"The Docks" is an autobiographical account of being
trapped with my delusional father in a minivan.
"Adult" is about the one month I spent trying to join the successful-celphone-commuter
masses as a commercial writer (if you can call it that). I discovered soon that I wasn't really cut out for that sort of thing,
and, have since, discarded all my slacks in favor of integrity.
"Jessica R." is an autobiographical account (like everything else I write, because I'm no good at just making stuff up) about one of those beautiful and perfect girls we all love to hate.
"This is My First Kiss" details the first time I got taken for a ride by an older boy. The log ride, to be precise. I still don't think there's anything more exciting than the first moment your hand touches theirs. Did you feel your heart flutter just now?
I had to drive down to the docks today with my father, who tells boring and paranoid anecdotes about the yacht mafia and dishonest Japanese mechanics. We take the long way to Cabrillo Beach, where he is going to move the boat which will someday carry him away to a tropical locale. Things start to get more desolate as we drive down Harbor Boulevard. Eventually, there are only railroad tracks, a few rigs unloading, and a salty smell. He makes me wait by the van while he goes in to forge my name on some ownership papers, so the IRS won't get on his ass. This is the only reason I'm here. I smoke two cigarettes and sit on the tracks. I feel like a child, getting angry, waiting, waiting. One hundred wind chimes clamor serenely. A pelican glides around and stops to perch on one of the masts, which sways back and forth as the boat rocks. All the other masts are swaying, too, out of synch; lines askew. There are two thin wedges of sun-bleached lime nearby, one petrified dog turd, and one rusty disposable razor, pink. I look around to see if there are any used condoms or needles. There aren't. Now there are also two cigarette butts and one pack of Marlboros, empty. Eventually, I see my father's white fishing hat approaching. He is under it, oblivious to the bird, the wedges, the cigarettes, and (as always) to me. We get back in the van and he starts up again. Despondent Youth and Capitalist Scum. Leaving the dock, there are five Mexican men between the rigs, throwing a frisbee around. They are all smiling. My father keeps talking, but I'm trying not to listen. He says to watch out: the crazy people are all over, not just in one place. I tell him to take the bridge on the way home because it's quicker.
I was remebering, about the job I had in Century City, on Avenue of the Stars--
where there are a lot of well-dressed people and I drove a VW Rabbit. I wrote
descriptions of items up for auction over the internet: "Stunning solid 14kt
gold wedding band, engraved 'Love You Always'", and as I thought of that broken, loveless
woman pawning the last evidence of her failed marriage, I'd almost cry. So, like
I said, I worked with these well-dressed adults, commuting an hour each way because
of traffic. I'd never commuted. I'd never worn a pantsuit. I'd never felt
inferior, inadequate, slovenly, and deplorable. But now I did. It cost more
per hour to park in the structure than I made in an hour, so I parked
down on Olympic. No parking 8am-5pm, so I waited until 8:01am, then snuck in.
People honked. Once, a guy stopped his car and told me I was an inconsiderate
bitch. I told him to learn to read a fucking watch, and have a nice day.
I was at the
bottom of the dung heap. And it wasn't even a dung heap that I would have
liked to conquer. It stank like shit at the top, too. The first day I
walked into the ABC building, I was elated; felt like Mary Tyler Moore.
Slowly, I came to despise the place. Traffic was always completely jammed
for the last 1 3/4 miles before my exit. The offramp was an arc-- a bridge over
Olympic Boulevard. I noticed on my first day that there was a dead tabby cat
on the shoulder of the offramp, unnaturally curled with its back towards oncoming traffic.
The next day, it was still there, and that was strange. When I saw it the
same way on the third day,
I was unsettled. I wanted to call someone, to say, "Hey, come get this dead
animal off the side of the road, it's indecent!"...but I wouldn't know who to
call, and they'd probably ignore me anyway. So the cat stayed there. Some
mornings, I looked far enough in the other direction to keep it out of my
peripheral vision. Sometimes I would look right at it, the way its fur sank in,
and leaves and other debris sat in little piles against its back. I could not
tell if there were maggots crawling on it. I was glad I
could not see its face. It was there every day until I quit, more than a month,
and by then it had become no more than a tuft of hair. I said I quit, and
it was because I didn't like to be ashamed of my VW, and who would want to work
in a city that let animals rot on the side of the road anyway?
Jessica Rivera in first grade brown and thick-haired, the only Mexican girl I knew. But she didn’t speak Spanish like me and I am fair-skinned Cuban, so we wouldn’t have had that in common anyway. But we were friends. Except for Jessica Schreiner, we were best friends. She had a cousin, Eleanor, who came to the school in 3rd grade and no one liked her at all. Jessica’s mother combed her hair in the mornings. I remember begging, bullying my mother into combing my hair into a bun once or twice during elementary school. The ponytails I made myself hung nappy at the nape of my neck in elastic bands that tangled the hair and ripped it out. Jessica’s black tresses were always glossy and held back by beautiful bows, up high and perfect. I wanted my ponytail to swing like hers. Jessica Rivera in 4th grade spry and golden-voiced became a cheerleader after the audition I failed when a boot slipped out from under me and I fell. I still get mad and hot when I think about it. She won a prize at the speech tournament every year with the same poem about an inchworm. My bookish shyness kept me from even being friendly to boys. Jessica Rivera in the 6th grade thin and smiling becomes Matt Edwards’ girlfriend, even though she knew how long and hard I’d cried about him. Matthew Edwards, whose sister had picked up the phone 1,000 times and cursed angrily at my silence. Matthew Edwards, for whom I bought my first Valentine’s gift: heart-shaped thumb tacks in a box that read “It’s tacky but true, I’m stuck on you!” Matthew Edwards, who my sister named the Dalmatian after, being that she had to like all the same things as me. Matthew Edwards, who my mother patiently consoled me over for seven years. Jessica Rivera, who was at all the slumber parties where his name was exclaimed gleefully as that of a future husband’s. This held until she and I applied to the same and expensive, racist, private junior high. The junior high where my identity was altered to match whichever need be, where my vocabulary and lack of accent or pigmentation made all the difference. Where I was accepted into. And where she, no matter how thin, spry, and thick-haired…was turned away. That’s how I like to remember her; rejected, for once.
Well, my first kiss was in 7th grade. I had read pretty much every Judy Blume book there was to be read, and was getting to that point in a pubescent girl's life when all she ever thinks about is acquiring that much treasured maiden smooch.
I had an annual pass to Knott's Berry Farm, a local amusement park, and went every weekend with my best friend, Stephanie. We were, what they call there, "locals". Locals are people who basically hang out all day and do nothing. They don't really go on rides (except the slow makeout ones), or walk around, or even have fun...just sit in one spot, smoke, and wait to see if anyone can come up with something dangerous, stupid and illegal to do. Their parents drop them off in the morning, and don't come back until midnight. You can do a lot of damage in that time. This results in wierd hybrid teenage children that don't want to admit they could ever enjoy something as juvenile or uncool as a spinning teacup, or a swinging viking ship. It's all a big joke, right? They're really still kids, though, despite all their concerted efforts to disband any semblance of childhood. Why would they surround themselves with it, if they didn't secretly enjoy it? That's a difficult transition. But really, all that came later. At first, Stephanie and I used to go on our own. We didn't really even socialize with the other local kids and, in fact, were kind of intimidated by them. We just sort of meandered around the park and talked about how cute those boys over there were, and did I think her boobs were getting any bigger. Every 30 minutes or so, we'd duck into the nearest bathroom to check our makeup and hair-- make sure we were at optimum level. There was something about her vanity that made me very impatient. I couldn't understand why one girl would want to see so much of herself. Once, in Vegas, we were staying at the Imperial Palace. The columns in the casino there were covered in mirrors, and at about 100 feet intervals. Stephanie stopped at every single one...it drove me mad. The second day we were there, I snapped at her "Don't you ever get tired of looking at yourself?" A very big fight ensued, name calling included. I told her to "take a hike". She thought I called her a "fucking kike" and stormed away. She wasn't even Jewish.
Anyway, Stephanie and I were walking past the soap box racers (which Knott's took out last summer) and singing what was a very popular tune at the time, Mr. Big's "Be With You" when we spotted four dashing young men sitting at a bench just opposite of us. Now, in order to understand what happens next, you have to know that the chorus of this song goes "I'm the one who wants to be with you/Deep inside I hope you feel it too/Waited on a line of greens and blues/Just to be the next to be with you." As we neared, one of the boys stood up and advanced towards us. "I can do that," he said. Now, to a girl my age, this was an unprecedented display of chivalry and debonaire charm. Steph and myself responded with appropriate giggles and remonstrances, but eventually conceded to speak with the audacious youth. His name was Jake, and he was an older man. A full 16. He was going to have a license soon. I stood awestruck. The boys asked if we wanted to go on the Log Ride (which as EVERYone at Knott's knows, is an invitation to make out). I got so nervous I thought I was going to puke. Then Jake grabbed my hand and we started towards the man-made "mountain" that housed the flume ride. As we walked through the line, I became more and more anxious, not knowing what to do or say. He held my hand all the way, stroking the soft, moist center of my palm with his middle finger and laughing vulgarly. When it was our turn to board the fiberglass "log," Jake and I rushed to the coveted rear half and left the remaining boys to argue about who would board with Stephanie (who wasn't interested in ANY of the three) in the front section. We went up the first hill. Through the sawmill, with creepy ill-made lumberjack mannequins in perpetual motion. Stand up here, put your arm in the air, and trip the alarm with the recorded voice saying "Sit Down!" Boys always laugh at that. Around the bend, tense. Next the forest, deer and porcupine paralyzed onlookers with black laquered eyes. Then darkness. This is the part where you turn your head back. Jake finds my mouth in the stillness, moves his lips around and I feel whiskers. "Relax," he says. I do. This is my first kiss. "That's better," as he reaches around to the front of my shirt and moves his hand slowly up. Tiny explosions in my cheeks, ears, and shoulders. This is my first kiss. I feel him getting a hard on behind me, and try not to laugh. Up the long hill, this is almost the end. At the top, smile and have your picture taken. Flip off the camera, pull your shirt up if you're crass. Plummet down. Squeal and dodge splashes. Fix your make up. Fix your clothing. Disembark. Down the stairs, look for your photo. Laugh, say how horrible it is. Give them your phone number, or take theirs. Feel torn between your innocence and the impending lessons that loom just over next year. Lose the innocence. Give it away. Never call. Even if you really liked him. Even if he said you were the nicest girl he'd ever met. That was the first time, but not the last. This is my first kiss.
