Maggot@blogspot

Almost a Princess

noreply@blogger.com (jenny g) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:03:00 +0000

The walls were lined with folding chairs inside the audition room. Most of the other girls and women applying looked nothing like Pocahontas. A man and woman wearing official name badges with magic castle logos sat behind a folding banquet table covered with a gold tablecloth where a line of people formed. I stood next to a nervous Luz looking around the room while we waited our turn in line. As I studied at the other applicants, I began to wonder about Luz’s chances at getting the job. One woman looked older than my mother except she had fake blond hair. She resembled Mae West more than Pocahontas. But who was I to judge? Many of the younger girls looked like professional dancers. If Luz lacked anything, it would be experience. When she read the ad out loud to me from The Orange County Register she said, No Experience Necessary. What would they want Pocahontas do? Wouldn’t they want her to just stand there looking regal and important? In any case, these dancers could probably pull off standing better than Luz. Their legs were more used to standing around.

When we reached the front of the line, a man named Lance read over Luz’s application and asked her a few questions. He gave her a number on a piece of paper along with a safety pin and asked her to pin the number on her chest and to have a seat until her number was called. We sat down and I helped Luz put on her number. We fell silent as we looked around at the competition. As I studied the people in the room, it became clear to me that there was one thing differentiating Luz from everyone else. Her color. I was about to grab Luz’s arm and whisper, “Come on. Let’s go. We don’t belong here.” They’ll never hire her, I thought. They’ll put a wig of black braids on any one of these other girls before they hire her. Then I got an idea.

“Luz, turn around,” I said.

“What for?” she asked.

“I’m going to braid your hair!”

“Okay….” she said reluctantly, wondering what I was up to.

“Do you have any rubber bands?” I asked.

“No.” I started anyway by splitting her long heavy hair in half with my finger nails and threw half over her shoulder. I took the divided half in my hand and began twisting it into plats through my fingers while scanning the room for something to tie off the ends. That’s when I saw Lance bundling up the applications with a paper clip.

“Here. Hold this!” I gave Luz the braid I was working on. “I’ll be right back.”

I went up to the folding table and asked Lance if I could borrow a couple of paper clips.

“Help yourself!” he said, holding out the box to me.

“Thanks!” I said, walking back to my seat.

When I finished braiding both sides, I held the ends of each braid with the paper clips Luz had pried apart. Luz’s hair was so thick you hardly noticed them hiding in her hair. Now she looked just like Pocahontas. We sat and waited. When they finally called her number, I had dosed off on her shoulder and she woke me up by tapping on my knee so she could stand up. She went into an anteroom and disappeared. She was back quicker than I expected, about ten minutes.

“They said they’ll call by tomorrow night,” Luz shrugged her shoulders and trying to appear optimistic. But we both knew it was a long shot. But I crossed my fingers anyway in hopes that my friend might fulfill her lifelong dream of working for Disneyland.

“They hired me because of my looks. They asked if I have a lot of Indian blood in me. I said I guess so. I was told to show up at the casting director’s office Monday at noon. I’ll be fitted for my costume and given a training schedule for my new role as Pocahontas! Can you believe it? Me! A character at Disneyland! Pocahontas is almost a princess, isn’t she, Barb?”

“She…is a Princess, Luz. I think she is just the same as a princess. You couldn’t do any better than her. Why, she is better than a princess. She did real things that a princess has never done… she accomplished things…she lived a dangerous life. And…she was real,” I said that as sincerely as I could because I meant every word of it.

That summer Luz stood on a faux rock platform with a shiny metallic river glittering through it while the float she stood on glided through the parade. She waved to crowds of people, alternating arms as one would get tired. She didn’t smile, but looked out into the distance as though she were scouting some imaginary far off mountain peak. But she wore a real leather fringed costume, including moccasins and a papoose with a baby doll on her back. Her long braids that rested on her breasts were really hers, not some wig from the costume department and that made her all the more authentic; that and her naturally dark skin and her wide nose and cheek bones. Two guys, who played the roles of Lewis and Clark, stood on a lower platform of the float pretending to read a map. That was her job for eighteen weeks and she was never prouder.

Black Woman Sitting in Toilet

noreply@blogger.com (jenny g) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 22:53:00 +0000

She was my age, maybe older, maybe younger. Sitting in the anteroom of the toilet as she must night after night, waiting for me to finish using the stall as she did for others. As I washed my hands, she stood silently and approached me. Turning to look for a towel, I noticed her brown arm waving two white ones at me. Stoic. Like flags she waved her towels at me. Silent. Long brown fingers with short pink nails pinched white flags waving silently.

I took her peace offering, noticing how her black dress fit her slim figure perfectly around the waist. She turned back to her seat, after wishing me to enjoy the rest of my evening. A basket filled with dollars on a shelf in the anteroom sat next to her seat. There were some fives in the basket as well. I didn’t bring any money with me. Thanking her, I creaked back up the steps that were worn as thin as crackers from people creaking up and down to the toilet night after night. Afraid that if I stepped on the edge of one the stairs it would break off, I zigzagged my way up the sides. Back up to my ten-dollar glass of white wine.

Later, after my wine and my fish (it was skate, I think), stuffing a dollar into my pocket, I creaked back down the cracker steps to the toilet and the black woman. There she sat waiting for me...exactly as she had done before.

This time two noisy girls were using the stalls. I waited. They left and she waved towel flags at them. One girl, a fat blond, left her smelly vagina behind when she left. I wondered if the smell offended the black woman as much as it offended me. But she made no change in her demeanor. Silence. I left the stall quick as I could. I washed my hands at the shiny porcelain sink and there she stood, waving her flag at me just like before. I was ready this time with a dollar for her basket.

When I tossed the dollar in her basket, she wished me to enjoy the rest of my evening, just as she had before. Thanking her, just as I had before, I creaked back up the overly worn cracker steps, zigzagging my way up the sides, back up to a four-dollar cup of coffee waiting for me.

Watching my nine-year old son make a mess out of his Profiteroles, swirling the chocolate sauce around the plate with the whipped cream while I drank my coffee that had been lightened with cream, I wondered if the daughter of a bigot would ever stop comparing a woman of color against a woman with none. Would that sting on my cheek ever go away? I wondered if she would use my dollar to buy something just as sweet for her nine-year old daughter as my son was not eating in this overpriced restaurant.

After everyone finished using the toilet and she had wished them all to enjoy the rest of their evenings, would she creak up the overly-worn cracker steps with her basket, zigzagging up the sides and go home to her daughter? Would she and her daughter sit on her daughter’s bed, counting out the dollars and the fives? Would her daughter eat milk chocolate and laugh at her mother’s recount of that fat blond with the smelly vagina? Or would she talk of me not leaving a dollar?

Daughter of a Bigot

noreply@blogger.com (jenny g) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 03:34:00 +0000

Dad peered over his sports page to look at something on the sidewalk out the front window of our house. He stood up still holding onto his paper to get a better look. I put down my Barbie doll and followed him to see what he was looking at. Two people were walking by: Denise Luttrell and Manny Molina. Manny had both of his arms across Denise’s shoulders, covering her face with his so you couldn’t see what they were doing. She was staggering like a drunk, leaning against him for support while they walked very slowly passed our house. She giggled a lot as he seemed to be tickling her or something. It was hard to tell because she had his letterman’s jacket draped around her shoulders and his arms inside.

“There she is, swapping spit with that beaner again!” Dad said.

“Yeah!” I chimmed in. “Swapp'n spit with that no good beaner!”

Suddenly I felt a sharp sting on my cheek as Dad flicked me with his finger. I put my hand to the spot that hurt and looked up at him as my eyes welled up with tears.

“Who the hell asked you?” Dad said. “No get out of here!”

As I turned away to run up to my room, I felt a kick in the seat of my pants. I buried my head under my pillow, choking on my tears wondering what went wrong.

noreply@blogger.com (jenny g) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 17:02:00 +0000

The story of your life, well, it’s just a story, you tell it and tell it and then you believe it. It’s not the same as your life, though. We are all the same in this, we find a story we can live with and just get on with it.

Chris Albani

The Bathroom Mirror

noreply@blogger.com (jenny g) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:26:00 +0000

In her darkest days while raising six kids my mother would retreat to the bathroom for hours and emerge with her face red and blotchy. What she would do in there was inspect her face in the mirror squeezing pores and popping zits until there were no more visible blemishes to be found. Even if it meant digging her finger nails into her skin causing it to bleed then scab, which would eventually leave scars, she would dig at these tiny, miniscule imperfections until they were all gone. I know all this because having only one bathroom, if one of us had to use it, she'd have to let us in while she was in there. Sitting on the toilet, I'd watch her violently work.

I came to the conclusion that it wasn't so much a matter of vanity that caused her to spend hours staring at her face in the mirror. In fact she looked past herself searching for what lay beneath her skin. The dirt, blackheads, and the pores are what she was focused on. She was a beautiful woman, but she didn't see that. She wasn't going into the bathroom to primp, to improve on her God given looks. The blemishes that lay just beneath the surface of her skin were the source of her imperfection and if she could squeeze them all out of her, then perhaps she would be a more perfect human being. Or a better mother. It was as though anyone who looked at her and could see an enlarged pore could also see all her flaws and judge her solely by that one pore that she neglected to extract in much the same way they might judge her by the way she kept her house or dressed her children. Because that is how she identified herself.

She told me once that when she was first married, she used to get up early, clean the house, make the bed, bath and dress my brother, Jeff (who was the only baby then), and then go back to bed and lie on top of the bedspread ever so carefully having a pot of coffee ready to be made in case her in-laws or a girlfriend happened to stop by. When all six of us kids were little, she would dress us in matching outfits that she made on her sewing machine and take us to church on Sundays and parade us in front of her friends showing what a calm, capable mother she was.

Once while I was sitting on the toilet watching her work, after seeing the movie Fantastic Voyage where a group of miniature scientists go inside a man's body to remove a blood clot from the his brain, I imagined hundreds of little beings gestating inside my mother's body. If these aliens were allowed to come to the surface and burst open, they might grow like some hungry virus looking for food, latching onto and sucking the life out of her. She had to stop them before they could be born!

While we ravaged her body during pregnancy, my mother worked on destroying her face. She bore six babies in nine years. Jeff's birth was relatively uneventful. But her second birth, Laurie, was breach and delivered vaginally. Mom talks about the cutting that went on half way down her legs to get Laurie out feet first so her shoulders could clear the pelvic cavity. When I was born, her third baby, Mom says she saw heaven. There was so much blood that the Dr. wasn't sure she'd make it. He told her to wait a while before having another baby after me. She did. Two and a half years. Then she popped out Liz, Amy and Bill within twenty six months. After Amy she stayed in the hospital for a week with a staph infection.

Mom's belly looks like a deflated punching bag. You could stretch the skin out nine months and punch it back in so far again that your fists would disappear like kneading a big ball of bread dough. During quiet times, we would find treasures hidden within the skin of her belly while lying next to her: lint, crumbs, bits of thread from clothing, pencil erasings from her daily crossword puzzles. But the real coop was when Bill dug out a dime that was lodged into a crevice deep down near her belly button. It was one of the rare times when we all laughed together. Even Mom laughed. From then on, whenever we were searching for spare change in the crevices of the couch for the ice cream truck, someone would say, "Go see if Mom's got any change in her belly!"

I think the same Doctor who fucked up Mom's body and nearly killed her during childbirth gave her a prescription for dealing with unruly children who'd catapult sugar at each other with teaspoons at the breakfast table after unknowingly drinking orange juice spiked with vodka left over from a poker party the night before. When she was on the verge on a nervous breakdown, he must have told her, "Lock yourself in the bathroom, go to the medicine cabinet, take out two valium and swallow them, lose yourself in the bathroom mirror, and when you're feeling calmer come out."

It shocked me to see her walk out of the bathroom with her face looking like she had rosacea. "What happened to your face?" I'd ask. "Never mind!" she'd say. "Now clean up this damned sugar mess!" We would all stare at this monster for a minute in horror before we began tidying up the kitchen without a word while she'd pour a cup of coffee, humming to herself.

The Happiest Place on Earth

noreply@blogger.com (jenny g) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:38:00 +0000

The house where I grew up stood just a few exits south of the Happiest Place on Earth, off the I-5 in Santa Ana, California. I was able to sit on the desk that my father built into the picture window of my room on the second story and look out over the backyard and watch the Disneyland fireworks.

I remember going to Disney land when I was five. It was my birthday. Mom took me and my cousin Cindy. Her birthday is a week later than mine. We are almost exactly the same age. I wanted to wear this particular pair of shoes. Patent leather dress shoes. Mary Janes, I think they were called.

I'm working on a painting project. I can feel your hand on top of mine as I sand the chair, and I can smell your pipe as I step back to take a look at our work, and I can feel your breath on the back of my neck and I can hear you when you say “Oh, come one, you can do better than that.”

Mom wanted me to wear comfortable walking shoes. Black and white saddle shoes scuffed at the toe, covered up with white shoe polish. They didn’t match my dress. They didn't match anyone's dress. We argued. I won. It was my birthday.

I have a dream. We all have dreams. Of going to college. If we send you to college, we have to do the same for the others. We don’t have that kind of money.. I want to take the SATs. What for? I need to in order to get into college. Why? I want to go to college. What good does college do? You’re just gonna to work when you graduate anyway?

We picked up Cindy from her house in Buena Park and off we went. The best part of the day was having mom to myself. Being third of six kids I didn’t get much alone time. I was an only child for one rare day.

Washington Street divides the white section of town from the Mexican. One side of the street has bars on its window. The side I lived on does not. Our side of the street Charlotte Carlisle kneels for hours in her front yard pulling out weeds that grow between the dichondra from her lawn. On the other side cars are parked where lawns should be.

The Happiest Place on Earth

That was the first thing I remember seeing. The sign spanning across the entrance. Mom read it to us. Cindy and I clapped our hands in excitement.

Vin Scully is calling a Dodger game over the tin speakers of a clock radio. But we never went to a live baseball game together. Gary Owens announces a Karen Carpenter song on the same clock radio outside... on the back patio, on a hot summer afternoon.

1962. They still used ticket books with A, B, C,D & E tickets. You got a lot more A tickets than E tickets, of course. Everyone knows that the E tickets get you on the best rides. But when you’re five, it doesn’t matter.

“I’m gonna marry James even though he’s not very nice to me.”

“You shouldn’t marry a boy who’s not nice to you.” I tell Annabelle.

“Well…he’s not nice to me on the playground, but when we lie down for nap time he waves hi to me.”

Mom took us on was the train ride that went all around the park so we could see everything. Then, we could decide which rides to go on.

Past tomato fields and orange groves. Past Taco Tio’s and the drive-thru dairy. Past Pup n’ Taco where you can get a hot dog and a taco. Past the bakery where we’d buy Ranger cookies to eat in the sand. Past or stopping by Marisella’s older sister’s house to listen to her really big collection of oldies records. Past Aunt Ruth’s hair salon. Past the turn off to Aunt Marty’s house or sometimes taking the turn to Aunt Marty’s house on Balboa Peninsula.

I don’t remember as much about the rides as I remember waiting for the rides. Swinging on the rails, Cindy and I. Waiting. I got sick on the Tea Cups. Outside it was July and hot. Inside the rides it was dark and cool and scary.

I miss you most on hot August afternoons. When I smell a charcoal grill being lit with way too much lighter fluid. When I smell the freshly cut grass and hose water wetting the concrete as I wash down after a mow.

Popcorn. Diesel fuel. Hot pavement. Steam. And chlorinated water. And the sounds. The bell from the train. Clopping horses. Distant fairy music.

On the other side of Washington Street a deaf family lived among piles of junk cars and empty cat food cans that reeked of tuna stacked up on their front porch.

Women walking around in big full skirts that fell to the ground and men in red and white striped shirts with garters on their sleeves wearing straw hats. And men in white whose job it was to scoop up the spilt popcorn. Popcorn spilt by me.

I get up on Saturdays and Sundays at five thirty in the morning to answer phones. You call that a job? In the circulation department at The Orange County Register. And start paying rent. I’m sixteen. When you turn eighteen. I ride my bike. Or buy yourself a car. In the dark.No SATs! That‘s final!

Marisella calls her dad Papá. I call mine Dad. When Marisella speaks to her Mamá and Papá, I can’t understand what they were saying. You say that's because they're wetbacks. Webbers: that’s the polite way to call wetbacks wetbacks. Marisella’s house smells like dinner at lunch time. I ate tongue at her house one time. It tasted like chicken. My lunch smells like peanut butter and jelly and potato chips. Marisella’s clothes smell like the sun and the steam from her mother’s iron. Mom says Marisella’s skin smells like lard.

About halfway through the day, my feet began to hurt so badly that I was unable to walk without limping. Mom noticed and insisted we go to the first aid office.

When I smell bacon cooking, I immediately crave a bacon and peanut butter sandwich. Your favorite. On a T.V. tray with potato chips and cantaloupe.

The nurse took off my shoes and noticed my socks were soaked with blood. The blisters had broken and were so bad that band-aids were not going to help for long. “Those are some nasty blisters,” the nurse said, looking at Mom. “She really should have worn good walking shoes, you know.” Mom was examining the insides of my shoes while the nurse said this. “Have you got a pair of scissors?” Mom asked the nurse.

I’m scared. We can’t afford it. I pay for the SATs with my own money that I earn from my job. Who do you think you are? No one else in this family has ever gone to college and we’ve all gotten along just fine. I learn how to run chasing a dream.

The nurse dug around in her first aid kit and came out with a pair of utility scissors. Mom cut the back seam of one of my shoes up the back. I put my hand over my mouth to hold back a sob. “Put this on,” she said. I did as I was told.

Bristol Street just a half a block from our house and takes the city all the way down to the shores of Newport Beach where the rich people live. Alive on Saturday nights low-riders cruise up and down showing off half naked Barbie dolls painted reclining on the hoods of their cars. Up and down the cars bounce make Barbie’s boobs bounce up and down. I can hear this from my bedroom window.

“Now, walk around.” The shoe flopped a little in the back, but for the most part, the strap held it in place. Mom took the scissors and cut the other shoe up the back.

Marisella and I walk down to the corner of Washington and Bristol Streets to the bus stop and take it west to Newport Beach where the rich people live. Past what was once Tiny Tim’s until a big crane came barreling down our street to take him away. Tim gets a lift off his post from the rooftop of our favorite candy store. Later that day, a new sign is in its place. A shiny red and green 7/11 sign.

That’s not me. That’s Mom. Or, Aunt Marty.

Wilson Elementary, Santa Ana. 1965

Robin Weines (I call her Weenie) whispers so loud to me that Anita Crawford can hear, “You’re gonna let her use your comb? Her hair’s all greasy! You shouldn’t let her use yourcomb!” That was in the 3^rd grade. And, it was the first time I’d made a connection between one person’s hair being greasy and another person lending them their comb. Anita Crawford was the only black person in our class.

I stared hard at Anita’s hair. It didn’t look so greasy to me. I handed her my comb. She took it and put it to her thickly twisted ponytail, smoothing the stray hairs back into place, giving Robin the evil eye through the mirror all the while. She handed me back my comb without saying a word. Then, she left. Weenie said, “Throw the comb away!” I left Weenie standing in the bathroom. Alone.

That is the Orange County I remember.

Aunt Marty’s Balboa Penninsula house: Out of place in this rich land of beautiful homes. The nautical porch railings rusted from the salty air have been waiting to be re-roped for years. Green paint is faded and white trim is peeling and chipped because the husband who was supposed to paint them died many years ago. Couches upholstered in faded beach towels and straw matted floors are saturated with sand. Forty years later, after my aunt has died, her adult kids still live there because there is no where else to live but the beach. And the house looks the same.

The nurse looked amused.

“It’s either this or we go home,.” Mom said “I don’t have that kind of money to throw around, do you?

“No…but then, I don’t have money to throw away a perfectly good pair of shoes, either,” said the nurse.

I had a high school teacher named Solomon Guggenheim. He shaved his head, but not his face. He wore all black, except for his brown Birkenstocks. He ate from a list of twenty-six things. Most of these he grew in his organic garden. He lived in a dome house that he built himself. He’s the black sheep of his famous family by teaching at a rotten, gang infested school. He taught Latin, Math, Logic and English. I learn how to think from Solomon Guggenheim.

“I just split the seam,” Mom said. “Any good shoe repairman can fix that!

“I suppose you’re right,” the said nurse.

I am standing at the kitchen sink while Mom is washing the dishes. We are looking out the window towards the garage. I pull on her skirt, crying and begging her to go out there and make you stop. Make you stop!

“Besides, we’re celebrating two birthdays!”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” the nurse looked at me and Cindy in mock surprise. She went into the back and came out with two giant color-striped lollipops.

Marisella lives on the other side of the street. Her house is pink. Mine is yellow. Mom says Marisella’s house was too pink. Her house has bars on the windows and a fancy wrought iron screen door with birds of paradise scrolled on it. Her door is always locked. We never lock our front door. Even when went go vacation.

One for me and one for Cindy.

“Who’s that, Grandma?”

“It’s supposed to be me a picture of me. Doesn’t it look like me?”

“No. It looks like a witch.”

I console Amy the day she swiped your bacon. You slap her hand away before she can make off with a strip. She runs off crying and I quietly get up from my chair and follow her out of the room. Upstairs and I let her take my bunny out of its cage and pet him. She's too young to understand that it was your food. She will always be too young to understand. She marries a man just like you.

After we left the first-aid office, we rode the Merry-Go-Round.

Aunt Marty’s - where you showered outside under a hose of cold water and the sea salt dries to your skin in the warm sun. If you came in the house with sand on your feet, no one yells at you. You eat cold pizza for breakfast with your fingers and cold cereal for dinner with a bowl you wash from the pile of dirty dishes yourself. Five fatherless children run amok with bare feet and scraggly sun bleached hair and sunburned skin.

My feet didn’t hurt anymore.

I was sure you were going to kill Jeff. All I can hear is a yelp come out of Jeff each time the belt hit him. When it finally ends Jeff comes out of the garage hunched over, not crying. You kick him in the ass as you say, “Now, get the hell outta here!”

When we got off, I lost Mom and Cindy. I kept running around and around.

They ran in one direction and I follow them, never catching them. I panicked. Finally, Mom had sense enough to stop. It seemed like forever before we found each other again.

The day wore on.

Another high school teacher named Mrs. Linnley wore a pastel blouse tucked into a plaid skirt and sensible shoes. She had auburn haircut in a bob and talks with a British accent. In her Freshman Composition class I read Great Expectations, Huckleberry Finn and A Tell Tale Heart. I learn how to read from Mrs. Linnley.

Yellow and Red bulbs hanging from wires lit up buildings that aped

the late sky.

Four of us are playing a game in the family room while you're snoring in your recliner. Asleep, your chair falls over backwards. We snicker and you wake up with a start. Bill’s chair is closest to you. You pull it over backwards and say, “There, see how you like it!” and storm out of the room.

Then it was grey.

A place where anyone could be anything or do anything. Where you could run down to the beach or hang out with a cousin. Or ask Aunt Marty or a Gramma what Orange County was like when they were little.

Tinkerbelle told everyone to look up!

I move out when I turn eighteen and live with my boyfriend and his mother. I go to Santa Ana community college and work at a drycleaners. I get a job as a waitress and make more money. I quit school. Just for a while. My boyfriend’s a deadbeat. He doesn’t work. He sits around smoking pot all day and sells a little.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Said a loud voice that wasn’t Tinkerbelle’s.

“That’s a bad cough, Annabelle.”

“Yeah, my Daddy doesn’t like my cough. He says I need to go to the doctor. My Mommy talks to him about it in the bathroom. She yells at him in the bathroom. Daddy’s cough is badder than mine because he smokes too many cigarettes. That’s what Mommy yells about to my Daddy in the bathroom.”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

But, I stay with my deadbeat boyfriend anyway. He gets a job. I marry him.

Those same fireworks I’ve watched from my bedroom window look so enormous now with me underneath.

I have two kids with my deadbeat boyfriend. I divorce him. I become a single mom. I get promoted at the restaurant where I work from waitress to assistant manager because I’m such a hard worker and my boss really likes me. He really, really likes me. A lot. I quit.

With every boom, my whole body shudders. My broken shoes grab the pavement. My heart jumps into my throat. I feel the fireworks rumble through my whole body, but my eyes won’t let go of the sky.

The knot on Bill’s head from hitting the floor had to be iced to keep the swelling down. You weren’t hurt because your easy chair had padding on the back. But Bill’s chair didn’t and the floor of the family room was hard.

All that's left is smoke. Clouds of smoke.

I go back to school, major in art. I meet Bob. But, I call him Chet. Chet meets Jill. Jill’s Japanese/Korean/American. Jill gets raped by two guys. It’s a hate rape. “We’re gonna fuck you up, you fuck’n gook,” the rapists say to Jill. Chet takes care of Jill. Chet helps Jill heal and move past. Chet and Jill get married. They have two little Chet and Jill’s. Little Chet and Jill are Japanese/Korean/American/Irish. I learn about valor from Chet. And Jill? From Jill I learn about a pain so deep that it goes way past the texture of your hair or the shape of your eyes or the accent of your parent’s voice.

A crowd of plumes dissipates in the sky as the crowd of people below hustle

towards the parking lot.

Chet works at Disneyland. Chet’s also a cartoonist; freelance. He starts sending material to a magazine called Hustler. Chet gets a job with Hustler.

Now where is that car?

When I first meet Larry Flynt I think he's kind of handsome in weird, freaky way. Then, he gets shot. After that, he scoots around in a wheelchair. He slurs his speech. He’s angry. His wife’s angry. His daughter’s angry. He’s always angry. He’s angry about speech. His speech. Your speech. My speech. From Larry Flynt, I learn about freedom. Freedom of speech.

Wasn’t it Donald Duck?

I also learn about the fantasy from Hustler. I learn that cunt is just a beaver shot and that dick is just a prick. Fuck is a just word.

No. We parked in Minnie.

I learn from Chet and Larry the difference between fantasies. Big girl, big boy fantasies. Little girl, little boy fantasies. The kind Larry Flynt sells and the kind Walt Disney sells. After twenty-seven years at Disneyland, Chet gets fired. They didn’t say it was because he draws big boy fantasy cartoons, but everybody knows that was the real reason why. When you work at Disneyland, you can only deal in little kid fantasies. Chet realizes a pain so deep that he feels like he was raped like Jill. Jill takes care of Chet. Jill helps Chet heal and move past.

Did you go to Disneyland when you were little, Grandma? No, dear! There wasn’t any Disneyland when I was little. It was noth’n but tomato fields back then. And orange groves. And lots of open space.

Or was it Cinderella?

Annabelle pulls a tiara off of her head and says, “Here, Gramma. It’s your turn to wear the crown.”

My feet began to hurt again. Cindy’s feet hurt, too, and so did Mom’s.

Whenever I see a red ‘76 Beetle, I remember you teaching me how to drive a stick shift. I can hear myself grinding the gears into third in the parking lot of Santa Ana College and I can feel your rough hands pushing down on mine, all sweaty and mad.

Cars leave. Open spaces.

I want to go back to school. I have a dream. Instead, I go back to work. In a restaurant. I have a new boss who doesn’t hit on me as much as my old boss. I like my new boss. I really like my new boss a lot. I really, really like him a lot. He has a live-in girl friend. So, I don’t hit on him.

We waited.

One day, my new boss asks me out on a date. I say no. I don’t like to date bosses. Especially bosses with live-in girlfriends. He asks me out again later. I say no again. He says he’s dumped his girlfriend. This time, I say, okay, okay. I say, we shouldn’t date if we’re going to work together. Long story short, I don’t work with him very long. I date him instead. I tell him I have a dream. “Oh, yeah?” I tell him I want to go to college. “We can make that happen.”

Aha! There it is!

Nobody asks Marisella what her papá did for a living or where her mamá was from.

Long story short, after Chet gets fired at Disney, Larry Flynt hires Chet to be a full-time cartoonist. Many years later, Chet is the lead cartoonist at The Happiest Fucking Place on Earth. Good guy wins!

My brother, Jeff, and I were talking. We sat in a park one day late summer. It could have been July or maybe it was August, I’m having trouble remembering. He was having trouble remembering you and all those beatings. He wanted to know what I remembered. I told him about that day at the kitchen sink. Then, he asked me if I remembered getting beat like that. No, I told him. I told him that I got beatings, too, but not that. I stood up. He stood. We stood.

Mom pumped the gas while turning the key.

Out of Santa Ana for a day. Marisella’s brown skin faded white against the sand. And mine turned brown from the sun that blends into the sky.

“Come on, Bessie”, she begged.

Bessie, our ’57 Chevy finally sputters to life. We're one the last cars to leave.

We stood there in the park that day, Jeff and I, letting the hot air pass between us as we thought about you. And then, I walked away and left you there in the park. That day, I learned how to walk.

After taking Cindy home, Mom pulled Bessie into the narrow driveway of our house on Washington Street. She tucked me into bed, pried the lollipop out of my hand and tossed it in the garbage along with my broken shoes.

The Birthday Bike

noreply@blogger.com (jenny g) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:03:00 +0000

Today's my birthday. I always get depressed in the weeks leading up to it and can't put my finger on why until the day arrives. Then I reflect back and remember my sixth birthday when I got a bicycle from my Aunt Ruth and think that about this as being the source of my depression. I am grateful to my Aunt Ruth. She not only gave me my first bike for my birthday, but many other lovely gifts for Christmases and other times throughout the year while I was growing up. She was one of those aunts that had no children of her own and took pleasure in spoiling her twenty- seven nieces and nephews. But this bike was a blue ladies ten speed bike that she bought second hand from a friend of hers. The bike I learned how to ride on was way to small for me, and this one was far too big. I couldn't sit on the seat and peddle at the same time. And I had trouble with the hand brakes. The bike I had learned on had peddle brakes. Forget changing gears- Mom set them in the middle and told me not to mess with them. At the time, I was ecstatic that I had a bike all of my own that I didn't have to share with any of my five brothers or sisters. And Aunt Ruth was sensitive to that. But I did have to share the bike with Mom. It suited her perfectly! Mom kept telling me how practical this bike was and how it would serve me well for many years to come. Why, I'd even be able to ride it to high school, if I took good care of it. What about first grade that I would be entering in September?

My cousin Cindy's birthday is a week after mine. I was at my Grandmother's house celebrating her birthday with her when her parents presented her with a brand new pink Schwinn Stingray with streamers that spewed from the handle bars. I watched Cindy as she straddled the banana seat with her parents on either side holding her up for support as they ran along side of her down the street yelling, "Peddle! Peddle! Faster! Faster!" She didn't even know how to ride the damned thing! I loved my cousin Cindy, but I finally couldn't stand watching anymore when Cindy fell and skinned her knee and the bike got a big gouge in the paint. I should be riding that bike! Feeling ashamed of myself for being angry at Cindy on her birthday, I ran into the bedroom of my Grandma's house and buried my head in the pillow on the bed and sobbed. I didn't know these feelings that came over me. I heard Cindy and her mom in the bathroom fixing up her knee. Then they went back outside to give the bike riding another go. Luckily, everyone was so preoccupied with teaching Cindy how to ride her new bike that they didn't notice that I was missing. I must have cried for a half an hour. After that I felt a little better. I didn't want my Grandma or anyone else to know that I had been crying so I went into the bathroom and scrubbed my face. I went back outside and tried my best to act normal. Cindy was still not getting the hang of bike riding. My uncle Dick was sitting on the lawn. He said, "Why don't you take a break and let Jenny have a try?" She reluctantly agreed.

When I slid onto the banana seat of that stingray, pushed my feet into the peddles and reclined onto the backrest, I knew that this was the bike a kid was supposed to ride. I took it around the block weaving back and forth across to the other side of the street and back again, cruising around like a free bird. I could hear the wind as it rushed passed my ears brushing my hair off the back of my neck. When I got to the corner instead of turning to continue around the block back to my Grandma's house, I made a u-turn and cruised the street one more time, a little more slowly this time. I thought about riding off and never going back. Where would I go? I wouldn't go home. I would just ride and ride. Would anyone wonder what happen to me? They would definitely wonder about the bike.

When I eventually turned the corner back on my Grandma's street, I saw Cindy being consoled by her mother. Her father stood nearby smoking a cigarette. I heard him say, "See! There she is! I told you there was no need to go looking for her." When I pulled up, Cindy pulled the bike away before I could get my legs out from between the bars.

What happened to the blue ladies ten speed? It got stolen. One summer day, about a year later, I saw Robert Monteverdi ride up to the 10th Street Market with Steve Levanos sitting on the handle bars. I knew it was my bike because in those days we registered bikes with the police station and the registration sticker was still on it. When they stopped I said, "That's my bike!" They got off and shoved it at me without saying a word and went into the store. I rode it home, standing up.