Chapter #11
[1] Angus was one of two people I knew who lived in Los Angeles. I had met him a few months earlier and we would visit each other quite often. He was a student at University of Southern California. Not only did he agree for me to stay over at his place while I was searching for a new apartment, he even picked me up from the airport. The USC was based in downtown Los Angeles and apart from the dorms and a few restaurants and cafes outside the campus there was not much to do. Luckily Angus didn't mind dropping me at Santa Monica beach during the day so I could walk around the area and look for jobs. It wasn't easy. The seasons were in total reverse to Palm Springs so while the desert was getting ready to get busy here everything was slowing down. I had a new resume now bragging how I was 'enticing' customers at Michael's restaurants but the responses were all too familiar - "we will call you back". The phone never rang and I was getting worried. Was this the time I was finally going to run out of luck?
[2] All I wanted to do was to finally enjoy the sun. The ocean. The pier. All of those things that were passing me by while I kept worrying. I was by now so confident with school that I hardly noticed when it started. The buildings of Santa Monica College seemed more modern than in the desert but the campus was also much bigger. The college was one of the most popular school among the international students and suddenly I felt a bit out of place. The teachers were of course smart but the place was missing the slow-pace and friendliness of the desert. It even had its own police department. I was suddenly finding myself missing the old school.
I phoned David as soon as I moved into to Emy's place. We had been exchanging occasional SMSs ever since he visited Palm Springs the previous Christmas. I even took him to Byran's place where we celebrated Christmas over some snacks and beer. He picked me up the same evening. We parked outside a Japanese restaurant. I looked at the electricity lines above us and wondered if life wouldn't be easier if they simply fell and electrocuted me on spot.
[3] David didn't save my live but he did pay for my dinner that night. Sometimes that's all you need to do to change someone's outlook on life. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw some flashing lights outside. I peaked through the blinds and saw a police car behind other vehicle, a few cops and a man sitting on the curb. I wasn't sure if he was getting arrested but it didn't matter because suddenly it occurred to me that I could start doing websites. My cousin had taught me some HTML a few years earlier and I thought that surely in a city like Los Angeles someone would need help. There was no wi-fi at Emy's house so in the morning I walked to the college library and posted two advertisements on Craigslist - one for teaching and for designing websites.
The model seemed to have a potential. My first inquiry was from an older man from West Hollywood. I took a bus there and we met at one of the cafes. It turned out he was running a porn website and needed some help with updating it. Sounded like a good deal to me.
[4] The old man never called back but he gave me some hope. I knew that occasional lessons or projects probably won't be enough to pay for more studies and rent. I didn't have a choice but keep going. I did call Dad and asked for a loan towards my rent. Kamil also gave me a few hundred dollars. I was very grateful for the help (which I accepted without feeling any shame) but it was obvious that something had to be done about my cash flow.
My enthusiasm for restaurant finding a job at a restaurant completely faded after attending a group interview at one of the pizza joins. It was held at downtown and I took a bus there. The driver was a trainee and he was driving under a supervision of a big black man who kept constantly kept yelling at him. It only made things worse because at some point we turned into a wrong street which drove the trainee and the supervisor into a meltdown. When we finally found the our way back and arrived to a bus stop an elder woman told the driver that he did a good job and not to worry.
[5] The whole incident put me in a good mood and when I arrived into the pizza joint I must have been radiating with confidence. There were six or seven other people who like me were looking for the job. At first it felt comforting that I wasn't on my own and that others were also in my situation. However, it quickly struck me that all of them were my potential competitor. We sat in a semi circle and were first asked to introduce ourselves. Then the manager conducting the interview asked us to describe a difficult situation with a customer and how we dealt with it. I knew I had to stand out. "One evening a customer called me an asshole for no reason. I spoke to the owner of the restaurant and he asked her to leave and never come back." It was indeed a true story except it didn't happen to me but to Ron, the waiter who kept calling me 'Polska Duma'. Against my expectations, the manager didn't seem to find it amusing and moved on to the next person. I had never heard from this pizza joint again.
[6] The breakthrough came a few days later when I received an email from someone named Fong Choi. He needed to learn webdesign and Flash to help his boss with uploading his movies online. The trip was going to involve an hour journey (and two buses) but it seemed to have a potential to bring some stability to my life.
The 'office' was actually a one story building near an entrance to the Freeway 10. Fong Choi was a graphic designer from China living and studying here for a few years. The building seemed to smell like a pet shop. There was an old couch, some painting and photographs hanging on the wall and the whole place seemed to be slightly disorganised. We sat down at one of the computers at the hall and I started giving him introduction to web programming. When I started to explain to him how to create a movie clip he seemed to lose his attention and said that I should probably meet his boss. He went to the room next door and came back a few minutes later announcing that Barry was ready to see me.
[7] 'Mystical' was probably the word that came to my mind when I saw Barry for the first time. He was sitting in a big office chair facing a large Apple monitor. The blinds in the rooms were closed and there was only a dim light coming from one of the standing lamps. When I entered the room there was just a silence (with Barry staring at the screen) as if Barry was not to be interrupted without him speaking first. He was intensely looking at the screen and finally turn his entire body on the chair to face me. I couldn't tell how old he was my my guess would have been somewhere around fifty. He had long hair and I noticed that there was a mouse sitting on his right shoulder. His voice was very warm and friendly. After the initial awkwardness he started asking me where I was from and what I was doing in California. My every answer met with his enthusiasm and he was soon telling me that we should start making TV shows in Polish. Fong Choi had already explained that Barry was a movie director so I began to inquire how I could help.
[8] Within minutes of our conversation, Barry was showing me some of the movies he was editing. Many of them involved mannequins and mice. There was also a floating fish (sometimes dozens of them) with voice over what it seemed to be a modified voice of Barry in several pitches. Everything seemed so bizarre. I was fascinated. Barry then started to explain to me that his goal was to finally create an internet TV channel responsive to needs of individual users. There were actually a lot of other ideas that we discussed. The overall message I took out of the conversation was that eventually we were going to rule the world. The conversation became very interesting when we finally started discussing how I could make the websites more interactive. YouTube was still an unknown word so my ability to upload movies and then add some graphics to it became very valuable. When the conversation shifted to the number of hours per week I could commit to working in the office it was hard for me to contain excitement. Barry then asked me if "five hundred dollars per week would be ok for now?"
[9] I was sitting in the front seat of the Blue Bus Number 7 riding down the Pico Boulvard towards my new home in Santa Monica. I had already phoned Mom to tell her that I got a new job. Not just any job but a work in an office with people that appreciated my talents. It didn't matter that the building smelled of mice and my new coworkers were slightly strange. This was what America was about. I was going to be making more money than I ever would working at Michael's putting up with constant screaming. And that was just the beginning. I was looking at my advance check looking forward to deposit and so I could finally start paying rent with my own money.
There were not too many people on the bus and the driver started asking me how my day was. I told him that I got a new job.
"What's the job?"
"I'm going to work in Hollywood"
"Working on a movie?"
"Something like that"
"Wow, good luck!"
I knew I was slightly making things up but the driver was very happy for me and the future looked so wonderful on that warm California night.
[10] The best part about living in Santa Monica was that for seventy five cents of a fare and a fifteen minute bus ride, I could be in downtown Santa Monica. I could walk along the Third Street Promenade and then head to the ocean. With my Sony CD Player I would just walk through from the pier all the way to the Venice Beach. My feet cold from the ocean water. This was how I imagined this place when a few years earlier I sat down in front of my computer trying to find out online the names of hostels or details of the transportation. It was a different place from its photos. None of them showed the homeless but also none of the photos could reflect the chill of late night breeze of the smell of the ocean. The pier was not an image anymore but a living thing with its people, a man drawing your name in fancy fonts for or a one-man orchestra. They would for the next several weeks become my stopover on the way home, a moment of reflection, escape and a hope that at the end it was all going to be worth it.
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