Here I am, standing at the top of a parking garage. I park here all the time. It's convenient. The ticket taker, a small man named Boo, he knows me. I stare out across the rooftops, my pants blowing in the wind. I could fall if I wanted to. It's sad, I think, because I know I won't feel my head cracking open on the concrete. I imagine it would be like a Wonka Gobbstopper splitting open between my teeth - all sorts of chalky colors would crumble out-pinks, oranges, greens, blues. A whole life of TV shows, phone calls, restaurant tip totals and 4 a.m. fantasies would crawl out like ants. The discount shoe-store is down there. From my perch on the seventh floor I can see the tops of people's heads, hats and perms, as they go in to save up to 65 percent.

I am thinking if it's worth it to stick around. Boo, a parking garage attendant, he always seems happy. I asked him one time: Why are you so happy all the time? He said I don't know. I've stood up on this ledge four times this week. Nobody looks up and sees me. As always I'll wimp out and go home and make some chicken and rice and go to bed. Watch Leno. Soak my feet in oatmeal. Eat a pack of gum. There's something very appealing about the next world this week.

Perhaps, in the next world, I won't have gypsies steal my driver's license, forcing me to drive two hours in heavy traffic to the DMV on Hope Street. I hate the DMV. It makes me nervous. People bring their children there. They wail and crawl about my ankles like rats. Whenever I open the door to my apartment I see my hands are dry. The wind chaps them. Even my furry cacti on the balcony have given up. The sun is king here. This is California. Perhaps in the next world the rain falls when it's supposed to.

I need groceries. When you live alone you buy full meals. Chicken in little plastic purses. Eggs and bacon. Frozen ham and gravy. As I drive in my shivering moss green Toyota Tercel, I watch humankind feeding on itself. It is Halloween today and three guys in clown suits walk up and down the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Barrington begging me to buy handlebar mustaches and plastic axes at their Halloween superstore across the street. During the year the Halloween superstore is a Mexican grocery. I wonder what they do with all the jars of pickled pig's feet and cilantro greens? I bought a Pharaoh costume for a party last year. I danced with a woman named Sheila. She was two hundred pounds and was a zookeeper. She said my costume smelled like garlic.

I am almost past the Halloween place when one of the clowns knocks on my car door. It scares me. People should not go into the street at this hour. I could have a gun. He tries to hand me a coupon. I shake my head. He knocks on my car again. Harder. Urgently. His fingernails are long. He tries to thrust the coupon through the crack in my window. NO THANK YOU, I say. I DON'T WANT IT! I can hear him say asshole, under his sweating plastic mask. I shake my head at him - Leave me alone for Christ sakes. It's hot out, even a day before November, so he takes off his mask and walks away when my light turns green. From the sidewalk he flashes a rotted smile and flicks me off.

I'm always driving. That's living in Los Angeles. You live in your front seat. Your knowledge comes from the radio. On the freeway on the way to the DMV earlier today a big-rig was on fire. It took up the left three lanes. A woman wearing her underwear and a striped bumblebee suit, complete with antennae, was weeping. Her daughter, naked except for the torn Twister board that covered her body lay prone on the cement, unconscious. White foam dotted the girl's upper lip. The woman was screaming at the firemen to put out her 2006 Mercedes SUV. The mother poked her daughter with her forefinger and shouted Christie, Christie. There was a pop and just like that, her car exploded. God damn you, I heard her scream at the big-rig driver who sat with the paramedics. You motherfucker! The other drivers lazily turned their necks towards the crash and then turned away. The winds were fanning the fire and the mother dragged her daughter across the asphalt on her Twister board so she wouldn't get burned.

As I drove past the wreck at five miles per hour I could feel the fire through my windows. The man on the radio said that half the state would soon be in flames. Like my cacti, everything was withering, turning to dust. The president was flying out for a special visit. He only comes here when there are disasters. Which is often. In a month there will be mudslides in La Jolla and Calabasas. The president told the radio reporter, cheerfully, that he just had to see it for himself.