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In 1972, all boys wore the same Sears Toughskin jeans and camel-colored work boots. All of them except me. Mom dressed me in a collection of costumes that would have rivaled any sixteenth-century French dandy or Russian tablecloth. I wore knickers, pantaloons, and ruffled shirts; nothing I owned blended with the social norms of the current century.
All I wanted was a football jersey with a number quarterbacks wore. Instead, my closet was filled with oversized brass buckles, shiny fabrics, and inconvenient snaps all reflecting the sun in a most attention-seeking way. My mother demanded that I wear them, and for a while I did, at least until everyone in second grade started to notice that I was not blending.
Mom had told me it was for my own good, that I needed to do what I was told. I crawled along the yellow tile floor in little white underpants as my mother’s foot crashed down on my head again. I wanted to agree with her, but my body recoiled from her instinctually. I was seven years old and living with my parents in the worst apartment in a good Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles.
Dad remained oblivious to what I wore. He left at dawn and was either asleep or holed up in his room, lying on his belly watching the TV; or I barricaded myself in my room to isolate myself.
On one particular morning, I decided to never wear those clothes again.
Perhaps that was a mistake.
Control through force was normal for Mom. Whatever she dished out to me paled in comparison to the ruthless abuse she received from her parents. My grandparents came from Mother Russia or Poland or Ukraine, the boundaries moving with each passing military conflict. My grandfather picked potatoes in the fields when he was five, and when he was hungry he ate grass. My grandmother had scars on her back where the rats would bite her when she slept. They were each five feet two inches of surly, old-world logic. They didn’t allow gifts or birthday presents and made Mom a punching bag often.
Years later, Mom had me.
Her left foot found my rib cage as I tried to wedge myself behind the bathroom sink. The oxygen ran from my lungs. I had become accustomed to this. Mom bent over and grabbed at my feet to pull me from under the sink. I tried to catch my breath. I thought, Why was I fighting to get dressed? I was ready to give in, forget the pledge I made to myself, and get dressed in anything she wanted.
Then the memory of my maroon-colored cap appeared.
They had tossed my maroon-colored cap high above my head, from one kid to another. “Give me back my cap,” I said. One second grader who was missing his front teeth put the cap behind his back as I lunged for it before flinging it to another kid.
“Don’t let it hit the ground,” I said. “Do you know how much it costs to clean crushed velvet? My mother will kill me.” They never listened, unless it was to repeat what I had just said in some awful impersonation.
My mother will kill me. My mother will kill me.
Was my voice really that high pitched?
After the cap had hit the ground a few times, I stopped chasing it. I could feel the emotions build in my throat. My face ran hot and red. My tight matching velvet pants and swashbuckling boots made me slow. I felt helpless and humiliated. In 1970s public school, turning red in the face was okay. Crying was not.
It was all I could do not to fall apart; I did not want to give them the satisfaction. I could not chase the cap and hold it together at the same time. I wrapped my arms around myself across my chest and tried to calm down, to appear under control while they danced around me. I wanted their mercy and that cap back. The game of Monkey in the Middle finally ended with the help of some dufus kid named Jimmy. While I stood there, he walked up to me and said, “Here, want your cap?” and extended the cap to me. When I reached for it, he threw it to the ground, closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and threw a wild punch that hit me in the stomach.
I doubled over next to the crushed velvet cap.
The knees of my maroon pantaloons were slightly bloodied and frayed from the fall. On the way home, Mom was pissed, and she later waved the crumpled laundry receipt for that jackass cap in my face. I had let her down for not taking better care of my clothes. After all, if I brushed the velvet in different directions, it would change colors.
My feelings of remorse were soon removed by the pummeling I took over the tan-and-salmon macramé sweater vest. I was told that its appeal was that it was to be worn shirtless. The sweater’s loose weave showed way too much skin, and the accompanying knot in my stomach was a clear omen of a playground throttling to come as I walked into class.
I never did count all the lumps I took that day or who was handing them out, but it wasn’t until my mother complained about how hard it was to remove blood from yarn that I made a vow. Later that night, I swore I would never again go out dressed to provoke every pissed-off kid in the school. In the morning, I complained and cried and finally refused.
Mom had hold of my ankle and pulled me toward her. “Get dressed,” she said. She was repeatedly slapping me across the head when I heard the front door slam shut. It was an unusual sound, as my father was generally nonexistent from dawn to dusk, but his heavy, lace-up boots coming down the hall were a welcome sound. My mother continued to hit me, unaware of his encroaching footsteps. He finally appeared in the doorway.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Dad said as he stopped at the bathroom door. His unexpected entrance startled Mom. Her face seemingly snapped into consciousness. She straightened herself up for confrontation.
“I said, what the fuck are you doing?”
Mom methodically picked up the pair of red corduroy knickers from the top of the sink. “He won’t put these on,” she said, and she confidently shook them in front of his face.
He looked at them for a moment. The electric hum from the light fixture took hold of the room as dread wilted me. It crossed my mind: What if Dad thinks these pants are cool? If he did, I knew I would look forward to many future playground beatings.
He took the knickers from her and unbunched them and inspected them for a moment. He then looked at me, tear-streaked, sitting between the bathtub and the sink, and then back at Mom. He said, “Well, fuck, I wouldn’t fucking wear these things either. Were you hoping he was a fag?” Dad then knelt down beside me. “Were you hoping to be a ballerina?”
I shook my head. I sucked in my lower lip and began to hyperventilate.
Mom interrupted. “I bought these downtown at an outlet. Do you know how much those normally cost?” she asked, snatching my shame in the form of the pants from my father. “Do you know how cute they look on him?”
He paused for a moment, until the sign of eureka came across his face. “Well, he doesn’t like them, so he’ll wear some other fucking costume.”
Dad used the word “costume” a lot. It made him sound like a hip Mafioso.
I said in between uncontrollable breaths, “But they’re all like that.”
Mom circled for a new angle. “He is the best-dressed boy in school, by far. All the other mothers think so.” She seemed to swell with pride.
Without another word, Dad turned around and walked into my room. My room was where I could do whatever I wanted: food under the bed, games and puzzle pieces littered everywhere, and the last weeks’ worth of clothes all over the floor. He flung open the closet door and pulled all my costumes out, emptied the contents of every drawer, and launched the entire mass onto my unmade bed. It was a sea of bright colors, ruffles, buckles, oversized buttons, all attached to a wardrobe of bygone days.
He took inventory of the clothes before him. He scoffed at the suspenders. “What is he, Fred Astair?” and then rolled his eyes at the street-scenes-of-Venice print shirts. His expression became more stunned with every passing moment and when he finally spoke, he sounded genuinely confused. “This is a complete joke, right?” Dad said, still looking into the morass of undersized clown uniforms.
My mother ma
de a final attempt to put a positive spin on the whole episode. “These are really beautiful clothes,” she said.
“This is complete bullshit! You know he is a kid, a boy. Right?”
My hyperventilation slowed.
Dad handed me my pajama bottoms, which I pulled over my skinny legs. He then grabbed my arm hard and pulled me down the hall. As we left, my mother hummed an Eastern European dirge—usually only heard from her during times of stress—which followed us out the front door.
I sat in the front seat of Dad’s red-and-white Volkswagen bus and stared out the window, my cheeks not yet dry from all my blubbering. I wondered where we were going.
“You must have taken a few beatings over some of them costumes,” Dad said.
I did not answer right away. My mind drifted to all the evenings I sat in my room by myself with the door closed.
“It’s not too bad,” I said. A long silence followed, and I continued my gaze out the window. I imagined a whole host of future scenarios filled with ass-kicking from the playground and my mother, who was going to be pissed.
When we pulled into the parking lot, my dad’s face changed again. His lips curled in, his eyes focused on something in the distance. I only saw this face when there was hell to pay. A face saved only for “special events,” produced only after too many cans of Budweiser. Although I had seen this face many times, it never ceased to strike fear into me.
As much as I loved him, he scared me, and I began to cry again.
Dad said nothing, focusing instead upon the horizon as I sniffled away. He suddenly slammed the car into park, tearing the gearshift knob off and causing everything to lurch forward. My father then angrily spun around toward me. “I will ask you again… Are you taking a beating at school?”
I was too scared not to answer. “Yes, I get picked on all the time. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to go to school anymore. I hate it. Don’t make me go.” Everything around me blurred from my tears, and it all came out, all the bullying, fear, and girly clothes that made me different from everyone else. As I talked, I felt relieved, but also like a coward for not knowing how to defend myself. Dad would never have been in this position, would never be picked on or be forced to dress like a loser.
Dad listened without blinking. The pause before he spoke prodded my return to hyperventilating. The springs in Dad’s seat creak after he shifted.
“After we get you some new costumes, I will show you some stuff in the yard. Tomorrow, you’re going to school and then you’re getting in a fight.” He looked out the windshield while tapping out a cigarette of a mostly crushed pack of Salem regulars and lit it. “If you don’t do what I tell you to do, I am going to knock the shit out of you. Am I understood?” He turned back to me, pushed his lower lip out, and exhaled smoke to the van’s ceiling.
I nodded yes.
Before the day was over, I had a new wardrobe. It was Dad’s clothes, only smaller: boots, sweatshirts, Toughskin jeans, and white tube socks with two blue stripes at the top. All muted colors, so I blended. He said, “Wear gray and walk against the wall.”
To this day, there is nothing like an oversized gray sweatshirt to make me feel comfortable.
After I changed, Dad demanded we meet in the backyard. I stood there in front of him posed like the boxers we saw on television. The next several hours were all about “old-school street fighting,” as he put it. While he realized I didn’t have the strength or coordination to do much of what he showed me, especially not while shaking in terror, he made a particular point to explain end-game strategy. “When you see the teachers coming to break up the fight, don’t stop. When the teachers tell you to stop, don’t. When they try to pull you off, hold on tighter. Scream to draw a crowd and don’t let go no matter what. Don’t worry about how you look or what other people think. If you taste blood, you’re doing it right. Don’t worry that you’re going to kill him. You won’t.” Dad smiled and continued. “You’re just going to give him and everyone in earshot something to think about. No one wants to fuck with a crazy person.” He put a comforting arm around me and then said, “Tomorrow, you fight. You have my word no one will ever bother you again. Or you will have to deal with me.” Then he smiled. It was warm and gooey and felt safe. If I could have eaten anything I would have thrown it up.
The following day at lunch, per Dad’s instructions, with tears rolling down my face, I ran up behind the biggest kid in the school, David Malmud, and tackled him from behind, small stones jabbing into my back as we rolled on the ground. I got behind him and grabbed his cheeks with both hands. The plan terrified me, but I was far more terrified of my father if I didn’t do this right. I slid my first two fingers of each hand into the corners of David’s mouth. It was easier than I thought, just like Dad had said. He called it “the fishhook.”
Then I pulled up and back as hard as I could, trying to “pull the fucking kid’s face off his head,” just like Dad told me. David, and then I, both began to scream. I felt the tension in my arms, back, and stomach. I began to vibrate from my force. David swung his arms wildly in hopes that they would hit me, but I didn’t let go. He grabbed at my hands. I felt my fingernails dig into the insides of David’s cheeks. I heard him whimper and felt his saliva drip down my arm. I held my breath. When a teacher yelled at me to stop, I didn’t let go.
I would mark this moment as the first time I ever felt in control. The first time I stood up for myself. I don’t know how long it lasted, but when it was over, the whole school had encircled us, slack-jawed, and several teachers and Wally the janitor all held me down.
Tears and dirt and blood all mixed in my mouth.
It tasted like power.
That evening, Dad scolded me in front of Mom, using phrases like “what the fuck is wrong with you” and “you should fucking know better.” Privately, when Mom was in the kitchen humming a Russian song, Dad put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I’m proud of you.” Dad was right—rarely did I get picked on again.
But I remained scared of everything.
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After the schoolyard fishhook fight, Dad began to talk to me differently. He swore more in front of me—which, at the time, didn’t seem possible. He treated me more like one of the guys. I liked this. He wanted to toughen me up so I wouldn’t look so much like a chump. At least that’s how I saw it. To his credit, he never verbally confirmed my fears, but he started taking me out of our boring Jewish neighborhood into downtown, where he worked with a red-handled Milwaukee Sawzall and blue-handled channel locks. Tools that looked like they were built for tough men. On Saturdays and in the summers, he dragged me along for the ride.
The corner that sticks out in my mind is Alvarado and Eighth. Noisy street vendors sold colorful shaved ice out of small freezers on roller skates, a bell chiming on top. Round Latina ladies with small broods in tow yelled as the traffic encroached into crosswalks. Cars honked at each other, which sounded like an endless dialogue in a foreign language. The corner held a morass of random guys, some leaning on lampposts and wearing stained wifebeaters stretched over their ballooning bellies. Shoeless crazies ran screaming, gurgling, and barking through uncaring crowds, urgently heading to wherever crazy people secretly went. Shop owners in smudged aprons watched the whole uneasy parade from the relative quiet of their doorways.
Dad wanted to lift off the lid to life for me and show me its flailing innards. Like I said, he cared about me, but wanted someone more savvy and streetwise. As Dad and I walked, I wanted nothing more than to strap myself to his leg for safety. Instead, he made sure to point out every person of interest as if it were a game.
“See him?” Dad whispered in my ear. “Watch out for that fucking guy.” And he nodded in a general direction without pointing. “Watch how he’s looking around, like he’s spying on something. He is either surveying the landscape…” Dad took a meaningful drag on his cigarette.
&nbs
p; “The landscape?” I asked.
“Yeah, he is looking for someone to rob. Someone who looks vulnerable or weak. Either that or he is trying to keep a low profile because he might have jacked the wrong guy.” Dad’s eyes darted back and forth, picking up tiny, scary details. He seemed to drool over dubious characters lurking in shadows.
He pointed at aged orange splatters on the cement and then up to the roof of the adjacent building. My eyes followed his finger all the way to the top edge of the building as he crouched and leaned in tight to me. “I saw this guy a couple of weeks ago do a swan dive, just like in the Olympics. I was standing just over there.” He turned and pointed to the other side of the street. “He was walking across the roof like he was on a tight rope. People crowded around. And then—” Dad pointed back up to the roof “—the guy looks like he’s bouncing on a springboard facing us. And then he just jumps.”
Dad stood up and walked across the orange splatter as if it were not there.
Over time, I learned where all the orange splatters were, how to keep my chin up when I walked, how to walk with purpose so I never looked lost, and also how to pass Dad the tools with the colored handles when he needed them.
He was a plumber, and I found it magical. His hands were covered with knots and red places and torn skin. He told me that he would rip my arms out if I ever followed in his footsteps, which only made me like his tools more.
He said the same thing to me when military recruiters started calling the house when I turned eighteen. “Hey, loony tunes, do you like your fucking arms?” he called from his bedroom once when he heard me answer the phone and say, “Uh. Hello, Sergeant Smith…”
We left the chaos of the street and entered an empty apartment or basement. The outside world shut down until Dad broke out the wall to get at a pipe or switched on an electric drain snake for a clogged line. The grinding, banging, and brute force required to fix plumbing problems felt primal. My workday with Dad consisted of sitting cross-legged next to a pile of tools, handing him a wrench, blowtorch, or pipe cutter while he crammed himself in an awkward position on his back next to a rusty pipe. Most of the time, I watched quietly.
10,000 Miles with My Dead Father's Ashes Page 2