in a post-holiday fog. Even the homeless woman who sits outside the liquor store and greets me every morning on my way to work didn’t say anything. She just stared ahead with a blank and lonely expression on her face as I walked by.