Why I Don't Write Children's Literature

by Gary Soto

  Now David and I were headed toward my truck. I asked him, a high school teacher, what he was going to do over the weekend. Grade papers, he answered, shoot rubber bands at the window, yawn, dap away tears of boredom. When he asked me the same question, I answered, “See if I can get up to two hundred sit-ups in less than five minutes.” I had been promising myself stomach dimples before it was too late — at sixty-two, many grains of sand had run through the hourglass. The alarm clock was ringing: Do it now! Get those dimples — and enlarge those apples in your biceps too!

  We reached the truck; no ticket on the windshield. We headed off toward the Bay Bridge, both of us talking about how our wives love jewelry. “Carolyn has what she calls a bracelet trough,” I said. “Does yours?”

  David appeared confused. “What?” he asked. “Man, I forgot to pee.”

  “You know,” I began, “My wife likes her bling. Me, I prefer clothes.” I began to expand on this point, describing the recent purchase of a Paul Smith three-piece wool suit, nearly one of a kind, finely tailored, with a paisley lining, and a vest as snug as a scuba suit, which gives me a youthful, V-shaped appearance. With a shirt from Faconnable, and the appropriate cuff links, I was a seductive item for older women.

  I halted my haberdasher’s report at the sight of flashing lights, orange cones set in the street, and flares like bright Popsicles. I understood in a heartbeat.

  “What’s this?” asked David. “An accident?”

  “Jesus,” I whispered — and meant it. I pleaded for our dear Lord to put down his management of the universe and come to my rescue.

  Three CHP cruisers were idling on the shoulder. One officer with a wand-like flashlight was directing cars into a single line and making a centipede of all of us, car after car after truck. I kept a respectful distance from the Volkswagen ahead of me. My wallet was already on my lap, one finger scratching my driver’s license from its assigned slot. Jesus, I called again, I’ll be good from this hour on. I rolled down the window, wondering if the cab smelled of booze.

  Then David grasped the moment. “Oh shit,” he said. The lights of the cruisers illuminated his face. He was in the limelight of a sobriety checkpoint.

  A CHP cop motioned me forward. I allowed the truck to roll quietly into a chalked boxlike area, where I stopped smoothly, hoping to give the law a demonstration of my driving skills. I put the truck in neutral, hand brake on, engine still running.

  The cop was at my window, his flashlight briefly frisking the interior of the truck. “How’s the evening?” he asked.

  “Good,” I answered, a clear, one-syllable lie — more words might indicate a slur in my speech.

  The cop eyed both of us, then settled his attention on me, the driver. “You have any drinks tonight?”

  “No,” I answered. That half-bottle of wine (11.5 percent alcohol content) and two weak-ass Stellas had flowed in a golden stream at least an hour ago. On most occasions I’m a law-abiding citizen, but not when a huge cop looms outside my car window. “When in trouble,” a friend once advised, “always lie.” Lucky for me I had mustered up that little adage. Lie, I instructed my inner self, and lie I did.

  The cop looked me directly. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” I reported, as straight-faced as a president on Mount Rushmore, and presented my driver’s license. When he told me to put it away, I slipped it into my shirt pocket, just in case I was required to show it again.

  The cop holstered his flashlight. He told me to follow his finger and look left, then right. This I performed dutifully, if not nervously, recalling an episode of Cops in which a middle-aged man, not unlike me, had walked not so successfully along a tightrope of a chalk line. My tongue was a dead mouse, thick and furry. Get it right, I told myself,Get it right! I let my eyes shift left then right as I followed that finger, until my head was wagging left and right.

  “No, just your eyes,” he ordered. “Follow my finger.”

  “Oh,” I said, though not too forcefully, because I didn’t want the fumes of my breath to reach his face. Do what you’re told, I thought, a simple command.

  Again I followed his finger with my eyes, until again my head began tottering left, right, left.

  The cop said, “No! Your eyes, not your head!”

  Once more I instructed my head to remain still and let the eyes do the work. I started off nicely, eyes swinging in their sockets until, ay, Dios mio, my head began wagging. This is it, I moaned silently, preparing to step out of the truck and walk the tightrope. I was briefly glad that I had taken a longish pee at the club, where a plume of steam had risen from the cold urinal. I didn’t have enough presence of mind to fully imagine myself in the city jail, but I was busted.

  I was about to put the truck in gear, to creep over to the spot where two other cars previously had been docked, letting my buddy wet his pants from fear, when the cop shouted, “Now get outta here.”

  I blinked in his direction, but he had stepped back and was already eyeing the car behind me. Did I hear right? I nearly sighed, visibly, then turned my attention straight ahead, debating for a second whether to swivel my head to the left and thank him. But I decided that my time with the cop was over. I shifted into first and slowly eased the truck away, my eyes on the rearview mirror, watching the past grow dimmer. The truck rocked from the shoulder to the pavement.

  “Shit,” David said. “My teeth were chattering.”

  We drove over the bridge, the rumble strips beating against the tires as the truck maneuvered through an S-curve. I drove within the speed limit, both hands on the wheel, thinking that every third driver on the bridge probably was buzzed. Randomness, I figured, then no — wait a minute — the dear Lord had put down his other duties and helped me out. Praise Him!

  I recounted every detail of our near miss to David, particularly mentioning the cop’s tired eyes. He couldn’t have believed that I hadn’t had a drink or two — not for an official second. But he had been tired and seen many weaselly men like me. Maybe my peepholes were full of sorrow, or perhaps he had recalled an uncle with a similar build and a head that went from side to side. Why bust a family member unless, of course, you hankered to see the sucker behind bars?

  “You were lucky,” David remarked.

  “I was lucky,” I snarled. “How were you going to get home?”

  “Taxi,” he answered, smirking.

  We drove in silence until I commented, “You know, I didn’t like his tone — ‘Get outta here.’ ” I too smirked and became snarky. I took a hand from the steering wheel and said, indicating a miniscule gap with index finger and thumb, “It was that close to police brutality.”

  “Yeah,” David laughed. “You’re right. But I think he said, ‘Get the hell outta here.’ ”

  And with that, I did as I was told, speeding along (within the limits of the law), using my blinkers every time I changed lanes. God, it seemed, had put his paperwork aside to peer down from heaven and rescue two older goofballs in trouble.

  I made it home and, taking my shoes off at the front door, made as little noise as possible as I entered. I drank water, undressed, and drank more water. I discovered my wife asleep in a guiltless dream with her eyes moving, ever so correctly, from left to right.

  WALKING WITH ORAL LEE BROWN

  In the late 1980s, Oral Lee Brown visited a first-grade class in Oakland, California, to give the children a pep talk. The content of her talk is lost, but not the content of her character. As she was leaving, she told the class, “Children, if you stay in school, I’ll pay for your college education — and I mean every one of you. You hear me?” Leaving the school grounds, Ms. Brown perhaps felt a bit shocked at her audacious promise. She drove off looking into her rearview mirror.

  But Ms. Brown was familiar with struggle. She was one of a family of twelve children from the Mississippi Delta. Her household had not been unlike the classroom itself — noisy but with loving adults. Her parents farmed peaches, cotton, and watermelon. At the time of her classro
om visit, she had three of her own children. For income, she baked and sold peach cobbler pies, and worked as a real estate agent, earning less than fifty thousand dollars annually — a significant fraction of which would now have to go into a trust fund. Still, she had made a pact with the class of first graders. Oh Lord, she was probably thinking, What have I done?

  The answer: everything glorious.

  Ms. Brown was then in her mid-thirties and feeling momentarily brave. Attempting to cajole the students to study, study, study, she took hope to another level and encouraged them to think about college. During that first year, she deposited ten thousand dollars in an account that would allow her to live up to her promise. She added more money the second year, the third year, and so on. In the end, she kept her word. Of the twenty-three children in that classroom, nineteen went on to college or trade school. Two were lost in street killings, and another to an accident.

  But Ms. Brown was not done. While most people her age were socking money away for their own retirements, she committed herself to more children: “phases two and three,” she calls them. Again, more of her “babies” went off to college. Her faith in young people did not diminish.

  Admiration from afar is one thing, but sidling up to a visionary is another. I was quick to jump into my tennis shoes when I heard about her “Walk around Lake Merritt” fundraiser. I went not for exercise but to see Oral Lee Brown, a soft-spoken educational champion who has had my attention ever since I read about her in the newspaper. There were about a hundred of us — in all sizes and shapes, with all levels of education and courage, and all with a personal attraction to her and her cause. When she addressed us walkers, I was almost in tears. She embodied everything noble and caring, everything that most billionaires are not.

  She made a few remarks then said, “OK, let’s go.” By “go,” she meant the five-mile walk, stroll, or skip (if you were a child — and there were children) around Lake Merritt. I paid forty dollars to be a part of this cause — money well spent.

  We stepped around the geese at the lake, some in pairs or groups, and others alone, like me. I ached to march next to her, but figured that I would let others swarm around our queen bee for now. I strolled alone, then with a realtor who helped finance the foundation, and then alone again. The sun glinted off the murky water of the lake. The sky was bluish and hopeful. Somewhere a chain clanged against a flagpole. A dog barked and geese clacked their bills.

  After about a quarter-mile, I decided to make my move. I slowed my pace, puttered to a stop, and feigned tying my shoe. I rose and looked around: Mama Brown, as she is affectionately known, was nowhere in sight. Confused, I continued to believe that she would soon walk up from behind. Then I would have my chance to peer into her eyes and live briefly on her retinas. I asked a volunteer, with a “Hello My Name Is” tag on her sweater, the whereabouts of our intrepid hero. Back at camp, I was told. “She always does that. She gets you started, and you have to walk on your own.”

  BAD START

  On a recent walk-jog-walk workout in the neighborhood, I began searching my mind for material for a ten-minute graduation speech. As I strained uphill I discovered in the old gray matter a piece of lingo that might suffice: “In the course of life we find ourselves . . .” It didn’t take more than three brisk steps to acknowledge that the phrase was 1) a cliché, 2) stupid, and 3) inappropriate. My talk would be directed to juvenile offenders in a facility set among rolling pastures and from which you could hear cows at night and, when the light crept across the eastern hills, a lonely rooster. These teenagers, all male, had been jailed for such offenses as shoplifting, assault (hitting a classmate with a chair, for example), car theft, unarmed muggings, and marijuana possession — forms of urban conflict they deemed harmful only after getting caught. Words like in the course of life might sound prophetic to them, as some might eventually be sentenced to life without parole. The sorrowful statistics weren’t in their favor.

  I slowed to a stop to tie a laggard shoestring and opted for the sonorous, “In the dark moments of our lives, we can turn to family,” as a warm-and-fuzzy opening. I stood up, winded, and realized 1) some didn’t have family, 2) some didn’t want to know family, and 3) some had been turned in by family for reward money. I pouted at my shoes, which were in their usual splayed position: one foot wanted to go this way, the other that. Finding the right angle at which to begin this speech was trouble­some.

  These youths hadn’t intended to get caught while committing their petty crimes. The chair that came down on the classmate must’ve hurt like hell, but the vato presently attired in an orange suit had been hurting ever since he left diapers. The stolen Ford Taurus was a smoke-spewing clunker that got only twelve miles to the gallon — no threat to an Oakland PD cruiser. And that righteous marijuana was good shit for watching Batman in a smelly theater, but had the lifespan of a bag of Cheetos.

  When the comb had been pushed into the elderly church lady’s back, she’d fainted and hit her head, so scared was she. But the young thug rocking on his heels also was scared. Lowering his face to the woman on the pavement, he’d squinted and asked, “Grandma, is that you?”

  Crime isn’t worth it unless you own a three-hundred-dollar haircut and bespoke English brogues. Positioned as a CEO behind a desk, you can do easy inside jobs on Wall Street. Within months of your first heist, you can become spoiled with your own jet, your own island, even your own butler to rotate your vintage wines (trained in the art of caring for executive buttheads, the butler will slip on white gloves before beginning his work). Crimes committed while in coat and tie are seldom prosecuted. When the rare defendant is found guilty, he gets probation and a fine — which can be covered by the money stolen in the first place. The biggest frauds ever committed on our country occurred during the 2008 housing collapse, perpetrated by banks and financial institutions. Name one CEO twiddling his thumbs behind bars for that. Me, I can’t.

  But how about the young offenders named Tyrone or Mario? These young people rob others who look kind of like themselves and are often surprised when they have to raise their hands to the SWAT team. Big-eyed, they shout, “You mean me?” They spend hours doing fingertip pushups in their cells. After five to ten years, they’re released to the public with sculpted bodies.

  My walk-jog-walk workout became a long-stepping climb as the wheels of my imagination spun in sand. I had volunteered to give this talk and hand out a few of my books as graduation gifts. Now I worried that I couldn’t reach these youth, a little old man up on a makeshift platform. Is “dawg” still part of the young people’s vernacular? I wondered. How about “the bomb”? Or “bad,” as in something cool? Was “cool” now un-cool? I promised myself not to make references to Justin Bieber.

  I paused to retie both shoes then stood up, hands on hips, a little winded, my face a wet brown stone. I began walking again with my head down, a jay scolding me from a low branch on a magnolia. I thought: just ad lib, make stuff up on the podium.

  “We make mistakes,” I began, then winced at this imprudent piece of crap. I couldn’t open with that, or worse, “When I was a child . . . .” The young people in their seats, hands folded as if in prayer, would look down at their size-thirteen shoes and think, “Yeah, Pops, like you and Abe Lincoln. Dang, this is hecka boring!”

  I continued my walk-jog-walk, mustering up these observations: 1) today’s teenagers have it harder than when Abe and I were young, 2) prison is a mean business, and 3) when you’re asleep on the couch, a blaring television is not an option. Why the last? When the police come, you want everything quiet-like. That way, you can hear them coming up the steps in their storm-trooper boots and make a run for it.

  * * *

  On the other end of the social spectrum is Tana, my wife’s cousin’s daughter. She is five feet tall and weighs ninety-three pounds — of which seventy-five seem devoted to purposeful brainpower. She possesses a natural intelligence and the likeability and sophistication to go with it.

  At our
recent day-after-Christmas family get-together, she and I sat on our smallish sofa, holding bowls on our laps. We faced each other, angled just so, momentarily separated by the steam from our chilaquiles breakfast. Frankly, however, there is more than steam to separate us. She is fifteen and the clock inside her ticks slowly. During every day that passes for her, a whole week seems to push rudely ahead for me. In short, I’m on the other end of life, with the gears inside me speeding briskly. At the risk of further depleting my dwindling store of self-confidence, I make two observations: 1) Tana is able to spring to her feet unaided, while I must push myself up with at least one hand; and 2) her eyes are clear and unpolluted, while mine are a scribbling mess of lunatic red. I could offer other distinctions, but I would lose my appetite for chilaquiles.

  When Tana parts her breakfast with a fork, more steam is released. She blows on the morsels in her bowl. She pokes them. She blows again and lifts the corner of the egg on top. To me, she’s a movie inside my head, each little gesture memorable, as when her paper napkin parachutes to the floor. It’s pretty the way she picks it up and even prettier when she sets it on her knee — God, am I so old that I must tally her every move? We each raise a forkful, blow some more, then taste. Carolyn, my wife, is the best short-order cook. I dab the corners of my mouth.