A few months ago I was in LA. I was staying in Hollywood, which, like all other city districts, has its rich and its poor. The dazed homeless and the potentially famous are blinded by the same white sun. Everyone is in glasses. Everyone is in cars. Witches stand around Sunset Boulevard, eating tacos. Because LA is mostly homeless people and rich people, and witches make up the middle class.
My friend, N, and I had been on a kind of zany trip across America, in which we’d spent nearly every waking hour in each other’s company. Now the trip had ended in West Hollywood, and we were getting ready to head out, have a drink, see a film. We had a few hours to spare. We were chatting, as ever, about the fact that we wanted to hook up, but it just wasn’t happening. I was seeing someone very cool who unfortunately lived far away; N was in the middle of things with a couple of people. Then the conversation turned: