99 CENTS STORE

Today I talked to Ricky.

For the first time ever, I enter the 99 Cents Store on Sunset Blvd. Here, you can find everything for less than a dollar. Canned food, tomato soup, chicken noodle, Vienna sausages, pork & beans, incredible Hulk candies, and Halloween costumes. It is the American Dream in a supermarket.

Families, couples, friends are roaming around the store. They are hunting for any object that might be useful to them. The shopping carts are moving to a mellow country song that plays in the background. I am looking at the Halloween costumes when a tiny girl stops next to me. She talks with a lisp: "This is Halloween," she says. "It's not today cause I'm scared." Then she points at a skeleton head. "Look, it has only one eye." And she disappears as fast as she came. 

On my way to the cash register, a teenage girl wearing a purple t-shirt and a lot of eyeliner is seating on a miniature plastic chair. She laughs with her girlfriend. Then she grabs a pack of tortillas. "Green cactus tortilla!" She turns to me: "Have you ever tried that?" I tell her I never did and we share a few words about the strange food around us.

I pay for a pack of cellulose sponge scrubbers, a Virgen de Guadalupe candle, and two Pez candy dispensers. My total is $4.19 - tax included. The place does keep its promises.

At the front door, I meet Ricky. He has a Diet Coke and two dozen eggs in his cart. "The eggs are just for the whites," he says. Ricky is from London and works as a bouncer in a pub. He wears a brown flat-cap on a shaved head and a short leather string with a silver star around his neck. "To do this job, you need to be good at public relations and have communications skills. You should talk kindly and if it's not enough, you just tell them to fuck off," he says laughing. The other night, a group of girls asked him if diner was still being served. "You're awfully a bit late, aren't you?" Ricky told them. But the girls didn't understand. "People don't get it when you speak politely. And they don't understand my accent neither," he says, and he smiles. I ask him what is the meaning of the Hebrew letter tattooed on his neck. "Life and beyond," he says. "I was dating a Jewish girl and she loved me very much. One day she said: You're a man and I want you to have this tattoo." I ask him why they are not together anymore. "She died," he just says. I feel awful, and tell Ricky I'm sorry to have asked. "Don't be. If you don't ask questions, you'll never get any answers." His eyes are full of kindness and pain. 

Then Ricky tells me that he is a super light middleweight boxer. When he boxes, he "hits the bag with all his might", he says. And he makes an imitation of Stallone in Rocky but I mistake it for De Niro in Raging Bull. Ricky's idols are Stallone, The Pope, and Richard Branson. He is a catholic-Jew from Indian, Italian and British origins. When he goes to mass, he finds it so powerful that "it is like being on steroids," he says. He asks me if we can hug. I accept. So we shake hands and kiss each other on the cheeks. "It's a good European hug," I tell him. We both smile and go our separate ways.

CRISTINE

Today I talked to Cristine.

I am looking for a gift for a friend who just moved to a new house out of town. I enter Atmosphere, a store in Los Feliz. It has clothes for men and women, shoes, hats, jewelry and all kind of design objects. There is only one client in the back of the store, so I take my time to hang around and scrutinize every object: the glasses flash-drive, painted sake cups, funky bags, and Stetson straw hats.

Cristine is organizing clothes on the shelves. I ask her the price of a necklace, and she hears my accent. "Last time I went to France I was fifteen. We were going to south of France every summer. I've applied to transfer to France to study international relations - politics," she says. Cristine is 23 years old. She works at the shop every weekend in order "to make a break in her studies," she says. "Studying all the time is hard. After a while your brain is like on auto-pilot, and you don't process anything anymore." Cristine's professional goal is to work in diplomacy or foreign relations. She is looking forward studying in France. "I've got two cousins in Paris. One is a singer. I could maybe stay with them for a while," she adds.

I ask her why she has decided to study abroad. "I feel that, for the last ten years, people are more disconnected. Maybe it's only L.A., but I like the European lifestyle better. It's slower. I love America and I've always lived here, but there're many things I don't like." Cristine is the first person I have met here who does not drive a car. When I ask her why - I am probably the hundred and fortieth today - Cristine seems slightly annoyed. "I don't drive because I love to walk, ride my bike, and take the bus. Not driving comes with a hard price cause when I've got to run an errand, I have to walk to the bus stop and change the bus four times. It takes me the whole day," she says. A beam of orange sunlight enters the shop and lights up Cristine's face. Her freckles sparkle.

While we talk, the store is getting crowded. "Look, you brought all that business!" she says. We suspend our conversation when a stylish tall woman, wearing a jeans skirt and black suede platform boots, drops a large amount of clothes on the counter. Cristine starts folding, checking and packing the clothes. In the shoe section, a woman with bleached hair and dark roots, tries on every pair of shoes she can possibly find around her. A couple of Asian tourists advise each other on the clothes they see and seem to have a hard time figuring out their sizes. 

I come across a funny bronze monkey-shaped bottle opener and a pair of black and golden earrings for my friend. I walk back to the counter. The stylish woman pays for her shopping and grabs her last bag. "Thanks for the hustle, dear!" she says to Cristine, and bursts out.

Cristine and I continue to talk. "I don't want to contribute to the car culture. And I think it's healthier for people and for society to be interacting, walking, moving," she says. We talk about my blog and my approach that is similar to hers in many ways. Cristine says she is happy with the way she lives "because it is simpler. It's hard sometimes to live in a society that values other things that you value though. But I'm content with my life."

I ask Cristine to make gift wraps for the things I chose. We joke about the incredible creativity of certain objects that have to be inspected before you actually figure out what they are made for. "You remind me of my old roommate. Carefree and lighthearted in the way you speak," she says. She asks me where I live. Instantaneously, she draws a mental map of Los Angeles public transportation. "To get here you could take the subway line at Highland &  Hollywood, or you could also take the bus 2". I promise Cristine that one of my future blog-adventures will take place on a bus, a train, or maybe a bike. We split on a cheerful note and I get out of Atmosphere. The sun gently warms me up while I walk slowly to my car, enjoying every step I make.