It was dark out so it must have been pretty late. I was alone, just how I liked it. Four pink wheels on each foot with the matching pink laces, the rest white. I loved my skates. That night, like many other nights, I spent my time skating circles around the tree that stood in between the apartment complex building. Going faster and faster, how fast could I go? Landing on the bars of the windows of the ground floor apartments whenever I went too fast. And since that was often I made it into a game. Go around the tree, swing yourself towards a window from the tree, grab onto the bars, don’t fall! The excitement inside my head juxtapoxed with the silence outside. It was late and no one stayed out this late. It wasn’t safe. But I loved the cold air breeze. My mom and brother upstairs, home, getting ready for bed. “Ya metete!” my mother would call out. Make me, I thought to myself as I continued skating. There was a small dip in the far corner. Stop at the top and let the momentum take you down, turn quickly at the bottom and skate back up. Go faster! And if I didn’t turn fast enough I’d land on the fence.
Growing up in Compton I took care of myself and my younger brother. As a single mother, my mom worked all day and didn’t have time to watch over us. She worked as the apartment manager, her office was just on the other side of where we played, yet it felt so far. We weren’t allowed to visit her at work. The owner didn’t like us playing in there and my mom could lose her job. Looking after myself meant having to know right from wrong at a very early age, making decisions for myself and my brother. That night I decided I didn’t have to go in. I would stay outside skating until I decided I wanted to go inside. And I wouldn’t need to go in for a while. I brought a grocery bag with snacks outside with me, so I wouldn’t have to run inside if I got hungry and risk being locked in. She could call for me as much as she wanted and I would always win, but if she got her hands on me my night was over. I took my orange out from the plastic bag. Smelled the citrus in my hands, an even stronger smell once I started peeling. Residue of the cascara stuck in my nails. I hated that part. It felt sticky, stuck, squishy. The only way to get it out and off my nails was to use my teeth. I could taste the dirt coming out with the peel, spit it out onto the concrete floor.
I’d play a game with my orange. Imagine, what if I didn’t have teeth? would I still be able to eat it? I dug into my orange covering my teeth with my lips and pretending I didn’t have any. Made a mess of the juice. The acidic juice dripping down and landing on my overalls. I loved wearing those overalls. Blue jean colored overalls with a sort of grayish tone to them. Spots of white as if bleach had fallen on them, but thats how they were suppose to be. They went great with my skates. I’d wear one shoulder strap undone and hanging down, the metal clasp hitting my leg as I skated. I’d wear them with a white long sleeve, to match the bleach stains, to keep me warm when I stayed out late. Played another game with my orange, peeled the skin off the individual pieces leaving the bare fruit, tiny pieces, shaped like tear drops, that stuck together. It amazed me how if you took a piece off, the rest still stuck together and everytime I took off a piece the fruit broke a different way. I finished my fruit playing this game until I was just left with the skins, the peel, and the seeds. Now what to do with this? There wasn’t a trash can around and I couldn’t just throw it on the ground. As the apartment manager my mom was always cleaning. Yelling at the neighborhood kids for dropping their food wrappers where ever they stood, finding trash inside the bushes. So I couldn’t litter like the other kids. That was my mom who had to pick up the trash.
I went to the far corner, on the opposite side of where I slide down the dip, and dug into the ground. I didn’t like the orange peel residue in my nails, but the cold dirt was different. It didn’t feel dirty. It stayed relatively smushed together, probably because the moist air kept it that way. A dark, dark brown. Darker than my skin. That was rare to see. I was the darkest kid around. And it didn’t help that my brother was so light. My mom would say that he was her milk and I was her coffee. She loved her caffeine. I dug a small hole with my hands, a home for my orange that wasn’t really an orange anymore, but if I planted what was left maybe another orange would grow. That’s what I thought to myself. I placed inside that home the peel, the skins, and the seeds. In that exact order, the same order I took them off the orange. I patted chunks of that moist dirt on top, closing off the hole. In there they would be safe. No one would know they were there, just me. And if I took care of them, if I watered their home and watched over them, maybe an orange would grow. It sounds kind of silly now that I think about it. I didn’t think an orange tree would grow, I thought I’d go out one day and there would be a big juicy orange growing from that spot where I had made that home. And I would eat that orange and do it all over again, making a second home, and then another and another. Creating a new thing from scraps of an old.
I finished patting down the hole. Starred down at my hands smeared in dirt and tried to rub it off. The dirt had mixed with the juice from my orange and made my hands sticky with dirt. That didn’t feel good and I wanted it off. If I rub it on my clothes my mom will yell at me. No, I’ll go inside now. My adventure is over for tonight. I skated over to the staircase that led to my home, took a seat on one of the steps to strap off my skates. Skates in one hand and plastic bag, with the left over snacks, in the other. Time to go inside. Walking up the steps trying not to lose my balance. If I had a free hand I could hold on to the rail like I like to whenever going up or down stairs. I’ve always hated stairs. I used to think I was afraid of heights, but that wasn’t it. I’m fine being up high, fine looking down from up high. It’s the stairs that I hate. Something about them. Maybe its that they make me feel off balance, like I could fall, lose control.
I made it up the stairs and walked over to the apartment. The farthest door at the end of the corridor. Walking inside the first thing I saw was my mom in the kitchen making us something to eat. Nothing that took too long to make. She had a long day at work. Quesadillas were always a good guess. I made my way over to the bathroom, stepping over the toys my brother had been playing with on the floor. Washed my hands and watched the brown water go down the drain. My brother would be at the table already eating. He was always served first, and back then I never paid much attention to it. We had a ritual with our quesadillas. Grabbed the glass cup full of sugar from the middle of the table and placed it next to our plates. Took the quesadilla and pulled it open, the hot cheese fighting to stay together, watched the strings of cheese stretching. Placed the open quesadilla, now more of a tortilla with cheese on top, back on our plates. Reached inside the sugar jar and our hands came back out in a fist full of sugar that we opened over our tortillas with cheese on top. Closed it back up, our quesadillas came back. A cheesy, sweet dinner. A very late dinner. We always ate dinner this late. After my mom was done working , and after we were done playing.
After dinner it was bath time. My mom bathed my brother, he was too little to wash himself. But I showered myself. At six years old I could wash myself. I could and I would, she didn’t offer help. My mom was in the bedroom dressing my brother for bed. And although she could have checked in on me next door in the bathroom she didn’t. She wanted me to be independent. As independent as possible. A tiny little grown up. In the middle of the day, when I fed my brother and myself I would put the tortillas inside a plastic bag and heat them in the microwave. Let the cheese melt in the closed torillas and later add the sugar. I dressed myself for bed and walked into the bedroom. My mom lay in the middle of our big bed, like always, with my brother on her left. He hugged her, held onto her like he always would for those few minutes that she was home with us. I climbed in, lay on her right side. Held her too.
For those couple of minutes that we lay in bed watching tv, holding onto Mom, we were a family. And we’d fall asleep knowing we would be holding our mom the whole night. For hours we would have her all to ourselves. She wouldn’t leave. We knew where she was, right next to us. And in the morning when it was time to wake up we knew she would still be there, to wake us up and give us breakfast. She would never leave us before giving us breakfast. That was a given. So we could fall asleep tranquilos, knowing that we still had time with our mom in the morning. Knowing that we could still see her a bit longer before she left. Buenas Noches, buenas noches, buenas noches. The three of us would say to each other. I closed my eyes, arms over my mom. Good night.
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I have a tendency to be stubborn and I seem to like it.
