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Manhattan and wondering what sort of ruins it would make: as for Brooklyn, archaeologists of another civilization, like taxi drivers of our own, will never decipher the secret of its streets, their destination, their meaning.

H OLLYWOOD
(1947)
    Approaching Los Angeles, at least by air, is like, I should imagine, crossing the surface of the moon: prehistoric shapes, looming in stone ripples and corroded, leer upward, and paleozoic fish swim in the shadowy pools between desert mountains: burned and frozen, there is no living thing, only rock that was once a bird, bones that are sand, ferns turned to fiery stone. At last a welcoming fleet of clouds: we have crept between a sorcerer’s passage, snow is on the mountains, yet flowers color the land, a summer sun juxtaposes December’s winter sea, down, down, the plane splits through plumed, gold, incredible air. Oh, moaned Thelma, I can’t stand it, she said, and poured a cascade of Chiclets into her mouth. Thelma had boarded the plane in Chicago; she was a young Negro girl, rather pretty, beautifully dressed, and it was the most wonderful thing that would ever happen to her, this trip to California. “I know it, it’s going to be just grand. Three years I’ve been ushering at the Lola Theater on State Street just to save the fare. My auntie tells thecards, and she said—Thelma, honey, head for Hollywood ’cause there’s a job as private secretary to a movie actress just waiting for you. She didn’t say what actress, though. I hope it’s not Esther Williams. I don’t like swimming much.”
    Later on she asked if I was trying for film work, and because the idea seemed to please her, I said yes. On the whole she was very encouraging, and assured me that as soon as she was established as a private secretary, thereby having access to the ears of the great, she would not forget me, would indeed give me every assistance.
    At the airport I helped with her luggage, and eventually we shared a taxi. It came about then that she had no place specific to go, she simply wanted the driver to let her off in the “middle” of Hollywood. It was a long drive, and she sat all the way on the edge of the seat, unbearably watchful. But there was not so much to see as she’d imagined. “It don’t look correct,” she said finally, quite as if we’d been played a wretched trick, for here again, though in disguise, was the surface of the moon, the noplace of everywhere; but how very correct, after all, that here at continent’s end we should find only a dumping ground for all that is most exploitedly American: oil pumps pounding like the heartbeat of demons, avenues of used-car lots, supermarkets, motels, the gee dad I never knew a Chevrolet gee dad gee mom gee whiz wham of publicity, the biggest, broadest, best, sprawled and helplessly etherized by immaculate sunshine and sound of sea and unearthly sweetness of flowers blooming in December.
    During the drive the sky had grown ash-colored, and as we turned into the laundered sparkle of Wilshire Boulevard, Thelma, giving her delicate feathered hat a protective touch, grumbled at the possibility of rain. Not a chance, said the driver, just wind blowing in dust from the desert. These words were not out of his mouth before the palm trees shivered under a violent downpour.But Thelma had no place to go, except into the street, so we left her standing there, rain pulling her costume apart. When a traffic light stopped us at the corner, she ran up and stuck her head in the window. “Look here, honey, remember what I say, you get hungry or anything you just find where I’m at.” Then, with a lovely smile, “And listen, honey, lotsa luck!”
    December 3. Today, through the efforts of a mutual friend, Nora Parker, I was asked to lunch by the fabled Miss C. There is a fortress wall surrounding her place, and at the entrance gate we were more or less frisked by a guard who then telephoned ahead to announce our arrival. All this was very