The Pier in Winter

Santa Monica Pier. The last refuge in the great western migration. Here you smell the dream. It's a dazzling golden roller coaster beneath the spinning wheel of fortune. Coney Island now so far away. Dark haired mass of grinning happiness crowd the scene. There are some dissenters along the boardwalk, so beware. Nevertheless the fiddler plays, the Chinese juggler totters, the painted trinket makers with their "sleight of hand" dazzling the congregants. At the end of all this I roll out my cart of dreams. The bright light of the the last afternoon burning down upon the mass. Waves crash beneath me. There is a buzzing in my ear. Carnival sounds. The smell of popcorn and creosote. A man with a painted mustache rambles on about Dufy. I like Dufy. Its four thirty, the sun is doing a quick winter exit. The fisherman have given up. I had barely found my footing on the slippery pier as the last rays of light fall on the western edge of the North American Continent. The suspension of disbelief bought for a quarter.