her name was alice: chinese, 27 but looked 20, and waiting at the dennys about a mile away from LAX
it was 10pm. the end of december.
do you know where your dreams are?
9,000 people were scheduled to arrive at the airport either coming back from christmas with family, or jetting to la for new years eve.
lyft was offering a bonus bribe of $10 on any trip out of LAX, because its a shitshow and surely they added that to the fare.
the rideshare waiting lot is usually filled with 100 cars of chain smoking men who dont really wanna drive, but really dont wanna be home with their families. so they sit there for an hour for a $20 ride to hollywood that takes another hour. that is $10 an hour gross.
gross indeed.
upstairs in the horseshoe, it was bumper to bumper because lots of people’s friends came to pick them up like good friends do. but do us all a favor. just pay for your friends’ uber. youre making things worse.
so i had a plan to drive just outside the area that would put me into the uber waiting lot queue over by the rental cars. this way, i could get all the pings that weren’t coming solely from the airport, and maybe someone dropping off a car.
it’s hard to explain, but these little scraps of trips can become very profitable around the airport because, well, the airport is where you get fucked. the hotels, the rental cars, the terminals themselves. everyone is trying to suck as much out of you because you had the nerve to use an airplane to gtfo.
cabs, busses, uber, and lyft are no different. there was a time when airport rides were THE ride to get with rideshare, but the companies made damn sure to end that gravy train real quick, maybe in hopes people wouldnt camp out in the waiting lots and drive around.
but control is an illusion. these drivers fucked up and got married too young or to the wrong woman or they hate their kids or they hate driving in LA so now they sit in that lot, as pollutants rain down on them and time drains through the hourglass.
i sat in the benz for about twenty minutes on a dirty side road riddled with potholes, next to a couple of guys setting up their homeless tent and bedding for the night as it drizzled. i declined one bad offer after another. $5 to go to inglewood, $7 to go to hawthorne, $15 to go to dtla. love you too uber, you so-and-so.
because it was so slow, i only wanted long trips for big money, which is the only thing that woulda gotten the angry dads out of the lot too. so it was a stalemate of sorts.
which is why, when alice’s ping came through for $45 to go to ontario, i said hell yeah and nearly knocked over my super big gulp.
is ontario far? yes. but at that hour, the eta was just over an hour. for reference, sometimes it takes me an hour to get from LAX to hollywood for $25, so… hell yes.
alice was peppy, sweet, borderline adorable and so full of life. she flew out here from iowa to go to a rave with some of her college friends who would meet her at their airbnb.
why was she at the dennys? uber wanted to charge her $400 when she opened up her app in the airport. so she figured she’d walk out of the airport and past all the hotels to the dennys.
i was in the plane for hours and i like to walk, she said.
as denzel washington said in training day: my n word
she was talkative and vulnerable with the cutest midwest accent and we were getting deep even before i made it over the 405 via the century freeway east
i asked her sheepishly, so when you say you’re going to a rave, alice, are you one of those straight-edge girls who are just there for the music and the plur or are you down to lose your mind on party drugs and dress up skimpy?
plur? peace, love, unity and respect? she giggled, and admitted she is not at all straight edge.
gosh, do i look that innocent? she asked turning the light on her iphone and checking herself out in my backseat window.
before we got to the 110 we had already agreed on several things. at the top was that she should definitely move to australia to get away from all the dramas happening in her life, namely her demanding family, weird friend group, and lack of a mans.
if i was a million years younger i woulda humorously cleared my throat, but come on america, alice was sneaky hot.
i was like, i wish we were driving to ontario, canada, because it got so interesting as she told me about this rare condition she has:
aphantasia
she admitted, with zero energy, that she has no inner monologue and she cannot visualize anything.
so if i say, ‘think of an apple,’ you can picture one, but i can’t. i know it’s green or red, but i can’t see it. stupid, right?
alice, this is precisely why i drive a car in the middle of the night to the middle of nowhere in the LA winter rain. do not stop telling me everything, i said.
she said, i also can’t solve problems in my head. so if i am at work, and someone asks me something hard, i will say, let me think about that, and i will put my head down but nothing happens. i shut down. im not thinking. im not feeling. im nothing. like a computer that has been unplugged. or a playstation on pause.
i said, alice, how can i phrase this, first of all, you’re incredible. i’m bursting with questions. my head throws raves normally, but now you have poured a bucket of lsd on it.
so my question is, have you ever had a boyfriend?
yes.
so when you kissed him, what would go through your mind?
nothing.
do you dream?
yes, but i cant see anything.
so you’ve never had a nightmare?
i’ve had nightmares.
you’re amazing i told her.
i am happy you think that. so many people don’t take me seriously and i haven’t been able to find a therapist who can help me with issues that are unique to this condition, because only 6% of people have this.
way too quickly, we got at the oddest airbnb, tucked into a little, new suburban neighborhood with no trees, just row after row of the same looking tall, narrow, identical houses.
i gave her my card and said,
take me with you to australia. i’ll bring snacks.