Like a Woman (5 page)

Behind them, Taylor saw Mike fly down the street, riding hard, the old black shoebox where he kept the wounded crow strapped tight to the handlebars of his bicycle.

when i was a little girl

when i was a little girl i had a favorite tree. i' d run across the city streets to the park where she grew tall, and with determined fingers and stubby little toes, i' d find familiar holds and climb up to the top. spiraling up her lovely roughened trunk, limbs reaching out for limbs (i knew she reached for me, too), i' d press my cheek warm into her bark, tuck my sleepy body into her waiting arms, and sometimes i would doze. safe and held by strong pine branches, cradled, rocked by western winds, what could be wrong with a picture such as this?

what's wrong with this picture is that it is three o'clock in the morning, the santa ana winds are blowing, and the child is all alone fifty feet in the air. what's wrong is that it is three o'clock in the l.a. morning, the child is five, six, seven, eight years old and so afraid she does not even feel her fear. besides, she cannot cry, because just below in the soiled city park, the chain boys gather to fight and fuck whatever comes their way
.

what's wrong with this picture is that this is one of the lucky nights, when the child has won sleep's slow-motion race and beat the footsteps coming down the hall, tumbling out her bedroom window into the streets below. what's wrong is that it is three o'clock in the morning, the child is all alone fifty feet in the air, so afraid she does not even know it, and this is one of the lucky nights when she does not have to look down from the corner of the yellowed ceiling and watch what happens to that strangely damp and quiet girl lying in her bed below
.

The First Thing You need to Know

The first thing you need to know as you enter this house is how to get out. The easiest way is to just not come in at all, but sometimes you will have to, especially at dusk or when you hear your first
and
middle name hollered out from the front porch. Once inside the house, if you're lucky, you can just take a quick left turn through the kitchen and head out the back door, careful to not let the screen door slam. There, you will be greeted by a wiggling muscle-bound Boxer mix named Bucky who will always be happy to see you.

This will prove to be a very important thing, so make sure you become good friends with Bucky. And, soon you won't even care that his long slips of gooey slobber sometimes shake loose and land on you when you pet him, because the thing about Bucky is that he will let you come inside his doghouse whenever you want. His body is soft and always warm and you can just come curl up with him if you need a place to hide or maybe to just take a little rest.

If you don't take the kitchen door exit, things become a bit trickier. You will go down the long hallway, past your mom and grandma's rooms on the right and the bathroom on your left. None of these rooms will have a way out. At the end of the hall is your room and you will feel lucky to not have to share with your grandma anymore, but you will also be afraid. The best thing about your room is that there is a big aluminum sliding-glass window that opens out onto the alley between your house and the next door neighbor's. This window will become your most common way in and out of the house.

At night, from your bed you will listen for your mom's car because you know it is your job to bring her home safe. You will picture her leaving the bar, laughing and arguing with her union friends, stumbling to the battered Chevy Impala, dumping her purse upside down in the El Chorito parking lot to find her keys. You will picture her getting on the Hollywood Freeway, bearing left onto the 101. “Don't speed Mama,” you will tell her. “Stay in between the lines.” You will help her remember to signal for the exit, to slow down for the off ramp and come to a complete stop at the corner of Lankershim and Laurel Canyon where the cops like to hang out. At this point, you will relax a little because you know if she hits something she'll be going pretty slow and she can probably just back it up and continue on towards home. When she pulls into the driveway, you will listen especially carefully. If she turns in sharp and brakes fast, you might as well just pack it up and head out the bedroom window right then and there, because you know it will be you who pays for whatever has pissed her off. But if she pulls in easy, doesn't spin the gravel, and maybe just slow bumps the trash cans, you're probably gonna be okay.

Quickly, you will run through the list in your head. Did you clean up the kitchen good, put away the dishes, leave her a plate in the fridge in case she's hungry? Did you clear away any junk that might be in the path from the front door to her bedroom? Is the Folgers measured just right in the tall silver coffee pot so all she has to do is turn it on when she wakes up and her morning coffee will be just the way she likes it? Is the dog locked out back? Did you leave the front door unlocked for your mom so she doesn't have to mess with her keys? Is your grandma tucked in bed and did you remember to take her teeth out and clean them before you put them in the jar on her bed stand? Are the bills where your mom can't see them until she's sobered up? Did you remember to wash her red nightgown and lay it out on her bed?

From your bed you will listen to hear if the front door slams or if it shuts slowly with the weight of her body as she leans back, exhausted. You will listen to hear if she stops at her bedroom or keeps coming down the hall. This will be a tricky moment because the bathroom is right before your bedroom, and if she needs help, you will need to be there. So, you will listen for the footsteps coming down the hall and if they are shuffling and you hear her bump the walls, then you will know she is headed for the bathroom, probably to puke. If so, you will need to get in there fast, pull her long black hair up for her, wet a clean cloth with warm water and wipe her brow, clean the strings of vomit from her hair, her face, her shirt. Or, if it's a hot, dry night and the Santa Ana winds are blowing, you know she wants the cloth wet with really cool water laid across the back of her neck. Then, when she is done puking, you will clean her up, help her brush her teeth, help her make it down the hall, into her nightgown and put to bed. Then, just before she passes out, she will say, “Oh honey. You are an absolute angel. I don't know what I would do without you,” and you will think you should be proud and happy, and maybe just a little bit you are, but when you go back down the hall to finish cleaning up the bathroom, you will not know why you also feel like you kind of want to cry.

Some nights from your bed you will listen for her footsteps and if they come heavy and lurching down the hall, then you will need to make it to the window fast. When this happens, even if she tries to grab you on your way out,
do not stop
. Kick her if you must because she probably will not remember anyway and whatever whupping you may get the next day will be nothing compared to what will happen if you stay. Under no circumstances should you let yourself get trapped inside the bathroom with her when she is in her angry drunk. If you make a mistake and try to help her on nights like this, make sure your body is positioned between her and the door so you can take off if she turns. Do not, I repeat, do not ever let her get between you and the bathroom door, even on the good nights. Tender skulls, usually yours, are no match for the porcelain sink, toilet bowl and bathtub ledge and once the floors get slippery with blood, you will have less traction than a wet dog in a soapy bathtub. Grabbing onto the shower curtain will not help.

So, if you can, the best bet is to just climb out the bedroom window right from the jump. There, you will drop down into the alley, careful not to get scraped up on the rough stucco wall. From there you will have two choices. If the bikers are already partying in the park across the street, you will circle around through the alley and hop the fence into your own backyard and see if Bucky will scoot over and let you sleep with him for a while. But if the park is clear, your best shot is to climb up your favorite tree and just settle in for the night. Once you climb up past the first set of lower limbs, you will notice two thick branches which grow straight out, side by side, with only a little gap between them, making a perfect cradle for your butt and legs. Then, you can just lean back against the strong trunk and not have to worry about anything until it starts to get light.

There will be some nights when from your bed you will hear your mom's car pull up nice and easy into the driveway. You will hear her key in the door, even though you left it unlocked. When she comes in the house, you will hear her whistle for the dog. “Hey Bucky,” she will call. “Come here pretty boy.” You will hear her open the cupboard and pour herself a shot of bourbon. You will hear the ice clink lightly in the glass. If you are really lucky, you will hear her softly singing. If it's Frank Sinatra's “Fly Me to the Moon,” you will know she is happy and it's going to be a good night. Even though she cannot carry a tune, you will love it when she sings, “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as live can be…” and your favorite, “Oh you can't scare me, I'm stickin' to the Union.”

You will know she's had a good day and that you can probably talk her into telling you old union stories when she comes into your room to say goodnight. “Ha!” she will laugh, sitting down on your bed. You will scootch over to make room for her. She will take a drink and say, “Oh, honey, you should have seen Gwen and I take on the management boys of Del Monte Canning Company today. There we were,” she will say, taking a long drag off her Marlboro, “sitting at the arbitration table with all the heavy hitters lined up, ten of them and just the two of us, those goons in suits all throwing their power around like the little pompous pricks they are. Well,” she will continue, “one of them went just a little too far tonight and damned if Gwen didn't just calmly reach over onto the center of the table, grab one of those bowls of fancy canned peaches they had set out for us, and dump it, sticky syrup and all, right into that joker's lap!”

Your mom will throw her head back and laugh and you will take that opportunity to slide in just a little closer so it will almost feel like she is holding you. If you are really lucky, she will tell stories about when she marched through Delano, arm in arm with Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, or better yet, stories of you as a baby. “They told me not to take you out of the house for the first few weeks,” she will say. “But I just told them, ‘Screw that! I've got work to do.' So I just bundled you up, put you in your little stroller, and off we went, marching up and down that picket line on Wilshire, wind blowing in our faces, carrying signs and singing at the top of our lungs.” And you will close your eyes and almost be able to remember what it felt like to be tucked into that little stroller, bundled all safe and warm, pushed up and down the picket line with your mom and her great union friends. These will be the nights when your heart nearly bursts with pride and excitement and when you want to
never
fall asleep. But these will be the nights when you do, finally, sleep.

Some times on sundays

sometimes on sundays, she would put her teeth in and we would go to church. singing light and praying fierce, she' d cut daytime deals with the father she so loved and feared. bargains neither one of them would ever keep
.

sometimes on sundays, i' d cram wild toes in pinchy shoes and we would go to church. holding my small hand in hers, she' d press old coins into my palms, and i' d grumble every time i placed them on that shiny plate for god
.

sometimes on sundays, i' d grow furious with this god who' d take these coins from children and then forsake them in the night. this god who sacrificed his only son. this god who never even tried to answer my grandma's wet and toothless cries, as i stood helpless by her bed, holding her hand, stroking her arm, trembling into dawn
.

Lemon Zest

“Okay, honey, now give it some zest!” Taylor's grandma laughed, eyes sparkling, and Taylor's heart lifted at the signal to start grating tiny slivers of lemon peel into the large yellow bowl. Standing beside her grandmother at the sink, making lemon meringue pies, Taylor was careful to not let her knuckles get scraped on the grater, though sometimes it did happen. She made sure her grandmother didn't see because then she might not trust the young girl with the best part of this venture: the moment she handed Taylor the big knife and let her cut the lemons in half for squeezing.

Ever since her grandmother had moved in, Taylor had watched in awe as this strange, tall, gruff, God-fearing woman cut everything from bread to onions, carrots, potatoes and ham. She had carried the old, heavy-handled nine-inch blade with her through the Depression, the challenge of a fickle God and a cheating husband, and it was the only knife she'd cook with. Stained dark with time and use, the wood handle had a slight burn and four small circular rust marks where the blade attached. For years Taylor's mom tried to get her to throw that knife away, but her grandmother just scoffed at the fancy new stainless steel blades. “They just don't cut right,” she would say. “Heck, I don't care about a little bit of rust. I just need a knife that can cut.”

After her first stroke was when Taylor's grandmother began to let the girl hold the knife, and help her with that part of the cooking. “It's all up to you now, honey,” she'd said. “I just can't do nothing with this right paw anymore.”

Taylor finished grating the peel and looked up at her grand-mother for permission to cut the lemons, the only part of this Saturday morning pie-making operation that required a knife. Her grandmother gave a slight nod and Taylor opened the drawer and pulled out the heavy blade. Standing tall at the sink, careful to show her grandmother that she remembered how to hold her fingers just so, away from the blade, Taylor reached for the lemons and was just beginning to cut when her mother stormed through the kitchen, purse and car keys in hand, late for work.