The L.A. River Practices Own Trickle-Down Theory

Shall we gather at the river, The beautiful, beautiful river, Gather with the saints at the river That flows by the throne of God. --Ancient hymn

In Long Beach, they go with the flow.

On no other stretch of the alleged Los Angeles River do more people gather to frolic on its shores, test its tepid trickle, slither on its slime.

Saints they may be, appearances to the contrary. Or at least saintlets: For the young, rivers, even fake ones, have an irresistible allure.

The gatherers, then, are kids for the most part, but there are regular people too: joggers, bicyclers, skulkers, sunbathers, fisherpeople, waders, dogwalkers, even the odd muckraker. They gather mainly in Long Beach because the river is actually a river there, shallow but wide, with a discernible flow.

A mere mile or so north of its mouth, it narrows to a stream, then a creek, finally a joke.

For a stretch, though, there is an honest-to-God riparian rhythm to the thing; a feel to it; a smell. . . .

On the morning of the first leg of his trek to the source of the Los Angeles River, the Explorer pauses under the Queensway Bridge, where a division of large red ants outflanks a patrol of armored beetles for possession of a pile of rusty machinery. Ice plants have moved in to take over the stone stairway to the bridge, though halfway up the stairs there is evidence of a higher intelligence: three spent cans of sarsaparilla and a pair of pink shorts, hardly used.

Looking north from atop the deserted and wind-swept bridge, the Explorer discerns little life on its shores. Not much promise to the right: a cluster of slick-sided bank buildings and a man-made harbor for Catalina Cruise boats, doing less business than the beetles.

To the left, the Thomas Bros. street atlas--the modern explorer’s Baedecker--promises “Harbor Scenic Drive.” The “scene” is of a low clump of earth and stone, obscuring the river but affording a pithy panorama of a vast and vacant dirt parking lot.

Hunkered down in this dust bowl is a single RV, pulled up to the water’s edge. There is laughter inside. The Explorer knocks on the RV door. No answer. A sneaky peek through a window discloses a number of large people drinking something from cans. It does not appear to be sarsaparilla.

Farther north, Harbor Scenic Drive passes several dozen little oil rigs in a depression, lower case. Untended, the rigs bob up and down mindlessly like those little toy birds you put on the rim of a water glass. For that matter, like the people in the RV.

At bridge No. 2, where Ocean Boulevard crosses, the breadth of the river is measured. Shore to shore is 180 paces of a regulation-size explorer, 180 paces that lead him to a tidy if deserted park and a chance to further observe the riparian wildlife.

In the park--hemmed by busy roads, with no apparent legal ingress or egress--are a termite hill, eight gopher holes, a broken blue pencil and a wolf. The wolf turns out to be a very big gray dog whose tag identifies him as Bandie.

Good Bandie. Nice Bandie. How do you get out of this fershluginer park, Bandie? No, that’s not a stick, Bandie, that’s a leg. Understandable error. Ouch, Bandie! Sit, Bandie. Don’t feel like sitting? Me neither. Watch the nice man run, Bandie. Good Bandie.

North from busy Shoemaker Bridge. Boulders have been cleared from the river bed to bolster its banks--dikes, really, with streets on the other side a lot lower than the high-water mark. At low water, though, in midsummer, the river is less than a foot deep, two at most. As the slow current gets shallower, weeds, reeds and lush green verbiage encroach on the channel.

Dash for the River

From the west bank, a pair of glistering teen-agers, he in trunks, she in a bikini, make a dash for the river. They splash about, to mid-shin. She slips, full into the stream. He lifts her out of the glop, brushes her off until long after she is clean again, kisses the cheek of his nubile naiad. Shrieking, dripping, giggling, they disappear, up and over the western dike.

Atop the eastern dike is an asphalt bike path. By dusk, the trail will be alive with everything from trikes to racers. At noon, a jogger lilts along, a well-muscled young man, barechested, barefooted. Every 50 yards or so, he stops, runs in place, practices karate chops, sprints off again with the grace of a natural athlete.

From below the dike on the land side, there are not too many entrances to the fenced-off trail. The Explorer, an unnatural athlete, climbs five feet of chain link, rips his pants, karate-chops the fence post, skins his knuckle. Walks up to Anaheim Street Bridge.

Just south of the bridge, a concrete mound stretches shore to shore, a kind of breakwater, or crudcatcher as the case may be. It is mostly submerged, creating a pretty little parody of a waterfall, but there is a dry spot at the very center of the river.

Immobile Sitter

On the dry spot sits a man, immobile in the lotus position, facing the sun, hands outstretched, thumbs and forefingers forming jnana mudra ovals. The man, in his 30s, wears nothing save a mat of black hair on chest, back, shoulders. Great tan.

One would like to speak with him, ask him how he got where is he, and why, but there’s no way out there. The man is inaccessible. Hairy Krishna.

No More Testing

Near two fishermen as immobile as the sun worshiper, the Explorer tests the water temperature, judging it to be about 85 degrees. Later, he will not test the water any more. He will have seen what oozes into the channel and he will be sore afraid.

Up along the river, on the land side of the dike north of Anaheim Street Bridge, runs San Francisco Avenue, part of an industrial zone harboring firms fashioning foams, fertilizers, petroleum products. In a compound which seems to belong to something called the Bureau of Public Service, a sign bears the legend “Chemical and Physical Testing Laboratory.” Huge closed trucks chauffeured by grim-faced drivers rumble up and down the avenue, day and night. “Soylent Green” was just a flick, wasn’t it?

Hard by the river in the shadow of Pacific Coast Highway Bridge is a dingy yellow Budget Motel with a sign reading “Truckers Welcome.” A second sign, above the motel’s restaurant, is a model of economy and purpose: EAT.

The Explorer obeys, eschewing salad, and makes the acquaintance of Stan, a straight-ahead trucker out of Indianapolis.

“A river?” Stan says. “You’re puttin’ me on. I been stayin’ here every month for a year and I never seen no river .”

Blocked From Mind

Up the road a piece, where San Francisco Avenue has segued into pleasant little houses with trim lawns and shade trees, a woman named Martha reflects on the river and finds it wanting, her noncommittal face a study in ennui. “I never think of the river,” she says. “It just cuts me off. I wish it wasn’t there.”

“I don’t think about it either,” concurs Catherine, Martha’s friend. “I used to think about it. I was here 25 years ago when the thing broke and they asked us to move out because of a flood.

“I don’t allow my boys to play down there. It’s dangerous, the mud flats, and it gets so much waste now. Birds don’t seem to mind, though. Big flocks of them come in, where from I don’t know.

“The animals have gone, though. There used to be a lot of--what do you call them, the things with the long snouts? Wart hogs, I think.”

Back on the waterline, the Explorer has decided, finally, to outfit himself with a big stick, one he is to carry all the way to the source. His reasons are manifold. 1--Because explorers always carry sticks. Burton did, and Speke. Stanley hefted a stout staff (and used it, too, the swine). 2--To retrieve stuff. 3--To stir the water with. 4--To jam into the mud. 5--To whack weeds with. 6--Wart hogs. (You never can tell.)

“I never heard of a wart hog,” Glen Dixon says, “but there’s possums. They live in that tree up there.”

Volunteer Guides

Glen, 9, and his pal Wesley Rivera, 11, two of the nicest kids this side of the Waltons, have volunteered as guides, and are pointing out the sights.

“There’s snapping turtles, too,” Wesley says, “and great big lizards. Snakes, too, especially when it’s hot.”

Glen and Wesley lead the way through a secret trail they’ve trampled through seven-foot-high weeds. A mound of debris spang on the current is a treasure trove of stuff:

One No-Trespassing sign; two battered baseballs; a squashed egg crate; a girdle (light green); a car seat (burnt); a lobster pot; a new plastic soupspoon; remains of two rat-like varmints; a 10-foot ladder; an unopened green coconut.

Painted on a big rock in square white letters is the message “I LOVE GOD,” signed T.M.

Natty yellow birds flit through the cattails and light downriver on a clump of sunflowers. Between the river and the dike is an unlikely stretch of fine white sand.

“There’s a bum, too,” Wesley volunteers. “He lives in that cave over there.” The “cave” is an oval indentation high on the dike, an inlet or an outlet, who can tell?

“Yeah,” Glen confirms, “he lives there. He chased us once, when we threw pebbles in. Sometimes water comes out, and dead things. . . .”

“It’s fun to explore by the river,” Wesley says, neatly changing the subject. “There’s all sorts of stuff to do. There’s a kind of weed that we break. . . . Oh, here’s one!”

Wesley snaps off a branch of the weed and holds it out for the Explorer to sniff. “What’s it smell like?”

“Peppermint. It smells like peppermint.”

“Right!” Glen says. “Isn’t that funny? Do you suppose you could brush your teeth with it?”

Banana Split Payoff

For their troubles, the guides are treated to banana splits at a nearby stand.

“This is neat,” Glen says. “Are you coming back tomorrow?”

“Not for the ice cream,” Wesley hastens to add. “You didn’t have to buy us ice cream. It’s just that--well, you’re kind of fun, for an old guy. We could show you some other stuff. There’s lots of stuff down by the river.”

There is, no doubt, but not for long, or far. By the time the river reaches north to Willow Street Bridge it has shrunk, to maybe 15 or 20 feet across. Abruptly, at Willow Street, the scene changes radically.

The rocky embankment gives way to smooth, flat concrete sides. The river bed, too, is smooth and flat, and dry now, with a little square channel carrying the flow.

Antiseptic, utilitarian, no fun at all.

For a last time, the Explorer looks south, at the real Los Angeles River. A heron-like bird, easily four feet tall, stands motionless in the stream, graceful and haughty.

Atop the levee, a dozen cyclists skim full tilt in the twilight.

A mother, father and small son scrabble down the dike, laughing. At a tiny tributary, the father hoists the boy onto his shoulders. The mother lifts her skirt and wades out into the little stream.

From his vantage point on the bridge, the Explorer is midstream on the Jordan.