Los Angeles is a lot cooler than Austin. The temperature, I mean.

Dave picks me up in his blue BMW convertible and we rocket away. It has always been pretty terrifying to ride in the car with Dave, but a confluence of factors create the perfect storm of a Jerry Bruckheimer-style driving experience: The LA freeway is about eight lanes full of reckless assholes, the sun is shining, the top is down, and this car can’t go less than 60 miles an hour.

Throughout my stay in LA, the BMW became a metaphor which created chapter breaks in my story. But mostly it was an agent of fear, something which I eventually had to at least coexist with as it could never truly be overcome.

Thirty seconds away from the airport and we are nearly creamed as the molecules of the BMW attempt to share the same space as an oncoming car. Something white. Everything is moving so fast. We zig zag around cars, evoking moves from the video games of our youth. Someone yells at us from out her window.

“Welcome to Los Angeles,” says Dave, shifting gears.

My foot instinctively pushes the brake pedal, but, of course, there isn’t one.

Passengers never get brake pedals.

Here beginneth the lesson.