Chameleon (24 page)

CARSON OR COMPTON? Freedom or friendship? That’s what it comes down to. Freedom from the Crips and Pirus, freedom from Auntie, freedom as a teenager or . . . friendship; friendship with the fellas and friendship, hopefully more, with Marisol.

But it wasn’t all about Marisol. Now that me and the boys have been talking about high school, I’ve gotten excited about what the school year holds for the four of us: playing ball with Andre, listening to Lorenzo’s bags, and watching Trent and Passion go at it. At the same time, thoughts of . . . something different, something new, appealed to me. Especially when I see my puffy eye in the mirror and I’m reminded of how it happened.

This wasn’t gonna be easy.

“So, Dad, what we doing this weekend?”

“I was thinking we could go to the boardwalk or Venice. Something like that,” he answered.

“Cool.”

“And you know we’ll be going to church on Sunday, so I hope you got your clothes.”

“You know I wouldn’t forget that.”

Downtown L.A. blurred before my eyes as we sped toward the freeway. Dad hummed to a Temptations song on the oldies station. It wasn’t one of my favorites, even though I like the Temps, so I stared out the window and rewound back to this morning and how the day began: the dream — Marisol and Janine. And oh, yeah, sticky sheets. I should’ve known it wasn’t my day when I woke up with sticky sheets.

Man, it felt like the dream happened last year — the whole day did as Carson and Compton disappeared in the rearview mirror. Randy rockin’ the bed, Crazy Ray swinging his bat, Lorenzo’s dad chewing him out, Master of the flying guillotine, the drunken Master, Marisol’s hair — her birthday . . . I wonder if she’ll invite me to her party. I hope so.

The Crips smoked out, a fist to my face, blurred vision, Dayshaun’s wrist crushed beneath a bright red All Star —
ouch!

Dayshaun’s scream echoed into my ears as one of the Temptations hit a high note and held it. I squirmed in my seat until he was silent again.

“What’s wrong with you?” Dad asked, eyeballing me like I had turned into an alien.

“Nothin’.”

Should I tell Dad everything that happened with the red and blue? I don’t have to mention the smoking, but maybe I should mention how the fight got started in the first place. Actually, maybe I
should
mention the weed smoking. I mean, it’s not like I smoked. He’d be proud that I didn’t. Mama wouldn’t see it that way, though. She’d freak out, thinking I’m trying to hide something from her, like she always does. Dad don’t think like that, though. At least he listens. Maybe I should tell him everything. Then I won’t have to worry about what I did and didn’t tell him.

“Ummm, Dad . . .”

“Yeah.”

I told him everything. From the moment we finished the game and smelled the smoke to the moment I got to Auntie’s and put the steak on my eye. No sense in leaving anything out.

Dad’s body language changed moment to moment as the story unraveled. His eyes widened when I mentioned the smoke; he exhaled when I told him I passed on the joint offered up. His head shook when I described how we all got hit at least once, me the only one to get hit twice. His nose squinched up when I described Dayshaun’s wrist getting crushed. He nodded when I mentioned Herbert, then he laughed when I told him we called him Black Bruce. His body did a lot of things, but his mouth never said a word; he just listened until I was done.

“Now you see why I didn’t tell Mama everything?”

He nodded and let out a sigh. The freeway was long gone as we wound our way up the hill toward his house. This was always my favorite part of the drive. The sun was setting over the ocean just below us as another picture-perfect California day disappeared into dusk. I imagined me and Marisol sitting on the beach with her in my arms, watching the sun dance on the waves. I brushed her hair out of my face and sniffed the scent coming from it. Flowers? Strawberries?

Dad jumped into my dream. “Now, Shawn, I understand why you didn’t wanna mention all this to your mother, but you gotta understand why she’s worried. Hell, I almost flipped out when you opened the door and I saw that black eye,” he said, shaking his head.

His eyes darted between me and the winding road. “I understand what you’re saying, but I understand where she’s coming from too. You may not agree with how she reacted, but she’s still your mother and you still have to respect her.”

“What about me? She treats me like a kid and doesn’t always respect me.”

“Boy, are you serious? Don’t you ever disrespect your mother. Ever. You hear me? I know she can be hard on you, trust me, I know, but she does that because she loves you. She sees all the knuckleheads running around doing dumb stuff, and she doesn’t wanna see you go down that path, and neither do I. And believe me, Shawn, it’s easy to go that way. You fall in with the wrong group or make a bad decision, and — boom — your life changes before your eyes: one minute you’re shooting baskets; the next you’re shooting a gun.”

He shook his head after “gun,” then continued: “Personally, I hope you decide to go to school in Carson. I worry about you too, but I know you’re not a kid anymore. I know we raised you to do the right thing . . . like telling me the real story behind your black eye.” His eyes looked into mine. “I’m proud of you for doing that.”

We turned onto Dad’s street and made our way to his house. End of the block. Yellow house. On the left, 100 on the mailbox.

“But make no mistake, I’m still your father, and while I’m not too thrilled to see my son sporting a black eye, at least it was to help a friend,” he said as we pulled into the driveway. He shut the car off and added, “That took courage.”

We got out and started our weekend together. I grabbed my bag from the trunk and took it into my room.

Ever since he and Mama got divorced, Dad’s lived in some tiny places over the years. Most of them were little one-bedroom apartments, so I always had to sleep on the couch. I remember he had this one bed that I absolutely hated. It was cheap and the springs were forever sticking me in the back. One time I jumped on it and it folded itself up — with me in it. Dad came and got me after I screamed my head off, but both my ankles were messed up for like a month after that. I knew I shouldn’t have been jumping on it, but he still felt bad because he knew the bed was cheap in the first place.

A few more small apartments and cheap pullout beds later, and he got this place: his first house. He asked me where I thought he should live about five years ago, and next thing I know, here he is — on top of a hill, overlooking the ocean. Just like I answered.

At first I thought it was weird that he would ask his son, who he only saw twice a month, where he should live, but then I realized it didn’t matter to him because he travels all the time and is hardly home. Even though I wasn’t gonna live with him, he was still thinking of me; I’ll never forget that. The fact that he got a house big enough for me to have my own bedroom was Kool and the Gang too.

“Dad, what’s for dinner? I’m starvin’,” I asked in the kitchen as Dad banged through assorted pots and pans.

“Didn’t you eat before you left your mother’s?”

“Yeah, Auntie made some gumbo and it was good. But I’m still hungry.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot — you’re a teenager.”

“A hungry teenager.”

“Is there any other kind?”

He pulled the skillet out of a cupboard and put it on the stove, then opened the fridge and pulled out some ground beef and shredded cheese.

“Let me guess: tacos.”

“See, I knew you were smart.”

Dad’s tacos. The only thing he knows how to make. I take that back: the only thing he knows how to make well. But I live for Dad’s tacos. The sound of the meat sizzling, the corn tortillas frying up into a big bubble in the hot oil, the cheese melting on the meat when I sprinkle it on, the cool tomatoes on top, and the hot sauce finishing it off perfectly.

“You got Cholula, right?”

He reached over to the stove top and grabbed a small bottle of the spicy sauce. “Always got Cholula.”

“I feel like I ain’t seen you in ages, Dad. Where you been? You bring me anything back?” I said, pulling up a stool.

“The paper sent me to Mexico to photograph Mexican wrestlers, called
luchadores,
and I had a good time — a real good time. I wish you could’ve been there, but you were still in school at that point. I didn’t forget about you, though. . . . In the living room, on the table, there’s a bag of stuff I got you.”

I hustled off the stool, into the room, and returned with the bag. There wasn’t much, but what was in there was pretty cool: a funky yellow face mask with black rings around the eyes, a wooden doll with colorful marks on the face and a sinister smile, a deck of playing cards with a bunch of masked wrestlers, and a tall, skinny bottle filled with brownish-yellow fluid with a worm floating in it.

“What’s this?” I said, holding up the bottle and looking at him through it with the worm between us.

“That’s mine. It’s called mescal, and it’s like tequila.”

“Is it alcohol?”

“Of course it is.”

Auntie popped into my brain.

POP — Auntie cracking open a bottle. POP — ice tinkling in brown liquid. POP — Auntie sprawled out on the couch. POP — an empty glass shaking at me.

“I didn’t know you drank, Dad.”

“I am an adult. A lot of adults do.”

I stared at the worm. Is it alive or dead? I’m sure it’s dead if it’s in there, but it moved in the bottle like it was alive.

“What do you do with the worm?” I said, spinning the bottle, making the worm knock into the side.

“You drink it.”

I gagged but I couldn’t take my eyes off the worm, floating this way and that, as images of Auntie continued to float this way and that through my head.

On the other side of the bottle, Dad said, “Not everybody drinks the way your Auntie does, you know.”

How’d he know she was flashing through my head? One by one the images changed from Auntie into Dad.

POP — Dad cracking open his worm-filled bottle. POP — Dad shaking an ice-filled glass at me. POP — Dad sprawled out on the couch. POP — Dad screaming at the top of his lungs.

“Shawn! Don’t you hear me? I’m standing a foot in front of you and you still can’t hear me?”

“Sorry, Dad. I was thinking.”

“Well, stop thinking and set the table.”

“Can we eat in front of the TV? The Dodgers should be playing tonight, right?”

“Probably. Why don’t you go check the
TV Guide
and see. Otherwise we’ll sit at the table.”

I checked and, sure enough, they were. I flipped on the TV to the game.

“Top of the second. The Giants are up to bat. No score yet,” I shouted to the kitchen.

I set up the TV trays side by side and headed back to the kitchen.

“How many tacos you want?”

“Four.”

“Four? Boy, you’re gonna eat me out of house and home.”

“I told you I was hungry.”

“You can have three. Get some salad too. Dressing’s in the fridge.”

Dang! Three tacos, Dad? I’m hungry. What, does he think I can’t eat all four?

He handed me my precious platter of tacos fixed just how I like them: cheese melting and tomatoes cooling. A few shakes of Cholula on each one finished them off. I fixed my salad, grabbed a soda, and headed into the living room. Dad had already polished off one taco as I took my spot on the couch. Happy food sounds came out of his mouth, and pretty soon all you could hear was crunching and chewing from us and stadium sounds from the TV. Vin Scully was finishing an ad about Farmer John sausages when the Dodgers scored the first run of the game.

“How’s your eye?”

My eye! Shoot. I was so focused on getting some food in my belly that I forgot all about it. It still stung and I couldn’t see out of it much, but otherwise it felt fine.

“Not too bad.”

“Put an ice pack on it when you’re done. There’s one in the freezer.” He swallowed a bite and added, “What about your stomach?”

“That’s fine. It only hurt right after it happened.” I crunched a bite. “The food helps.”

He stood. “You need anything?”

“I’m good.”

Another Dodger sent a homer over the fence as Dad left for the kitchen.

Crack!

Auntie passed out.

He reappeared with a beer and cracked it open. The crack of Auntie’s bottle sounded off in my head again.

I glanced over at the beer more than a few times, making Dad say, “What’s up?”

“Nothin’.”

He looked at the beer and then at me. “What, you think I’m turning into an alcoholic?”

My mouth was full, so I shook my head, then chewed out a “Naw, Dad.”

He finished off his last taco and wiped his hands and mouth with the napkin. The grease turned the white napkin bright orange.

“Plenty of adults drink without it being a problem, Shawn.” He took a sip. “Your Auntie has a disease.”

Before he could finish, I interrupted him.

“Everybody keeps saying she has a disease. I mean we learned about that in health class. But if that’s the case, how come everybody that drinks doesn’t get this disease?”

He sat back in his chair and thought for a moment.

“Well, alcoholics don’t necessarily drink a lot because they love the taste of it. Matter of fact, the stuff she drinks — whiskey, I think — is pretty nasty when you come right down to it.”

He took a sip of his beer, sat back, and continued.

“Most alcoholics drink to escape something; something could be weighing on their mind, and they start using the alcohol to help them forget their problems. The problem is, before they know it, the alcohol isn’t there to just help them forget, but to help them live. When that happens, their body needs it like you and I need air to breathe.”

He took another sip of beer.

“Take me and your mother. We drink what we drink because we enjoy the taste and social aspect of it. We both like to relax with a beer, play cards, dominoes, whatever. But when I wake up in the morning, I’m not thinking about having a drink and neither is your mother. But a lot of alcoholics do.”

I nodded, chewing a mouthful of meat and tomatoes.