The South Bay Era, Part 2: Housing Search
Not
long after the Into the Wild viewing,
I began my search for a sublet for the month of October. In the meantime, I drove around L.A. and
visited some sites that appeared to be of interest. The most interesting thing that happened had
to be when I just kept driving south, heading towards Huntington Beach, and
Long Beach, and after going around the bumpy, fun-to-drive-over landscape of
Palos Verdes and Rancho Palos Verdes, ended up at a Longs Drug Store in San
Pedro, which I knew as the home of the Minutemen, and the setting of one scene
in Chinatown. While I was sort of getting lost—I sort of
wanted to get lost. I had never been
around the area before, it seemed like it would be a cool place to explore, and
I had no concerns about things I needed to do in the morning, or gas I needed
to save, or money I shouldn’t have been spending. It was an evening of total freedom but I
ended up just getting some forgettable items from a drugstore. I also signed up for my own Longs Drugs
discount card, but I lost that not too long afterwards.
I
looked at several places in the L.A. area.
The first was in Manhattan Beach, shown to me by a girl named
Jenny. I should mention that I found
these sublets off of craigslist, and I had about a day’s worth of hesitation
when I realized I would finally have to own up to the fact that I would be
living with strangers I had met online.
However, later I would read Doctor
Faustus by Thomas Mann and witness the protagonist Adrian Leverkuhn using
this very method to secure housing (except in newspapers, not online, and
boarding houses, not private apartments), and was actually proud of my
fearlessness. You get to meet many
interesting people this way, though I would hasten to add that one should
always proceed with caution in these situations. You can learn a lot about a person by the
type of ad they post. I did my best to
avoid anyone that said “no drugs.”
Jenny
was the first person to allow me to visit her abode, and she was offering a
master bedroom in an awesome area of Manhattan Beach at 1125 Manhattan Ave. for
$900 a month. This would have given me
my own private balcony off my room, which left the question of pot smoking
solved. There was a very nice big bed in
the room that was actually going to be moved out by the exiting roommate, but I
felt okay about using my air mattress for a whole month. Their kitchen was on the second floor, right
outside my bedroom, and Jenny was very attractive, and I considered the
prospect of living with two girls particularly awesome. Then, she said, “Okay, this might be really
gay, but I have some questions I want to ask everyone who comes to view it, and
then we’ll make our decision.”
I don’t
remember the questions, but I feel I answered them well enough. Regardless, she did not offer me the
space. Maybe there was a hotter guy
after me, or a girl they felt more comfortable living with, but my search had
to continue, and believe me, it would have ended right there if I had had my
pick.
The
second place I remember seeing was in Santa Monica, at 2535 S. Bundy Dr. This was in a little house with two or three
other people about my age or maybe a couple years older. They all seemed very cool and the space
seemed suitable enough and the price was good for Santa Monica and they had a
nice backyard and I was pretty sure they would have smoked up with me, but they
did not offer me the space after my viewing.
It is possible that my not having a job yet may have had something to do
with these first few not wanting to take a chance on me.
The
third place I found was on a steep hill in Hollywood at 1900 Vine St. in the
den of a well-appointed 1 BR condo. My
roommate would have been Jennifer, who was in her late 30’s or early 40’s to my
estimation, and who was quite attractive , and who could have potentially been
friendly to pot smoke, but one I would not have felt comfortable introducing
the element to. She had a couple of cats
and I asked her if they were friendly, owing to my experience with Desmond and
Eleanor. She told me there was no such
problem and we talked for at least a half hour and she was very friendly and I
thought it would be a great place for me to get started in L.A., but she
informed me a day or so later that she had decided to rent the den to someone
else. On I went.
To my
least likely, most-feared option: living in the living room of a 1 bedroom
apartment in West Hollywood, near the Farmer’s Market at 7961 Blackburn
Ave. This was with Jeff who obviously
had a pretty nice apartment that had way too high a rent and who was asking
somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 or so to live in the living room. To be fair, it was a good-sized living room
and he had a roommate that it had seemed to work out with quite well in that arrangement,
and after actually meeting him and seeing the place, I half-considered it. It was far from ideal, but it was technically
the lowest price, and it was a good location, and it might not be so bad for
only one month, and who knows Jeff and I could end up being very good friends,
but I still had two more places to visit that day.
The
first was in USC territory for a studio apartment to sublet by myself for $865
a month at 37th St. and Vermont Ave.
This was a vaguely sketchy neighborhood but the proximity of many USC
undergrad and grad students in the complex made me feel somewhat at ease. The unit itself left something to be desired,
but it was nice enough (though it would not be as nice as the home I would
eventually make for myself in Silverlake, as poorly-appointed as it may have been).
Finally,
I went to Beverly Hills, to look at a $1000 a month sublet. The highest price I was willing to pay, I
felt it a fair price for one month (I would be paying $1600 if I did four more
of the same weeks at that motel in Redondo Beach), particularly to have the
address of Beverly Hills. I was soon to
find out that not all residences with the address Beverly Hills are necessarily
the most chic locations in all of L.A., but no matter, I had found my place
after entering. Joel, a South African Kosher
Jew, was exceedingly friendly and very motivated to fill the space. His fellow South African Mark would be
occupying the other bedroom, along with whoever else he found to sublet it for
the two or three weeks Mark would be away in Switzerland. Joel himself seemed like a good
roommate—probably in his late 30’s or early 40’s, appearing to be a successful
businessman, liberal, though he did explain something about not keeping any
non-kosher food in the refrigerator. He
wanted to please me with what he offered (which really was not much, a small
bedroom with a twin-sized bed and a little desk and a little armoire wardrobe
thing as a closet, and a shared second floor bathroom), which did have its
advantages (secured underground parking, tandem though it may have been, and an
in-unit washer/dryer) and I told him I thought I would take the place, but that
it would only be for three weeks. I
really should have tried to pay a pro-rated amount—he might have even taken it—but
I was such a sucker and so anxious to have that place (though I know now that I
could have done better for the price—much better) that I didn’t want to hurt my
chances and asked him what he wanted me to do.
He said he would ask for a $300 deposit, which I gladly paid. Then I explained about my trip to New York,
and how I would return from LAX on
Sunday, October 7th, and would require him to expect my arrival late
that afternoon. All was well and good
and we parted ways very happy with our arrangement.
I had
another couple of days at Redondo Beach before I would have to leave, and
passing those days without the stress of knowing I had to find a place
immediately were quite well-enjoyed. I
spent one of them getting my car maintenance performed at the Honda Service
Center in Torrance, CA, where I wrote another long section of my document
“suicide”—which also contained many details about this housing search which I
may insert at a later date still.
No comments:
Post a Comment