Chapter 6
“Mom, don’t fret, it’s no big deal…”
—Champ
Beauty life. A passel of females (grandmas, teenyboppers, twenty-somethings) seated in fluorescent chairs pushed against the walls, women mute and cross-legged and lost in beauty mags or prattling across a center table fixed with a gaudy vase of fresh tulips. A few stylists back in the back, dressed in all-black smocks. One of them painting white slop on a client’s near-to-bald scalp, another sifting through a mess of combs and scissors and curlers, another whacking a grandmother’s gray locks into an atavistic bob. Mom finds the last empty seat and leaves me to hold up a wall. She flips through a style book, shows me a few choices, asks me what I think. Don’t none of them move me, so I tell her to choose whichever she likes most. So much for input, she says. Whose idea was this? Whose? she says, and slaps the book closed. We don’t say nothing more till a stylist sways over, wearing plastic gloves glazed in auburn goop. She asks Mom if she’s picked a style. Not yet, but I want something new, Mom says, and turns to me to affirm. Something fresh. The stylist tells Mom no problem and escorts her to a station and I skip back outside feeling eyes on my back. That car is parked close. I get in and let the seat back till I’m almost lying down, and watch the shop’s clientele: a female saunters out patting a spume of loose curls, another one slicking severe blond streaks; I watch a girl hop out the passenger side of an old school sedan (seen the driver around town; he’s one of those recalcitrant brass-knuckleheads who loves to provoke beef) booming with unbalanced treble—business that’s semi-interesting at best short-term, but in the long run is a vapid-ass hobby, so can you blame me for dozing? Who knows how long later, Mom stirs me with a knock at my window. She’s sporting a new short cut, her hair bone-straight and sheened.
Wow! I say.
You like? she says.
I love, I say.
Me too, she says. Can we tip?
It’s hella cliché to claim all the nail shops are owned by Asians, but it’s true almost all the nail shops in the city are owned by Asians. A woman with an apron stitched with the shop’s name asks what service Mom would like and I tell her manicures and pedicures for us both. Mom says, Both? and I say, Yeah, both. They seat us in padded chairs beside each other and run foot tubs of water and I don’t know about Mom’s, but my tub’s a Fahrenheit to scald. Too hot, the tech says. Too hot! I say. Mom chuckles, slaps my leg, tells me to take it like a man. You told me you was a grown man, she says.
A moment after, when the nail tech slips off Mom’s heels, it’s plain to see adding this trip to our itinerary was sagacious as shit. The verdict is out, though, on whether Mom will feel so too.
Let me mention, the smell in this piece, oh boy, this is your brain, this is your brain about to burst. Must be why in some shops the workers wear those white face masks. But I endure, breathe slow and shallow, work my yogaesque peace till she gets to the part where she rubs my soles, the part that, between me, you, and the walls, makes me squeamish as shit and takes all my man-strength to suppress a punk’s titter.
I see we’re still sensitive, Mom says.
Hey, I say. Hey.
They do our feet and, right where we sit, they balance manicure bowls half-filled with marbles on the arms of our chairs. This close, I see my tech’s got a jagged half-moon chipped from a front tooth stained the shade of dry mud. She looks the youngest and thinnest of the workers and ain’t said word one since almost boiling off my fucking foot.
Not so for Mom, who, minus their little language chasm, has been gabbing with her tech like they’ve been friends since birth. That’s Moms for you. Never seen a conversation she couldn’t fuel.
They sit Grace the Gabfabulous under hand and foot heat lamps, and I bide time watching another nailtech apply inch-long claws on the fingers of a chick a nigger wouldn’t want no problems with in a dark alley. Can’t understand why a chick, any chick, would think them joints are in anyway attractive, though it’s probably best that I don’t. A worker ask Mom if she’d like a wax, peel, or massage but Mom declines.
We (me and Mom) stride out so close our sleeves touch.
Feeling good, I say.
Mom makes a fist, touches her rose-red nail job. Feeling more of myself, she says. To be continued.
Downtown: the Justice Center, the blue-capped tower, the State Building, the trillion-windowed federal courthouse, the county courthouse, the courthouse square, the city building with Portlandia looming over the entrance. We end up in North-west on a street lined by furniture stores, vintage stores, boutiques, ATMs.
Before we start, let’s agree on what we’re after, I say. On what you want and what it is you need.
Is this a shopping spree? she says.
Just like TV, I say.
But this isn’t TV, she says. Son, I love to see you do well, trust me I do, but you’ve been spending and spending and I don’t know how you can, she says. Where it all comes from. I don’t know and I know you won’t tell me. I don’t even know if I want you to tell me. No, I know I don’t want you to tell me. I won’t be able to stand it whatever it is.
Mom, don’t trip, it’s no big deal, I say. Let’s not make a big deal out of nothing.
At the first spot a woman wearing a kiloton of costume jewels rushes out a back room to guard the register as if it’s the Fountain of Youth or Fort Knox or both. She snaps open the till and busies with some insignificance only she and God can see without saying shit (not hello, not be right with you, nor how may I help you) to Mom nor I. We’re on the fool side of patience and still she don’t budge a quarter-step away from her post. Just when I’ve had enough, I tow Mom outside.
No such civil rights moment at the next store. This saleslady is on us so quick she stumbles. Welcome, welcome, she says, with a glee that’s damn near satiric. Mom makes her way to a rack, sifts through the hangers, and spotlights a long-sleeved blouse. This is cute, she says. Then get it, I say. I find a seat beside a silver plate of cheese and crackers and half-pints of water while Mom and the saleslady browse the racks, the tables of folded sweaters, the trunks. Mom floats back every so often to showcase her picks (skirts, more blouses, slacks, a single-button suit) and fuss over a price.
If you want it, get it, is the script.
Are you sure? she says.
Mom, get what you want. Let’s not worry over nickels and dimes.
To be true, today’s tab is liable to put a dent in my re-up funds, but somebody tell me, among all my so-called concerns, what should be above my mother’s joy?
Mom builds a nice-sized pile on the counter while the saleslady grins like a first-rate sycophant. We leave with armloads of new threads folded in bags and a discount card good for an eon.
This is too much, she says. Just too, too much.
Says who? I say.
I’m serious, she says.
So am I, I say.
There’s a clot of cars on I-5. I take the Fremont Bridge and get off near the hospital. Just past the bakery I ask Mom if she’s ready to call it a day. She isn’t. Then it’s movie time, I say, bend the next corner, and cruise to the theater by the mall. Mom insists we haul her new threads inside. If we’re keeping them, we may as well keep them, she says. No sense in letting someone steal them.
The box office line is no line at all, a minute wait if that, but since it’s no such luck on showtimes, we settle for a flick (the only one we can agree on) that by my kick-around watch (no jewels around Moms) is an antagonistic wait-time from previews. We buy the tickets and a bundle of snacks and head inside a theater with the lights still up. Mom drops her bags in the seat beside her and dives last-supper-style into the tub of popcorn I was loath to oversalt.
This is how you know we’re hella-early. The screen is dead and gray and the only human in the theater besides us is a slender (true, I got nerve calling dude slim) attendant sweeping a row a few rows up. Minus dude, this scene would’ve been prime for us (the us being me and my boys), who weekends would run CIA-l
ike subterfuge on movie workers. We’d hop a back fence, dash through a low-trafficked exit, and trade the rest of our day for the gem of free flicks.
Ah, those sweet, sweet salad days.
The sound comes up. Then a marathon of ads and trailers. Then the movie starts with a boy making a bedtime wish to bring his dead father back to life. Mom coos and I give her the look. What? she says, and gives me the look back. The flick is straight hammy, but at least keeps me awake (minus an odd nod here and there) till the end, which for a nigger who can fall comatose at any time, in all places, is a feat. When we leave it’s gloaming and the lot’s lit by high halogens. There’s a trickle of couples strolling towards the entrance. The light rail clatters past. A pack of fatmouthing youngsters stomp towards the mall. Farther, my ride gleams. Mom climbs in and I load her bags into the backseat. Now, I say. How do you feel? Mom blows a lift in her new bangs and smiles a smile that’s less her heart. Honest, how I feel is the old me didn’t measure, she says. That I’m someone new I don’t know, she says. But someone, though, I might like to meet.
Chapter 7
Sooner or later we all face two options.
—Grace
It’s come to this. Me in my new interview clothes in another part of town, a two-bus-transfer part of town. But early too. I head straight for the bathroom and work the routine: I press my lips together and slick my hair and fasten my coat buttons and brush lint from my sleeves and send my smile through warm-up.
When I come out, I drag in line behind a man wearing construction boots splattered with paint and snug jeans. The man orders off a sheet for his whole crew and stands aside picking paint flecks off his tattooed forearms. He’s the show until it’s my turn. The girl working the counter is as slight as I was at that age. She fixes the fishnet halo under her visor and asks to take my order. Not placing an order, I say. But may I see the manager, please. I’m here for an interview.
She disappears.
She comes back, asks me to step aside, and simpers at the next customer. Not too long after, a woman built to survive rambles out with a clipboard in her hand. She says her name is Pam. And you must be …
Grace, I say, and give her a once-over. What my first mind says about Pam: She’s been through the fire and got a soft spot for folks that seen the flame.
We sit in a booth near a window muddied with specials. She has a hairy mole on her cheek that’s tough to ignore. She slaps my app on a clipboard and checks it with a red pen. I can’t watch. I can’t not watch. I left the felony question blank, and when she gets down by where it’s at on the page and crisscrosses a red X. I turn to the window that looks onto the playground, see two boys tumble out of the mouth of a winding purple slide while a small girl stands by applauding.
There’s a huge difference between lowering your standards and adjusting your expectations. One day you’re driving your boys to a restaurant and ordering whatever they want off the menu and stuffing dollars in the donation box, and the next you’re interviewing for a job with, if you hadn’t of called your eldest, with bus fare home and not much else. Sooner or later we all face two choices: either we can adjust our expectations or have them adjusted for us.
Pam wrinkles her brows. Hmm, no food service experience, she says. Do you at least have your food handler’s permit?
No, no food service on the résumé, I say. But I got three boys with big appetites, and I’ve kept them fed.
To tell the truth, the experience isn’t crucial, Pam says, but you couldn’t work without your permit.
Permit? Oh, I can get one, I say. I’ll go and get one as fast as you can.
Great, great. But first let’s talk about these work history gaps, she says. She points to one of her red X’s. I look away, see through the window behind her happy kids riding a carousel.
Work history, I say. Well, I was getting state checks for a few years. Then had some personal problems after that.
Problems? she says.
Yes, I say. But I’d rather not discuss, unless it’s necessary.
Who ain’t had them? she says, and flips the sheet. The way I see it, you here now, and that’s what matters. You could be back in that welfare line just as easy.
I nod and feel a flash of buoyance.
Oh, I see here you graduated from Jeff, Pam says.
Yes, I say. I’m a Dem.
Did you know Ronnie Reid? she asks.
Ronnie Reid with those colored eyes? I say.
Yes, him, she says.
Who didn’t know Ronnie Reid? I say
He’s my cousin, Pam says.
Wow, I say. Haven’t seen him in years.
You aren’t the only one, she says. They got him down there in Salem, gave him ten, but he’s close to home now.
Pam lays the pen on top of the clipboard and pushes it across the table. Looks like you left this blank, she says.
And there it is again: Have you ever been convicted of a felony?—a blinking neon billboard.
The choice is yours: Choose wise.
We either are or we aren’t.
Where we go, there we are.
Oh, I say, and force a smirk and grab the pen—a weight.
Don’t let them tell you otherwise; there’s a big, big difference between lowering and adjusting. Sooner or later there aren’t but two choices for all of us. Will they check if I lie? How long will it take for them to find out the truth?
The first few times you tell the truth and hope for goodwill, but afterwards you take your chance on lie.
Must’ve overlooked it, I say, and check the wrong box.
She rubs a finger. The light catches on one of her gold rings.
She would have hired me anyway, would have. If I’d explained how I’d been broke, out days, and scheming on a hit, if I’d told her how some guys I knew, but didn’t really know, but had been out with, told me about a hustle, if I’d told her how they’d promised that returning the TV they’d heisted would go down without a hitch. No probs, baby girl, is what they said. No problemo. On the other hand, they couldn’t do it, cause they were men and they were in bad shape and no one in their right mind was going to let them return anything, return nothing at all, looking the way they looked. So all I had to do, they explained, was take it back to the store and say I didn’t want it. Take it back and, they promised, we could split the money three ways even. And puff till our heads burst. Smoke till our lungs collapsed. But of course they were wrong, and I was caught and charged and convicted. Pam would have probably still given me the job if I’d come clean about that first conviction and the fraud—collecting state checks in two states—that finally earned me a trip down-state. If I’d explained what I told the judge about the troubles of raising three boys who outgrew clothes by the month, boys who deserved new tenny shoes and the latest games, who were worthy of much more than I could afford on the funky few hundred Oregon was giving me, which is why I kept the Oregon address when I moved across the river to Washington, kept the address and the state checks, not because I wanted to, but because I had to, and even though the judge just shook his head and gave me a year and a day, Pam would’ve understood why I’d agreed to the TV scheme, why I’d kept the checks, and even why I’d just checked the wrong box.
The kids rush in with a breeze whipping behind them. The girl working the counter dumps dirty trays. Elsewhere, the soda machine churns ice, meat sizzles, a knife knocks against a cutting board.
Chapter 8
“That’s a good question.”
—Champ
Dream within reach, that’s our motto (and by our I mean me and Mom) though over the years, once a year, we allow ourselves leeway. Most years that leeway’s named the Street of Dreams. What is it? It’s this showcase they hold every year for homes built for fools who could own the average life times over. They build these show cribs in the burbs (surprised?), blanket the city with ads, and for a month or so, lure an interminable stream of hella wishing gawkers. We got caught in the crush our first couple visits, but yo
u learn what you learn or else and ever since, me and Mom, my bad—Mom and I, have took to sneaking a tour after the tour is officially closed.
Mom’s hunched outside her job, outside her normal perk, her uniform drooped over her shoulders and off her waist, her bag gripped by the handle, the long strap looped to concrete. She climbs in and wilts with her head leaned back.
Looking kinda beat there, Grace, I say. You sure you still want to go?
I do if you do, she says. Do you?
Don’t you know it, I say. Today’s the day for my ladies. First you. Kim later.
We strap in and hit the road. This year they built it up in the West Hills, way up past where Burnside becomes Barnes Road, up where you make a few turns and boom! it’s a whole new universe, a cosmology of its own. The tour’s been done (yes, we’re still on that) for weeks, but the sign is still up: WELCOME TO THE STREET OF DREAMS. You can see the first house, stories upon stories high, looming behind what must be the gates of heaven, see a sand-colored Mediterranean joint with a fountain out front, a landscape crew tending what’s damn near a forest in front of another. Most years Mom and me would be oohing and aahing by now, but we won’t and I know it and I pull over feet past the sign.
Nah, this ain’t it? I say.
What isn’t? she says.
Let’s make it a new start, I say. A new tour. And my vote’s for Northeast.
There? she says. But what’s to see?
Everything! I say.
Mom’s dull eyes brighten. She sits up. We strike a deal and the deal is, she has to show me spots from her day.
We float back to Northeast and get off on Kerby. We ain’t but about to hop out and hoof it, but if we did, no hype, on this side we could reach any place worth being in minutes on foot. I ask Mom where to first.
The Residue Years Page 5