It fell on a Monday this year, and our dog Trixie and I headed out at 9 or 10 pm into Hollywood. We drove up La Brea to Sunset & LaBrea, where there is a small mini mall on the west side. Not the mini-mall facing Sunset from the northwest corner, or the one opposite at the northeast corner, the one just further north on La Brea.
This mini-mall is one of those mysteries of Los Angeles, with shops indiscriminately tossed together. On the ground floor there is a large laundromat - empty at 10 pm but for one woman. Next to that, a hole-in-the-wall Middle Eastern place called Sultani where I've stopped a couple times. Next to that, a dingy dive bar out of either the film noir era or the movie Barflies. Next to that, a third-rate-looking liquor store. Next to that, a remarkable Persian ice cream shop.
The Persian ice cream shop, inhabiting this mall for 25 years, is called Mashti Malone's. Supposedly the prior shop there had paid for a large shamrock on the boulevard sign and they couldn't afford to change it, so Iranian "Mashti" became "Mashti Malone" to fit the shamrock neon sign, the shamrock now embellished with middle eastern letters. They have over a dozen flavors of ice creams, including exotic Persian flavors like lavendar and rosewater.
I got my usual - stracciatella, because I know what this means in Italian. I also got two cartons of Bahklava, which will be a cover for when I get home and there would be doubts I have not walked the dog but only driven for ice cream. ("Look, I got bakhlava for everybody and all the guests!")
In the parking lot, which was two-thirds empty, a young black woman wandered around, apparently being the guard to keep non-customers from stealing the spaces. But there were almost no cars coming and going and most of the spaces were empty. Walking past her, I nodded hello. She had a spiral high school style notebook filling top to bottom with handwriting, but what she was writing I have no idea. It would be interesting to know. Maybe she will be there another night. I know the bahklava will be.
As Trixie and I pulled out, Trixie's passenger window was down and she was in Universal Car Position, front paws on the window edge, head out, tongue hanging. At the corner of the lot a middle-aged woman stood by a misshapen bag of possessions and was ranting loudly into the night sky. We waiting for an open stretch and pulled out on La Brea, and turned southbound.
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A 1995 essay by Christopher Hitchens, about Sunset Boulevard, quotes Joan Didion as having remarked, the intersection of Sunset and La Brea (shown here) was "the middle of nowhere."
