forgiveness

It’s a cold fall evening. I’m about 10. I’m watching TV with my dad in the living room. Mom’s reading magazines in the kitchen.

There’s a knock at the door. Mom answers through the chain-locked door. It’s a guy in his early 30s, white-trash looking with red skin and long-ish hair poking out from under a baseball hat.

I hear him say he’s down on his luck. I get up and listen behind the door. He’s got a bag of supplies, and says he wants to repaint the house number on the front steps. For some cash.

There’s that tension that always accompanies a handout. Dad sits on the couch glaring at mom, mumbling passive disapproval. The guy gives his pitch again. Mom is looking between the guy and dad.

Finally dad turns back to the TV, indifferent, leaving mom with the situation.

She says “OK, hold on,” and shuts the door. She goes to the kitchen and returns with a $10 bill. Dad notices, and scoffs. He turns back to the TV.

Mom opens the front door.

“OK, so you’re gonna to do this now right? You need light?”

“No ma’am.”

“OK then.”

“Thanks, ma’am. Just be a minute.”

“OK then.”

The guy goes to work on the steps. Mom shuts the door. He’s done in a few minutes and leaves.

Dad’s blurry-eyed again, watching the news. The tension subsides.

***

I wake up the next morning to shouting. Dad’s voice is the loud one.

“Goddamn it, stupid sonofabitch!”

“But Jack…”

“You see this godamned mess?”

“OK, I’ll fix it…”

“I fucking told you, those fucking bums. They suckered you again.”

“I’ll fix it, Jack…”

The front door’s wide open. Mom’s in the kitchen crying. Dad storms out to spend Sunday at his shop, leaving the door open. I walk outside, still in pajamas.

The concrete porch is cold on my socks. I step down the stairs and see what the shouting’s about. I see the guy’s paint job from last night. It’s a disaster. Crooked numbers, running paint. Looks terrible.

I step back in the house, and mom rushes past me. She’s got a paint can and brush. She furious, mumbling to herself. She paints over the guy’s work with white wall paint.

She comes inside, puts away the paint and sits down to read magazines. Dad comes home early afternoon. No one talks. Dad sits down and turns on the TV.

***

It’s early the next day. A knock at the door. I’m eating Cheerios at the table, getting ready for school. Mom answers in a bathrobe.

It’s the guy.

“Ma’am.”

“What the…?”

“Ma’am I’m sorry… I… the other night… I did some drinking. Did sloppy work all down the block. Here to fix it.”

“Oh. Well, uh…”

“Really sorry ma’am. Just be a minute.”

“Well, OK…”

She shuts the door. She returns to the kitchen, quiet. I hear my spoon clink against the cereal bowl. I can still hear the yelling from yesterday.

I get up and walk to the window and push aside the curtains. I watch the guy.

He’s on one knee, concentrating hard on his paint stencils, paint cans spread next to him. The early morning’s very bright. Guys are coming out of the neighbors’ houses for work. They stare at the him rudely as they climb in and start pick-up trucks and sedans on the street. Not much money in this neighborhood, but not many bums either. Took guts for him to return.

The guy finishes up, wiping his hands on a rag. He moves carefully, packing the cans into a canvas bag and zipping it, slinging it on his back, looking things over. I notice the thin legs, worn jeans, steady eyes. The sloppiness from the other night is gone. He’s a worker. He’s no bum.

He disappears down the street.

***

Later that day I see the freshly painted house number. It’s a perfect piece of craftsmanship. My relief is cathartic. Mom is vindicated. The tension is gone.

Later, no one talks. Dad sits in front of the TV. Mom reads in the kitchen. I throw the ball out back and think about the day.

drinks

Funny how the only time I write here is when I’ve been drinking.

People’s accents are always thickest when drinking. In the same way, my old neighborhood ways come back every time I hit the bottle.

Drinking was an everyday thing in the old neighborhood. All my memories from then are fuzzy, blurred by the drunkenness. Every time we fought, I was drunk. Every time we stole, we’d drink before and after.

Now, when that drunkenness returns, all the same mental routines kick in—whether I like it or not.

That means when I get drunk, I automatically get shady. I get quiet, and I start watching instead of talking. I fall into a routine where when people say things I don’t like, instead of laughing politely and changing the subject—what regular people are supposed to do, and what I do everyday in my professional life—I fight off the urge to tell them to fuck off, and am usually forced to leave the room. That makes it hard to drink around anyone in my new world.

This has begun to affect me professionally. Lots of deals get done over drinks. For most people, the buzz of a good beer evokes happy memories—days at the frat house, out on the golf course, sunny days on the boat. But for me, it reminds me of the neighborhood, and all the fights and guns and everything else.

The more I drink, the more my slang from the old days returns. It gets harder to hide my old roots. That makes it impossible for me to drink around my boss or colleagues.

I listen to the pansy Ivy League assholes in my new world talk, and it drives me nuts—the passive aggressiveness, the bickering, the conversational one-upmanship. I’ve learned how to deal with it in my day-to-day life. But once I’ve had a few drinks, it’s impossible. All I think is, “if you shit heads were in my old bar talking this pansy shit, you’d be getting the crap clowned out of you.”

I always figured this would go away someday, and maybe it will. But it sucks for now.

Tonight was my girlfriend’s birthday. We had a party, and all her friends from school came. Lots of Ivy Leaguers, lots of political types, lots of very rich kids.

I could tell they were all disappointed when they met the guy who’d finally landed their friend. They were expecting somebody charming, about 5’ 8” with sandy blonde hair, well heeled and a degree from Brown. Instead they got me.

And the more I drank, the less I felt like intelligent banter with them. Pretty soon, I was fighting off the urge to fucking strangle them.

It’s funny how when you meet people, you know so little, and it takes so long to learn all their stories.

Sometimes I wish I could tell all the old stories to these people, and give them my context. Maybe it’d excuse my social gaffes. Maybe it’d explain my reactions to them.

But that’s the conflict of a complex life—learning to deal with the fact that no one can ever truly know you, except the people who’ve been there from day one.

The hard part, of course, is when you leave all those people who understand behind, and start a new life without them or the context they provide.

the montana story

We’re at a house party in the neighborhood and Capone’s selling bags of llello. He’s high as a kite, talking fast with crusty white shit in the corners of his mouth. He gets a call, and later two kids from the eastside show up. Capone takes me aside, stuffs his .380 in my pants, and we all go in a bedroom.

I sit in the corner and light a smoke. Capone sits at a desk with the two kids on the bed facing him. He’s sorting through baggies and hands one to kid #1. Kid #2 counts out four $20 bills, and Capone stuffs them in his pocket. Kid #1 is holding up the baggie, tipping it back and forth looking at it. He looks at his friend, then at me, then at Capone.

“Isn’t this a little short?” he says.

Capone is taking long drags off a smoke. He sits up, twists it out on a bottle cap, and looks at kid #1.

“You know, why don’t you go fuck yourself, asshole?” he says.

Both kids just stare at that. There is five full seconds of silence. I take a drag, and hear the paper burn.

The guys look at each other, and kid #1 finally stands up to leave. He walks to the door, opens it, then whirls around and baseball-pitches his beer bottle at Capone. It’s so fast, I don’t even see the bottle. I just hear this loud “pop” and glass sprays the wall. From six feet, the guy missed.

Capone is on his feet instantly and has kid #1 by the neck. Kid #2 looks over at me. I stand up and cock the pistol. His eyes go down to my right hand, then to me, then to Capone. He takes off running.

Capone has kid #1 to his knees, both hands on his neck, yelling “stupid fucking piece of shit” through his teeth. His face looks like it’s about to explode.

I walk over and take a big swing with the butt of the pistol. The guy’s head jerks, and the clip busts out, and bullets spill across the carpet. He goes limp and falls.

“What the fuck!” Capone says and bends down, scooping up shells.

I look up, and realize the entire party has gathered in the doorway, watching us with big eyes—me with a pistol in hand, Capone on all fours picking up shells, a half-dozen bags of llello and a roll of cash on the desk, and some random guy knocked-out on the floor.

Everybody starts laughing. No one helps the kid. Just another neighborhood house party.

After a while, Capone and I finish our beers and drag him to the parking strip, drop him, and come back in. The party continues. No one talks about it.

Later I fall asleep on the couch. The kid’s gone in the morning.

* * *

everything is like this

It’s dusk and street lights are coming on and I’m walking up a backstreet near the freeway with Capone and Carleow. We’re about 13.

It’s a steep hill, and halfway up a skinny cat is rolling in the street. Without breaking stride, Carleow picks up the cat, lets it squirm, and without a word whacks full force down on its head with the ballpean hammer he’s been carrying. It makes a loud and hollow “ping” sound.

The cat drops and tumbles. It scrambles away, but its front legs keep giving out. It runs in a couple circles, and eventually out of sight into some bushes in the yard where it came from.

I’m staring at Carleo, wide-eyed. He’s looking back at the bushes. He starts laughing, in a perfectly happy way. Capone starts laughing, too. They look at me. I laugh also.

We start walking. Soon it’s dark. We spend the rest of the night breaking in cars, using the hammer and a the straight-head screwdriver I brought along, to jimmy the locks.

Carleow was shot and killed in 1995.

own worst enemy

It’s late afternoon and Tony and I are in a borrowed pick-up truck an hour east of the city, driving to meet Fingers for the last camping trip of summer. The woods were free and close by, someplace we could shoot and drink 40s.

We hit Snohomish County and turned off the freeway, down an empty arterial, onto a bumpy logging road. It’s rough and dusty and barely as wide as the truck. The forrest is thick with fir trees to the sky on both sides. It’s been a hot August day, and it’s a relief to be in the shade. We’ve been drinking beers since the city, and cans are piling up on the floor and stink from the sun.

The road runs straight down into a deep valley. The woods get thicker and darker as we go, until the only light is a thin strip of sky overhead. We’re probably 20 miles from anything, and it’s dead silent except for the idling engine and our gear being tossed around in back as we hit bumps.

It’s a long drive, and Tony takes it slow, worried about blowing a tire. Fingers is supposed to be 10 miles in.

Halfway there, the road changes and gets very rough, a sea of softball-sized rocks. The truck sounds like hell, rattling and shaking, and we’re both tired and drunk by now. With the sun almost down, Tony says “fuck this, we’ll find that mutherfucker tomorrow,” and he turns back and we look for a place to camp for the night.

We stop at the first opening, a place we’ve camped before. It’s a regular spot where the youngsters from the city come shoot the big guns and drink on weekends, including some rival crews. It’s empty tonight, so we pull in.

The sun’s setting fast. Tony leaves the headlights on and gets out to pitch the tent before dark. I get out, put my shirt and pistol on the hood, and grab the hatchet to cut some kindling.

Tony gets the tent up, and comes over to help me hack through a log about 50 feet from camp. We take turns hitting it, and it’s hard work. The sun is completely down now, and the headlights in the distance are the only light.

The darkness here is the kind that makes you understand how people can be afraid of the dark. Forest so thick it blocks even starlight, and your eyes never adjust. I remember one time a flashlight going out on one of the girls here, and her completely panicing, screaming like hell in the dark.

The wood is green and damp and we spend what seems like hours blowing on coals trying to get the stuff to light. After a long time it finally takes off, and I’m dirty and lightheaded and tired and ready for another beer. Tony cracks a couple from the cooler and I walk over to get lawn chairs from the truck. On the way back I pick up my shirt from the hood. But there’s no pistol in it.

“Where the fuck is my strap?” I say, bending over to look under under the truck.

“Right fucking there,” he says, “in your pants mutherfucker.”

I grab a flashlight and keep looking on the ground. Tony walks over, watches me for a minute, and then starts looking through the truck.

“Sure it’s not on you?”

“Yeah I’m fucking sure, asshole.”

Tony searches the truck, and then goes to check the tent. I’m retracing my steps to the log we cut. Then we’re both back at the truck on our hands and knees, checking and rechecking.

The fire is getting low now, and it’s very, very quiet. Suddenly, way off to the left, we hear a branch crack, and we both sit up and look at each other.

And for this one second, there is this moment of extreme clarity—this realization that it’s pitch black in the middle of a soundproof wilderness and we’re completely unarmed and drunk—and this shot of terror goes blazing through me.

“Somebody’s fucking here. They got the strap. We’re getting fucking jacked.”

And suddenly we’re up and scrambling away from camp into the woods, away from the light of the fire. I can feel my pulse in my neck, my ears are ringing.

Tony keeps wispering “No fucking way, no way,” and we’re crouched down behind a stump watching the forest with huge eyes. Tony’s got out a shitty little folding knife, and we sit there listening for movement, watching for anything.

What the fuck was that noise? Squirrels? Or was it those mutherfuckers we saw here last month with the AK-47, coming back for our stereo? We sit there, heart beating in the perfect darkness, for maybe a half hour, talking out strategy if they rush us, trying to convince ourselves this is real.

“This is fucking crazy shit,” Tony says, “no fucking way. No fucking way.”

“Then where the fuck is my strap?”

“I don’t fucking know,” he says. “Then maybe we gotta go find those mutherfuckers before they find us.”

“They got one strap,” I say, “but they don’t know if we got others. Maybe we gotta get the fuck out, and come back with one.”

I’m starting to feel insane now, like I’ve seen this in some movie before. I’m looking for any piece of evidence to show this is nuts. But there’s nothing. It all makes sense. Even those noises. I’m absolutely sure if we stay, we’re going to get jacked by some rival crew. And probably shot too, given that no one’s around to hear it, and wouldn’t find us for weeks out here.

“OK, muthafucker, let’s bounce,” he says, “right now.”

And we rip the tent out of the ground, throw it in the truck stakes and all, and peel out of the campsite and gun it up the trail. I’m down in my seat waiting for shots to pop off any second.

We get away from the campsite, and the unreality of this whole thing sets in. Tony is chain smoking and keeps mumbling “no fucking way. no fucking way.” I can’t tell if this is a dream anymore, and can’t fucking believe I just lost my strap.

Where the fuck were they? Must’ve seen us drive in and taken it off the hood when we were cutting that log. That’s a pretty balsy move. Can this be for real?

Forty minutes of bumpy road later, we make it to the freeway and pull in a gas station. We’re both completely sober now.

“I gotta do one last check,” I say. Tony gets out and I tear the cab apart in the bright light under the pumps. I push all those beer cans out from under the drivers seat. And there’s my goddamn pistol.

I point it at Tony, and suddenly, everything disappears. All in our heads. Turns out Tony was drunker than I thought, and put it under the seat for safekeeping and forgot, somehow missing it searching in the dark. Let’s just say it was a long drive home, pissed at each other, feeling like paranoid asses.

Thinking about this later, I realized that if we hadn’t had the pistol, we would’ve had a perfectly good trip, like any of a million other camping trips. In some sense having that gun made us less safe, rather than more—which was usually the case whenever we packed heat, it turned out.

But what struck me most was that the whole episode took place in our heads, the product of our own paranoid delusions. And that really makes me wonder how much more of the anger and conflict and injustice in our world was due to the same sort of imagined bullshit.

driver's ed

Cars and youth go hand-in-hand on the West coast. Unfortunatly in my old neighborhood they were usually stolen.

My first time driving I was 13. Capone would steal his mom’s Civic hatchback when she worked weeknights. He’d pick me up and we’d roll the ghetto neighborhoods in the central district and high point smoking Newports and playing “Geto Boyz” tapes at top volume. We drove like crap and could barely see over the steering wheel. That was driver’s ed.

As soon as we could drive, we learned about stealing. We started breaking in cars for stereos, CDs and whatever else we could find. Only certain kinds of cars. Old Toyotas and Hondas with the door locks you could pop with a screwdriver. Anything in alleys where we could bust a window without being seen.

You can shatter a car window silently—hammer off the white ceramic on spark plugs into pebbles, and throw ‘em hard against the window, crumbling the safety glass in a “whoosh” sound—and we used that often.

It wasn’t long before we learned to bust car ignitions. There are lots of tricks for this. Easiest were 1970s and early-80s GM sedans and early 1990s Hondas and Toyotas. Oldsmobile Cutlasses—the classic ghetto ride—were probably the easiest of all. With only a screwdriver, you can bust off the steering-column casing on the right of the steering column, snap the linkage between the keyhole and the starter, and just pull. Thing starts right up, no steering lock, nothing.

People used to jack a car just for the ride. You can pick out the stolen car in traffic—jumping hills, peeling out, racing. I remember one Thanksgiving looking out my front window and seeing a Civic with its engine revving. Suddenly the clutch drops, and they lay rubber for 10 straight seconds, loud as hell. I’m laughing two minutes later when the phone rings—it’s Big Man, maybe 14 at the time, and he says, “thought I’d give you a Thanksgiving present.”

Thanks, bro. He ended up wrecking the car later that day.

I bought my first car when I was 17. I paid $50 to a Seattle longshoreman. It was a white 2-door Cutlass Supreme with a ton of rust, a crooked back end, and almost no brakes. The thing had been stolen, so it started without a key. The alignment was hard to the left from when whoever stole it wrecked it, and it sat on four mismatched bald tires.

I went to work fixing it. The guys and I looked for a model like it I could jack for parts. I remember parking at Safeway and chain smoking, watching cars for a match. Each time a Cutlass pulled out, I tailed them home, looking for the right one. After a week of this, I found a match in the beach area a few miles from home.

We went back that weekend. Big Man was by far the youngest of us, still doing dirt as a youngster at the time. He was also a juvinile, which means no jail time if things went wrong, so he did the actual risky work of pulling the car.

Sometime after midnight I drop him off with a screw driver and spark plug ceramic. He gets the car started in maybe three minutes—which seems like years when you’re parked across the street watching for police. He drives back to my folks’ place. We pull it up into the garage and go to work. Me, Capone, Tony, Fingers, and Big Man stayed up until daybreak tearing out the seats, stereo and anything else that’d come undone. We swapped the wheels with mine, and after a long night dumped it on a forest-edged road on the edge of the neighborhood, still running with headlights in the early morning fog. Big Man drove to the dump spot, Tony riding shotgun with a towel wiping off the prints, and me following in my newly refurbished Cutlass for the ride back.

Never figured out why my folks never asked where I got the new wheels. Guess they never paid much attention. Whatever the case, the same scene repeated each time any of us got new cars. Until I left the old neighborhood, I don’t think I knew a single person with a 100-percent legal automobile.

the rose

My brother and sisters and I went to the same neighborhood gradeschool. I was the youngest by several years. It was private, and we were charity kids with “tuition exemptions” thanks to my dad being a vet.

After a rampage of fistfights and arrests in seventh grade I was expelled. First in the family, big controversy. I knew they were embarrassed, but later I did the same thing at three public schools, finally dropping out in highschool, and never gave the incident much thought.

Years later us kids were sorting through Mom’s things when she died. The big discovery was this pile of cheap spiral notepads. She always had them lying around, and we figured they were full of recipies. Turns out they were journals, spanning nearly three decades off and on.

Mostly mundane stuff. But toward the bottom of the pile I run into this entry, dated 1991, the year after my expulsion:

”. . . at mass, [Father M] did the year end ceremony for the moms with a last child finishing 8th grade, and they got their red rose. I was very angry about it and crying and . . . I had been waiting for my rose after 4 kids going through. [K] and me left early . . . I’m very upset about [D], and wish I had been home more to stop it . . .”

Since leaving the neighborhood, redemption has become the central theme of my life. But I’m learning some wrongs can never be redeemed.

I never knew about the rose. I remember thinking her only life achievement was raising us kids in the city. That rose was the one mark of social recognition for it, and she never got it.

It’s one of life’s great tragedies that the brands of your own stupidity end up on the backs of the people who love you most. That’s the real cost of becoming self-aware after a life in that neighborhood.