I’ve been here six days, and all I know about Mission Viejo is how to get to Sizzler and how and when to skulk around my moms’s place. I’m going to make my move soon. I’ve got it planned like this: I’ll get dressed up, go over on Sunday with some flowers, knock on the door, and pretend that this is all one big happy surprise.
One thing I’ve learned is that people play off of what you give them. If you fuck up and then act like you’ve fucked up, people get their stage directions from you and treat you like you fucked up. But I’ve gotten away with a lot of stuff just by acting like it was no big deal. Or if I was afraid, I just act like I’m not even close to scared, and most will back off just because they don’t want to deal with somebody who isn’t punked out. It’s an act, but I figured out a long time ago that everyone else is acting, too. So why be a sucker and be the only one being real? That’s the secret of The Face.
When Moms and Antony and me were still living together, I was driving home from the store. I was pulling into the driveway of our old house, the one Naomi put up for sale when she took Moms away, when this guy hits me. It wasn’t really much of an accident. But it shook me up. I was fourteen, no license, no experience. You get the picture. So as the guy gets out, instead of saying anything to him, since I’m right in front of my house, I go in to get my moms. Scared blind, I find my moms and I start blathering about “I just got in an accident. I don’t know what to do.” It’s hysterical talk, like I’m losing it. My moms, who was already on the edge herself, comes storming out of the bathroom, and instead of taking control, wiping my forehead down, holding my hand—she looks me straight in the eye, her face in flames, and she says, “You stop acting this way right now! You act like a man. You hear me? A man. You go out there and you take care of this like a man!” The whole time she’s grabbed me by the shoulders and shaken me as hard as I’ve ever been shaken. I remember feeling something fall down inside me: the absolute truth that I wasn’t allowed to be a kid anymore. I wasn’t going to have anybody to hide behind or to go asking to front for me. No pops, no moms.
So I walked into the bathroom for just a second, my moms watching me, not saying anything because she’d said it all. I looked in the mirror and I made The Face. Dead fucking serious. A wall between my fear and whatever motherfucker happened to be in my motherfucking way. I wheeled around and walked out, not fast, not slow, just calm. And as I did I thought to myself, I cannot be hurt. I am dangerous. I let those words come out my very eyes. Crazy, right? But that asshole took his cues from me that day. He didn’t fuck with me, because I wasn’t the same fourteen-year-old punk who ran into the house. He must’ve thought I went in and got my stone-cold twin brother to handle business.
In the same way, I’m going to roll into Moms’s place with a big smile. Okay, not a big smile. One that’ll hide my cracked teeth. They’ll play along. When I get my moms alone, I’m going to tell her the plan, how I’m going to save her. She’ll have to give me a chance. I’m going in there certain of that in my head if not in my chest. I am visualizing that right now. I am preparing to make The Face, to wait behind it for the good thing to become real.
I go to the mall. It won’t hurt to bring a few presents. I hit the toy store first to get Antony some Pokémon cards. Kids love that shit, and he was wearing that T-shirt when I saw him at McDonald’s. For my abuela, I buy a pair of slippers, and not those cheap-assed kind, either. These are nice and fluffy. The salesman told me that they’d make her feet feel “special.” Shit was gay, but they are nice slippers. I get Naomi some perfume. For my moms, I pick her out a dress. Now this sounds risky, right? But I remember what she likes. When I was a little kid, she used to make me go dress shopping with her. I didn’t mind really. It made her happy to have me around to ask me how she looked. I always said “good.” I want to remind her of when she was happy. I pick out a nice blue one, kind of shapely, with folds in the skirt and brass buttons that I know she’ll like.
I take a cab back to the Motel 6. It’s familiar, the only really familiar thing in this town so far. That and the Sizzler.
* * *
The next day, I try and chill. I need to be rested and calm. I take a shower and start getting ready around one P.M. even though I don’t want to get there till about five. I put my jeans, T-shirt, and wind-breaker on the bed. I go into the bathroom and look at my face carefully. There’s a few scabs left around my eye and mouth. I take a wet washrag and rub them away. Red patterns of circles appear where I’ve cleaned myself off, but it looks better than scabs. I study my face some more. I don’t look nearly as bad as I did two weeks ago. I’ve got some scars, but I think they make me look older, more tough. If I don’t smile, you probably wouldn’t notice anything different about me at all. I comb my hair. I just got it cut and there isn’t much to brush. I just had the guy run number-three shears across the whole thing. I think he’s a punk, but Diana’s always telling me I look like that guy from that runaway bus movie. What was it called? Speed. That wasn’t so bad. Okay, I say to my reflection, and I take a deep breath and visualize.
I have the cabbie drop me off a few blocks from the house. I’m getting tense and I don’t want to cause a commotion driving in to my abuela’s crib in a big fucking yellow cab. But now I have to carry everything and I look even more conspicuous because I had the department store wrap up all the shit I bought. In a way it’s good that it’s falling all over the place. It keeps me from thinking about ringing the doorbell till I actually come to the house. I can see my Aunt Naomi’s car parked outside. I walk up to the door, but just before I ring, I get an anxiety attack. My stomach is killing me and my fucking knees are shaking, but my finger refuses to listen and it pushes the doorbell. It’s not too late to get the hell out of here, but the door opens and standing right in front of me is my moms.
She looks at me for a second, like she recognizes me but can’t make sense of what I’m doing there and so that makes me seem not real. I forget to bring up the flowers. Instead I’m standing there juggling all these shiny boxes and the flower bundle falls out of my hands onto the porch. I’m bending over to pick them up when I hear her say, “M’ijo?” And I freeze. She says it again, “M’ijo, is that you?” And before I can answer, she opens the screen door and hugs me, just like that. The presents all fall out of my arms, but she just keeps hugging me tight.
Screw it. I forget the boxes and I put my arms around her. She’s thin still, my hands meeting up behind her back, plenty of room in the hug for maybe another person. I’d forgotten how it feels to have her arms around me. But not her smell. Her powder, gardenias. It comes at me like a wave I didn’t feel in time, catching me up in memories I didn’t know I had in me. Goddamn. I’m choked by it all, like her embrace is both something I want to stay in and something I have to get out of. I’m dizzy with it, feeling almost like I can just rest right here on this cold, hard doorstep because I’m nearly home.
We stand there, both feeling it, neither of us saying anything, and then I hear Naomi come in from behind my moms. “Teresa, are you alright?” Then she sees me. “Robert? Is that you? What?” and then she says, “Both of you come in here.”
My abuela pokes her head through the doorway. She comes in heavy and slow, smiling like she’s about to meet a friendly stranger. She sits down on a blue Barcalounger. I take a look around the place. It’s big with pale green walls loaded with pictures of angels. There’s little angel figurines, too. They’re everywhere, like Naomi’s trying to fool visitors into thinking they’ve gone to heaven. Above a small fireplace is a big-assed family portrait of my moms, Antony, Abuela, and Naomi. In it, everyone is smiling but Moms.
“Where’s Antony?” I ask, but nobody answers. They all want to know what’s up, where I came from, why my face and teeth look like they do, and mostly what the fuck I’m doing there. “Did you run away, is everything alright? Why didn’t you call?” All that sort of shit. Finally, I see Antony. He’s got a towel around him. He’s just gotten out of the tub and his hair is dripping. “Momma,” he says, and Naomi says, “I’ll be right there, Antony, go back in the bathroom.” It’s strange because I half-expected, half-hoped, the kid would go crazy yelling “Robert” and come jumping into my arms. But instead he looks afraid, like he doesn’t know who I am.
“He doesn’t recognize me,” I say to the three of them. “Of course he does,” Naomi says. “Don’t worry about that now. Tell us what’s going on, Robert.” My moms is sitting next to me and she’s got her arm around my shoulders. She seems really glad. I tell them about saving up my money and deciding to take a visit up to see them. “Yeah, I just thought I’d come up and visit, you know, see how everybody is doing.” I want Naomi and Abuela to get out. I want to talk to my moms alone, but they just keep sitting there. Finally Naomi gets up to take care of Antony, but my abuela doesn’t go anywhere. So I give them their presents. My abuela is cool, but she’s old as Moses. She’s nothing like Grams, who’s old, too, but still works and drives and talks up a storm. Abuela can hardly move around, and all she does is nod and smile a lot. She’s not on top of things too well. But she seems to like the slippers. Moms puts them on for her and the old lady smiles and says, “Very pretty.”
My moms opens her present. She pulls the dress out and holds it up. I can tell she likes it a lot. She hasn’t changed in two years. She’s maybe, if anything, a little thinner, but to tell the truth, she looks good compared to how she was looking. Her face doesn’t look all pinched up with nerves and her eyes don’t seem to be hiding so much pain. Her hair has grown back and it looks nice. I say, “Do you like it?” And she just says, “It’s beautiful.” She hugs me again and says, “Thank you,” while she does it. I can’t believe it really. It seems too easy.
Naomi brings Antony out of the bedroom where she’s gotten him dressed. He looks over at me trying to hide even though he’s completely in the open. His brown curly hair is damp and hanging nearly over his dark eyes. Naomi says to him, “Go give your big brother Robert a hug, Antony.” And the kid smiles and comes over and gives me a hug. I say, “I brought you a present for your birthday.” He looks at the small box and takes it. He takes a look around like he half expects someone to tell him he can’t open it. “C’mon,” I say, making a little rip, and he takes it from there. “Pokémon,” he says, happy as hell as he tears off the wrap. “I got you something, too, Naomi.”
“You shouldn’t have, Robert. You really shouldn’t have.” She sounds funny, like she’s not talking about the present.
* * *
Moms makes enchiladas, my favorite, and we sit around the dinner table eating and talking. Everyone seems cool with me being there. That’s a good sign, but still, I’ve decided I’m not even going to mention staying even though the place is pretty big. The topic comes up when Naomi asks me where my stuff is. “I didn’t bring much,” I say.
“So where are you sleeping? Do you have friends here?”
“I’ve got a place,” I say, but now my moms gets in it.
“M’ijo, you go get your stuff. You stay with us.”
“Sure,” Naomi says, “I’ll take you as soon as we eat.” Hey, I’m not going to fight it. If they want me around, then great.
Antony is the best. He’s talking to me and asking me questions like where I live and where I’ve been and will I take him to McDonald’s. I tell him San Antonio and he wants to know where that is. He’s smart. He’s five, almost six, and I haven’t seen him since he was three. “I wanna go,” he says when me and Naomi get ready to go get my bag. “You should stay here,” Naomi tries to tell him, but the kid is already hanging on my leg and he’s squirming around trying to get behind me so he won’t have to look at her. “Can he go?” and I make sure to look at my moms when I ask. She nods her head. “Sure he can go. He wants to be with his big brother.” Naomi doesn’t like it much. I can tell she runs the show around here.
“Did you run off, Robert?” she asks after we get in the car. She’s being direct now, the semitolerant act all done with. “You’ve gotten your other grandmother very worried I’m sure. You should have called. I’m afraid this is going to cause a lot of people a lot of problems and heartache.”
I’m checking out Antony in the backseat, just watching him, but most of all keeping my eyes off of Naomi. “I told you guys that I’m only here for a visit. I didn’t run away. I just decided to take off, see some things. Pops is in town, too. What’s wrong with that?” But right away I know I shouldn’t have brought up my father.
“Did he bring you here?” she asks like she’s afraid he’s back at the motel ready to jump out and surprise her with the high, hard one. “Is he staying at the motel with you?”
“No,” I say. “I mean that if he can travel around, why can’t I? I came on my own, to visit, to see Antony. I thought it’d be a good surprise.”
“Well, m’ijo, it was a surprise. I don’t want you to think you’re not welcome, but I worry about your mother and your brother. You look like you’re in trouble. Tell me, are you?” For a minute she sounds like she’s actually worried about me.
“No,” I say. “I’m alright.”
“Well you look like you’ve been beat up … or fighting?” She’s trying to figure out if I’m on the run from the cops or something.
“I fell down,” I say, but I know Naomi is smarter than that and that she’ll just call Grams and ask a lot of nosy-assed questions so I come clean. “Okay, I got in a fight. But I had to. You know how things are in the neighborhood. Sometimes you have to fight, but I didn’t come here because of that. I came here to see Moms and Antony.”
“What?” he says from the back, thinking I called him.
“Nothing, kid,” I say from the front and I turn and smile at him. He smiles back. He’s very friendly.
“He’s a sweet boy,” Naomi says. “I can tell he likes you, that he’s remembering you. It’s only natural. A little brother always wants to be like his big brother.” She sounds like she’s trying to get to something. She turns into the parking lot.
“What do you mean, Naomi?” I say. “I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m here to visit because I missed Moms and Antony.”
“I know, I know,” she says, trying to be empathetic and innocent at the same time. “I just want to know what you’re going to do while you’re here. I want you to be aware of how delicate the situation is, m’ijo. You’re right. You aren’t a child anymore. You’re a man, or very nearly one. You couldn’t have made it this far if you weren’t, only it worries me that you’ve come in this way. That your grandmother is probably worried sick, that you’ve been fighting, that you’re not in school. Where did you get the money you have? There are a lot of questions. They’re questions your poor mother won’t ask you because she’s so happy to see you, but I have to ask them because since your mother took sick, I’ve had to look out for her and for your brother. Your mom probably looks very good to you, but she’s not all that well yet. She’s getting better with the medication, yes. But I wouldn’t want her to get worse just when things are finally getting good.” She’s looking at me now. She’s trying to be very serious, very penetrating. It’s supposed to be a moment of truth, but I figure, fuck her. I’ve got a plan and I’m going to see it through. The wrinkle is that I thought I was going to have to convince my moms, and it turns out that it’s Naomi who’s got to be convinced.
“It’s like this,” I say, trying to sound like I’m confiding in her, like I’m trying to be real, “I know I’ve done some stupid stuff that didn’t help out Moms. But I’ve got my act together now.” To this, she smiles, but I know that smile. It’s the smile McNutt gives when she thinks someone is trying to snow her. “See,” I go on, “I do want to stay. At least for a while. But you don’t have to worry about me messing up anymore. I’ve got a job.” She wrinkles her fat little brow at this one. “I work at Sizzler. I’ve got money that I saved up, too. I had jobs in S.A. and I want to give the money to Moms to help out. I’m getting my GED, too. I’m not going to wind up a burro.” When I say that, I think about Grams and I feel my heart sink a little because I miss her. But I go on. “I’m here to prove that I’ve got it together and that I can be a help to Moms, and to you and Abuela. See, I know that Antony needs me. He needs a father figure. Not like the one he’s got, but a real one. I’m here to do something about that.” I’m talking too fast now, but I’m worried that she’s going to interrupt and tell me that it’s better if I don’t come home with them. I’m past being able to stay in this goddamn motel now. I want to go home, even if this bitch is there. “I’m going to be good for Moms, for everyone. All I need is a chance, see?”
She sits there, her arms on the steering wheel, and she reaches down and turns the motor off. “Go get your stuff, Robert,” she says like she’s just made a big mistake. I don’t wait for her to finish the thought. I jump out of the car and head for my room. Before I close the door, I hear Antony say, “I wanna go with Robert,” and I feel so fucking happy that my heart is beating like crazy.
* * *
I don’t have to work until the weekend, so I can kick around the house for a couple of days. I unpack, making sure to wrap my gramps’s service revolver in an old T-shirt and sticking it way underneath the mattress. I wrap my dope up, too. I don’t want to make any mistakes.
Putting my things away makes me feel like I’m actually home. I walk around the place like it’s mine, like I’m this regular guy in a regular family. I start thinking how I’m going to take my moms and Antony to the beach or Magic Mountain. Family shit. Something touristy, buy them dinner and maybe even get one of those dorky hats for my brother. Why shouldn’t I? All the time playing the tough guy down in S.A., making sure to not break down or do the uncool thing in front of Nacho or Enrique or Grams, playing it hard. Fuck that. Naomi is wrong. I’m here now, and I’m going to do everything right. I can’t wait to mail Grams and my friends goofy pictures of me and the family barbecuing at the beach, smiling in the sunshine, and having a great time.
Just then, Naomi comes out of her bedroom. Seeing her face brings me back to earth. She gives me a toothy smile and says something fakey like, “Make yourself at home.” She’s leaving for work. She’s a registrar at the community college. Basically, she gets to tell kids what they should do with their lives. It’s a good gig for her. She’s the type that’s always got the answer even before she hears the goddamn question. She leaves and me and Moms finally get to spend some time together alone. I get a big glass of orange juice and I make some Pop-Tarts. Moms has got a cup of coffee. She’s drinking it lukewarm with mad sugar the way she likes it. The thing is that I can tell she’s nervous. Her hands are shaking a little, but mostly when she’s not holding the cup, so finally she reaches for it and just keeps it in her hands.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be drinking coffee,” I tell her. She’s taking a big gulp of it. She swallows hard and smiles.
“It makes me feel calm. That’s funny, isn’t it?” I don’t say anything. I eat my Pop-Tart and drink my juice. I look around the room because suddenly I don’t know how to start the conversation.
“You’re mad at me,” she says finally, but she says it to the wall. It stops me cold because I am, but I don’t want to say that.
“Nah, Mom. I told you, I’m just here to visit. I’m here to help you out.”
“Oh,” she says, but she doesn’t sound convinced. “How’s your stomach?”
“Good,” I lie. “Better.”
“And your trip?”
“Buses, you know.” Moms nods her head like she knows all about buses.
“I always hated the drive here from Texas,” she says. “I hated the desert and all that flat road. It doesn’t go anywhere. Just more of the same thing as far as the eye can see. I told your father that when we came here the first time together. He hadn’t been to California and he didn’t believe me. I wanted him to go north before we turned west, to drive through the mountains of New Mexico. He didn’t want to. He kept insisting it would take too long.” Moms has her cup in both hands now, holding it out in front of her chest, almost like she’s forgotten about it. “That seems like so long ago. Almost another life, a dream of another life. Do you remember?”
“I remember,” I say. “I even thought about it on my bus ride.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Nothing I could do,” she says after a couple of seconds.
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“Oh,” I say.
“You don’t believe me.”
“Doesn’t matter. That’s the past. I’m here because I want to talk about the future.”
“That would be nice,” she says, “to talk about the future. I think too much about the past. My father used to say, ‘You don’t belong to the past, the past belongs to you.’ But Papi was wrong.”
I want to cut through the bullshit and flat out ask her if she ever thinks about me. I want to ask her if she loves me. “What about the past, Mom? What would you change?”
“Oh, m’ijo,” she says, “that’s something that would take me days to tell,” and she takes a sip of her coffee like she’s out of words and that’s the only thing she can think to do with her mouth.
“How’s Antony doing?” I say. “I mean in school and whatever.”
“Not too good.” Moms sighs. “The teacher calls him the Tasmanian Devil. He doesn’t like to listen. She told your Aunt Naomi that he doesn’t respect authority.”
“Jesus,” I say, “the kid’s only in first grade and he’s already being pegged as a troublemaker?” It occurs to me that my own school record doesn’t give me much room to criticize. “Mom,” I say, “why did the teacher tell Naomi? Why didn’t she tell you?”
“Your aunt handles a lot of these things for me, m’ijo. I’m not good at things like that anymore.” I can see that I’m putting her on the defensive, so I try another tack.
“I can dig how Antony feels, though. Maybe that’s one of the things I can help out with. Schools can be awful for kids. Maybe I can do something, maybe talk school up a little.”
“You think you could do that?” she asks. She seems genuinely hopeful.
“Sure. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I can do things like that and a lot more, Mom. I’ve got a job, too. I’m getting my stuff together. I’ve grown up.”
She looks at me, smiling like I remember her smiling at me a million years ago. “You’re a man now.” I can’t tell if she’s asking or stating.
“Yeah,” I say just to be sure. “You’re gonna see, I promise.”
* * *
I volunteer to pick up Antony from school the next day. It’s a nice walk. The sun is out, but it doesn’t feel hot. I breathe in the air like I’m in some fucking movie, like I just can’t get enough of the fresh California breeze. But I want to feel that way, really, truly feel it. I want some cleansing process to take over, like a smoker’s tar-stained lungs cleaning themselves up after years of a two-pack-a-day habit. I saw that in a film they showed at school, that lungs are capable of returning to almost new if only you quit. I use that image for my visualization on my walk. I’m trying to let the California air clean up all the shit I’ve got going on in my head.
The school is only a few blocks away and I get there a little early. Already there are parents waiting for their kids. You can’t let your kid walk home alone anymore. You gotta watch them from the minute they get out, and even that isn’t safe, not with all the nuts shooting them up in the schools. They’re probably safer never leaving the house.
The kids start to come out from the different doors, each one connected to a different grade. I watch the first grade, and after about twenty kids come running out, I see Antony. He’s talking to a buddy.
I walk toward him and his friend. When I get close enough, I yell out his name. He says real loud, pointing me out to his buddy, “I’ll see you later. That’s my brother.” After he runs up to me he says, “That’s Curtis.”
“Is he your friend?”
“Nah,” Antony says, “he just sits next to me in class. We play kickball. He picks me if he’s the captain, and if I’m the captain, I pick him.” It’s impressive to me, because the kid is sort of cool. I look at the paper he’s carrying. He’s gotten an “F” in spelling and there’s a note from the teacher at the bottom saying that my moms needs to sign it and have Antony return it.
“Not doing too good, huh?” I hand the paper back to him. “What’s the matter? You don’t like school?”
He’s walking next to me now as we leave the schoolyard. “School sucks,” he says.
“But you gotta do good in school,” I say. “You want to be a burro?” I say it the way Grams does, sounding like it’s a terrible thing to be. “I have to tell you, they’re saying some things about you, some nasty stuff.”
“Who? Who’s saying stuff about me?” He’s concerned enough that he stops walking.
“People.”
“What did they say?”
“That you can’t cut the mustard, that’s all.”
“What?”
“Don’t you know what that means? Cut the mustard. That’s an old one.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Well, it means that you stink at school. That you’re not…” I pause like it kills me to say all this to him. “Well, Antony, I guess it means that you’re not overly smart. That you’re dumb!”
“I’m not dumb,” he says.
“I know you’re not dumb. I never said it. I’m just telling you that I’ve heard it thrown around as a theory.”
“I’m not dumb.”
“Can you read?”
“I don’t like reading,” he says.
“But I heard you can’t do it,” I say right back.
“Yes I can!” he says loudly.
“Well, prove it. What’s that sign say?” I point at a paint store.
He stops in the middle of the sidewalk and squints at it, like if he just stares hard enough, the words will reveal themselves. “Pant Store,” he finally says. Then he adds, “I think.”
“That’s close,” I say, trying to give him some credit.
“Oh,” he says, looking a little embarrassed. “I stink at reading.”
“You just need to practice.” I tell him about this book I had when I was his age and how it turned me on to reading. “Imagine that you find this horseshoe and if you put it on the ground and think really hard, it gets big, as big as a door, and you can walk through it and every time you do, you walk into a new planet, or country. See, reading is like a magic door. Whenever you pick up a book, you walk through that door and you can go anywhere you want. You can even become somebody else, even become an animal or a superhero.” It sounds corny to me now, but it makes Antony think.
“You can?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I bet you could be reading just as good as anybody if you tried. What if I make you a deal? What if you kick ass in school, even though it sucks, and on Fridays I’ll spring you early and we’ll go to a movie.”
Antony looks up at me like I’m bullshitting. “Really?” he says.
“I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that. All you have to do is be good in class, listen, and do your homework. I want you to learn to read.”
I respect the kid for not jumping at the idea as soon as I say it. If I’d gotten an offer like that when I was his age, I would have blown my wad immediately. But he thinks about it for a few seconds and then ups the ante. “What if I do so good that you can’t believe it? Can we get pizza, too?”
“Well, it would have to be very friggin’ good, little man. You’d have to be able to read PAINT STORE like it was nothing. You’d have to bring home a book from the library and be able to read it to me out loud. That’s a big deal. You think you could do that?”
He doesn’t say anything, but by the big smile on his face I can tell that he sure as hell is going to give it his best shot. This big-brother stuff is going to work out. “But look, Antony”—and I stop so I can look right into his eyes—“this is just between you and me. It’s a secret. It’s a game we’re going to run on our own. No one gets to know, not Moms, not the teacher, and especially not Aunt Naomi.”