The History of Gravity: Chapter 2

2.

The impact of elevated heels against cement sidewalk squares clapped a grated friction. Though her step was pronounced, she walked with me softly, in the bright glowing Los Angeles night. The ancient palms, costing hundreds of thousands, waved themselves in the night sky. We were walking, Sophia and me, back to her apartment.

It happened fast. It seemed almost impulsive. We were talking of things small, foundational and meaningless – casual conversation – which we would later refer to and laugh at, dissecting meaning, nervousness, and our internal experiences, as we rest in bed many years from now. We were talking of things small and she leaned into me, falling forever, and whispered, “I want you to take me home now.” But we still talk of things small, I thought. And I said that to her. She smiled, closed her eyes and took a breath, and said, “Yes, but the feeling is big.”

We walk now, to her home, speaking still of things small, but sharing in a feeling continuously growing – a feeling that was big. Rounding up Hilhurst, a right on Ambrose, more palms, and the continuous click click of her heels. There have been other walks like this. Late night, alcohol stained strolls through Los Angeles. Other women, other times, same nervousness, similar expectations.

“Our names together…” I began to say.

“Philosophia – I know: philosophy.”

“The love of wisdom.”

“Or the wisdom of love.”

Conversation was no longer small, and this walk was no longer the same. She put her hand in mine, and with cautious breathlessness she wrapped her calloused fingertips around mine. We now, walked in silence.

We were bordered by the Griffith Park hills to our left. Dark and empty in their unlit majesty, those hills were the black patches of daylight play space that consumed the summers of my youth. The afternoons were split between the community pool, Griffith Park, and classes at Barnsdale Art Park, where a bigger white kid ounce pinned me down and held an Exacto knife to my throat because I said that I thought his photography sucked. I was white too. We were actually the only white kids in the class, and it now seems ironic that we should be on the floor holding knives to each other’s throats. East Los Angeles, in the 80s, was rough. But perhaps not as rough as the white people like to believe. I am now pinned to the floor in a different way, by a different white person.

“It’s not too much further,” she said as we turned left onto Commonwealth and crossed the street.

“I’m in no rush,” I said. It was true. I was in no rush. I hadn’t been with a woman since Annie left me. It at first seemed natural to morn like this, and then natural became routine, and routine became habit, and I suppose it’s been almost a year now. The thought of being inside of her apartment frightened me. The thought of being inside her was almost paralyzing. But like Del Close said, “follow the fear,” so I chased her lead.

Crossing the street we turned onto Cedarhurst Drive. Cedarhurst accessorized itself with the classic, grooved cement light posts. Relics, artifacts of ancient Hollywood, telling stories of mythical proportion. Los Angeles’ charm, like a woman’s, is found in her details, her complexities, and her secrets. Her light posts tell stories, just like the stars and planets in the night sky, donned with gravity, tell their stories; or perhaps it’s us projecting our stories onto them.

There was a slight upgrade to the street. In the rhythm of the click, click of her perfectly timed steps, she reach out and held my arm. I followed the fear. We swept left and walked up Cedarhurst Circle. In a car Cedarhurst Circle is a one-way street; walking, we were permitted to roam in whatever direction we pleased.

Newton’s theory of gravity: there is a constant universal gravitational pull in relationship to an object’s mass that attracts other objects.

Newton reasoned if a canon were shot from a mountaintop with enough speed it would constantly, perpetually fall towards the earth, but never reach the surface because of the planet’s curve. The canon ball would constantly fall around the earth, like the moon fell around the earth.

I looked up at the moon, bright yellow autumn orb. We stopped. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked. I looked at her, and she, clasping my arm looked at me.

“Yes,” I said, “but unfulfilled.”

“The moon is unfulfilled?”

“Yes. She constantly falls, attracted by the pull and force of the Earth, but because of her velocity, she will never unite with the object of her attraction. She will constantly wander the night sky, dreaming of her projected reunion, never to find it.”

“That’s awfully sad. What will she have to do?” Her eyes felt me.

“Slow down, I suppose.”

“She will, I think.”


I wanted him to kiss me there in the middle of the street in the middle of the night in the middle of Los Angeles. We stood together, in silence, eyes talking. I was telling him my secrets, the dark corners of my soul, and the yearning I felt for him in that moment. My eyes pleaded for the taste of his lips. He didn’t hear their cry, though; he didn’t get the message. Boys never know when to kiss girls.

An airplane has never survived an aquatic crash. And yet, blow-up life vest makers and floating seat manufactures produce and ship thousands a year to airline manufactures each year to install in airplanes. Stewards and stewardesses spent thousands of minutes each year explaining how to remove the floating seat cushions and inflate the little yellow vests. They will never be used though. It’s a psychological tool. These devices help people feel safe. However, an airplane crashing into the sea at 600 miles an hour is torn to shreds instantly.

His arm was my life vest, and soon I will be torn to shreads.

I turned and returned to my velocity. I think we’ll need to slow down even more in the future.

I liked the way he let me guide him, and I liked the way his arm held my hand. There was a potent strength about and a yielding sensitivity, sans the missed invitation, that pleased me: I liked the way he felt and I liked the feelings he produced. When I was at Julliard, I was driven towards perfection and personality. The Cello wasn’t only supposed to sing perfectly, but I was supposed to sing me perfectly. That’s the difference between me, a philharmonic player, and anyone that simply plays an instrument: the instrument sings me.

I began when I was five with the violin. I remember seeing a painting of a woman playing the violin, and there was something about her, an open soft power, that inspired me to play. I began with the violin. I was flawless with the violin, and I still am, but the violin does not sing me. I switched, when I was 14, to the cello. With the first movement of the bow across the cello’s deep strings, before the resin, the dust, settled on her open belly, the cello began singing me, and that was when my life began.

For whatever reason, tonight felt like that, like my life was again beginning. Philos began to sing me.

“Just through here, Philos. I live in the guest house in back.” We walked around the side of the larger house, my landlord’s house, an adult version of my miniature dollhouse.


She stood at the front door, smiling, eyes flashing, almost dancing.

“I want you to come inside, but I am not going to sleep with you tonight. Is that okay?”

“That’s okay.” Following the fear, I stepped inside.