First crackwhore: 17, Greyhound, Los Angeles.

The bus jerked me awake to Los Angeles. The driver warned us to stay inside the terminal, and if anyone smoked and wanted to keep their smokes not to pull a pack out in front of the terminal. In there it was beautiful. Never had I’d seen such characters, such murderers. I stood outside of the terminal to see what the bus driver had been talking about. One guy pulled out a pack of smokes. He was rushed by a legion of bums. Crackmothers screamed at their crackbabies. Crackfathers hustled strangers. Bums would approach me and talk to me. They offered me dope and sex. Back inside one offered to carry my bags around for a dollar. A lot of hardened bums and players looked at me and nodded.

Hours passed in the terminal. I had mostly forgotten about Arizona already. I found a corner and sat in front of my bike box and my bags, playing my headphones in a theater of stranded flesh. I dozed off.

A security guard nudged me awake.

   “No sleepin’, youngblood.”

   I stood up. He was big and black. He asked me if I was waiting for somebody. I told him I wanted to go to a beach. I told him I didn’t know which one.

   “You should go to Venice. Lotsa girls and lotsa freaks. Lotsa everything.”

   He laughed. He had a lot of gold in his mouth. I asked him how much a cab would cost. He told me he would give me a lift in for twenty dollars after his shift. I told him that seemed like a lot of money for a ride. He laughed and told me I didn’t know anything. I pulled out my tools and built my bike.

We drove through the streets of Los Angeles. 8 a.m. During my wait for his dismissal I had consolidated my things into one backpack. I had three days of clothes with me. Everything else was expendable. The streets were bright and colored with tags and ghetto art. Even the litter in the streets had a feel to it, the wonder of possibility. The bums and the prostitutes and the cops, the gangs and the old and even the cars looked like they were in scene. He pointed out corners, pointed out schools and history. It was warm there. The old rooming houses stood proud and ugly. His dashboard was cracked, and the lines of the cracks were thick with smoke. He lit another off the butt of his last, tossed it and got a red light. I looked to my right and stared into the eyes of a crack whore.

   “Want me to suck it, baby doll?”

   “No.”

   He laughed behind the wheel. She shrugged and walked off.

   “No,” he said.