Bo's Café Read Online Free PDF Page B

business failings—if only so he’ll stop with the wizard
     routine. But I decide to save my findings for later. I also decide he doesn’t need to know I’m living on the street, until
     I see how this ride works out.
    I open the passenger door with the inside handle and climb in. The car is huge. I feel like I’m sitting on an enormous, slippery,
     plastic tuck-’n’roll couch. I slide to the back of the seat until my feet are almost no longer touching the floor mat. It
     appears that back in the day, they manufactured cars for only giants to drive.
    As I’m looking around for a seat belt, he notices and says, “It’s jammed into the seat somewhere. Good luck.”
    So here we are… two men wearing sunglasses after sunset, strapped into seat belts with no shoulder harnesses, rumbling down
     the boulevard in a vehicle designed before fuel economy was a gleam in a car designer’s eyes. For a while we’re just driving,
     neither of us speaking a word. The combination of the wind in my face and the deep hum of the Electra 455 is almost trancelike.
    He yells above the engine, “Mind if I smoke?”
    “Would it matter?”
    “Probably not.”
    “I guess I’m fine, then.”
    With an obviously well-practiced skill, he pulls out an old Zippo lighter, and as the flame flickers in the wind, he lights
     up a cigar he calls a Padron 1924 Anniversario.
    Eventually we pull onto the 405 for a few minutes and then up into the hills overlooking Marina del Rey and Venice and the
     Pacific Ocean. Andy parks the car on a bluff facing south. From there you can see most of the L.A. basin. After some time
     looking over the city, he takes a long draw on his cigar and blows an impressive smoke ring into the still night air.
    “Steven, if this was 1972 and I was sitting here with the top down in this gem with a pretty high school girl, well, let’s
     just say that the guy in the Chevy Nova next to me would be driving back down the hill in embarrassment.”
    “I wouldn’t know, Andy,” I say. “I wasn’t born yet. I don’t think my parents had even
met
in 1972.”
    Andy clutches his heart. “Ouch.”
    Looking over the city, it strikes me that I haven’t sat like this in a long time. Just sitting and looking at a great view
     for no other reason than because it’s there. I begin to relax a little.
    Eventually he breaks the silence.
    “So, Steven, what do you see from up here?”
    “What do you mean?” I ask.
    “I mean, what do you see when you look out over the city?”
    “I see lights. Lots of lights.”
    Andy rolls his eyes at me a little. “That’s it? Lots of lights?”
    “Yeah. What are you getting at?”
    “Tell me what you imagine is going on in some of those homes down there.”
    I don’t like this. I don’t need this. I’m not up for wherever he thinks this is heading.
    “Go ahead,” he presses. “Humor me. What’s going on down there tonight in L.A.?”
    “I don’t know,” I say. “Lots of stuff. Some good, some not so good.”
    He takes a minute before speaking again. His tone seems to change; his volume is lower, his pace a little slower, as if he’s
     saying something he thinks is important.
    “Yeah, lots of
stuff
. Husbands and wives fighting. Angry kids fuming in their rooms, resenting their parents’ authority. Some of those lights
     are cars with sad and lonely kids inside, driving around, acting tough, looking for something… anything.”
    Andy closes his eyes and rubs them. “It starts young, doesn’t it? They get hurt. Maybe they get hurt real bad early on. And
     if they’re not careful, they learn something that takes a lifetime to unlearn. They learn to cover up, to protect themselves.
     They don’t even know they’re doing it at first. But later they can’t stop it even when they want to.
    “All those people down there, walking and driving around, confused—angry, hurt, wounded, afraid, resentful—they all have some
     things in common.”
    He stops speaking, as if he wants