HWY Office

Pam wanted a shop. Not a hobby. A room of cloth she had already chosen in her head — Morocco, Europe, things that do not look like Hollywood. I rented the building. She took the floor. I took the stairs. That was the bargain. Her order downstairs. My highway up here.

From the window you can read the block. The studio is across the street — we work there when we are the band. The office is around the corner, Santa Monica, a short walk if I am sober. I sleep at the motel up the boulevard when I don’t sleep here. Alta Cienega. A bed, a roof, no questions. The topless places keep the neon on. The Phone Booth and the rest. I walk past them. Sometimes I don’t.

The Doors office is for the band. This room is not. Cans. A moviola. A map of the desert that will not stay on the wall. I am making a picture. HWY. An American Pastoral. I wrote ten pages and called it The Hitchhiker. Then we went out. Paul has the camera. Babe. Frank. April. The light was honest.

Tahquitz. Joshua Tree. A coyote by the road. Water, then the highway, then the city at night from a roof. Neon. A motel. The boulevard under the window. A man who walks. I do not explain him.

The blue Shelby — sixty-seven, four-speed, too much engine — I put it in the paper in February of sixty-nine. I wanted it gone. Nobody took it. So the hitchhiker got a car. We shot it anyway. It is still for sale. If you want a noisy thing, come up and ask. I do not drive it to be seen.

We showed a print last March, up north. Fifty minutes. I want a picture, not a sketch. Fred for the music. Bruce for the sound. When the shop is full of women I come up and cut.

If you found the stairs, sit. Don’t touch the film. I am not finished. She is not finished either. That is why we hired the place.

Jim