Getting There is All the Fun

On a sweltering day in what I was told was an unusually hot April, I departed my rooms and, in order to immerse myself in this place and better understand its ways and secrets, set forth for an area of great interest to visitors; Hollywood. Hollywood is but one small township in the great city of Los Angeles, but to many it embodies all of the city and, for some, the entire state of California. In being a popular destination for travellers, I reasoned that I should find some small amount of criminal activity to pique my interest.

You’ll recall, Watson, that I had only just previously become enamoured of riding in the taxicabs about town, but in availing myself of their usefulness too often, I soon found myself pinched for capital; this despite the modest though mysterious allowance I find myself in receipt of each week, whose mystery I’ve not yet begun to detail for you. In any case and to make industrious use of the moneys provided me by my yet unknown benefactor, I resolved to find another, more affordable, mode of transportation.

I directed my step to the nearest thoroughfare, walking past no more than two intersecting avenues before I came to a sight that made me feel as though I’d stepped back into London with you, my friend. Before me were people looking vaguely down the street at nothing in particular, glancing at their watches, consulting small timetables and occupying themselves with reading or hobby. Why, here were modern gentlemen and ladies awaiting the next train!

I waited among them a long, hot while until a large, ark-like automobile arrived and ingested all of the awaiting passengers for a low fare; exactly what I hoped to find! Once inside, however, I found even more than I had hoped for. As the train car was not partitioned into the seating compartments to which I am accustomed, but rather was one large seating area. Here I had stumbled upon the very sort of throng of people I had wished to observe all along, complete with nefarious and criminal activity. At a glance, it seemed to me that there were on this bus, as the vessels are called, people of all walks of life.

I noted several young men who I perceived had recently lost several stone, judging by the size and extreme slack of their denim trousers.

There was a man touched by senility talking in what struck me to be a very much even and two-sided conversation. Also, he spoke quite loudly, and the underlying loss of hearing was clearly borne out by the conspicuous electronic ear horn he wore.

As for crime, it appeared that Los Angeles is the victim of child theft or slavery, as there were at least two women transporting children of quite fair complexion, whereas their own skin was quite brown, along with prams and playthings.

Such a teeming Petri dish of humanity did I find the bus to be that I altogether abandoned my intended destination that I might sharpen my deductive processes observing these passengers at my leisure. And so I did all day until the conductor informed me that, despite my assertion of the fact that our daylong course had clearly been circular in nature, that we had reached the end of the line. Undetected, I slyly pocketed a map of routes for the network of buses that I might spend the evening preparing for the next day’s travels.