Tangerine to the Head

February 1986

For a long time, for a dozen years it seemed, I would get a wicked cold at the beginning of every winter. I would never stay out more than two days though because I hate being away from the kids. Handing them over to someone else was always risky; oftentimes the sub would ignore the lesson plans and instead choose to tell stories to kill time in some other, more creative fashion. I have heard of subs breaking out a guitar and attempting a little sing-a-long. I’ve had some who thought they were standup comedians and others who thought they could just riff off of the headlines of the day. Then there are those who haven’t figured out what they want to do with their lives but it sure isn’t teaching. They need money though or they need to torture themselves and so they slog through their lives wrecking any semblance of order the teacher for whom they are subbing might have established.
And so I stayed out sick one cold, overcast winter day, left lesson plans and called for a sub. Most sensible teachers will keep the names of the good subs and request them as the need came up. But I have always preferred to take my chances; after all, an inept sub needs money as much as a good sub does and the kids can survive a day and not only that but if the sub is bad by being mean or sarcastic the students end up grateful when I return. I went ahead and let the sub people pick whoever was available, and ended up with one Mr. J. Neil Newton, and it turned out that Mr. Newton worked hard for the money that day.
Notes from subs can be very informative. Some of them will say everything went fine when there is evidence all over the room—graffiti on the chalk board, desks in disarray, nothing turned in—to suggest the contrary. Others will critique your lesson plans and offer tips for next time. Some don’t leave a note, while others document every moment of the entire day. Mr. Newton’s note was brief and it was the kind a teacher never expects to see: “At the beginning of 5th period, a student threw a tangerine and hit me on the head while I was writing on the board.” He left the tangerine, split open from the impact, as both paper-weight and evidence on top of the note. I was embarrassed but I was more angry than anything else. I was going to catch the kid and make him pay the highest price, whatever it was, so that the rest of the class would know that while I am an easy-going teacher I will not on under any conditions tolerate abusive behavior. I had my suspicions as to who it was but I had a plan to nail the kid.
There are some occasions where you have to act really disappointed or angry but in this case no acting was necessary. As soon as they walked in they knew they were going to hear from me. I spoke the instant the bell stopped ringing.
“Take out a piece of paper,” I said with0ut greeting them. “The sub left me a note. He told me something happened in this class that didn’t happen in any of the others, and I will tell you this: it will never happen again in any of my classes.”
“It was only one of us. The rest of us didn’t do it,” a student in the back said defensively.
“You’re right, Pablo. It just concerned one student. I bet many of you didn’t like what happened and didn’t like it that that one incident was going to represent Roosevelt High School to that sub. I bet there are more than a few of you who don’t want your school to be represented that way.”
“He shouldn’t judge the whole school just on one bad thing.”
“You’re right, Lisa, but unfortunately people do it all the time.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“Ok, but we’re getting off track here.”
“What do you want us to write?”
“What I want you to write is what happened yesterday.”
“Do we have to put our name on it?”
“Only if you want.”
“What are we supposed to say?”
“Write exactly what happened in here yesterday; I want to know.”
“Will we get in trouble?”
“Not if you didn’t do anything.”
“We getting any points for this?”
“I can only give points if you put your name on your paper.”
“It’s like you’re bribing us.”
“Ok then, forget the points.”
“No.”
“No forget it. You just write what happened.”
“People could just lie and make something up.”
“I’m betting enough of you didn’t like what happened and you’re going to tell the truth.”
There is a certain kind of silence in a classroom when the students are working intently. It’s almost palpable, as if you can hear their wheels turning. This was one of those moments. Most of them mentioned the tangerine. Ten of them named the student, Jesse Juarez, and six of those ten signed their names on their paper. Over half of the others said that they didn’t see who did it but expressed the hope that the culprit would get in trouble for it and that they felt sorry for the sub. I stapled the ten papers that identified Jesse and I included Jesse’s description of the day, “Nobody dint do nothing. It wasent me.”
Jesse had transferred into my class from another teacher, but that teacher was thoughtful enough to pass along Jesse’s behavior contract, which was filled with documentation of previous antics. At the bottom of the contract was step seven where, after six violations and six attempts to alter behavior via detention, home contacts, and conferences, the student was dropped from the class and given an F, which is referred to as “W/F,” withdrawn/fail. I had Jesse in my hip pocket. At three o’clock I went to see Ms. Sochor, his counselor.
“Hey, Jack. How are you?”
“Hey, LuAnn.”
“What’s up?”
“I’m here about Jesse Juarez.”
“Oh, that one,” she sighed.
“Yeah.”
“What’d he do this time?”
“He threw a tangerine at a sub.”
“Oh, God.”
“Hit him on the head.”
“Did the sub throw him out?”
“No. He didn’t see who it was.”
“And you know it was Jesse because….”
“Because ten students identified him,” I said, holding up the stapled papers.
“Let’s see.” She took the papers with one hand and put on her glasses with the other.
“And there’s his contract here. This puts him on step seven.”
“All right, I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks.”
“Maybe Mr. Sather can turn him around.”
“What?”
“He teaches the same class that period. I won’t have to change Jesse’s classes.”
“Wait a minute. He’s on step seven. That’s a W/F.”
“Wouldn’t you rather give him an opportunity to be successful?”
“I’d rather see him not throw tangerines at a sub.”
“But Jack…”
“He’s had seven opportunities to be successful. That’s like giving a batter seven strikes.”
“Oh English teachers! So poetic!”
She laughed, trying to change the mood.
“Seriously.”
“Well, actually the contract originated with Mr. Griffin.”
“Yeah?”
“So he started over when he came to your class?”
“What? That’s not how it goes. Conrad put the contract in my box.”
“It’s my call,” she said, smiling.
“So he throws a tangerine at a sub and then nothing happens except he gets another new teacher?”
“I’ll suspend him for a day.”
“Ok, then. Now he gets a day off before he gets his new teacher.”
“I’m just looking at it a different way. You say he should be ejected from the game; I’m giving him another at bat.”
“Well, you’re the boss. But I don’t think you’re doing what’s best for the kid. Why do we have seven step contracts if we’re not going do anything at the seventh step?”
“Throwing a tangerine is bad, but there are worse things than that.”
I was so mad I just left so I wouldn’t lose it all together. It wasn’t fair to me, it wasn’t fair to my students, it wasn’t fair to Mr. Griffin, it wasn’t fair to Mr. Newton and most of all it wasn’t fair to Jesse. I walked straight to my car, cranked up the stereo and drove home. It occurred to me that Jesse wanted power of some kind and that I thought I had it but it was LuAnn all along, and she had misused it.

Your Life is Your Prayer

Uncle Ted was a family celebrity and everyone knew it, especially Uncle Ted. A research scientist at the University of Chicago, he walked as though the knowledge he possessed was in fact large parcels that no one butTed could have been strong enough to carry. His massive face was placid but full of certitude. He rarely moved his head or changed expression. It was as though he were perpetually posing for a sculptor. His bowtie appeared to be securing his head to the rest of his body. He spoke like a character in a dream sequence: slow; serious and methodical. He was the husband of my grandmother’s sister so we had no blood connection to him but we were glad to have him, to be around him, as if his intellect and wisdom—like leaves from a tree—would fall on us. We rarely saw him—I remember his one visit to Burbank when I was young—but the day came when he retired and returned from Oak Lawn, Illinois to his beloved hometown of Fresno, California.

I had recently arrived in Fresno myself, not as a return home but instead the beginning of my adult life. Mom and Dad came to Fresno one weekend to visit Uncle Ted and Aunt Rexie for a combined house warming and hail the conquering hero returning home tribute.

“Let me show you something,” he said to me a few minutes after Mom, Dad, Grace and I arrived. He left the others in the living room and took me to his study.

“What is it?” I asked. “Ah, here it is,” he said, pulling down a large dark blue book with gold lettering on it.

He thumbed through it and found the page he wanted me to see.

“There, read that.”

“Ok,” I said.

It was a list of names in alphabetical order. I found his name in the right column in the middle of the page.

“Hey, that’s you.”

“Yeah, that’s me. What’s the name of the book?”

“Who’s Who?”

“Yeah, that’s right, of American Scientists.”

“Wow. Pretty cool.”

“Huh,” he said, as if he were not satisfied with my choice of acclamation.

“I mean, that’s great.”

“Yes,” he said, distractedly. He was far away somewhere.

“My brother said that he saw you in a science film in a college class he took.”

“A film?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Oh, yes. I had forgotten.”

“You uh, liked what you did?”

“You know, Jackie? I worked with the most powerful microscopes and studied unimaginably small microcosms. Do you know what I saw?”

“What?”

“God’s handiwork.”

“Yeah, really.”

“Some of my colleagues would give me a bad time. They’d say how can you be such an advanced, knowledgeable and accomplished scientist and yet still believe in God? Do you know what I said to them?”

“No.”

“How can you make a lifelong study of all these precise, complex microscopic systems and say there is no God?”

“Yeah.”

“Our entire universe is nothing. It’s smaller than the smallest microcosm compared to the entirety of God’s realm.”

“Did they get that?”

“No. Their eyes were blinded to it.”

“Hmm.”

His eyes went to that far away place again. Then he returned and found himself standing quiet and still with his hand on his great nephew’s shoulder.

“Wait here,” he said, “I’ll show you something else,” and he disappeared into a closet.

“What is it?” I asked as he emerged with a oversized travel bag.

The look on his face suggested he was putting together a bank robbery team and I was under consideration. He placed the bag on his desk. Inside the bag there were dozens of cameras.

“Cameras.”

“Yeah?” “This one right here. Look.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That is one of the best cameras ever made. It’s 30 years old and it’s better than any of these new cameras.”

“Hmm.”

I knew nothing about cameras.

“It’s the lens. That’s the difference. They were better than they are now.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. You know, I am a very good photographer. I develop my own photos. In Oak Lawn I had my own dark room.”

“Wow that’s…a really nice hobby.”

“A hobby, yes. My photographs are as good as any professional. Did you see the one in the hallway?”

“Uh, well.”

The hallway was lined with framed photographs.

“Come,” he said, gesturing impatiently.

Both sides of the hallway were festooned with black and white portraits of relatives who looked solemn and old even when they were young. There were other photos of people in suits and dresses at a picnic with faces suggesting that a picnic was a very, very serious matter. I recognized the picture of Grandma Ruth and her sisters. Like comic book heroes each one, by the look on their faces, had different powers: Ruth, self-assurance; Margaret, disarming sweetness; Mary, wit and perception; and Rexie, the youngest, had a little of all of them.

“There,” Uncle Ted called out, “look at that one.”

“Oh,” I said, unsure how to respond.

It was an inordinately large self-portrait of Uncle Ted.

“I took that. That’s a bed sheet for the background.”

“Oh.”

“I set it up in the basement.”

“Uh-huh.” His face and shoulders consumed most of the frame. It was as though he was watching any and all who entered the hall.

We returned to the living room where we found Auntie Rexie serving coffee and paklava to Mom, Dad and Grace.

“There’s Uncle Ted!” my Dad said cheerily.

“Unh,” Uncle Ted grunted, “We’re the same age and he calls me uncle.”

“What do you want me to call you?” Dad snapped, suddenly annoyed.

“We’re the same age.”

“You’re Frances’ uncle aren’t you?”

“She and Rex were like sisters to each other. She never called her Auntie Rexie.”

“More paklava?” Auntie Rexie asked.

“It’s delicious,” Mom said.

“I was being respectful, that’s all,” Dad said.

“Unh,” Uncle Ted grunted again.

“Did you make it Rexie?” Mom asked.

“Oh Frances,” Rexie chuckled, “who has the time?”

“Dah.” It was her special conciliatory sound.

“The deli make it as well as I can.”

“Dah.”

“Is it the place on Butler?” Grace asked.

“Yes. Their lamajoon is good, too,” Aunt Rexie added.

“Yes, it’s the best.” Grace replied.

“Better than Jerry’s in Van Nuys?” I asked.

“Yes,” Grace said with conviction.

“I’ll call you whatever you want,” Dad muttered, still disgruntled.

“You know, the Lord has richly blessed our lives,” Uncle Ted proclaimed.

“Here we go,” Dad murmured.

“None of my accomplishments mean anything without Jesus Christ.”

“Duh-da da-da.” Dad whispered “Taps,” while furtively waving his index finger like a baton.

“The Apostle Paul said all his credentials count for nothing. Everything I’ve done or possess all belongs to the Lord. We’re all richly blessed to live in this great country of ours.”

“Action!” Dad shouted energetically.

“What?” Uncle Ted said, displeased that his sermonette had been disrupted

. “Action!” Dad said again, as if it was too obvious for exposition.

“Unh,” Uncle Ted grunted.

“If you want God to be happy, action is better than words.” Dad said, throwing both hands in the air.

“Of course,” Uncle Ted said, “In the book of James it says ‘Faith without works is dead.’”

“The Bible is your brains, your common sense. Your life is your prayer to God. Action, not sitting in church, crying. Saying the same thing over and over. Same song, same sermon.”

“That’s not what he said,” Grace put in.

“It’s all right,” Aunt Rexie said gently, “everybody sees things a little differently.”

“I don’t think we disagree at all. The contrary, my life has been my testimony. The teaching, the cancer research, my family, my friends.”

He raised his hand as if he were about to greet someone none of us could see and then let his hand fall slowly to his lap. Dad picked up a magazine from the end table and turning away from us, began fanning himself. It was quiet for a while.

“The Communists have taken over Nicaragua,” Uncle Ted said out of the blue.

“We let them,” Dad said softly, slowing down the fanning motion.

“We’ve been there all along,” Ted countered, “we can’t let the Communists take over.”

“It wasn’t a democracy though,” I said, “they had a dictator who tortured and killed people. Thou Shall Not Kill, you know?”

“That’s different. This is a war.” It was quiet again.

“It’s a very nice neighborhood,” Mom said a few minutes later.

“We like it,” Rexie said.

“Very nice,” Grace said.

“Fresno has changed,” Uncle Ted observed with some resignation, “this neighborhood was all orchards. Downtown is dead. Still though, it’s home.”

Dad began reading the magazine as if he were in the downtown library.

Not long after that we got up to leave. Everyone was cheery and upbeat. At the doorway, Uncle Ted looked at me.

“Marry that girl. No fooling around,” he growled with self-assigned authority. I smiled a big smile and made my eyes big, just to give him something to wonder about after we left.

After all, the Bible was my brains, my common sense, and my marriage and my life would be my prayer.

Braces and Flowers

Each time he spoke he took long pauses, as if his words had to be assembled in some separate compartment of his mind. Then, for each sentence, he would stop and wait for me to respond, either by nodding or making some verbal marker.
“Well. You probably don’t want braces. You’re… 19?”
“Next month.”
“Uh-huh. Most of my patients are finished by this time and have a nice look for dating and things.”
I was too humiliated to respond, except for a barely perceptible nod, which he caught.
“Uh-huh. So you would be 21 when they come off.”
It seemed improbable that I would be so old, so adult, in a little over two years. I couldn’t even nod. This time I just blinked my eyes.
“Yes. So, you are ready to commit to that time? It will seem very slow. But it will be worthwhile in the end.”
I could not have guessed that I would ever even get braces. It was so un-Chavoorish. How did Dad ever agree to it? Then Mom, as if she read my mind, spoke.
“We’ll pay in installments. In drips and draps.”
Mom sometimes made up her own words. But usually you could figure out what she meant. The amount and the timing of the money would vary. She probably was trying to keep Dad from finding out.
“We can talk about that later. Right now I need to know if Jack is going to commit to the time.”
He was an Armenian. I wondered which of Mom’s friends recommended him. He seemed like a nice enough guy. I thought it peculiar to even ask if I was in for the deal. We were there, weren’t we? Mom called a shot that I didn’t anticipate but that didn’t mean I was against it. Who wouldn’t want straight teeth? He was a quiet, patient man with a square face that couldn’t be read, round shoulders that suggested he was bearing some kind of emotional weight. I was trying to figure out what the weight was when I realized it was my turn to speak.
“Yeah. Yes, yes I am.”
“Ok then.”
So I began going to my orthodontist at regular intervals. I enjoyed the opportunity to drive the ’65 Impala, blasting “Crocodile Rock” on the radio, rolling into the heart of the San Fernando Valley with some kind of purpose other than going to Valley Junior College.
The receptionist there, Darlene, was amiable and was one of those good souls who realize that a job is an excellent opportunity to be human and remember the humanness of others. She existed, and so did everyone she encountered, not as mere functionaries to business, but rather as a tenderhearted emissary of good will. She never neglected her duties as a receptionist, but by putting her heart into things she became the best kind of employee one could ever hope for. Patients were greeted with joy and bid farewell with a tinge of sorrow. She could do more community building seated behind her counter in one minute than many could given a dozen hours and freedom to move about. She was Armenian and I sometimes would wonder if the orthodontist hired her mostly because she was and got this fantastic bonus out of the bargain. For Darlene, finding the good in people and letting them know was her real task.
I was an adolescent and an immature one at that, and she was considerably overweight, and so it took me a long time to see what an extraordinary person she was. I mean, I could see it, but I couldn’t see her. I had been conditioned, as most of us have been, that with the exception of a parent or grandparent, when we see someone overweight and we aren’t overweight yet, we are automatically awarded some kind of social superiority.
One afternoon we got in a conversation and somehow or other it moved toward Valentine’s Day, which had passed. I took no significance from the topic because she was not under consideration. I don’t think she raised the topic for that purpose, either. She was older than I by more than a couple of years, which at that age was considerable. I said something about flowers. Either I had sent some or received some, although I have no recollection of receiving flowers at that point in my life. There’s an outside chance that I sent someone some flowers but I have no idea to whom or why. All I remember is what she said next.
“No one’s ever sent me flowers.”
She sighed, and it was a genuine disclosure. I never took it as a prelude to anything else.
I made some kind of response and got myself out of the office, driving home mulling things over. She was coming up on her mid-20s, old enough to have received flowers at some point or another it seemed to me. That would be easy enough to solve. I had some cash and I knew the address because it was on the appointment card in my wallet. I drove straight to a flower shop in North Hollywood—might have been Conroy’s—and found a modest looking bouquet and had it sent. I wrote something on the card like, “Can’t say nobody sent you flowers anymore.”
I had no romantic intentions, and I didn’t think she’d take it that way, and she didn’t. I only thought that anyone who wanted flowers sent should get them. She was an upbeat, kind and thoughtful person, walking with her head up through this world with its crazy rules and ways. Why shouldn’t she get some flowers? I knew when I went to my next appointment I would be greeted like a hero and of course I had no objection to that.
“Thank you for the flowers!”
“Oh, you’re welcome.”
“That was so thoughtful.”
“Thanks.”
“What made you think of that?”
“I dunno. ‘Cause you said…”
“No one ever sent me flowers, that’s right.”
“Now, you…”
“Right, thank you. That meant a lot to me.”
It was the season in my life for braces and flowers and for the former I was too old and for the latter I was well, maybe too young. I couldn’t explain to her how much she contributed to lifting the spirits of others and all she wanted was some flowers and she deserved flowers and how I was madly in love with doing something nice just for the hell of it without the burden of romance involved and how badly I felt for not seeing immediately how cool she was. I couldn’t explain those things; I could barely understand them myself, but I was sure she understood everything and more.

Roses of Death

The thing about the drive to me was that I had to change up the way I got either to school or home to break up the monotony. I’d take the freeway; then streets; then half and half. There were dozens of ways to get home and I drove most of them. I was a commuter who had tried living the dorm life at Cal State Northridge, a commuter school, but it didn’t make much sense. So after the ‘75 school year I moved back home. It felt better, more mature, even though I was almost 23 and living with my parents. I commuted from Burbank to Northridge for the next two years.

One afternoon in my last semester I was headed up Devonshire, not a route I had frequented, in fact it may have been the first time, when I saw a hitch-hiker who looked like she was a high school kid too lazy to walk home. I told myself that I would protect her by picking her up. I was just curious, looking to hear someone’s story; mostly I was tired of narrating my life while listening to the radio. She was an odd little bird, very skinny, straight black hair, grimy Levi’s and a black t-shirt, it looked like she couldn’t keep her arm, hand and thumb from shaking as she stood on the street, a good three feet from the curb, waiting impatiently. I pulled the Grand Torino station wagon over. She got in the car before I could say anything. She was not a high school kid; she was around 20 and the look on her face suggested she had already been traveling a rough road.

“You care if I smoke? You don’t care. Oh, yeah, you got your cigar, I got my Camel. You don’t care, do you? No. Where you going? Long way I hope. A far way? Far away I hope.” Her words flew out of her mouth like she was spitting out spoiled milk.

“A far way; far away,” I said in a fairy tale voice, trying to match her wordplay.

“Oh good. Far away? Like how far away? Cucamonga? Oh good, Cucamonga. Cucamonga, good. Good, good, good. Goodie.” She laughed like a B actress in a bad movie.

“No, not Cucamonga.”

“Oh, too bad, not Cucamonga. Too bad, too bad. Panorama City? I hope. Tryin’ to get there. There would be good. Cucamonga another time. You get high?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well then you don’t. If you don’t, then you don’t. There are all kinds of things to take. Wanna know them? Wanna know what you can take? All kinds of things. And then you don’t sleep. Sleep, who needs to sleep? You don’t sleep for four days. Then you get like this, right? Just like this. Brandy and coke. But I mean coke, you know. But that’s nothing, that’s nothing. Dust though. That’s bad. I know dust is no good. I know it’s bad and stupid. It’s really stupid.”

“Are you hungry? You want something to eat?” I only had three dollars so I pulled into Jack in the Box.

“Hungry? Yeah, that’s good. That sounds good. Something to eat. I didn’t eat. Didn’t eat at all. For four days. Couldn’t eat. Didn’t eat. Yeah I want to eat. “

She took huge gulps of her soda and small bites of her hamburger. She didn’t seem interested in her fries. I was tapped out but I told her I wasn’t hungry and I had to not eat those fries to maintain my credibility. She ate a little less than half her hamburger and we headed back to the car and resumed our journey.

“Oh, you’re nice. You bought me some food. You want something? You like me? You want something?”

“No, that’s ok.”

“Oh, you’re nice. You bought the food. You don’t want anything back. You’re nice. Penthouse offered me $1,500 but I didn’t take it. That was before. See, I tried to, you know, I didn’t want to, like, be here. And I took a rose branch and cut my wrists. Then I got my new name. My friends gave me a new name. Wanna know my name? Roses of Death. I got a tattoo of it. Wanna see it?” She arched her back and began unbuttoning her pants.

“No, you don’t need to do that. I believe you.”

“Oh yeah. I keep forgetting, you’re nice. But my boyfriend isn’t. He knocks me around. And so that’s why we’re going to Panorama City. He doesn’t know I have friends there. He won’t know where I am.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Yeah. The rose branches didn’t work, so I got my life back. So I get high. And talk to people to see if they’re nice.”

“Are you happy?”

She considered for a long while. I put the radio on and Jackson Browne announced that he was “Running on Empty.” I snapped it off.

“Am I happy? Yes, I’m happy. The world is miserable. It’s a miserable world. Hard to be happy in a miserable world. “

“That’s true.”

“Yeah.”

She directed me not to Panorama City but Pacoima, to a bad looking neighborhood in a town so bad that it later changed its name to try and ditch its bad reputation. I dropped her off by an empty lot next to an empty building. I asked her if there was somewhere else she wanted to go but she insisted this was exactly where she wanted to be. She got out of the car, closed the door and then put half her frail body back in through the open window.

“It’s a miserable world.” She paused for a while. “I’m not happy.” Then she smiled, turned and began her trek across the trashed filled lot, walking right through the middle of it as if she were cutting it in half.

The Workout

I was in the gym yesterday. Or maybe the day before. Time gets weird. The weekdays don’t fall like dominoes, well, unless you just take five dominoes and throw them in the air. In the span of a career there is never enough time and you are always chasing it. In retirement there is an overrun of time. I take things and jumble the order. I can say I’m going to the gym at 7 in the morning and end up going in at 10:30 not even knowing what I did for three hours. I can shave or not shave and if I do I can shave after lunch, and as for lunch I can eat at 10:45 or 2:15. I can start making the bed and then stop before I finish and read the New Yorker or load the dishwasher or trim the rose bushes or pick some oranges.

But I was in the gym trying to get back on the good groove, exercise and eating right. One compliments the other and you find yourself on the right track. I got on the treadmill and did three miles in less than 50 minutes, which at the end got my pulse to 130. I was tired but I felt good as I headed to the weight room. My goal there is to do 10 sets of 10, all the time trying to up the weights or increase the number of sets. The last time I was in the weight room I quit before I hit 100 reps so I was determined to make 100 at least. I did two sets and was resting. I was thinking about my kids and their spouses and their lives and the road ahead for them. They are all bright and engaged in life, but what if there was something I should have told them while they were growing up? I might have been thinking that just living my life was sufficient. I know I must have said some insightful things, but others I just felt would be self-explanatory. What if it wasn’t? Well, they would figure things out on their own, wouldn’t they?

My mind was wandering this way and that on that highway with so many side roads and alleys when I sensed someone standing in front of me. I thought he wanted to use the machine where I was seated and started to get up.

“ Mr. Chavoor? Is that you?”

“Yes, it is.”

“How you doing?”

“I’m well, thanks.”

He appeared to be in his mid 30’s. I was guessing that he played freshman football while I was coaching. He was in the gym, after all. There was something vaguely familiar to me about him, after all these years I learn to look at the eyes, they never change, and neither do the hand gestures.

“It’s great to see you, sir. How are you? Are you still teaching?”

“Oh, I’m fine, thank you. Everything’s good. But I did retire though.”

“You were a great teacher. You were nice.”

“Oh, were you in my English class?”

“I can’t remember. I played football though.”

“Oh, yeah. Now which year? It wasn’t the ’97 team, was it?”

That was the championship team, which he would have referenced by now.

“I graduated in ’99, so….” “It was ’95 I guess.”

“Maybe. I can’t remember.”

“Too far back in the day.”

“Yeah.”

The first two years in my four-year run with freshman football were tough. We had only two or three players with skills. We didn’t get a lot of cooperation from most of them and we only won a couple of games.

“Well, those were good times though. I enjoyed coaching.”

“Yeah they were.”

He was looking more familiar. I imagined seeing him as a 14 year-old kid. Sizing him up for a position. Yes, there are kids who look like a right tackle or a linebacker or a deep safety. But what I saw in this man’s face was “too kind to be the unhinged type,” and you always want at least a couple of unhinged ones, or in nicer terms, ones who play with “reckless abandon.” The man in front of me—if my teacher radar was still working—was dialed in to the needs of others, which is good for humanity, and not so good for football.

“You’re looking good there, young man.”

“Thanks, sir. I work out and then I go in for an afternoon shift.”

“Making that money!”

“Well, not a lot but….”

“It’s good to have a job.”

“Yes sir, it is.”

“That’s good.”

“I’m a medical emergency assistant.” “That’s good. You work those 12 hour shifts?”

“I do a 24 and then two 12 hours. Then I’m off.”

“That’s tough.”

“You get used to it. The pay is ok but I’m helping my sister out.”

“That’s a good thing. Helping your sister.”

“She has six kids, so I’m just trying to, you know.”

“Yeah, no, that’s good that you…. Is the baby daddy around?”

I felt that it was safe to ask. I had built up some credit with him 20 years ago and from his use of “Sir” it sounded like I had accrued some interest

. “No, he left.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, he, well you might remember him.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, sir. Remember Manny?”

“The running back that was also a Bulldog?”

“Yes, that’s him.”

“He’s the dad to the kids?”

“All but one of them, yes.”

“And he doesn’t, I mean he’s not around?”

“That’s right he’s not around. He’s been visiting different institutions.”

I remembered Manny, all right. He had plenty of reckless abandon. He was a hard hitter. Loved contact. It made him laugh sometimes. He told me that the gang leaders had given him permission to play football rather than tend to their business. So we had Manny from 2 to 5 and then the Bulldogs, Fresno’s most notorious gang, had him the rest of the night. I told him he could not live with a foot in both worlds and he laughed. Said he’d be ok. Said they joined him and not the other way around. Said his sister was crazier than he was. Then there was that day I saw him before practice. He had a look on his face that suggested someone had or was about to do something evil and he had decided to either prevent or avenge the act. He was moving at a pretty good clip, headed for the middle set of stairs in East Hall.

“Manny was is it? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Don’t speak to me right now.”

“Manny you got practice. Come on.”

“I got business. Just. Don’t. I gotta go.”

It was scary, like he was someone else entirely, even from the bad stuff I might have guessed or already known about. The next day he attended practice and was his relaxed, smiling self again, although he did have cuts and scratches on his throat and arms.

“What the hell, man.”

“Everything’s cool, Coach. Not gonna bail on my homies, right?”

“You know if they catch you fighting you could end up getting kicked off the team.”

“Ain’t gonna happen, Coach. We weren’t on campus.”

Fighting was the norm for Manny. He missed practice one day because his dad made him fight a kid who had beat him up the week before. I gave him the same you have to stay eligible speech and he told me he couldn’t disobey his father who watched from the front porch, sipping a beer while the boys duked it out on the front lawn.

“Yeah, that’s too bad. I remember Manny, all right.”

“He was locked up and then he got out and then he got locked up again.”

“I told him he couldn’t live with a foot in two worlds.”

“Well, he isn’t.”

“No, you’re right about that.”

“Yes, sir.”

I had tried talking to Manny about what direction he wanted to take in his life. I told him he had the skills to possibly get a scholarship and go to college. I brought the youth pastor from my church to talk to him, and they got along well. Pastor Greg gave him a t-shirt from the college he attended and told him that anything could happen but he had to point his feet in the right direction. Manny had a smile that could make the hardest hard-hearted cynic become a true believer, but he had made up his mind.

“But let me tell you something, there is some good in all this.”

“What’s that?”

“You. Now, tell me your name? I’m forgetting names these days.”

“Oh, it’s ok. I know it’s been a long time.”

“I met a lot of kids.”

“Isaiah.”

“Ok. Isaiah, you are a good man for helping out. And let me tell you something else, those kids, well they need a male role model.”

“Yes, I know. I try my best.”

“And how old is the oldest?”

“Eleven. Michael.”

“Well, the thing is, he’s gonna, you know, when those hormones hit, combined with his anger about his situation with his dad….”

“Yes, I’ve noticed he’s been real moody lately.”

“Don’t quit on him. Stay on him.”

“I will.”

“You’re there for a reason. You are who you are for a reason.”

“Thank you. I will.”

A few minutes later we were on our own again, wrangling with weight machines. At first I thought I should be finished for the day, but then I knew that I still had 80 reps to go and wanted to finish more than anything. It was a good workout. I’m not sure why I asked Isaiah so many personal questions; I think teacher mode kicked in. I saw in his face the kindness and patience mixed in with the strain and doubt, and I wanted him to hear that he was doing a good, noble, and worthy thing. I was tired and wanted to hurry home to take my shower. I still had a long list of things to wonder and worry about in my leisurely life of retirement, but those worrisome feelings were starting to recede a little.

Life is messy. That’s what a college advisor once advised me. Life is messy, she said, but you do what you can. I felt as though I may have may have helped Isaiah without going over the top. Manny had many opportunities to choose a path that would have been more beneficial to his life. My part was like coaching: I could do everything but get on the field and play for them.

I resumed the workout and did so with vigor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RONzpfVotPU

The Hall Closet

He grabbed my wrist and yanked me in the direction of the hallway. I don’t remember what I said, and I don’t remember what he said about what I said. It wasn’t something I did because I never did bad things in front of him. His grip was sure and certain and painful. It was probably something I said because that was becoming my way of hanging on to my existence, my core, my very being. Without backtalk, I was completely absorbed into his world and I would vanish and not exist. It was a form of separation, even at the age of almost eight. To Dad, backtalk was defiance, disrespect and an unacceptable challenge to his immutable authority.
“Ok,” he shouted, “you wanna be like that? You’re a bad boy.”
“Frank!” my mom shouted. But she could not say no or stop or don’t.
“I…” was all I could get out. No time for apologies, and it was too late to offer one.
“Bad boys go in the closet and stay there.”
He twisted my wrist with his left hand and opened the hall closet door with his right. He was strong but when possessed with rage he had a super-strength that had malice in it.
“You go in the closet and stay there!”
He pushed me in and closed the door.
“No!”
I heard him walking away.
“Don’t come out until you know how to be good.”
My chest heaved and shook. My heart scampered like a small dog when the doorbell rings. I shook so much I thought my bones would unhinge themselves and collapse.
I was wedged between the Hoover upright vacuum cleaner and the bottles of water, which Mom had stored in the event of a nuclear disaster. I lunged forward but the heavy winter coats tossed me back. I started to panic that I wouldn’t find the door, but then I remember that I was not allowed to come out until I knew how to be good. I began to ponder that. How could it be determined? I slumped down and landed on the Electro Lux canister vacuum cleaner. It was like sitting on a cool log. I reach out in front of me and found the lining of one of Mom’s coats. I pressed the lining against my face and used it like a washcloth. I smelled her perfume and perspiration, her happiness and her worry. I stood up and found Dad’s overcoat. It smelled of perspiration, a hardline decisiveness, a steel trap of the night air, and Old Spice. There was a fur-lined sweater, too. I didn’t know Mom had anything with fur.
The hall closet was turning out to be ok. I settled in. There were things of comfort in here, and it was quiet, and the darkness wasn’t so bad as it seemed at first. I would just stay in the hall closet. Dad wouldn’t bother me, and in fact he would think I was still figuring out how to be good.
And how do you know when you’re good? Who gets to say? What if there are different ways to be good or bad? What if there are bad ways to be good, or good ways to be bad? Mom says I’m good. I even kept my earliest memory of her saying that I was good: when I went to the bathroom by myself. And I remember Dad saying, “Good boy!” when I drove in the final quarter inch of a nail he had started.
I calmed down. My heart settled in. My bones reset. I was breathing normally. The closet was ok. I was ready to stay until one of them open the door and let me out. Dad wouldn’t open the door until Saturday to vacuum the carpets. I hadn’t seen Mom open the hall closet door much. But I recalled the dilemma of “Big Bad John,” in the song by the same name. His friends were going to suffocate and die because there wasn’t enough air. I didn’t want to die; nobody was supposed to die when they weren’t supposed to, so I opened the closet door. I wasn’t going to die. Not that day and not any damn day. Not dying was certainly a greater issue than figuring out if I was good or bad or what that was or whether I was one or the other or both, but more of the former than the latter. I threw myself toward the door, bumped it and found the doorknob. The plentiful, new and unused air in the hallway greeted and blessed my efforts.
I went to the living room and saw Dad in his big chair watching TV. Mom was on the couch but not looking at the screen. They were acting like nothing had happened. I figured I could do the same. Dad said, “Well?” but didn’t say anything else. I set myself down on the blanket in front of the TV. Nothing was said until 8:30 when Dad said it was time for bed. I got up and went to my room. I got in bed and was thinking that the whole throw-you-in-the-closet routine came from somewhere else. That his dad, a man I never met, might have done it to him. But everyone said that Jacob was a kind, gentle man, and his name inspired mine so I didn’t want him to be that guy who tosses kids in a closet. But I was convinced it wasn’t an original notion for Dad, but that he had some kind of similar bad experience in childhood. Maybe his Mom did it, who knows?
What they didn’t know was after that night. I would occasionally go sit in the hall closet, just for the peace and quiet of it and to be next to their coats and the vacuum cleaners. I stopped sitting in there when spring came and it was too warm and stuffy. Or maybe because I felt I had sufficiently destroyed the horror and power of that moment of being cast off and left. I could face that and I had conquered it; I was ready for the world.

A Wink and a Smile

 

I found out at 5:30 am yesterday that Joe died. I had already cried four days earlier when I found out he had pancreatic cancer. I cried for an hour. But this morning I just sat motionless, staring at the message on the screen. The thing is, almost all my memories of Joe are from our high school days, more than 40 years ago. As far as conversations go I have more tone than text to report. Joe looked at the world with a wink and a smile. He could push back at the world we were in – you remember it – as teenagers, the ultimate 2nd class citizens, waiting our turn.
We played on the football team, the adolescent version of war comrades. That’s no disrespect to real veterans, it’s just that that’s what we were given as a means to test our courage, strength, ability to adapt and overcome difficulties, and so we took it. Joe and I were linemen. We were in the trenches.
“All the work and none of the glory,” Joe said once, “but you and me know, huh?”
“Yep,” I said.
Joe and I were happy to be on the football team, but we knew we weren’t All-League.
“Make your opponent across from you remember your number,” our coach used to say to us. But for Joe and me, they probably never did. I was skinny and Joe was a little like the Pillsbury doughboy. We did our best and we loved football. The difference was this: I was always wondering if I was fully accepted by my peers as an athlete of merit, but Joe never worried about it. To me, watching game films on Saturday morning was not unlike going to confession and the priest already knew all your sins plus some you didn’t even know about. Joe was different though; Joe was a guy who appeared to be comfortable in his own skin, and that’s not a quality you see often in people, least of all among high schoolers. When he was reprimanded for a poor or missed block he would give a long and detailed response that somehow made the conclusion that he had in fact executed his assignment if not perfectly, then pretty damn good. And if I was nearby, he’d look at me and nod his head, like “Told those guys, huh?”
Joe was at ease when the pressure was on. He was relaxed during practice, before games and even during them. We were picked to win the league, and then we lost the first four games. I got a haircut to change the luck, and I put a Bible verse in my locker. Joe came around with a Buddha doll asking us to pat the belly for good luck. I’ll never forget the look on Joe’s face—smiling and serious at the same time. A combination of derision and faith.
I didn’t hang out with him outside of football and lost track of him after high school. At least I thought I did. My friend Lenny told me that we had all had a PE class at Valley Junior College in ’72 or ’73. As Lenny remembers it, Joe was the first to realize you could reinvent yourself in college. The class was (of course) flag football and when a guy from North Hollywood High was bragging about his high school football career, Joe countered with, “Yeah, well I was an All-League running back at Burroughs and in a game against Hoover I had 165 yards and two touchdowns.” If you’re going to tell tall tales, you might as well be the star.
And then 40 years came and went. I saw Joe at reunions. He didn’t do Facebook and there was something about it that had a Joe-like quality to it. But really, he was one of those guys for whom you just carry a favorable impression and upon hearing his name your heart is lightened and you feel good and happy just to hear his name. I have other stories but I think it’s quite a legacy to say that hearing one’s name was an uplifting experience. Joe was a no bullshit kind of guy, but not in a mean way, just in an honest way. And if he decided you were all right, then he was an encourager. So this is going to be the end of my tribute to Joe. The only other phrase I can think of is to say that Joe had a kind of whimsical aplomb that put people at ease.
Thanks, Joe. I’m glad I knew you. May God comfort your family.
That verse I had had in my locker was Philippians 3:14 – “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Joe got there ahead of me, and chances are he’s sitting around telling stories with a wink and a smile.