Voice 1:
This is what happens.It starts with a dream. When you're ten years old and go to the movies and look at the screen. And you say that's me! I'll be twenty yards tall. I'll be robed like a king. I'll be a mastermind! So when I'm seventeen I cross from Tijuana in my firey rocket of a one thousand dollar car. To El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles. De los Ángeles!
Voice 2:
It's just the way it happens. The way it happens in L. A. I don't get what I deserve. I don't get what I'm owed. I get what I buy. So when a BMW cuts me off on the road I, I say that car is mine. That car is mine. And I follow. And I'll buy it.
Voice 1:
De los Ángeles! Sobre el Río Porciúncula!
Voice 2:
Because I like the color of the car. And I hate their grinning faces. Their faces the color of American cheese.
Voice 1:
But a thousand days later, I'm shrinking. I'm so hungry.
Voice 3:
This is how it happened. I reached for my wallet, for all my money, but it wasn't there. And I shouted, Wait! Wait. But Derrick's face blew off. One second it was there. And then it…wasn't. The screams are louder, so much louder than you ever hear in the movies.
Voice 2:
He reached in his pocket. It could have been a gun.
Voice 3:
I would have given him all my money. He stood there grinning. Then he blew off Derrick's face.
Voice 2:
So it was self-defense. I mean, that cheese face! He could have had a gun. Like me.
Voice 1:
I picked his pocket. I didn't mean to! That Asian guy. This hand isn't mine! Did someone see me? Oh Christ, it's a crime! I didn't mean!
Voice 2:
A nine-milimeter pistol is the perfect size. It's warm in my hand. But I wouldn't have used it if he hadn't reached for his pocket.
Voice 3:
All for a car! A car I bought used! He pulled out Derrick and threw him on the pavement and drove over him heading east into Compton.
Voice 1:
The leather is worn. How cheaply it's made. How little that matters, because I smell apples and meat skewers frying.
Voice 2:
It was just self-defense and a lot of history. And a whole lot of history.
Voice 3:
One last bullet gleams on the pavement. A bit of smashed copper washed by the headlights. There's no Derrick blood on it. No Derrick hair. So that's good. But my sanity! My sanity!
Voice 1:
So this is what happens
Voice 2:
It's just the way it happens.
Voice 3:
And I dial nine-one-one.
Voice 1:
in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles.
Voice 3:
It's a bullet! His face! My sanity!
Voice 2:
So I have a car, cheesehead.
Voice 3:
Hang onto it, the detective says. Stick it in a bag, or something.
Voice 2:
Don't think I didn't buy it.
Voice 1:
I'm looking for more pockets.
Voice 2:
I prepaid. I pre-paid!
Voice 3:
You are monsters! You are monsters! I wish I'd never come
Voice 2:
And so, this is what happens.
Voice 1:
Angelenos!
Voice 3:
to Los Angeles.