James Frey - Bright Shiny Morning

BRIGHT

SHINY

MORNING

James Frey

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

christopher columbus, 1493

Contents

ii

Nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable.

O n September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four men, women and children who call themselves the Pobladores establish a settlement on land that is near the center of contemporary Los Angeles. They name the settlement El Pueblo de Nuestra Seora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula.

Two-thirds of the settlers are either freed or escaped African slaves, or the direct descendants of freed or escaped African slaves. Most of the rest are Native American. Three are Mexican. One is European.

T hey can see the glow a hundred miles away its night and theyre on an empty desert highway. Theyve been driving for two days. They grew up in a small town in Ohio they have known each other their entire lives, they have always been together in some way, even when they were too young to know what it was or what it meant, they were together. Theyre nineteen now. They left when he came to pick her up for the movies, they went to the movies every Friday night. She liked romantic comedies and he liked action films, sometimes they saw cartoons. They started the weekly outing when they were fourteen.

Screaming, he could hear her screaming as he pulled into the driveway.

He ran into the house her mother was dragging her along the floor by her hair. Clumps of it were missing. There were scratches on her face. There were bruises on her neck. He pulled her away and when her mother tried to stop him he hit her mother, she tried again he hit her mother harder.

Mother stopped trying.

He picked her up and carried her to his truck, a reliable old American pickup with a mattress in the back and a camper shell over the bed. He set her in the passenger seat carefully set her and he covered her with his jacket. She was sobbing bleeding it wasnt the first time it would be the last. He got into the drivers seat, started the engine, pulled out as he pulled out Mother came to the door with a hammer and watched them drive away, didnt move, didnt say a word, just stood in the door holding a hammer, her daughters blood beneath her fingernails, her daughters hair still caught in her clothes and hands.

They lived in a small town in an eastern state it was nowhere anywhere everywhere, a small American town full of alcohol, abuse and religion.

He worked in an auto-body shop and she worked as a clerk at a gas station and they were going to get married and buy a house and try to be better people than their parents. They had dreams but they called them dreams because they were unrelated to reality, they were a distant unknown, an impossibility, they would never come true.

He went back to his parents house they were in a bar down the street.

He locked the doors of the truck and kissed her and told her she would be fine and he walked into the house. He went to the bathroom and got aspirin and Band-Aids, he went into his room and pulled a video game

case from out of the drawer. The case held every cent he had $2,100 he had saved for their wedding. He took it out and put it in his pocket he grabbed some clothes and he walked out. He got in the truck she had stopped crying. She looked at him and she spoke.

What are we doing?

Were leaving.

Where we going?

California.

We cant just up and go to California.

Yes, we can.

We cant just walk away from our lives.

We dont have lives here. Were just stuck. Well end up like everyone else, drunk and mean and miserable.

Whatll we do?

Figure it out.

Were just gonna leave and go to California and figure it out?

Yeah, thats what were gonna do.

She laughed, wiped away her tears.

This is crazy.

Stayings crazy. Leavings smart. I dont want to waste our life.

Our?

Yeah.

She smiled.

He pulled out turned west and started driving towards the glow it was thousands of miles away, he started driving towards the glow.

D rawn by plentiful water, and the security of an established community, El Pueblo de Nuestra Seora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula grew quickly, and by 1795, it was the largest settlement in Spanish California.

O ld Man Joes hair turned white when he was twenty-nine. He was drunk, it was raining, he was standing on the beach screaming at the sky, which was eternal, black and silent. Something, or someone, hit him in the back of the head. He woke just before dawn and he had aged forty years. His skin was thick and dry and it sagged. His joints ached and he couldnt make fists with his hands, it hurt to stand. His eyes were deep and hollow and his hair and his beard were white, they had been black when he was screaming and now they were white. He aged forty years in four hours. Forty years.

Joe lives in a bathroom. The bathroom is in an alley at the back of a taco stand on the boardwalk in Venice. The owner of the taco stand lets Joe stay there because he feels sorry for him. As long as Joe keeps the bathroom clean, and lets customers of the taco stand use it during the day, he is allowed to use it at night. He sleeps on the floor next to the toilet. He has a handheld television that hangs from the doorknob. He has a bag of clothes he uses for a pillow and a sleeping bag that he hides behind a dumpster during the day. He washes himself in the sink and he drinks from the sink. He eats leftovers that he finds in the trash.

Joe wakes every morning just before dawn. He walks down to the beach and he lies down in the sand and he waits for an answer. He watches the sun rise, watches the sky turn gray, silver, white, he watches the sky turn pink and yellow, he watches the sky turn blue, the sky is almost always blue in Los Angeles. He watches the day arrive. Another day. He waits for an answer.

I n 1797, Father Fermin Lasun establishes the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espaa on the northern desert edge of the San Fernando Valley.

T raffic starts in San Bernardino, an agriculture and trucking city in the desert just beyond the eastern edge of Los Angeles County. Theyre on a sixteen-lane highway, the sun is up, theyre both tired and excited and scared. Shes drinking coffee and staring at a map she speaks.

Where we gonna go?

Anything look particularly good?

This place is huge. Theres too much to even look at.

Los Angeles County is the most heavily populated county in America.

How do you know?

I know shit, woman, I paid attention in school. You should know that by now.

School, my ass. You saw it on Jeopardy!

Maybe.

Maybe nothing. You did.

Who cares. All that matters is I know shit. Im Mr. Know-Shit.

She laughs.

Okay, Mr. Know-Shit, if you know so much, tell me where were going?

West.

She laughs again.

No shit.

Were going west and when we get where were supposed to be, well know it.

Were just gonna stop?

Yeah.

And see what happens?

Yeah.

And well know it when we know it.

Thats how life works. You know it when you know it.

Theyre nineteen and in love. Alone except for each other. Jobless and homeless, looking for something, somewhere, anywhere here.

Theyre on a sixteen-lane highway.

Driving west.

I n 1821, the Treaty of Crdoba establishes Mexicos independence from Spain. Mexico assumes control of California.

P utt Putt Bonanza. It sounds good, doesnt it. Putt Putt Bonanza. Just rolls off the tongue. Putt Putt Bonanza. Looks great on a sign, great in an ad. Putt Putt Bonanza, Putt Putt Bonanza.