Four Feet Tall and Rising

by Shorty Rossi

  My parents were oblivious to what was going on in my sisters’ lives. Linda had always been Mom’s little girl and Janet was always Dad’s little girl, so me, I became the mutt of the family. Dad couldn’t turn me into a mechanic and I sure as hell wasn’t the sports jock he’d hoped for, so he just wrote me off. I was on my own.

  Until I found my gang.

  2

  White Blood

  hey called me Mr. Automatic. That first year at Northridge Junior High was the time of my life. I loved the school dances, and I’d dance my ass off. I got lots of attention for it, which I liked, and I even got my first nickname: Mr. Automatic, ’cause I’d shaken my shit to the Pointer Sisters song “Automatic,” and made a big impression. I was named Class Clown in the yearbook, and I even convinced the coach to let me play football—even though everyone was scared to death I’d be killed. I could run pretty fast and when the guys tried to tackle me, they’d jump too high and catch nothing but air. By the time they hit the ground, I was gone. My nickname changed from Mr. Automatic to Shorty, and for a few games, I did pretty well. Until the other teams figured out how to triple-team me with a tackle, and that was too much for me. I had to give it up.

  From there, the train went off the track. I opted for special ed classes ’cause my friends, the jocks, said they were easy, and I wouldn’t have to work too hard for decent grades. I started getting into more and more trouble. Fighting. Detention hall was my second home. I was becoming defiant. I became a master of lies. Sean and Oscar had been shipped to a different junior high, so I’d take the bus from Reseda to Pacoima to hang with them once in a while. I had a friend, DeShawn, who went to a different junior high in South Central L.A. On the weekends, me and DeShawn would head out to Malibu to drink, smoke pot or cigars, and meet girls. I’d be the only white guy on the bus, but it didn’t faze me. Everyone would stare. I figured they were looking ’cause I was a midget. It took me a long time to realize it was ’cause I was white and they were worried I’d get my ass killed.

  By the end of seventh grade my whole social circle had changed, I was best friends with Cerisse and Little Al. I called them my Godsister and Godbrother, even though I had to keep my friendships with them a secret from my family. All my friends were either black or Mexican, and that was unacceptable in my house. It was just better to do my own thing and lie and say I was with my old friends, the white friends I never saw anymore.

  Over the course of the next two years, things at home got much worse. Dad had such strong views about how I should be living my life, and I was hardheaded. I didn’t wanna hear it. Which meant more beatings and constant verbal abuse. I wasn’t a saint, not even close to it, but I didn’t wanna keep living with Dad’s constant bullshit. To come home every single day and be cussed at, yelled at, beat on … it was too much. I never, ever wanted to go home.

  I confided in Cerisse and Little Al about my home life. Cerisse kept saying, “My mom says you can come over.” It was a risky thing for her mom, Mama Myrtle, to offer. She could have been seen as a black woman kidnapping a white kid. I kept her offer as a backup until finally, in ninth grade, I’d had enough of Dad and said, “Fuck it, I’m gone.” I ran away to the projects to stay with Mama Myrtle, Cerisse, and Little Al. School was only in session for a few more weeks before summer break. My parents reported me as a runaway. They didn’t know where I was staying. Nobody had cell phones yet, so there was no way for them to get ahold of me. For a few weeks, I was free.

  I stayed at Mama Myrt’s through most of June before I called my sister Janet to let her know I was okay. She was married now and living in Palmdale. She tried to convince me things would get better at home. I didn’t believe her. No way was I going back. Then she said, “Mom and Dad know where you are, and they’re gonna send the police in after you.” I didn’t wanna hurt Mama Myrt and her family. They were hiding me, essentially, and it wouldn’t look good. This was before the riots sparked by the Rodney King verdict, and the Los Angeles police were considered vicious and out of control. I didn’t wanna cause a problem for Cerisse’s family. I talked about it with Mama Myrt. She encouraged me to stay. She wasn’t afraid of the police, but my mind was made up. I didn’t want to cause her any grief. Mama Myrt gave me a hug and told me, “Come back whenever you want, Shorty.”

  Dad sent Janet to come get me. She was scared out of her pants. The projects were not the friendliest place. Janet just wanted out of there, so I packed up my stuff and she drove me home. When I walked in the door, Dad announced, “If you try to run away again, I’ll beat the shit out of you.” Things were clearly not gonna get any better. Janet returned to her family in Palmdale and I just stayed in my room and out of Dad’s sight as much as I could. Then a telegram arrived at the door.

  It was 1983. Late June. I was sitting on my bed when I heard it happen. A delivery guy rang the doorbell and Mom answered it. He gave her a telegram—seriously, an old-fashioned telegram—notifying Dad of his termination from Lockheed. You would have thought someone had died. A travesty! Mom started wailing. She was screaming and crying so loudly I couldn’t even hear what Dad was saying. I could tell he wasn’t surprised, but Mom was shocked; she hadn’t seen it coming. I shut my bedroom door and pretended not to hear any of it.

  The house went into crisis mode. Mom got her first and only job doing clerical work for Baskin-Robbins to help with bills, even though Dad probably had money stashed everywhere. Dad hated that Mom was working. He was the king of his castle, and now there was no slave around to take care of his castle or the king. No one to take off his shoes and socks. No one to have his salsa and chips waiting. Dad couldn’t handle it. He went on an alcoholic binge, sneaking beers and disappearing to bars, saying, “Don’t tell your mom where I’m going.” The firing really affected him. Dad was in his fifties and his prospects for finding another steady union job weren’t good. Money was his safety net and owning property was a source of pride. Losing it, or the thought of losing it, tore him to pieces.

  Despite having such a rough childhood in Texas, Dad always had plans to retire to San Antonio. He constantly complained about the lack of space and privacy in Los Angeles, saying that “Texas was the greatest place” ’cause in Texas, the houses were bigger, the land was cheaper, and you got more of it, which fed into his need for isolation. This was always his mind frame, so when the Lockheed firing happened, he just “sped up” his retirement plan. Really, he had no other choice. He still had his family down there, and a job lined up through his sister Margie’s husband’s air-conditioning company. He’d be the on-call, twenty-four-hours-a-day, air-conditioning repair mechanic for a medical research facility that did scientific testing on monkeys. Dad announced, “All right, we’re putting the house up for sale.” He lied and said that he was leaving Lockheed of his own accord, and that the monkey lab job was a better job, even though I knew he was involved in some court case surrounding his firing and that he was doing community service at a nearby park. The details of his court case were kept from me. Dad and his secrets. But I wasn’t stupid. I could see that Dad was in trouble.

  Before summer was even half over, Dad sold the house in Reseda and bought a house in Brookvale, a tract-house development that served as a suburb of San Antonio. Really, Dad and Mom were headed for bumfuck. I wasn’t going anywhere. I watched them pack and go and barely waved good-bye. I moved in with Nonnie and spent my weekends at Mama Myrt’s. I wouldn’t say I never gave Nonnie any trouble but I tried to keep it to a minimum. Nonnie had gotten older. She was having a lot of trouble walking, so we mostly just sat side by side and watched The Golden Girls together. She thought the show was too racy. We’d have a lunch or a dinner at Sambo’s and I’d walk down the street beside her, trying to keep up with her scooter. She was classic in that scooter, like she might run over anyone that got in her way. Any day I spent with Nonnie was a good day.

  But Mom kept hounding me, saying, “You know it’s hard on your grandmother for you to be there. You’re getting ready to go back
to school in the fall. Why don’t you come to Texas and try out the school here? It’s a good school. The life here is so much nicer …” Yada, yada, bullshit, bullshit. She really wanted me to move to Texas, but even with a half a country between us, Dad and I couldn’t get along. The minute we got on the phone, we started yelling at each other. The man was never gonna change. Texas seemed like a bad idea, but Mom was right, it was hard on Nonnie for me to be around. I didn’t wanna be a burden on her any longer.

  That fall, before my tenth-grade year, I moved to Texas with the mentality that I was gonna hate it. I was determined, from the get-go, not to stay in that state. I would get back to Los Angeles at any cost. From the moment I set foot on Texas soil, I had a big “no” for the whole situation.

  Texas was a culture shock. From the neighborhood to the weather to the good-ol’-boy type of mentality. San Antonio was a completely different world from Reseda or South Central L.A. There was a big military population and an even bigger divide between the white people and the brown people. Mom and Dad had a nice house, right down the street from the mall, but I didn’t like it. High school was harder for me. I enrolled at Marshall High but having been educated in the L.A. Unified School District, I was way behind the other students.

  I got a job at the hamburger chain Carl’s Jr. I knew I needed to save up money if I was gonna leave Texas. I’d promised Mom I’d give this new life a real try, but I had no intention of staying. Though I loved being closer to Elsie and getting to spend time with her, it wasn’t enough to make up for the living conditions at home. Elsie never nagged me about the clothes I was wearing or my friends. She accepted me as I was but she had no idea what I was dealing with in the house. I never told her about our fights. I guess I wanted to protect her from the truth. I got in more trouble in Texas than I ever had my entire life. There were curfew violations and detentions. I kept falling asleep in class ’cause I’d been out all night drinking with Robert.

  Robert was my best friend. His family moved in across the street not too long after I arrived. Robert felt different ’cause he was a Puerto Rican in a lily-white neighborhood. We started talking one day, then we went to the mall and hung out. It didn’t take long for us to start our drinking adventures. We would sneak out of our houses at one o’clock in the morning and push his parents’ car down the driveway in neutral so they wouldn’t hear the engine. We’d drive around, drinking for a few hours, then sneak back into our houses before our parents woke up. I never got caught. Well, almost never.

  The only time I got busted for drinking, I was so stupid. I’d thrown my clothes in the dirty hamper without noticing there was vomit on my shirt. Mom found it the next morning. I got a beating, then a lecture about having my first drink. My first drink. Please. I’d been drinking since seventh grade.

  After getting busted, Robert and I stopped sneaking out to drink and started taking secret flights back and forth from Los Angeles to stay with Mama Myrt. Robert’s dad worked for United Airlines, so we could fly for free. I’d tell my parents we were going to Chicago to visit his family for the weekend. Instead, we’d head west. There was no caller ID, no way of verifying where the hell I was, unless I got in trouble. We actually gave my parents his grandma’s number in Chicago. If they called looking for me, which they did one time, Robert’s grandma covered for us. I don’t know why she did that for Robert, but she did.

  Robert and I flew to L.A. twice and all we did was hang around the projects and do nothing. It was a world away from Texas, that’s all that mattered. I was happier there. Years later, George Lopez would tease me about it, saying, “People were trying to move on up and you were trying to move on down.” He’d be right about that. I just wanted out.

  The L.A. neighborhood was like a TV show, with something dramatic or comedic always happening. I wasn’t scared to be there. Not ever. Any other idiot in his right fucking mind wouldn’t walk two feet into those projects, but I was naïve. I felt safe ’cause I was basically untouchable. I was down with the Baileys, one of the three biggest families in the projects besides the Thorntons and the Hawkinses. The Baileys had fourteen aunts and uncles, and all their kids, nieces, and nephews lived within a few doors, or at most, blocks from each other. The Baileys were a peaceful family and for the most part everyone got along.

  I loved Mama Myrt’s house. It reminded me of visiting grandma Elsie. Mama Myrt’s living room functioned as a community center. Everyone went in and out all the time. All day long. At any given moment there would be fifteen or twenty people hanging out, eating, talking, sharing stories, and being a big, warm family. There were no schedules. Things happened and I could just go with the flow. That was the spirit I liked. I didn’t wanna go home and pull the blinds down, shut the door, and keep the neighbors out. I didn’t wanna sit down to dinner every night at 5 p.m. And most of all, at Mama Myrt’s house, there was never really any arguing. If people argued, then five minutes later it was over with and forgotten.

  Grandma Bailey, Mama Myrt’s mother, was the matriarch, the woman in charge of the entire family. I could stop by her house at any time. She had a four-bedroom apartment, and there was a party every damn day ’cause so many of the kids lived with her. Grandma Bailey would always take care of you if you were sick, or help you out if something was going on. That kind of unconditional support was something I’d never experienced inside my own house. In Texas, I had material comforts, a white neighborhood, and safety in the streets, but in the projects, I had love, and that’s all that mattered.

  Having to fly back to Texas after spending the weekend with the Baileys was depressing. I never wanted to get on that plane. Robert would have to talk me into it. Life in Texas with Dad had gone from miserable to unbearable. It was the worst time in my life. Janet and Linda were both married and out of the house. It was just us Little People, but Dad kept the house as if tall people lived there. I wasn’t allowed to put my bed on the floor. I had to use a stool to climb into it. My parents had a bed so high off the ground you had to pole vault to jump into it. Mom had to take a running start just to make the jump. Being at home was physically uncomfortable. I didn’t wanna live my life, walking around my own home, inconvenienced.

  The house had come with a microwave from the late ’70s or early ’80s (whenever they started making them), when they used to cost $500. It was a huge, monstrous piece of equipment that blew up and had to be replaced. Dad announced he could get a microwave for “real cheap,” and that he’d install it the next day.

  The next day, Mom and I came back to the house and were looking all over the kitchen for this new microwave. It wasn’t on any of the counters. I said something like, “Don’t you have to plug the new ones in?” when I noticed Mom staring straight up, her mouth hanging open. All she said was, “Oh my God.” Dad had installed a hood microwave over top of the stove burners, as high up as the exhaust vents. There was no way any of us could reach it without a stepladder. It was just so damn cheap and inconsiderate of him. I felt … resentful. I promised myself I’d never be that cheap. I’d never live in denial of who I was. I wanted to be the exact opposite of Dad.

  My time in that Texas house didn’t last long. I don’t even remember what started the argument. Dad probably wanted me to do something and I probably mouthed off and said, “I’ll do it when I’m ready.” Whatever was said, Dad got mad. He was always mad. I was standing in the living room and we started going at it. Physically beating on each other. I was tired of taking it from him. I started fighting back.

  The altercation ended up in the kitchen and I got so fucking fed up, I clocked him once, hard. I slammed him into the refrigerator and everything on the top shook and fell off. Mom got in the middle of it and yelled, “That’s enough! That’s enough! Both of you!” I ran out the door. I slammed the door so hard, the glass cracked.

  I ran to Robert’s house. His parents were out of town for two weeks but I knew I wouldn’t be staying for long. I was going back to Los Angeles to live with Cerisse and Little Al. I’d
take Mama Myrt up on her offer to “come back anytime.” It never even crossed my mind to call Elsie or to move in with her. She probably would have allowed me to stay there. She had a big house and no one in it with her, but I just wanted to be back in Los Angeles with my friends.

  I couldn’t let my parents know of my plan, so whenever they would leave the house, I’d sneak over and pack my things. I sold my DJ set—two turntables and the whole setup, with microphones, the whole nine yards. I used the money to book a ticket on Muse Air. I bought a suitcase and boxed up the rest of what I wanted to take with me. It wasn’t much.

  On the morning of my flight, Robert helped me load up his dad’s car. We got up super early, so Mom or Dad wouldn’t see us packing the trunk. Mom came out to get the newspaper. We ducked behind some bushes and almost got caught. I watched her go back into the house. It made me sort of sad to leave her with that man, but she’d made her choice long before I was even born. She’d never leave him. Robert drove me to the airport and that was that. I was headed back to the projects for good. This time, there’d be no prodigal return. I’d been in Texas for less than a year.

  On my sixteenth birthday, Mom walked over to Robert’s house with a homemade cake and candles. Robert had to tell her I was gone. This time, they knew exactly where to look for me. Mom called Mama Myrt’s crying for me to come home. I refused. Dad threatened to send the police, but this time I’d done my homework. In Texas, when you turned sixteen, you were legally allowed to run away. You could petition the court for emancipation. I told my parents, “If you send the police in here to ship me back to Texas, I will just run away again and again and again.” So Dad just let me go. I never again set foot in that Texas house. Until I decided to reunite with my father. But that would be many, many years down the road.