An Anonymous Short Story

My friend Cory sees the poopers.
My other friend Alicia seeks the naked dudes.
I see the criers.

I moved to LA on my way to San Diego. I was coming from college in Wyoming – going to graduate school in San Diego, and on the way there I stopped and lived in Los Angeles for two months. My friend Cory had assured me that everything would be cool staying with him. My friend Cory was full of shit. He hadn’t found a place to live by the time I got to town, and we ended up crashing at his friend Alicia’s apartment.

Moving to LA, poor LA mind you, after a childhood in rural Oregon and then college at a small liberal arts school in Wyoming was like one big white guy moment after another. My driving was dopey white guy. My walk from the parking lot to the grocery store was amazingly white guy. It was like ill-fitting Dockers would rain from the sky. I mean, it was like there was elevator music following me at all times – that, or a tuba and a drum machine.  And my attempts to order food down the street at the Mexican restaurant surely would have won the white guy Oscar.

Alicia was Cory’s best friend from Phoenix – they had grown up together. We all lived together in an apartment off of La Brea. Alicia was a trip. She was a really put together lady in terms of hair and clothes, but I’m pretty sure that she had been living on a diet of chardonnay and over the counter allergy medication for several years. Happily.

The house I grew up in was one of those big Oregon ramblers – kind of Victorian but with a stark prairie feel.  Sometimes when I see pictures of houses on the Texas plains, it reminds me of our house; a front yard with no sidewalk, a big flat spare porch sitting in front of a big square box. Some fearful children playing in the dirt. We had all of the little rooms and closets designated for this or that – sewing room; upstairs cellar, downstairs cellar, basement, furnace room, laundry room, woodshop. Lots of rooms to get lost in. Lots of rooms to go hide in.

In LA, we had Alicia’s apartment. Alicia slept on her couch because one night she heard someone’s cell phone go off right outside her bedroom window. Freaked her out. She wouldn’t open the windows for nothing – and she was one of those rare and disgusting creatures that still smoked in her own home. Cory would mostly sleep over at his girlfriend’s house, and I would sleep in Alicia’s bed. On the off chance she needed the bed, or if Cory needed to sleep over, I had a twin mattress I would throw on the floor or in another room.

The bedrooms in my family home were all upstairs and each off of a too-narrow hallway. Walking up the stairs was an infrequent affair for anyone but my mother – we typically just went up there when it was time to go to bed. My father didn’t think it was good to hang out in one’s bedroom. Now that I’m older I can see how weird that was, but at the time I thought it was just another one of his opportunities to be an asshole. Like not letting us drink soda or put our elbows on the table. I think our rooms represented something to him about control. Like we were going to have some freedom in our rooms that he couldn’t take away.

One afternoon the three of us we’re running down the block to get some Mexican food. It wasn’t even 4 blocks but of course we drove. Walking in our neighborhood – walking in LA- was just too unpleasant and fraught with peril. I was in the passenger seat and Alicia was driving, Cory was sitting in the back. When he yelled, it had a tinge of true horror. “Jesus Christ, that guy is taking a shit!” I turned to look but I couldn’t see where he was talking about. Upon reflection, I don’t know why I chased the image at all. It was pretty clear from the small amount of walking that I did that people would openly defecate on the sidewalks and around corners. It’s something that really tells you “Hey, I’m in LA”. Some people would say the LA experience is spotting Shaq at a deli or Andy Griffith at a drug store, but it’s really about seeing someone so desperate and so resentful that they’ve taken to pooping in the street.

We later realized that that was the 2nd person Cory had seen doing that – he had a guy in his eyeline at the observatory park that had done the same thing. Just dropped trow and squatted down amongst the squirrels and grass and garbage. Cory said he was surprised that the guy didn’t wave and ask for a paper; that’s how nonchalant he was. Alicia said that so far she had seen at least five different guys in some serious state of undress, and that there was some kind of connection or pattern. Cory saw the poopers, she said, and she saw the naked people. “Every time we’ve been together in some duo or combination, one of us had seen something that the other has not.”
“It’s like we have a gravity or a super power that reveals to us and only us the poopers and the nakeds of the world!”
“Wait, what does Doug see?”

My dad had strict rules for where we could be in the house – basically we needed to be where he knew where we were. An unaccounted for child led to an intensity and rage that we all learned to avoid from an early age. We had a way of communicating with each other and our parents that always included some kind of account of our whereabouts and an account of ourselves. Thinking back on it, it got pretty ridiculous.
“Tammy, I’m going to the kitchen to bring a glass of water back to the TV room because I haven’t had a glass of water since recess and it’s important to drink plenty of water.” That was when I was 8. And, I might add, admitting that I hadn’t had water since recess was a daring thing to do, since it meant I was including information that could be used to prove a default in my choices or my character.

“What does Doug see?”
I had recently gotten a bullshit job at the collection office of a Burbank hospital. That meant I had to take the 101 freeway every morning, which also meant that I questioned my reason for living every day between 7:40 and 8:30 am. Just that morning I had turned to face the car next to me stopped in traffic to see a woman weeping – unmistakably. Her shoulders shook and she had her face dropped down.

I had seen another woman crying at the rest area when had I stopped on my way from Wyoming to LA.

Several years ago I accidentally wandered into the girls bathroom at my high school and came face to face with Jennifer Hanes crying at one of the sinks. 

One night, after way too many days of chardonnay and allergy meds, Alicia accidentally forgot that she was too afraid to sleep in her own bed, and had appeared at my side tears streaming down her face, talking about the boss she was sleeping with.

When I worked at the grocery store in my hometown, I had turned a corner to continue facing items on the baby food aisle to find a woman standing there, staring at the diapers, and crying.

And, of course, week after week, no matter how my father had set things up otherwise, I stumbled upon my mother crying in some corner of the house.

I kept my super power to myself.
I always have. A few years ago I started to think it was penance – for everytime I saw my mother cry and said nothing; did nothing. My inaction is forgivable, I was a kid in constant terror of my father, and never felt any ability to do anything but construct my life in a way to avoid his rages – his beatings. But what isn’t forgivable is the callousness I let grow there. I could have been brave enough to feel something for my mother; to understand that she was in the same boat I was; and most importantly, to signal to her that I would never do that to another person – to another woman. But instead I would stumble out of whichever place I found her crying. Pretending I didn’t see her. Frightened by the fact that I had been some place where I didn’t belong. Angry that she could get me in trouble.

But now, when my super power – my punishment – kicks in, I do things differently.

I find the woman in the diaper aisle a coupon.
I ask Jennifer Hanes what’s wrong.
I offer the woman at the rest area some help.
And for the woman on that LA freeway, I don’t turn away. Instead I say “I see you. I see you and I care.”

Modern Day Robin Hoods

In my early days of matriculation at Boise State, I was a spectator in a conversation in which a student argued that we were at Boise State, not Harvard, “it's not like we were getting a great education.” The professor retorted, “Do you think they have secret books at ivy league schools that you can't get here?”

I believe that this is when I realized what an egalitarian thing education was. One can argue that the connections and reputation that Harvard provides will give a graduate a leg up, but, as everyone knows, you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes, after that, you better know something.

I've thought about this as an evolving concept since those freshman days, and I've realized that even the way we tell stories marks the importance of knowledge. As a child, I was taught that Columbus was convinced the earth was round, and that's why he sailed West to go East. His ground-breaking feat was not one of cultural subjugation, but of the proliferation of knowledge. True? Not true? It doesn't really matter. Columbus becomes a cultural hero because he's disseminating information. He's breaking through barriers. He's stealing information known only to the higher-ups and sharing it with all us plebeians.

I don't know what happened or when this changed, honestly it was probably some time around Scopes, but teachers became this thing to be ridiculed and criticized and not honored as the modern day Robin Hoods that they are.

Any steady-handed thief can steal from the rich and give to the poor, but only the best can learn, and without diminishing their own understanding, share that knowledge with others. I spent some time over the last few years trying to share what I know with others. It's difficult, exhausting, and often thankless, and I was teaching college students who were “choosing” to be in my classroom.

The Robin Hoods that I admire most are the men and women who chose, and continue to choose, sharing their knowledge with children. A Robin Hood that I admire and love most is my friend Kara. Kara Hood not only teaches with abandon (something I feel that many more teachers should do everyday), but she also does everything in her life with the same wild abandon. Her love for knowledge is so strong, that some days, I know there are new worlds to discover, and going West to get East was the smartest move ever made.

Another Anonymous Poem

For the dog and I and my little guy the carpet is our kingdom
and we fight over patches of sunlight to magic in,
sometimes to sleep, sometimes to grow giddy with warmth.
Toys are always grimey and one day you just accept it.

My son smells like spaghetti-os or milk or bath
and we sing to the dog and no one could ever tell us that the dog doesn’t love it,

doesn’t hear Aretha croon or Sesame Street jive
in a way that hypnotizes him to our moment and our happiness;
true commune between beasts, real joy amongst animals
communication and meaning that emerges from our mammal hearts and our family brains and gives little use to the perfect symbol world and the able infrastructure it has built.

The stairs my son can’t climb.
The books my son can’t read.
The hot but modest girl he can’t take to prom unless she loses some extraordinary bet. On a reality show. In a parallel universe.

No is an invention, not found in nature. The only reason my son ‘can’t’ is because he does differently.

And that’s not a can’t.

He can roll and crawl about our carpet kingdom where his best friend is a giant dog
that loves Aretha and lives for Sesame Street.
We keep the questions and can’ts at the door – the only thing that gets through there is the occasional pizza.
We won’t be disturbed, the dog and I and my little guy,
because we’re busy in his living room laboratory – inventing new ways to be.

An Anonymous Poem

Here's a really fantastic poem. To bad the author is anonymous, so I can't give any additional credit:

You want to know about the word retarded?
You want some Miley Cyrus Hillary Duff PSA or PC talk?
You want some millennial agreement on the words that aren’t cool?
let me make it real.
Let me make it hurt to feel that word.
Let me lay out the ignorance and the stupidity necessary
to form the lips around the r the t and the d
A thrown off statement in an undergrad class
An otherwise loved friend that doesn’t know the pain.
A nasal Jersey joke on a reality show.

The ugly history that made it ok.
The 1947, 1950, 1955, 1958, 1965, 1973 world;
the today
that said: your child is worthless.
your child is strange.
your child is a retard.

When all you know is the 9 months of joy and hope and promise,
and don’t you dare tell me any different when that beautiful girl arrives
So ready for love.
From us. From them. From the world.
And the first instruction to us so powerless in that perfect world
laying raw and weak in that faux sterile 1956 hospital bed
Is that the best thing to do -
no guilt, no attachment, no rejection,
of the stauts quo
is to get ready to get rid of her
Institutionalize her. Thought her mind is clearer than any would admit
and her body is more able than anyone will see.
You have social permission. To take that beautiful child. And place her on a planet reserved for those that don’t fit. And you get to feel okay about it.
And you don’t have a universe, a network of social support that says “you’re going to do it your way, and that’s what’s best for her” BECAUSE YOU ARE HER MOTHER AND YOU LOVE HER.

Instead the best thing you get is pitying eyes
for your burden.
And the worst thing you get is fear and disgust
for your perfect baby girl.

You want to forget something in the microwave and call yourself retarded?
You want to take away the legs of someone else, and say the same?
You want an easy word, when so many others will do the same job?
Without pain. Without indictment. Without ignorance.

Think of the world of beautiful souls that cannot roll that noun off of their lives.
Think of this word, this invention that has left them outside. On couches. In wheelchairs. In different classrooms.  In institutions. But always alone.
Always with the easy excuse to send them away when the strongest love (never given opportunity to be real) screams “are you fucking kidding me?”

Say the word retarded. No really, it’s okay.

Baby Giggles

My Musical Alarm Clock

I was shocked awake at 3:15 on the morning of the 11th. A band, complete with drums and sax had set up shop outside the house. When I told Ganga the neighbors would surly kill us, he reminded me most of the neighbors were relatives and all were coming to the wedding anyway.
The time of day in which you are married in India is based on mookta. This means that the Brahmin priest who performs the ceremony selects the date and time based on a combination of personal and global astrological movements. Had anyone ever suggested to me that my horoscope would have me awake at 3 in the morning, I would have laughed. I am a much wiser soul now; wiser, and more sleep-deprived. “Our time” was dictated by the Brahmin who was to marry us to be at 8:41 in the morning. This meant that all the pre-wedding prep started in the early morning hours and the wedding ended in a luncheon. Ganga told me that he’s also been to late night weddings where dinner happens first and everyone waits until midnight or so to start the ceremony. So, in some ways, we were better off in the morning.
After being told there was lots to do and we had to hurry, Ganga and I were made to wait in the bedroom for about half an hour. An uncle came by and got Ganga. He came back a few minutes later in a skirt. Well, not really a skirt but a traditional Indian man-thing that resembled a wrap around pencil skirt. After checking to make sure I was still okay, he left again – leaving me with no information as to what was coming. A cousin came by with flowers for my hair. They were tiny and woven into a chain with thread, quite pretty and a lot of work for a day’s wear, but that’s what wedding are about everywhere, right? I got dressed in one of the outfits I had picked out a week or so before and had been saving. Then, I had to change into a sari that was lent by Ganga’s mother. It was to be the first of four outfits I would wear that day.
A few minutes later Ganga came back and it looked like he had been basted for cooking. He had turmeric and saffron on his head, ghee (clarified butter) on his arms, neck and face, and uncooked rice sticking in his hair. It was my turn. I was a little concerned.
I was given a betel leaf, a large leaf that looked to me like a banana leaf, and a banana to hold. I sat in front of the house with Hala, Ganga’s cousin’s daughter who was to be my bridesmaid/flower girl. Things happened around me, mostly chanting and I think some praying. Then, individual women came by and dropped uncooked rice, turmeric and saffron on my head. This is some sort of fertility ritual. Later, Ganga’s mother rubbed my arm and neck with clarified butter. At this point, I was told to go back inside and rinse off.
Cleaning accomplished, I returned to the street with Ganga where we sat together and were pelted with more rice by happy couples. Then, a “barber” came by to symbolically cut our toenails. Yes, part of the pre-wedding ritual in India used to be to get one’s toenail’s cut – ostensibly so one didn’t scratch their partner on the wedding night. Luckily, this tradition had gone the way of the dodo, so there is just a symbolic cutting now. I’ve included some pictures. Next up: the actual ceremony.

Henna

The day before the wedding, my henna got done. This was an extremely long process. Ganga also had some done on his hands. Many of the women of the family had henna as well. They used a thick green paste on their feet that created the same effect as well. Here’s tons of pics during the whole process.