by Jason Carney
Have you been paying attention?
In fact, I measure my time in this godforsaken place by the displeasure I have experienced. My first day at Herbert Hoover High School in Glendale last January, I was informed all the classes were full for the semester—I was given English, PE, science, and the same beginning typing course three times a day—SsSsSs UuUuUu CcCcCc KkKkKk.
I took typing in seventh and eighth grades. When am I ever going to need the skill of knowing how to type?
My mother once said, “A diverse skill set makes a well-rounded man.” Mesquite, Texas, my home, offered what I considered diversity: Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and Catholic—Christian and white. Just walking through the door of Hoover and mingling with the students was an uncomfortable cultural lesson in languages, odors, and attitudes. I had never heard of countries such as Armenia and Ecuador. My biggest education came from the Philippine break dance gang; they chased me home from school to kick my ass. They wore matching sleeveless black T-shirts with a hood, a nickname, and a number on the back. The leader had a tail of hair hanging down to his ass, he would pop-and-lock punch me in the face, while the other boys cursed at me in a foreign language and spat on me. I can honestly say getting your butt whipped by a dancing teenager with a girly haircut sucks. Yet those boys were a minor disturbance, compared to the unrest the greater Los Angeles area experienced: the street-gang explosion and the hysteria over the AIDS epidemic that gripped the city with more fervor than the fear of what moved in the shadows when the sun went down.
Most nights during the first four months, as the moonlight poured through my window, I scoured the alley three floors below. I was convinced Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, was coming to get me. Two of his victims had lived and died in Glendale, their houses just a few blocks away. After my parents forced me to move to California, this seemed like a logical conclusion, death by serial killer.
The fear of a murderer on the loose in the Sunshine State was real to me. After all, my grandmother’s cousin Butch killed more than a few people out here in the late ’60s and early ’70s. He stuffed their bodies into oil drums or something like that, young women and men who just simply disappeared until the cops caught Butch. The ballad of Butch was retold over pumpkin pie and holiday cheer. The way some members of the family tell the story, Butch either escaped or was released from prison and went back to what he knew.
During those early months, the Night Stalker was on everyone’s lips: at the corner deli, the checkout line at Ralph’s, bus stops, even the lunch line at school. I could not move ten feet without hearing his name. He kept me up at night, scared shitless. I slept with a steak knife. In the end, cops did not get him. One afternoon, normal citizens recognized him on the street. A footrace ensued and several men and women quickly encircled him and beat his ass to a standing ovation of onlookers. The cops came to the serial killer’s rescue. Even though Ramirez deserved to be beaten, I felt bad for him. So many people cheered as the group punished him. I related to that feeling of being an outcast.
“If they’re picking on you, maybe you should be more social,” my mother suggested. “Show them who you are. You have a lot to offer, you’re the life of the party.”
The two crowning social achievements of my time in Cali: the night last spring when the Hoover School LAPD brought me home from a science class trip to Yosemite National Park. I brought weed and got a girl stoned who I had a crush on. Her friends freaked out and turned me in. The last month of the school year, I became the administration’s poster boy for community outreach; recovering addicts came by to speak to me; the cop lunched with me several times; I fulfilled community service projects for the upcoming drug-awareness week programs. My favorite part was all the kids in my other classes talking about the incident. They described the bad person that turned Alison Wong onto drugs as if he was far removed from my reality. They called him some new person named Jason. One of the girls in my English class even asked me, “Hey, Tex, you know who that is?”
Just when I thought things could not get worse, Craig came to visit, a few weeks later, at the start of summer. My mom thought a familiar face might do me good. In a display of rebellion, we totaled my mom’s car by driving across front lawns and crashing into a retaining wall. Craig and I drew an impressive crowd of cops wielding firearms, helicopters with spotlights, dogs, pissed-off homeowners, bystanders, and angry parents. I lived in California six months and no one other than the police paid enough attention to learn my real name. The number one irritation I carried around living in this state is that everyone, including my teachers, called me Tex.
* * *
“Well, were they making fun of you?” my mother asks again, as my stepdad exits the room.
“What do you think?” I respond.
“I think they were being supportive,” she answers. “I mean the whole JV team stood up at once, they didn’t give anyone else a standing ovation. It seemed very sincere.” I can tell by the tone of her voice that she does not believe this. The same tone she used when she told me how happy I would be moving from Texas to Glendale, Glendale to Oak Park.
You are not that stupid and neither am I.
“They just recognize your achievement, lettering on the varsity as a sophomore is a big deal,” she adds.
“Yeah, Mom, a big deal.”
She is right, I did letter on the varsity team. Everyone who played lettered on the varsity. The point the JV team made was that I didn’t earn the recognition. As a second-string receiver and cornerback, I only played on a few of the special teams. My stats were an impressive line of zeroes: zero catches for zero yards, zero tackles, and zero interceptions. My two brightest moments on the field were outstanding. First, in a game against Calabasas High, a mutant teenager held me on kickoff coverage, spinning me around a couple of times before hurling me into the ground. My head snapped back and I hurt my neck. I wore a brace for two weeks. Second, a few weeks later I ran onto the field during the pregame, as the cheerleaders held a paper banner supported by two PVC pipes on both sides. I was second through the sign, behind Bradley, the biggest boy on the team, and he hit the banner with such force the poles flew out of the cheerleaders’ hands and right between my legs. In full stride, I did a complete somersault, in midair, landing right-side up without missing a step. I had no idea what was happening. The display of acrobatics was so impressive that the local cable television commentator remarked, “That was number twenty, Jason Carney, with a spectacular display of gymnastics.” The JV team is right: I did not earn the recognition, but I did not ask for it either.
“The coach said nice things about you,” she tells me. “He expects you to contribute a lot next season.”
When my mom had called and registered me at Oak Park, she inquired about football. Hoover high’s school cop suggested sports might be a positive outlet for my behavior. Ten minutes after speaking with the school secretary, the varsity coach called my mom back. He mentioned the talent within Texas high school football seventeen times in the three-minute conversation. After my mother explained to him my situation and the reason for our move, I earned my way onto the varsity team. The fact that he’d never seen me didn’t matter because I was from Texas and sounded like a very pissed-off young man. I had not played football since the seventh grade. Then, I played three positions: end, tackle, and guard. I sat on the end of the bench, guarded the water bottles, and tackled anyone who came near them. I suck at football.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Jason,” she says, “I thought you did great.”
Our house is only three hundred yards from the stadium; she only came to one game, the first one. My grandfather and uncle were visiting from Dallas, so everyone watched me stand on the sideline, while my team lost by thirty-five points. Not only did we play badly, we looked terrible: bright-yellow pants, brown jerseys with yellow numbers, and bright-yellow helmets with brown face-masks. Not that my skill level or uniform mattered. The team record was as horrible as we looked at 1–10.
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I do not have any friends, and I have had several altercations with other boys during the year.
“You just need to try harder,” she says, “interact with the other boys.”
The most contact I have with anyone on the team is at the video store. One of the seniors—a good-looking blond surfer type, very popular, drives a hot car—works there. I go in three or four times a week and rent porn from the back room. We say hello, he does not check my identification, and we say goodbye. Interaction.
“If we put our minds to it, we can find a way for you to fit in out here.”
I tired of my mother’s lame attempts at concern. The simple solution: pick one place and stay there. Three different schools from the start of my first year to the beginning of my sophomore year is ridiculous. My mother is too complex for simple solutions, preferring drastic change to fix all ills, preferring indirect riddle conversations over asking the required maternal questions about how moving affects me and how it feels to be an outcast.
But the truth is, I am tired of talking about everything; some things don’t need to be examined, they just need to be personally addressed. Stay out of my business, I got this one.
“We seemed to interact tonight, lots of positive interaction,” I say, walking downstairs to my bedroom.
Tonight was humiliating, the most embarrassing moment of my life; everyone could see what was going on, the JV squad’s intentions were more obvious than the fact I was the worst player on the team. Parents in the bleachers even said out loud, “Look, they are making fun of that boy.” I swore to myself, as the coach handed me my letter and I stared into the thirty smart-ass grins of that standing ovation, absorbing every moment of their laughter and jeers: They are going to eat this moment come the fall. I resigned myself to the idea that this is my home; next season, they will stand up for me again.
They will not be calling me Tex. I have been practicing.
2:19 A.M. (25:41 BEFORE GRACE)
THE RED AND BLUE LIGHTS SWIRL through the silence of my car. In this four-square-mile area, you will find more cops than almost anywhere else in the city. There is never a normal traffic stop on these streets. Most of the officers are young; very few are of color. They hassle the dealers, mostly young black men, pulling them over and searching their cars with seemingly no cause or provocation. While they let the buyers, mainly white folks from the surrounding suburbs, come and go as if this neighborhood was one of Dallas’ finest travel destinations.
My eyes shake in the rearview.
I should have stayed in the hotel.
The current of insomnia rolls across my face, an out-of-tune band clanks in my head. My hand fumbles to turn down the radio, which is already off. I am too tired to care about going to jail. I make a right turn into a parking lot. I forget to use my signal. Stuff the two large hundred-dollar slabs into the Burger King bag, under the burgers and napkins, on the passenger seat.
Had to get caught sometime. I’m glad C is not with me.
I grab a handful of fries from the bag, roll down my window.
The officer approaches me cautiously. I can hear each step clunk on the concrete. His utility belt jangles against his leg. He stands off to the back of my window. I make sure he sees me eating the fries. A flashlight illuminates the back of my head from the passenger side. His partner can see me, although I have no idea where he is. I turn around and greet the officer at my door with a smile.
“Everything all right, sir?” I say, chewing as I speak. As if I could be of service to these gentlemen.
“What you doing out here tonight?” he asks.
An obvious question, a white man driving through this neighborhood at two in the morning is only after one of two things—hookers or drugs. Or both. The situation seems obvious if the officer would only take time to look at me. Unshaven, oily skin, and eyeballs that bounce in my head as if they were on a swivel, everything about me screams crackhead.
I bet they saw me leave the apartments. They know the rocks are in my car.
“Looking for my cousin Viv,” I say. “She works out here in the middle of the night.”
I have this excuse ready every time I come to score at this hour, but I have not had to use my verbal skills in this neighborhood; I have been lucky. As many times a day as I roll through these streets, this should have happened a long time ago.
I will have to call Freeda, have her meet me at the jail instead of the hotel.
I do not think this excuse is going very far.
“She works out here?”
“She lives at the truck-stop motel across the bridge. Street walks to pay for her addiction,” I say. “So I come out here two, three times a month to check on her—give her food, clothes, money, share a Christian word. Whatever she needs, just making sure she’s still alive.”
“Why so early?”
“Hard to find her in the sunlight; she’s very nocturnal. Besides, I get up early. You might know her or seen her? Her name’s Viv; she has one glass eye?”
“Glass eye, huh. You sure she is your cousin? You her customer?”
I am surprised. He acts as if he knows her. Could I be this lucky?
“Cousins, yes; customer, no. She used to babysit me,” I say. “Have you seen her?”
“Babysit you, huh. She’s a nice woman, struggling. Why do you want to get her in trouble by lying?”
“Her boyfriend shot her and left her for dead out in Forney. Five times, still has one bullet stuck behind her eye socket. Makes my grandmother feel better knowing I come out here and check in. Viv doesn’t walk very well, has a hard time seeing. My aunt Bobbi is sick. Got to take care of family.”
“All right, give me your license and registration. Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”
I feel anxious. This was a stupid idea.
The lights keep swerving around the cab of the car, a crowd gathers at the Racetrack gas station across the street. My car is recognizable in this neighborhood; all the panhandlers know my connection, know that I am C’s customer. They keep close eyes on the interaction. Everyone here is constantly trying to get one up on each other; if they can score ten or twenty dollars’ worth of crack by selling you out, they will. The vultures seeing me go down with two big rocks could be a bad thing. Crackheads—snitches around here. The sharing of information on the police and their activities, especially when it involves customers, can be profitable to a five-dollar hustler.
I reach into the bag for more fries; nonchalantly secure the sack so that a flashlight cannot see inside. A trip to the county jail not in my plans, I may have no choice.
There should not be any warrants for my arrest.
I can’t remember any unpaid speeding tickets. I look in the rearview. The first officer joins the second at the front of the squad car. Their figures break the blue and red swirls as they talk. Their shadows bring me a sense of comfort inside my vehicle. I can hear them discussing, I cannot understand what they say. Each takes his side; the first one approaches my door.
“Do you have any drugs or weapons in the car?”
“No sir,” I say, half laughing as if it’s a ridiculous question. “Just a couple of Whoppers.”
“Mr. Carney, we stopped you for failure to signal a turn,” he states.
I know this is bullshit. I haven’t turned in half a mile. I saw them pull out from a side street after I passed. The only signal I forgot to use was after they turned on their lights. The windows of my car are tinted. I suspect they thought a gangster was driving, late-night runner with a car full of dope.
“We are going to give you a warning tonight.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I saw your cousin out here the other night,” he says. “We cut her some slack, didn’t have anything on her. She doesn’t look too good. Said her mom is sick.”
Viv, not right since the shooting, has a will to live that is something fierce. Sometimes I wonder if she wishes that she died that day. The amount of pain and struggle to relearn how to ta
lk, hold a fork, her children’s names. She amazes everyone by her victory. Her internal fortitude strengthened her so she could return to her heroin-cocaine addictions. Less than five years after her boyfriend shot her, she stabbed an old woman in the shoulder, in a Kmart dressing room for twenty-six dollars and a Social Security check.
Why did she fight so hard to survive?
“I worry about her, especially since her boys are back in jail,” I say.
Viv has three boys, by two different men, all three younger than me, the oldest by just two years. My mom is stable compared to Viv; both were teenage mothers. I have not seen my cousins in a few years, mainly because they have spent most of their lives behind bars. Drugs, theft, and burglary, the calling cards of their criminal endeavors. Better inmates than thugs, they have never had the luck I seem to experience. I have spent most of my life thinking I am better than Mac, Jim, and Will. The truth is that our family has always occupied the bottom rung. We love them all, but some folks cannot be saved. Things were much simpler when we were kids.
“Well, I’ll go by the hotel room,” I say.
“Start to look in the daytime. It’s dangerous out here. These people will kill you for five bucks. Drive safe, get home.”
“I know. Some members of my family will sell their relatives out just to get high. Have a nice night, officer. Thank you again, sir.”
WHEN THE TAVERN CALLS
1985
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS?” HE ASKS.
The crackle of the phone line creates a deeper distance between us than already exists. Ten minutes ago, it was a normal Thursday. The phone rang at midnight so technically today is Friday, two in the morning in Illinois, where my father lives. I know he is referring to the day that just ended.
“Thursday,” I answer.
“What kind of son are you?” he asks.
We have not spoken in almost three years. I did not know he could get ahold of us in California. When the phone rang a little while ago, I listened to my mom and stepdad Steve argue with him about being drunk. They did not want me to speak with him. He gets angry when drunk. I can hear the tavern linger over his lips.