Nothing but a sliding glass door sits between my bed and the street — apart from a patch of grass, a few hedges and a waist-high gate. Its lock is flimsy and I use a plank of a wood as a makeshift security bar. If I’m honest, I have always nursed fears of the glass breaking. Of someone breaking in. Of not having enough time to wake before I’m killed.
Here, a block north of Hancock Park, most houses bar ground level windows. My odd configuration is the result of multi-unit constructions replacing single family homes. To maximize garage parking and square footage, my unit’s tiny, insecure backyard is actually the front.
On the night of November 24th, 2014, a Just Tires around the corner from me burst into flames. My roommates, neighbors and I flocked to the street. The fire appeared to be part of the protests around the country over the grand jury decision in Ferguson. In truth, it was unrelated. Just tire fires.
Five and a half years later on the night of May 30th, other nearby structures were torched and looted. This was in relation to protests over the death of George Floyd. That evening, I had walked toward the protest on Melrose. I turned back when a pack of kids swarmed, attempting to break into and graffiti a CVS. At home, I watched local news as the wave moved closer toward my apartment.
Helicopters buzzed all night. I smelled smoke. I watched the broadcast until the famed Osteria Mozza nearby was reportedly lit. With the protests finally by my window, I drifted to sleep. Though it was close, I knew the damage would never reach me. Here, riots are like The Big One. Something inevitable that you’re prepared for.
“No Knocks”
But when our apartment was broken into in 2015, I was the only one who didn’t wake up. Coincidence had it that an intoxicated guest looking for his sweater (let’s call him Adam) mistook our entrance for the party next door on a night we inexplicably forgot to turn the lock. Coincidence also had it that Adam worked at a company where I had once interned.
Adam entered the master bedroom, startled one roommate and apologized. Then, he encountered the roommate who keeps a bat next to his mattress. Tensions calmed. Adam refused to leave without his sweater. He kept repeating his name and workplace. I guess since that’s how you identify yourself at parties.
Adam, once escorted out, was recalcitrant; returning to the door, knocking, and asking for his sweater. My roommates called the cops, who took him away. When I finally woke, my roommates asked me if I knew of an Adam from work. I did indeed. But I had no clue why he would come to our apartment. And wondered why he didn’t try my glass door first.
This incident became an amusing almost boastful anecdote. When I got to know our neighbors, I learned the depressing backstory. Adam had been good friends with John Winkler, 30, who was accidentally killed by police a year earlier. Winkler had ran to help his neighbors after a roommate pulled a knife on them. As Winkler and friends escaped outside, three deputies, believing Winkler to be the attacker, shot him dead and injured another hostage as they ran toward what they thought was safety. Adam, consumed with sadness, had been coping with drugs and alcohol. Later, the mentally ill assailant was at first charged with the friend’s murder. If it weren’t for him, prosecutors reasoned, Winkler would not have died. He’s serving 14 years for related charges.
I wish we hadn’t called the cops on the guy I knew from work.
Privileged Paranoia
The only intruder to ever enter my bedroom came not through the glass door but from my bathroom. The creepy old man was a sleep paralysis projection intent on strangling me. The science behind the phenomena is that your mind wakes up before your sedated body. The nightmare spawn paralyzes you. My Catholic roommate (same as the one with the bat) offered to cleanse my room with holy water. Though offended he thought a demon afflicted me, I accepted. Just in case.
In 2014, journalist Michael Hastings slammed his Mercedes into a palm tree right next to Osteria Mozza. A resident dragged their garden hose to the street to try and stop the inferno. The incident inspired many conspiracy theories. It was eerie to ponder on how close sinister forces may be operating to me. Was that blue van always parked on the street part of the op? Was the deep state reading my texts? Watching my every non-intriguing move? Could they control my car via remote control?
I realize now that demons and plots are fears for people who have nothing to worry about. When a truck barreled into Mozza, I conceded the intersection is a death trap. They must do something about it.
Don’t Lose Your Values
At my grandpa’s retirement party in rural, very white Pennsylvania in May 2008, my grandma told a local I was heading to Southern California for college. She replied, “Don’t lose your values. They’re trying to elect a black man for president out there.”
Her racist candor shocked. Though whether America was “ready” for a black president had been a topic for discussion in AP US History. I remember our most lefty classmate, exasperated, saying, “America should be ready for a transsexual president!” The class laughed at her.
I myself was guilty of Michael Scott-levels of wrong that are cringe on rewatch. Trying to be ironic or something, I routinely called my black friend from the Caribbean (and the only black kid in the class) “my black friend.” When he was dating the one Asian girl in our class, I oft repeated a cancellable dumb joke about fusion cuisine. Sheltered and homogeneous, we believed we weren’t problematic (that wasn’t a concept yet) and felt free to be insensitive. Today, there is petition in my hometown to fire the chief of police.
Twilight
I had no car my first year at USC. Dogma said leaving campus was dangerous. Still, a friend and I would tackle the bus and Metro system to explore the city. Once, we found ourselves stranded at a MacArthur Park bus stop late a night. Before Drive (2011) presented MacArthur Park as a vibrant, hipster Central Park, it was known for being particularly dangerous.
No more buses seemed to be coming. A Hispanic man approached us and pointed to a guy across the lake. The man had robbed him at knife point. He asked if we would call the police since had he had been trying with no luck. My friend dialed the cops and within minutes officers were on the scene. While they questioned the Hispanic man somewhat accusingly, they told us to get a cab home.
I recounted these early experiences for a GE class that introduced me to Anna Deavere Smith’s play Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. Smith interviewed hundreds of residents about their experience with the riots. Then, she performed their responses as monologues. For our final, we examined our own experience of race in Los Angeles and conducted our own interviews. I spoke to a screenwriter, an actress, Asian American classmates with clashing outlooks, a Hispanic security officer, a lifelong black resident shopping near campus, and a Middle Eastern newcomer.
Across the spectrum, every interviewee agreed the riots could happen again. Everyone made a point to blame wealth inequality rather than identity (it was the year of the Great Recession after all). I wrote in my conclusion, “The ‘outside’ world is tense because I am worried that people will hate for me ‘having’ and oftentimes I feel like I would deserve it.”
My older, white interviewees both recalled that the police protected the wealthy enclave of Hancock Park in ‘92. At the time I didn’t know where that was. I found myself living nearby just 4 years later.
Now, I want to make sure I remember more than just Mozza.
Hancock Park Chad
A few day after Central Park Karen went viral, I heard screaming outside my window. My Filipino neighbor wielded two kitchen knives while a black couple attempted to ride away on bikes. A bystander recorded with his phone. “We’re not trying to hurt anybody!” the couple shouted. I thought my neighbor had gone Karen crazy as he yelled “Lie down!” He slashed a tire and took off after them as they fled.
I ran outside to gauge the situation. My new neighbors, a black and white couple in the unit behind me, joined. Moments later, our retreating knife friend explained. He had arrived back from a Palm Springs trip to find the bikers squatting in a vacant unit behind his house. He and his friend had been discussing Central Park Karen and the mounting George Floyd protests on the ride home. They pulled into the driveway only to find themselves in their own wrought situation. My neighbor insisted he never would have hurt anyone but wanted them to wait for the cops to arrive.
As the adrenaline dropped, we discussed the rising homeless population in our neighborhood. Tents were sprouting up all over. The cops arrived. My new neighbors decided they should go back inside.
Drip
I haven’t been sleeping well. Last Thursday at 4AM, I heard the sound of a bike. I looked at my window and saw the shadow of a man enter the lawn and approach my glass door. Startled, I jumped out of bed and sprinted up the stairs.
Looking out the window, I saw a black man get back on the bike and ride away. I thought he heard me or saw there was nothing useful in our yard. On Thursdays, I often hear people pushing carts down the street to filter through recycling and trash for supplies.
I went back downstairs and laid back in bed. I wish I had been asleep and been blissfully unaware of the intrusion. A grill was once stolen from our yard and I had been unaffected. Now I was on edge.
Then, I saw the man’s shadow crouched on the ground and creeping back up to my door. This time he made an effort to be stealthy. I bolted up two flights to wake up my roommate. I told him someone was outside my room and I thought they might be trying to get inside. Why else would he come back? As we watched from the third floor, the man again hopped on his parked bike and rode away.
Unsettled, I decided to sleep in the living room. I told myself homeless neighbors don’t want trouble. “If someone was a crazy killer and wanted to hurt you, they’d probably be creepy white guys,” I thought.
The next morning I inspected our yard and found our garden hose is very visible to the street. He probably needed water.