Tag: family

Plans

Fell into the ineffectual pattern of making plans. This thing, that thing. Items on a list that grows longer and longer. To compensate, I’ve been reducing where I can. Getting rid of devices, clothes, things. Online accounts of all sorts. Inexplicably, I had multiple accounts at sites like tumblr, twitter, google, yahoo. Just need the one for each, if that.

Keeping my transportation though (bicycle, motorcycle, SUV). There’s a lot of value in that.

Don’t know why, but when I visit my grandfather’s grave, it feels right to kneel. One knee. Talk, probably, and explain things. That habit that one never shakes. Explaining why things have turned out the way they have. Tell him how my pop is doing, since I don’t figure my pop to be someone who’ll visit a grave. My brothers, my mom. Tell him about the way the place has changed since I last visited the family in Tepa. More stores, more people, newer cars. Tell him that I’m not and will not ever be the family man, but that even though things weren’t perfect for anyone, we turned out alright. Alive and responsible for that life, anyway. That bit of maturity.

Aw, hell. What happens in the moment is anyone’s guess.

Bought the ticket. I’ll be there in January, a few weeks after visiting my folks. I’ll need to ask my pop to borrow the keys to his house, which is built over the house he originally bought for his folks. My grandma’s still around some when she’s not out in Chicago or Los Angeles or Modesto, staying with family. Kind of hope she won’t be there when I visit. I’m hoping for no fuss.

Plans

Fell into the ineffectual pattern of making plans. This thing, that thing. Items on a list that grows longer and longer. To compensate, I’ve been reducing where I can. Getting rid of devices, clothes, things. Online accounts of all sorts. Inexplicably, I had multiple accounts at sites like tumblr, twitter, google, yahoo. Just need the one for each, if that.

Keeping my transportation though (bicycle, motorcycle, SUV). There’s a lot of value in that.

Don’t know why, but when I visit my grandfather’s grave, it feels right to kneel. One knee. Talk, probably, and explain things. That habit that one never shakes. Explaining why things have turned out the way they have. Tell him how my pop is doing, since I don’t figure my pop to be someone who’ll visit a grave. My brothers, my mom. Tell him about the way the place has changed since I last visited the family in Tepa. More stores, more people, newer cars. Tell him that I’m not and will not ever be the family man, but that even though things weren’t perfect for anyone, we turned out alright. Alive and responsible for that life, anyway. That bit of maturity.

Aw, hell. What happens in the moment is anyone’s guess.

Bought the ticket. I’ll be there in January, a few weeks after visiting my folks. I’ll need to ask my pop to borrow the keys to his house, which is built over the house he originally bought for his folks. My grandma’s still around some when she’s not out in Chicago or Los Angeles or Modesto, staying with family. Kind of hope she won’t be there when I visit. I’m hoping for no fuss.

Secluded places

We used to hang out at the secluded places. It was easy to find them. There were more cracks to hide in than there were streets. There was a space next to the tennis courts at North Inglewood where we could watch others bomb the concrete after it had been painted over. People only played tennis on the weekends. Sometimes, in middle school, I’d go there with a girl to scam. It was nice, you know, our lives. Suburban safety with just the right amount of stupid risk.

We greeted each other with “What up, nigga.” Daps were given if you were cool with a homie. If it was boring and there was no one around, someone would pull out a shank, or a chain, or, rarely, a gun. I remember they always looked brand new or polished, unlike what you saw in the movies. They’d pass it around like a joint, giving everyone a chance to handle them. I knew we weren’t supposed to, but all the shit we weren’t supposed to do was left at the house.

Some dudes went all out. “My pop don’t know shit. Ridin’ mah ass, nigga! Like some fuckin’ faggot.”

What people who aren’t from Los Angeles can’t understand until they go there and move around is that Los Angeles is a plural. It’s a massive collective of cities and types of people for as far as the smog allows you to see. Things seem more diverse these days than they were in the 90s, but back before I had my first job (and thus exposure to varied individuals), I’d had very little exposure to the nature of that place. The attitudes, the acceptance and the segregation. We lived in a bubble. Granted, an American suburban bubble, but still a bubble. The only white person in the neighborhood was our next door neighbor, Mary, who was kind and crass and not a white person at all, just Mary. She was a notable exception. What it came down to was the white people over in West LA or Marina del Rey or Torrance, and for us there were riots driven by leftover racial tension between blacks and hispanics from the early 90s. Bullshit, of course, because all most of us wanted was excitement and to get out of class.

None of the distinctions mattered, in hindsight. We were a part of the plural. Beaners and wetbacks and niggas and scaredass white people. The words bother me now, more than they did then. I keep them with me, though, because forgetting’s an unwise thing to do.

Senior year, we all volunteered for Earth Club. College loomed and most of our group was looking for ways to score easy points for our applications. We were driven out to Venice to pick up garbage. After the trash detail, and the free time on the boardwalk, we walked back to the beach and perched near one of the piers. One guy and girl—I forget who—started having sex. I noticed them and looked around because, fuck, who the hell starts having sex in the middle of Venice Beach in the afternoon? I was mostly worried for them, as I didn’t want them to get caught. One guy watched them fuck and I leaned against one of the pier struts to watch the waves. It reminded me of my break-up just a few months before then. It may have marked my first case of longing.

My pop and I used to drive along La Brea to get to West LA. He had a gardening route and paid me a whole thirty fucking dollars a week, until I got my own job. I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. I dragged ass in protest. There was one time when my eighty-some year old grandfather—his father—came with us to lend a hand, and I fell asleep on the drive there. I woke up when they were halfway done to see my grandfather raking the leaves I should have been raking. I pretended to sleep because, hell, I don’t know. I was tired. I was tired of doing things I didn’t want to do and feeling like nothing would ever change. I was angry that life seemed like one chain after another, whether it was class, race, sex, money, violence, drugs, or any of the things that I never bothered to think about until I had a mind willing to deal with it.

Secluded places

We used to hang out at the secluded places. It was easy to find them. There were more cracks to hide in than there were streets. There was a space next to the tennis courts at North Inglewood where we could watch others bomb the concrete after it had been painted over. People only played tennis on the weekends. Sometimes, in middle school, I’d go there with a girl to scam. It was nice, you know, our lives. Suburban safety with just the right amount of stupid risk.

We greeted each other with “What up, nigga.” Daps were given if you were cool with a homie. If it was boring and there was no one around, someone would pull out a shank, or a chain, or, rarely, a gun. I remember they always looked brand new or polished, unlike what you saw in the movies. They’d pass it around like a joint, giving everyone a chance to handle them. I knew we weren’t supposed to, but all the shit we weren’t supposed to do was left at the house.

Some dudes went all out. “My pop don’t know shit. Ridin’ mah ass, nigga! Like some fuckin’ faggot.”

What people who aren’t from Los Angeles can’t understand until they go there and move around is that Los Angeles is a plural. It’s a massive collective of cities and types of people for as far as the smog allows you to see. Things seem more diverse these days than they were in the 90s, but back before I had my first job (and thus exposure to varied individuals), I’d had very little exposure to the nature of that place. The attitudes, the acceptance and the segregation. We lived in a bubble. Granted, an American suburban bubble, but still a bubble. The only white person in the neighborhood was our next door neighbor, Mary, who was kind and crass and not a white person at all, just Mary. She was a notable exception. What it came down to was the white people over in West LA or Marina del Rey or Torrance, and for us there were riots driven by leftover racial tension between blacks and hispanics from the early 90s. Bullshit, of course, because all most of us wanted was excitement and to get out of class.

None of the distinctions mattered, in hindsight. We were a part of the plural. Beaners and wetbacks and niggas and scaredass white people. The words bother me now, more than they did then. I keep them with me, though, because forgetting’s an unwise thing to do.

Senior year, we all volunteered for Earth Club. College loomed and most of our group was looking for ways to score easy points for our applications. We were driven out to Venice to pick up garbage. After the trash detail, and the free time on the boardwalk, we walked back to the beach and perched near one of the piers. One guy and girl—I forget who—started having sex. I noticed them and looked around because, fuck, who the hell starts having sex in the middle of Venice Beach in the afternoon? I was mostly worried for them, as I didn’t want them to get caught. One guy watched them fuck and I leaned against one of the pier struts to watch the waves. It reminded me of my break-up just a few months before then. It may have marked my first case of longing.

My pop and I used to drive along La Brea to get to West LA. He had a gardening route and paid me a whole thirty fucking dollars a week, until I got my own job. I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. I dragged ass in protest. There was one time when my eighty-some year old grandfather—his father—came with us to lend a hand, and I fell asleep on the drive there. I woke up when they were halfway done to see my grandfather raking the leaves I should have been raking. I pretended to sleep because, hell, I don’t know. I was tired. I was tired of doing things I didn’t want to do and feeling like nothing would ever change. I was angry that life seemed like one chain after another, whether it was class, race, sex, money, violence, drugs, or any of the things that I never bothered to think about until I had a mind willing to deal with it.

One brother’s girlfriend sits nervously at the corner seat, eager to get along with her man’s family. Laughing delightfully when a joke is made, speaking respectfully to the elders – that sort of thing. The other brother’s girlfriend is more natural. She makes good conversation and presents witty retorts to the patriarch’s good-natured but overly critical jibes. The couples are both of the age at which their parents engaged in the conception of their offspring.

The observer is temporarily removed from the moment. A meticulous catalog of each expression is recorded and dated in the available memory for future analysis and comparison. The beauty of a nervous smile and a tearful toast are noted.

(Pictured L to R: Grandmother Teresa, aunt Rosalba, aunt Chuy, great-grandmother Maria Isabel, great-grandfather Ricardo).

speaking to father

I spoke to my father during a pause in some work on Sunday. It had apparently been a few months since we last spoke. He expressed the concern that something might have happened to me and they didn’t know. It was not emotional at all. Simple explanation, proposed simple solution: they would appreciate if I called more often. It seemed reasonable enough and I said I would. We talked about other things, like his complaints about my brothers’ laziness or my mother’s angry silence toward him, and we even compared exercise regimens.

What I appreciate about our conversations these days is that they are respectful. We speak as men—as adults. He tells of his experiences with drugs, alcoholism, and violence not to warn me but to relay information about who he is. He is apologetic about his treatment of his three eldest and my mother. He acknowledges that people are who they are and they cannot be expected to change their ways unless it is their choice to change for themselves. He’s learned these things over the decades, and started when he and my mother had their first child. I believe it is easy to say these sorts of things to oneself but far more difficult to remember them. Age undoubtedly forces a man to reflect or deny.

speaking to father

I spoke to my father during a pause in some work on Sunday. It had apparently been a few months since we last spoke. He expressed the concern that something might have happened to me and they didn’t know. It was not emotional at all. Simple explanation, proposed simple solution: they would appreciate if I called more often. It seemed reasonable enough and I said I would. We talked about other things, like his complaints about my brothers’ laziness or my mother’s angry silence toward him, and we even compared exercise regimens.

What I appreciate about our conversations these days is that they are respectful. We speak as men—as adults. He tells of his experiences with drugs, alcoholism, and violence not to warn me but to relay information about who he is. He is apologetic about his treatment of his three eldest and my mother. He acknowledges that people are who they are and they cannot be expected to change their ways unless it is their choice to change for themselves. He’s learned these things over the decades, and started when he and my mother had their first child. I believe it is easy to say these sorts of things to oneself but far more difficult to remember them. Age undoubtedly forces a man to reflect or deny.

Grandfather

He was much smaller than he used to be. His hair was thin and wispy, although to our genetic credit he still had hair on his crown at the age of ninety-one. His brows were thick and gray, spread out across his forehead like the tattered ends of an old broom. The old man’s blue eyes still looked alert. They say it’s a trick that people who forget pull to make themselves seem involved.

I walked my grandfather around the block. He was slow, on the verge of wheelchair-bound. I wondered if he was ever tall, like his male offspring, and their male offspring. We took small steps to the nearest corner. Beyond it, there was a large park where I played fronton as a child and drank agave juice. We could not cross the street. I was told, like I was a child again. I held his hand to guide him and we continued around the raised corner concrete.

He was focused. The intensity in his gaze made him seem determined, and angry. I could not tell if it drained his soul just to walk. His hand was brown leather from decades of work as a laborer and farmer. He was almost never outside anymore. The sun was burned into him. My grandfather suffered a stroke just last year. My name came to him instantly when he first saw me.

“Victor!”

My aunts cried. I don’t know many aunts I have. Over ten, perhaps. And nearly as many uncles. He worked hard, fucked hard, drank hard, beat hard. He was a little old man, an aged human being, and I walked him around the block.

The houses were colorful, spared from the planned neighborhood propaganda. Pink, maroon, green, blue, beige, brown, brick. Stucco, tile, oil, water, charcoal. Dirty in places, clean in others. Falling apart and brand new units reaching up to the sky. Some had a tree in front, if there was space. Most were packed in side to side like sardines with a courtyard in the middle of each one. Spanish influence in our houses and blood.

Some people recognized him.

“Don Juan! ¿Que tal?”

He mumbled greetings and continued. He looked at no one, stopped only when I tugged his hand. Along the way, at the third side of the trapezoid, we saw a stack of tortillas on a window sill.

“Me hablan,” he said, and looked at the stack. I heard nothing but cars driving along the asphalt.

“¿Y que dicen?”

“Nada.”

I didn’t hear his hoarse voice again. We drifted, step by step, back to the house. He was guided into a chair and asked if he enjoyed the walk. His eyes were cast down toward the yellow tiles.