A sign with "Apt for Rent" inside a large red arrow, below which is written in bold black marker "BACHELOR SINGLE", hangs beside a white plywood and brick complex on Tujunga Ave. On the curb in front sits a Jaguar XK8 battered from collisions whose wounds go unrepaired. Clear plastic sticks to a parking light above a rear bumper held up by red duct tape on one side--in a small effort to match the maroon body--and several strips of black on the other. The passenger door looks crunched in by a fire plug and all that remains of the left headlight is a bulb that hangs loosely from a gray wire. Below it a greasy red ribbon signals the loss.
The maroon of dried blood that flowed from a deep gash forms a long curve across the forehead of a man sitting next to me. Don Johnson shades, missing the right temple, sloop down his nose where flakes of skin peel from sunburn. He murmurs a thought train softly, and I let it blur through me to become the buzz of a child who runs with arms stretched as an airplane.
Suddenly he looks at me, "How old are you? In your 30s, huh."
"I recently turned 42."
"Ah, Ah, just wait 'til you turn 50. That's the best time of your life. Yeah, oh yeah, believe me, that's the greatest."
Long after the death of 24 year old James Dean at the fork of California Routes 41 and 46, the accident tale recounted reckless speed in a Porsche Spyder. But the wreckage and position of Dean's body indicated his speed at 55. Just before impact he muttered, "That guy's gotta stop... He'll see us." 52 years later, the trauma of internal injuries still lingers.
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