I never jogged when I was young. Never. I rode my bike a lot. I walked long distances whispering to myself. I stood still on football ovals waiting for the ball to come towards me. I waded out into the surf and turned my back to crashing waves. I crouched behind the batsmen talking trash, whilst the bowler jogged in to deliver the cricket ball. I moved around. I broke a sweat from time to time. But I never jogged.
A personal trainer told me this was the reason I find it hard to jog now that I'm older. You gotta get your body used to it when you're smaller. There seems to be whole lotta stuff that works like that. That seems to be a rule. And I've tried hard to break that rule.
Under the Williamsburg Bridge on Manhattan, there's an Olympic sized running track. Absorbent rubber under-foot; crisp, white lane-lines around; seductive bends on the corners; and piecing, cold skies above. You enter through an old, full-height, metal turnstile covered in thick, dark acrylic paint laid on to hide the rust underneath. Layer upon layer of the shiny stuff has been caked on over the years, leaving the whole unit looking as if it is made of soft plastic.
On the inside the running track is an astro-turf soccer field. Come rain or shine, that field stays the same colour. So does the red running track and its white lines and that black gate. You go there for routine - it is why I went there. It helps with the routine that it looks the same every day.
Each day of Spring I jogged a little further than the day before. One lap more at a time. By the time the middle of Summer had hit I was running for miles and had forgotten her number and she'd deleted mine.
Winter came and I wasn't ready for all that frost and snow. I knew what to do to prepare myself, but I didn't do it. I didn't want to. My favourite people are those that move where the weather suits their clothes. Sometimes I get to be my favourite person. So, I packed my canvas boots and button down shirts and headed for Hollywood.
On the corner of Rossmore and Beverly in Hancock Park is a golf course. Well, the golf course actually stretches for blocks either way of Beverly, but the clubhouse sits on that corner. When they tell you that nobody walks in LA, it is neighborhoods like that corner that they are talking about. It is a perfectly safe part of town - that isn't the reason people don't walk there. It is because the people there have for a long time convinced each other that their culture is that they don't walk and that this their way and the center of their comfort zone. People usually stick to and defend all of that rather than find out what is on the other side. Probably because this is the way they did things when they were young.
Some of the sidewalks around there disappear whilst you're still on them. They will be grey and steady against a nature strip and then they suddenly just stop. No reason. No logic. They just stop. You'll be walking or jogging along them, completely unconscious to the fact that they are just about to stop on you. You're not used to having to be conscious to such a thing. You've been on the pavement before. And then they suddenly end on you and you find yourself standing on a bulging rise of grass and dust that is dangerously slopping down to the where the cars are racing past.
This is what happened to me.
I think it is like this because nobody is there to see it and then talk about it or try to get it fixed, because - like I said - nobody walks around there. This is the same reason why the pedestrian crossing lights on that corner are broken too - no one is there to notice.
Well, I noticed all of that on my first morning jogging past. I stood on the mound of grass, waiting and waiting for the green man to light up. After a few cycles through, I saw what was up and crossed without his permission. I carried on for about a mile until I got to Olympic Boulevard. There, I turned back around and picked up my pace for the return jog home. This time when I got to that grassy and deserted corner, I didn't wait for the lights. It was broken and that was easy to accept. To my left, the cars had stopped, so I assumed all was good and right and ready.
As I get over halfway, the cars now coming at me from the right aren't slowing down. It is one of those corners where one direction of traffic gets stopped first, so the other direction can get a little green arrow that allows them to turn freely. I didn't - until now - realise this. I pick up into a sprint and the cars slow a little and the tiny drama of that situation passes as quickly as it deserves to.
And then the police car flashes red and blue lights and the cop inside gets out. He saw the whole thing from the corner I was crossing onto. He hasn't pulled the car over to the edge. He has just stopped where he was. Behind him, a lineup of cars behind gets long quickly. I pull my earphones out and he comes at me angry.
"Do you realise you just crossed against the light there?"
"Yeah....I...uh...well, the light is broken." I'm breathing hard breaths, but I manage to get that sentence out.
"You can't cross against a light. That's dangerous and against the law. You saw those cars had to slow for you."
"Like I said, the crossing light is broken. It was like that on my way past before, I thought I was clear to go."
"Well, you weren't. Can I see some I.D. please?"
"I don't have any on me."
"Why not?"
I look down at my shorts and tattered t-shirt.
"What do you mean? I'm jogging. All I've got are my keys and this iPod."
"You should have I.D. on you. Well, I'm gonna have to frisk you. Do you have any weapons or sharp items on you that I need to know about?"
Once again, I look down at my flimsy and light jogging gear. This time I am a bit more indignant.
"What?? I'm in shorts and this t-shirt! What would I possibly be hidding?"
Now I'm legs spread and arms wide on the bonnet of his car. Another patrol car pulls up alongside. This second cop has stopped to see if he can offer assistance. I'm still talking about the broken crossing light. I ask them to check it out. Go have a look. Go see that I didn't mean to break the law or get in front of any moving cars. I'm out jogging and I'm short on breath and it looked like it was my turn to cross. That is all that happened.
They don't care. They aren't interested. All I wanted to do was feel the morning air on my forehead, blast country and soul into my ears and see the sights of my new neighborhood. I wanted my routine. I wanted to be new on the West Coast with my old East Coast routine.
The first cop pats me down, looking for guns hidden inside my sneakers or something. Someone leans out of their passing car, slows down, yells "Police Harassment!" and drives off. The cars stuck behind the cop car still in the middle of the road, start frustratedly edging around and back on their way. A group of silver-haired men burdened down with golf clubs come out into their carpark. They each stop next to the trunks of their respective cars, watching this scene in front of them.
Satisfied that I'm not carry any semi-automatic weaponry, the first cop turns to the second one and says:
"This one doesn't have any I.D... None at all..."
The second one grunts a reply that I miss and then says to me:
"No I.D.? Really? Well, what do we do now? I mean, you could be Jack the Ripper for all we know."
I don't pause for a second with my reply. I don't consider the where or the how or the who. I just smile a wide sarcastic smile and come back with:
"Jack the Ripper? Well, considering that he is a semi-fictional character from over one hundred years ago, we can all be pretty positive that I am not Jack the Ripper."
And that's how it went down on my first morning in Hollywood - pressed up against a cop car; covered in sweat; earphones around my shoulders; confused by the sidewalk to my left and the broken pedestrian-crossing lights behind me; old men in polo shirts staring at me; and two, humourless cops ready to take my knees out.
Needless to say, I don't jog any more. Fuck that. Look at what it leads directly to. It's just not worth it.
Though I do miss that routine.
I had to find another way to worry you off my mind.
pic: Gospel by Ed Ruscha