Where to Start: The Mutterings of an Angeleno Out to Discover his Homeland; Morning Edition

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Mutterin'
Pigeon at Glendale boulevard, likely thinking the same thing as yours truly: Where shall I find today’s free meal?

I’ve found my trade and no matter what line of work I pick up over the next few years, I know what I’ll be doing on the side, while I prepare my platanos fritos for breakfast, as I wait for the train underground at Vermont and Santa Monica, and during the minutes before I go to sleep: I’ll be working on my stories. In fact, I’m already doing this, and I’ve been doing so since the moment I first picked up a pencil to write about the city of L.A., when it was a cruel place for a frustrated teenager such as the one I used to be not all too long ago.

Nearly ten years later, every other moment I don’t spend job hunting is a moment I spend researching the latest arrivals on the scene. Whether it’s a farmer’s market in East Hollywood, a free concert in Downtown L.A., arts and craft in Boyle Heights, food-trucks in Koreatown, weird and wacky meetups at Venice, or anything else in between or beyond, I’ll be there.

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With Demons in the Room

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It’s early evening on a Friday, as the night shift begins to unravel at The House of Pies in Los Feliz. I don’t wait long for my old friend, hardly having a moment to get settled in before he arrives to the other side of the booth. I get up to greet him, and we shake hands, hug hurriedly, and dash towards our seats, moving in rhythm with the clank of forks and knives dancing on plates nearby. Per usual, Jared starts things off with a joke.

“I feel like I’m going to get whacked sitting here with you.”

I smile. It’s true that for a moment, as we take our seats across from one another, there’s a slight uneasiness in the air, as if we both suspect we might be meeting with more of a stranger than a friend for the evening. It has been a few months, after all. But on the contrary, it takes just a bit of running with the joke to see that neither of us will be getting whacked for the evening. At least, not this time. It also doesn’t take long before we realize the real culprit behind our tension: time itself.

“We got the same amount of hours in the day that we did ten years ago.” Jared tells me,

“But then we don’t.”

At twenty-four years old, Jared is the “bread-winner” for a family of four and a half: himself, his partner Jennifer, his five-year old son Adam and three-year old daughter Ashley, and a five-year old Maltese named Jack. Jared works five days a week at an office in North Hollywood, and often chases overtime, though more recently OT’s become less available than it was just a few months ago. At the same time, in the last couple of months, the higher ups at work have increased the pressure on him to meet expectations.

“The company’s doing well,” he tells me, “but it makes things more corporate.”

It’s amazing how far we’ve both come, the two of us turned into the “nice guys” we used to mock in our youth, when we were puny sixth graders pumping our fists in the air to Rage Against the Machine or Nine Inch Nails rather than standing for the pledge of allegiance; we were quite the punks, then, or renegades who thought we had all the time in the world.

Ten years later, we’re both just citizens, humbled, and just trying to get by, even while fearing that with each new step we walk further away from the rebels we once swore we’d be for life.

Jared puts it another way:

“The other day I asked myself: Am I turning into an old man?”

The question weighs on me. More than once I’ve been accused of being more of an old-timer than a twenty-three year old.

“I’m not turning into an old man,” he says. “But I am maturing.”

As if the word enhances too much, he lets out a sigh and eases back into his seat while the waitress approaches the booth. When she arrives, he orders a seasoned liver and an Arnold Palmer. I get my usual: a blueberry pie with ice cream on top. No drink besides water. Thank you.

“At the same time,” he tells me, “I’ve still got so much to learn; I’m a terrible father and husband sometimes.”

For one, he explains, 5-year old Adam still has to remind Jared not to curse. A habit he’s tried to get rid of for years. For another, things are in a tough spot with Jennifer again. The latter, he believes, is the result of many things, but most of all it’s got a lot to do with two fundamentally different ways of looking at marriage.

In Jared’s view: “[in marriage] men tend to put everything in compartments,” with a box for family, a box for friends, and a box for individuality. In turn, men can “do” each of these things separately. Women, on the other hand, they see things more wholly, without boxes for separate things. Friends, family, and their identity: it’s all one to them. For Jared, this makes things difficult when the weekends arrive and he’s got a bit of time for himself.

The choice is his to make: should he play the father, the loyal husband, or should he go out and let off a little bit of steam? In truth, he prefers the latter. And he doesn’t hold back about it:

“Honestly…I like to drink, and when I can, I [even] like to do drugs.”

He describes this taste with insight, saying it’s something like a demon in the room that he’s got to acknowledge. A demon, he elaborates, that pays just as much rent as the guy at work five days a week, who wants to go out for a spin, get f***d up, and just burn.

What’s more, although this demon is enough to handle in and of itself, the truth is that it’s simply not the only one in the room.

Jared also has a history with addiction, and while he’s been better about his alcohol over the last few years, he admits he’s still got an addictive personality. Not too long ago, this made him ashamed, and led to harrowing fights between him and Jennifer. At one point, Jared left and lived in his car for nearly four months trying to figure things out. Adam was only a year old.

Since returning home to resume his role, however, things haven’t gotten as rough. While he and Jennifer still clash, they’ve both gotten better at working through it with each other, even if it’s not always pretty.

“It’s raw.”

Still, Jennifer wishes it’d be otherwise. While she can appreciate her husband letting off some steam every now and then, she just doesn’t harbor the same tension he does and worries that he can get hurt. More than anything though, she worries about Adam and Ashley. But this is where despite their differences, she and Jared fundamentally share the same feelings: they love their little ones, and will sacrifice anything for them.

“I take pride in being a father,” he tells me.

And I don’t doubt him. Earlier this year Adam started kindergarten. And next year, Ashley will start pre-K. Each time I visit the family, Adam shows me a new set of Lego toys, while Ashley, who’s more guarded and protective of her home, makes sure I play nice with him. They’re both amazing.

Back at the booth, my blueberry pie arrives. In only a moment, the rich oozing sweetness of the first bite reminds of why I love this place so much, and how it’s been a while. I gobble it up in minutes. Across from me, Jared finds his liver to be “surprisingly pretty good.”

And I’m glad he came out to play the friend this evening, knowing he’s got so much on his plate all at once these days.

Machito: Mas Que Muy Bueno!

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Rdio has my deepest gratitude for featuring this brilliant portal into the historic Afro-Cuban jazz scene; a heart-throbbing celebration of life and love. My favorite track so far would have to be “Tin Tin Deo” for taking a cozy party of instruments and turning them into a declarative, triumphant ensemble with a confidence that at once commands awe and respect. The frolicking only gets started there, however, as “Mambo” gleefully shows. Every track on “Mambo Mucho Mambo” takes all of life up to its most artistic with inimitable genius. The album is a gift, a gem, and anyone who finds it is in for a party wherever they are. This morning at home, I certainly am!

On Metro’s Gold Line in Los Angeles

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One day I’m sitting on the train on the way to school, and I’m trying to write a poem. Beside me there is a Mexican-American mama sitting down, and next to her sits her son, a child of about probably seven or eight years. We ride in relative silence, as is common for the Gold Line’s commute, when from out of nowhere, this big, drunk, cholo steps onto the train.

Now, consider that it’s morning time, and everything around me is sort of just crispy new. This is particularly true on the Gold Line, which commutes from East Los Angeles to Pasadena, and which I catch downtown. Downtown is just the best place to start the commute on because from there the train goes through Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, and on to Pasadena, with hundreds of streets in between that make for the most colorful ride; the boulevards are filled with murals, graffiti, prancing middle schoolers in uniform, and a myriad of more color, radiance, and vigor through the sunlight.

And this morning, I’m thinking about the relation of these things to the universe.

Just moments before the mother, her child, and the cholo consume my periphery, I’m thinking about how every single person I ever share a moment with, whether they’re friends, strangers, acquaintances or enemies, or whether they’re even people for that matter–regardless of who or what it is–everything and everyone around me is just a reflection of the beautiful, star-studded galaxy. In turn, as the Gold Line and every one of its passengers glide through each of L.A.’s different channels of concrete and dirt, we’re just like meteors cutting through time and space on the way to who knows where.

Just what this means, I’m not quite so sure, but in an effort to find out more, I begin to examine the scene. I’m on one of the train’s three-sided seats, which are adjacent to the doors, while the mother and her son are on the two-sided seats facing my right cheek. The cholo, on the other hand, is sitting down on the other three-sided seat just across from me. I begin my exploration with a quick scan of the boy’s face on the right.

Instantly, he returns my glance to me. For a moment, I remember being his age, with my own brother and mother on the bus, and how I often looked around at all the bigger people around us, wondering what on earth they meant to me. I guess that hasn’t changed much, even after all this time.

I then wonder if I’m being a cool role model–as I attempt–to type away the time on my laptop throughout the commute; you know, cool role-model style, the way those hip, older college kids seemed when you were younger? When you kinda wished that somehow they could give you some advice or maybe play your older brother or sister for a little bit?

But back to the boy: I remember how when I was his age, laptops weren’t the big thing, but how the Gameboy was the gizmo everybody wanted. But when he’s my age, I wonder, what will the next big thing be by then?

I’m hoping I look like one of those role models as I sit there with that custom, nonchalant look on my face. The one that says I’m in society right now, and the one that says I’m in control.

I also wonder if when he’s twenty-one there’ll be another transit innovation that he’ll get to ride in, the way I went from taking Metro’s hot and crowded Number 2 bus through the bumpy, dilapidated roads of L.A. in my younger years, to gliding in the spacious and air-conditioned Gold Line on smooth electric rails towards Pasadena in my later ones. Then I kinda wonder if he’ll even care.

And mind you, only about two to three minutes have gone by. The ride has only just begun, and I’m still quite a few stops away from school. At this point, since the little boy’s presence has spiraled me into thought, the face that’s in society starts to wear off, and I start gaining this look of confusion, as if I just caught the first whiff of a fart, or, in this case, the whiff of a bold realization: I think I’m just about to tie this kid’s existence back to the importance of the universe and the way that this means something to me, when from out of nowhere, the big, drunk cholo blurts out:

“HEY IS HE YOUR SON?”

I completely forgot about him. He’s sitting on the seat opposite of mine.

The mother looks at the cholo and then back to me, and it’s interesting. The thing is, despite the cholo’s interruption, my mind is still on the whole spiel about the universe. But in addition, my mind is also wrapped up in weeks of fierce historical literature—namely, Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America. Maybe it’s because of Galeano’s book that I decide to get all One With the People about my response to the cholo’s question.

“He’s not my son,” I say, “but he is my brother. Through history, man.”

“Orale! That’s wassup dawg!” he says.

From this, I gather that the cholo is cool people and that there’s no reason to be alarmed. The thing is, most of the time, drunk folks on the train can mean a bit of trouble. They’re kinda loud and unpredictable, and they just may speak to you or insult you or fall over and crush you somehow. However, in the moment I sense that the cholo isn’t going to be one of those cases, I realize the ride is going to be cool, not just for me, but for the mother and her boy too.

And maybe I’m a little full of myself, but my mind warps and tells me that I’m responsible for this smooth ride now, because now the boy in front of me isn’t going to have some disturbing memory about the unruly cholo who was set off by something that one kid said. Now, it’ll have just been another trivial train ride he probably won’t even remember far into the future. Cool.

After our brief exchange, I figure it’s over with and that the cholo will be quiet now, since that’s usually how interactions on the train go: if you speak with people, you do it in a quick and polite manner, and then you let it go. Considering this, I motion to get back to my blank screen to continue failing to write the poem, when again, before I can input another word, I notice the cholo’s hand extended out to me from across the corridor.

He’s giving me props!

And the thing is, anyone who knows anything about L.A. knows you can’t turn down props. In the words of Denzel Washington: “that s***’ll get you killed out here”.

So I accept his props and meet his hand with my own.

Cool.

Again, I think that’s all there is to it. I try to get back to my screen, when the cholo speaks again:

“You know, man! That’s wassup to think like that, to think we’re all connected!”

Here, I smile. And I’m going to be honest, it’s one of those loud, eccentric smiles; one of those smirks that says I knew it! Because in the instance I understand that the big drunk cholo hears exactly what I’m saying, my theory is affirmed.

Picture it this way: I’m in an Abercrombie shirt and some skinny red toddland pants, with converse All-Stars on my feet. I have a backpack laying on the seat next to mine, and the blank page on the screen of my laptop. Across from me, the big drunk cholo, who’s probably in his early thirties, is dressed in a white muscle shirt and checkered shorts, with long socks and roughed up sneakers. He’s also got that cholo’s scruffy beard, and tattoos riddled all over his arms.

Beside us, the young boy is clad in a classic mother’s choice, i.e., in a nameless bright shirt and some generic denim pants. For a moment, it reminds me of all the wacky clothing that my mom got for me and my brother back in the day. Long before Levi’s or Abercrombie or any of those other brands existed in our little minds, when each of us simply wore what Mama could afford, and when for the most part, it was cool; I mean, it’s not like we were gangsters or college students with images to maintain or anything. We were just alive back when she chose our clothes for us, and that was enough.

Next to the boy, the mother’s style is also reminiscent of my own mom’s from back in the day; she’s in a light orange blouse and a falda, or the famous regal Mexican skirt.

Now, why do the clothes matter? Although I don’t consider myself a fashionista, I’ll admit that most days I do like to believe I represent an aspiring young scholar for my community. On the other hand, the big, drunk cholo represents what in another state of mind I would have thought of as a “down man,” or someone down on their luck, resources, and more.

He reminded me of one of those childhood friends or cousins who had a child of his own sometime during his teens, or one of those handful of friends’ brothers who you probably weren’t too excited about nodding your head to say what’s up to when going back home from school later that day. He’s also, well, drunk at eleven in the morning. An old voice in my mind would scold him for the last bit.

“It’s because of fools like that that we stay behind,” the voice would judge.

Now, I’m not so sure, though, because of the young boy.

In many ways I think to myself that the youngster next to the cholo and I cannot be labeled like either of us; at just seven or eight years old–whose mom still picks his clothes for him–everything which got el cholo and I to our present day through our youth still lies ahead for the young dude; as if, he’s still free.

Before I can finish this thought, the cholo goes on: “You know man,” he says, “I gangbang or whatever, and I’ve seen some shit, but I respect people who think like you man.”

After this, he tells me his name is Robert, and that he’s from an East L.A. gang. I thank him for his compliments, and we start talking some more about oneness, about the people.

“It’s a complex history, we all got different roles,” I tell him. “But it’s important, man.”

“Word up!” Robert shoots back. “That’s some real s*** right there!”

And well, I guess here I can take a moment to explain it all. See, if The Open Veins of Latin America says anything to me, it’s that history’s one of the most difficult treks in the universe for an individual. The train, for example, is comprised of one main group: that is, poor or working class people, and there are reasons for our poverty; there is an entire train ride through centuries of existence which created the circumstances around us, including Robert’s drunkenness at 11 in the morning.

It’s a system of causes, an entire network of them which follow Robert and I, and which follow mom and her mijo too.

Tough things indeed following us, which definitely almost get me down, until Robert surprises me again.

“And I’ll tell you something man: I know I’m drunk–I know I’m f***ed up! But I also know I don’t want to see my kids grow up like me, man. I do want something better for them!”

The admission excites him, and makes him roar out with laughter. Other passengers start to look in our direction, their faces wrought with concern. I just smile, thinking it’s just Robert’s turn to rock the microphone is all. Mom knows, and so does the little brother as we all look on ahead to the next stop.

Outside, the sunlight kisses the train, and I can almost touch the radiant beams illuminating from its metal as we glide through the rails approaching Pasadena. When the train approaches the South Pasadena stop it begins to slow down, and I take a glance at the next stop’s flock of passengers, noticing, among them, two sheriffs getting ready to board. I look over to Robert, who catches them too, and he swallows his laughter, replacing it with a mischievous smile.

And it’ll be fine, I tell myself, as I look away from Robert and get back to the screen.

J.T.