I packed up my things and headed downtown on the metro.  Like some underground salmon, I went upstream towards my birthplace.  It's not like some pilgrimage, or anything that profound.  Just a day trip to see the sights, to get out of the house, to enjoy the outside for once.  I've been stuck inside for too long, what with zero deutschmarks in my pockets.  But, I figured that a little day trip wouldn't be too great of an expense, and might yield something that can't be counted in greenbacks.  That's exactly what I got, all for the grand total price of seven bucks.  I took the metro out of the Valley into downtown.  Around here it's just too something.  I'm so used to it that I can't always see the conformity.  Even when it's screaming like a baby in a movie theater.

Everyone on the train has the same look-away face.  Everyone knows not to make eye contact with anyone else.  If you happen to look someone in the eye, by mistake or on purpose, the mishap is punishable by a dirty look.  Strange how people stake a claim to a particular spot, or seat.  There's a marking of territory anywhere we go.

Downtown L.A. is like two cities in a sense.  There's the downtown section, now know as the Historic Core, like it's some rotten apple.  This is the part of town that tourist NEVER shuffle out of buses to see.  This is the grimy part of town full of ants running from one place to another.  There's a definite energy in that part of town.  I walked aimlessly around the streets, and found myself at the Grand Central Market.  In my youth my family would ride the bus from the Valley to Central Market in order to buy the week's groceries.  I never understood why there was sawdust covering the floor.  Maybe it's to hide the dirt, or to make it look like a sawmill.  Most of the grocery stalls have been replaced with pocket restaurants serving tacos, chow mein, juices, anything else you might desire on the go.  You can't walk a foot without having someone bump into you.  It's the chorus of the people, walking to their next stop, not letting anything get in their way.  It's the same market, but certainly changed over the years.  Still busy as ever, but with new sights that I certainly don't remember from my youth.  What I love about it is how I can stand aside, and be a pebble in the stream of people.  The current wants to wash me away in it, and I can stand in one spot for only so long.

Three blocks West of the History Core there's Bunker Hill, formally home to a slew of Victorian mansions.  Now home to the high rises you see on old reruns of L.A. Law.  There is a perfect contrast on a day like Sunday.  The Historic Core is an anthill of activity, while Bunker Hill is like a scene out of some sci-fi movie where everyone is gone except one lone figure, me.  I walked three blocks up Hope street and only spotted one other person.  Another block, close to the MOCA, I finally spotted a couple of other people breezing by.  I walked all around the Music center, and remembered the one time I went inside as a child, and how this was the place where my mother became a citizen.  The thought that this wasn't just some random edifice that I walked by, but that I have some sort of a history there, hit me.  There were only a few people around there, mostly employees drinking from the little coffee bar that stayed open to catch the occasional tourist dollar.

I walked down towards City Hall and found a park where I had never known there was one, sandwiched between two city buildings.  The fountain showered down the reason any of this is here--the sometimes more precious than gold water that flows from the Owens Valley down to this pueblo.  The size of the public works dwarf me, and I thought of how impersonal all this really is.  The park is meant to be a place of repose, but there is hardly a quiet corner to sit a spell.  It is mainly a corridor between civic center and music center, with nature boxed in between its walkways.  It is any wonder that there are only two other people in the park with me.  It is hard not to notice when they are the only other people there.

I doubled back towards where I had emerged from the subway, I rode it farther up the line until I found myself in Pasadena.  There was a girl on the trip with me that I couldn't help but notice.  She sat about five feet from me.  Her skin was this beautiful shade of mahogany.  The shame was that I couldn't turn to see her from where I was pinned down.  I only saw her exit after I stuck my head out of the pillbox, and looked out the window of the train.  Too late to follow her to wherever.  Onward I went on the train until I reached the end of the line.  I exited the train only to walk right back in a few moments later.  I had nowhere to go except back down the line.  From the platform all I could see was the cars racing by on the freeway, and a gray street in the distance.  It was not all inviting, so I thought better of exploring.