I grew up about four hundred miles from Prescott, in a town called Oceanside, California, in a nice middle-class neighborhood not too far from the beach. We—my mother; my older brother, Chad; and I—lived with my maternal grandma and her second husband, my step-grandfather, who I called Grandpa. I was a beach rat who loved the sand and skateboarding and all that. A typical blond, blue-eyed SoCal boy.
I remember myself as a happy kid, full of joy. I got good grades, even though I was the class clown. My nickname was “BB” because I zinged around like a tiny copper-plated bullet. I had more energy than a two-thousand-volt wire, and that sometimes got me in trouble.
It was innocent stuff, at least to begin with. In second grade, my friend and I would hide under the beanbags in the classroom and giggle as the teacher called out our names, growing louder and more worried the longer we failed to respond. “Bren-daaaaaaan!” She couldn’t for the life of her imagine where the little blond boy had gotten to. We’d be under the bags in the cool darkness, stifling our laughs. When she found us, we’d shoot out of there and run for the hallways.
I needed the energy, because life with my mother was different. You needed a lot of stamina just to keep up.
My mom is an original California free spirit. If you gave her three or four hours to do anything she wanted, she’d find the nearest beach and wander it, picking up seashells and staring at the waves. Or she’d dive in and surf.
Mom always had her eyes on the horizon, waiting for the next big thing to come along: the next city, the next adventure. Restless. She was always looking to strike out on her own, but it never seemed to work out.
One time when I was six, my mom got invited to a birthday party in Vegas. She left on a Thursday and was supposed to be home on Monday. Monday came and went. No mom. Tuesday, Wednesday, same thing. It turned out she’d liked Vegas so much she’d decided to stay a few extra days, hanging out with old friends who introduced her to new friends.
Finally, after the better part of a week, we got word she was coming home. I went to the airport with Grandma and my brother to pick her up, super excited, and when she came down the runway, she was in a wheelchair. Turns out she’d gone Jet Skiing on some lake near Vegas, taken a bad fall, and broken her back.
My brother and I thought she was paralyzed or something. We bawled our eyes out at the sight of her.
That was Mom.
My mother wasn’t happy in Oceanside. When I was eight, she found a place in a neighborhood called Libby Lake and said we were moving. I’d never heard of Libby Lake and I didn’t want to leave Grandpa. He was as good as a father to me. I wanted to hold on to that kindhearted old man for as long as I could.
But my mom was determined. So we packed our few belongings and got ready for the move to the cheap duplex she’d found for us. I got over my fear of leaving Grandpa and, as moving day got closer, got more and more excited. What was the new place going to be like? Who was going to be my best friend?
After we squeezed into the duplex, one of the first things I learned about my new neighborhood was not to go near Libby Lake Park after dark.
“Why?” I asked Chad.
“Just don’t,” he said. Chad was tall and strong and usually pissed off, so I listened to him. Later I learned that the authorities would drain the lake every so often and find needles, guns, and once in a while a dead body. It turned out that Libby Lake was the kind of place you move away from, not to, but my mom never did things the way most people do.
It was a Latino and black neighborhood and I definitely stuck out. I had this Irish name, Brendan McDonough, that might as well have been Walter McWhitey. I was the first white kid a lot of the neighborhood dudes had any dealings with. I’d grown up playing flag football in Oceanside with black and Samoan kids, so it wasn’t really a big deal for me. But Libby Lake was that times a hundred. I remember counting seventeen ice cream trucks one day, and hardly any of the drivers spoke English. I learned quickly to order my favorite ice cream bar en español.
Libby Lake was more chaotic than my old neighborhood. Things touched off quicker. One time, I was playing outside on the street with my new friends when a door banged open with a noise like a gunshot and a kid came running out. Right behind him was his uncle with a belt hanging from his left hand, the heavy steel buckle dangling at the end. The boy had stolen something and the uncle was screaming in Spanish that he was going to beat him like a dog.
My mouth instantly went dry and my heart beat fast. I wasn’t used to this kind of drama. My grandfather was a peaceful man who hated confrontation. I’d never even been spanked.
Now I looked at the faces of my friends as this kid was screaming bloody murder and running for his life. They were calm and smiling; their arms were balanced on the handlebars of their bikes and they were leaning forward to see what would happen next. Would Jose get away this time? Or would Uncle Rico give him a good whipping? It was like they were watching a football game. Who would win?
Oh, man, I thought to myself. I guess this is normal in Libby Lake.
Even the nice things turned weird, like neighborhood dogs. My friends told me about one called Fluffy, who we’d hear barking behind his chain-link fence. But Fluffy, despite his name, was a psychopath. Every time he got loose, kids would run down the street yelling, “Fluffy’s out! Fluffy’s out!” Everyone tore ass for a safe spot and prayed that Fluffy wouldn’t find them. That dog would bite anything that moved, and you’d have to stay inside until the owners came home and rounded Fluffy up.
When one lady who lived nearby confiscated our soccer ball and cussed at us for being bad kids, we didn’t take it lying down. We walked over to her house, found her family’s car parked in front, and proceeded to go totally apeshit on that thing. Five other kids and I crawled on it like we were playing king of the mountain. Bang, we jumped on the hood. Boom went the roof as we launched off it like a trampoline.
Pure boy adrenaline. When the cop sirens sounded in the distance, we howled and ran off.
I guess I had some anger in me. I didn’t know from what. But I was up for destruction.
It wasn’t long before I went looking for a friend. A different kind of friend, you could say. Like, a calming influence.
I saw my chance one day walking home from school. There was a yard at the corner of my block that was the biggest in the neighborhood. “That guy’s been here since the dawn of the dinosaurs,” my friends said. The neighborhood must have gone downhill since then, because his property was strung from corner to corner with strands of barbed wire. (Again, not really a normal thing on the street I’d grown up on.) Between the planks of wood you could see what he was protecting. Fruit and nut trees: orange, lemon, almond. It was beautiful back there.
One day we were walking by the barbed-wire house and I heard a meow. I instantly went down on my hands and knees and at the bottom of the fence I saw a kitten’s pale orange paw sticking out. Apparently the old man’s cat had a litter, and one of them was calling to me. My friends were like, “What are you doing, Brendan?” but something about that kitten’s crying touched me. I spent twenty minutes on my hands and knees trying to draw it out, long after my friends had left. The kitten was too scared, though, and wouldn’t come to me.
I ran home and burst into the little two-bedroom we were staying in.
“Mom, Mom, I found a kitten behind the barbed-wire fence. If I can get it out, can I keep it?”
My mom looked at me dubiously.
“Please? I’ll take such good care of it. Pleeeaaase?”
We had an old cat, but that was my mother’s. I wanted a pet of my own.
“If you can get a baby kitten to leave its mom and come to a complete stranger’s house? Sure, baby. You can have it.”
I grabbed a handful of cat food and headed out. Two minutes later I was back at the fence. I smoothed out the dirt at the little depression under the fence and put three pieces of kibble there. I waited.
It was summertime. People passed me on the sidewalk. Some kids called to me to play basketball. But my eyes were focused on that kibble.
I called the kitten and made noises with my lips. I didn’t care how I looked.
But nothing. The kibble sat there like three little rocks.
I looked through the fence and saw the lemon trees waving in the wind. I sat on my butt and called again.
Suddenly, a little orange paw darted out and tried to scratch the kibble back.
“That’s right,” I said. “Get some lunch.”
I saw the kitten’s nose sniff the food. I could see it was a little tabby cat, maybe eight weeks old.
I reached out and grabbed the kitten and pulled it under the fence. It struggled at first but I sat on the sidewalk and scooped it into my arms. It felt so soft. I put the little guy in the hollow of my neck and calmed him. Then I walked home, happy and proud.
Three days later we discovered the kitten had fleas. There were things biting us all over our bodies. We had to leave the duplex and move back to Grandpa’s. Worse, I had to give up the kitten. It killed me to do it and I cried some hot tears, all right, but Grandpa was allergic to cats, so it was either him or the cat. Grandpa won.
That one hurt.