December 1919 – Los Angeles IV: Seconds

There is nothing more terrifying than a first-time driver.

Except, perhaps, a second-time driver. On a winding road. Over a rocky cliff. Above an ocean, whose waves crash loudly onto the jagged rocks far below like ever-present music signaling doom for an opera's ill-fated hero.

Though Don Giovanni never had a sports car to spirit him into the next life. Nor did he have an aristocrat, utterly secure in a lifetime's knowledge that she can do no wrong, in the driver's seat.

The Lady knows just enough to be dangerous, and for some reason is most insistent on practicing her newly-acquired driving skills on hairpin turns at precipitous heights. She claims it is "exciting." Indeed.

At least this kind of excitement is a welcome change from that of the normal Hollywood melodrama. For beyond that which they create in the form of moving pictures, there is not a lot of culture in Los Angeles – there is no opera, for instance. One enterprising soul founded a new symphony this year, bringing the city's total to two – a vast improvement, considering the site of the concert hall was nothing more than orange groves a few years ago. Sadly we just missed the first performance, but reviews indicate it would have been better had the company's first choice of director accepted the invitation to conduct; most spectators agree that unlike the current director, Rachmaninoff might have expected the orchestra to rehearse for longer than a week before their debut. The second performance, which we did attend, affirmed this impression.

Alas, the symphony's ragtag assembly is no different than the rest of this city, where most performers come straight from the vaudeville stage instead of the conservatoire, and fame graces the most photogenic over the most talented. So, then, it could be said this is a city of runners-up, second-rate performers for second-rate directors in second-rate companies. But perhaps I am just ill-tempered because the Isotta only placed second in the street car division of the Santa Monica Road Race last week.

This may explain my reckless move of acquiring a second vehicle, and the near suicidal compulsion to make a gift of it – only a Publisher truly on the brink of despondency would place the keys to a brand-new burgundy red Bugatti in The Lady's eager and unpredictable grasp, especially when she has driven only once before.

She demanded I teach her to drive all the way back in Newport, on a sunny afternoon and across relatively flat, albeit coastal, roads. The results were so distressing that I have not given her a second chance. Now, on the other side of the country, with even more frightening cliffs calling her name and a shiny new automobile in the driveway, she chooses a rainy day to renew her petition. She reiterates her opinion that all women should learn how to drive; I agree with her wholeheartedly. She argues that her sister is an excellent driver; I agree with this too. Her line of reasoning is in fact so difficult to fault that I forget why I do not want her behind the wheel in the first place.

Then I remember.

It is deja-vu in Technicolor as she takes another corner at breakneck speed and I repeat my oft-uttered suggestion that she drive a bit more to the left, away from the dead drop down to the Pacific on the right, and I have the unsettling realization that the eight-valve engine, when driven in the wrong gear as it presently is, sounds ominously similar to the murky D-minor chord that signals Don Giovanni's end. Though in the opera, I recall, it is fires of the underworld, not frothy ocean waves that await the protagonist.

If you happen to be an aspiring Mozart, dear reader, may I propose our scenario as one ideal for the bold and modern opera – forget the gods and Valkyries of Wagner and the forests and castles of Debussy; all you need for a dramatic libretto is a girl and a newspaperman and a Bugatti.

You needn't worry about the music, for that writes itself, appropriately discordant and contemporary: the breaks squeal as the clutch grinds and the engine growls in protest when the Lady inexplicably shifts to a higher gear and speeds up to take a blind curve, tires screeching against wet pavement and the driver giggling at the fun of it all, an operatic trill over the symphony of tumult. Though you may note the absence of a second voice – the passenger is not laughing.

R.C.