Pulling Back

I took my foot off the brakes and slammed the accelerator to the floor. The car engine roared, but it barely inched forward. I pressed even harder. My teeth gritting. I thought if somehow I could bend the pedal, even crush it through the floor boards, it would add enough juice to get this heap of junk car going.

Okay “heap of junk” might be too harsh. Our old Oldsmobile back in the day, now that was a “piece of junk”. That thing was one of those boxy chrome behemoths that looked like it wanted to be a Cadillac. Yeah, like a pimp-mobile, but no. It was this light green colored car any reputable ho managing fool would stay away from. There was no sense of novelty being in that car. It was pure embarrassment. The car could barely accelerate. From 0 to 60, it would take a good 30 seconds, and that would be on a good day, on a straight leveled street, with 93 octane gas. Downhill, even better, but uphill… that was a huge problem. And in the neighborhood I grew up in, creeping cars meant one thing, a drive by. Of course, that would be cool if everyone ran at the sight of our car. But no. Humans have that stupid instinct, like you what see in the movies, to make sure it really was a drive by even if it was too late. They would wait there, squinting. The impatient ones would get off their porches and meet us halfway on their yards. They had that much time. Seriously. I wished my mom would gun them down as the car meandered by. John Woo style and all. But no, adolescent kids never get their wish. It was always the opposite. So there was our car driven by mom, her head, with her big honey brown framed glasses, peering over the steering wheel. While my brothers and I sank in our seats, even to the lower feet sections, where I fit perfectly, doing what we could only do against the laughter, complain.

“I hate this car.”

I had to slam on the brakes. The car was drifting backwards. The clutch wasn’t catching or something. Plus I could smell too much exhaust. This car was new. Everything inside was electronic, the windows, the seats, the transmission, even the fuel injection. Still with all this technology, the car doesn’t even go or even acknowledge something’s wrong. It was a metal box with an engine that’s eating up gas.

I tried the same thing again. Foot off the brakes and accelerate. This time, it slipped back even more. Several feet. I went back to the brakes. They didn’t hold like before. I could still feel the car driftng back. I pressed on them harder and heard the pads grind. The car started to pick up speed backwards. This was ridiculous. This hill was steeper than before. Soon, it was off the road and into the woods. Trees we passing by as I continued pressing as hard as I could on the brakes. I was too scared to steer. I didn’t want to turn around. I braced my head against the car seat anticipating.

I watched the street shrink ahead of me. The green forest closed in.

Bang.

room – 4 fin.

The swing door took a few bounces as it closed. The small suspension resisted four times before allowing the glass door to close behind me. It clanged as the aluminum frame hit the door frame. The last of the air in the overhanging suspension hissed out. The house was quiet. Like it was before.

The air was calm and smelled like a rain was eminent.

I proceed upstairs and down the hall. Toward my mom’s room. I didn’t hesitate or even walk any faster. My normal pace. The door was still open.

She wasn’t inside.

I checked the other rooms. My room. My grandma’s room. No one.

I went down the hall into the bathroom.

It was a kinda a small bathroom, for guests, but was also large enough to have a shower. You walk in and the toilet is right there in front of you. The sink and wall sized mirror was on your right. The shower was on your left. Some cheesy opaque shower curtain hung closed. The lights were dim. I flicked the power switch next to the mirror a few times. The light in the center of the ceiling remained a dim orange. Even when I had flicked it off.

A swarm of black liquid appeared in the mirror. I moved thick and slow in a clockwise rotation. Kinda like a whirlpool. It felt brighter than the light. Not sure how it was possible. Maybe it became more predominant than anything in there. Not needing light to tell me it was there. It’s presence was the swirling it made known to my mind. Not my eyes. I knew it was there, moving closer toward me. I darted out.

I ran to the front door. It was still open but the glass screen still shut.

The red Camero was outside. My brother was home.

My blood boiled.

Where the hell was he?

I ran downstairs. The fucking house was acting up again.

Our basement was finished with one big rec room and a couple small rooms. The laundry room was at the end of the stairs. I looked in the big rec room on the right. The room my brother deemed his. He wasn’t there. I went to the other side and checked the two smaller rooms. The windowless rooms had no one. Even the laundry room had no one. I couldn’t believe how angry I was getting. I could feel myself biting down on my tears. I ran upstairs into the living room and threw back the blinds. His car was there. Right in the drive way. That meant he was here. He had to be here. Or even my other brother. Maybe he borrowed the car. Someone drove that thing and parked it there. So someone had to be here. Here to help me out of this madness.

But no one was home. No one but me and this damned house.

Driving Beautiful

She is beautiful, very beautiful. You didn’t have to take my word for it either. Just look at everyone trying to talk to her. I’m sure I’m right. I even overheard a few of them calling her that – beautiful. So it has to be right. This is beauty. For me, I guess beauty meant a lot of things and it involved how she made me feel. Like every time she smiled at me, it made me giggle inside, though often I didn’t know why. I just wanted to smile and laugh along. Just one of those things. When you don’t know how to respond or react. Even when she goes off on one of her topics, I just sit and watch everyone as they are engulfed in what she says. Every once in a while, I’ll look over to her and her animated spirit describing the situation. Her arms slicing through the air like a conductor. And whenever its about music, stand back. There was no dance move she didn’t know. And she wasn’t afraid to show it. No matter what she does, everyone would end up laughing. And her laughter lit up the room. Yet, I never understood what she talked about. It was all grownup talk. But apparently, it was very funny. So I just laughed along.

“Oh, there’s your mom,” she ruffled my hair. Hopped down off the counter. “See you back here Thursday?”

I gave a nod.

I waited down at the arcades when mom was in class. She would drop me off in the campus library, but eventually I’d make it to the arcade. The entire school was in this one building. Not much to explore. Only places I could go without being yelled at was the library and the arcade. I never quite knew what the fuss was all about; something about bad parenting. I never paid attention. It would me decades later to understand.

“Thank you,” mom said with her bad accent.

“Not a problem dear. He’s such a well behaved man.” She gives me a wink. I try to hide behind mom’s leg.

“So sorry,” mom went on. “Thank you.”

After several apologies, we finally make it out; outside to the car, an old light-green Oldsmobile. It was a mess. Well according to mom, anyways. My brother said it was my fault. But of course, it was his mess too. I hopped into the passenger seat looking for my toy on the floor. Didn’t take long for me to find it. I always had it in the same place, under the Styrofoam Big Mac container. The Whip-It was a deviation from the Rubik’s Cube that my brothers never let me play with. This was better though. Smaller and easier to carry around. And of course, I hides well under all the mess. So they couldn’t take it. By this time I start playing with it, we were already on the main road.

“Hungry?” mom asks in our language.

I nod. And boy do I nod. I hardly paid attention to my stomach. I was used to the growling.

Then it dawned on me. It was late, around 10pm. If she was going to get some food for us, I knew where we were going to go; my favorite place, Church’s Fried Chicken. And I knew what we were going to order, my favorite, that’s right, shrimp fried rice. Big whopping pieces of shrimp, chunky diced onions, green peas, and toasty warm rice. And yeah, it took me about a decade later to realize, Church’s only served fried chicken.

Mom looked tired. I could barely see over the door. Plus it was dark outside. So I sat and stared at her. Her hair tied up. Strands of hair had gotten lose. She didn’t smile. Her face was fixed on the road. I thought about the arcade lady and if my mom was beautiful? She didn’t make me laugh as much as the arcade lady. She sure wasn’t as animated when she talks. The only arm motions she does is when she points at me when she’s mad. No, so far she’s not falling into my definition. Then again, dad says she’s beautiful all the time. There’s got to be some reasoning for that. Besides, dad was hardly wrong. I guess there’s something about beauty I haven’t yet figured out.

“What are you staring at?” asks my mom. The side of her lips curl up. Her eyebrows rose.

I smile and shake my head.

“Yo-yieng,” she says, pinching my leg with a grin.

I never understood why “crazy” was a term of endearment in my family. But then, I never quite understood our family.

I squirmed and let out a laugh. She laughed too and pinched my cheeks.

“So cute,” her words eek’ed out of her clenched teeth.

She turned back to the road. This time, she wore her smile. I smiled too. Then it was back to my puzzle.

Minutes later we were there. Pulling into Church’s. Sign was off, but the workers were still there. I beat my mom inside. I waited by the kitchen entrance for her. In no time she was there. She walks right pass me to the talk to the owners. They do their normal greetings. I could only figure out the other people were older. My custom has a way of addressing people. Depending on who you were and who you’re talking to, you say something different. Something about age, then something about family, and which side they were on. It’s confusing. I just call everyone the same thing. Some people laughed. Others looked angry. I was just a kid. Stubborn one, who didn’t want to learn.

That moment all I wanted was a meal. You could hear it frying up back there. Mom led me back to a table and put me up on a stool. My feet dangled. One of the workers came over with a container of fried rice. It was overflowing. He said something to me. But I acted like I didn’t hear him. I didn’t like talking to people I didn’t know. Even though, we go there like twice a week.

“Thank you,” I say under my breath as I got that look from mom.

He hands me a spoon. I glance over to my mom. She nods approvingly and starts talking to the workers. I tear open a few pockets of soy sauce. I love soy sauce. It’s magical. It makes bowls of plain white rice so much more enjoyable. The packet barely empties out before I start eating. This is the best. First dibs before my brothers could get to it. They always complain about there were hardly any shrimp. Not sure what they are talking about. There’s plenty in here. About a quarter of this box is shrimp. I stuff my mouth with two or three of them, before trying to fit a spoonful of rice in. Oh I had to close my eyes and remind myself to chew.

After a while, mom comes over. She says something that I could only translate to “sky”, “dirt”, and “uy”. Never found out what that last part was. But in any case, she says it whenever I do something wrong. I figure having grains of rice on my shirt and face is ‘something wrong’. She wipes it off onto her hands. Careful not to spill anything on the floor. I see the workers had all stopped. Actually, they all stopped working when she came in. Everyone just came to the table and listened to her. Maybe dad is right after all. Maybe mom is beautiful. Look at them. Not saying a word. Just watching her tend to me. When I’m all clean, she cups my face, and calls me her little slob. I smile.

She only took a spoonful before closing the container of fried rice. I think we’re done eating. This is always how it was. Never enough time. So of course I always try to speed down as many spoonfuls as I could. Not going to hear me complain. I did great. She waved and said bye. Her mouth still full. And just like that we were out the door. Back into the car and back to my puzzle and back out on the road.

I gaze back up at mom. This time food coma was taking over.

She notices me.

At the next stop light, she pulls the seat back.

I lie down facing her, trying to keep my eyes open.

“Go to sleep.”

She kisses me on the forehead.

I start to doze off.

The Oldsmobile chugs along the road. The suspension is so soft, like a huge cushion. I feel every fault in the road as a little tap on my pillow. Texan roads are always flat and long. Making the Oldsmobile a cradle rocking me to sleep. The only parts that interrupted the gentle cycle were turns. And for some reason, mom was doing plenty of turning tonight. My eyes slowly open. Mom looked different. I never seen her look like this before. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t sad. It wasn’t beautiful. I heard something outside the car. Words. Definitely words. Didn’t understand anything except for “baby” which my brothers call me. There it is. Over and over again. I think someone is calling me. At the next stop light, I lean up in my seat. Raise my eyes over the door and look out the window. There was a car next to us on the right. A guy is driving . He looked older than my brothers, but younger than dad. He had the window down calling out my name along with other stuff. I caught the word “beautiful”. Me? That’s odd. I didn’t think I was beautiful. Here we go with another thing I didn’t know how to respond to. So I smiled and waved. I didn’t know him. I guess he didn’t know me either. He took one look at me and drove off really quickly around the curb. The car was loud.

I  look back over to mom.

She stared at the car off in the distance. Then at me. She smiled, held her eyes closed for a moment, and then opened them. Her eyes glistened. Just then, I felt a little giggle in my tummy. I guess they’re right. Mom is beautiful and this is how I react to it. And of course, decades later I finally realized everyone had reacted differently to beautiful. Though, I have to say, mine didn’t deviate too far from the original feeling.