It beginning again; it is beginning again, and again the dreams the rain the regrets the…
Years ago I found the woman shaded in a spring sun dappled rain drenched forest; coming upon her from above, she stepping, tantalizingly dancing delicately aside an early spring flowing creek a strong taut tantalizing, delicate woman.
At the moment I laid eyes on her shiny red rose flowered blue kimono her body poised in gentle relief against the budding trees, cocked at the waist in graceful still life, her hand reaching out over the rushing creek grasping in graceful balance a pink umbrella in delicate grace, in balance, as if on high wire which surely at this moment she must know, surely she is, her blue bowed flowerily high heels perched precariously on slippery water splashed stones, the petals of the pink umbrella reaching out seemingly keeping effortless balance on the wire and the umbrella carefully shielding, protecting her demure and I am sure beautiful face from a glancing prying sun stubbornly streaming through new budding leaves.
Rather incongruously balancing on bright blue bowed high heels looking at the beauty of that flowing spring flooded stream; where to place, where to place next those beautifully bowed high heels. This is the forest after all.
Beautifully she is, still is, I am sure, stepping along slippery stones, pink rose petals blossoming along water splashed rocks, always wearing those colorful bright blue bowed high heels.
I struck by lightening on a clear blue spring day, an image of Rose I have never, and wish never to forget even as many others fill flooding my mind in the mystery since.
Struck! Her head bowing shyly, searching, looking at, I am sure finding beauty in the unruly gushing stream.
It is moments as this when I thank God or maybe thank my luck; but sometimes, or always my luck, changes; or perhaps it is learning life.
Just a bit later…no more I love you’s…
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It is beginning to rain lightly, a cold drizzle as we pull into the darkening driveway of a newly built two story house in a lately bulldozed upscale development in Orange County, California. Bulldozers still frantically belching, carving out digging into hard clay in frenzied energy with a darkening desperation of running out of time, and lots;
Staking out a future on low lying dry dusty hills that in this earthy early evening a rapturous eastern high, an anticipated caller, is coming from far away, from the parched hot desert sands relentlessly traveling - it will not be stopped! - barreling through bone dry mountain passes rolling down and up hills riding the arid desert winds over burnt dry scrub and mounds of packed dirt, very thirsty, finally hitting a heaving heavy damp grumbling mass of ocean low, an amorphous lump of heavily laden air, lying glum blue, full of itself carrying intense car exhausts, floating gases and heavy metals. You and I call such fuming air filling with evidence, creative detritus of human life, progress.
This new swirling relationship of an eastern desert high and a western coastal low is creating a whirling irritable heap, a gathering of conflicting desires and interests pushing about, and some of its resulting descendents are rising up, looking below for a home; any accepting rightful(?) abode.
Now this newly fashioned recently created air mass, with the help of the bone dry parched desert dust carried from far away is crying down in a steadily dirty drizzle on a place it adamantly is inexorably calling home, carrying with it proof of human creation, uncannily crafting a sense of the damp dry lonely in an early southern California evening; and with the help of the setting sun another wet winter is closing in darkening desolation.
It is now deserted in the darkness of this early winter nightfall, this rather expensive newly forming neighborhood, not a person to be seen; not a pet in the darkness; the rusty yellow steel bulldozers finally silent on this trip; no overtime tonight for these large stained tainted steel monsters, I am sure their drivers cursing regret.
In the back seat of a late model (used to be brand new) two door Navy blue Mercury Cougar two children Ross & Rod are sitting stubbornly in no hurry to get out of this car. Rod, the younger of the two, a very young boy as age goes and sometimes we loose count as we getting older but not here, not tonight, he is starting again, retching sporadically in bursts, throwing up into a hastily made makeshift puke receptacle, the hastily made container pressed into quick service is of a recently purchased McDonalds bag and some other plastic wrap I finding quickly, scrapping off the back dark car floor leaning deep over the tall blue seatback pushing aside his two little legs, two little feet looking in the dark desperately for some crinkly plastic wrap I know is there. Clear plastic remnant strips of wrapping from a plastic toy purchased earlier that day already broken (what do these toys all mean (plastic or otherwise?)), purchased in preparation of this coming event, this weekly separation.
These are very young boys after all, always in need of toys or new possessions and one wonders, can’t help wondering about the fairness of life when one can have seemingly everything and nothing.
It wasn’t the recent stuffings of meat fried, grilled, fried and micro-waved jammed between two pieces of bread - is the fixings ok?
And potatoes definitely greasily fried, the whole mess stuffed into the McDonald’s bag; it wasn’t that questionable cuisine having the youngest puking this sustenance back into its paper container this late Sunday afternoon, rather the anxiety of preparation, the realization time is coming to two, in this closing day, when two children would have to leave the dark warm dry cocoon of this car, and leave their mother, and their accidentally coincidentally put together family and traipse across the bare few yards. Across a concrete drive, and a brown scrub of grass front yard to the unlit front door of the two boys’ other house, other family.
I hear their new Viet step-mother is mean to them (a witch! their mother insists, sometimes superstition reigns supreme; maybe she right), unkind to Ross & Rod, but who knows of superstitions and perhaps tall tales, all long gone for some of us; who can believe young kids making stories for attention, affection; for a toy? An upstairs window cracks, curtain hastily pulled aside showing light for a moment then drops closed letting out darkness. Our arrival is noted.
The house light mounted above the front door pops on then quickly flashing, fizzling, pops out; damn cheap incandescents the builders specify for a new life about to be living in, their special(?) new houses - honest homes – why that small light have to snuff out now?
The car engine is still running. We are facing the closed, cheap, T-10 plywood clad double door garage our headlights shining against the painted dull grey. Rose stubbornly pushes in a black silver chrome rimmed knob on the lower dash, the headlights directly extinguish; the wipers are still sweeping the drizzle off the broad windshield, insistently, insolently pushing aside tiny small drops, particles collecting and outlining a curving perimeter of muddy dust.
She tells her two boys it is time to leave, time to go to daddy’s house; for me it is the saddest part of the evening, saddest part of the weekend, in this cold dark drizzling California Sunday night.
There is silence in the back seat, other than Rod, perhaps named for that English singing star his mother is smitten (still?), chucking up what little has to be left in his trifling stomach, choking chucking mushy lumps back into the paper bag, starting another retching session – perhaps in a futile attempt to delay the inevitable (you know about hope growing eternal; don’t you? Even in the most hellish of circumstance.) and I am wondering if the bag is full yet – too full - and would I be shortly cleaning another mess; I am sure the outside of the bag is slimy now, familiar as I am with this so sad routine.
Always the resourceful Boy Scout fashioning a makeshift plastic covering, hastily wrapping a crinkly, really not very cooperative, stiff plastic wrap around this containment vessel of the recently purchased McDonalds bag, trying to wrap the uncooperative clear plastic strip ripped from a toy’s plastic wrapping tightly around the bag’s too pliant paper surface, the plastic’s crinkly stiff character not cooperating, not at all appropriate for this next recycling use - and these plastic motherfuckers live forever! Not like us. The plastic is resisting my efforts, best I can to smoothly curve around the outside of the bag, pieces of food already dripping dropping to the car floor in a slimy lump from atop his little feet.
Sometimes I think I am not cut out for this life experience, much as I love the woman and her two boys. We should have prepared for this affair. I am thinking I ought to have prepared a correct container for this inevitable event, long before we gathered into the car for the abysmal trip south. It always happens, as clockwork goes the expression or the setting of the Sunday sun.
I often attempt to beg off on this interminable round trip ride south to Orange County, returning her two boys to “Daddy’s house”, a hell of a way to end a weekend, a hell of a ride, her with me, me with her and them, but I am rarely successful in begging off (and thankfully never in my dreams); she will have none of it and perhaps she is correct – why oh why would I want to let her traverse this unholy trip to “Daddy’s house” having to travel back north alone, without her two lost boys, her two boys gone in the darkness, and perhaps as selfish as I can be, this trip, any trip may well be my final one, my last moment to see her two boys; who knows what happens in this retchingly sad life? I am always finding surprising the ability to fall in love with the most unlikely of sources you never see coming, and I am forced sometimes to ask in my own loneliness: how does it happen?
Always, anyways, always the requisite stop at McDonalds for the farewell dinner before we head south, insisting upon not so much the food, although I am not really in favor of feeding two monsters McDonalds I certainly do not balk paying for the food – having no vote here and really who cares, use your vote?- mine (you want to steal it?) - because I am sure we are here not so much for the food but for the accompanying toys, adding to a collection I often finding myself wondering what happens to? After the cacophony and child arguments divvying up the questionable chow in the parking lot and more importantly between the two, whose toy is whose (I have no dog in this fight), we reluctantly get back into the car.
The two young boys in the back, she and I sitting in an air of concern, in regality?; relative composure (who knows sometimes what she is thinking, my love(?) – Mick Jagger gets it right or maybe I am giving, misplacing, the credit (who cares really, it’s the Rolling Stones, I am sure) and I am paraphrasing here: “what she got going on under her silken sleeves”; ‘Some Girls’ for sure, and I knowing few.
I know on Sundays, late Sunday afternoons she is arranging for the trip south she always driving with certain intensity – I want to kiss her for some reason; do I need a reason?
Maybe it is that delicate balance I once, still see. I am not – she does not want – struggling away – I am not allowed - not here, not today kissing her in public – ahh the rocks, the mill stones me - we accept on backs and around necks,
this late Sunday afternoon rolling into another evening trip heading south on 405; then 5. Can you imagine?
I remember once when I first coming into this part of the country for real, finally knowing I am staying here, for a duration – the duration - who ever knows for sure? Me, getting to California for real, dreams I’d had since first hearing the Beach Boys and Little Surfer Girl and finally going to live here. Almost 10 years now, since I first moved here, for real, and those first years I am loving, driving down the 5 – traffic or not – screw it!!
Who cares!! Top down, driving along or stopping dead, pushing brand new asphalt lead laden brake shoes onto smooth new steel rims, brand new black tires squealing on grey oil smeared concrete roadway – arm pumping in the air to the beat - I am in heaven!...I’m pretty sure then – almost damned sure - I was damned sure - but that was then, as the sun is quickly setting into dark clouds with food half eaten, then neglected into Sunday’s highway 5 traffic, driving south into gathering California darkness and the resolute coming rain.
Then the quiet coughing begins; it always starting this way, Rod’s hesitant, defiant quiet straining, coughing right behind my back, because there is mostly where he sits, in the back, on the right, on the ride down south. I often think he sits there because from that position he has a clear clean look at his mother, through the opening between two dark blue front seatbacks; his mother, who had a particularly difficult delivery giving birth to his little stocky form, she sometimes telling me, spontaneously holding a spot on her lower back in sudden grimace of pain; I wonder if he remembers? I don’t blame him, picking that spot in the back.
The trip always more than an hour’s ride, and after Rod’s preliminary quiet coughing Ross with irritable exasperation will always inform us adults sitting in front, in a tone, an air of exasperated older brother declaring the obvious to us, exasperatedly, that Rod is throwing up – again, and perhaps exasperated because one of the two of us adults in the front – you know at this point we both have licenses, whatever that really worth – in some way responsible.
I am looking at her in the dark car’s blasting silence, maybe I can only hope, love; least one of us in front wanting another license, a beautician license she so desperately hopes, trying to attain, to eat if I ever gone, and I, in my little mind insultingly joke, I have joked, at the desperation.
As adults at least one of us, up front are in some ways the cause of all, or at least responsible for most – enough - of this childish confusion and torment…; and then my frenzied searching for an appropriate container tossing half eaten food out of McDonald’s bags to make ready for the already arriving incomings, by now retching, choking away earlier eaten food arriving outbound without hardly a warning, other than the quiet coughing.
In fact though, there are, and were, and always are warnings, many warnings; past trips for one – for starters - how about the Sunday late afternoons stopping at McDonald’s? Screeching tires, she drives crazy, screeching tires, on late Sunday afternoons and the anomalous, curious desperate, frenzy fighting, bordering on mayhem, between the two usually happy young, very young boys, for the last small toys coming out of McDonald’s bags; just the night before the two are together in the tub taking a bath chortling in soap & frolic and today they will fight, scream, whine in desperation to get – obtain – cherish – own - for how long?
And now on another late Sunday afternoon the quiet coughing begins; why, I am thinking do I choose not to prepare, react earlier? Is it some damn, dim stupid hope, improbable idea this time will be different? Do I ignore out of willful ignorance, anger, contempt for a situation, for situations I would be fool by this time not knowing is coming? Perhaps it is from an eternal optimism, from an overriding wish for Rod’s happiness, contentment. Is that too certain, correct a hope, or is it selfishness that on this trip this small young boy would overcome his indigestion, a young boy’s indulgences – I have seen it – (have I ever seen it?) and he would loose that foreboding anxiety, at least long enough so a hastily put together motion sickness bag - can we call it motion sickness: the motion of heading south on another sad Sunday evening - would not be necessary, not be needing, this time, this trip?
And for a few moments, I can only hope, Rod would be alone and together in a comforting world, feeling a safe, happy contentment, giggling, talking to his little green blue green plastic ogre, held carefully, lovingly in his tiny little hand, at ease in the quiet loneliness he has found, is sometimes wishing for? - wishing for, crying for - a screaming few minutes moments before, then quietly, holding his toy – when a moment before the two boys arguing and fighting in the parking lot divvying the food and more importantly the toys screamingly demanding in his small short kinda stocky athletic small beautiful body with slanting eyes streaming tears in desperation - would he get his toy – who will come to his aid, his rescue –
Looking up at me?!!
“Help me!”
From the unfairness of his existence, the world, oh my God is it true? Does it happen?
Is it happening right now today? Who will come to his rescue?
“Help me!”
Holding the toy tightly in one hand, the half eaten hamburger in the other, all coming apart (much as the marriage) as I scurry to reach over the seatback to construct a makeshift water proof bag, grabbing in the dark, for this is not, nor ever would, ever be a dry heave and Ross the slight slightly older brother, who knows what older brother really means in those early younger days? scurrying as far away as allowed other than out the window at 80 mph, they are young, not stupid, scuttling to the far back corner of the car to be as far away from his younger brother as he can reach, or accomplish, in this shadowy steel, dark blue plastic cushioned, contained, hurtling enclosure, suddenly stinking space. Rod holds tightly to his recently acquired and fought for plastic toy monster and his other small fingers gripping an edge, I holding another edge of that hastily put together liquid proof (one can only hope) McDonald’s bag crouching over the seatback in the dark as Rod, his small body shuddering, retching desperately, trying to make accurate aim as the blue Mercury bounces and lurches and stops sometimes suddenly, in this Sunday evening’s heavy traffic, retching food bits into the darkness.
Now, in front of this dark house, it is time;
“Time to go; Ross Rod!” Their mother Rose demands.
Not a sound from the back. Understanding the unspoken order yet not wanting; I pull the shiny chrome veneered door handle, pushing open the blue car door wide, getting out stubbornly, pulling forward the dark blue seatback, looking in and stepping aside, standing in the drizzle.
“GO! Kiss Mommy!” she insists.
Rod scrambles out, the messy slimy bag dumping onto the car floor, heading quickly in his short stocky gate to the dark front door, head hanging low, still tightly grasping, still clutching his tiny plastic toy in his little tiny fist. I am looking at this lonely little form in the drizzle, I can not help myself looking at his retreating figure, out of place against the looming dark 2 story new, cheap T-12 plywood clad grey painted home, even in this expensive southern California development – a charade?
Ross reluctantly slides across the blue leather plastic back seat in onerous fateful preparation of getting out of the car, carefully stepping over his younger brother’s smelling staining remains, the baggy mess in front of him splayed on the car floor; his mother stops him.
“Tell Daddy I need check; money.”
“Ok mommy” he says quietly, half heartedly as he heads to the front door; his brother Rod already slipping inside.
The front door opens a crack and Ross slips inside the house, a few seconds pass, he re-immerging through the crack, trudging back across the bare scrub lawn, across the cement drive to my side of the car, in drizzle, it is the shortest route; the two of them are young, not stupid. I push the chrome plated switch opening my window, it sliding down silently and he talks across me to his mother.
“Daddy says he doesn’t have a check for you now”.
“Tell daddy I am not leaving until he gives me check; I need money!”
Ross hesitates.
“Tell him I said!” She says.
Ross turns in the drizzle reluctantly heading back across the bare scrub lawn to the front door of the house, slipping inside again. I pull my silver switch back, my elbow resting on the dark blue door arm ledge, my window silently sliding up closed; we wait.
He re-immerges from the barely opening front door, just barely opening for his slight form trudging back to the car again, my side; I push forward the switch, the window slides silently down and Ross says
“Daddy doesn’t have a check.”
And she tells him she is not leaving until she gets a check and she will call the cops!
And I am thinking, oh boy, here we go, and she gets out of her car opening a pink umbrella for her son, the same one(?!), oh my God, he dutifully grasping the brown plastic handle with his two little hands trudging back to that front door of that dark house, the pink umbrella bobbing playfully across the concrete drive, against the scrub brown stubbly grass lawn, covering his whole body in the drizzle.
With the pink umbrella opened wide covering him, he stands in front of that dark house door which is cracking only the smallest bit open, just a bit, an inch maybe, and I can imagine his little chin turning up and quietly, softly delivering in his slight young voice her, his mother’s message and then the door closes and Ross turns, trudging back to us in drizzle coming down harder now, you could almost call it rain; I push forward the switch, my window silently slides down opening, the pink umbrella framing his face, adding a bit of colorful bright comfort and lightness to an otherwise dismal dreary grim scene.
Ross relates the same story, same excuse and Rose, raising her voice, now pressing her son to relay the threats she is threatening and Ross turns and heads back to the front door, the pink umbrella bobbing, swaying side to side in the darkness, almost covering his entire slight small body, his little feet dutifully pressing ahead (a soldier one day?).
The upstairs window curtain furtively cracks aside a quick inch and I wonder if it is Rod peering out to a scene he did not, does not want to leave a few minutes before, then the curtain drops suddenly, maybe someone entering the room (an enemy?)? Rose talks often of them, the window curtain ripples, closing dark, and Ross is again on the cement stoop, the front door cracking open there then closes in a moment; who knows what words he hears in cold?
And Ross is trudging back towards us and his steps seem to be wavering, the pink umbrella holding close down on top of his head, pink wings reaching far open wide and curving in at the edges covering, shrouding his little form, it seems as a sort of protection I’m thinking, a balance from the buffeting of life; he is barely four feet after all and this is the older brother between the two of them, the two, very young boys, the umbrella envelopes him, and with the rain coming down now and what all happening in his little head in his little (grand - great?) world he, he probably needs all the protection he can get however lightly, meagerly, miserly, parsimoniously some unbelievably given.
When he arrives at my silently sliding down clear glass opening he is crying; a small boy’s face contorted, his tousled, dark boyish hair crowding over his now creasing, small pink forehead, I kissed his forehead once, I hope to God I have, he probably needs a haircut I am thinking ridiculously, slanting eyes grieving, giving, pushing, squeezing out tears, he is a child for holy God’s sake, way past diapers yet in some ways, the two of them, not quite; the young boy is crying, his whole body bobbing, shuddering, trying to stand straight in the framing midst of the wide open protective petals of a pink umbrella, crying in the rain on a Sunday night in Orange County, California and I am thinking of the husband and wife, his Korean mother - English American father - having pushed their boy, this poor boy, to his childish limit, and as the sky is crying so goes the boy, and I look at Rose, her wide pretty cheeks her graceful fluttering eyelids flashing in the beauty of that sun dappled forest in this closed metal darkness and for a moment I wonder;
Should I step in to what is clearly a domestic squabble for which I have little rights; – wondering if I have - do I have a dog in this fight? Do I want one? Do I want one…No more I love you’s and the dream is starting again…
