Christmas Gift

I rose….EXCITED. The morning finally came and I was ready for the result of the very very long wait. No…I wasn’t looking for present from Santa (though totally real) I was adjusting my eyes to the light so I could see my kiddos discover the gifts that arrived magically through the night. 
And that buenos amigos may be the best gift of all.

Jugando

The school bus dropped us off about 400 metros away from home at Avenida Chapultepec.

Walking or running to our property was a simple straight shot and often my mother would allow me to run on ahead and greet folks about the safe neighborhood. She often strolled far behind carrying my sister (Luz), my backpack and at time some groceries.
In those early days it was not uncommon to come across a friend and invite him to come over and play in our vast yard that was riddled with dozens of good hiding spots where we could plot and plan adventures like the heroes of the cartoons we watched on Saturday mornings.
That one afternoon, I met him sitting on the dirty street floor by our fence with his back was against our brick wall. He wore brown pants that were rolled up at the bottom and exposed his thin lower legs. He wore simple sandals. The shirt was almost white but it was obvious that my new friend had been playing on the dirt as his wears were covered in randomly scattered patches of deep dark dirt that laid about his chest section.
His name (he said) was Angel.
Despite the dirt his smile was radiant and welcoming and from the moment he hollered an “hola” I felt that this was a worthwhile chap to play with. He was shy but surprisingly funny and we shared a few jokes before my mother caught up to us.
As usual, she was scrambling to find her keys to our large red iron gate and as usual Luz was in an involuntary uproar over being stuck in the cloth carrying device that my mother engineered each and every day for her. Food would need to be ready in a couple of hours time and her mind was on the task at hand. Needless to say she didn’t bat an eye when I asked her if my new found friend could stay a few minutes and play in the yard.
When she agreed….two bolts of lighting careened past her and I couldn’t wait to show him my favorite hiding spots throughout the property.
He didn’t talk much but I was glad because he let me talk. I even shared my most intimate secret.
I wished that one day Matzinger Z would somehow appear at our yard and I would board him and save Mexico from its problems. The economy (as my mother explained) was not doing well and on top of it the dogs had been acting strangely around the property and some other special friends had mentioned some odd event that was due to come. Therefore, if trouble was coming Matzinger Z would help and if I played my cards right I could fly all the way to Los Angeles just like that man who had landed at the Colosseum in Los Angeles the year before.
He let out a roaring laugh and made fun of me. No way was there a city name after him he chuckled and put his hands to his mouth as he giggled uncontrollably at the concept. I couldn’t help but laugh along with him.
He shared too but his dreams were simpler. Angel desired only to visit the beach and drive a car.
Minutes ticked by and before we knew it I heard a loud scream coming from the house. Dinner was ready, the skies were darkening and the day would end soon. Angel and I made plans to play again but as we talked about the next day he grimaced and grew sad. He explained that his trip here was brief and would cease before September ended. With a solemn and kind smile he told me that he was glad to have meet me and that he hoped that he could stay longer. Then he put his hand to my face and stroked my cheek with his thumb and I then knew not to fret too much as the days ahead unfurled. 
I felt safe as he looked into my eyes. Without speaking I felt a rush of feeling from him that coiled about my chest. My father (who was away in the US)  was okay, he would return to us and no matter what near struggles to come we’d survive.
My mother shouted once again from the house and with a start I looked at Angel and he was dashing off. But just before he reached the Red Gate he looked back, smiled and waved goodbye.
Never again did I see him.
—
About a year later, after the disaster happened and my father returned home for a quick visit, my mother and I talked one night about the previous year. Then I told her about Angel.
She sat at our kitchen door stunned and paralyzed with the exception of a trinity of tears at her face. 
That was the night that she first introduced me to the photo of her father Angel.
He died of lung Cancer. His wishes were simple…to see the ocean and drive a car.

Child’s Play

I watch my kids play in the park.

They approach tiny-strangers without worry of a reproach. In their innocence they make fast friends of the foreigners and in minutes share uninhibited belly-laughs.
They run, giggle, throw sand and climb. This impromptu group of new and temporary pals create a society all their own with simple rules.
Hurt feelings are literal. Bruised knees, a bump on the head or an accidental bump on the nose. Apologies are quick to come and even quicker to be accepted. Time dwelling only takes away from precious moments better spent on the games.
I wonder why I monitor them so much.
As if my adult sense of society could somehow improve their careless kid paradise.

Dirty Dancing

By 11:30 am that morning my mother and I were arguing. The wedding of her daughter’s friend was later that Saturday afternoon and as of yet I had not given her a definite answer on whether I would be attending with the family or not.

My mother of course attributed my vacillation to the “new” girl I was dating.

“Que no la ves todos los dias en el collegio” her voice trailed off as I made my way out our home’s front door. Her pleads fell on near deaf ear as I headed to meet my date for a day’s outing.

I can’t tell you what we did. Perhaps we visited Griffith Park. Or maybe we trekked it out to the Will Rogers State beach as we usually did (site of our first date). Maybe we just drove around Los Angeles a while and wasted a careless Saturday as we often did back then. Those were the days of a gallon of gas at $1.40 and we had the week’s earnings and much more to spare.

In any event, we returned back to my parent’s home by about 3 pm and gladly found the home empty. A golden opportunity by all stretch of the imagination (to me anyway).

It wasn’t all tawdry (well I choose to believe it wasn’t and she’d certainly wouldn’t want me to go any further). I do recall though that after enjoying ourselves and more I turned on the television. Then I plopped down on my bed and snacked, told jokes and hoped that perfect days like these would continue on forever after. (Spoiler Alert: They have not)

As we rested and laughed the television set flickered the ominous “Breaking News” graphic and Channel 7 News anchor grimly reported on the terrible news of that August 31, 1997.

The news was sobering. A young, spirited and beloved young woman was dead and in an instant the spell of youth was broken and the realization that people (even the most revered) died unexpectedly hit us both like the heaviest of hammers. It made me think of she who I had just made love too. Lovely, flawless, soft, white and vulnerable (just like I was…except I am brown skinned).

It was difficult to laugh and smile as the news looped the only available video over and over. Uninformed of speculation began in an instant and so did the tributes of a figure head who I hardly knew of but who’s untimely death resonated somehow.

The day’s spell was broken!

I had hesitated introducing the young woman I was falling in love with (or was I?) to my family because I considered her too foreign for them to understand. They had chosen other women for me in their mind and I knew she did not fit her description. Nonetheless, the incoming news rallied my spirits and gave me the impetus to ask her for a date to a wedding as only East Los Angeles can coordinate. Today was the day for Nicole to meet my family and I would do it proudly on a public stage.

Convincing her though was not easy. Simply because I had mustered up courage to introduce her didn’t mean that she wanted to attend a celebration that she wasn’t suitably dressed for or that she wanted to meet a culture that I had not previously described kindly.

But my Nicole is tough and she had my assurances and in little time we made ourselves ready and headed to the back yard wedding reception in your typical East Los Angeles neighborhood (consult to Born in East L.A. for a visual. By the way…BIESLA is a classic film starring notable 70s icon Cheech Marin…my parents quoted it for years).

When Nicole and I arrived I felt the weight of several dozen eyes upon us. Her hard squeeze of my arm indicated to me that she felt the same weight in triplicate and I quickly recoiled and cursed my previous “carpe diem” attitude. Commitment and being committed though are strong forces so together we chose to make our way past chain-link fence and down the concrete driveway. A path that was chock full of brown faces. Wrinkly brown faces, judgy brown faces, scowling brown faces, indifferent brown faces, unknowing brown faces, caught-by-surprise brown faces, too-young-to-know brown faces, encouraging brown faces, drunk brown faces, leery brown faces, why-are-we-here-a-princess-just-died brown faces and then FINALLY my parent’s brown faces.

The introduction was awkward. The cacophony of my people’s wonderful syncopated yet loud music drowned out her attempts to say hello and all they sat shocked and glancing at me for direction or guidance.

I did not have any!

Music was bountiful though, I had a gorgeous young woman by my side and my basic instinct required us to dance. We chose then to get lost among the sea of couples occupying the dance drive-way and evade the awkwardness of an unwelcome and unpleasant meeting. A get-together that I had haphazardly conjured up and  seriously regretted.

Nicole and I entered a gauntlet. Within a few minutes of dance she found herself accosted by the occasional harsh bump at the hips (not by moi)  or the elbow to the mid-section by the ladies on the dance floor. Salsa is a finesse dance but she found herself to be in an uncomfortable mosh pit jockeying for a little room. In her face I saw dread and somehow she continued on. Her body language told me that she belonged there and that no one would force her off an uncomfortable dance floor. It was me who broke and not soon after entering the space we left and bid my family adieu.

The day taught us much. It taught me much! I loved this woman. For her strength of character, for her youth, for her fighting spirit.

It taught me that I wanted to protect her. That I should not put her in peril if I could help it.

Soon after I pronounced my love for Nicole. It wasn’t as romantic as I would have planned. I panicked and said it in the worst of states (we had our first fight over it) but I meant it. I had loved her months earlier, maybe even the first time I met her.

Nicole and I have danced many a times after that date. I hope to dance many dances more in the years come.

I am glad to report though that the English have not yet reported another watershed in our history and I sincerely hope the they never do.

Pip pip cheerio amigos!

Dog (Part II)

Saturdays were not the best days. We drank tepid water when we were thirsty.

The summer of 1992 was hot. Hotter than I had remembered it before and I had proof of it as Payless Shoes seemed to willingly melt and leave their marshmallow like residue at every interaction with the scalding black street tar.

Mama would take stock every week or so on the “sole level” of our shoes and she earned a few extra grays that summer as we three proved that the shoes budget would need to be expanded still. We were “shoe-conscious” of course after “The Pump” debacle of 1991 and we often regretted intimating to mom that we had grown a half inch shorter over a month due to black-court basketball practices or endless pacing sessions around Garfield High halls (my sister).

 That morning I awoke to a bright East Los Angeles day. Our neighbor next door was blaring the obnoxious “banda” music  already (7:30 am) and it’s heavy accordion and heart pounding pulse beckoned my lazy body to rise. Reluctantly of course since I knew then that I’d be missing out on watching the opening of “Batman Returns”  or at least checking out “Lethal Weapon 3” with a friend who had reluctantly invited me but knew me enough to know that I would not ever show.

Then something quite familiar happened. My father Silvio was shouting at the top of his lungs that Cafeson our dog had gone loose and quickly most of the family took up familiar positions to find the scoundrel.

My sisters took to the back yard because it was the most fun place in the house. Every terrace (2) that made up the hill like back yard was a jungle unto itself and it was the perfect spot to play hide and seek or to stare at morning activities of the houses on the hill east of Gage Ave where kids would sometimes wave at us.

I shot down Eastman Avenue on the western part of our house as I wanted to avoid the eyes of our across-the-street neighbor who had displayed a distant crush but had never acted upon it other than the occasional flashlight flash while I ate carne asada tacos and frijoles on the front porch of the house that year.

Dad was his usual flamboyant self. Calling on the neighbors and asking if they had seen his dog. Half flirting with the neighborhood women who answered the door and trading  remarks with the men already sipping on their morning beer . The spectacle was a monthly occurrence and it’s timeliness was a welcome distraction that all knew would be done soon.

That day though the search for Cafeson took longer than expected. Tired of walking without breakfast I returned home to find my sisters feasting on Corn Flakes and drying donuts from L.A.’s Farmers Market where my mom worked. Having had some the night earlier, before an episode of Full House I decided to pass on  them and tried to take advantage of my father’s absence to return to my bed and enjoy some time before my father returned with a well-ashamed dog.

As I laid my head down to rest I heard it. A shallow yelp.

At first I was annoyed by the sound. I considered it a rude auditory trick brought on by my guilt of not finding Cafeson again.

Then, I heard it again and in a thunderbolt-like flash I understood to be a sad and heartfelt cry for help.

I threw the single white sheet off myself and flew down to the last step of my fathers terraces and there in the corner I found Cafeson laying flat on the ground.

The formerly intrepid and The-Pump chewing dog was found by me laying like a hunk of meat on the ground at the north-west corner of my fathers lot. Cafeson lied there panting, without enough energy in his body to raise his head and lick a hand.

I came to him quietly and stared. His gasping hurtful breathes stunned me and I grew as protective of him in that moment as of anything I had known. I knelt close to him and then slowly shimmied myself to the point where I could pick up his heavy head and lay it on my muddied folded legs.

That dog I had known of was so youthful just 12 or so hours before, but the event of the last few left the vivid and stocky brown body of the dog I knew wasted away to a desperate respirator hoping to extract as much oxygen from the stock I so easily took.

He and I made eye contact a few times. I understood, he may or may have not. During one intense gaze I gave him a few comforting words. It wasn’t poignant and I know now that it never registered but I was glad I said it.

Our dog died in my hands that morning. An hour or so later my sisters found me with him. A few minutes after my father rushed down and took him from my arms.

Cafeson’s remains now lay in a back yard that I can hardly recognize as I have moved mentally as far as I can from Eastman Ave.

Feel the Music

My parents were the conservative types.

No parties after 6 pm, no school dances, no heavy metal “satan” music.

But my parents did have a love and taste for the smooth rhythm of jazz or the break-neck syncopation of salsa.

As a young adult I embraced dancing and by the time I began my career I used music and dance to shimmy my way to the decision makers.

Ezekiel 25:17

Jules: There’s a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon you.”

From Pulp Fiction