Stray Thoughts

The old lion stood guard protecting my rocket ship from intruders as we both watched the final moments of the colorful sunset. The soft glow from the street lights would soon become more noticeable and that would then be followed by porch lights flickering letting every kid in the park know that it was time to head home. My mom wasn’t as strict as the other moms so I usually stayed out later and usually had the entire park to myself. Our front window faced the old 20 foot rocket ship slide and as long as she could see me I was allowed to be outside. The routine was a little different today though. Groups of kids were racing home as if something had just happened. A couple of my neighbors looked up into the rocket and told me to come down. I decided to slide down head first and on my back. I should have thought it out more because I ended up landing so hard that I knocked the wind out of myself. One of the kids shook his head and said “Man, why do you always have to be so weird”

Just a heads up, I am the weird kid in my neighborhood. I’m not the bug eating kid or the always in the nurses office kid though. I am the always in the library kid. The doesn’t have a t.v. at home kid. I am the first one to be called on in class and the last one to be chosen on the playground. I was in the 6th grade and instead of signing up for a sport I decided to sign up for band. When my mom saw what the rental price would be for an instrument she told me I couldn’t do it. So this, along with many other things put me in the weirdo group. And now I was on the ground struggling to breathe as these guys were standing around me wondering why they even bother talking to me.

I shook the sand off my clothes and out of my hair as I stood up. “Look man, just so you know this park is haunted” I laughed because we had all grown up in that park and I had never heard about this before. “I am not joking, people have seen a ghost walking around at night and sometimes it goes into the rocket ship” Well, that explains why I was the only one in the rocket but I still couldn’t believe them. They ran home and told me to do the same.

I usually climbed onto the statue of the old lion and watched the evening mist roll in. Sometimes it was so thick that I couldn’t see our apartment building. I read somewhere that this fog is often called the phantom sea. Knowing stuff like this helped put me into the weird kid category. As I climbed onto the lions back I noticed a beer can in his mouth. “No wonder the intruders got by you, you are drunk”! I took the can out of its mouth and walked over to the restrooms to throw it in the trash. I startled a group of older guys standing next to the trash cans. “Damn kid, whats wrong with you!” you scared us to half to death man. “Check out little man drinking a beer” A roar of laughter echoed through the park. I’m not drinking this, someone left it in the lions mouth. I should have just laughed and left but I had to open my mouth. They began to surround me “Aren’t you afraid of the ghost getting you”? At this moment I realized that I was now surrounded by the scariest thing in the park. They were the local gang and they hung out on the benches next to the basketball courts watching everyone that entered the park. One of them looked me square in the eyes and said, “We saw the ghost a couple of days ago” they pointed to the rocket ship and said it was standing in the top portion looking down at them. I nodded my head and tried to walk away but one of them grabbed me by the shoulder. “You better watch out, the cucuy comes after bad kids that drink beer at parks” Another roar of laughter and then they ordered me to go away. I hurried home just as it started to get dark and the glow of the street lights illuminated the mist rolling into the park.

My mom was getting dinner ready when I walked into our apartment. She gave me a hug and then froze. You smell like beer and cigarette smoke! I told her that I had been talking to the older guys in the park about a ghost that lived in my rocket ship. She gave me a hard look and told me to stay away from those guys. She said the neighbors had been talking about a ghost and that all the kids were scared to death of it. This was all news to me. I was always out of the loop on things around the neighborhood.

Another heads up about me, I spend every other weekend with my dads side of the family. Oddly enough, this didn’t put me in the weird  kid category, it actually connected me to a few of the kids in my apartment building. They also knew what it was like to bounce around from house to house. They still gave me a hard time about being weird though.

I stayed up that night watching my rocket ship. I still couldn’t believe that there was a ghost in the park, but I wanted to see what the older guys had seen. I was starting to fall asleep when I heard some of the guys from the park whistling to each other and shouting about the ghost being there. I stared into the foggy night and saw something moving around. It was headed towards my rocket ship but it didn’t look like a ghost. When it got to the rocket two arms came out from under a blanket and then it climbed up into the nose cone. The older guys were there in a hurry but it looked like nobody wanted to be the first to climb up there. I slipped out of my apartment and ran across the street into the park. Again, startling the older guys. “Damn kid, if you do that one more time I’m going to mess you up” the rest of the group laughed when they recognized me from earlier. “Check it out, it’s Mr Wino, sorry man, we are all out of beer” I asked them what was happening and they all pointed up to the rocket ship. Space ghost has arrived.

“Hey Wino, why don’t you go up there and see who that is” I nodded and began climbing the ladder that led to the top level of the rocket. I poked my head into the top level and saw a kid wrapped in a blanket fast asleep. I climbed back down and told the guys that it as a kid. They didn’t believe me so they took turns climbing up there. “Yeah, he lives a couple of streets over”.

‘We know who he is”. They told me that they would stand guard there overnight and then they ordered me to go home. I watched them through my window. A couple of them threw their jackets over the sleeping kid and sat on the benches around the rocket helping the lion keep guard throughout the night.

I woke up in the morning and ran back outside. The kid was still up there and the older guys were still on the benches. They all greeted me with a “Good morning little wino, say hello to little space ghost” I looked up into the rocket and saw a kid sitting at the top of the slide wrapped in a blanket. He didn’t look to happy to have company this early in the morning. One of the older guys told him to send all of their jackets down the slide because they were freezing. He did as they asked and then came down not knowing what to say. One of the older guys asked him if he was ok and the kid nodded yes. They then jokingly introduced us to each other. “Mr. Space Ghost meet Mr. Wino, Mr. Wino meet Mr. Space Ghost” I stopped them and told them that my name is not, nor will it ever be Mr. Wino. I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. “My name is Gustavo” We shook hands and the kid said “Gusano, like a worm”? The older guys laughed and I knew right then and there that I had just earned my neighborhood nickname. “No, Gustavo, not gusano” and without missing a beat the kid said, “Ok, worm” I could feel my ears burning so I shot back “how would you like it if I called you space ghost” He said since we were friends, I could call him ghost. The older guys were still laughing from the earlier jokes and now they were almost in tears. “You little homies are too much, whenever you see us in the park come over and say whats up” At this moment I realized that I had to get ready for school. Everyone made a face when I mentioned school and that’s when it happened. Mr. Space Ghost looked up at me and said “You want to go to school, I didn’t know you were a bookworm” All of them were on the ground laughing at me. Even Mr. Space Ghost. I stomped back home angry at the entire situation.

A few days later I was back in my Rocket Ship, but this time everyone was crammed into the top level telling stories about a kid that was living in the rocket at night. There were different stories going around about who he was and where he lived. By the time the sun was setting and the street lights were coming on, the word around the park was that a couple of orphan kids were living there at night. One of them had gotten kicked out of his house for being a little wino kid, I think they called him worm, and the other kid was forgotten by his family so they called him ghost. I was impressed by the stories these kids were making up about me and mr. ghost. I couldn’t wait to go home and write some of them down, but first I had to visit the old lion and catch another sunset with him. As I climbed onto its back someone shouted out, “You going to Narnia bookworm”? I looked over to the benches by the basketball courts and there was a kid standing on a bench pointing and laughing at me. I walked over there and shook his hand. All the older guys jokingly held up beers and asked if I wanted one. I shook my head no and asked them if they had heard all the crazy stories about us. “Heard em’, little homie, we are the ones making them up”! We all laughed and I told them to make me a legend in that park with their next story. I walked over to ghost and asked him what his real name was. He didn’t want to say and this got everyone’s attention. They all started to guess, “Is it Maria, because I have an uncle named Maria and its cool man” Ghost shook his head no, and everyone took turns trying to figure it out. He finally smiled and said, “Casper”. Everyone replied at the same time, “Noooooooooo wayyyyy”! I smiled and pointed out how ironic that was, and of course everyone made fun of me for knowing how to use the word ironic. I shook my head and waved goodbye but they weren’t going to let me leave that easy. Everyone on the benches came up to me and shook my hand. Not just any handshake, the official welcome to the neighborhood handshake. It took me a few tries but I got it down. As I walked home I knew this was the beginning of some really good ghost stories.

 

The entire classroom counted down the final seconds of the school year and a deafening roar accompanied the final bell. That was it, the 5th grade was officially over and the hallways were full of people laughing and celebrating. Everyone huddled up to sign each others yearbooks, t-shirts and folders. I never had enough money to buy a yearbook and there was no way I was going to let someone write on my crisp white t-shirt. I navigated through the hallways with a quickness and reached the playground basketball courts to the cheers and whistles of my crew.
Around town we were known as the Strays. We were always roaming the streets looking for something to do. We never caused problems but we always seemed to raise concerns. People always wondered if we had parents. We did have parents but the majority of us only lived with one. So basically we were the kids you were supposed to stay away from. You know the rules, don’t ever bring a stray home.
We waited for the crowds to leave so we could rummage through the lost and found on the way out. I was hoping to find a baseball glove or something cool but all I found was a book. I held it up in excitement and showed them that it was a book about us! “The Outsiders”, I’m keeping this. I looked inside to see if there was a name. What does Ex Libris mean? At that moment the voice of our principle rang out. “Gentlemen, why are we still here”? He held his hand out letting me know he wanted to see what I was holding. He asked me if it was mine and I said that it was now…Finders, Keepers. He laughed and told me to keep the book. He also told me that I should put my name under the Ex Libris part because it meant that I was the owner. He shook our hands and told us to hurry home.

I knew I was in deep trouble the moment I saw the straight razor in the nervous hands of that student barber. It wasn’t the razor that made me feel like jumping out of that chair, but the moment she closed her eyes and took a deep breath I knew she was praying. I squeezed the edges of the arm rest as she began to hack away chunks of my hair. All I could do was look down at the tips of my shoes peeking out from under the barbers cape staring at me in horror. This process was repeated multiple times as she would grab a hand full of my hair and then chop at it with the razor. After each cut I would look back down at the hair falling on my shoes and blame them for this whole mess.
I had asked my mom if I could get some brand name shoes when we went back to school shopping. Something with a colorful swoosh or some sporty stripes. She saw the prices and said no. The beginning of a new school year was getting closer and all of my friends were bragging about their new shoes. We were heading into the 6th grade and I was told that things like this mattered!
I swore that I would never ask for anything again if I could get the high tops with the velcro strap at the ankle. She showed me a similar pair from payless shoes and I went into panic mode. The majority of my shoes came from that place. To this day the smell of that store brings me back to this exact moment where I confessed to my mom that I wanted the kind that had the British flag logo on them. The look she gave me was on another level. In the end the answer was no. If I wanted those shoes I would have to ask my dad.
My parents split up before I made my big debut into this world, so whenever I wanted something that my mother couldn’t afford I had to ask him. I would wait until his weekend came around only to hear him tell me stories of how he would earn his own money as a kid when he really wanted something. I would ask everyone in my family to help me out, but all they ever gave me were stories. If I had a dollar for every story they told me I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair having my hair chopped off.
Haircuts were a routine thing, but what my mom did not know was that sometimes I would go to a different barber shop that charged less and then pocket the rest of the money. Our regular barber charged 8 dollars for a haircut. I would give him a 1 dollar tip and select a new palm comb from the cardboard display. These were also a dollar. You couldn’t leave a real barber shop without purchasing a new comb. I would then get my next haircut at this crusty old barber shop next to Pat Holden’s Liquor store on A St. I forget the barbers name but he was old school. He knew how to give 3 haircuts and you better not ask him for something that wasn’t on his menu. Flat tops, crew cuts and a business man. The business man was a basic clean up, so If you came in with what started off as a razor sharp cut he could groom it back to where it was. He would chain smoke menthol cigarettes while cutting your hair and if you looked old enough he would offer you one. He charged 4 dollars, so if you handed him a 5 dollar bill he would tip himself the change. He did not sell pocket combs, but if you were careful with your old comb you could make it last a couple of haircuts. I always had to wait a while before going home because I would reek of cigarette smoke and Clubman Pinaud talc which he would gently sprinkle onto the soft bristles of his antique barber brush and then commence to beat the life out of you with it. “Now you look like a man” that was the cue to get out of his chair and to hit the road.
So if you do the math, going to that place meant you had 5 dollars to spend. This was a small fortune for an 11 year old kid. This meant that the money was usually spent on junk food at the Woolworth’s snack bar. The first round of Slush Puppies and Frito boats was always on me when I was rolling in dough. The next stop was usually the news stand for some comic books and an issue of Lowrider Magazine and if I had any change left over I would feed it to the nearest video game. What goes up, must come down though right.
I had seen the banner for free haircuts at the Oxnard Beauty College a million times. I lived two streets over from that place, three streets over from our family barber shop and four streets over from that crusty old place next to the liquor store. My heart raced as I walked in and was immediately hit by a cloud of chemicals. That was the first sign I ignored telling me to leave. Someone walked over and asked if I needed help. I couldn’t breathe or talk so I pointed to the free haircut sign. She looked around and pointed to an empty chair. My legs did not want to take me to that chair and when I finally did sit down my gut told me that I was making a big mistake. Just wait until I get those new shoes! You will thank me on the first day of school when I am walking around with a fresh pair and not these old Buster Browns. Just wait! What happened next was a mess. People holding clipboards came over to examine the work and then I could hear the sounds of pens scribbling something onto paper. They were probably writing HAHAHAHA. Kid vs. Lawnmower, kid loses. When it was all said and done I was asked if I would like to purchase some hair products. I did not answer. I don’t think they sold miracles in a bottle at that place. Oh, and they didn’t even sell palm brushes. I should have looked for them before I even sat down.
For being someone that always told me to stop making weird faces, my mom sure did make a lot of weird faces. At least I was always the cause of a weird look or two. So you can imagine the look she gave me as I tried sneaking into the house. The plan was to run into the bathroom and shave my head with the clippers we had, but that plan was foiled by my mom who was in the bathroom hallway putting away a fresh, fluffy pile of bath towels. It was bad, I mean neighbors can hear every word bad. My mom could not believe that our family barber did this. She pointed to our car and said we were going right back, right now. I had to tell her the truth. It came out something like this. Not John, beauty college…for free. She knew I was trying to hustle up the money for those shoes. She threatened to send me to school barefoot to teach me a lesson. She would do it too and nobody would say a word after hearing what I had done.
We hit that parking lot like we were going to rob the place. My mom was halfway to the building when she realized that I was still in the car. I was just staring at her and regretting every move I had made that day. The haircut they gave me sure was a beauty though and now my mom wanted to meet the artist that gave it to me. I could read her lips telling me to get out of the car and get over there now. We walked in and my mom asked the lady at the front counter if she knew who butchered my hair. Nobody knew, or at least nobody wanted to own up to it. An older man come out from his work station and inspected the handy work sitting on top of my head. He said he could try to even it out but if he couldn’t he would just buzz it down to a crew cut. In the most defeated voice you can imagine, I managed to say ok. Every now and then he would break the silence by saying “oh man” or “wow”. Thankfully he could read my mind and got me out of that chair quickly. He probably just wanted my mom out too because she was standing right over both of us. We exited the parking lot like we had just robbed the place and made it home in about 10 seconds. I was so happy that we lived that close. I did not want to spend another second in the car with my mom. That silence was brutal. We did not talk for a couple of days and I did not get the shoes I wanted. Luckily my hair grew back before school started and I never even looked in the direction of another barbershop after this incident. That free haircut cost me a lot that day. I lost the desire for expensive shoes and cheap haircuts all in one day.

I used to dread family car rides around town, especially if my grandmother was sitting in the passenger seat. You see, she was famous for making my parents pull over whenever she saw plants or fruit which were free for the taking. We would park and walk through dirt lots that were full of weeds. My grandmother would scold us and tell us that this was a field full of edible wild greens. She would point at the ones she wanted and we would get to work. Patiently, she would walk around the plants, skillfully gathering herbs and flowers. Styrofoam cups would magically appear from her purse and gently filled with a small handful of earth and a bouquet of that days harvest. She kept a watchful eye on us making sure that we were not stepping on or mistreating the plants. I was not patient or gentle, I was working as fast as I possibly could to get out of that field. My biggest fear was having to explain to someone that we were going to eat all of these weeds.
We would pile back into our mighty mini van and set sail to the next location. She knew every dirt lot in town and what could be found there. We would make sudden stops whenever a couple of branches hanging into an alley caught her eye. We would turn back and in a matter of heartbeats I was standing on the rear bumper reaching up into random trees quickly picking lemons, limes, oranges and if we were lucky a few handfuls of figs or peaches. I would protest and tell my grandmother that we were stealing. She pointed out that the branches were hanging over the fence and that the ground was littered with fallen fruit. It was still scary, especially when dogs would start barking and jumping up to investigate what I was doing. My grandmother would recite old sayings such as “barking dogs never bite”, really? I always wanted to call her out on that one and have her switch places with me. Abuelitas were sacred though and we never spoke back or questioned their authority.
On more than one occasion curious homeowners would come out to see what was going on. After handshakes and introductions were made I was often invited into the yard to pick more fruit. Look up the word embarrassed in an illustrated dictionary and there you will find a beautiful woodcut illustration depicting a 10 year old boy gathering fruit of some sort into a paper grocery bag. In the background of that illustration you can see two grown men chit chatting and enjoying a cigarette and my grandmother gathering herbs and flowers. Oxnard was a small town when I was a kid so by the end of the week everyone on the school playground had heard that I was in someones yard picking fruit off their tree instead of buying it at the grocery store like normal people. These field trips went on for years and spilled over into neighboring towns containing a plethora of street food.
We would take the back roads into Camarillo to gather cactus paddles and the fruit that grew on them. This was without a doubt my least favorite thing to do. On a good day the cactus was young and the thorns were still rubbery to the touch. I could work fast whenever we found them in this state, but sometimes fellow gleaners would claim them all and we would have to settle for the older cactus paddles. These had the infamous razor sharp needles all over them. Open up that illustrated dictionary again and look up the words doomed, agony and acupuncture. Do you recognize our young protagonist? My mother and grandmother were the only ones skilled enough to collect and clean the fruit that grew on the cactus. Prickly pears are a very deceiving name. There botanical name should have been “Do this wrong and you die!” My grandmother could put the greatest brain surgeon to shame with her steady hands. Hands so callused that she could have probably dusted off the prickly fur on the fruit as if it were a peach.
After our mighty wagon was packed and back on the road we would listen to our abuelita tell us stories about going into towns after the harvest to pick up the leftover produce. This was a very normal thing for her and I would begin to feel ashamed about feeling embarrassed. On our way back we would stop at the homes of friends and relatives to share what we had gathered. Lengthy stories and lengthier recipes were always exchanged and more times than not we would end up leaving with more bags and boxes of produce. My grandmother would memorize coordinates of new locations where one could find a guayaba branch so loaded with fruit that the branches touched the ground. Great, I knew what I would be doing the following weekend. When we would finally arrive home it was my job to deliver these bags and boxes to my friends and their parents. My friends would always ask where I had been and were always ready with the jokes when I told them about the days adventures. They knew the routine, we were very well known within our own neighborhood and could often be found in someones fruit tree looking for a quick snack.
By the time I made it home the kitchen was already in full swing. The steady sounds of chopping were usually accompanied by the sweet sizzle of fiery chiles, onions and tomatoes. My uncles were famous for always arriving at this exact moment. Dipping freshly made tortillas into the blender as the salsa was being made. My mom would chase them all out of the kitchen waving a steamy wooden spoon at them but at the same time smiling and loving every minute of the commotion. Outside, my grandmother was busy transplanting her new flowers and herbs. Our garden was a walk up pharmacy for home remedies. We had it all and it was not unusual to have someone knocking on our door late at night asking for some mint, chamomile and lemon grass. That usually meant someones child had an upset stomach. The styrofoam cups would magically appear again and our visitor would walk away with enough clippings to start their own herb garden.
Sadly, the dirt lots became gas stations, car washes and mini marts. Some of the hillsides became neighborhoods and all of the trees seem to have been trimmed back or chopped down, but if you look closely the planters in those places usually have mint, horse tail or rosemary growing in them. Somewhere, someone is jotting down the coordinates to these places and will eventually make their way back for some street food.

I landed the role of the new kid in the neighborhood more than a few times. After the second or third time I learned to wait for the locals to teach me the rules and boundaries. It was considered bad etiquette to make yourself at home too quickly. Everyone had to give their approval before you were welcomed into the pack. I struggled during one of these transitions and I didn’t think I was going to get along with this new group of kids. My lucky break came one day when a kid in a wheelchair cruised into my front yard. We ran through the routine head nod, palm slap and handshake. This was a neighborhood custom to see if you were hip to the skip. Basically, were you cool enough to have been taught the handshake. I passed with flying colors and was now able to venture into the neighborhood and meet everyone.
Luckily this all happened during the summer so I skipped the new kid stage when I started the 3rd grade. Everything seemed to be going my way until a new family moved in next door to me later that year. These kids didn’t seem to know or care about the rules or boundaries. There were four brothers and three sisters which made them the biggest family on our block. I knew we were going to have problems but I ignored them. The rest of the kids tried to reach out to them but this family wanted nothing to do with us. Since I was their neighbor I was the closest and easiest target to hit. It started with small things like ice cream wrappers and soda cans being tossed into my yard. I would catch them laughing and making faces at me from their windows as I cleaned up their mess. They would knock on my door and run away whenever they saw the opportunity. I had to resort to extremes and challenge them to fights but they would never step out of their yard to accept. Parents got involved and within months a feud had formed but what they did next put them so far out of bounds that there was no coming back.
The 1984 Olympic games were being hosted in Los Angeles, Ca and that put my little town in the path of the Olympic torch. Not only was the torch coming to town but it was actually going to be passing directly through my neighborhood. We all rode our bikes to the intersection and waited for the camera crews. Our goal was to be on the news that day. The police and fire stations had all their vehicles out along the route. My neighbors were not allowed to go so they had to watch from their front yard. My mom was just getting home when she saw all of this going on up the street. She asked the neighbors what was happening and they told her that I had been hit by a car. She bolted down the street screaming and crying. Another neighbor stopped her to see what was wrong. My mom pointed at the intersection and said that I had been hit by a car. The neighbor then pointed me out in the crowd and showed my mom that I was alright. One of my friends noticed this and told me that my mom was looking for me. I rode over and noticed a small group of people trying to comfort her. When I got to her she looked like she wanted to hug and strangle me at the same time. She was starting to hyperventilate so I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. When we got back to our house she told me what the boys next door had told her. I ran out of my house but they were already inside and laughing at me through their windows. I pelted their house with everything I could pick up and throw. My friends ran over to see what was going on. I told them what they had done and they immediately let me know that they were with me one hundred percent. This was the point of no return for me. On the 20th day of July, 1984, I declared war.
They didn’t come out of their house for days and I didn’t move from my front yard for the same amount of time. I knew that eventually one of those boys was going to have to go to the store to get something their mom needed. That or their dad would order someone to come out and fight. They eventually came out, but they always had a younger sibling with them and a sister or two. There was an age old rule on the streets. You had to give someone a pass when they were with family. So I had to change strategies. I had an entire summer to catch these guys so I took my time. The first thing we did was set up camp right in front of their house. This became our new meeting point. We parked our bikes there and played marbles under a big tree next to the sidewalk. This went on for months. The oldest brother would come out to try and make peace with us. It would work out for a while and then something would happen to take us back to square one. The hardest part was that people would look to me to sound the battle cry. I was getting a little tired of it and I was ready to let it all go, but things are never that easy.
We would declare a truce and try to get along but someone would always mess things up. It was usually one of their friends or relatives that would come over to visit. They were probably curious to see who this big bad bully was. Then I would come out and they would laugh. I was 9 going on 10 but the chip on my shoulder was easily 35 years old. Words would turn into threats and then threats turned into headlocks that required adults to undo. We were kids so our fights were never that brutal. On occasion fists would fly but the battles usually turned into wrestling matches. What they didn’t know was that a few guys on our block were high school and college level freestyle wrestlers who taught us an assortment of submission holds. So on more than one occasion their dad had to run out to separate a well placed full nelson. Trust me, when I lock that in its a done deal. Their parents managed to use someone elses address and they ended up going to different schools. By this time the four brothers stayed inside or in their back yard. We were done with them and moved on to other things.
We eventually crossed paths again in our high school years and now the younger brothers started to associate themselves with a group of people that were trying to make a name for themselves in the street gang culture. This is when things got a little touchy. Some of the friends I had grown up with were also in the early stages of gang life and we all knew that this was not something to be played with. People looked to me to see if I was ready to join this battle, but that was out of bounds for me. I could not go that route for many reasons. Luckily my friends also realized this and let me do my own thing. By our sophomore year the majority of my friends had been kicked out of school which made me a little vulnerable on my walks to and from classes. I had some close calls with these individuals which led to situations that led to more run ins and close calls. These were not good times for me and they were about to take a turn for the worse.
My closest friend from my neighborhood was always that kid that rolled his wheelchair into my front yard to introduce himself to me. He was born paralyzed and was in a wheelchair all of his life. It never stopped him from doing anything we would do. Sports, break dancing, fighting and whatever else we dreamed up. He was always there showing us how it was done. He raced his wheelchair in competitions and had the biggest biceps out of all of us. His brothers were the wrestlers that taught all of us how to defend ourselves. He was the spirit of our neighborhood and one day he informed us that he had to have some surgery to correct something in his back. He had gone through this before so we didn’t think much of it. We slapped hands and told him to hurry up and get back to the block as soon as possible. Something went wrong after the surgery and he passed away due to complications. Our church could not hold the number of people that showed up for his funeral. All day long people put their arms around me and uttered the phrase “sorry for your loss” I must have heard it a hundred times. I was looking for an empty place to sit alone but it was impossible. I walked around the outside of the church and that’s where I bumped into my neighbors. We nodded and shook hands but didn’t speak a word. Even though we considered each other enemies we were still from the same block. We grew up together even though we spent most of that time growing apart. I let go of all the grudges I had going on at that time and all of those grudges let go of me. They saw that I was hurting but showed me some respect by leaving me alone. You can’t kick someone when they are down, its against the rules and puts you out of bounds.

I can still hear the dog whimpering as my uncle opened his car door and told it to go away. We were visiting relatives and a stray had made itself comfortable on my great grandmother’s front porch. Had I known that was the mission we were on I would have passed. I looked back and could see the dog barking and running after us. I had never seen that dog before but I was choking up thinking about how scared it must have felt. My uncle mumbled something and the other passengers laughed. We spent the day running errands and visiting relatives and when we returned to my great grandmother’s the stray was running around the yard acting as if it was supposed to be there. I laughed and raised my little arms in victory. After hearing how the dog had made it back in one piece a kind neighbor asked if he could have it. I should probably mention that my great grandmother lived in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico and that I was around 7 years old. I wanted that dog to tell me everything it had been through.

I always noticed the packs of stray dogs wandering those streets at night. I also began to notice stray cars sitting on bricks and stray furniture on the side of the road. Sometimes I would spot a stray person in one of those cars or on some of that furniture surrounded by stray dogs. I would wonder if they were all told to get out of a car at some point in their lives.

These memories often showed up in my earliest attempts at writing. Some of the strays would show up in the middle of a story and then disappear because that is what strays do. I had a nice collection of notebooks and maybe even a floppy disc or two with the beginnings, middles and endings to more than a few stories. I only finished what was required for school and then one day I opened the car door and told them to get out. I convinced myself writing was not for me and I got rid of everything. Stray stories began to show up on my doorsteps. You really can’t get rid of them. I pulled out notebooks that people had given me as gifts hoping that one day I would hand it back full of stories.  Those notebooks found homes on nightstands, desks and even one under my couch that my kids use to leave me notes and drawings. I hoped that my strays would see the blank pages as a place to come home to. Now I spend the rare quiet moments at home tracking down my stray thoughts and stories. The streets of my imagination are full of handmade LOST STORY signs. Hopefully they all come home like that wonder mutt in Tijuana did years ago.

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