It was Tyler’s first glimpse of Old City during the day, all manner of vintage cars, from Model Ts to 1960s sport coupes, wedged between lumbering trolley cars, wires humming overhead and holes on either side of the road dug deep for piping work. It was a cacophony of horns and shouts, the noise growing in volume the further down Figueroa they walked. The buildings were imposing and stately, just like the ones on Broadway. And people kept to themselves, silent shadows in hats hurriedly pounding the pavement north and south.
Traffic remained at a standstill until homes began to appear, dispersing as vehicles turned down side streets, leaving only the red trolley cars on the tracks.
“Aren’t we going south?” he asked Mad Dog.
“You noticed?” answered Mad Dog as if it made no difference where they were going.
Buildings Tyler had never seen before towered overhead. It wasn’t quite the Los Angeles he’d come to know.
Mad Dog turned onto Venice, following the tram tracks. The red color reminded him that these were the famed but cumbersome Red Cars that couldn’t met the demands of a city on the move..
“Why not take the tram?” asked Tyler.
“Don’t you know nothin’?” asked Mad Dog, turning with a contemptuous snort. “They only go a few miles and gotta come back because no one goes to New City. It’s now off limits to those who were fool enough not to leave Old City when they had the chance. Fools like me.”
“I didn’t know.”
“And now you do, so if you quit your yammerin’, we got a ways to go.”
“Maybe we can take it a few miles any way.”
“There’s a better way, though … I think we’ve gone too far.”
To Tyler’s consternation, Mad Dog appeared lost. As if remembering something, Mad Dog hotfooted it west on Venice.
“What are we looking for?” asked Tyler.
“No, that’s not right,” mused Mad Dog, pausing to ponder his next move. He turned to Tyler, leveling his fingers toward Figueroa.
“What do you see?” he asked, his gaze distant.
“Old buildings. Cars. Some people.”
“Hmmn,” noted Mad Dog.
“What year is it today?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Mad Dog pulled something out from under his shirt. It was a black quartz crystal slung from his neck. He held it up to the sun. Surprisingly, sunlight dimmed. A curious coincidence, thought Tyler.
“When all time is one,” chanted Mad Dog. “No single moment can claim us.”
Pulling the crystal from his neck, he handed it to Tyler. “This’ll help you see better. Cover the sun and look into the distance as far as you can.”
Tyler held up the crystal until he no longer saw the sun. Shadow fell across the road. Looking to the distance, Tyler could see the same buildings; and then it was as if he could see through the buildings to what lay beyond.
“That was weird,” mused Tyler.
“Do it again,” barked Mad Dog, living up to his name.
Tyler held up the crystal until the street fell into shadow. The distant buildings also fell into shadow, appearing to vanish from view, along with the buildings beyond, until all he could see were treeless hills dotted with chaparral and clusters of wild flowers.
Turning to return the crystal, Tyler noticed that all the buildings had vanished, leaving a broad expanse of grass and dirt.
“I don’t know what I’m seeing,” he mused, gazing out to the mountains which no longer featured a sign that read “Lotusland.” To the west, he could almost make out the ocean in the distance, directly southwest.
“Let’s just say we peeled back some of the layers. Didn’t need them.”
Mad Dog took a deep breath, all urgency set aside, if at least for the moment.
“How?”
Mad Dog grinned and chuckled. “It’s always been here, only it’s easy to lie to ourselves that we can’t see it. But that’s how it is here. Nothing ever disappears. Not ever.”
“I thought people disappeared?”
“Well, people fade away some, but they never disappear. You might say some folk live in one moment. Others live in many. The ones that live only in one time can feel more transparent.”
“Well, they’re all gone. I don’t see anyone.”
“Except for people who don’t belong like you and the girl you want. Go ahead and look. You see her?”
Tyler gazed westward, but he couldn’t see beyond the distant hills. He figured they had only to walk long enough to find Laurel and bring her home.
Buildings once again appeared, like a veil over an empty room.
“’Course, it doesn’t last long if you get distracted,” muttered Mad Dog as he once again held the quartz to the sky. “You gotta clear your head.”
Tyler noticed phantom traffic, old trolleys and more modern buses overlapping one another, heading east and west. He didn’t know what he was seeing, buildings appearing and vanishing, people seemingly walking through one another.
Once again, the pavement turned to dirt, weeds dotted with dandelions, only a handful of houses in the distance and a cluster of brick buildings that must have been downtown. There was no city hall.
“Not clear enough, but that’ll do,” said Mad Dog, his voice trailing off. Tyler turned to find Mad Dog striking a path west.
“It’s not up to me,” said Tyler, trying to keep pace with Mad Dog’s long strides.
“Of course it isn’t,” said Mad Dog, spinning around. “What you think I’m doing here with you? You think I don’t got better things to do?” A lingering scowl dissolved into a toothy grin and Mad Dog burst into laughter.
Mad Dog continued west, Tyler close behind. As the direction shifted slightly north, Tyler saw homes appear, trees sprouting overhead.
“Forget what you know,” said Mad Dog, turning around. “Get all that shit outta your head.”
“How is this possible?”
“Hell if I know. It’s got something to do with … um … does it matter? It works when you stop thinking about what you see and when you get your eyes out of the light to see what’s in the dark. But you’d have to ask Jack the Engineer how it actually works. He’s into all that cosmic shit about truth being what you see and time an illusion but we don’t got time for that. As long as it works, we’re good.”
Mad Dog pushed on. Tyler turned, remembering the Los Angeles he’d come to know. There should have been a freeway just to the south. But this wasn’t Los Angeles. It was a place that could be many things at once and perhaps nothing at all.
“What you do that for?” murmured Mad Dog.
Tyler followed his gaze to what appeared to be a freeway overpass a few hundred yards behind them, mid 20th century Buicks, Chevrolets and Oldsmobiles moving in a steady stream.
“I didn’t do that,” insisted Tyler. The cars were too old for the freeway to have been a memory of his.
Buildings and telephone wires stretched the length of Venice, as all the side streets returned, the cars of a more mid-20th century vintage replacing the older models and pedestrians no longer wearing hats or dress clothes.
“You’re messin’ me up,” said Mad Dog.
“This is more familiar to me,” observed Tyler.
“And me too, but I know enough about this layer to know there’s still no walking from old town to new and they sure as hell ain’t letting me walk these streets ‘cause they’re neighborhoods for folks like me, though the Black Knights are fixin’ to change all that so we can one day go where we please. And we’re the only ones who got the Blue Knights runnin’ scared. But this won’t do you no good. You gotta look to when there were no Blue Knights and no people even. Sometimes it’s better that way.”
Tyler was beginning to like Mad Dog. He was a curiosity who made as little sense as anyone in Old City, but he seemed more reliably human, and perhaps troubled even, something weighing heavy on his mind despite the unexpected peals of laughter.
“It’s how you slip through so they don’t see you,” explained Mad Dog. “Got it? So get this shit outta your head and I’ll get it outta mine. At least until we get a few miles west of here.”
Tyler cleared his thoughts, houses once again reduced to dirt and patches of grass and weeds.
“This can’t be possible, changing reality.”
“You’re not changing nothing,” answered Mad Dog impatiently. “You’re thinkin’ different. That’s why your grandmother trusts me. She knows I can see things, just like she can; though she doesn’t need one of these.”
Mad Dog held the quartz stone aloft.
“And don’t tell her I need it. She thinks it’s all in here,” he added, tapping the side of his skull.
Mad Dog pushed on, Tyler at his side.
“How did my grandmother find you?” asked Tyler.
“I found her. I saw her with this.” Mad Dog, lifted his necklace with the quartz pendant.
“You can see people who don’t belong here?”
“Yeah. I saw you a few days ago, down in the Nickle. I told your grandmother about you before I knew you were kin, and she said she was expecting you. So there you go. Now can we walk in peace. It’s easier to keep the mind clear.”
Tyler could almost see buildings flank his view on either side, but he emptied his thoughts as best he could. He couldn’t help but figure the odds of finding Laurel, and maybe even his father, were sizably increased.
Mad Dog was already some fifty yards ahead when Tyler turned. He sprinted to catch up.
Yet it wasn’t just a visual trick. Tyler could feel the tall grass and weeds against his pant legs.
“The layers feel real,” observed Tyler, stooping to pluck a yellow daisy from the ground to smell it. There was no human habitation to be seen now, just nature in all its erratic beauty.
“If it happened, it’s real and always will be,” answered Mad Dog, his pace unrelenting. “You can’t change the past.”
“Who needs a time machine,” noted Tyler, once again running to catch up.
“And we keep walking like this?”
“And follow the street. You don’t want to change layers forward in time only to find you’re standing in the middle of a wall.”
Tyler realized the dangers inherent in time shifting, or whatever it was called. He didn’t want to think about anything else lest a time shift puts him directly in front of a speeding car.
“Is this safe?” asked Tyler.
“Hell no. But you got a better plan?”
After half an hour of Mad Dog’s tireless pace, Tyler caught up to find Mad Dog out of breath, a hand to his chest.
“We can slow down,” advised Tyler.
“Mad Dog don’t go slow.”
“Why Mad Dog?” asked Tyler.
“’Cause that’s my name, fool.”
“Not your real name, surely.”
“I got the name I want,” he answered, his breathing growing steady. “And for once people leave me alone.”
“What did your mother call you?”
“Little shit was one of them.”
“Sorry,” replied Tyler, realizing he’d touched on a sore subject.
“They used to call me Hugo. Hugo Pickens. But they didn’t know me then. Now they know what I can do and that you don’t mess with Mad Dog. And it’s my Indian name ‘cause I’m a quarter American Indian on my mother’s side. But it’s none of your business who I am so I’ll leave it at that.”
Mad Dog pressed on, his pace once again unremitting, the landscape changing little as they continued west.
After another fifteen minutes, Mad Dog once again paused to catch his breath.
“It’s ok,” said Tyler. “Not accustomed to long walks. I’m exhausted too.”
“Who said I was exhausted? Just thinking. We should be close. Keep your head clear. I’m gotta think about where we are.”
Tyler did as he was told, thinking of nothing as brick buildings appeared far ahead.
Hearing car horns, he turned. A Red Car was closing in on him at twenty feet. He hurried out of the way, car horns blaring and cars swerving to avoid him as he sprinted to safety. Brakes screeched as a 1946 Ford convertible stopped just inches before Mad Dog. Scowling at the driver, he turned and walked to the sidewalk.
The distant buildings reminded Tyler of downtown Culver City.
“Lotusland,” observed Mad Dog with a smile. “Well, you’re here.”
“Lotusland?”
“Where they dream up the future; which makes sense considering they don’t call it New City here but Future City; and anything old gets scrapped. But they pretend the old stuff is still there.”
As they approached, Tyler realized that many of the buildings were mere facades, including the Culver Hotel. Everything appeared to be fake, no inhabitants anywhere, just cars racing to get somewhere else.
“There’s nothing here,” noted Tyler.
“You take the motor way up to Future City and you’re there.”
“But Murdoch’s house. That’s where I need to go.”
“Ask around. I didn’t get paid to find no one.”
“But you have the quartz stone. We can find her by peeling back the layers, right?”
Mad Dog removed the stone from around his neck and held it aloft until a shadow fell across the fake buildings.
The shrubbery returned, as did the wild grass. The layer still featured a few isolated adobe homesteads, the paved road now a dirt one.
Tyler couldn’t see anyone further than a couple of hundred feet, not with the rise in the land impeding his view. The odd oak tree didn’t help either.
“I can’t see her.”
“Then you gotta ask someone, replied Mad Dog, dropping the stone under his shirt. “Best o’ luck.”
“I need your help,” said Tyler, trying not to sound desperate, but there was nothing about this place that was familiar. He didn’t know how to go about finding anyone.
“Really,” answered Mad Dog, unimpressed. “It’s already taken too long and time is money.”
“I’m sure we can pay you.”
“You sure?” asked Mad Dog, still skeptical.
“I have money that’s worth a lot more than what you get here. You want a thousand. I can get you a thousand.
“It’s worth that to you?” asked Mad Dog, a smile revealing his teeth.
“You’re Mad Dog. No one messes with you, right?”
“Yeah,” answered Mad Dog, offering Tyler a scowl intimidating enough to match his name, but exaggerated enough to be more amusing than chilling.
“Do they know that here?”
“They should.”
“You’re right. They should. No one can make you do what you don’t want to do. But isn’t it time you showed them you do what you want and go where you please. Or are the Blue Knights out here too?”
“I’m not afraid of no Blue Knights.”
“We can follow this road to Future City ‘cause no one tells you what you can’t do.”
“You’re right,” said mad Dog with a decisive nod of the head. “I go where I please. But if you think you can trick me into holding your hand to Future City, you’re high on somethin’. Only reason I’ll do it is ‘cause you got no idea what you got yourself into and ‘cause the fog is rollin’ in again, but I’m only goin’ as far as Future City, got it?”
Mad Dog was right about the fog, propped up storefronts now obscured as the sunlight dimmed.
“Thank you,” said Tyler, relieved.
But it wasn’t Mad Dog Tyler needed so much as the quartz stone that could light his mind and find all that he’d lost; and with life built in layers, how was one to find anything without access to all of them.
