his shirt read, im not a gynecologist, but i can take a look

he struggled with the tesla door handle which everyone does. eventually he got it.

college kid. 22? they all look like babies. slicked back hair, ironic white sunglasses

glued to his phone, giant wireless headphones resting around neck, smiling to himself

27th street, the app told me. USC? i asked, listening for confirmation.

fight on! he said, not missing a tap on his screen.

and we were off.

i hadnt been doing many LAX pickups unless they were private rides. people have found ways to reach me to hire me for airport runs, without the app. friends, readers, friends of friends. it has been delightful.

of the two airport runs, id rather do an airport drop-off than a pickup because you never know how long itll take for them to get through customs and to collect their bags. what if they gotta take a leak? that’s just dead time im not making money. the rule is: youre really only earning if the wheels are moving.

meanwhile, at the curb, the whistle-blowing cops quoteunquote are yelling at you to run along which is nuts. no one wants to be there officer, it’s not like we’re having fun waiting. and terrorists dont explode cars at the white zone which, we know, is only for loading and unloading.

so usually if i drop off someone at LAX, i’ll charge the tesla in manhattan beach or get a car wash or head into inglewood where theres little competition. and thanks to sofi and intuit and that semi-secret casino, lord only knows what sort of characters you might pick up and ive had them all.

as you may have read.

but this smart-aleck kid had walked from LAX to the in-n-out a mile away, shaving about $15 to $20 off the trip because neighborhood rates are more reasonable, and the airport doesnt get to impose it few-dollar tax.

junior used that savings to get himself a double double and animal fries. he walked across the street to the 7-11 for a pair of buzz balls which is where we met. he asked me if he could crack one open as we headed to the 105 east and i said,

you know how they say no in french?

no?

yes: non.

so yes?

no: non.

so he pouted.

i looked at the app for his name because i had already forgotten it.

jones? i asked.

yes.

they let people put their last names on here?

no, my first name is jones. my dad loved the talking heads. so boring, he said, as he went back to tapping the glowing screen.

ah yes, naked, i said, noting the album the song came from. hey siri play mr. jones i said loudly.

please don’t, he plead, eyes forward, hand on my headrest. anguished this time.

ah ok, my bad. siri pause.

the road was heavy, the sky thick, the air in the cabin a brisk 60 degrees to keep me alert. as i often do, i thought about what i would eat once we reached the destination.

and this, single ladies, is why im fat.

maybe not fat, fat, but there was a time in my past when id disrobe for the first time in front of a generous soul and my fear would be that i weighed less than she did. i was scrawny af.

but thanks to hippies showing me that the devils lettuce increases appetite and cures weird tummy tantrums, ive become a member of the clean plate club.

so now i wonder if these charitable lasses will think im some puerto rican, homer simpson, with the bald head, spare tire, and clumsy footing.

the panda express, i decided. on fig, near the 5-0, because not only did the dodgers win the previous night, but i could use their john as i waited for my food.

whatcha studying over there? i asked, as we slogged upon the last grand freeway they’ll ever build in LA.

psych, jones replied without looking.

oooooo! you wanna hear everyones filthiest secrets? i asked.

no, i wanna do forensic psych. crime scenes. figure out why the guy did it. or if he did it. and testify in court. be the expert witness and shit.

oh! so like oj? i asked.

well, that one was easy, jones said, eyes on the phone.

true, i agreed, glove didn’t fit.

what are you talking about? the kid asked. oj was guilty.

omg you are so young i told him. a little jealous of the ignorance.

only in the civil trial, i corrected. during the real trial, the only part that matters, i continued, there were soooo many blunders that even the smartest forensic shrinks couldnt have helped throw him into the clink.

but he was running away in his bronco, with a gun! jones demanded.

wait, have you really seen the trial? i asked.

no. he admitted.

seen any of the documentaries?

no

i love your confidence, my man. never lose that. but also you really should study that case. the only trial that mattered that decade.

the ’80s? he asked.

i wondered if he was fucking with me, but my niece had just been in town and she asked me what songs nirvana sang pointing to my poster of kurt cobain.

i nearly put a bar of soap in her mouth, but all i have is foaming liquid.

why was he found innocent? jones asked, curious instead of righteous this time.

i perked up because i had watched every day of the trial. E! showed it live, daily, during a time in my life when i had a good job that let me design my own hours.

every day the prosecution fucked up, i told him as the traffic lightened and we moved into the carpool lane.

one day they discovered that the cop who “found” the glove was a racist. next day, they couldn’t account for all of the blood they had taken from OJ. then a different cop admitted he took oj’s blood back to the crime scene for no good reason. then the next day, they had oj wear the dumb gloves that didnt fit and it was over after johnnie c busted that rhyme.

but he did it, jones insisted, a little quieter this time.

how on earth did you get into ‘SC? i asked.

you dont think he did it? he asked in disbelief.

have you not heard me? i said. i watched the show. every day. in real time. best soap opera ever. sorry, best limited run series ever. ive watched every doc since. ask me anything. but wait, youre the psychiatric forensic whatever-in-training, so explain to me. psychologically. why would a wealthy, handsome, famous superstar, banging the chick who would be on the cover of playboy magazine later that year, murder his ex-wife, two years after their divorce?

jones thought about it.

because he still loved her? he said sheepishly. then with his chest he said, because he still loved her!

how old are you jones?

19.

19?! i coulda sworn you were 22. ok. let me ask you. last year when you first stepped on campus, did you meet any hot babes in the dorms?

hell yeah.

no, jones, i mean knockouts. 10 out of 10s. like stunners, that defy all reason.

absolutely yes, he said remembering. and with a slightly lower tone of voice, because damn.

this is a horrible question to ask you jones, but im taking you to 27th? that’s The Row, right?

wow, yes.

which frat?

omega omega

is that the gay frat?

NO! he couldnt say fast enough.

ok, so you guys are aficionados of the female form. USC football, vaping, and baddies.

facts, he confirmed.

think about the hottest teachers you have or TAs. think of a woman in her 30s. does USC have any smokin’ hot professors or staffers or anyone who has caught your eye?

honesty no, he said.

have you looked?

looked for 30 year old MILFs? can’t say i have, he said.

name the hottest 35-year-old woman. quick.

uhhhh, dua lipa?

bro she’s 29. think older.

im stumped.

exactly. you dont think about 30something women, which, youre missing out on btw. you dont think about them because you have 10s standing in line with red solo cups waiting to be harassed by you and your brothers. and these girls are 18 and 19 and 20. and even the memory of watching one of those stunners walk out of the trader joes to the target puts a smile on your face.

he smiled.

do you think that changes when you get older? do you think you won’t look at a 19, 23, 25, 27-year-old baddie when youre 40 and think romantic thoughts?

ha – romantic, he mocked me.

now imagine you hook up with one of those 18-year-olds this summer, and you become a star and you can get anyone you want because youre on TV all the time. youre in movies, and commercials, and you come back to ‘SC all the time where your football number is retired. your heisman is there. and 20-year-old song girls ask you to autograph their phone case or arm or football helmet for their dad

and when that 18-year-old turns 33, she divorces you and a year later you have a soon-to-be 27 year old playboy cover girl ripping your shirt off. now jones, psychologically, what would be your motivation to slit your ex-wife’s neck open and push her tongue through the slit creating a columbian necktie?

no words back there

no really, youd been with her for 15 years, jones, a number im not sure you can fathom only being 19, but for your ex its most of her life and she cant wait to leave you. do you think youre still going to get as excited about the 35-year-old version of her as you did the 18-year-old who listened intently to your every word?

what does this even mean? he asked, so confused.

bro, nicole was 18 when she first started dating OJ and 33 when they divorced. his playmate was 27. two years older than leo dicaprio’s expiration date.

what was the question? jones asked.

what was ojs motivation, motivation expert, if he indeed did it?

i.. don’t know. he concluded.

bingo, i said as we got off on MLK blvd. you will receive far more insights in that space than you will in the – i know a man is guilty – without watching the trial.

but what if you do know? he fought back.

you never know. i assured him.

but

and for sure You don’t know at 19.

i must know something at 19.

nicole didnt know to stop dating oj at 19. what makes you think you know more about anything than a woman knows about love?

the streets were practically empty. summer school only. and a few stragglers.

how was she supposed to know he was going to kill her?

siri play mr jones

see how much they tipped

she was so pretty

is everyone pretty these days?

she looked like alicia keys back there talking to her friend

friend was so loud i could hear

friend was all, im so. fucking. unhappy.

it wasnt going to be a long trip. just from dtla to frogtown so she could pick up her car from where she parked the night before.

youd be surprised how many of these trips i do for people. responsible people who dont wanna drink and drive, not even for a few miles.

makes me happy.

makes me wish uber and lyft gave us one free ride a month

to give to the good people.

friend was getting heavy, pouring her heart out

talking about how shes got no mans

job doesnt love her

shes getting older

oh, we all getting older sis, alecia said

which is not something i woulda said, because hi, look at me

i kept listening though because men handle these things so much differently than women. i was quietly studying

alecia was so supportive and just let friend vent

talking about how she hates her apartment

hates how bad she wants to try ozempic

hates so many of her clothes

grrrrrl, i’ll take your clothes, alecia chimed

making them both laugh

summer night in elysian park

dark

quiet cuz ICE scared the mexican families away

who should be out there barbequing,

birthday partying, pinata swinging

kids running, dogs running

but now, it was pretty empty except for a few scraggly coyotes and a couple guys in the brambles

still there? alecia asked

baby?

there?

ok, if you can hear me, i’ll call you back when i get a signal

i’ll call you back gurl.

i turned the radio up a little

train train, elvis sang, to a simple rockabilly beat

god i love LA, alecia said, as we finally emerged from the park and took in the sparkly lights across the 5

cypress park and glassell park just chillin’ over there, lookin’ all pretty

almost like everythings prettier after the darkness

elvis slapped his knees to the beat from inside the speakers

from inside the past, where everything

hey im back, alecia said

lets toot some rails

she told her friend

k?

see how much they tipped

but theres no crying in my car

also no barfing

traffic is also banned

fuck you, respectfully.

his name was john and he lived in one of the newer nicer apartments in hollywood where we were headed

we were downtown and you could tell he was gonna cry

so i said, spit it out. youre among friends, whats the problem?

my friend set me up with someone she knew, he said back there, looking out the window with a pout of disbelief

he wore a perfectly fine blazer. shaved. cologned. was he korean? chinese? we never got there.

as soon as we sat down, she said, i have to be honest with you john, youre not my type.

you dodged a bullet bro, i said, supportively.

but she was exactly my type, he sighed.

you want someone that negative, hello?

negative? he asked. you think she was being negative? she was being honest. blunt. direct. i love that.

yeah, but how the hell does she know youre not her type? from looks? your aroma? your $50 haircut? what, does she hates blazers?

i hate blazers, he said

and then he fucking almost started to cry

YO! i said, switching over to full self-driving mode now that we were safely on the freeway.

if you loved her so much, why didnt you fight back?

bringing him back to earth

and away from those annoying “feelings”

ugh

i dont know, he said, thinking about it. i was just stunned. tongue-tied. what do you say? who prepares for that? and what if she was right? who am i to say she’s not right? who am i when it comes down to it?

i thought about some good comebacks to myself quietly. old me would have given him a few for next time. but there are no next times. people say wild shit once-a-year that are shocking. either youre down for a duel or not. john’s not that guy.

i also stopped myself from saying she was challenging you bro. she wanted a hot little joust. she wanted to play with her food before she ate it. she wanted someone who would push back, not just lie there like a starfish.

old me woulda said all of that. old me thought, i could buy the world a coke and teach it how to live in harmony. old me was a dummy. so i took over for the robot car and got off on echo park blvd to avoid the backup on the 101.

before i knew it, he was letting it sink in and the sobbing was bubbling.

what do i do? he asked himself quietly. more to his doubts than to me.

knowing where he lived i asked, what do you do that you live in that tower?

im a programmer.

like you write code?

yeah. computers, he sniffed.

and maybe because i hate people crying so much that i was ready to receive the inspiration from the angels,

and there it was

i said, heres what you do. you get home and make a dating app called Pity Fuck

what? he asked sharply

this city is huge bro. youre telling me there arent both men and women who couldnt use someone just throwing them a bone every now and then?

i mean, i couldn’t, he stuttered in the dark back there

im not talking about you. im talking about LA, give the people a way to connect. let them help each other out. dont you feel good when you do a little favor? brand it as: no pressure, no commitment, no questions. 15 minutes.

looking in my rear view i could see him crack a little smile as we got on sunset heading west.

because life is crazy, i continued, if it’s really good they’ll probably do it again the next week. before you know it, they’re married.

and look at you john. you made it happen. you turned this town’s frown upside down. out of sorrow comes joy.

he said awkwardly, from shit and a seed, grows a tree.

i laughed, precisely, john.

then i told siri to play some sabrina carpenter and got his weepy-ass home.

see how much they tipped

i picked her up at the hama sushi in venice. she was beautiful, with long hair, and long legs. at first i was annoyed with her because she took her sweet ass time getting into the car, still talking with the asian dude who i thought she might had been dining with.

after they hugged goodbye, she picked up the pace to get to the car which was appreciated

we were heading to hollywood. my neck of the woods. which is why i didnt cancel and drive off.

mandy?

that’s me! sorry to keep you, she said and hopped in. as we fastened our seatbelts i asked and gestured to the dude walking to his beamer

so was that a date?

thats a tricky question since im married, she giggled. then said, but yes. sort of.

mandy! i feigned. scandal!

it’s ok, she said, im in an open relationship.

oh then, thank heavens.

we drove through what were once the canals of venice. then over to lincoln towards the 405. along the way she told her origin story, but trust me, i was gonna get back to this open relationship business. because… so many questions!

as she loudly talked, i could smell a few of the sake bombs she had paired with the sashimi. i wanted to take this slow. when we got on the freeway i said,

ok. now im curious about open relationships, because ive only heard about the pitfalls. then again, maybe people don’t want to brag.

100 percent, she said. if you brag, you’ll come across as some weird sex fiend or a slut or people wont believe you have a good marriage at home. but honestly, i married my guy because he was open to this.

who would object, i asked? are some men not thrilled to have their cake and eat it too?

you’d be surprised, she said. i thought i had a good guy until he saw me get a dick pic. he got real serious and asked, what the fuck is that?

thats an odd question, i asked, what is that? its how men communicate timmy.

she laughed, and said, we broke up shortly after that meltdown. some guys are all talk. but then i found the man who would become my husband.

i wasn’t even supposed to be out that night, but ive been getting a lot of private rides from people who want me to take them or their friends to the airport. i give them 20% off whatever uber’s charging. sometimes they tip me on top of it, so everyone wins. but then im on the westside looking to get back home. thats how i ended up in venice with this ravishing polish princess who i hadn’t noticed was hiccupping.

ive got some water bottles in the back there, i told her aiming my thumb to the rear.

dont look, she said laughing, and bent over the rear seats and stretched her arms as far as she could. she flashed my rear view mirror which i absolutely was not looking at. but i was tempted. mama mia was i tempted.

bottle retrieved, she exhaled, cracked open the top and shotgunned half of it like a champ.

i admire you, because i couldn’t be in an open relationship, i said as she waited for the next hiccup. i hate lying and id have to lie to my wife after each rendezvous.

lie about what? mandy asked, suddenly relieved her hiccups were cured.

id have to say something like, oh im so glad to be home. yeah she was hot, but she smelled like hot garbage, also there was no chemistry. hun, i could barely get hard. the only way i could finish was to think about you.

mandy laughed and then said, awww thats sweet, but i want my husband to get off. im rooting for him. he’s rooting for me too.

there’s not one bit of jealousy?

no, because we started out like this. we’ve seen each other with sexy people. we’ve done the swingers thing. we’ve brought people home. we’ve gone out on separate dates. and i know he’s my soulmate. im confident that even if he gets his rocks off in wild ways, she won’t connect with him in all the other ways like i can. it’s just sex for a little while.

you should write a book, i said.

ha.

have you read any books about this?

no. but surely they’ve been written

ok, i asked, now forgive me for getting a little personal. you dont have to answer, but i would imagine that even with your soulmate, and trust me, i believe you when you say he is yours… but i bet there are some things that are a lot easier to do with a stranger, especially one you will never see again, that you wouldn’t be able to do with your husband. true?

absolutely, she said, smiling.

i’m way into this for some reason. so what things can you do with other guys that you can’t do with your husband?

she asked, do you mean role play?

that, or anything, i clarified. maybe theres something youve never done with your real man before that you want to try out with sushi man first. or maybe you want to say something super dirty or really gross that you would feel embarrassed saying to the love of your life. but it would be ok with joe random because he just scored in a major way.

oh, i hear you, she said. no, none of those things, but i am a closeted actress, like it’s something i wish i was great at but im not. i get nervous in public. but i can pretend in bed. so i love love love to role play, she sang, throwing her head back dramatically. then laughed.

i put the car in robot mode as we got onto the 10. i wanted to be safe as she told me these things. and i never wanted her to stop.

there are two times when i look at the time remaining on a trip: when i can’t wait for it to be over and when i wish it would go on forever.

she continued:

if i want to pretend im the naughty college grad student persuading her professor to extend the deadline of her assignment, i really cant do that with my 33-year-old husband. i need a 50something man to be the professor.

oh, i said, suddenly a thousand times thrilled to be fiftysomething.

ive learned a lot by being with this man, and being with men who are not my man, she said, yawning as it’d been a long night.

whats the best thing youve learned? i asked.

when a guy knows that you are just there for one reason and you’re going home to your husband right afterwards, you can be as selfish as you want… with everything. and you should be.

selfish?

especially with time, which is the most valuable thing we can give each other. even more so than my body. so if my libido is cranking, which it often is, i can do my thing for as long as i want with another man. i can be selfish. borderline rude. because who cares if he’s tired or thinks im a ho? and who cares if he gets mad after i get off and go home in 20 minutes? if it was a real date, i’d have to pretend and laugh at his jokes. and if it was my man i would be working on ways to make him fully satisfied.

are we ever fully satisfied? i asked.

my man is, she said in a way that was convincing.

mandy, you’re incredible.

and that’s the other thing: it’s very easy to catch feelings, she said. so if they or we or i start feeling things, then it’s over. immediately. there’s no room for that. this is just play time. for a short time.

please write this book girl.

ok, maybe i will.

see how much they tipped

fresh-faced Asian kid with ear pods and a small day pack going from westwood to the airport. he hopped in the back.

was it rush hour traffic? he asked.

never heard of the word. if you dont believe in traffic, you wont end up in it, i said.

if you have driven to LAX on a friday afternoon, either on or off the 405 several hundred times, you know it’s not a big deal.

its sorta like the reverse gangbangs where the oiled up black guy has to please a half-dozen sassy ladies, of all shapes. how does he do it?

the same way you eat at thanksgiving.

slowly and with a smile.

waze was panicking by showing me thick red lines no matter the path, so i asked the youngster if he cared if i got off the freeway. he was all, im running on a tight schedule so i trust you.

trust? me? so you’re the one?

trust is a huge thing in my life. i feel like as nutty as i may come across in this or that, when it comes to work imma get the job done in a professional manner all while trying to be the best.

believe it or not, i was once refused work because someone i had worked with previously said i was: Too Wild West.

i asked her, was i too wild west when i worked with you at that fancy shop downtown for four years?

no.

was i too wild west when i worked for that black-tie organization in beverly hills for six years?

no.

then can you please tell whoever is disparaging my good name to ask those who have stood in my presence in a professional setting, especially during those special moments, where the shit went down?

did i panic? did i say, hey lets do something totally insane? or did i fix the problem quickly and honorably?

in my heart im wild. guilty, as fuck. but irl, im a midwest christian in first gear.

i never got that gig. which was why i was exiting the 405 in “rush hour” weaving through culver city chatting up the leaders of the next generation

instead of making six figures at a nine-to-five.

honestly, fine.

his name was keith. chinese. fixin’ to graduate with a computer science degree. minor in business.

do you know much about chatgpt? i queried, hoping the boy could help me with my latest obsession, that he could answer some questions in great detail so i could create lego versions of weird scenes inside the gold mine of my mind.

he tapped his earbud to pause the blackpink tune and hesitantly said, yes.

oh great. do you use it a lot?

i shouldn’t say i do, but i do, he acknowledged, putting down his phone.

noting his strange attitude, i asked, is it shameful to use?

no, it’s… then he came out with it… actually i use it quite a lot.

of course, i said, it’s a powerful tool. why wouldnt you? what do you mostly use it for?

it’s replaced google for me, he said. i study it. i hope to work on it later professionally. but also, to be honest, sometimes i use it in my relationship.

say what?

weird story, but i was seeing a sorority girl. she was confusing. so id put her texts into gpt and ask it how i should respond. i was actually surprised at the direction it told me to go, and also how it was able to settle her down when she would get upset with me.

are you still with her? did it work? i asked.

no, it was too much. ive been with my new girlfriend for a year now. she lives in the Bay. thats where im heading this weekend.

we talked about true love, the pros and cons of long distance relationships during college; and whether to have a girlfriend at all while in the quiet orgy of college life. especially in southern california where the babes literally fall from the trees like coconuts. ok maybe not literally. but omg.

i gave him my advice: don’t have a girlfriend while youre in college.

keith asked, did you have one in college?

next question, i joked. actually i had several, i laughed. i still talk to a couple of them now, decades later. but thats how special they were, they broke through the rule.

traffic sucked, but not for us because like mark twain in Life on the Mississippi, i sorta knew which streets would snag us and which would let us flow.

fortunately there are tons of flights from LA to Frisco. if he missed his southwest at six, there’d be another at 6:20, so i didnt sweat it, but i was still running yellow lights, switching lanes, and trying all the angles i could for this kid, because he was good. you could tell.

and who among us doesnt wanna make out with a 20-year-old coed in the back seat in east palo alto, the fog rolling in, the windows steaming, her saying she missed you. and you saying, omg. i gotta fart, hold up. and she saying, keith. and you saying, seriously, hold on, i had a suspicious burrito at LAX.

he told me that during his four years in college, he watched openai and gpt reshape his computer science program, with students who once expected to work in other areas of CS almost all shifting into ai.

keith said, i feel really badly for CS grads who got their degrees a few years ago because now they have to pivot without the benefit of school, by themselves. and it’s not an easy pivot.

it’s not? chatgpt can’t help them learn?

it can, but just like in any other situation, in order to get the right answer you have to know the correct question.

siri play jeopardy by greg kihn, i said and educated the lad on the ’83 hit from the band who i believe was from no. cal but he looked at me like i was a martian.

so what do you wanna do with this kickass education youre getting?

i dont know.

my son, lets review: you’re an asian man from california that made it into ucla. that’s not easy.

well… he murmured.

oh, youre telling me they just open the doors to every asian kid on the honor roll? i thought they tried to cap the number of californians exactly like you from getting in unless they had a 4-point-gazillion gpa, saved a few lives with mouth-to-mouth, and were the lead cellist in the jazz band. am i wrong?

he lol-ed and said, you’re not wrong.

ok, so you must be special in some way. you were accepted into the school with the most applications of anywhere in the world. and i can see partly why: youre a bright boy with a good heart. so lets be real for the next nine to ten minutes. what will you do with this?

probably get a masters and a doctorate.

yeah yeah yeah, but for what? whats your dream? you don’t buy the drill, you’re buying the hole. we’re here for a blink of an eye, what do you want to leave behind? what’s the keith-sized hole?

either he was stumped or he didn’t want to tell me a deep dark secret, so he turned the tables by asking me, was your dream to drive for uber in your 50s?

it could have been seen, as a diss but i didnt think so.

my dream was, and is, to play the hand i was dealt the best i can in order for the most amount of people to benefit from me being here during this hiccup of time.

oh you play poker? he asked, while adjusting his posture. thats where i met my girlfriend.

your boos that good at poker? i asked.

id say shes better than most women. definitely, he said proudly.

i dont know a lot about poker, i admitted, but i heard that a lot of it is acting. true?

true, he said. it’s a combination of math… so like comp sci + math nerds like me, we are always running the numbers in our heads. then you have the communication and business majors and theyre reading the other players’ faces.

obviously youre a computer guy, i said, but are you any good at reading other people too?

yeah, he said quietly. it’s systematic. patterns. but a lot of it is nonverbal. so i can look at someones face and i can tell if theyre strong or weak, in general. i can tell if theyre confident.

a weak poker player isn’t going to win a lot of hands over time?

my man took out his ear buds and placed them in their case, perked up and said, theres a saying in poker that you can play for five years and lose money even if you’re playing well, because theres so much variance. you know?

im a poetry major, bro. i dont know. if i lost money for five years, i would think i sucked at poker. i’d just spend my gambling money on booze.

and thats what the saying is about. you can be unlucky for an entire year or two even if you aren’t doing anything wrong.

this is tough for me, i told him, because i was raised to believe there is no luck. theres no luck in computer science. or math. one plus one is always two. theres no luck in how handsome you and i turned out.

but theres luck in poker, he said. a lot of it. you can get into positions where maybe you have a 60% favorable hand over the others. but if you’re unlucky at that moment, you will lose that hand ten times in a row. so if each hand was $100, you’ve just lost $1,000 because of a streak of bad luck.

so i asked this brainiac probably what you’d ask: can a wise poker player know when they are in a bad luck period compared to playing like ass?

yes. poker is really an emotional game. so when you go all in, and if you are a 60% favorite or a 70 % favorite and you lose, you have to tell yourself, i played well. that was bad luck. even if that happens 10 times, 20 times, and you are losing thousands, he said, you have to ask yourself how will you be able to pick yourself up? and that is what creates a strong player.

ok, but how do you know you played well if you keep losing? i asked.

when it’s over you can see the hand that beat you. you can tell if you were duped or if the winner just drew great cards and it was luck.

ahhhhh i said, not really understanding, but fuck it we were almost there.

i feel like in todays age everything is so competitive, he continued. sports has all these buzzer beaters, overtime games, extra innings, shoot-outs. it’s a thin margin between winners and losers and a lot of what decides it is the mental game, which gets overlooked. in the past you could just train your ass off and be a little quicker, a little more accurate. but today everyone can do that. they forget about the mind.

you raise a great point, i agreed, as we drove past the in-n-out next to the airport.

youre too young to remember, but when i was in college, fat guys were in major league baseball, vlade divac smoked cigarettes in the tunnel at staples center in between periods of laker games. it’s a higher level of play now. and like, your major, ai technologies and shit. things change quick. hang in there.

i will. my dad is trying to catch up, he’s an engineer too.

god bless your dad. so come on, tell me: what do you wanna do when you get all this studying out of the way? what do you want to do with it?

i told you, i’ll probably get a masters and a phd

ok but for what? what do you want to do with all of those things once youve pleased your parents?

he thought longer and said: i want to be a vc. i want to help companies grow who wouldn’t typically get funding.

my hero.

see how much they tipped

sometimes you just wanna drive.

sometimes the pretty girl with the dirty dreams and the filthy texts that sound like whispers, finds someone newer younger closer and willing to put up with her demands

and the late night bleep bloop messages dry up.

so you drive.

you end up in west covina and then south pas, then pas, and you find yourself with two young chicanos with giant coffee containers in your back seat and if they spill, they spill, because who. even. cares. any more.

at first neither wanted to talk much which was scary because we were heading clear across la to venice where i was dropping them off at a music video shoot where they were gonna probably have a 12-hour day. they were saving their energy.

big guys name was earl. mustache man was jeff.

gaffers or best boys or some shit, who even cared. are we our jobs? if so, am i nobody? did my taxes yesterday and my tax lady was all, i expected you to be famous by now.

if i wanted to be famous you think id be driving uber? i asked her

she said, dont you have dreams?

i said, my dream is to be good enough to make it to heaven one day and maybe kiss one or two more loose women before i croak.

boy did she laugh.

while earl was texting, jeff and i started talking about his favorite jobs on music video sets.

once i did a kanye shoot and he paid us all in cash at the end, he said.

Ye did what?

well, not him specifically, jeff clarified.

kanye’s guy was a wizard with money, jeff continued. if he asked how much we owe you, and you said $400, he’d hand you a smaller stack of $20s like he was cutting a deck of cards. and it’d be exactly what they owed you. he wouldn’t even count it.

did you count it in front of him?

most definitely, jeff said, and it was right. every time. the next guy said something like $280 and kanye’s guy cut the stack, held it out and it was $280 on the nose.

that sounds amazing, i said.

not really, earl chimed in. kanye hates taking direction, he groaned. so if you say mr west can we have you stand on that x on the floor, you know, where we blocked it, where the lights are set and the cameras are locked in? he’d stand like 10 feet to the left or right and wouldn’t move. we’d have to re-set.

i didn’t mind that, jeff said, more ot for me!

the men laughed.

so what the hells a gaffer? i asked, forgetting which one said they did that.

i am, earl said proudly.

is that like the guy who everyone sends on errands?

no, that’s the PA. the gaffer is the electrician, he told me.

ooooooo. ok, so are you the bitch boy at the bottom or the boss at the top?

jerry said, he’s not the bitch boy, that’s for sure.

so youre the top guy? youre so young!

he’s good!

ok earl, have you ever been shocked?

sure. everyone gets shocked. especially when youre starting off.

he told me sometimes the crew will set up a situation where they intentionally have a guy touch a wire he thinks is grounded, but its hot, and when he yelps everyone claps and chants his name.

it’s all part of the hazing, i guess youd call it, earl said, smiling for some reason. had he just done that to someone?

and it’s not strong enough to kill ya, jerry piped in. he used to be a gaffer before he moved over to audio.

oh shit, youre the perfect person for me to ask this to, i said. here we are riding in a tesla. id love to set up a home charging setup in the garage in the back of my apartment. could i pay you to do that for me?

nah. totally different world, earl said.

isnt it all electricity? i asked

are all women the same? earl fired back.

touché, my friend.

we all laughed as we trekked through the 134 to the 2 to the spill out in Echo Park, bypassing the heavy traffic in downtown LA, creeping along side streets on our way to the 10.

i was lost in thought thinking about how boring life would be if all women were the same, when jeff asked me if i liked driving for lyft. he was thinking about driving because a lot of productions are going to georgia and canada and new mexico and some months are sorta dead. which is why they do so many music video shoots, which can be long days but at least its work.

i love driving, i told them, and i’ll tell you what, if you ever get serious that you want to drive for either uber or lyft, text me first, i’ll send you my code and whatever bonus they give me for signing you up, i’ll split it with you and you can call me any time you want for tips or questions.

there was a stack of cards in my glove box. i handed one to each of them. a waste of money. no one ever texts before they sign up. if they text, it’s always afterward when it’s too late. they signed up without my number, neither of us gets a bonus and of course they have a million questions, of which im reluctant to answer because why am i coaching you for free?

but i do. because im nice. despite my heart being full of anger.

so tell me a good story boys, i said. tell me about working late hours with all these hip hoppers and scantily-dressed dancers. tell me about the drugs and bottles and couches sparking little fires you gotta put out.

they scoffed and said, the things that interest us on the set arent the things youd care about.

like what? what do you love on set?

the food, jerry said.

earl agreed.

sometimes you’ll get there and it’s a generic deli tray with carrots and a sad pineapple, he said. but sometimes they have like a whole espresso station and a food truck that’s hummin’ all night. you never really know, even if you’ve worked for that guy before.

earl chimed in, one thing that’s always tricky is when there’s an animal on set.

like what kind of animal? i asked.

i was just telling jerry about this shoot i was on at SoFi where they had a horse in the fancy restaurant there.

it was for sunday night football and it was the broncos against the rams. and they wanted one of the pregame announcers to get on the horse and ride it like 50 feet across the stadium and into the restaurant where the other announcers were around the table. but someone from the stadium was paranoid the horse might take a shit in the high end restaurant.

see, id be more worried about him taking one of those super long leaks, i said.

they were worried about that too.

earl said, we broke for about an hour so they could huddle up before they brought the horse upstairs because they wanted to have a stack of towels and mops and PAs and disinfectant in case the horse did the worst thing imaginable.

so did the horse shit?

the horse did not shit. the horse got in the elevator. got to his mark. whoever was riding him, they walked the 50 feet. one take. done.

all that worry for nothing! i said.

no, they were right to worry. some animals freak out around the lights and all the people. cats are the worst, earl told me. cats are like kanye.

don’t listen to anyone who says they have trained cats, he said. ive seen what was supposed to be hollywood’s greatest cat actor completely ignore the laser pen light or the treats or its trainer and just look at the camera with a huge fuck you sneer on its face.

omg, i gasped, thinking about my own two cats who have mastered that sneer.

yeah, it was funny at first but after a while it got annoying.

jerry chimed in, honestly cats are the most useless creatures. dude, ive been on a set with penguins. all you gotta do is put a fish on fishing pole and the penguin will waddle whereever you want.

cats will lick their crotch if it doesn’t want to move and you can’t make them.

and dogs, earl pounced in, sometimes a dog will be too smart or get too full, too fast. we were shooting a dog food commercial and after like five takes the dog wasn’t attacking the dog food in the bowl the way the director wanted, so the AD spent a half hour trying to make the dog puke so he’d be hungry again.

but when he hurled, this fucking dog started eating the puke.

NO! I screamed.

both guys laughed and laughed. and then we were in santa monica. then we were in venice. and then i was in front of a beach side set with big booty dancers and a food truck and a coffee stand and i said to myself, those boys gonna be happy tonight.

like me.

see how much they tipped

pretty latina woman. mid-twenties. echo park heading west. middle of the day.

made me wait.

this week was rainy, so people were finally doing something on the sunny saturday in LA and i assumed crystal was one of the many who had been cooped up in a dreary office and was finally able to be one with the sun

how wrong was i.

she emerged from a modern apartment complex and maybe a little too early in our ride i asked what she did for a living

crystal looked at the bland and hastily constructed luxury complex and said

i do a little bit of everything.

usually people answer my questions right away. yes it’s intrusive. yes it’s none of my business. but im gonna know in minutes. not because im some carnival sideshow genius, but because it’s kinda like 20 questions and if youre in my car for 20 minutes, it’s gonna be 200 questions.

plus sometimes it’s nice to just spill the beans with a stranger in a cubs cap.

oh so youre an influencer? i guessed. one never knows these days with pretty girls, i thought, but didnt say.

an influencer? she thought, then said, i would consider myself an entrepreneur, she specified as we drove past the beautiful Echo Park Lake dotted with swan boats and kids holding balloons.

oooo love that, i said. so whats your niche? i asked ignorantly. whats the thing youve got no one else has got?

everything i am, she said smiling. was she enjoying being so vague? for i was not.

maroon lipstick, thick orange eyeshadow reflecting in the fresh sunlight. she was young enough she didnt need any makeup but she clearly got lost doing her eyes. no matter. beautiful.

are you a native Angelena? i asked.

i grew up in Boyle Heights. but my parents are from Sinaloa.

why have i heard of that?

it’s in Mexico.

yes, i know that part, but…

do you watch true crime? like about the cartels, she asked.

no.

Sinaloa is known for that, so…

i find that stuff boring.

me too, she said, but everyone expects us to be connected with El Chapo or something. it’s annoying.

trust me. im from Chicago and people always think we idolize Al Capone.

you mean you dont? she joked.

all i know is he got caught, so… nah.

traffic wasnt bad but it wasnt good. i asked her if she minded if i took Santa Monica instead of the freeway.

you da jefe, she said, cool as can be.

shhhh, dont tell anyone, i joked back.

do you like this car? she asked tapping the passenger seat ahead of her.

the Tesla? oh thats complicated these days. i love the car. so fast. super responsive. but it’s not perfect. and the guy who “owns” the company is a dope, but yes i do. a lot.

i had a Beemer that i totaled a few weeks ago, she admitted.

thus why she needed me to drive her across town. sometimes you dont even need to ask them that question: why are we here together?

turned out she and a girlfriend were on a roadtrip to Frisco and she got drowsy and fell asleep at the wheel, rear-ending a semi truck.

holy shit! i said, looking closer at her face in my rear view. did you get hurt? you look great.

i was cool. my friend was cool. the car was junked. it was a blessing with no curse.

holy! i said. do you believe in God?

yes, of course, i survived death, and it’s not because im clever or anything, she said.

ok then crystal, God wants you to be alive. so what do you think He wants you to do down here with this second chance at life?

im not sure, but im in it to win it. i’m in His hands. i let Him guide me every day.

what were you and your girl going to do in Frisco?

just party, hang out. i used to live up there for a minute.

me too, i was on lower haight for a few years, i said.

oh so then you know the Tenderloin, thats where i stayed, she said of pretty much the toughest part of the city.

really? did anyone mess with you?

well i dressed down when i was up there. it is different here she said plucking a bit of lint from her tailored, tight dress pants. but i always had my pepper spray. never a knife because i wouldnt want to carry anything that could be used against me in my line of work.

what line is that? i asked, pouncing on what she let slip.

i, she paused, escort… and do other stuff.

oh really? i said congratulating myself secretly, we had only gotten to question 16. then i continued, ive had a number of escorts in here. one was my favorite ride probably ever.

and i told her about The Curious Case of the Reluctant Hooker.

i ended the summary of the story by telling crystal i was shocked when this very average looking skater girl, basically, told me she was about to make $800 in an hour.

it do be like that, she said smiling, proud of her sexworking sister.

is it dangerous sometimes? i asked bluntly.

just being alive is dangerous. if it’s your time it’s your time. even if you are at home 24/7 and never leave the house. some fool gets in a shootout with someone across the street and a stray bullet pops you in the head as you’re watching wheel of fortune, crystal said.

i heard here in LA escorting, even streetwalking, has been decriminalized a little. is that true? have you noticed?

a little. compared to a lot of places, yes.

who is your typical customer, i asked, soooo relieved we could really talk.

i have a strict rule not to date any Black men. it may seem racist, but you don’t know who they know. you know? and they can be so strong. fast.

i said, i picked up a girl in palmdale and I dropped her off on the blade on Fig and she said, “every Black man’s trying to be my pimp.” is that another reason why you stay away from Black men?

bingo, crystal said. everybody wants my money, especially nowadays because the game is so idolized. everyone wants to call themselves a pimp. every tired ass rapper and gang member wants a whole lotta hoes bringing in money while they sit around getting high. but like, no one actually knows what the fuck pimping is. like, back in the day, in the ’60s and the ’50s, this was some, this was some real gentleman’s game.

have you read the book Pimp? i asked as we were getting painfully close to the boutique hotel she was heading to.

so i drove slower.

no, i’ve just seen documentaries and stuff.

you really should read it. it’s from that era that you are talking about. Iceberg Slim. fantastic writer. it would be interesting to see if what he writes about is still accurate today, 80 years later.

if they made it a movie, id watch it. i dont have a lot of time to read much, she explained.

ok. so im still curious about your typical guy. so no Black dudes. beaucoup. is it a rich white guy?

I like white men. I like Asians. Middle Easterns are kind of — they’re a little stuck up.

ahaha ok. so who is the nicest of all the groups? who treats you the best?

the best and the worst, funny enough, i would say: Hispanic men.

some Hispanics treat you like a princess?

the older ones, yes. it’s younger Hispanics that are freaking insane and just want to see us dead.

dead?

yeah dude. there’s people who are psychotic. i mean, you can find that with every race, but my bad experiences have been with Hispanic men.

and then we were there. and then she was gone.

and then i missed her

see how much they tipped

after a while you’ll see that most of the hotels around la attract a certain type of guest.

believe it or not, rappers, for example, really like the waldorf

and the W

therefore, you’ll pick up their fans there.

rockers like the sunset marquis

well-off tourists from cold states love shutters

billionaires hide out at the bel air hotel

and the older crowd likes the classic beverly wilshire and the peninsula.

as i normally do at hotels, i ask the people if theyre in from out of town.

chicago! he said.

he was an older guy, coming out of the perfect hotel for him.

chicago? i asked, and turned my cubs hat around and asked, didja see this?

we laughed and i knew things would be good.

but i didnt expect them to be this good.

usually with chicagoans i’ll tell them about my suburb i grew up in

or how you can get portillos down in orange county

and now theres a gino’s east in sherman oaks

just nonsense chitchat that’s safe and light.

instead of going there, i asked, what are you out here to do?

im here to visit my daughter, he said with a big smile i caught in the rearview as we drove down wilshire

oh, what does she do?

he said, shes in a band, but unless you were a high school girl in the 90s you probably haven’t heard of them.

i joked, but said loudly: I WAS A HIGH SCHOOL GIRL IN THE 90s!

he laughed.

NO REALLY WHAT BAND?

he asked, have you ever heard of veruca salt?

i was all, omg the seether? american thighs! i couldnt recall their follow-up hit but i really liked them. not a lot of female-fronted bands rocked like they did.

i wanted to tell him rodney on the roq still play them but rodney is a controversial character these days, and im glad i didnt go down that path either because he was fire talking music

we gabbed about the beatles, the stones, the who. he told me that the dave clark five were just as good as all of ‘em

i told him i would look them up.

then he told me this great story about a friend of his whose son didn’t get accepted into an ivy league school.

he told his friend confidently, oh it will be ok.

the depressed dad asked, are you crazy? you’re a father. don’t you want the best things for your kids?

and my passenger said that he thought about that question for a while and finally told him the most beautiful thing

he said, i do want something for my kids. i hope that they love music.

rarely do i shake my passenger’s hand after a ride

but after that one i did.

see how much they tipped

i needed to charge my car so i drove to universal even though theyve been jacking up the rates

before i could get there, i got a ping at the sheraton next door to go downtown, which i normally wouldnt have taken, but the thought of grabbing a nice al pastor burrito at my new favorite joint called sonoratown had me salivating.

pulled up to the door of the hotel and mama mia my passenger was a vision.

you know how bad uber is to their drivers, when they can only retain drivers on average for 90 days, when every day miami 10s hop in that back seat and chat you up for a half hour.

it reminds me of when i was working at E! my boss hated me, and one day he took me outside to get me to quit. he sat me down as he smoked a cigarette and was all youre a college grad, you think youre some hotshot writer, you admit you hate it here, so why do you stay?

and on cue, two leggy interns from E! News strolled by and sang, hi tony.

rideshare is different because i adore it. only time it’s bad is when i need to drive very long shifts multiple days in a row. because im a thousand years old my arms get sore and my legs will feel like rubber when i get out to take a leak. but those days are in the past. thankfully.

so there i was at the universal sheraton and miss venezuela slid into the back and asked if she needed to wear a mask because she saw i had one on.

im only wearing one, i said, because im a sensitive artist and the smoke and soot of the air from these fires makes me cough.

she nodded as we eased down the hill from universal down to lankershiem as a giant inflatable minion eyed us from the top deck of a parking structure.

her name was eyezeya

i asked her, wheres that from?

she said the future

nothing better than a sassy lassie when the worlds gonna end, i said, merging onto the 101 freeway in unusually light traffic at 5pm. i guess everyones at home watching the fires on tv, i said.

god bless no congestion, she said. it was busy at the hotel, thats for sure, the long haired natural beauty said, sipping through her starbucks straw.

turns out your girl is a front desk clerk and due to the massive winds that caused the fires from malibu through the palisades to pasadena, tens of thousands of angelenos have been displaced, some because their homes had been totally destroyed, and over the last few days every hotel room for miles have been booked.

poor zeya had to tell people who had lost everything that there was no room in her inn.

little kids with dogs staring at the beautifully lit swimming pool saying, mommy they have a hot tub! while my future wife had to break the bad news.

we have had entire families like the mom, dad, grandma, granddad, uncle, dogs, cats take up seven to eight rooms, she told me, as we hit a little backup near the silver lake exit. some rooms were just for the animals, she said. some rooms were a half-dozen little kids with one older kid babysitting. loud. boisterous. giggling. things crashing.

its like a movie, she said, where everyone is still in shock, having as great a time as they can because soon it will dawn on them that things are about to suck

and a little lilt choked her up a bit

it was dawning on her too.

dont cry sweet girl, i said turning down lou reed, because if you cry i’ll cry

which made her laugh

and then cry.

haze hung halfway up the skyscrapers of downtown in a horizontal line like mourners looking down on LA

and then i misted up

because i had some people lose their dream homes too

people i love

people who have done nothing but the right things, the right way, and then one day you wake up in your house for the last time. and you never saw it coming.

i clicked the robot car button so the tesla could drive itself.

impossible to navigate through the tears.

dug into the glove box and grabbed a crisp stack of jack-in-the box napkins

handed half to zeya and took the rest for myself

dabbed my face and blew my nose

comically exaggerated like the loudest trumpet

and she laughed

then cried

see how much they tipped

of course i didn’t know why she needed the ride as i drove up to her humble home on a dead-end road in little armenia.

i was happy that i had a medium-long ride to ucla, where i wanted to be. i was rocking kc and the sunshine b and a little too loudly.

her name? armenian. complicated. usually the passenger would talk about it for a little while. either she would tell me that it’s extremely common or very rare.

but instead of talking about names, i finally looked at the destination, saw it was the ronald reagan medical center, and asked if i should floor it?

yes. my husband… yes, her voice cracked.

i turned kc down from repeatedly instructing us to shake our booties, and headed toward sunset.

it will take us 40 minutes, i said and showed her on the waze app.

she nodded, but not in a what can you do way,

but in a, i don’t trust you or your phone or your ridiculous disco music.

i switched over to deep tracks on siriusxm. the stones, let’s spend the night together. completely inappropriate. but since she was pretty old, i was hoping her english wasn’t good.

i wouldn’t know though, because she said zero words the entire trip.

instead, she sat in the center of the back seat, eyes glued to the road through the windshield, silently judging every move i made. if i took a turn a block or two before waze told me to, you could hear her catch her breath as if i had stabbed her right in the thigh.

but as we traversed across the sloppy streets of hollywood and then the sunset strip, she hate-watched as the waze app confirmed that every choice i was making was turning the 40-minute ride into a 38-minute one and then a 36-minute miracle.

was she in the car with the finest driver of all?

probs.

i tapped my fingers to the beat at stop lights, because i had moved the dial into ozzys boneyard, the metal station. judas priest, iron maiden, sir ronnie james, dio. they all kept the proper tempo as we hugged the curves along the strip and into posh and manicured hills of beverly, home of little traffic but hella red light cameras. so watch it.

everything i did worked. skill? luck? yes.

cars i chose to follow, magically peeled off right before a green light.

i took shortcuts through impossibly priced neighborhoods, casually avoiding falling palm fronds dropping drunkenly from 100 feet above, narrowly missing our rain drenched black uber.

metallica’s new one came on and she coughed into her hand. then a sneeze.

i cracked my window because i cannot afford to be sick right now. i have to drive every day i can for as long as i can during the winter. no way can i let this woman put me out of commission because her old lady germs are floating around here for eight minutes because i want to be nice.

i do want to be nice, but come on.

then i cracked the passenger’s front window and i turned up the heat to combat the cold air.

she didn’t seem to mind. her hair did fly around a bit, though, i noticed as i peeked in the rear view. but all she was focused on was my route. she was studying it. she was examining me. unlike tests in school, this one i had been practicing for ten years.

watch me drive lady, i ESPed. watch how simple i can make it look despite beverly hills containing the worst drivers in the entire county. leaders of industry and international VIPs jerk around these 90210 roads like rules don’t apply to them.

finally at westwood, we arrived at the hospital five minutes earlier than waze estimated. robots will never replaced cocky brothers with attitudes. try all they want.

if you were going to watch one trip, this would have been the one, and she never blinked. or smiled.

but in perfect english she said, thank you very much, and went to her man inside.

but firs, she handed me a tightly folded up collection of ones.

see how much they tipped