Location: Eastside Long Beach
Destination: Westside Long Beach
So, I’m feeling fly, even if I have poured myself into some close fitting Calvin Klein jeans and am now wondering if I’ve compromised breathing for fashion. I wanted to look good ringing in the New Year. With my matching boots and faux leather jacket, I prepared for an evening of adventure.
I take off to the freeway blasting my Dru Hill greatest hits CD and wondering my van is pulling to the right. This old van of mine has been good to me.
“Maybe it’s just getting old,” I think, since I just had the car re-aligned. Moving into the right lane, I rev off the exit, listening to an unmistakable low hum, which I suspect is the engine. It isn’t. It’s a flat tire. Whaat? A flat tire on New Year’s Eve?!
Quickly my instincts kick-in. I know there’s a tire shop on Santa Fe. Somehow, though as I drive down the street, I miss it. I end up on a corner whirling my head around like the exorcist lady looking for someone to help. I spy a straitlaced young white police officer making a left-hand turn and I honk frantically. He responds by methodically raising his right hand all the while gazing forward to complete his left turn. “Thank God,” I think, “he sees me.” I won’t have to walk 10 blocks to my Mom’s house filled with the stench of chit’lins. It is New Year’s Eve after all and some black traditions die hard. And this is exactly how I explain it to the officer.
“You see officer there’s an African-American tradition where something called “chit’lins” is prepared to usher in the New Year. Only problem is their pig guts and they stink up the whole house. If I don’t get this car fixed, I’ll have to spend the night over there!” This is a diverse city, so chances are he knows what I’m talking about, but it’s a fun challenge to make an officer of the law laugh.
Sergeant Le Baron is a clean cut white guy who looks like he’s played by the rules most of his life. He reminds me of one of the nicest and smartest boys I knew in Geometry class in high school, Andy, who was really sweet and a great conversationalist. This makes me comfortable with him right away. He drives me down the truckside part of PCH in hopes of seeing an open tire repair shop. But it’s dusk on New Year’s Eve, and nobody’s open. He suggests that the best thing to do is to utilize my Mom’s Triple A, call a tow, and allow them to put on my spare tire. He puts in a call to Triple A, and we chit-chat.
I ask him about his family. He’s got a nine year old and he and his wife have a one-year old toddler. Before showing him my wallet-size family photo, I launch into an anecdote about taking my father to Vet’s hospital.
“He’s such a war veteran,” I insist, “he never sees himself as sick. But I get him to laugh just talking about my dead-end job, how jobs can you literally drive you crazy, and gossiping about mom,” describing my technique for chipping off my dad’s icy exterior.
“He’s so appreciative for a simple ride to and fro to the hospital, that he gives me a gift certificate to a photography studio for a family photo,” I explain.
I enjoy preparing for the unveiling of my family photo in this way. When I show Sergeant LeBaron, I figure the smiles on my children’s faces say it all—we have joy. My father’s urging that we take a photograph was an unspoken gesture of pride in his daughter and his grandkids.
I suspect that Sergeant Le Baron is impressed too. We both, as it turns out, have more than 2.5 children. He jokes that coming to work patrolling the streets is easy compared to raising kids. I can totally relate, and we get a good laugh from this realization. But in a moment of compassion he remarks, “but you’re doin it all alone.”
It’s true for the most part, but I’m proud that this fact or his concern for me doesn’t make me sad. It’s just me living my life and taking care of my family. The wound of the past has been healing nicely, I notice.
My mother arrives in her typical fashionable Hollywood ready style in a smart, ankle-length beige trench coat extending her hand to Sergeant Le Baron as if they’ve just wrapped a blockbuster movie and have showed up for the red-carpet premiere. Soon after, Triple A arrives at my spectacle, and finds, too my surprise, that I actually own a firestone brand tire with quite a bit of tread left on the tire. New Year’s Eve can finally begin.
I do, however, feel a tinge disappointed that I must leave the company of a gainfully employed family man that loves his wife and adores his kids. It’s kinda like I had a non-date date for New Year’s Eve. Perhaps I’ll call it my “undate.” I can definitely attest to the fact that the experience rocked 100x’s more than the actual date I had about a month ago.
My “undate” proved to be the highlight of my New Year’s Eve. I sit in a chair across from my brother at my mother’s house detailing the events from the evening while inhaling small sips of breath to prevent passing out from dank chit’lin fumes.
“I gave him some brown sugar,” joking with my brother about the full body hug I gave to the Sergeant.
“Did you kiss him?” my brother asked.
“No!” I shoot back, “he’s married!” surprised by my tone of propriety since admittedly I did have a visceral urge to plant one on the lips—and then some. He was my knight in shining armor on a dusky New Year’s Eve after all.
“So.” my brother shrugged. “I wish someone would kiss me on the lips. I’m ringing in New Year’s Eve alone, again.”
I understand his forlorn sentiment. I hadn’t had a kiss from someone who cares about me in a long, long time.
We spend the rest of the evening telling jokes and watching Young Money on BET featuring the young, hot, and fabulous Lil’ Wayne, Drizzy Drake, and the pink haired one, Nicki Minaj.
I didn’t go out, like last year’s Erykah Badu evening (story for another time), but my non-date with Sergeant Le Baron lingered on my mind and kept my heart hopeful for the new year.
No comments:
Post a Comment