My mom pulls into a gas station. Stockton smells the same as Sacramento. It kind of looks the same too. There are buildings everywhere. I was secretly hoping for fields and fields of green grass so Ani and I could run and pee and play for a while … But all I can see are cars, bus stops, and chain-link fences.
Most people don’t like gas stations. For them, it’s just a pit stop to get from one place to another, but I like gas stations because they are the only place in the world that I know of that has drainbows. Drainbows are like rainbows, but they are on the ground. Emjay says they are just oil smears, or gasoline puddles, but I love how they look. They’re as colorful as rainbows, but different. Like my family. Some people live a life with rainbows, beautiful arching colors spreading from one side of the sky to the other. And we get the drainbow, where we are constantly stepped on and hardly ever noticed. But if you do look down and see us, you’ll see we are beautiful too.
Mom gets out and heads to the cashier. We don’t need gas. We still have some. So she probably went in there to buy cigarettes and snacks, and get directions to the Stockton shelter. Just as most towns have libraries, most towns have a shelter. I guess those are the two constants in this country: books and homeless people. People need a place to sleep. And people need a place to read.
While she’s gone, I get out before Emjay takes advantage of us being alone in here. Sometimes he just spits on me for no reason. I don’t get it. And now I have Ani to take care of, and my main goal is to keep her away from him.
But before I get out, Emjay turns around to face me. Instead of lunging toward Ani, he reaches out and grabs his backpack. “Give this to Mom,” he says, and tosses a crumpled-up twenty-dollar bill at me. It hits my chin and lands on my lap. “Say you found it.”
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Wherever I want,” he says, and gets out of the car.
I scoot over to the window and roll it down to get more details. “Emjay. We’re gonna eat. Stay with us for a little bit,” I say, and find it so strange that I don’t want him here but I also don’t want him gone.
“Don’t be such a baby. I know where you guys will be. Wherever anyone is when they’ve got nowhere to go,” he says, and walks off.
He’s right. We always end up at the shelter until we outstay our welcome. Usually the first couple nights are okay. We get to meet other families like us. I’ll even make a two-day friend, or if I’m lucky, a weeklong friend. But there are downsides to shelters too. Some people in those places are not only broke but broken. And a broken person can be scary to be around. I’ve seen broken men and broken women just snap and become violent. One minute they are eating soup, and the next minute they are shouting at the top of their lungs, tossing chairs everywhere, making the shelter bring the cops in—which is our cue to leave. We avoid cops like the plague. We have had plenty of bad experiences with the police. They throw us out of apartments, tow our car, give us tickets, and call Child Protective Services on us when they find out our living situation. Protect and serve they do not. At least not for people like us they don’t.
Plus, cops carry guns. And ever since my mom’s brother Jonny was shot by a cop just for being Native American in public, Mom does her best to keep us away from them. Jonny was shopping at a grocery store when the LA Riots started. People were looting and running, and it was all very chaotic. A white cop showed up and assumed my uncle was a criminal because of his long black hair, dark skin, and large build. My uncle was holding a box of cereal. It looked nothing like a weapon. But still, the cop fired three shots on aisle six. Luckily my uncle survived, but he can’t use the right side of his upper body anymore. Mom says he hasn’t left his apartment since. He lives in a place called Watts, like the electricity in a light bulb. It’s somewhere in Los Angeles. He left Minnesota a few years after my mom. He didn’t know where to go, so he went where my mom was. But she kept her distance from him. She is hoping for us to not need to stay with him, because he wasn’t a very good brother to her growing up, but if worse comes to worst, it is an option. Mom says he’s a drunk and a bit off. Off what? I don’t know. Maybe that means he’s broken.
But in the shelters, the broken people aren’t the worst. They’re easy enough to spot. It’s in their eyes. A vacancy. So, it isn’t too hard to avoid them. There are four kinds of people that stay in shelters. There are the “Be the Change” people, who are still optimistic and working toward leaving the shelter. That’s what we are. There are the “Beg for Change” people. They have mostly given up and are either spiraling down or have already hit rock bottom and will be permanent shelterers. There are the bad-luck folks who got dealt a crisis or hit with a huge medical bill that took everything they had away and landed them in a shelter. Those people are still in shock and cry a lot. And lastly, there are the creeps. They are the worst. And they are harder to spot, because they look normal and they can start off nice. Every time we arrive at a shelter, my mom makes me keep a fork in my pocket. Not a knife because if ever a cop were to see it, they’d say it’s a weapon and shoot me. But a fork, it looks less like a weapon and more like something a kid carries because they are always hungry. And if I ever find myself alone with a creep, and they act creepy toward me, I have full permission to stick my fork in them. Luckily, I haven’t had to stab any creeps yet. But Emjay punched one. And my mom punched one. And I know, sooner or later, I’ll have to punch one too. Because that’s what you do when you grow up this way. Punch creeps.
Mom opens the door and gets in. She immediately notices that Emjay is gone, but she doesn’t say anything. She just stares at his empty seat for a moment. I uncrumple the twenty-dollar bill, making it flat and nice-looking, then hand it to her.
“He said to say I found it, but he gave it to me. It’s for you,” I say.
She shakes her head, which is an attempt to shake her thoughts away.
“I’m hungry. Let’s eat,” she says, and we drive out of the gas station.
On the corner is a Jack in the Box. With that twenty and the money Mom made last night, I don’t think we’ll have to hunt buffalo this time. We can actually stand in line like real customers, order food like real customers, and sit at a table and eat our food like real customers. This excites me. And I know it excites Mom too, because she loves soda and today she can get one and not have to worry about someone’s gross backwash.
I climb into the front seat, cradling Ani on my lap.
“She needs to pee,” I say.
“She tell you that?”
“No, but I need to pee, so she probably needs to.”
We pull into the lot, and I set Ani down in the small patch of grass next to the drive-thru lane. And I was right; Ani didn’t just need to pee, but she also takes a huge poop. After I let her walk for a few minutes, Mom insists that she stay in the car while we eat. We crack the windows for fresh air and place her in the back seat. As we reach the entrance, we see a homeless man sitting near the door. A cardboard sign rests at his feet that reads WILL WORK FOR FOOD.
Mom stops, digs into her purse, and pulls out five dollars. Instead of placing it in his tin can, she makes sure to hand it to him—person to person. They share eye contact.
“Thank you,” he says, and as he speaks, I see he is missing a tooth up front.
“Kaa wiika boontaake,” she says.
I know he didn’t understand her. Most people wouldn’t. But it’s something Mom says to herself and sometimes to me and often to Emjay. It means “don’t give up” in Ojibwe.
Mom and I enter Jack in the Box and walk up to the counter. The place is pretty empty. No line. Only one or two tables are occupied. Good thing we are ordering our food this time, or else this would have been an unsuccessful buffalo hunt.
We order our food. Before we head to the tables, my mom asks if they’re hiring. The teenager at the register tells her he doesn’t think so but hands her an application anyway. He then hands us our number. We are number four. Ugh. My least favorite number again. We take a seat at the table near the window, where we can see our car.
“How are you going to fill that out without an address?” I ask.
“I’ll use a fake one. I doubt this place will swing by to see where we live. All I got to do is give them the phone number of the shelter and hope I’m there if they call,” she says.
“If they do hire you, we can have Jack in the Box every day,” I say.
“As long as they allow some dancing from time to time, I’d be good at this job.”
“We could save up money and get a place of our own. Emjay and I could go to school. We can get Ani a leash. This could be so cool. I hope they hire you.”
They call out number four. I get the food. When I get back with the tray, Mom is filling out the application. I thank the animals that died so we can eat, and I dig in. Crispy chicken sandwich. Side salad. Fries and a root beer. Mom has a cheeseburger. Side salad. And a Coke.
We eat like royalty.
Halfway through our meal, Mom stops chewing and just stares at me.
“What? Do I have ketchup on my face?” I ask.
“Did you know that Hawaii moves seven-point-five centimeters closer to Alaska every year?” she says.
“You were reading my science book,” I say.
“I couldn’t sleep last night. I read that, and it made me realize something.”
“What?”
“It’s not just us always moving. The world is constantly spinning. The universe is always expanding. The blood inside of us never stops and takes a break. Especially our blood. We’re Ojibwe. We are always going places, even when it feels like we’re not,” she says.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means, I know how difficult and unfair all of this is for you. But everything you’re going through today is only going to make you stronger for tomorrow. You’re going to be a good man. And do great things. And life will always be hard, but it won’t always be this hard. It will get … easier. I promise.”
“Did your life get easier?” I ask.
She stares out the window and speaks, and I wonder if she’ll start crying. But I didn’t mean to make her cry. I just asked a simple question. But maybe the way she heard it made it not so simple.
“My life never got easy. But you are not me. I made a lot of mistakes. Made a lot of bad choices. But you’re smarter than I ever was. You’ll get what you’re after,” she says, and finally looks back at me.
“What am I after?” I ask.
“You tell me. What do you want more than anything?” she asks.
More than anything? I would say a friend, but I have Ani now. I would say for her to be happy, but she’ll just say she’s happy if I’m happy. I would say for us to have more money, but I know she’s working on that and I don’t want to give her added pressure. So, I guess, I’ll just tell her the truth. “Eleven walls.”
And there they are. Her tears. She wipes them away just as fast as they leaked out of her eyes. “Eleven walls,” she says. “Why eleven?”
“Four walls in the living room, four walls in the bedroom, and three walls in the bathroom. Eleven walls.”
“Why don’t you count the walls in the kitchen?”
“Because kitchens always look different. Sometimes it’s just a stove and a few drawers in the corner of the living room. They put a small fridge in there to make you think it’s a kitchen, just like in all the motels we stay at. A kitchenette is not a kitchen. They add the ‘ette’ to trap you into thinking it is. But we’re too quick. So, until I see differently, it’s eleven walls.”
“Then that’s what we’ll get you. Let’s go,” she says, and grabs her soda.
She gets out of the seat and hands her application to the cashier. Then she walks over to the soda fountain and refills her drink. Normally I’d pack our leftovers in the bag, but this time I won’t. This time I’ll leave our half-eaten food here, on the table, just in case another family is hunting buffalo.
I refill my root beer and meet Mom outside, beside our car. She’s smoking and holding Ani with her free hand. I’m pretty sure I made my mom sad, accidentally, but she did whatever every sad person should do when they want to get rid of the sadness and get happy again: find the nearest puppy.
And it’s working. She smiles at me.
“Where to next?” I ask, knowing the going-to-the-movies deal we made is long gone by now.
“The shelter isn’t too far. But we should stop at a store and get Ani some puppy food,” she says.
She hands me Ani, and I get in the passenger seat. My mom finishes her cigarette and gets in. “Buckle up or knuckle up,” she says.
That’s her way of telling me to put on my seat belt. It means if I refuse to click it, my butt, she will kick it. She won’t really, but I smile because, when she says this, it means she’s in a happy mood again. Thanks, Ani.
We pull out and enter the street. I grab the CD case and flip through the discs. I pull out one of Mom’s favorites. Guns N’ Roses. The Appetite for Destruction album. I slip it in and skip over to song number nine: “Sweet Child o’ Mine.”
Mom rolls down her window. I roll down mine. We turn it up as loud as it’ll go, and the speakers vibrate as we drive down the street, singing along with Axl Rose all the way to the pet store. And even though the driver’s seat can only fit one human butt and not much else, my mom treats it like a huge dance floor and rocks out in her seat. And I do too. And I even make sure Ani does, because, well, she is now a sweet child o’ mine.