Enter your email Address

ENTROPY
  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Birds: Rare Birds

      February 22, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Wheel Maker: How My Daughter Learned to See Like a Colonizer in the Classroom

      February 22, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Literacy Narrative: On Air Quoting Artistic Labor

      February 21, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      WOVEN: on spilling open

      February 20, 2019

      Introspection

      A Review of My New Yorker Subscription

      October 10, 2018

      Introspection

      Mausoleum

      July 24, 2018

      Introspection

      On Weather: Creeping Cedar

      July 1, 2018

      Introspection

      Life Writing: A Visit From My Nancy

      June 1, 2018

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      BLACKCACKLE: Clap Hands

      February 22, 2019

      Fiction

      THE GREENING

      February 20, 2019

      Fiction

      BLACKCACKLE: Serious Inquiries Only, Please!

      February 15, 2019

      Fiction

      Mourning Morning

      February 13, 2019

      Fiction

      The Birds: Baby Bird

      February 13, 2019

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Review

      Review: After the Death of Shostakovich Père by Maya Sonenberg

      February 21, 2019

      Review

      Review: Born Again by Ivy Johnson

      February 18, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Meanness Tints the World Inhuman

      February 15, 2019

      Review

      What Mishima Teaches Us About Love

      February 14, 2019

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      MOUTH: EATS COLOR and the Devoration of Languages

      January 12, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Stubborn Mule Press

      February 12, 2019

      Small Press

      Thirty West Publishing House

      January 29, 2019

      Small Press

      Arte Público Press

      January 15, 2019

      Small Press

      FutureCycle Press

      January 3, 2019

      Small Press

      Green Linden Press

      December 17, 2018

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Featured

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 11 (Karma Police)

        November 3, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 11 (Karma Police)

        November 3, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 10 (Pretty Vacant)

        October 27, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 9 (Savoy Truffle)

        October 20, 2018

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

        Video Games

        Silent Hill Shattered Memories: Biography of a Place

        September 3, 2018

        Video Games

        Silent Hill Downpour: Biography of a Place

        August 3, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch

ENTROPY

  • About
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Advertising
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Info on Book Reviews
  • Essays
    • All Introspection
      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Birds: Rare Birds

      February 22, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      The Wheel Maker: How My Daughter Learned to See Like a Colonizer in the Classroom

      February 22, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Literacy Narrative: On Air Quoting Artistic Labor

      February 21, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      WOVEN: on spilling open

      February 20, 2019

      Introspection

      A Review of My New Yorker Subscription

      October 10, 2018

      Introspection

      Mausoleum

      July 24, 2018

      Introspection

      On Weather: Creeping Cedar

      July 1, 2018

      Introspection

      Life Writing: A Visit From My Nancy

      June 1, 2018

  • Fiction
    • Fiction

      BLACKCACKLE: Clap Hands

      February 22, 2019

      Fiction

      THE GREENING

      February 20, 2019

      Fiction

      BLACKCACKLE: Serious Inquiries Only, Please!

      February 15, 2019

      Fiction

      Mourning Morning

      February 13, 2019

      Fiction

      The Birds: Baby Bird

      February 13, 2019

  • Reviews
    • All Collaborative Review Video Review
      Review

      Review: After the Death of Shostakovich Père by Maya Sonenberg

      February 21, 2019

      Review

      Review: Born Again by Ivy Johnson

      February 18, 2019

      Creative Nonfiction / Essay

      Meanness Tints the World Inhuman

      February 15, 2019

      Review

      What Mishima Teaches Us About Love

      February 14, 2019

      Collaborative Review

      A Street Car Named Whatever

      February 22, 2016

      Collaborative Review

      Black Gum: A Conversational Review

      August 7, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      Lords of Waterdeep in Conversation

      February 25, 2015

      Collaborative Review

      MOUTH: EATS COLOR and the Devoration of Languages

      January 12, 2015

      Video Review

      Entropy’s Super Mario Level

      September 15, 2015

      Video Review

      Flash Portraits of Link: Part 7 – In Weakness, Find Strength

      January 2, 2015

      Video Review

      Basal Ganglia by Matthew Revert

      March 31, 2014

      Video Review

      The Desert Places by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss, Illustrated by Matt Kish

      March 21, 2014

  • Small Press
    • Small Press

      Stubborn Mule Press

      February 12, 2019

      Small Press

      Thirty West Publishing House

      January 29, 2019

      Small Press

      Arte Público Press

      January 15, 2019

      Small Press

      FutureCycle Press

      January 3, 2019

      Small Press

      Green Linden Press

      December 17, 2018

  • Where to Submit
  • More
    • Poetry
    • Interviews
    • Games
      • All Board Games Video Games
        Featured

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 11 (Karma Police)

        November 3, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 12 (Once in a Lifetime)

        November 10, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 11 (Karma Police)

        November 3, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 10 (Pretty Vacant)

        October 27, 2018

        Board Games

        Ludic Writing: The Real Leeds Part 9 (Savoy Truffle)

        October 20, 2018

        Video Games

        Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the Spirit of Generosity

        December 31, 2018

        Video Games

        Best of 2018: Video Games

        December 17, 2018

        Video Games

        Silent Hill Shattered Memories: Biography of a Place

        September 3, 2018

        Video Games

        Silent Hill Downpour: Biography of a Place

        August 3, 2018

    • Food
    • Small Press Releases
    • Film
    • Music
    • Paranormal
    • Travel
    • Art
    • Graphic Novels
    • Comics
    • Current Events
    • Astrology
    • Random
  • RESOURCES
  • The Accomplices
    • THE ACCOMPLICES
    • Enclave
    • Trumpwatch
Creative Nonfiction / Essay

Tales From the End of the Bus Line: Boscawen Boy in Boyle Heights

written by Megan and William Broughton August 14, 2015

Tales From the End of the Bus Line is a long-distance collaboration between daughter/father Megan and Bill Broughton to collect the many adventures of Bill’s young adulthood in Van Nuys, California. Installments (and photos that should or shouldn’t see the light of day, if we’re lucky) will be penned by the two of them.


In my third year of college, I took a class dubbed “LA Urbanscapes” which consisted of tooling around various areas of the city with upwards of 20 other people and our instructor, Harry Gamboa Jr. Early on, Harry lectured us on a street corner to always be aware of strangers’ hands in a crowd, and to monitor them. Several weeks later, he instructed each of us to give something, whether a physical gift or a simple “hello,” to 100 strangers on Broadway between 3rd and 9th. He floated us through the USC Medical Center while murmuring ghost stories of human medical experiments gone awry. Later still, we paraded east on Cesar Chavez Blvd for hours, ducking into bodegas and discussing the politics of freeways, and losing factions of the class to taxis along the way. At some point, he herded us across Alameda toward the Japanese American National Museum’s steps, shoved candles in our hands (I’d like to think he had a stash in his Mary Poppins backpack, though it’s more likely he bought out a street vendor in a flurry of action too quick to track), and arranged us in rows to join a televised vigil for the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

One of his unofficial side benefits of the class was to see how many laws he could get us to unwittingly break. There’s probably a section of this city where you aren’t allowed to breathe, so this wasn’t too tricky of a feat. Standing shoulder to shoulder on a Gold Line platform in the middle of the 210 and wordlessly yelling at the San Gabriels is fresh on my mind. There is a fine for that in the triple digits, by the way. Harry orchestrated each minor offense to be poetic.

Shenanigans aside, Harry first and foremost taught us how to walk in this city (this was an unpardonably difficult skill for some people to comprehend), how to adapt to and respect your environment, and most of all how to experience and value it fully.

Dad was very amused to hear about our walks through Boyle Heights in particular.


It was a very pleasant summer evening in 1981 at a restaurant high up on the hill near Universal Studios. At the risk of sounding ancient, none of the Universal City Walk even existed. It was just the Universal City Studios tour and a restaurant that you had to ride a tram up to. For the life of me, I can’t remember the name of that restaurant. You could put a gun to my head this minute, and not even stir the suggestion of name, not even a whisper. All things considered, this thought is hilarious to me now.

I was having dinner with a beautiful mini-skirted girl named Carmen, and thought I was making a good impression, mostly by not being myself. It was actually a double date – my friend Paul had brought his fiancé and we had joined Carmen at the restaurant, since she worked just down the hill. She and Paul’s fiancé were friends and had a party one night that I got dragged along to because Paul wanted me to meet Carmen. He thought we would make a good match and since he was engaged thought everyone else had to be too. Paul was not really the best judge of ladies though. This same woman later married him, then divorced him after a year and let him know she was starting court proceedings by moving everything out of their home while he was at work. Paul went home that afternoon to an apartment so empty it didn’t even have a roll of toilet paper left in it, and a bank account so empty he couldn’t afford to buy one. But all that came later.

That night we ate steak and lobster and bought a bottle of champagne, then spent a few hours working all those calories off on the dance floor. It was a fun time and was over much sooner than I would have liked. We closed the place down at 2 a.m. and walked downhill to the parking lot. Carmen knew I didn’t have a car, owning instead a twin cylinder 750 cc Kawasaki, and I kicked it over and let it warm up while she gave me directions to her mother’s house in East Los Angeles. We got on the 101 south at Barham Boulevard and rode though Hollywood at sixty miles an hour, cruising slowly, the wind in our faces. This was years before you were required to wear a helmet, and I usually didn’t, goggles being the most protection I used. Carmen was snuggled tight against my back, although in retrospect it was probably from the cold, not affection.

All too soon we arrived at a small house in Boyle Heights a few miles east of Downtown. She got off the back of the bike, and laid a hand on the front of my leather jacket. She said she’d like to invite me in, but it was late, and there had been some trouble in the neighborhood with gangs, and maybe it wouldn’t be safe. I thought that maybe the night had been more enjoyable for me than her, and she didn’t want to be blunt and so was giving me a nice brush off. So I was polite in return, absolutely no reason not to be, and thanked her for a wonderful evening and kissed her goodnight. On the way back to the freeway I had to stop for a red light. There were a group of kids across the intersection with a big old mongrel looking dog, and when I say kids, I mean the oldest looked no more than fourteen. He pointed his finger at me and yelled something I couldn’t make out, both because it was in Spanish and also because I was suddenly a lot more focused on the dog, which was hauling ass across the street straight for me. Then just as quickly I refocused on the kid, since I realized he wasn’t pointing a finger but a handgun. I ducked, he got off one shot, and I twisted the throttle all the way back and let go of the clutch, skewing the bike slightly sideways, but blasting though the red light and down the street. The freeway entrance loomed up quickly; by that time I was in third gear and moving about sixty miles an hour, hunched over the handlebars, a hard target to track, much less hit. I held the Kawasaki to a hundred miles an hour all the way north up the 101 until I was back in the San Fernando Valley and didn’t go south of the Cahuenga Pass for a couple of years. Never did see Carmen again, either.

Tales From the End of the Bus Line: Boscawen Boy in Boyle Heights was last modified: January 8th, 2016 by Megan and William Broughton
Tales From the End of the Bus Line
0 comment
0
Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
Megan and William Broughton

William Broughton is an avid lover of motorcycles, classic cars, books, and storytelling. He has worked in every aspect of the printing industry on both coasts and is now devoting more time to generating writings and materials for publication. Tales From the End of the Bus Line is a serial recounting of his early adulthood in Van Nuys, California. Megan Broughton is an artist, arts educator, cellist, and writer. Her writing has appeared in Entropy Magazine, Enclave, and Fanzine. Her current art examines humans' social and biological connections to geology and geography. http://cargocollective.com/meganbroughton

previous post
The Word Kingdom in the Word Kingdom by Noah Eli Gordon
next post
Sans Meds: Possibilites 2

You may also like

The Taking of Souvenir Material: The Virgin River

February 6, 2017

FREEDOM AND NOT FREEDOM IN HUCK FINN AND SYRIA

May 18, 2018

Variations on a Theme: Michel

November 23, 2015

The Birds: Make a Wish and Blow a Kiss

October 25, 2018
Facebook Twitter

Recent Comments

  • adelaidedupont Gurba's memoir of Mean is so spot-on, especially this part:
    Gurba argues that even though someone is mean they don’t deserve to be dehumanized. This is shown by the way her younger,...

    Meanness Tints the World Inhuman ·  February 17, 2019

  • Wizard Jaislin I had a really weird dream. i was taking a walk in terrace when on the moon i saw eye of horus. as i moved the eye moved . the moon was red and i was scared,but i felt like it was trying to tell me...

    GOTHIDEAS: Dream Interpretation ·  February 10, 2019

  • 4859 Heh. Snowed in and started playing shattered memories again. Surprised to see such a recent article on the game. It really was a great game. Still ranks of one of the best uses of videogames as a...

    Silent Hill Shattered Memories: Biography of a Place ·  February 8, 2019

Featured Columns & Series

  • The Birds
  • Sunday Entropy List
  • Dinnerview
  • Variations on a Theme
  • Their Days Are Numbered
  • Disarticulations
  • On Weather
  • Mini-Syllabus
  • Birdwolf
  • Session Report series
  • Literacy Narrative
  • BLACKCACKLE
  • Comics I've Been Geeking Out On
  • WOVEN
  • Small Press Releases
  • The Poetics of Spaces
  • Notes On Motherhood
  • 30 Years of Ghibli
  • Tales From the End of the Bus Line
  • YOU MAKE ME FEEL
  • Ludic Writing
  • Best of 2018
  • The Weird Interview
  • DRAGONS ARE REAL OR THEY ARE DEAD
  • Pop Talks
  • The Concept World is No Longer Operational
  • Splendid Grub
  • LEAKY CULTURE
  • Jem and the Holographic Feminisms
  • Foster Care
  • The Talking Cure
  • D&D with Entropy
  • Stars to Stories

Tweets

  • Toiboi – Tape One Wav - https://t.co/5WojL0wCQb

    23-Feb-2019

    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • Pomagranite – The Treatment - https://t.co/0bQnC6C0Mq

    23-Feb-2019

    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • BLACKCACKLE: Zero Comma Zero Comma Zero - https://t.co/b1Ah4uUlS5

    23-Feb-2019

    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • Remember, we've got your news. Our own #TRUMPWATCH has daily headlines & is updated several times a day. Today, upd… https://t.co/O6kD0vPhnq

    23-Feb-2019

    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • The Birds: Rare Birds - https://t.co/qBpgEna4mU

    22-Feb-2019

    Reply Retweet Favorite

Find Us On Facebook

Entropy
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

©2019 The Accomplices LLC. All Rights Reserved.


Back To Top