I
Lately, he has been leaving me alone, ever since I started doing things to begin paying back for the car and Buster.
He has been especially nice ever since we went down to Eddy Ho’s. Since then he has not beaten or picked on me in front of his friends, though if he is in a bad mood at home you have to avoid him because he gets snappy. A couple of times he has even taken me with him to hang out—not just on jobs, like he used to. Twice we went to see some friends who live in their own house in Mar Vista, and once to a girlfriend’s Santa Monica apartment. Her mother is only thirty-two and likes to go dancing, so they have the place to themselves most of the time. People hang out there, kids their age—several years older than me—sitting around the living room taking bong hits, watching TV, while couples sit almost on top of each other on the couch. Everyone listens to one another tell stories. Tomas has a friend, Manny, who he went with down to Crenshaw on the second day of the LA riots. They set fire to a house, claims Manny, and passed through a boulevard of burning palm trees. Then they went down to a Price Club and walked out with boxes of new TV sets and stereos. That they went down was news to me. There were older guys in their thirties doing the same thing in Polo shirts, and their girlfriends would be waiting in their Camrys and Acuras. No cops interfered. The atmosphere was so lawless, a camera crew from some local news station was able to film all this without fazing the older guys. Tomas and Manny, though, were too smart to get on film.
My brother has even said he would take me to parties, though for now he avoids them because he wants to wait for Eddy Ho to cool off. He found out a couple of weeks ago that Eddy was alive and not crippled. Somehow his girlfriend heard about it at work. A week ago he heard that some of Eddy’s friends were looking for us, especially for Tomas. My brother showed up at a party in Culver City, at one of those modern apartment complexes which are impressive-looking from the outside but whose drywall is so paper-thin you can hear people in the next room breathing and fucking and on Friday or Saturday nights the muffled sound of parties going on throughout the building. Johnny Guerro, one of Eddy’s friends, was there and had a few words with Tomas. Luckily Tomas was with some friends, including Manny, who studies Thai boxing and Indonesian stick-fighting with Danny Inosanto, a Flip who teaches Kali in some warehouse in the ratty section of Marina Del Rey, and who was friends with Bruce Lee.
Nowadays Tomas does not let me sit out on the porch. He does not even like me to walk to the local store. Not that I want to. Even when I am at Saint Dominic’s waiting for our mother to pick me up, I keep close to the rectory door. I do not take the bus because the bus stop is a block from school, on Wilshire. And I have not gone to the basketball courts across from the church either.
All this time I felt bad that I did not feel worse about Eddy being hurt, that what I mostly worried about was whether his being wounded or crippled would get us in trouble.
Of course I also worried our mother would find out about Eddy Ho. I would study her expression to see if she knew anything, but she did not know anything yet, and still does not. I can tell.
Sometimes at night when I have to go to the bathroom I will pass her room and her door will be open. If there is moonlight I can make her out on the bed. It seems empty by Mom’s pillow where Buster used to sleep with her leg hanging off, and at her feet where her cats Saint Elmo and Sister Teresa used to curl up before Buster got to them. Sometimes I think about getting her a couple of new cats for company, but then I become afraid of what she might say when I give them to her, what the cats might remind her of. Sometimes she will be hugging her pillow against her cheek or chest.
Later I will try hard not to think of her there as I try to fall asleep. I also try not to think about the way she looked the day after Oregon. Mostly that day she ignored me. But one time I looked up from my book and caught her looking at me, though immediately she turned away. I only saw her for a second. Even though she looked away so quickly I did not have enough time to tell whether she seemed hurt or angry, still I could not get her face out of my mind. The way she appeared at that moment—it haunts me—and I go over it in my head, trying to figure out what she was feeling. At times she looks mad but at others she seems hurt, and I cannot tell which look is my memory and which is my imagination.
II
The last period bell rings as I hurry out into the courtyard between the rectory and abbey. It is a great asphalt parking lot, covered by black tar so new it shines in the sunlight and smells warm in my nose. The last period bell rings in the classrooms behind me, and I hurry, hearing the crowd of students pouring out of the classrooms. On the front lawn, I wait by a lone sun-withered palm tree, keeping an eye out for my mother, but also a wary one for Eddy Ho’s car. Already, the line of waiting vehicles crowds the curb, their hoods dappled by sun that pours through the overhead trees and sifts over the students who sit on the lawn before me.
Then I feel a woman approach, and I clench my bag strap and try to make out who she is without turning and letting her know I see her coming. As if, that way, she might not come.
But by her movements I can tell it is Cynthia Rowe, the biology teacher and orchestra leader. A former dancer, she has a way of moving through people stiffly but gracefully, her hand touching their shoulders in an absent but proper way that conveys some sort of message. I think about going down the block and waiting for my mother there, but it is too late to avoid Cynthia Rowe now.
I used to wait down at the corner because I did not want people to see Mom picking me up. I used to hate how she wears her huge sunglasses, but ever since Oregon I have her pick me up in front of the rectory, like everybody else. Those glasses still bother me, though I try not to think about them.
She will drive up real slow and squint out her window, looking for me. This is when she does not wear her ugly sunglasses. Even though I could rush up and duck into the car before anyone has had time to see her, I walk up to the car purposefully, casually, stepping around the backpacks and people sitting on the lawn.
Now, I recognize her car, even though it is still half a block away, behind the line of traffic that waits to reach the pickup point. A white Plymouth holds everyone up. Jodi Page takes her time getting into the backseat, and her mother—only her head is visible above the partially rolled-up tinted window—does not seem bothered, and does not hurry her. A few cars back, someone’s father waits impatiently, clenching his steering wheel, though he doesn’t honk. You are not allowed to get into a car until it reaches the front of the creeping line, so I do not try to walk down the line to my mother.
As she nears, I flinch. She is wearing her bug-eyed sunglasses. She bends forward over the steering wheel, something she needs to do to see the Land Cruiser bumper that is only three feet ahead. When the truck moves forward, she lets a long gap develop (the driver behind her makes an impatient face), then she hits the accelerator and jerks forward, braking abruptly just short of the Land Cruiser. Her Tercel chassis seems to bounce on the stopped wheels.
I begin walking towards her car. My eyes focus ahead and I ignore the clusters of people around me. But my mother’s car lurches forward again, and this time she bumps the Land Cruiser. I stop. She hit it hard enough to hear it, and more faces turn in her direction. The mother in the Land Cruiser gets out and walks over to Mom’s car. She is blond and tall and thin and wears black yoga-class tights, and holds a Starbucks iced drink.
I step my way around a sitting couple, but halt again. A crowd forms to watch the yoga mother and Mom, who looks confused as the woman leans into her window and angrily talks down at her. My mother nervously pushes her glasses up on her face, listening. I am hoping this will be over soon, when my mother gets out of her car and looks up at her.
Probably everyone wonders who this little Filipino woman is, since she has only recently begun picking me up here. The yoga mom’s son, Ben Feinstein, only a few years younger than me, watches from a couple of yards away, looking around self-consciously.
Sweat itches beneath my shirt. I am thinking about what to do when Jordan Hammerson approaches. He had distracted Cynthia Rowe, who then forgot she was on her way over to me.
He comes right up beside me, watching them.
Jesus, she’s giving her a hard time, he says.
My mother looks bewildered and she clutches her elbow as the yoga mom continues to talk angrily down at her, one hand on her hip, her other still holding her Starbucks drink. By now the entire lawn of people has drifted over. From somewhere back in the car line someone honks, and others do too.
That’s my mom, I say.
Jordan turns to me. Sunlight on his tanned skin creates a golden color, which looks odd against his powder blue eyes.
I know, he says. I’ve been to your house, remember?
I just wanted to make sure you knew.
He studies me strangely.
Yeah, okay, Gabe.
I leave him and head towards the car. And there is nothing I can do but stand there, close to the yoga mom. Her son, Ben, glances up at me, shifts on his feet, and though he seems embarrassed, fingering his stupid red vest, I’d like to put my ice pick through his cheek. My fingers jitter. I do not know what to do with them. People study me, many of them wondering if I am in a car pool with Mom, though maybe some are putting my features together and figuring out who I am.
Mom is peering up at the yoga mom.
I’m sorry, she says.
The yoga mom’s hand is on her slender hip, its bony shape visible beneath her dancer’s stretch pants. That doesn’t fix my dent, she says. She shakes her head and sighs. Do you realize this is a new car?
Mom tilts her head, like a bedraggled little sparrow. I’m sorry.
The yoga mom ignores her and turns to some random girl standing nearby. I mean, really, some people, she says. I was only a few feet away.
She turns back to my mother. I mean, what were you thinking?
I don’t know.
You were only a few feet away.
I know.
The yoga mom stares at her.
You know? You know and you still hit me? God. Can you understand? I’m going to have to bring this truck in, deal with the fucks at the dealership, rental cars. The yoga mom clenches her teeth, her jaw muscles pulling taut beneath skin yellowed from too much suntanning, and she breathes deeply through her nose, a sort of sigh, then opens her mouth again. I’m a busy woman, a female producer working in sexist Hollywood—I don’t have time for this kind of shit.
The yoga mom shakes her head. Well, then you’d better give me your license and insurance carrier.
Mom touches her elbow. I don’t have insurance, she says.
You don’t have insurance.
No.
The yoga mom turns to the girl with the red backpack again. The girl seems embarrassed at being addressed, studying her bike’s handlebars, but the yoga mom does not notice this. The idiots they let send their kids to school here, she says. People who can’t afford insurance should ride the bus.
III
As she drives us down Wilshire, my mother is quiet and grips the steering wheel, her shoulders stressed because it is so high for her. Her brown makeup is shiny from sweat, and I resist an urge to tell her to pat it dry. Beyond her, sun flashes on the second floor of a parking garage, moving from car to car, glinting off hoods and chrome bumpers.
Where are we going? I say.
I need to pick some things up from the mall, she says, still sounding uptight as she turns to me. Is that okay?
A year ago, she would have pulled out a cigarette at this point, but she quit, and now she puts a knuckle to her mouth and chews at it. Tita Dina is always telling her this is not ladylike and she should stop.
I stare at the cupped hands in my lap.
Sure, I say.
We park out on a sunny garage roof. She remains quiet as we walk past the rows of hot clicking metal hoods and down the urine-smelling stairwell. On the sidewalk, she stops to put on her sunglasses. As I wait, I notice our reflection in a tinted window glass. Before the furniture display of slipcovered couches our reflection is ghostlike and faintly visible: a short Asian woman with a lanky teenager, one foot taller, standing amid people who swarm past.
She takes us down the Promenade, a crowded pedestrian street of fake cobblestones, towards one of the makeup shops she likes. Shoppers and tourists, couples and wanderers, come en masse from the opposite direction. The times I have been here with Tomas, people always step aside, even older men in suits with a girlfriend or secretary whom they reluctantly guide out of our way. But now my mother steps out of other people’s paths, and I do too. We near a group of skinny college-student types. They look like engineers, nerdy, and I would not normally get out of their way. But even though the pale one in a yellow button-down shirt sees Mom, he acts as if he does not notice her, and she actually has to squeeze beside a bench to let them pass. The biggest one clips her shoulder. I freeze. I glare at them, aware of the ice pick tucked behind my wallet, but they don’t even notice me.
She starts again and I hurry to catch up. In the past I might have walked a bit ahead, pretending not to be with her, but today I walk alongside.
A tall, model-like redhead attends the makeup counter, the Asian brand makeups high up on glass shelves behind her. She is very pretty and must be new—we haven’t seen her before—and Mom instinctively clutches my arm and slows herself. She often did this before Oregon, whenever she saw a salesclerk she did not know, especially people who seemed fake or unfriendly or unusually attractive: people who she thought might look down on her accent. But today she immediately lets go of me. This girl wears a white doctor’s coat, though she has pushed the sleeves above her knobby elbows, and as she moves around her skirt looks stylish without having cost much.
In the past, my mother might have pretended to look around the aisles, though I knew she was really getting ready to go up and talk to the salespeople, and when the time came she would look towards me in a way that indicated I was to come over, in case she needed help. She did not mind embarrassing me, because that went with the non-complaining territory of a dutiful Filipino son, even though I always reminded her I was American by complaining. Today I would not have complained, but she starts towards the counter without sending me the usual glance. As she nears, the cosmetics girl begins chatting across the aisle to a lady who works behind the pharmacy counter window.
My mother stands before the makeup counter, waiting. At this point you would expect the girl to turn away from her friend towards Mom, the customer, but she does not. The way my mother leans over the glass it is obvious she expects the girl to attend to her right away. But the girl continues talking, and not about an order or a work-type responsibility, but a date she had last night. Mom leans off the counter, checking to see if anyone has noticed her being ignored.
I remember the time at Fedco when the perfume salespeople passed her number and she got so upset. That day Tomas comforted her with a hand on her shoulder, and he took her crumpled number up to the counter so she could buy a perfume. But Tomas is not here today and it has fallen on me to help her. I approach. She glances up, but seeing it is me, she peers down through the glass again, as if deep in concentration.
I take a breath and pass her, reaching that part of the counter between the girl and her pharmacist friend.
Excuse me, I say.
The girl does not hear. The pharmacist notices me, but she gets distracted by some question the girl makes about her date that seems to require her attention, and returns to her conversation.
I call to the girl again.
This time I spoke louder than I intended. They turn to me, the girl’s mouth gaping from a sentence she has not finished. The pharmacist woman seems concerned, but the girl stares at me.
What?
Some people need some help around here.
Mom nervously adjusts her purse strap, but the girl does not seem to notice her or that I am with her.
You know, I was in the middle of a sentence.
People have been waiting longer than that.
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were in the need for makeup.
Did I say I needed makeup?
My hands have begun to shake, so I hide them in my pockets. The pharmacist disappears from her window and comes through a section in the countertop she lifts like a drawbridge. She’s older than the girl, vaguely Hispanic, with too much purple eye shadow around her concerned eyes. She sets a hand on the girl’s shoulder and faces me.
What’s wrong? she says. It seems like she said this to me, but the girl answers her.
I don’t know, she says. This kid comes up and all of a sudden starts talking like I was ignoring him. He only just got here.
It seems strange that my mother has not said anything yet, but she shifts around, and must be waiting for an opportunity to speak. A few shoppers have clustered at the end of a nearby aisle, and though they pretend to be looking at hair products, they in fact appear to be listening.
Hey, just cool it, Cathy, the woman says. Okay?
The girl scrunches her blue lips and her eyes narrow. We’re not slaves, she mumbles.
Suddenly I am not sure whether Mom is fidgeting because she would like to say something but feels ignored, or because she wishes I had not said anything and wants to go, or that I would shut up. The girl glances at her, but Mom pretends to look at items in the counter.
It’s not me, I finally tell the girl.
What? What do you mean it’s not me?
I’m not the one waiting for help with makeup.
You’re not waiting for makeup.
No.
So then what are you talking about?
Mom lowers her head, fingering the counter glass. I glance towards the glass door. Outside, a woman in denim overalls has a bright cluster of balloons for sale, bunched like floating grapes, purple and yellow, in the afternoon sunlight. Maybe, if my mother was not here, I would run to her.
I gesture towards Mom.
She’s been waiting here to get service for a long time.
They swivel towards her and she smiles nervously at the girl, then lowers her head. Mom does not understand that by saying nothing she will give them the wrong impression, and so it is up to me to act quickly. I try to arrange the words in my mind, my throat constricting, but I have no idea what words will come out of my mouth.
You shouldn’t not serve somebody just because they look different.
The pharmacist’s face goes red. The girl looks surprised. She regards my mother, who still stares through the glass, then returns to me.
That’s ridiculous, the girl says. That’s…. She stops herself and turns to the pharmacist. Did you hear what he just said?
The woman squeezes her shoulder, then turns to me. Her expression tries to reassure me, though she is nervous. She calls out to my mother, who looks up from the glass as if she had not heard any of our conversation.
Ma’am.
Yes?
Are you looking for something?
Mom looks at her hands and seems to think about this. She lifts her face to the woman again, almost deferentially.
What?
Do you need some help?
Oh no, thank you, she blurts out. I’m just looking.
I am facing her because I do not want to turn back to the girl and woman, but she avoids my eyes, fixated on the counter and moving off a step or two. She forgets to pull her purse along and immediately realizes this, though she seems too embarrassed to pick it up, and pretends not to have noticed. It just sits there looking abandoned on the glass. The pharmacist studies us, then calls over to my mother.
Well if you need any help—
Okay. She waves her brown hand impatiently, as if she does not want to be bothered.
The woman studies me again. The ceiling slants at an angle now almost as if it were far away. I focus on a corner of drywall and the lumpy plaster visible beneath its thin layer of paint. I scrutinize it carefully, real carefully, trying to think of nothing else.
The pharmacist approaches. Her warm hand rests on my shoulder before I know it is coming and she must feel my shoulders tense and almost pull away.
Hey, are you okay? she says.
Though she’s white, she sounds Puerto Rican or some sort of Spanish, and also like somebody’s mother. It’s strange I should know this, but somehow I feel certain.
I shrug.
Yeah.
You sure?
I make several rapid nods. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and the image freezes in my mind: I look skinnier than I realized—almost bony—and my back is curved forward like a wishbone. My eyes jerk away. I wonder what I will look like—if I do not change the way I am—as an old man. In some ways, maybe, I already look it. I find myself staring down the counter and realize my mother has gone.
You got no business speaking for strangers and making unwarranted accusations, the girl says.
On the countertop, my fingers look pale and strange in the fluorescent light. The knuckles bitten and bony. The woman gives the girl an angry look and she bites her blue lip and walks away.
IV
I find my mother outside, just a few feet down from the storefront glass, where she cannot be seen, against the Dairy Store’s brick wall. The sun warms the wall and glints off the gold-screened windows high above us, and Mom has found a slender shadow of an infant tree. She is always finding shade so her skin will not get darker. As we return to the car, she clutches at her purse strap, shifting it to a more comfortable position.
In the parked car she is quiet and I do not say anything, my hands cupped in my lap, and we sit in the still car, hoods popping and clicking around us. She has her key chain in her hand with the little black leather shoe the tow truck guy gave her. She does not make a movement to start the car and it seems like she wants to say something. Finally she inserts the key, then hesitates again, but gives up and starts the car.
She glances at me on Twentieth. Beneath us passes silvery asphalt whose cracks are patched up with dripped trails of black tar. The tall palm trees are so emaciated they cast thin shadows that dissolve on the street.
Do you want some frozen yogurt? she suddenly says.
I look at her.
I thought we were eating with Aunt Jessica.
We have time.
Wouldn’t it spoil our appetite?
My mother has always insisted we be hungry at the meals other people buy for us, usually Aunt Jessica or my Tita Dina.
You can have an appetizer.
I shrug.
Sure.
We don’t have to if you don’t want to, Gabe, she says, sounding hurt. She has not looked at me but just peers over the steering wheel. She eases to a stop sign, and waits for a yellow Volkswagen Bug to pass. She used to own one when she first came to America, back when she was an emergency room receptionist and worked with some Filipino girls who all hoped to become American. They envied her her American husband, and I think most of them have married and stayed. She knows how much I love chocolate sundaes.
No, let’s go.
We park a block off Montana and cross the street to avoid Aunt Jessica’s store so she will not see us.
Normally she would give me money and I would buy us the ice cream, but she goes to the counter while I wait at a white plastic table, then returns with our food. Even though we are inside, it is a patio table, a canvas sun umbrella sprouting from its middle, the walls around us painted like a tropical landscape. I picked a middle table because I know she likes to sit in cafés among people, though she never talks to them. She bought a nonfat frozen yogurt for herself and a chocolate sundae with nuts and extra whipped cream for me and I eat it all and scrape the last melted bits up against the paper side and lick my spoon clean as she watches. We wait for our dinner appointment with Aunt Jessica, pretending to watch the shoppers pass outside, though at times I can feel her regarding me.
I stare at the paper cup on the table before me. Finally she reaches out and touches my cheek with her warm fingers.
Oh, Gabrielito, she says.
The plastic spoon lies in the empty container, its handle leans against the paper rim. Outside somebody passes the window; their shadow flickers across the glass and over our table and on her arms and face.
She removes her warm hand from my face and looks out the window. Her jaw trembles like an old woman’s. She still wears her wedding ring.
It looks so different.
What?
All the people, she says. This street was always so empty a few years ago. Your Aunt Jessica always complained about not having restaurants nearby. Now she complains about all the strange people, even though she gets more customers.
I nod.
You want to sit outside?
Do you?
It’s sunnier now.
Sure.
We find some benches in the sunlight. I can see people walking past and shoppers coming out of the Aero Theater and just next door to us some little wooden tables and black chairs set out on the sidewalk in front of the café, where people sit drinking their iced mochas in plastic cups. They all seem young and beautiful. Even the ones in jeans and T-shirts seem stylish and well dressed. I wonder how they can do this. Maybe it is the way they sit—the way the men cross their legs at the knees and delicately finger their cups. Then I notice that a few people have on expensive glasses despite their casual clothes. At the nearest table a man sits with his legs crossed this way. It is the girl’s way, but he seems stylish and sits with a thin girl who could be a model and has a Rottweiler sitting at her boots. Looking closer, I see that she is probably a bit too old to be a model, though she is tall and girlish.
I try crossing my legs his way, though soon it hurts my knee and I uncross it again.
The woman catches me glancing at her and smiles, and I look down.
Tomas has always made fun of Rottweilers, but this one seems friendly and comes over. Without looking at the owners, I reach over and scratch it behind the ear.
He likes you, the man says.
The woman agrees.
I do not know what to say to this and just keep petting the dog. So they will not think I am ignoring them I lean closer to it and put my ear against it and feel the warm fur and pet him and talk to him. The woman leans over and begins talking to Mom, and though Mom seems nervous and cool towards her at first, after a while they start laughing over something. It turns out she is older than I thought because her son goes to Saint Dominic’s. He is a few grades below me—I don’t know him—but still, she doesn’t look like she could be over twenty-five, though I guess she must be. Actually, she has lines at her mouth and eyes when she smiles, which is often, and faint blue veins on her hands. At first I do not pay attention to what my mother and the woman are saying, but only watch the way the man seems to be able to be a part of this conversation without saying anything. He has a slight relaxed smile and cups his fingers beneath his chin, nodding attentively but calmly. I try this look out in my mind, though I am shy to do it in front of him. It is something I will try later. I do try the attentive look in his eyes—watching the women closely—and start to notice what the woman is telling my mother. She says she has a car pool going—a few mothers—and asks her if she would like to join them. Mom hesitates for a moment, no doubt thinking about the rusty little Tercel, since these are the sort of people who drive Land Cruisers, and she says maybe. She will have to think about it. The woman gives my mother her number and sets her finger on her hand and after a while they say goodbye and I let the dog pull away from my cheek, patting him softly, and they leave. Mom watches them. When the woman touched my mother I could tell it made her stiffen, but now she looks at the woman for a long time. For three years she has picked me up herself, even though it meant working strange hours at the shoe department, because she did not know anybody else’s mother.
I try watching people at the tables without being too obvious. They appear comfortable and talkative, though I notice a few people sitting alone. They seem at ease and look like everybody else, and peer around and observe each other. One girl, who is pretty, looks at a couple and they catch her doing this, and instead of smiling at them or even just nodding, she lowers her eyes. But she does not seem bothered about it. Not at all.
When I turn back to Mom I notice she has been watching her too, though sensing me, she immediately looks down again. Her expression stays in my mind. It is hard to figure out. Something about it bothers me, and as I think about it her face has already become a memory, and then it occurs to me—I know it is strange to think this—that what I had seen was a look of longing.