The Last Chili Cheese Fries of the Decade

SETTING
Piggie’s Charbroiled
4601 W Rosecrans Ave
Hawthorne, CA

SOUNDTRACK
Flaming Lips
Oh My Gawd!!!…The Flaming Lips
6 Jan 1987 (Restless)

LOCAL TIME
1pm PST
29 December 2009

Sun streams harshly through the window here in Hawthorne, right onto the table, right onto the plate before me. $4.19 for the “large” because, yeah, I’m feeling In Charge. Take seat next to corner booth inhabited by three of Hawthorne’s Finest: One on duty with talkie dialed low, two off-duty in Sunday civvies. All three grousing about the job and casting the occasional wary eye my way. I’m just eating chili fries, boys; rest assured I bitch about my job just as much as you, end of day. One Decade!!! A full decade in Los Angeles. How in the hell have I pulled it off, exactly? How have I survived!? Why did I stay!? What kept me!? How Have I Changed Los Angeles For The Better, and, How Has She Changed Me? Sunlight streams onto the plate harshly still and I ponder various chili-coated plates that have confronted me over the course of the last decade, here in smog central. This one’s harmless when stacked ‘gainst the past, to be sure; still, no easy lunch, this. I throw down the fork, douse the pepper’s heat with a swig of ice water and hit the sidewalk. Inhaling, it hits me like a flash of lightning: It is good to be here, Los Angeles right now on this 29th of December 2009 Anno Domini. I gulp the air, form fists triumphantly and shout to no-one, “Oh My Gawd!!!”