Elsewhere, California

by Dana Johnson

  I am already dressed for this evening. I want to be myself, so nothing fancy. I ditched my plans. No desperate statements of my worth and importance through bold jewelry and arch, sharp clothing. No black dress. Instead, jeans. A white T-shirt. A pair of blue Vans that are the same blue of the imitation Vans I wore in junior high school. In the kitchen, I reach for my espresso, and Massimo looks me up and down. “That is all? You look like a typical American boy. A very lovely boy.”

  The phone rings and when Massimo answers, I know he’s talking to my brother. “Hey man,” Massimo says. “What’s happening? For real? Aw, Bro. Avery is going to be disappointed.” He sounds ridiculous, but this is how they have always spoken to each other. Massimo thought that this was how he should speak to Owen, and because Owen found it amusing that an Italian spoke this way, Massimo kept doing it. “Stop it,” I’d say, when it seemed to become less a joke and more their lingua franca. But it somehow made them both more comfortable, that Massimo changed his voice. Massimo did not feel so much the foreigner—to either one of them—when he spoke to my brother in his language.

  “Later, man,” Massimo says now, and hands the phone to me.

  “You can’t come?”

  “Can’t make that drive, Sis. If I come, I’ma have to just turn around and come right back, and I only have one day off before I have to go to work on Monday.”

  “All right,” I say. “I’m disappointed but I understand. Next time.”

  “Dae-Jung coming, though.”

  “What? He doesn’t even have a car. How’s he getting here?”

  “How you think? How every other person without a car gets around. The bus. And his skateboard. What’s up with these kids and they skateboards now? When I was his age, I already had a car. That I bought. It was a jacked-up Pinto, but I had my own shit.”

  Dae-Jung is not the child my brother imagined he would have. Weird, in Owen’s eyes. Father and son look a great deal alike in the way they walk, their hair texture, and their skin color, younger and older versions of the same man. “That boy is Owen’s picture,” my mother loves to say. But that’s how pictures can be deceiving, as well as can be the flesh-and-blood person standing in front of you, if you don’t have the imagination to really see what you’re looking at. I love Dae-Jung for being impossible to pin down. He’s a construction of so many things, which has nothing to do with what he looks like, but what he lives. “Leave him alone. Everybody doesn’t have to get stuff all the time.”

  “Yeah, all right. You and Massimo can give up all your shit then.”

  I almost say, “You can have it,” but Owen would know that I don’t mean it, that I only mean it in this moment but will likely change my mind in the next moment. And anyway, if I were to say, “Take it. Take it all,” Owen would say, “I don’t need you to give me nothing. I got my own.” Mainly, he’s worried about his boy. He wants him to grow up to be respectable, line his pockets with money. Like Dad, he believes it has to happen in that order. Somebody in this family needs to make some money, Owen’s always saying, with accusation, I think. It was supposed to be me. “Dae-Jung.” I say. “How’s he getting back to West Covina? Back home from L.A.?”

  “I don’t know,” Owen says. “Bus. Like he’s getting down there. You make it sound like a nigga got to travel a thousand miles by stagecoach or mule or some shit.”

  But I don’t like the idea of it. It will be nighttime. It will be late. I think about him at some bus stop, waiting and waiting for a bus that will come later than the schedule promises. “He’ll stay here with Massimo and me.”

  “I don’t care. Maybe try and teach him something while you got him. Tell him to pull up those damn pants. Tell him to cut his hair, walking around with a afro looking crazy. He got two tattoos, now. I tell you that?”

  “What are they of?”

  “Please. I don’t even know. Some Korean mess his mother taught him.”

  “God. You sound like Dad, complaining about his clothes, his looks. You want him to wear a suit and tie all the time?”

  “It’d be better than what he’s looking like now. And did I tell you? He surfing now.”

  “Surfing?”

  “A black surfer,” Owen says, and I can just see him shaking his head as though he’s at a loss as to where to go for help with such a problem. “He started taking the bus to Huntingon Beach and learned how to do it.”

  I imagine Dae-Jung on a surfboard, riding high on a wave, beads of water nestled in his tight kinks like diamonds in a black crown. “Wow. Surfing. That’s really something.” Next to me is a pencil and a receipt from groceries that Massimo has left on the table. I turn it over on the blank side and with my free hand start sketching something of what I imagine. I envy this figure commanding the high precipice of a big gray wave, and yet I would never even try. “There are other black surfers, though. Not just Dae-Jung.”

  “And I bet they’re laying on their mama and daddy’s couches, too.” Owen yawns in my ear and that tells me that he’s getting off the phone. “He’ll be out of the house in two years and then I don’t care. If he puts a bone in his nose, cool. Long as I don’t have to be paying for his grown ass.” But he’s lying, my brother. He and Mika will help in some way because they have a little bit of money. Not a lot, but more than Mom and Dad had.

  When I hang up, Massimo says, “Dae-Jung? I like Dae-Jung.”

  “Yes. Just for the night.”

  “You didn’t tell Owen about Keith,” Massimo says, pulling on the gray stubble of his beard.

  “No. Since he’s not coming, I don’t want him to worry.”

  “I hope you know what you are doing.”

  I go to the cabinet and pull out a package of strawberry Pop-Tarts to eat with my espresso.

  “Really?” Massimo is plaintive. “We have so many good things to eat and you decide to open a plastic wrapper to eat the plastic that is inside?” He watches me break the Pop-Tart into four pieces and dip it in my espresso. “And you don’t even heat it up. You are supposed to toast it,” he says, suddenly the Pop-Tart purist.

  I chew and stare at him, grinning. He throws an orange kitchen towel over his shoulder and wipes his hands on it. “You are ridiculous,” he says with uncharacteristic admiration. He will give in and let me and my tragic food choices be. “My beautiful boy eating your 7-Eleven trash. You know what you look like? You look like a delinquent hoodlum.”

  “That’s redundant, Massimo. A delinquent is a hoodlum.”

  “No it’s not. A hoodlum is more dangerous, no?”

  This question, I have to think about. “I suppose it depends on what you’ve done.”

  On the counter in front of me is a Manny Ramirez bobblehead that Massimo somehow acquired for me because a few years back, I had missed Manny Ramirez bobblehead day at Dodger Stadium. That day he hit pinch hit a grand slam. Now, Manny taunts me with his wagging head, as if to say, Now what? What do you think of me now? I had whined while walking around the house. “I wanted a Manny Ramirez bobblehead,” I had repeated mournfully. How did I not get tickets for that game? For seats in Mannywood? And one day, there was Manny, in my kitchen, nodding his head at me in affirmation, Massimo saying, “Now you will stop whining, yes?” But soon after, there was a mess with Manny. Cheating. Steroids and laziness, letting what should have been easy fly balls land in front of him. The outrage of it all. For that kind of money? Who did he think he was? The disappointment in the multimillion-dollar cheater. With women’s fertility drugs, no less. That was particularly confusing, this unlikely intrusion of women’s wombs into the world of baseball.

  “Hello? What are you thinking?” Massimo waves a palm in front of me. “You are still in love with that silly toy,” he says, and it sounds like see-ly. “And that cheater. How much you care about that silly game.” He turns to load the dishwasher, clanking things loudly. I almost get into our tired argument, about how much he loves soccer, and why is that more reasonable, but we never get anywhere with that. He loops the dishrag th
rough the oven handle, and looks around his clean kitchen. More than anything, he loves this kitchen, its smooth surfaces, the stainless steel, the myriad colorful dishes that lend an air of festivity, no matter how dark the day. And the windows. Large windows that bathe everything in golden light. I love this kitchen too, whereas I did not love the kitchen I grew up with, after a while. I saw better kitchens in magazines and on television, and so the kitchen I grew up in became just a place where dishes got washed and where food was boiled and fried and where hair got pressed with hot combs. I wonder about Manny Ramirez’s childhood kitchen in the Dominican Republic, wonder about how far he traveled away from this kitchen to play ball in America. Of course, one should not cheat. One should simply be good at what one does. The best. But what if, when he arrived to the game, everyone was already playing it differently, and he was simply playing the game in this new and different way that everyone else was playing it? But the outrage. The letters in the Los Angeles Times sports section. It was like people taking to the streets with torches, rope, and pitchforks. I had said this to my father. When the news broke, I was so disappointed in Manny, but somehow, saw his side. “Dad,” I had said. “None of it’s fair. Manny was just the one who got caught.” “True,” he had said. “But you don’t cheat. Ever. Just because everybody else is doing it? That’s the last thing the Dodgers got to worry about, anyway,” he had said. “Those folks that own them are getting a divorce, and look at all the money they got that they ain’t put back into the game. They are not baseball people. They just rich folks that bought themselves a team. Anybody that got money can buy something, but do they deserve it? How hard they working for it? What they doing with all that money, charging the people fifteen dollars to park and fifteen dollars for beer and they worth 835 million? How two people have 835 million? Two. People,” he said, like curse words. At the time, I was only half listening. It seemed like he was getting off topic, since I was talking about Manny getting a lot of money that people didn’t think he deserved.

  But anyway, maybe none of that matters now. That was then. This is now. The McCourts are done, and there will be a brand-new ball game.

  Massimo thumps me on the head. “I have been talking to you,” he says. “Are you listening?”

  I’M HAPPY THAT I got a job. So glad I get to say Yes when Dad asks me for the fiftieth time have I gotten a job yet. School starts Monday. It’s Friday. I got a job in a week, as ordered. I’m just answering phones in the art department, but still. The woman who interviewed me said I had a nice voice. She said I spoke clearly and articulately. When she says this, it makes me want to speak even more perfectly. She says this like it’s amazing that I speak so well. The School of Fine Arts makes me happy. Just being here. In the main office, there are four walls and they all have prints of different paintings on them, Picasso, Monet, Dali, Warhol. Kids come in and they look different from the rest of the kids on campus. Sloppy, but cool. This one guy wears holey jeans covered in paint and a T-shirt with a tie. Fifties dresses that June Cleaver wore with pumps, this one girl wears with white Converse and tube socks. She looks crazy. It’s pretty rad, actually. But the best is this black girl with a mohawk. A mohawk. Her head is completely shaved on the sides and then it’s crazy spiky down the middle of her head, like seven inches high. I have never, ever seen a black girl like this before.

  When I’m done with work, I like to walk through the student gallery. There’s a nice painting on the wall. A black woman with a huge afro that has an eye in it. I keep stepping to the side and all these other positions, but the eye always follows me. Even when I’m almost out of the building.

  When I’m done walking through the gallery, I’m in my own dream world, thinking about how pretty the campus is, all the brick and fountains and gargoyles, Tommy Trojan glistening in the sun, the bell tower’s ringing like I think it would sound in a beautiful old church in Europe, when somebody talks to me.

  Excuse me, miss, this voice says. But I’m not really paying attention.

  Have you ever considered a MasterCard or a Visa? I stare at the person talking to me. A guy dressed nice in khakis and a white dress shirt. His hair is cut neatly and his ears stick out a little bit, all shiny and pink in the sun. His hair is blonde and curly, but the curls are lying down in waves. I keep my hands down at my side because I imagine myself doing something crazy like running my fingers through his hair.

  Do you have to pay for it? The Visa or the MasterCard?

  No. He smiles and he has deep dimples in his cheeks. Here, he says. Look. He holds up a paper. This is the application form and all you have to do is fill it out. Please, he says. Take a look.

  I read it and it’s easy to fill out and everybody around me, all these other kids, are filling out applications too. One question on the form is about my job and how much money I make.

  Excuse me? Sir?

  He smiles at me some more. Sir? We’re practically the same age he says, and squints at me. You don’t call your boyfriend Sir, do you? He laughs and winks at me.

  That makes me nervous and I drop the pen he gave me to fill out the application. I take a deep breath. Um, I make nine dollars an hour at my work-study job answering phones. Is that enough?

  You go here, don’t you? He’s not smiling as big when he asks me this, like he’s worried about it.

  Yeah, I say. Yes. I attend USC.

  Then that’s enough, he says.

  I finish filling it out. I’m going to get a Visa and a MasterCard, I decide. Next to the Visa and MasterCard table is the American Express table. When I look at the application, the guy working that table smiles at me too. He’s dressed exactly the same as the guy I just talked to. He says to somebody already filling out an application, Would you please step aside so this young lady can fill out her application?

  So I do.

  I DON’T KNOW where Anika is, and I want to watch her TV. Game six. National League Championship. They have to pull this one out or else it’s over and St. Louis clinches it.

  Usually, I only watch Anika’s TV when she’s here. What’s hers is hers and what’s mine is hers. It’s not like she’s dying for anything I have, but if she needs toothpaste because she’s out, she uses mine like it’s hers. But I have to ask to watch her television. I think about how stupid she’s being and I think about how this is the last game of the series and then I turn on the game. It’s the worst. I mean close. Middle of the seventh and Dodgers are tied with St. Louis four and four. I’m chewing on my nails. What are they doing? You guys! Pull it together!

  Anika walks in carrying a stack of books and throws them on her bed without looking at me, without even Hi, and I know before she says anything that she’s pissed about the television. I say, I hope you don’t mind, but it’s the last game of the Championship Series. You want to watch?

  She kicks off her shoes and slips into her flip-flops. Anika takes her time answering me. My eyes go back and forth from the game to Anika. Lasorda’s called in Niedenfuer because St. Louis has scored two singles already. Come on you guys. Come on. Where’s your heart?

  I want to watch something else, Anika says, and I look at her like she’s high. I mean, is she serious? What else is there to watch?

  Anika. This. Is. The. Last. Game. Of. The. Series.

  She shrugs and shakes her head and looks around the room. When she does this, it looks like she’s trying to tell me she’s deaf and can’t hear or something.

  I don’t want to fight about this. I hate fighting. It makes me sick, people screaming at each other. Hitting each other. Even just the yelling. And when I’m really mad, I’m sick. It’s like I can’t handle fighting or being real mad. And besides, there’s got to be a way that we can both get our way.

  Ozzie Smith is up and he sent the ball into the seats in the last game that Niedenfuer pitched, so Niedenfuers got to be real careful about what he throws.

  Seriously, Anika says. She puts her hand on the knob and I don’t even think about it. I push her hand away and stand up.
Wait a minute. God. This is a crucial pitch, I say, and just then I hear the crowd roar and I see Ozzie Smith rounding second. Shit. It’s a triple. A triple.

  Anika says, It’s my television.

  But you don’t understand how important this game is! I throw up my hands because I don’t even know what else to do.

  I so don’t care, she says and turns the TV toward her. I turn it back to me.

  And then she pushes me.

  I forget about baseball. My mind is working very slowly. I can hit her. I can slap her. I can push her back. But then it will turn into a real fight and I will miss the game. I want to punch her face in for making me miss the game. From far away Vin Scully is saying that Niedenfuer has struck out Jack Clark to end the threat. All the things I want to say, I don’t say. You fucking bitch. You cuntress. That’s what the girls are always saying to each other. You idiot. Who turns off a championship game in the middle of a tie? I hold my hands down close to my sides. I want to bring them up to fight her so bad. Yank a big chunk of that straight hair out of her head. But none of that is really going to help me see the rest of the game. I say, Don’t you ever touch me again or I will punch you in the face. I will. I swear. I can tell she doesn’t believe me, though. She just turns up her lip like something smells bad. She pulls the TV closer to her and sits on the edge of her bed, changing channels. I feel like a scream is right behind my eyes, my nose, inside my mouth. There is nowhere else to go because I don’t know anyone else who would be watching the game. So I sit on my bed and draw. I draw until I can’t feel the screams behind my eyes and nose and mouth. I draw the Dodgers logo, the L going through the A. I draw a television around it, so that the letters are in the TV. Then I draw all kinds of TVs around that big one, medium ones and small ones. Old-fashioned huge ones that are solid pieces of furniture, big as a table or bookshelf. My neighbor Joan had one of those a long time ago. I put a smaller, more modern television on top of the old big one and I draw images inside of those. One is just the outline of a staircase slanting down with six kids standing, one on each stair, in line, biggest to smallest. Another is a girl on a surfboard with her ponytail flying out behind her. I draw a bubble coming out of her mouth with the words Moondoggie! Another one has a covered wagon and horses. There’s no people in it, only a bubble with the word Pa! And more televisions after that so that the whole page is crowded with televisions, except I keep a space on the very bottom. On the bottom, I draw a baseball player with the number 34, his leg is up and his eyes are rolled up like Valenzuela always does, like he’s looking up at heaven, but in this drawing, he’s looking up at all those TVs. It takes me two hours to do all this. But I don’t even know how all the time has passed. I don’t even feel like I’m on my bed, in a dorm, across from someone I wanted to smash in the face. I didn’t even hear the television this whole time, I swear. And when did Anika turn it off? She’s listening to the radio now, doing her homework. Two hours. That’s what my Mickey Mouse watch says. The game is over then. I take the phone off the desk and pull the extension cord all the way across the room and out the door. I close the door behind me and sit in the hallway and call my dad.