These are wild bohemian days.
Erika carries tray after tray of drinks across a crowded meat market so I can write and we can stretch my tiny stipend into an almost living. The thing about growing up poor, neither of us expected much. These are the rice and bean years. These are the be thankful for that Friday night chicken years. These are the days of raising a baby. These are the days of raising each other.
Erika has gone to work and I am dancing with Joey the Pope (Dylan’s middle name is Joseph after my brother, and he wears a sack like a pope dress) or Winston (after Churchill. When serious, he looks surprisingly like the late prime minister.) Around the room we twirl to Jonathan Richman’s Party in the Woods. His Into My Life and Bowie’s Hunky Dory are the sound track of Dylan’s first two years. Every night I read him Where the Wild Things Are.
Dylan is an old soul, he has wise eyes. I saw that the first time in the hospital, he reached out and took my finger in his tiny hand and looked into my eyes. I could feel him welcoming me into his world. Now he wakes up early. Often in the predawn light I fumble to change a wet diaper. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve drawn blood, mine not his. Instead of safety pins, they should be called sharp poky make you bleed pins. In the grey lit kitchen sits the young lord in his high chair, I have to be careful because he still has a tendency to fall over. His muscle growth and coordination are slightly delayed. I fix him a bottle and hand it to him. He drinks in silence while I brew some coffee. I sit next to him, me drinking my coffee in silence, he his bottle, it isn’t until we are both done that he wants to get moving.
Dylan finds pure joy in the small things, the play of light on a tree, a cat stalking its shadow, dancing with his father.
During the day I write in a broom closet, it is just wide enough for my small desk and a chair. But it has a door. It isn’t until you have children that you realize the great value of a door. To block out the noise I wear headphones. I put on an LP and set it on repeat. The music becomes background noise to drown out distractions. Nothing quite like hearing my son giggling as his mother blows raspberries to make me want to step away from my typewriter.
These are the rice and bean years. These are the making love and playing with our amazing son years. These are the party in the woods years. I don’t drink when I’m with Dylan. I drink when I’m writing, it shuts out all the voices in my head that tell me I’m crap. I drink with the boys in Hollywood dive bars. I drink and write mad into the night after Erika and Dylan are safe in bed.
“Shouldn’t he be walking?”
“No Mom, Doctor Paul said not to worry. He said all kids walk sooner or later.”
“I had a cousin, they had to break her legs and put them in a cast so she could walk.”
“We’re not breaking Dyl’s legs Mom. Unless he misses a payment, I don’t get the vig your legs is gone, hear me boy?” I have Dylan held over my head, he is giggling.
“You should give him liver, organ meats, those are brain foods.” Mom tells Erika. Erika is cooking an all veg soup, her face goes pale. I truly hope she doesn’t puke in the soup.
Mom doesn’t come around much. No one does. Pop comes down and spends the first two weeks being Erika’s nursemaid. He is fantastic. Erika’s mom comes and helps with the first bath. But mostly we are left alone. We cocoon. We hold each other tight. We are all we need.
I am 22 and driving with my mom, Dylan is mere cells dividing in Erika’s uterus. We are up north staying at Mom’s condo. I’m working long shifts at the fruit cocktail canning plant. I am working to get enough money to afford the birth. My mom doesn’t know Erika is pregnant. We are driving on Middlefield Boulevard when I tell her. She is silent for a moment. Then bursts into tears.
“You are going to ruin your life, just like your father did.”
I’m 22, scared and could use some support. I don’t say that. I go quiet.
I am 38. I am in therapy and I have a revelation. Let’s do the math... Having Dylan will ruin my life, like my father. So the logic is, having children ruined my father's life. Ergo, I ruined my father's life. Nice move Mom. Toss a grenade that took sixteen years to explode. At twenty-two I feel the sting without knowing why. At thirty-eight I see the break in the logic, if I fucked up Pop’s life in the eight years he lived with me, what about the other sixty-nine years? I wasn’t there. He barely paid child support. No, I’m not biting. I will not take the rap for the years I wasn’t in his life. End of story.
I am 50 and my old man calls me. “Bringing you kids into the world was the single most important thing I’ve done with my life.”
“Really?”
He laughs, it is after noon so I’m sure he’s had a few glasses of wine. He is in Seattle and I am in L.A. smiling into my cell phone.
Dylan is little. He has his bandana on in homage to the Boss. He is rocking out some crazy game that involves dressing up and dancing to Springsteen. I’m rocking beside him, ready to dive and catch him if he falls. His balance is weak. We decide instead of always telling him to be careful we will make it safer to be him in the world. Erika finds a youth boxing helmet. It makes him look like a contender. Dylan wears it every day for several years. Leather fringed vest, bandana, socks on his hands, Converse on his feet, the kid looks like a rock star.
Every month he falls farther behind the developmental norm.
I am 23. It is late. Erika and Dylan are sleeping. I am drinking Yukon Gold.
We have been given the news.
Retarded.
My lil’ man is retarded.
He has developmental delays.
Retarded.
Fuck.
Retarded.
Drink deep.
Retarded.
I am 10. We are in Hawaii celebrating my mother's graduation from Stanford. We are at a trailer park in Hana on Maui, we spent the day playing in the Seven Sacred Pools. I’m walking back to our trailer and I see a retarded man with a rake. His features are strange and distorted. A long string of green snot trails from his left nostril. I have never seen anyone who looks like him. I stare and feel my stomach go cold. I can't sleep. I lay in my bed thinking about the strange man. I feel fear I can’t name.
I am 23 and my son is retarded.
“All right here is what you do.” Lark is on the phone. “Stand up... you up?”
“I’m up.” Not too steady, but vertical.
“All right walk down the hall.”
I do as told. I have been crying. I trail the phone cord behind me.
“Open Dyl’s door. Look in there. See that boy in the crib.” I do as told, I look at my wonderful son and the fear is gone. “Your boy? That is real. Retarded is just a word.”
I am 50 and I still hear Lark’s words. Labels mean little in the face of human complexity. Black, White, Mexican, American, Jew, Retarded. None of them tell you squat about the person. Nelson Mandela was Black, so was O.J. Simpson. Dylan is retarded or in new speak he is developmentally delayed, and that information is of little or no use in understanding him. Jeffrey Dahmer had an above average intelligence. I’m massively dyslexic. So what.
“Now say ‘retarded’ and then pick that baby up.”
“Retarded.” It comes out a whisper, I am afraid volume will make it stick.
“Pick him up.” I do. I smell that sweet intoxicating scent of baby sleep sweat. He snergles a little then settles comfortably into my arms. “Is he any different? Did the word change Dyl?” Lark knows the answer. I kiss my boy and hold him close. My amazing old soul silly goose rock star retarded son.
Oh yes, there’s a party in the woods tonight...
GOLDEN DAYS
Bear and I finish Oliver’s Army, he has a poster made and everything. We put together a deal with an East Indian filmmaker, by deal Imean he said some stuff and we believed it. He is going to make our movie. It must be shot in Kenya so instead of getting paying work, I rewrite it for the Rift Valley. Erika and my money are running thin. But I hold out for the dream. Longer than I should, b
ut once they make the movie we will be swimming in cash. Only they don’t make the movie. They make a different movie. Erika, Dylan and I are fucked.
We lose our rental house. We move to Pinole, East Bay Nor Cal. We live with Shaun and her husband. I am going to work as an editor for Coppola’s American Zoetrope studio in S.F. I don’t have an interview. I know no one there. I go knock on the door and get nowhere. This, I will later learn is called a geographic. I move my family four-hundred miles, and expect different things to happen. But it’s me, and I’m drinking, and nothing is different.
Back to L.A. We park our VW van in Bear and his girlfriend Jane’s driveway. We live in the van. We are home-fucking-less. So I do what any other smart guy would do. Bear, Jane and I start Moving Targets a rock video company. We shoot unknowns, but they pay well. Our biggest act is John Kay and Steppenwolf. Jane directs, Bear shoots, I edit. We dream and think about making feature films. Bear and I accosted the lead singer of the Go-Go’s at a drunken party, trying to convince her she should make a film with us. We always had six projects in the hopper ready to go.
When the company crashes and burns I panic. I no longer believe life will protect me if I have an open heart, a dream and a gut full of whiskey.
I have a reel of rock-videos I cut, and a need for a steady paycheck. I get a job cutting action trailers for Cannon films. Death Wish 3, Delta Force, Chuck Norris, Michael Dudikoff, Van Damme and all that crap. Money is good. Hours are long as ever. The days are fueled by booze, coke and fear. A week doesn’t go by I don’t have to work all night. I vowed to take care of my small family and I do. By sheer will. My workaholism beats my alcoholism and the checks keep rolling in.
I am busy building a career.
I want a second child. A sibling for Dylan. A baby.
It is four years before Erika consents and we have Jared.
At birth he is beautiful. Perfect. Sweet. I love holding him. I whisper to him vows of the father I will be. I sway him back and forth in a slow bluesy rhythm. Summer time and the living is easy...
In the hospital waiting room I introduce Dylan to his new little brother. Old soul meet new. Dylan sits calm as can be. I lay Jared on his lap. Pure joy beams from Dylan and he stares down. Jared is still befuddled, not yet touched down. He screws up his forehead. At twenty hours old he shows signs of having been passed my worrying gene.
I am 5. The VW van throws a rod, on the 101 just north of Ventura…
MOM’S VERSION - We called Eleanor and Harold (my grands) but they couldn’t or wouldn’t help. You father found a mechanic, and while he called up north and tried to find some one to help us pay for the repairs, I went to a small country store. I bought a loaf of white bread, it was all we could afford. I grabbed that loaf and you kids and we went to the beach. I made us a bread sandwich picnic. Made an adventure of it.
MY VERSION - I’m 5 years old. We break down in a strange town and are too poor to get the van fixed.
I am 5 and afraid. Afraid we won’t get enough to eat. I’m a skinny kid and always cold. I’m afraid we have no place to sleep. I’m afraid the adults may have no plan what so ever. I screw up my brow and worry.
I leave Cannon Films to work for man who pays me a lot of cash because I have long hair and earrings and thus am hip. Assistants are peons. Cannon cutters are edit dogs. Editors on the movie ad agency side are treated like rock stars. I make a company buy me a Harley as a signing bonus. I am a cynical sumbitch, and arrogant. I want to be writing and directing films. Editing is just a means to an end. This job that most would kill for, I mentally shit on. It is never enough. I am driven into dark depression. I drink and smoke and snort my pain away.
Dylan has to be taken to sensory integration therapy. Speech therapy. Physical therapy. It is a constant battle with the L.A. Unified School District to keep Dylan in the proper classroom. All of this Erika does without complaint.
Jared at four will tell his mother it isn’t fair, his brother getting all her time, all her attention.
She has the good grace not to argue the point. No, she agrees with him. It isn’t fair. But it is what it is.
There are also angst free days of cowboy boots and squirt guns. Days our boys rip up and down the hill behind our house. No war toys. No societally imposed male violence forced on my sons. No way. They will be raised in a gender neutral home. All well and good in theory. In practice Jared is pure boy. He turns his bamboo flute into a sword. He bites his toast into the shape of a pistol. BAM! BAM! BAM!
“Game’s up honey, let’s let the boy have a cap gun.” It takes some talking to convince Erika. She was raised with mostly sisters. She was raised in an intellectually feminist Unitarian Universalist home. She can’t see that gender neutral in our son’s case is gender neutered. To be fair, neither do I at first. Once the door is opened we are caught in a flood of sword, shield, gun laser, razor plastic mayhem.
“But I want it, look how cool it is.” We are at Toy’s R Us.
“I know, but it’s a GI Joe, remember we talked about how soldiers think killing is the way to solve problems, and we don’t agree, right?”
“He’s not a soldier. He’s a ninja!” Jared’s right. The black robe and mask have no military insignia. It is a ninja.
“OK. But we can’t tell your mom it’s a GI Joe, OK?”
“Yes! Ki Ya!” He leaps the six-inch killer across the cart.
At home I am careful to remove all packaging. Bury it in the recycling under old newspaper. Then walk in casual as can be.
“How was the zoo?”
“Good. Dad took us to the toy store.”
“Really?” She gives me that arched eyebrow. We had agreed to do only one thing on an outing, and not always take them shopping. But I’m working hard and making bank. Fuck it.
“What did your father get you?”
“Look, a ninja. It’s not a GI Joe. I promise!” And I’m tossed under the bus by a four year old. Erika shakes her head at me, but can’t help smiling. We call GI Joes “puppets of a fascist regime.” We were raised on Vietnam.
At 50 I look back at my arrogance. At the time the country had been between wars. Soldiers were a concept. Sixteen boys died today in a helicopter in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan. Not soldiers. Not puppets. Boys.
“IeeeeYaaaa!” I am greeted home by the flying scissor kick of a naked assassin. Jared’s little arms flail windmill and strike a pose. “Wanna see my moves?”
“Yeah, do your baddest move.”
“IeeeeYaaaa!” Arms and legs move at once in strange akimbo battle stances.
“Where’d you learn those?”
“Ninja Turtles. Master Splinter. Did you know that Michael Hummer’s dad works in the sewer? That’s the coolest, right?”
“That’s pretty damn cool.”
Jared shares his father’s love of shedding clothing. First thing either of us does coming home is strip down. Me, I like to keep my briefs on. Jared, the more stylish of us, rocks the “Nake with a cape.”
I am 8. Lilly and Lark composed the Ballad of the Underpants Kid to tease or celebrate my love of lack of clothes.
I am 10. We are camping in Big Sur with Pop and his soon to be second or third wife depending on whether or not you count the one night marriage to the WAF when he was in the army. We are in Big Sur. They take us to our one dinner out. A fancy organic restaurant overlooking the white capped Pacific. As we kids pile out of the van, they notice I am wearing a long black velvet cape, tighty whities and nothing else. From my father’s frustrated face you'd think this was the first time something like this has happened. I sit in the van while they eat dinner. I guess you would think I would learn from this, that this is a teachable moment. Nope.
I am 5, my father is taking us to Keplers bookstore. The sidewalk is smooth. The wind is nil. Air clear. I suddenly fall over.
“What happened?” - Pop
“I forgot to walk.” - Me
I am 9 and Mom is taking the horde to the ballet in San Francisco. We are
all packed in to the monolithic Vista Cruiser, a station wagon with fake wood paneling on the side. Our long hair is clean and semi-combed. We are dressed as best as we can put together. As I step onto the parking lot asphalt I realize I have forgotten my shoes. Mom shoots me a - what the hell is wrong with you - look. Grandma Eleanor saves the day; she gives me a spare pair of her shoes. They have big, real big, brass buckles. I am a precursor to that glitter rock pilgrim Adam Ant.
“I want to be nake with a cape.” - Jared age three.
Nake with a cape he stands on the coffee table. Yellow silk flutters behind him. Tallywhacker in the wind. Free. A flute sword held high overhead. “Ta-Da!”
These are wild wrestling matches, two boys on one dad days.
These are two boys in one bath, sing us to sleep, tell us a talking story days.
These are golden, bottle them and save them for darker times days.
These are days when it is all ahead of us.
Winter will come. Days get shorter. Nights get longer, colder.
But these are the golden days.
The snuggling with my boys and hope it never ends days.
Nothing lasts forever. Doesn’t mean I don’t wish it could.
MY NECK, MY RAZOR
I made my bones with the RoboCopcampaign. After that my editing skills start to be noticed by the trailer world. I win some awards. I don’t get fame I get the consolation gift, cash. Buckets and buckets of the great green. Enough cash I can afford to buy a house and have a hot tub helicoptered in to the highest point in the property. It is not enough to even slow the river of whiskey I’m drinking. I stay up all night typing. I drink to quiet the voices in my head.
All the Wild Children Page 18