On most weekday afternoons, U.S. Route 101, which slices through the city of Los Angeles, thrums with traffic, brake lights blinking like those on a Christmas tree. Several days ago, as wildfires ravaged the city and the surrounding county, a haze of smoke filtered the sun like a silk scarf over a lamp. It was eerily smooth sailing from Silver Lake to Exit 9B, Hollywood and Highland, near Runyon Canyon Park. The popular hiking destination had ignited the previous evening in the Sunset Fire, forcing thousands of Hollywood residents to head for other hills.
“We were packed yesterday,” a host at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel said, “but now people are scrambling around,” either moving into longer-term temporary housing or returning to from whence they came.
Bar Nineteen12, on the other side of the hotel, was empty; Led Zeppelin streamed loudly from the speakers. In the lobby, a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a blue polo shirt paced. “The girls are upstairs,” he said into his phone. “We’ll do whatever you think is best.” Outside, a jumble of suitcases was stacked near a red carpet.
Three miles east, a similar scene played out. “It was a madhouse last night and this morning, people checking in and out,” a host at the Sunset Tower Hotel restaurant said. “Then, at 7:30 a.m., my street was cleared for us to go back. People want to go back home.”
A colleague, a woman wearing a black N95 mask, added, “The out-of-towners went back to Texas or New York or wherever they came in from.”
The host predicted a slow night, although someone, she guessed, would eventually need a Martini. Among the few diners: an octogenarian and her descendants, a stressed-looking woman on a laptop. A man in a baseball cap and one in a sweatshirt sat, improbably, at a table on the terrace. (“No one should be breathing that air,” the host muttered.) In a booth, a woman bounced a baby on her knee.
The sun was still out when five o’clock rolled around. “I’ll have a Martini,” a man with a buzz cut said, perching on a bar stool. “Two parts gin, one part vermouth, with an olive—the way it was made back in the day.” He was joined by a woman with a topknot, who asked for the same.
A staffer in a black suit with a black pompadour came by; Martini man gave him a one-armed hug.
“Were you really trying to hike Runyon yesterday?” the woman asked.
“That’s my thing,” the staffer said. “I would’ve gone up there, but they had it blocked off.”
Drink sipped, hamburger and chopped salad ordered, Martini man took a call. “It was insane, dude,” he said to the person on the other end. “They’re called the Santa Ana winds. They’re, like, a thing. They happen every year.”
Martini man, it turned out, worked in the alcoholic-beverage sector, and he talked business with the staffer. The bar was running perilously low on a certain Sancerre. (Quelle horreur.)
Martini man tapped on his phone. “We’ve got two bottles left,” he said. “You want them? Two bottles will get you somewhere.”
“Sure,” the staffer said. “Something is something, right?”
“It’s better than nothing, in a pinch.” ♦
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