First?
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And now back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .
We moved to San Diego when I was 16. I have told part of that story before.
And then we were homeless and camping for a bit.
I am still not prepared to share that part of the story.
So I’m skipping right to the part where . . .
There was a house. A smallish house on a largish street.
Commercial Street . . . so named for its commercial nature.
I have never been so happy to walk into a house.
All I wanted in the world was to be home.
Down the middle of Commercial Street ran train tracks. Perhaps 20 feet from our front door, many times a day, lengthy freight trains would rumble past our house. Each time, the small house would seem to reach out to accept the train’s chaotic embrace.
The house opened itself and ushered in the noise and the smell and the vibration.
Every time.
And so what little calm there was to be found? Was shattered on a regular basis.
There was a car wash on the corner of Commercial Street and another road whose name I have forgotten. Our smallish house was next to this car wash.
The words “next to” are misleading, in that they suggest that there was space between. There was not. Our kitchen window looked directly into the car wash, and in my memory? There are black plastic sheets and wooden latticework right outside the kitchen window to block the view from the car wash into our house.
It was the sort of car wash at which men hung out all day long. Some of them actually washed cars, but many of them just lingered. I remember the scrape of their white plastic chairs against the pavement. The heavy mingled scents of detergent, air freshener, and marijuana in the humid air. Endless loud music. Singing. Yelling. Fighting. Voices that never seemed to drop to a conversational level. The clink of bottles. Drug deals. Cars. Noise.
Noise.
So much noise.
The smallish house would seem to reach out to accept the men’s chaotic embrace.
The house opened itself up and ushered in the noise and the smell and the vibration.
There was little calm left to be shattered, and so then?
There was no calm.
And I was not home.
San Diego was somewhat overwhelming to me. I had never lived in a city, and the amount of concrete involved? Was stunning.
I felt so claustrophobic in that smallish house, sandwiched between the roar of the trains and the roar of the car wash. Unable to walk a single block in any direction without being stopped and questioned and harassed. I was blanketed in concrete and menace.
I stayed in the house.
The house that opened up and reached out for the embrace of the noise and the smell and the vibration of the world just beyond.
I was not home.
Not long after arriving at this house, my mother took some of us to a park.
It was a dismal flat park . . . a small play structure, a yellowed grassy area encircled by sidewalk, and a few benches. Sad neglected houses surrounded the park. We sat.
A moment of calm.
Calm broken as bouncing lowrider cars drove past, insults yelled out the window that we pretended were aimed at others. We were the wrong color for this park. Apparently.
And then a white van pulled alongside the park.
Both my mother and I stiffened . . . it was one thing to ignore insults from men who kept driving, but quite another to deal with a face-to-face confrontation.
We stared at the van. Its back door opened.
And from the van?
Climbed a giant rat. A man in a rat suit, to be exact.
We watched.
Watched in surprise as the park, which had been mostly empty a moment before, now filled with screaming children who ran from all of the sad neglected houses.
They ran screaming to the rat.
The gray rat held out his arms in greeting. He tried to walk. His intention appeared for a moment to be to try to lead the children in a parade around the park.
But the children were insane. They leaped and clawed and screamed at the rat.
The rat tried to take a few steps, to escape the mob. But the children rushed him and climbed him and screamed into his face.
And then somehow his rat head twisted and came off.
The children quieted for a moment.
The children and the beheaded man stared at one another.
A shimmering silent moment.
And then there was screaming again as the man replaced his rat head and moved to retreat back into the white van.
Angry screaming.
As the rat retreated, he threw what appeared to be confetti into the air. Wild frantic movements as he tried to extricate himself from the children. The children shrieked and threw themselves to the ground to pick up these scraps of paper. The rat climbed into the white van, pulled closed the doors, and then was gone.
My first introduction to Chuck E. Cheese, as it turned out.
Chaos embraced and encouraged.
After the rat left the park, we headed back to our smallish house.
Walked through the front door as catcalls sounded from the men next door, as a train rumbled past.
I walked into the smallish house and felt it embrace, not me, but the men and the train just outside.
Chaos embraced and encouraged.
I was not home.
But it did feel familiar.
so many wounds for you to heal.
I hope writing helps.
It helps me, makes me feel better about “imagination Christmases” and endless drunken drives with dad…
Love. so much love.
Thanks, babe.
The thing is, though?
I am healed.
This is a story of a long time ago. A story of a girl who was.
And while she has made me what I am today?
I am no longer that girl.
Big love to you,
Me
I cannot imagine. That… life. I am impressed and thankful that you can – and do – share. I find the meaningful things are the hardest to release out into the world. I can’t ever get much distance on the painful moments in my life – even if I do think of myself as ‘healed.’
I only blog about the things from which I have achieved a suitable distance.
Either through the passage of time or the application of humor.
This blog is not therapy for me.
But instead an opportunity to tell my story.
And while there was pain . . . it is of the past-tense sort.
So thank you.
lovely sad depiction. Bravo
Thank you, lovely one.
Thanks very much.
I love who you are.
And so, I love that girl who was.
See?
Exactly.
Me too.
I can hear, and smell, and feel the chaos that the house embraced. What I cannot do…is relate in that same way.
In my house, there was often chaos, but it was always home to me. Always.
Oh, and in my neck of the woods, before it was Chuck E. Cheese, it was Show Biz Pizza and the “main character” was a big monkey/bear thing. I had my fifth (sixth??) birthday party at Show Biz.
In Michigan? There was always chaos at home, but outside was an escape. There was so much outside in which to hide.
In San Diego? There was a different kind of chaos at home, and more chaos outside. Nowhere to hide.
A big adjustment.
And while my home in Michigan was flawed horribly? It still felt like where I belonged.
I never felt as though I belonged in that smallish house on Commercial Street. Not for one moment.
As for Chuck E. Cheese?
I have taken the girls there many times . . . they loved that place when they were younger.
And every time, I would remember that park and that rat and the chaos.
Every time.
chicken soup. and cookies. lots of cookies. and pot roast, with potatoes. with or without lumps. and lots of it, always lots of it.
i want to make it all for little you.
Awwww . . . you are all tending and motherly.
Thank you, babe.
You make that house so real to me, how even though it was better when you came in from the outside to there, it was not a shelter, not a home. I sometimes find myself in very rough parts of the city, like when I was passing through some really broken down parts of the Bronx on my way to the hospice where Dad spent the final three days of his life. There is this gloom and claustrophobia that just hangs in the air where all is gray and concrete and there is not a tree or patch of green to be found. The houses are tiny and interspersed with auto parts stores and yes, car washes. And I would find myself wondering how a person could hang onto hope or joy growing up there. And I know that some people actually do, that they have a vision in their hearts and somehow manage to wrap themselves in their mother’s love and seal out all the desperation around them, but it takes a strong, strong soul to survive that intact. Thank you for sharing what you have survived.
That house?
Always felt temporary. As though I was a visitor. I didn’t live there very long.
And when I did live there, I tried to be other places whenever possible.
I just kept trying to find other places . . . and college was where I finally landed.
Everything changed for me then.
Everything.
And I am so glad you were able to finally find a soft landing at college. I can think of so many worse places you could have gotten stuck in, and then we would never have had your voice.
Yes.
Thank you.
The University of San Diego.
Not the perfect place . . . but a safe place.
Thanks, you.
I can feel and smell that house. The vibe in there. Such a vivid telling. Do you ever wonder if that house is still standing?
My mother still lives in San Diego, as do some other members of my family.
I have not seen the house in many years . . . but I imagine it is still there.
Someone would have mentioned if it was gone.
I lived in San Diego for many years. Went to school there, married Mark there.
Never once felt an urge to drive past this particular house again.
Not once.
It’s so neat to read these posts Kris. To see small bits of long gone you. Like a puzzle.
We lived right up against a Taco Bell Drive thru once. That house was never home. Never. Which was very unnerving to me, because every other house we’d lived in, even the ones that were just for a few months at a time, always felt like home. In that one? I could lean out my window and touch cars if I’d wanted too.
Snort!
Yes . . . the car wash was that close . . . although if I leaned out?
I would not have touched cars, but men.
Sigh.
And I am glad you came to read today.
To make this connection.
Thank you.
For me the chaos was always just inside our house. That meant, of course, that I could escape it for a little while, but I feel like it also made stepping back into the chaos that much more jarring.
That describes the Michigan portion of my childhood perfectly.
One year at Halloween my friend dressed up like a ghoul. (this was in college) but it wasn’t like there was an official “ghoul” costume. She made it, and it involved sleeves with long black strips.
But after about a thousand times of telling people she was a ghoul, she gave up and told people she was a car wash. It actually went over a lot better.
That is awesome.
That is all.
i believe the house is gone, burned down. the rev and the car wash i think are gone. i know the train tracks the auto shop across the street the corner store are still there along with the palm tree. commercial and 28th street one block down from imperial. just blocks from 28th and K which was the next temporary house.
See, now?
I did not even know that . . . I never head over there.
Did someone tell me that? I don’t think so.
And I never lived in the house on 28th and K. I was so happy to not have to live there.
Ugh.
Just visiting was awful.
yeah i have been by in the past to show greg. i checked earlier and yoy can get really close and personal on google maps satellite. i totally remember the logan school picnic and the build up that we’d be having a special visitor. i think what made the kids really pissed is that the rat was only giving out coupons, which as you know means nothing to really broke ass kids. i also remember the rat was revealed to be a woman which created further mayhem and retreat.
I will have to check out the Google maps thing.
As for the Logan School Picnic? I think we may be remembering different events.
I don’t believe I attended that picnic.
Chuck E. Cheese was all over the place, but the time of which I speak?
Was not a group picnic . . . just a park visit.
I felt like I was standing there with you. I’m so excited to have found your blog, and can’t WAIT to explore.
Yay!
I will be by to check you out as well.
The Empress speaks quite highly of you.
I love your stories. the sadness and the chaos and the humor.
and that had to be the craziest Chuck E Cheese story I have every heard. it’s like the kids were all, not in OUR park, Chuck. we’re too tough for your kind! incidentally, I was terrified of the big rat as a kid. my 2nd birthday was at Chuck E Cheese and evidently, Chuck thought it would be funny to sneak up behind the birthday girl and scare her. there’s a photo of my screaming and jumping our of my high chair.
another story: there was a similar tough park in my neighborhood where the gang banger types liked to hang out and deal drugs (I assume. that’s what my dad said). also, my mother’s favorite flowers were pansies. so we were driving by this park one day and my mom spotted her favorite flower blooming in the park and yelled, “LOOK! PANSIES!” there just so happened to be a large group of tough young men sitting near the flowers. I’ve never seen my dad drive so fast in my life.
The confetti Chuck E. Cheese was throwing out?
Tickets that could be traded for prizes . . . you know, the same tickets the games spit out when you take your kids to gamble?
That’s why the kids attacked him. They wanted the tickets.
And Chuck himself? That is a freaky rat. Kallan had a birthday party there several years ago (she loved that place), and several of her friends were terrified of the rat-costumed man. Terrified.
That was big fun.
Sigh.
And your pansy story?
Oh my god . . . laughing so hard.
So fabulous.
I love your stories. All of them. The stories of who you were and the stories of who you have become. When I read these stories and then read your responses to all the comments dripping with heartbreak and remorse for that childhood? I imagine you (My imagined you) wrapping your arms around those people and assuring them that it’s okay. And with that, the silent understand that, no matter what, it’s always going to be okay. It’s so beautiful, it makes me feel warm and golden that I feel those imagined arms surrounding me, reminding me that, no matter what, it’s going to be okay, and I’ll survive.
On an unrelated note, my oldest brother worked at a Chuck E. Cheese when we lived in Hawaii and was the fastest pizza cutter on the west coast. I shit you not, they have (or HAD at least) regional competitions. He has a plaque.
As for the first part of your comment?
I am always clear that I am not still in pain. But as my stories are new to others, their response is fresher than my reaction was to it at one time.
But I love my readers, even when they try to hug me
Ack!
As for your brother?
That is awesome.
A plaque?
Hee hee!