Smoke

In the early 90s I was really into music.  Actually, before the early nineties.  In the 80s, at the Metroplex.  By the time I was in college, music in Atlanta was pretty awesome.  I remember going to Homage and seeing Smoke all lined up on the stage, sitting down, facing the audience with their instruments, looking totally impressive.  Later, when I had dropped out of college, I worked in Cabbagetown for a little while.  I was a baker, the only job I have ever fully enjoyed.  I was completely dedicated to my work, but would go next door sometimes to the musicians' practice spaces, that now host lofts and restaurants, and smoke pot, but only really fast, because I had ideas about what I wanted to do in the bakery.  The Gold Sparkle Band was awesome for stuff like that.  I would work late, instead of early, because I am not an early riser, unlike most bakers.  It would get dark and I would fiddle with pie crusts and recipes, alone in the bakery, happy with my day, happy that I could say when someone asked me, "What did you do for work today?",  that I could say that I baked four apple pies, made twelve scones and a layer cake.  But in the night, the sun would set on the stacks of the old mill and I could sometimes hear Smoke tuning up.  I didn't have to go outside, their music permeated the neighborhood.
And I would bake while they played. 

Days Gone By

"I'm fucked..." she said, her head lowered.  I saw the bright burgundy side of her carefully shaved head and we hugged each other.  She was crying.

I was surprised the first time I saw her in the teacher's copy room.  We had worked together when I was sixteen years old.  In a hair shop.  I had clamored for the job, being a punk rock kid in the suburbs.  I went to the Metroplex, a wonderful club 'downtown' as we called it, in Atlanta, not in Cobb County.  I had been going there since I was fifteen and it was my livelihood, the only place I wanted to be, except Little Five Points, but that was during the day time.  And this place, this hair shop, they could dye my hair purple and pink and blue and green for free; I had to work there.  And they were awesome.  People saw them everywhere, their hair -  their incredible hair!

I got the job.  My  punk rock, Cobb County classmates were pretty impressed.  I had a car now and was frequenting the Metroplex much less than I had when the only obstacle was getting a ride.  Even though I now had one, it had gotten weirdly boring, not the golden ticket that it was when I had to get rides from older classmates.   The hair shop took me to new places.  Clubs. Gay dance clubs.  Everyone wore outrageous costumes that I adored.  I felt way more adult.  It was a new scene for me.  And I was still in high school.  I walked into school everyday, did what I had to do, and went to work at the salon, and to clubs.

Seeing her in the teacher's workroom gave me a weird sense of deja vu, kind of like looking at a live snapshot of a former life.  She gave me my first fake ID.  I totally idolized her as a teenager, her awesome vintage clothes, funny expressions and wildly cool lifestyle.  We ran into each other frequently at one of the schools I work at after our initial copy room meeting.  I was always glad to see her, hopeful that teaching would work out for her and that her first few years wouldn't be as hard as mine were.  It felt weird to be in a veteran position to her, work-wise.  It felt weird to say that I was finishing my eighth year teaching, that I teach both elementary and high school at the same time, that no, it's not really hard, I've done it before. 

Spring Break passed in strange haze.  Long sunny days lazed by, Lola and I in the yard, her running and playing, then resting on the blanket next to me for a while.  Me, drinking beer and succumbing to the hypnotic atmosphere of "The Goldfinch" for hours at a time, interrupted only by text messages that I reviewed immediately from my mom that described the unimaginable horrors faced by my stepfather in the ICU.  The combination of elements created a weird emotional mix of bliss and extreme depression.

Returning to school was difficult.  I was surprised when I walked up the steps that gray day and to see her burst into tears. 
"They're not going to let me finish my program.  They say I'm no good.  I'm fucked.  I'm fucked.  I have so much riding on this.......".
I could feel the desperation.  I have been in hard positions in life before and have been scared, but I knew her situation.  She really did have everything riding on this.

"They're wrong.....they're wrong....." I repeated over and over. 

I've Always Been This Way

"Well, it is broken.  Right there..." my doctor stated, pointing at the x-ray of my arm.
"It needs to be immobilized until we can get you in to see Spider Pig".

I have been re-watching the television show, Six Feet Under on the nights that Alec works.  I have been doing it for a couple of months.  I am in the last season.  I remember coming home from a year in Spain in the fall of 2005.  It was a rough time in my life and I watched the last season in a marathon session on rented DVDs.   I would get really wasted and sit on my bed and watch and watch and watch.  And cry. 

"Her jaw is broken in two places.  She has to be muzzled and can't come out of her crate except to pee for six to eight weeks".

I laid next to the baby Pit Bull that my mom rescued from euthanasia and cried.  We had literally gotten her at the like, thirteenth hour.  Her eyes seemed to scream above her wired shut mouth.  I couldn't hold her enough.  But I couldn't really hold her.  I just laid next to her cage while she pressed her body up to the side and I petted her from the outside. 

Margaret killed herself a month and a half before I came home.  I learned that she loved the show and watched it religiously.  As I downloaded a new episode all these years later, I happened to see the original release date:  June something, 2005.  With each episode I watch, I know I am getting closer to the day she did it in late July, 2005.  It fills me with doom, but I can't stop watching it.  What shocked me is that she didn't see the last three episodes.  She didn't hold off until the end.  I can tell by the release dates.  Maybe when I watch the last three episodes she won't be with me anymore, maybe she will get out of my head.

Spider Pig's office looked as dingy as ever.  I looked over at the physical therapy area.  My old cool receptionist was gone.  I remember that she was in graduate school; she probably graduated and got the kind of job she really wanted.  The actual physical therapist was gone too, he was getting married and wanted to move back to his old hometown and buy a house near his parents and have land and kids with his high school sweetheart.  A new guy was in there.  A year has passed.

Everyone has moved on.  Except me.  I am just broken again and living in that nasty office, watching people with catheters and reading the same old magazines. 

It's Beginning to Feel Alot Like Christmas

LeDario.  Born on February 2nd and one of the odder students I have taught.   Sports a kind of cool old school 80's fade but always has a strange, far away look in his eyes.  Writes compulsively, big essay length tomes instead of doing any class work.  Steals compulsively.  Steals things of no value just to annoy others, like your lunch.  And then he doesn't eat it, he just hides it somewhere where it will rot.  The remote control to the overhead projector that is mounted to the ceiling.  The springs from staplers.

Christine.  Born on February 2nd.  When I began teaching her I asked her all day elementary teacher if she had Asperger's. 
"No," he replied, "she is just fucking creepy and scares me sometimes". 
"Don't look at me!" she hissed at the other students when entering the classroom, walking stiffly yet rapidly to her chair in the corner, head erect but somehow pointed at the ground at the same time.  Seething.  Hyper intelligent, yet again large glassy eyes that don't seem all the way there.  Presented a highly articulate self written treatise in front of the entire school about how much school sucks and bowed primly at the end before leaving the stage, in front of smiling kids and parents that still actually like school.  

"Alec, I have met some of the weirder people this year that have the exact same birthday as me...."
"Wow, Bill's birthday was just like a day or two after yours!".
Alec's boss is bizarre.  Sings out loud randomly.  Talks to people like there are retarded as if he is just trying to get his ass kicked.  Will not say anything directly to anyone, just pontificates loudly into the air, slowly parsing his words out into even chunks. 
"Weirdos," we said in unison.
"Another weirdo birthday". 

The first week back from Christmas break we ended up missing two school days because of weather.  Two weeks ago Atlanta experienced a well-publicized "storm" that shut the city down and called for an early dismissal from school and an additional three days off.  I worked on Monday and am now on my second snow day and school is called off again for tomorrow.  We have a previously scheduled break for next week, no school again.  It is kind of awesome, but a little weird.  The kids see a cloud in the sky on the rare days that we have classes and pull out their phones, assuming school will be called out.  We have no momentum.  It feels like teaching in Mexico. 

There is a fifteen foot cliff about nine feet away from the side of my house.  It is filling with ice and snow.  Though the recommendation from the City was that the dig-out for the basement of the new house, that is being built next to my really old house, happen rapidly and that the retaining wall for the basement would be built within a matter of days to prevent erosion and destruction of my foundation, these smart builders decided to do the dig the day before everyone knew that a major storm was going to shut Atlanta down for days.  They won't even work if it is cloudy outside, so it was pretty obvious they weren't going to come out in this shit storm.  I feel dizzy when I look through the windows of my house into the pit.  It feels like the house is sliding....

"William S. Burroughs, February 5th!  Another weirdo birthday!".

Dead Leaves on a Dirty Ground

It is happening again.

"Lupita was stopped in traffic.  They have her at the jail.  They said she has to speak to immigration tomorrow."

They have already deported her son, Cristian.  That happened around the holidays two years ago.  She has never met her first grandson, born in Mexico because her son's girlfriend was not going to have the baby without him and returned before the birth.

"We need to call the lawyer.  Waiting does NOT help.  We have to find out where she is being held.  Is it an ICE county?  Should we gather the troops?  Get all the petitions going pleading her case?  It almost worked with Cristian.  We have to find out if they plan to move her to an immigration facility.  If she should ask for voluntary or involuntary deportation..."

All of the wheels started moving, almost involuntarily.  Weird knowledge and contacts that have been lying below the surface...dormant, waiting for it to happen again so they could prove they weren't just eating a hole in my stomach, they were willing to dig their way out.  I thought about sitting across from Cristian's lawyer two years ago, when he said it was too late.  Or three years before that standing less than a mile off the border, watching the helicopter carry a dehydrated man into the sky while Border Patrol kicked his friend's legs apart on the ground, hoping that Cristian had made it back across again.  The buses.  The nondescript buses that carried long lines of men to the no man's land between the U.S. and Mexico border in Tijuana.  The men at Casa, trying to be nice to me but suddenly ranting at me in English about all the PINCHE MOTHER FUCKING PROBLEMS WITH YOUR STUPID MIGRA HUNTING DOWN FAMILY PEOPLE INSTEAD OF CRIMINALS.  I HAVE BEEN THERE TWENTY YEARS.  MY WIFE AND KIDS ARE THERE.  MY ASS IS GOING BACK ACROSS TOMORROW.  Sitting on the other side of glass speaking to Alejandro on a telephone while children cried and rubbed on the glass that separated them from their fathers.  The sound the shackles made when all of the men in the Streamline trial stood up after entering pleas in group responses of 'sí' or 'no' or 'face a fucking felony'.  Sitting in a parking lot in the middle of the night hiding from Border Patrol while 4th of July fireworks covered the sky, waiting for the coyotes to meet my passenger.  Or passengers. 

"If they keep her, we have to get money to her commissary account.  It's cold in those detention centers, she will need money to buy overpriced clothes from the commissary to keep her warm.  And buy phone cards....she has to be able to communicate with her family...."

Her family.  An elementary aged son that is an American citizen.  A nineteen year old daughter that was so proud to receive papers through Deferred Action and immediately began enrolling in college.  Another daughter in her early twenties that still doesn't have papers, but comes with Lupita to clean houses, helping from her wheel chair, legs forever inoperable. 

"No matter what happens, if she gets released tomorrow, if they hold her three days, if they....if they deport her, we have to do the things we can do to make this more comfortable for her...."

Then I thought of the deportation bag.  I saw it when Alejandro was locked up in the detention center three years ago.  They never really tell you when someone will be deported.  Even if you're family.  They won't even tell you where they will be deported to.  Tijuana?  Reynosa? Laredo?  They can be dropped off anywhere, hundreds of miles from wherever they know anyone in Mexico, without money, and often at night, to fend for themselves and get back to a place where they know someone.  Some of them know no one, having been brought as children to the United States.  They are completely reliant on family members still in the U.S. to make random phone calls to Mexico City, Oaxaca, any part of the Republic...hey, my kid, you met him when he was three...well, he's is twenty-two now and stuck at the border....can you help?  He's big now but man, he's a child in Mexico.... I remember the buses pulling up in the middle of the night at Alejandro's deportation center...the bad buses, the ones that take them away.  It was as if they knew what they were doing was so disgusting that the sun should not see it. 

"I remember those flat trees in the desert...." Irena told me one day after school, in private.
"I still have the scars on my back from where they tried to take me under a barbed wire fence..."
We were sitting in a well respected American high school.  She was my student.
"I go back and forth..." another told me, "but my mom can't.  She doesn't have papers."
"I don't see the point of any of this crap." a third told me.
"Everyone tells me that I need to go to college, but I know I can't because I don't have papers.  What the fuck is the point of graduating from high school?  You know us Mexicans, can't even play 'Uno' because we only want the green card."

And about that bag.  It is a horrible thing.  When families finally realize that there is nothing that will stop the deportation, they bring a bag to the center and leave it there for whenever the inevitable happens so that their loved one will not be dropped, empty handed, in an unknown area in the middle of the night.  You see people sitting in cars in the parking lot, afraid to come inside because they don't have papers, but still willing to take the ride and sit outside for hours.  The officers search the bag when you bring it to the center.  No money allowed, not even Mexican pesos.  No phone cards, U.S. based or Mexican cards, or a fucking Timbuktu card if you felt like dropping that in there.  No letters, phone numbers, addresses.  No belts.  No Mexican ID cards.  Pants and t-shirts, that 's it.  No recuerdos, things to remember any one by or things that might help or comfort you.  No fucking anything. 

That's when I knew I was about to cry.  I hate that fucking bag.  If she is deported, her young American son could easily be placed in foster care.  He could visit her in Mexico when he's older, on his American passport with a Mexican visa stamped in it.  Her daughters would have to make a choice between returning permanently to Mexico or never seeing their mother again.  

"Angel, tengo que hablar con Angel....."  I remember my friend whispering into the phone in the middle of the night while Migra trucks whizzed by and fireworks lit up the sky. 

Schools Out for Winter

"I’m incredibly frustrated by this school closing. It’s cold. But it’s dry and it’s not THAT cold."



I don't know, six degrees?  I think that's pretty cold.

"Negative 30 degrees? Sure, close school. But today… it’s just kinda cold. That’s it. The kids will be inside the school, warm. It’s not a safety issue. And because of this I can’t go to work. Please do not close schools tomorrow."

Okay, put your six year old outside in the dark in this weather to catch the bus.  It's not THAT cold. Or stand your ass out there for ten-fifteen minutes waiting for public transport to take you to school in a thin jacket because your parents can't buy you a real winter coat because of an anomaly in southern weather. Really, it's not THAT cold!

"Absolutely the most ridiculous thing ever."

Yeah, and this happens SO often in Atlanta. We totally have to deal with this like, every ten years.

"But what about all the kids who are home with parents (or home alone) who need to be working to pay their bills?"

That one was actually directed personally to me.  All I have to say is that if taking one or two days off from work will make you unable to support your children, it might be time to um, make a household budget or something. 

"Pathetic."

No, you are pathetic.  So fucking sorry, but you assholes are just going to have to spend a whole day with your own kids.  No one was worried about a day of education being lost.  They were worried because their tax paid babysitting center was closed for the day.  It's pathetic that they think that's the role schools play. 

The neighborhood I live in and the district I teach in are not the norm for metro Atlanta.  They are both, well, rich.  The average commute to school is running from warm McMansion to warm Volvo to warm school.  Most are two parent households, often with both parents working or one parent OPTING to stay at home.  They don't have to worry about the things most metro parents have to worry about on a daily basis and they were the ones complaining about school closings.   They just don't want to spend another day with their kids.

"They made a decision. School is closed. That is that. Go play with your kids. Bake cookies. Set up a tent in the living room and pretend to camp. Have some fun. Being grouchy isn’t going to change any thing."

WORD, motherfucker.  Try to actually enjoy the creatures you put on this earth.

2014

Lola accepted the pig ear like she was taking communion.  She advanced slowly, eyes raised toward the giver and gently took the ear into her mouth.  And then, she ran away with it.  Alec and I laughed.  We know she really likes something if she runs off with it, as if we would buy her an expensive treat, give it to her, and then try to take it back for ourselves. 

I ripped the lights off of the tree, threw them on a chair and dragged the tree through the front door, along the side of the house and into my trunk.  It was sticking about five feet out, but I just crammed the truck door on top of it and drove down the street, watching the door open and close on top of the tree.  The fucking Boy Scouts would be done with the chipper in seven minutes.  I could make it.  If I didn't, I would be stuck with this thing that the trash men refuse to pick up.

The tree stayed in the trunk all the way to the first turn around the south end of the park.  I was thrilled.  I saw a man at the bottom of the hill in jogging clothes.  He was on the ground, holding his leg and grimacing.  Some weird stretch?  I almost kept driving.  I don't stop for men in need no matter what the situation is.  Especially not white men.  They just have to find someone else, because I like my lady parts unmolested and value my life.

I slowed the car.
"Are you okay?"  I called hesitantly.
"I just twisted it, really bad..." he responded, short breathed.
"Um....do you....need a ride... to your nearby house....?" I asked with an obvious look of trepedation on my face.
"Really?  Can you do that?  Hey, you're my neighbor!" he said grimacing and stating my address.  I realized that he understood why women are fearful of closed spaces with unknown men. 
"Can you walk over here?"
He limped slowly across the street, dragging a leg behind him.  I felt like an ass for not parking the car and helping him. 

Lola clandestinely walked toward the front of the house.  I followed her and was surprised when I saw the pig ear hidden behind the chair cushion.  She has done this before, but I didn't realize she loved this particular ear that much.  She extracted it, and walked around the house with the entire thing 'hidden' in her mouth.  Her lip was sticking up were a tiny bit of the ear protruded from her large jaws.  We sat on the couch.  I helped her hide it again behind a couch cushion, pulling the cushion away so that she could insert it and secretively shoving the blanket forward that she was trying to advance with her nose to cover the buried treasure.  She repeated the burial all afternoon, in four parts of the couch, under my pillow on the bed, back in the chair, in plain view by the fireplace, shoved between the bed and the wall.

He made it into the car.
"Sorry, but do you mind if I get this thing out of my trunk?  It's on the way and the Scouts are done in five minutes".
"Yeah... " he said, flinching with pain.

"Okay, five seconds!"  I said brightly, wheeling through the Boy Scout stand and on around the park.