Recalculating
A new phone, a new year...and four leaf clover bracelets
My son calls to say, "I'm over here on Central selling four-leaf clover bracelets." He calls on his latest phone. "This is my new number." He has had over 30 phone numbers since 2013. I've got them all on my phone under different incarnations of his name. I name this newest number his name and the year.
"Do you make the bracelets?" I imagine the clover bracelets of childhood on days of sunshine in the South or Midwest, teaching my younger siblings to split the stems with a thumbnail to poke in the flower heads to make bracelet or necklace chains. Then I think of how easy it is for my husband to spot four-leaf clovers, and how I can never find them. Our three kids inherited his gift of finding them too.
"No, this lady makes them and gives them to me to sell."
"Oh, that's great."
"Yeah, now is my busy time."
"Okay, we can talk later."
"No, I can talk now."
I try to think of what to say. "So, you give her a cut of the proceeds, or she gives you a cut?" Why am I asking this question? It's none of my business.
"No, she just makes them and gives them to me to sell. She said I needed to sell them. It would be good for me to do."
"Oh. That's great."
"What?"
"Nothing. It's great. I'm glad you're working."
"Of course, I'm working. You don't know my life."
"That's right I don't."
"I'm just kidding. You're so serious. Geez, Mama."
"I'm sorry. I love you."
"Love you too."
The conversation ends. I still can't picture the bracelets or the lady who makes them. Are they clover chains? I get distracted as I always do in our conversations, trying to land on an image, trying to keep it light and bright. He's thirty-five and is always twenty steps ahead of me. Clover bracelets? Is this what he's talking about? I wish I could thank this woman who makes bracelets for our son to peddle on the streets of LA. Who is she? What do the bracelets look like? What does he sell them for? Where does he sell them? Oh yes, on Central Ave. Where on Central? Why does it matter?
A few days later, his father and I will meet him, and we'll spend the day together. It's mid-January 2024. We have made it to 2024 with him. Nothing short of a miracle. That day, we will drive him back to a street off Central Ave where he is staying with a man named Peanut. I will have forgotten about the four-leaf clover bracelets by then because we've been together six hours, and I'm tired, and we must get to a play in the Valley to see our friend, Tina, perform.
We are trying to do too much, but it's how I operate sometimes.
Sometimes, I'm afraid to slow down.
Sometimes, I must keep moving or else.
Sometimes...
We accomplished a lot that day we were together. Breakfast. Walk. Lunch. Walk. Filipino bakery in Silver Lake, our old neighborhood. Purple Cake. It has a name. What is the name? "Ube." It's a lovely royal purple and used for special occasions.
It's a special occasion getting to see our boy since he lives in LA, and we recently relocated permanently to Birmingham after 35 years on the West Coast due to my job and my husband's retirement. We moved to LA pregnant with our son, our oldest child and wound up raising three kids in Los Angeles. Now two are in Chicago, so our son is alone on the West Coast.
We'd kept two households going for fifteen years, as I traveled back and forth for summers and holidays from Alabama to California from my teaching job, and for the last ten years, as the addiction took hold, we hoped having a homebase in LA would give our son a chance to land and heal. He landed occasionally but not for long and never to heal.
But our son doesn't consider himself unwell. There is a word for it. "Anosognosia." According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), this is the definition:
"Anosognosia is when someone is unaware of their own mental health condition or that they can't perceive their condition accurately."
We buy the bright purple Ube cake and decide to give the cake to Peanut to thank him for housing our son, but the cake box keeps popping open, which is mildly enraging. Can't something work right?
As we walk through the streets of our old neighborhood, our son steps over a man sleeping on the sidewalk and says, "Last man standing, right?"
The guy sits up and they talk for twenty minutes. Our son sees all the people that I walk typically walk by faster. I take pictures of him and try to capture the day.
He then befriends another man, a man with one eye from Atlanta, and then our son insists we give this gentleman a ride to the place that offers resources to the unhoused. Our boy won't get in the car unless we give his newfound friend a ride. It's only a few blocks away, but the man gets in and sits in the backseat smoking a joint, asking us, "How far is it?"
I assure him it's not far as we drive along Griffith Park Boulevard near Marshall High School, the old carpool route. We've been encouraging our son to get services at a church nearby, a lifeline, a tether, a something.
When we arrive, I watch our son and the one-eyed man from Atlanta walk toward the tables. I hear our boy tell the man, "This church is where they have Al-Anon meetings. They call people 'qualifiers.' I'm their 'qualifier.'" He points to us. "It's somebody who makes a family crazy with drinking and drugging. Total bullshit. Al-Anon tears families apart, brainwashing them."
Then he asks the guy, "Who's your qualifier?"
"Don't got one."
Our son says, "Me neither."
In the yard of the church, I take a breath and allow myself to realize I am standing in Silver Lake, our former home. I can look at the sky and imagine one of our homes is still waiting for us. We rented four different places in Silver Lake since 1989, and this is our first visit back home to check on our boy because we miss him, and how can Silver Lake/Echo Park no longer be our home? It's the place I go to in dreams, and I can give you directions anywhere you need to go.
The wintry California sun can crack your heart open if you let it and make you remember, but I'm indifferent, standing there, waiting, and watching him make his way through the crowd of folks offering different services.
The one-eyed man disappears, and I don't see him again.
At one point, I approach our son to see how it's going, and a volunteer with bright pink hair eyeballs me as if to ask, "What are you doing here?"
I explain, "This is my son." I want her to see he has people.
"Your son?" She scowls. "He looks a lot older than you!"
I shrug. "He's had a harder life." What else is there to say? I walk away and wait for him. I need to back off. Then our son spends over an hour in the bathroom. I get so tired. We get folding chairs and wait. So much of our lives with him, ever since this journey began, is waiting. There is this meddlesome voice inside me that says, "It could be the last time so shut up already."
It's the reality of having an adult child on the streets. The voice inside me is mean, making me think about all the missed clues of his childhood where I could have righted this ship years ago.
Sometimes, I tell it to shut up.
Sometimes, I pour myself a glass of wine to drown it out.
Sometimes...
After a few hours, we leave the church in Silver Lake that is helping the unhoused, and I stop to insist we take a selfie.
Then I drive slowly toward Central Ave in rush hour traffic because that is where our son wants to go. I encourage him to keep accepting the help offered at the church. He says he likes the people and he'll go back. I hope he does. Now he wants us to drive him to Peanut's place on Central. That's right, we are taking the bright purple Ube cake to Peanut to thank him and drop off our boy.
My husband sits in the passenger seat. He usually drives, and he tells me to get over to the right lane before I'm too deep into downtown, but I hate changing lanes of packed traffic when I'm distracted, so I say, "Soon. If I mess up, it'll redirect me."
I think back to the ancient GPS that shouted at me "Recalculating" whenever I made a wrong turn. The GPS spoke in a such disappointed tone that it made my then-eight-year-old child collapse with laughter. That child would beg me to make a wrong turn so the lady would snap "Recalculating" at us again.
Recalculating.
There are so many things that need recalculating.
Sunset Boulevard into Cesar Chavez Boulevard is crowded, the red sun sinking fast into the winter sky of California. I was teaching ESL to adults in East LA when Cesar Chavez died, and in honor of him, the city changed part of Sunset Boulevard to Cesar Chavez. I remember so many things.
By the time we reach our destination, it's dusk on Central Ave near Peanut's place, and our son says, "Wait, I have Christmas presents for you. I'll drop this stuff at Peanut's, and I'll get your presents." He jumps out of the car and gathers things from the backseat and trunk. I get out and help him.
"We can't forget the cake for Peanut!" I try again to shut the cakebox that keeps popping open as I follow my son who walks fast.
My husband naps in the passenger seat. Napping is essential in the chaos. In addition to the cake, I also carry some of the groceries he got from the food bank at the church like oatmeal, apples, and dried cherries.
A man in a yard calls out something sharp to our boy as we pass by him. He doesn't look happy, and I feel uneasy. Our son ignores him, and this is not like him. He talks to everyone but not this man. He keeps going.
Our son knocks on Peanut's door, but I don't wait around to meet Peanut even though I know I should if only to say thank you.
"Here," I say. "Give Peanut the cake and wish him a happy new year." I look at the address above Peanut's apartment to memorize it and leave our son at the door. My husband is alone in the car, and I need to get back to him. I walk back past the man who said something sharp, and he begins to follow me, but then he passes me, which is a relief. I get back into the car and lock it. I hate being afraid on this street, which is a whole lot better than many of the streets where we've dropped off our boy before. This street has houses and families, not just vans, campers, and tents beneath bypasses or bridges.
I don't like that our son depends on the generosity of a man named Peanut. It's not a sustainable situation. But I'm also relieved, because California winters get cold on the streets at night, and I'm grateful to Peanut.
On the way to Peanut's, our boy had explained how he came to stay with him. Peanut was his playground supervisor at Hillcrest School, our son's school in first grade for a short time and Peanut's first job out of high school. Our son remembered Peanut because of his prominent teeth, even though he only attended this school for a week or two, and yet somehow, he remembered this man, who also remembered him as a little boy. He said Peanut also remembered my husband's long brown braids. My husband used to raffle off his braids every few years at school arts festivals. Kids who drew the winning ticket got to cut off his braids, and those braids became part of our kids' art projects.
Now his hair is short and gray.
How?
Recalculating.
Decades ago, my husband taught at Hillcrest, an elementary school nicknamed "Hellcrest." The principal held notoriously short Monday morning assemblies by offering these words, "I don't have anything to say. Go on back to class now."
She was described as "ethically challenged" in an article about bad principals in the district. This was an especially bleak LAUSD tenure for my husband who had allowed himself to be displaced from his first school as a teacher in South Central when his ancient car was stripped of its new tires after breaking down in the school parking lot on a Friday and by Monday, no more tires. The car sat on cinderblocks.
Recalculating.
It wasn't worth fixing a 1972 Toyota Corolla from Marvin's Used Cars in Tullahoma, Tennessee, so we gave up the car.
We naively thought by his displacing himself in South Central, he would get sent to school closer to our neighborhood in Silver Lake as he had requested.
Recalculating.
But LAUSD sent him to a school even farther away in Baldwin Hills. For a year, he took three city buses to Hillcrest, and then our friends sold us their used car at the same time our son was old enough for first grade.
Recalculating.
This school had a music magnet, so we decided to let our son try Hillcrest since he would attend the school with his father.
We were counting our pennies then, trying to stay afloat.
Maybe the school could work.
It did not.
Recalculating.
At an assembly toward the end of the second week, the principal told the students not to bring guns in their backpacks, and I couldn't take it.
Recalculating.
We sent our son back to Montessori in Eagle Rock that went to third grade. His little sister was there in the preschool, but we could not afford two tuitions, so I bartered to teach a weekly drama and creative writing class for the older students, so my kids could go two-for-one. The Montessori director agreed. She was so generous to do this. She didn't have to do it.
Do these memories flood my mind waiting for our son? Yes, because Peanut used to work at Hillcrest, aka Hellcrest, and I try to connect the dots of where things went so wrong, and yet, he and Flannery remembered each other, and now Peanut was allowing him shelter.
Recalculating.
I hope Peanut likes the bright purple Ube cake. I hope my son is respectful to Peanut. I wonder how long it will be before Peanut kicks him out.
***
After a long twenty minutes of waiting and waiting, our son gets back into the car and says, "Here are your Christmas presents."
They are the four-leaf clover bracelets. I'd forgotten all about them. Tiny four-leaf clovers pressed into clear plastic shapes of hearts on tiny circles of woven green nylon string, not clover bracelets at all. They are beautiful. I cry at the generosity of this gift, but only a little. I have a friend who cries hysterically, head tossing from side to side howling, keening, teeth-gnashing, the complete waterworks. It's hard to watch. I cry easily too, but my heart hardens at spectacular displays of grief, and I feel mean and small inside admitting to this.
I put on my bracelet. My husband puts on his bracelet. He wears a clover-shaped one, and I wear a heart-shaped one. I will give my mother the cross-shaped one. One sibling in Chicago will get a diamond shape and one sibling in Chicago will get the other heart-shaped one. I think of how they probably won't cry when I give them their bracelets from their brother, but what do I know? But from experience, his siblings don't cry over him much. They love him, but sometimes it feels like there are no tears left.
"They are so beautiful, honey," I tell him.
"Thanks, Mama."
"Everybody is going to love them."
"Thanks. Hey, can you guys drive me to meet Herbie?"
"You're not staying with Peanut?" Foolishly, I want him tucked in safe for the night, which is ridiculous I know.
"Na. Herbie plays the piano on Wednesday nights on 5th Street. I'll get back to Peanut's later. I want to go to Herbie. He's 91. He doesn't like me telling people he's 91. He said, 'Quit telling people that.' Where are you going again?"
"To Tina's play."
"Why wasn't I invited?"
I don't answer, and he doesn't push it. My husband, a bit more rested from his nap, takes the wheel, and we drive to meet Herbie. When we arrive, our son jumps out and says, "Happy Friday" to the woman security guard out front.
She glares at him and says, "It's not Friday."
"What day is it?" He appears baffled.
"Wednesday. And you ought to know what day it is."
I silently agree with her - but I introduce myself as the mom when he says, "These are my parents. Hey, is Herbie here?"
"I sent him home. He showed up too early. I told him not to show up so early. He'll be back later."
I see a grand piano in the empty lobby of this King Edward. I wish I could hear Herbie play, but it's getting late, and we need to say goodbye. We'll never make it to Tina's play if we don't go. Tina was our neighbor for years and is a wonderful actor. I tell our son we must go, and we make plans to gather again soon in a few days.
I hug him hard, and he hugs me back.
"Stay safe, okay, and warm. Go back to Peanut's."
"I will."
We punch in the address of the theatre and stop to buy flowers for Tina on the way. Our son used to babysit Tina's kid. Our son used to be an actor in indie theatres in the Valley and other places too. I try not to leap into the past or the future of used-to-be or could-have-been as we make our way out of downtown.
Recalculating.
Watch the traffic lights.
Find the moon in the sky.
Notice Griffith Park and Travel Town.
Wait, don't think of Travel Town and the time our boy, age ten, jumped off the little train as it was moving, and it terrified the gentle conductor who yelled at him and then at me.
Hey you! Hey you, kid. What do you think you're doing?
Watch your son, lady!
My son had been sitting behind me. I was holding our youngest, a baby, a few seats in front of him so I couldn't see what he was about to do and stop him. It had been a warm day of California sunshine, and I was taking all three kids to ride the Travel Town Train with a friend from out of town. I can't even remember what friend, but I was showing this friend an LA landmark that traveled past sweet old western settings of deer, mining caves, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, stagecoach, a faux mining town, bunny rabbits, gnomes, and cacti. It was meditative to ride this train, to pause in the chaos of the city and parenting and become a passenger on this open-air train without a roof, and then the train screeched to a stop.
A kid jumped off! A kid jumped off!
Hey you! Hey you, kid. What do you think you're doing?
Watch your son, lady!
I looked. It was my kid, looking triumphant and sheepish. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to snatch back the moment. I made him apologize to the conductor. "You scared him! You scared everyone. Why? Go tell him you're sorry now. Right now. I'm so mad at you." I'm holding my baby, and our middle child is shaking her head in disgust at her brother, mimicking me.
Recalculating.
I want to knock the memory out of my mind. I want to find the moon. I want to jump off something too.
Recalculating.
Sometimes, I'm afraid to slow down.
Sometimes, I must keep moving or else.
Sometimes...
We find the freeway out of downtown, and my husband joins the traffic heading north like fish swimming upstream toward Tina's play. After the play, we will stay at a different friend's house in Silver Lake because we no longer live in Los Angeles.
I find the moon in the sky and tell myself it's enough.
Kerry. Holy shit. This piece just gripped me and I could barely breathe. It's so beautifully heart-wrenching.
Wow. I am feeling so much, but cannot find the words to describe how beautiful, poignant, gut wrenching, this is. I'd say "I hate you" but you're the only one who'd know what I meant and I don't want to alienate your other fans. I'd give anything to write as well, and as honestly, as you do.