At Drop Off
Heritage
Son: What’s this?
Me: This is our heritage son. It is part of the story of you. A long story with long epic chapters.
Her
You can dance, every dance with the guy
Who gives you the eye, let him hold you tight
You can smile, every smile for the man
Who held your hand beneath pale moon light
But don’t forget who’s takin’ you home
And in whose arms you’re gonna be
So darlin’ save the last dance for me
Oh, I know that the music’s fine
Like sparklin’ wine, go and have your fun
Laugh and sing but while we’re apart
Don’t give your heart to anyone
And don’t forget who’s takin’ you home
And in whose arms you’re gonna be
So darlin’ save the last dance for me
Baby, don’t you know I love you so?
Can’t you feel it when we touch?
I will never, never let you go
I love you, oh, so much
You can dance, go and carry on
Till the night is gone and it’s time to go
If he asks if you’re all alone
Can he walk you home? You must tell him, “No”
‘Cause don’t forget who’s taking you home
And in whose arms you’re gonna be
Save the last dance for me
Oh, I know that the music’s fine
Like sparklin’ wine, go and have your fun
Laugh and sing but while we’re apart
Don’t give your heart to anyone
And don’t forget who’s takin’ you home
And in whose arms you’re gonna be
So, darlin’, save the last dance for me.
Eye Contact
It had been a tiring two months and at times it seemed as if every third day or so we’d made the drive to the hospital on unassuming Beverly Boulevard in Montebello and rush up to the floor where my father laid in bed after his very last episode at home.
Every time the phone rang during those weeks a rush of sensations would shoot like a bolt of lighting down my back. Why my mother’s number appeared on the tiny grayish screen of my phone I always wondered for half a second if it had finally happened. After the first four or five calls and hurried trips the calls started to become a nuisance and took a back seat to a few other pressing matters before me.
The holidays were now soon just before us. My wife and I were expecting our first child. The economy was quickly beginning to show the signs of a radical change. Things were moving in all sorts of different directions and now my father’s possible demise was becoming just “another issue to deal with”.
Our near identical temperament had kept us away for many years. Soon after my 15th birthday my father and I had quietly come to the understanding that we were not mean to be friends. At least, not for a long while. He had many demons. The alcohol, the rabid temper, his need for women other than my mother. I felt short of his ideal for a son. I was too sensitive, meek to the world and shied away from verbal or physical confrontations.
Things did not get better as I aged. My college years expanded my range of questions and I felt his frustration when he had to admit a lack of answers. He was an intelligent man who had not been well educated. He was proud of his son’s achievements but was troubled to see him pulling away. Fights and threats were frequent. I think I felt his fists on my chin, shoulders and ribs more during those times.
Then I met someone special. Someone different than the usual young ladies they had learned about throughout my first eight quarters of college. The woman I met was spirited, rational, traveled and no-nonsense. She sparked the idea of a life outside of our university and the real life tools we’d need to begin it. My time with her was magical but as we became closer life at home deteriorated at a quicker pace.
By the time the decision was made to move in together, my father and I hardly spoke. On the day I left for home and just before he closed the door behind me I heard his sendoff. “Good look to you and your whore. You are never welcomed here again.”
I made a life with Nicole. We continued to date, we struggled together, we built careers, we almost broke apart, we figured it out, we bought our first home, we planned our wedding and eventually announced that we had created a new life. The process took years of course and in that time, while my life progressed in leaps and bounds, the relationship with my father only moved in the smallest of positive increments.
It was with this history that my father and I met on that cloudy December day. The night before, I was informed by the nursing staff, he had lost the ability to speak and his weakness prevented movement. The man was trapped within his own body. My sisters and mother waited in the hall. They were exhausted, eyes red, shoulders slumped, clothes rumpled. They were also at odds with one another. Two thought he should continue fighting while one ambivalently argued that he needed to go and end the suffering.
I was briefed with options as his next of kin and the only person legally capable of deciding.
His hospital room was surprisingly well lit. He was laying on the bed nearly flat, a white thin blanket shrouded his body and his legs were apart some. It was in this moment that I came to understand how much his body had wasted away. The hulk of a man I had known as a child had imploded to skin and bones. The heavy hands with thick sausage-like fingers that had struck or held me as a baby were thin, veiny and lacked human warmth.
Then I came upon his face. His hearty cheeks were gone. Lips dry, cracked and had lost the full redness I remember my mother boasting about when I was younger. Interestingly, his hair was full and thick. It had grown fast since I had seen him last and it’s waviness caught me by surprise. I had an urge to touch it and I did. Stroking his mane back and remembering when he’d come home late and run his warm fingers through my hair as he muttered “buenas noches Hugo.”
It was in mid-stroke that his eyes opened and we made eye contact. It took half-a-second for him to focus and recognize me. I believe he did because I felt his gaze “leap” when I think he finally saw me. It seemed a long time passed before I spoke to him. It wasn’t a poignant speech and I don’t care to remember what was actually said. I do remember telling him that I wish I had made him proud. That the grandchild to come would be a boy. That I had made a decision and that I wished him the best. After that, he blinked twice and I saw his chest take in as much air as he could muster and then deflate quickly.
I stepped out of the room, signed awaiting paperwork and took a short walk.
When I returned, his body was cold. My father was gone.
Good Books
7:38 am – Corner of N Beverly Dr and Elevado Ave, Beverly Hills, Ca
I stepped on the carefully manicured lush green grass and made my way quietly to the front door of the home with the pleasant white door. In surprise, I jumped back one step as a the wooden frame slowly swung open and a pretty blonde girl wearing Bart Simpson jammies appeared and confidently greeted me.
Before I reached the steps to her porch she jumped down and met me at the brick steps. She said….”gracias” and “tenga un buen dia tu” as she grasped the good book and rushed up the stairs to the house and shut the lock..
As I started to make my way away from the scene I caught a glimpse of her in the window upstairs in what I assumed to be her bedroom before she disappeared from my history. Then as I snapped my way back onto the street, I caught the face of the leathery man taking stock of my process. He wasn’t happy…and I knew then that this was going to be a long day.
May 23, 1992 – 5:ish pm
The leathery man picked up 3500 or so copies of the good book from a contact he made. The weight of it lowers the back half of his beat-up and heavily taxed 1990ish white Ford Econoline back suspension. He takes stock and after a few minutes he deciphers that the risk is worth taking. In a few, he’s off and as he drives past the bright lights of the city of downtown Los Angeles on his way home he ponders the day immediately ahead.
May 24, 1992 – 5:45 am
My father rustled me from a troubled sleep in an uncommonly early hour. I was used to 7 am waking hours and 5ish on a Sunday was just uncalled for. Nonetheless, I felt his sense of urgency and I knew from past experience that it was not idea to cross him. In minutes I was dressed in my simple pair of blue denim jeans and faded white t-shirt. On my feet I snapped my Payless Shoe Source “Nikes” and as I made my way outside of my house on Eastman Avenue I had the audacity to ask “donde vamos.” Needless to say my question was greeted with quiet indignation and soon into the drive I found myself asleep.
California nearing summer wakes up in a splendor. It’s the upside of living on the west coast where surf and sand groggily wake up each day to the warming light of the sun. It was in this early splendor that I found myself awaking and then found that my father had let the cool breeze waft onto the back of the van and eventually into my nostrils. The ocean air near the Pacific eventually dissipates into another awkward form as it settles into the Los Angeles valley but at the coast it is pure and inspiring. It’s a smell more intoxicating than coffee.
“Hugo, Hugo…hey…apurate” my father shouted at me and soon the olfactory Nirvana ended and I came back to the world of our beaten up van with the old leak.
He explained….(in Espanol which I shall translate and paraphrase)
Okay, today we got to deliver these phone books to all the houses in this neighborhood son. Every single one of these books has to get to each house. So today I’ll grab a few and you grab a few and we’ll walk up and down each side of the street to deliver them. I hope to be done by 4 but we’ll see. The faster we go the faster we go ok? Ok….let’s go.
The news hit like a brick in the pit of my stomach. I glanced down the long street ahead and noticed that for the first time that I was in an alien world. A place where cars bore brands foreign from the Fords, Chevys and Toyotas I knew. The lawns where all green and none hosted cars boasting rust. Spinning sprinklers didn’t seem to exist but carefully timed and coordinated water shows akin to Disneyland.
May 24, 1992 – 2:38 pm
Late lunch had taken about 30 minutes and as we started to work on our last 60 books or so my temper was flaring. I cursed each and every embarrassing step up another driveway. I cursed my father for the stupid and pointless Odyssey. I hated people’s looks as I came up their way and dropped the book on their steps. I attempted to gauge whether they feared, pitied or found me amusing. More than anything, I disliked when some of the people didn’t even acknowledge me. As if I was a phantom entity or service. Like water that flows effortless from the tap or cool air that chills a desert home in the summer time.
It was in that internal rant that I stepped onto the grayish home on Doheny Road. As I approached the door an olive skinned older woman greeted me and said hello. Sheepishly I replied back and in 10 seconds time I found myself embroiled in a rudimentary conversation.
She asked me “how is your day going?” I said “Fine thank you mam”.
Her: “Oh no (giggling) don’t call me mam. That’s for old ladies. You don’t think I’m old right?”
Me: “No, no I’m sorry I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”
Her: “It’s okay, seems like you’ve been working hard.”
Me: “Yes, thank you, but we’re almost done for the day.”
Her: “We? Oh how many of you are you?”
Me: “Just my dad and me….”
Then from afar my dad shouted at me and told me to get back to work….
Me: “Sorry but I have to go.”
Her: “Seems like it….well have a good night”.
With that she took her right pointing finger and stroked the side of my cheek and as I left I felt a familiar electric twinge hit my lower back.
An hour or so later we were done (with about a dozen books still in the back of my father’s truck). As we crossed the lights of downtown Los Angeles my father and I hardly spoke.
When we arrived home and after I tossed the last few phone books unto our trash bin my father quietly thanked me for my hard word. In a scuff I say “de nada” and retreated to my bedroom. We never delivered books again.
July 25, 1992
We were in our living room watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Barcelona. My sisters and I gathered around the television set in excitement and that year was special for me as my hero Magic Johnson and the Dream Team would play for the gold.
Just before the ceremony started my father presented me with a brand new and gorgeous Starter Laker jacket. For me, it was literally “Christmas in July.”
As my parents excused themselves to the kitchen to fight, I wore my jacket proudly through the parade of nations. I had never been happier in life….
But from the a distance I heard my mother shouting about the $100+ jacket and how “we could possibly afford it.”
Then I heard my father approach her and as mutely as he could he said in Espanol….”don’t worry, he earned it even though he may never know how.”
Scissors (Part 1)
The television set flicked on and groggily searched for a signal on that overcast Easter afternoon in the mid-1980s. The day was an emerging tradition in our family and as the box honed in on the signal my sister and I grew restless and sought escape from the hammed up movie due to start.
I don’t know where my objections first sprung from. I knew it was a mix of how the main protagonist’s (who was a Spaniard) accent pronounced Ss and made every sentence seem oily and thus baked in unwarranted sophistication and insincerity. Or maybe it was that even at that age I felt that the film maker meant to manipulate the audience and it irked me that my parents would share tears on queue.
Perhaps it was my frustration for how in previous years I had watched with watery eyes a gaunt and bloodied actor struggle through the cobble-stoned streets while the angry throng hissed hatred in his direction. How could I (now “wiser”) been so easily duped to emotion? Now though, as I watched with my sister I read through the melodrama with all-knowing skepticism and whispered in her ear that is was time escape to our family’s back yard.
My father, not seeking an argument that day, relieved us both to our afternoon play and in a flash she and I raced out the door and to our play area so as to enjoy the last few minutes of daylight amidst the grass, darkening skies and overgrown vegetation at the northernmost fence.
—
The tool laid harmlessly by my father’s work shed. It was no more than a half foot long with two tan handles that came together by a thick screw like knob. From that off-center spot two gleaming leaf like blades shot out and I remember watching the light race across them as I shifted their angle to the sun during my inspection. They seemed harmless and I imagined how I may have shrunk so tiny that I was holding a regular pair of scissor which I should use to help my sister and I escape the wild jungle our back yard had become.
My sister trounced through the garden in her favorite and over-worn white top and khaki pants that were slowly thinning at the knees. She reached me with a smile and intently heard my description of the journey we would take together as Amazon adventurers who’d have to make their way through the thick of brush, vines and wicked man-eating plants. The journey would be perilous but I assured her that with her assistance we’d make it back to civilization in one piece and branded heroes.
Though she is three years younger than I, her imagination was always more fierce and in a moment she had envisioned the treacherous adventure at our feet and beckoned us to begin. With that tug at my arm I picked up the scissors and we made our way to the bougainvillea draped fence that served as the main wall of an undiscovered ancient temple. As we shimmied our way across, my sister described the endless chasm at our feet and warmed me that one false move could plunge us into the abyss. Care and a slow pace were key she said and I followed behind her, nipping at the strings of the plant above us that acted like cobras and pythons that would easily devour us.
With a start, the adventurer ahead turned around and put her finger to her lips. We had reached the entrance to the temple but it was covered with a hundred-year’s worth of growth. To make our way inside would take patience as the gates were booby-trapped and one wrong cut would send a deadly cascade of rocks on top of us, end our adventure and leave our skeletons ready to be discovered by other foolish archaeologist in later expeditions.
With that, she moved me closer and asked me to brandish the tool. She would hold a string of bougainvillea and I would cut it hoping not to unleash the dread above us. We both pretended to sweat and pant like they do in the movies. This was serious business, discovery and treasure were in our grasp, but we had to cut just right.
My sister grabbed the plant and angled it towards me. She showed me where to cut and together we nodded as the countdown began. “Uno” we said and I saw a smile race across her face, “dos” and her sight left mine as she focused on the marked spot, “tres”……..
I poured the full power of my tiny muscles to the handles of the scissors. The thickness of my target was no more than a few millimeters thick but I had to be sure the cut was successful. Our life depended on it after all. It was this force that shifted my approach and sent the blades in a difference direction than intended.
My ears registered a slight whistle as the blades cut through the air and began convening on a point. What I remember next is the crimson jet of liquid that came at me and splashed on my brown belt. Then, in confusion I let go of the scissors and watch them slowly make their way to the ground and land awkwardly on the concrete that as they settled still began to show a scattered galaxy of red dots. Next came my sister’s surprisingly quiet shriek and my gaze moved to her grimacing face and then to her hands which she had brought together and were slowly being glazed by the gushing blood. My stomach turned and a dizzying moment came over me that resolved itself quickly as (from the corner of my eye) I saw my mother look out the window to check on us.
She new without us saying one word and in a moment both her and my father rushed frantically towards us…..
A Head
My father scolded me harshly for playing at eastern corner of our residence on a cloudy Spring afternoon when I was about six. He had planned to create a garden there and had spent the earlier weekends tilling the soil.
My mother had explained to me that it was an escape from his grueling and psychologically draining work as a homicide detective in the Mexico City of the early 1980s.
From the window of my bedroom or from the shifting angles of my swing I watched his sweaty back, sun burnt shoulders and thick legs work in unison to plunge the shovel into the dirt and heave mounds of dirt that crumbled apart when they reached a few inches off the ground. It awed me that he could work 4 or 5 hours at a time with only a few lemonade breaks or an occasional beer that my mother would bring with a hearty refried bean, chile, avocado and ham torta.
Perhaps it was an act of rebellion that I decided to play in the island of loose dirt that he had worked so hard on. It had been one of my favorite spots of the yard to play in and I had been annoyed when he announced and described the planned garden to friends during our family’s yearly New Year’s Eve party. For a while I thought he had forgotten but then in early March he cordoned off the area with sticks and string and the special place was off limits for my baby sister and I.
When he spotted me that Sunday, I was doing cartwheels in the dirt. It was fun to feel my hands dig into the soil and I loved its coolness and how it dirtied my fingernails. His yell was powerful even from a distance and I grew cold when I heard it. By the time he reached me I was prepared for the worst but surprisingly he shooed me away gently with a warning not to do it again. This was a welcomed break and I resolved right there to comply.
—
The fever began early the next day. At first it meant taking one day off from school but when the stomach pains and severe headache sprung upon me my parents became alarmed. It had been about a week and no aspirin, tea or simple treatment helped. I was taken to a pediatrician who ran a few tests but failed to identify the problem. I was sent home while they studied further and it was then that I lost my appetite and for the next two weeks I began to loose weight rapidly.
Day after day my condition worsened and I felt terrible for causing my parents pain. My mother held her tears back as she placed countless moistened towels on my forehead. I saw a quiver at my father’s lip as he scoured my gaunt chest, thinning legs and ashen cheeks for clues or answers. I was slipping away slowly and there was nothing the they or doctors could do to stop it.
The weight of the situation drove my father to take a break and return to his work on the island of soil. A small tree he had planted early into the project was dying and he would take it out and replace it. As the shovel broke away the dirt and moved into the ground his foot felt the resistance of an object. It must have struck him odd as he had tilled this part and he was certain that no large rock or pipe layed beneath his feet. With curiosity he dug some more, pulled out the dying tree and in the whole he found a brown sack.
His fingers shook as he unfurled the burlap’s thick and stubborn knot. When it came undone a waft of stinking hot air moved up his nose. His surprise came in that he wasn’t surprised by the smell for he had encountered it before in his everyday work. It was the smell of decomposition and it belonged to the head of a large black cat.
—
My grandmother showed up later that evening and performed the ritual. She had been estranged from my parents for a few months and I had been surprised to see her. At my bed post she laid down a pack of cigarettes, a bowl, what seemed to a weed and a couple of eggs.
It hurt to cough as she blew cigarette smoke onto my face and I felt a chill tickle when she pressed the cool eggs about my naked body. The weed I saw smelled sweet and it soothed me as it brushed against my legs, feet and arms. I fell asleep some time during the event.
That night my parents burned the head, the blackened egg yolk and then prayed.
The next morning I awoke. The headache was gone, the fever had subsided and I asked my parents for a hearty breakfast.
A slab of concrete sits a top my father’s garden.
Americana
Guayavera
My father wore Guayaveras,
Despite their casual nature, the men that would frequent our home in Mexico and smoked the strong cigars wore them like tuxedos.
I often marveled at the intricacy of the weave. Imagined a day when I could sit around our court yard with my own and join the men who told the stories, blasted out obscenities and told the dirty jokes with my father.
At the end of the evening the men would leave. My father had enjoyed too much cognac and his nose would be red.
Then I knew I would pay penance for the day’s trespasses. For the broken dish at the party, or falling down off the tree and scuffing my newer shoes.
The belt would sail through the air and strike. Often until he lost his breath and tired out.
Then my mother would relieve him of his shirt and put him to bed.
On the morrow…the shirt would be crisply hung. Ready to be worn again.