SLEEPLESS IN L.A. : After Midnight, City Sights and Sounds and Smells Awaken the Senses

Four-wall fever strikes, arousing a restlessness. After sitting all day, the hunger to move takes hold. Most places stop serving at 11 p.m. There’s always Al’s on one end of town or Ben Frank’s on the other. Tripping through Troy’s for a game of gin or darts is one schmooze possibility--so is chasing down hot, doughy dumplings at that quaintly grungy little Cantonese place in Chinatown, the one that never closes.

Along Beverly, down La Brea, up Vermont and before you get to Beachwood off Franklin, there’s always some funky little culture hang and/or bookstore hawking caffe lattes and cake--ripe for the aspiring screenwriter, venturesome novelist, gritty songwriter or ambience-starved poet. But who wants to sit on overstuffed sofas or high-tech bumhuggers and eat?

Perhaps drive somewhere, park, get out and take in the somber ugliness and dangerous beauty of local night life, the minute hand fiercely ticking toward 2 a.m. West L.A. maybe, Hollywood, Downtown? Doesn’t much matter.

Along Alameda and cruising through Skid Row, the fires burn, small incendiaries that defy ordinance and cold. The movement of denizens is alternately listless or frenetic. Behind glass and steel skyrises, shooting galleries are improvised where hypodermics are brandished in full view of anyone driving the back alleys in search of parking. Someone under duress is getting his/her head broken outside the lobby of a single-occupant residency hotel.

Fear mars the recession-scarred, post-riot terrain. At the mini-mart, all goods and gas are skittishly sold behind bulletproof glass. Nuisance shopping carts appear randomly off a freeway on-ramp or lean haphazardly into a curb. Some are abandoned, awaiting recovery; others are loaded with the scavenged or recyclable finds of some fringe-dweller plowing through nearby trash bins.

Walking along Melrose, a foreboding night owl sits motionless against a lamppost until “it” turns its head to reveal gigantic haunted eyes--dilated portals, hair fallen out under the rages of stress or chemotherapy. Unwashed sleepers snore on bus benches and in doorways.

Over off Fountain, near Ardmore, the observatory, glowing in an aureate nest of lights, blossoms out of a polluted sea of roofs on blighted A-frames and stucco courts.

In front of the Capitol Records building, two rock ‘n’ roll taggers chalk their message across glossy stone. Up off Bronson and down along Hudson toward Seward, the gutters glitter with broken glass from stolen or vandalized vehicles. On the lot of a closed service station, kitschy neon signs are for sale. They’re perched on a coupe, the lone leather-jacketed salesman anxiously on the scope for drive-by cash.

Near where Ports used to be, along Santa Monica Boulevard, there’s the flash of Spandex and lame. Catch-action thickens as torsos and bottoms are revealed to potential consumers. On Franklin, a mutt’s paw prints mark a previous path through once-wet cement--immortalized like a show-biz star.

Along the Strip, Gazzari’s is boarded up, but the view of the southern horizon remains impressive. Bars cover the windows of the tattoo parlor, but the door is open and heavy-metal shreds the ears of passersby. Retooled classic cars glisten in the muted luxury of showroom light. As a band of head-bangers packs it up outside the Roxy, a specter in his 60s begs for change to feed his children, clutching a small shopping bag and a teddy bear. Blocks before Holloway, there’s a new viper’s den for randy funk enthusiasts.

With these sights come smells--as invigorating as the aromas wafting from Thai restaurants or Texas barbecue stops, as nauseating as the smell of skunk road-kill, as revolting as the pungence of urine or the sweetish stench of puke.

Wish upon a star.

Wish away last call. Wish away the eternal wait for closed things to open. Wish L.A. were lit around the clock like New York City or Vegas. Wish it had a political conscience like Chicago or D.C. Wish it had a heart like San Francisco. Or a soul like Atlanta.

Wish on.