Seeing Red on the Red Line

The relatives were coming in from out of town and someone had the bright idea, “Let’s take them to Hollywood on the subway!” What had looked three weeks ago like a beautiful no-brainer suddenly began to show its flaws in the harsh light of reality when, as we headed into the Vermont and Wilshire station to buy our tickets, the first words out of my three-year-old daughter’s mouth were, “Eeew, it smells stinky!” Just a little local color (odor?), I tried to reassure myself, as I then proceeded to try to demonstrate for my relatives how to purchase a $3 Metro Day Pass. I put in my $20 bill, pressed the Day Pass key, and immediately it sounded as if I had just won the jackpot—clank clank clank clank clank! Along with my ticket, I now had 17 Susan B. Anthony dollars to stuff into my pockets. We managed to successfully get everyone else a ticket (sans any more Susan B. Anthony’s and Sacagawea’s) and then we descended into the labyrinthian bowels of L.A.’s subway system.

It was approximately 5:00pm on a Sunday and the place was fairly desolate. There were probably 15 other people waiting for the next train below. My parents, who are in their 60s, remarked that they found it both odd and unsettling that there were absolutely no attendants or law enforcement to be seen anywhere underground. In short, they didn’t feel like it was safe, and as much as my urban braggadocio wanted to preach otherwise, I’d have to say I agreed with them. It hadn’t been two months since some deranged transient had poured a few ounces of Mercury out onto the platform of a downtown L.A. subway station, after which he proceeded to call the Metropolitan Transportation Authority emergency call-box to inform them of what he had just done. A full eight hours later, MTA officials finally got around to responding. While Mercury is certainly a toxic and dangerous substance, the frightening implication was to imagine what would have happened if the substance had actually been Polonium-210, the same substance recently used by former KGB secret agents to poison and kill former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko with only a couple of drops in his tea in a London café. How many people would have died in Los Angeles if a few ounces rather than a few drops of Polonium-210 had been allowed eight hours to have been trafficked off of the subway platform and onto trains, off of trains and onto busses, off of busses and into schools, etc., etc., etc.? What is starkly apparent to a first-time out-of-towner but callously forgotten by the officials and regular users of L.A.’s subway lines is the abject vulnerability of being in an isolated municipal space where there is no one to look to for help or protection. And this shortcoming can manifest itself in both big and small ways.

So there we were, finally. As I tried to put ideas of terrorist attacks out of my mind, I turned my attention and concern to the color-coded subway maps, which have gotten surprisingly complicated. There is now the Blue Line and the Red Line and the Green Line and the Purple Line and the Gold Line and the Orange Line…we wanted the Red Line and we managed to find our outpost down below. Our train came, we boarded, and sure enough, about 10-15 minutes later, we made it to the Hollywood and Highland station. As we exited out onto the streets in front of the Kodak Theater, I began to think, “Hey, this might work out after all.” I did the out-of-towner Hollywood tour. We visited the Grauman’s Chinese Theater to put our feet into the footprints of stars bygone now fossilized in cement. We took a photo up at the pinnacle of the Hollywood and Highland Mall, with a great view of the Hollywood sign looming over our shoulders in the background. We walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard glancing at the different stars on the ground (along with probably the greatest amount per square mile of tattoo and/or fetish clothing stores you’ve ever seen—nope, my relatives certainly weren’t in Kansas anymore!). After a couple of hours of this it was about 7:30pm and we headed back down into the subway to make our 15-minute trek back to Vermont and Wilshire. We’d be home by 8:00pm I figured, we’d get the kids to bed on time, the relatives would be sent on their way with their L.A. experience, and it would be all good. Alas, the “L.A. experience” would be the only one out of these four that would come true, and it wasn’t the experience I had envisioned.

Upon boarding the subway in Hollywood a voice announced over the loudspeaker that our train would only go as far as Vermont and Santa Monica because “there is some sort of police activity or something at Vermont and Beverly or Vermont and Wilshire.” There was no further information given. I did a double-take and my relatives looked to me for reassurance. Did I actually hear what I think I just heard? We had no idea what we were going to do once we got off, as Vermont and Santa Monica was still a few miles from our initial starting point, and most importantly, our car. I also couldn’t help but notice that the announcement was made only in English, and that there were plenty of non-English speakers (including tourists) who had even less of an idea of what was going on than I.

And so as we pulled into the station at Vermont and Santa Monica, everyone on the train had to get off. There was no one to go to in order to ask questions or get help. At that point, we also noticed a good portion of the crowd making a mad rush up the stairs to catch what, we supposed, were maybe busses or shuttles waiting for us outside. Needless to say, we were not the first ones up the stairs and all we caught was a glimpse of one very packed bus pulling away, leaving behind us and about 100 other people. So there we were, stranded, with my elderly parents, my wife, my brother, and two young children, on the corner of Vermont and Santa Monica, with no idea what to do next.

We decided the logical thing to do would be to wait for the next bus. We weren’t sure but we figured Vermont was a main thoroughfare, and any bus coming down that street would probably continue on to Wilshire. We also weren’t sure whether the Metro Day Passes we purchased for the Red Line would be accepted on a bus—again, there was no one around to give assistance or any information whatsoever. So we waited. Eventually another bus came headed our way but it didn’t even stop, as it was packed full of people already. We waited some more. Directly behind us, taking up the seats of the bus stop, was a cadre of drunk, homeless people ranting on about how Cassius Clay beat Oscar De La Hoya in a boxing match, repeatedly calling out something along the lines of “blah blah blah white mother fu----,” and when one of them mentioned something about “Oh man, I sh—my pants!” we decided that it was time to pack up the kids and move to a different location.

We proceeded to have a family huddle where we discussed our options. It was now about 8:00pm. One option was for the family to go sit inside El Pollo Loco while I would try to run from Vermont and Santa Monica all the way to Vermont and Wilshire to get the car, and then drive back to pick up the family. I figured it was maybe 2-3 miles, and at a 15-minute mile pace, I’d reach the car by about 8:45pm, and then I’d get back to El Pollo Loco by 9:00pm. That plan wasn’t met with much enthusiasm because no one wanted to split up, it looked like it was going to rain, it would be very taxing physically, and it just didn’t seem like a safe idea. We thought about calling a taxi but we didn’t know where to find a number and we only had about $25 cash on us (most of which was in dollar coins), which we weren’t sure would be enough (or even accepted as “real” money by a cab driver). At some point we decided to take our family huddle back underground, which actually now seemed safer than out on Vermont Avenue. As we walked down the long escalator (it was broken), we noticed that there was a large group of what appeared to be Asian tourists looking very lost, along with an assorted group of other folks (not one of whom seemed to know what was going on). Lo and behold, not long after we made it to the bottom of the escalator, a train pulled in that said “Union Station” on it. It was pretty full already and no one got off so we figured the “police activity or something” must have ended. We piled on with everyone else who was in the station, including the Asian tourists. It was standing room only. One Asian woman was asking me in halting English about “7th Street.” I tried to point to “7th Street Metro Station” on the map in the train but as we continued to try to communicate, I realized that maybe she actually was saying something about a hotel near “7th Street and Lucas,” which I realized was probably closer to the Westlake/MacArthur Park subway station. I successfully communicated to her to get off at that station, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I was sending a dozen Asian tourists on a misguided, mistranslated journey into MacArthur Park miles away from where they were supposed to be. But our stop—Vermont and Wilshire—arrived before I was able to do any more help, or damage. My family got off and the tourists pulled away and I thought about how ill equipped of a subway attendant I was and how sad it was that I was the best “help” the City of Los Angeles could provide to those folks as part of their Red Line experience.

As we exited the subway station, it was now raining and I was so happy I was not jogging down Vermont at that point probably only 1/6 of the way to my destination. We drove home determined that we’d stick to our car for transportation in L.A. from here on out.