Elsewhere, California

by Dana Johnson

  I pull on my Dodgers cap again and sing my favorite commercial, this old one that never gets out of my head. Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet. Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet.

  You know you sound retarded, right? Brenna says. That’s what she does all the time. Mess up my good feeling about something. So I sing it in my head.

  Finally, we’re at 7-Eleven. And it’s Carlos from school eating donuts, leaning up against a low-rider, all green and sparkly. Carlos. Way foxy. Black hair slicked back. He wears Dickies all the time, walks all slow and hunched over with his feet pointed out. Black eyes that are practically closed all the time. When he talks, he sticks his chin up and looks at you and squints even more. I don’t even know how he can see you when he’s talking to you. He calls everybody Homes, except for me. Sup, Avery Day, he says when he sees me. Don’t even ask me why he calls me that. He doesn’t talk to Brenna and Brenna never talks to him. When he was new, last year, Brenna tried to get in his face after she cut in line at lunch. He told her, I’m in line, Homes, and Brenna says, So? Now I’m in line too. He pushed her. She pushed him back. He told her, I’ll fuck you up. Fuck you, fucking cholo, Brenna said. White girl, Carlos said, you don’t even know. His put his hand up like he was going to smack her but he psyched her out. Brenna jerked her head back anyway, so he won. And now she acts like he’s nothing. He’s not there, but when he’s around, I can tell that’s all she thinks about.

  Hey Carlos, I say. Come on, Ave, Brenna says, and she’s trying to pull me into 7-Eleven when the door opens. I feel cold air hit my legs and face and then I see a girl that I know must be Carlos’s sister or cousin or something. Get off my car, foo, she tells Carlos. Serious makeup on. White eye shadow. Eyebrows look like they’re shaved off and drawn back on all skinny. Black lipstick, black Dickies. Black hair. Feathered perfect. Like raven wings. And white Nikes. She looks scary. I’ve seen girls that look like her before, but it’s like she’s not just wearing stuff to make her like that. She is the stuff.

  She stares at me and Brenna and then pulls her car door open. She gives us her chin like Carlos does. Sup? she says. Nothing, I say. Let’s go, Brenna says. She’s still trying to pull my arm out of my socket or something. But I’m staring at this girl. My sister eh, Carlos tells me. Chrissy.

  Hey. I raise my palm to her and then I think. Dumbass. It looks like you’re telling her to stop.

  Leaning on my fucking Impala, she tells Carlos. You tripping? Let’s go eh.

  Later days, Carlos says. He throws his donut wrapper on the ground and gets in the car. When they turn on the car I hear that old song about the girl who has two lovers but ain’t ashamed because she loves them both the same. I swear they look like a movie driving away. The way the sun hits the car all sparkly green like Fourth of July. I think about it flying up in the air like the car in Grease. I keep hearing, Eh? Let’s go, eh? In my head, I’m adding it at the end of any sentence and it sounds bad. I’m cool just by saying eh at the end of stuff. What if I was a chola? Looked like Chrissy? Nobody would tell me nothing because they’d all be scared of me.

  The hell, Ave, you deaf doofus? Come on. Let’s get something to drink, Brenna says. We’re looking. A bottle of Sunkist? Or a blueberry Slurpee? A Big Gulp? I grab a Coke and go look at the magazines. Flip through them all. Mad magazine. Something in it always makes me laugh, even though it makes like no sense to me a lot of the times. But when I do finally get stuff, I feel like I know something that nobody else is paying attention to. And the fold-up on the last page is the best. The situation is one thing before you fold it up and then it’s totally something else. I pick up Seventeen, but then I get tired just flipping through it. Nothing in it ever applies to me. The hair stuff that’s supposed to de-frizz or the blue eye shadow I’m supposed to buy or the clothes I don’t have the money to buy. Plus all this stuff you’re supposed to do to get dudes to like you. What. Like not be me? Brenna is next to me, smelling like watermelon gum. Mad magazine, she says. Whoever does that thing must be high all the time. Makes no sense.

  She picks up a magazine and pulls on the straw of her Slurpee so that it makes a squeaky noise when it goes up and down. God, this issue of Dynamite is so bogue. Mork in that dumb Popeye. Who cares? She turns the pages hard. They sound like she’s tearing them. Now we’re talking, she says. Erik Estrada is coming to you! she reads to me. And that makes me think of Carlos because they’ve both got Spanish names. Be right back, I tell Brenna. I need to check the baseball cards. She rolls her eyes and puts Dynamite down and picks up something else.

  At the register, it’s some guy I never saw before. Old. White hair and everything and gold John-Boy Walton glasses. His tag says Ed. I put two packets of cards on the table. And this Coke, I tell him. And that’ll do you young man? he asks me. He barely even looks up. And then he does. Looks me up and down and tells me he’s sorry. It looks like you don’t have any hair, he tells me. Thought you were a boy, young lady. I don’t say anything, so he says, Buying cards for your brother? No, I say. They’re for me. He smiles. Tomboy, are you?

  No. I just like baseball.

  Well that’s good, he says. I hold out my hand and he gives me my change. Who’s your team?

  What does he think? Who else is there? Uh, Dodgers? I say, and shake my head, like, What do you think?

  I open the cards right at the register, looking for Carlos’s favorite. Pedro Guerrero. A black man speaking Spanish like Carlos does, and Carlos likes him. I finally asked Carlos one day at school was Guerrero some kind of Mexican, even though I’d never seen a Mexican that dark before. Naw foo. Dominican, he said. He was squeezing the white stuff out of his Twinkie and licking it with his tongue. I stared and stared at him doing that.

  Two packs of cards and no Guerrero. No Dodgers, even. A waste of almost a whole dollar.

  Brenna socks me hard on the arm. Hello? Hello? Earth to Avie. Let’s jam. Her mouth is already red from her Slurpee. You look like Bozo, I say. I grab her Slurpee and drink some. Your Mama looks like Bozo, she says and snatches it back. And the door goes ding-dong when we leave the store. Ed says, Bye-bye young ladies, and Brenna does her nose like something stinks. Probably Chester the molester, she says.

  It’s like all we ever do is walk around in the hot sun. Damn, Brenna says. Hot for reals and it’s not even summer. She finishes her Slurpee and throws the cup on the ground. We pass a house with the door open. You Can Ring My Bell is playing and I love how the lady’s voice goes, Ring it, ring it, ring it ring it ahhh! all high. When I sing it, Brenna asks me, Who sings this song? And I forget and fall for it. I tell her who sings it. Let’s keep it that way, she says. I tell her, That’s so funny I forgot to laugh, and then I get an idea.

  Will you steal me some Dickies?

  What are you, are you a cholo now vato? All into that disco ring my bell shit too.

  Just get me a pair.

  Why?

  They’re cool.

  They’re beaner clothes.

  You steal all the time. Why do you even care?

  She doesn’t answer me at first. I won.

  But she takes her comb out of her sock and starts flipping and combing. Steal your own damn Dickies goody-goody chola.

  But I’m never going to steal anything, so Brenna wins.

  Hey, she says. Did you see that thing in Seventeen where you could get a lip reduction surgery if you wanted to?

  I stop walking. What? They have a surgery for that?

  Yeah, I saw it. This one article on stuff you could do to make yourself look better. One was this lip surgery thing. They cut some off the inside or something to make them thinner.

  I don’t say anything else. I keep walking. I’m excited. My lips. This is something I can change. Finally they put something in that magazine that’ll help me.

  How much money, though? I ask Brenna.

  Fucking get the magazine and read it. I don’t even remember.

  Why didn’t you tell me about it in the store? I could have g
ot it.

  You were too busy buying your goofy baseball cards. I forgot. I can just see you with your new lips all black with chola lipstick. What a dreamboat.

  I’m thinking that Brenna makes me sick, but I don’t say anything. I wish I had something to bag on her about, but there’s nothing. Her hair is fine. Her face. Her body. There’s nothing to pick on because she looks like everybody else.

  We always stop on the corner when we get to our street. I go up the hill and she goes down. Later days, dude, she says. When I get home, Mom and Dad are there and I feel that feeling that I feel whenever they are at home together. Sick. Better if one or the other is home, but not both at the same time because they always are fighting about something. Last time Mom started a fight because Dad wanted to watch TV. He turned it on. She turned it off. He turned it on again and it was like she tried to make him hit her, but he wouldn’t. He just got up and left. That’s what he does now. They don’t hit each other anymore. It’s like they’re both too tired.

  Avery, Daddy says. Come here and sit down for a minute. And I’m scared. I’m thinking, Uh oh. My ass is grass. What am I in trouble for now? Sit down, Dad says again. And Mom says, What are you doing with your hair. A baseball cap? You need to do something to it. I don’t have anything to say because I really am just sick of my hair. But that’s the least of my problems. Stupid Owen said something, I know he did. He acts like my father half the time. I took the Dolphins off, wore the cutoffs. What else do they want me to do? God.

  Listen, Dad says. Something’s going to happen and you need to know about it. Your Aunt Janice has really been having problems with Keith running around and stealing and staying out and not coming home. She asked us if he could come stay here for a while. He looks at me and scratches his beard.

  I don’t know what to say, but I don’t think I want Keith to live with us. I know what he’s been doing. Everything but the right thing, Mom says. Him and John smoke weed. Keith takes money from Aunt Janice. I don’t even see him whenever we go to the desert. Every time, I’m like, Where’s Keith? In the streets somewhere, his mother always says, and then I end up just sitting in the house watching TV until Mom and Dad are ready to leave. You too old to be running around with boys anyway, Mom said the last time we were there. Don’t need to be running the streets with them.

  And now he’s coming here to live.

  Where is he going to sleep? I really want to know. Owen still lives here even though he’s not in school anymore. He works. He’s saving up. And I know he’s not going to share a bed with Keith. He’s only got a twin bed, like me.

  On the couch, Mom says.

  For how long?

  Long as he know how to act, Dad says. We ain’t gone put up with all Janice put up with, tell you that right now.

  And I’m thinking, How are we going to pay for him? They’re always talking about how we don’t have enough money. The house note is always late. Mom is always calling the phone company to get extensions on the bill. And I can tell: Whenever we have real meat for dinner, we have some extra money, but if we don’t then it’s neck bones and Hamburger Helper. And I swear it’s like we have Hamburger Helper all the time now. Don’t ask me why, since it’s not like anybody’s spending money on anything actually good, like better clothes or new furniture or whatever. It is what it is, Mom always says.

  That’s what we’re going to do, Dad says. Okay?

  And I say, Okay, because it doesn’t matter what I say. What they say, goes.

  ALL HE HAS when he comes is one bag of clothes and a skateboard. Him and Dad come through the front door and Keith’s face looks totally bummed, like he had to drive the whole hour and a half from Victorville listening to a lecture, which he did, I’m sure. Keith’s standing there looking like he’d kill to have something to do. Dad takes off his cap and goes into the living room to watch TV, so that’s out. What else are we supposed to do? I don’t even know what to do with him.

  I point at the skateboard. Since when?

  He pulls it away from his body to look at it. John gave me this. He just got a new one.

  Oh.

  I look at him and he looks at me.

  Where you going to put that thing?

  He shrugs. You can put it in my room, I say. There’s nothing in there anyway. We go to my room and stand around after we put the skateboard against the wall. Now what?

  There are two games on my floor. Connect Four that Brenna brought over and Monopoly. I hate Monopoly because I have to count money and think about money, and I can never count up fast enough and I just hate dealing with it. I swear, everybody I’ve ever played with gets all crazy too. Mean and stingy and have to own like every single property. And Keith. Oh my God. He used to be the worst.

  I sit on the floor and pull the game over to me. Then I put a cassette tape in. Keith watches me. What’s that? he says. Please don’t let it be no Sound of Music.

  Shut up. It’s The Who. Keith likes them, I can tell by the way he nods his head. His mouth is moving to the words.

  I take the lid off the Connect Four box. It’s been taped around the corners a hundred times. Want to play Connect Four?

  I guess, Keith says. He’s still standing.

  Sit down doofus. Why are you still standing around like you’re going to go to jail or something? He’s acting so weird.

  You start, I say. He puts a black checker in. I put a red. He puts another one. I do mine. He puts his in and wins.

  Anh! Lucky break dude, I tell him, let’s do it again. Let me go first this time.

  I don’t care, Keith tells me. He looks around my room. What’s up with them Raggedy Ann curtains?

  Quit bagging on my curtains, I say. They’re like four years old.

  Damn, he says. He shakes his head.

  Shut up. Let me concentrate. My legs are stuck out in front of me in a V, so I kick him. I think about where to start. If you start right, you can win. I start with red this time. Keith goes. I go again. You lose, he tells me, and drops his last checker in.

  One more game, I say.

  Okay, but this is really boring Ave.

  Shut up, I say. Start.

  He starts and then he wins. We play four more games and I can’t beat him. I’m not even mad about it. I just want to figure out how he does it.

  Tell me, man, I say. Seriously.

  I don’t know. Keith stretches his arms out to me and pushes up his shirt sleeves like to show me there’s nothing in them. I can just see it, he tells me. I can see how I can beat you every time.

  But you got a F in math. My mom told me. Maybe you’re just lucky.

  I don’t know, he says. It’s just four checkers. That ain’t math.

  Maybe you’re lucky.

  I don’t care, Ave. I’m bored than a motherfucker, is what I am.

  We end up getting out of the house. I tell Dad we’re going skating and he says all right. I get my skates that look like sneakers and Keith gets his skateboard and we skate down the street. It’s a big hill, and then there’s another big hill. It’s so rad for skating. Keith is always ahead of me, going real fast, and I get scared sometimes that he’s going to get hit by a car. I won’t go as fast as he does. Are you kidding? Slow down dude! I call out after him. You’re going to get hit. When I catch up to him at the bottom of the last hill, he’s laughing and smiling. Whew! he says. Damn that was fun. We don’t have big hills you can go down where I live.

  Seriously, Keith. Be careful. I look up and down the street but it’s kinda empty. It’s always empty, but sometimes there’s cars and people. You just don’t know when.

  Negro, please, he says. He wipes sweat off his face with his shirt. He tilts his head to the side like he’s listening for something. Do you see anybody? See any cars? Ain’t nothing in my way.

  17

  I CLEAN THE kitchen. Putting away leftovers that I will eat, that Massimo will not. He says they don’t taste as good. One of the Fiestaware bowls is chipped. The big yellow one he always uses to serve thi
ngs that are red. He is arguing with someone on the phone over somebody’s contract. “No,” he says. “This is not what we agreed we would do. No. No. Absolutely not.” Massimo pauses. “I’m more than happy to meet you halfway, but we must be reasonable about such things. Surely you must understand,” he says, pacing. He picks up an ashtray and his glass of wine and steps outside to the garden. Working, he is always working, and so it has always been a surprising conflict between us that he thinks it unnecessary that I work. My only job should be making art, otherwise I’m not really trying. This is something that he, in my estimation, has always been unreasonable about until he finally threw up his hands and said, “Fine. Do whatever you want. If you want to work yourself to death for ten dollars an hour, you are welcome to it. Good luck to you.” He brushed his hands together and waved them through the air as if the argument were something trifling and dusty. He has a very particular American dream, which somehow includes a woman who doesn’t have to work because that’s one of the ways in which he measures his achievements. When I wanted to work, though, he thought I was somehow giving up on my American dream, the dream of being an artist. But for me, this was not a small thing, work. When we first met, I didn’t have a job. I had lasted about a month as an administrative assistant at an educational testing company, my first job after graduation. I had trouble finding a job because most of my interviewers couldn’t figure out how someone with a degree in business was not doing anything with it. But I just didn’t want to, which made me a fuckup and a failure with a degree. I was in the middle. Too qualified and too inexperienced for the waitressing jobs I wanted, which I thought much more interesting than working in an office. I considered being a cleaning woman for a short time, to set my own hours, have some flexibility—until I could find a real job. It was a way to be invisible but make some money. Nobody would be asking me about why I had not lived up to my potential in those circumstances. My mother had done it, so why couldn’t I? Massimo, lying beside me in bed, threw up his hands in frustration. “What will people think, Avie?” he said. “I can take care of you.”