Los Angeles energy and diversity
sometimes combined with a sort of
malevolence and I needed an escape
At first I had closed the blinds to the
sea, visitors asked me why, I said it
just served to emphasize I’d gone as
far West as I could go and Alger’s
advice was meant for younger men
and it saddened me. Then I came to
find The Tube. In moments before
sleep, I would enter a pneumatic
tube of copper and glass and it sent
me deep into the earth with a quiet
whooshing sound, and I’d descend
smoothly with a growing sense of
calm, down, down, down until the
elevator came to a slow, non-jolting
stop, and the doors slid open to
reveal a scene: walkways, panorama
of depths and finished walls chipped
out of cavelike structures, softly lit
but well-lit, the light was green but
greenish gold in areas, industrial
machines whirred and performed
generative tasks and men in hard
hats walked about checking things
and took no notice of me. The big
machines, made of one foot pipes
bolted together with flanges were
all industrial green on concrete
pads, with gauges and louvered
sides, and I knew they supplied the
power and light for the complex, a
seemingly endless cave of tranquil
energy, there for me whenever I
needed it for restoration and deep
green sleep to face the L.A. day.
Guinotte Wise writes and welds steel sculpture on a farm in Resume Speed, Kansas. His short story collection (Night Train, Cold Beer) won publication by a university press and enough money to fix the soffits. Five more books since. A 5-time Pushcart nominee, his fiction and poetry have been published in numerous literary journals including Atticus, The MacGuffin, Southern Humanities Review, Rattle and The American Journal of Poetry. His wife has an honest job in the city and drives 100 miles a day to keep it. Some work is at http://www.wisesculpture.com
