The Bookish Life of Nina Hill(25)
Nina wondered idly if she should have put out a litter tray.
Teddy amped up his delivery. “Civilization has crushed so many of us and driven us away from our place in the natural world. It’s hard to even remember we are mammals, just part of life’s great chain of being, fearful of predators, hungry for our prey, lusting for our fellows.”
Nina looked at Liz. Her eyebrows had contracted slightly, and Nina saw her flip over her copy of the book to read the description, as she herself had. Theodore continued.
“As I had hoped, people are embracing both the book and their inner beasts, and around the country, chapters of humanimals, as I call them, have sprung up to reacquaint themselves with their wilder side.”
Oh God. Nina had a bad feeling about this.
“So, let’s take a moment to greet each other properly, shall we?” And with that, but without any further warning, he tipped back his head and roared like a lion. Liz and Nina froze, their jaws dropping open as the entire room erupted into growls, bellows, and, impressively, convincing whale song.
Nina looked frantically at Liz, who had backed up against the nearest bookcase. She caught Nina’s eye and mouthed, Save me, but there wasn’t anything the younger woman could do.
Theodore stopped roaring and raised his hand to his ear, encouraging his readers (willing acolytes in the Temple of Crazy) to bellow louder. They complied. Nina covered her ears and started giggling uncontrollably. People were stopping in the street; a crowd was forming outside the door. It was a pity she hadn’t set out more chairs.
And then, “Humanimals! Let’s prance!” Theodore leaped from his stool and started prowling about, and with a resounding crash of wooden folding chairs, his audience followed suit.
It was pretty much downhill from there.
After the animals had left, the chairs had been folded and returned to the back room, and Liz had taken four Tylenol, Nina was allowed to leave.
“It’s Saturday night,” Liz said to Nina. “You should run along before I have a coronary and you have to waste the entire night in the emergency room.”
“Do you think you actually might?” Nina paused. Liz wasn’t old, but it had been a somewhat challenging Author’s Evening.
“I doubt it. Run along, little doggie.” She waved her hands. “I see someone trampled cheese into the carpet in the young adult section, and it’s going to be relaxing digging it out with my fingernails. Off you go.” Nina made a break for it.
Saturday nights Nina had a ritual: She went home, fed Phil, had a shower, got dressed, and headed out into the night to sink her teeth into the neck of any virgins she could find. Clearly, this isn’t true: There are no virgins out on Saturday night in LA. No, Nina would grab her camera and go out to take pictures.
One of Nina’s few early memories of her mother was when Candice had taught her to recognize a moment worth photographing. They’d sat together in a crowded spot, and Candice had pointed out the images that appeared every so often in the patterns of people around them. It was a pleasant memory, and although Candice tended to take photos of war zones, starving children, or miners covered in toxic chemicals, Nina preferred to take photos of her hometown. Los Angeles was famous for its intoxicating mix of riots and red carpets, but the city she saw was very different.
Bear in mind, Los Angeles is an unnatural oasis. It was built in and on the desert floor of a long mountain valley, which slopes gently east to west into the Pacific Ocean. Native American tribes settled the valley over seven thousand years ago and lived in relative peace until the Spanish showed up and ruined it all. Eventually, the movie industry arrived, driven there by Thomas “Grabby” Edison, who held a monopoly on all things movie related on the East Coast, and wasn’t averse to breaking a few legs to maintain it. The movie business really caught on. Those people who move like jerky ants in old footage built studios and houses and bigger houses and then swimming pools, and before you knew it . . . the Kardashians.
This is a blatant simplification and compression of over a century of development, but the point is that people basically arrived and laid a carpet of tarmac and trash over the top of a beautiful but somewhat surprised natural world. Too polite to point it out, nature simply continued to go about her business and ignored us the way we largely ignore her. But she’s still working, like the experienced old performer she is.
Hike up into Griffith Park in spring, for example, and you’ll suddenly find yourself alone apart from four squillion birds, winding down from their day and chattering over a postprandial brandy or whatever it is birds wind down with. A buttercup filled with dew? A half acorn filled with honey? It’s more likely they’re sipping rainwater from the crumpled edge of a Coors Light can, but whatever it is, it’s rocking their world, because they are singing their feathery little butts off. Sometimes, if she were sitting very still, Nina would see a raccoon, or a coyote, or a jackrabbit, all trying not to be seen and freezing when they noticed her, then dissolving away like Homer Simpson sliding back into the hedge.
As the light dwindled, palm trees and distant buildings would become black silhouettes against an impossibly rosy backdrop. Sunsets are beautiful in California, the cornflower blue of the sky diluting as the light fades into a teenage girl’s pastel palette of nail colors. The whole world is familiar with Big Bold Daytime LA, the blinding sun, the girls in shorts and roller skates, the traffic. They know Nighttime Glamorous LA, too, the paparazzi with their shouts and flashes, the starlets with their cleavage and heels. But only Angelenos get to see LA as she’s waking up and going to bed, and like many beautiful women, she looks best with her makeup off.