All Images: Max Mertens
It was 1:30 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon and we were lost in Compton. The day had started off so promising―my friend and I had awoke from a great sleep in the house we found using a couch surfing website, California sunshine streaming through the lemon trees in the backyard. Our plan was to rent a car in Los Angeles and drive to Indio, California, where we would attend the Coachella Music Festival. It was about a two and a half hour drive due east according to Google Maps and our hostesses―what could possibly go wrong?
Plenty, it turned out. Our first task of renting a car proved to be easy enough, as there happened to be an Enterprise dealership around the corner. While my friend and I had joked that our preferred vehicle to make this desert pilgrimage in would be something like Raoul Duke’s rented “The Great Red Shark” convertible in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, we settled for a more fuel-efficient, practical grey Corolla, that we christened “Hester.” After signing some papers, downing some shitty instant coffee, setting up our loaner GPS, and finding a radio station playing “She Sells Sanctuary,” we were off.
Everybody in Los Angeles drives. While the city has a transit system of buses and subways, much like Toronto, it is limited, unreliable, and simply not a primary concern for most officials and politicians. A sprawling collection of neighbourhoods, some with names recognizable from television series and movies (Beverly Hills, North Hollywood, Malibu, etc.), L.A. is connected by a series of exit ramps, freeways, and merging lanes, that can be utterly overwhelming to the first time visitor driving. The traffic wasn’t too bad however, and as we pulled onto the U.S. 101, there was an exchange of high fives as we marvelled at the city’s infrastructure. If you’ve ever seen David Lynch’s Inland Empire (or, more recently, Drive), than you have some idea of what it looked like―concrete aqueducts, endless strip malls, fast food chains (El Pollo Loco! In-N-Out Burger! Jack in the Box!) and freeways coiled as if they could’ve been built from plastic Hot Wheels tracks.
Twenty minutes later we decided that we needed to refuel, so we pulled off the highway and found a gas station. After filling up Hester, we attempted to re-enter the same expressway we had been on, but missed the exit. As I was the co-pilot, I attempted to map an alternate route on our GPS, but became confused by the rapid flow of directions. While I consider myself to be pretty capable of entertaining drivers during long car drives, I would also admit that I’m navigationally-challenged (sorry Toronto tourists!). Then we noticed the street signs and lower income housing that indicated we were in Compton. One glance out the window at the prostitutes walking around in broad daylight and it was clear that this wasn’t a place that we wanted to stop for extended periods of time. We rolled down the windows and sped along until we came to Inglewood and the incredibly gaudy-looking Hollywood Park Casino. After laughing at how lost we were, the two helpful ladies at the front desk printed off a step-by-step map to right our course and we were once again on our way.
Once you get over the fear that at any moment you could be crushed between two tractor-trailers going one hundred miles per hour, driving in southern California is uncomplicated enough. Eventually the urban sprawl disappeared behind us, and we hurtled through the Mojave and Colorado Desert, passing billboards advertising five-star Palm Springs resorts, dusty mountains and windmill farms.
In Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, protagonist Salvatore “Sal” Paradise says, “What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” These words were a more eloquent reflection of my feelings as we watched the sun set on the alien-like Yucca brevifolia forests of the Joshua Tree National Park, alone except for the odd photographer.
Sure, we could have just flown directly to Palm Springs and caught the shuttle bus from a hotel to the festival, but what fun would have that been? As British travel writer Pico Iyer once said, “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves.” By getting lost in Compton and making the drive from L.A. to Indio, we got the chance to experience a little slice of America firsthand. Later that weekend while watching Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, hologram Tupac, and friends, I briefly imagined a conversation between us, in which I recounted the story of getting lost in their old stomping grounds. “Still got love for the streets, repping 213…”
I’d like to think that they would’ve been impressed.
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Max Mertens is a regular contributor to the Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter at @Max_Mertens.
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