from yesterday 2

“Italian Rottweiler”

When you're fifteen you do things like; wait until your family is asleep, grab the keys to the mini van off of the wall, quietly open the electric garage door by hand, put the van into neutral and quietly push it backwards out of the garage and into the street where your friend is waiting, before you start it and feverishly drive off into the night. Right? This was a typical weekend for me when I was in high school. I wasn't exactly the one doing all the sneaking around: I was the one standing out in the street hoping my friends parents didn't wake up in a fit of rage and kill us both. My friend was Alfredo.

The mini van was a 90's model Toyota Previa (not exactly a vagina magnet). The time was one when nothing seemed right and all the answers could be found in the minds of the boys behind the wheel.

When I was fifteen my four person family lived in a two bedroom apartment in Santa Ana. My mother was always a saint to us. However, I never felt like my father was anything but an arbitrary figure who taught me to be just like him, without actually trying to do anything of the sort. Because of this; coupled with something my English teacher called “angry young man syndrome,” – I never spent much time at home. Instead, I bounced around from one friends house to another like a firefly that couldn't decide which little kid's jar to die in.

That summer, salvation (or anarchy) came in the form of my friend Alfredo's learners permit. As was customary for Mexican families who weren't exactly familiar with the driving rules; Alfredo was now able to take the mini van to run errands and perform the menial tasks that parents want kids to do when they first are able to drive. We on the other hand, had bigger things in mind. Fast forward a few weeks and there I was, standing in the street waiting for the van to roll out far enough so the sound of the engine coming to life wouldn't wake anyone. When I sat in the passenger side of that van I felt like I was free. We were free. Driving down the 22 Freeway with the windows down and the heater on full blast – making the perfect mix of cool night time air swirl around the heat of going nowhere. I remember putting my hand out the window, the way main characters do when they're on road trips in the movies. Listening to “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman, knowing that we had to be home sometime; racing past streetlights so that they became streaks against the night sky; trying to be somewhere else.

By the time summer came along Alfredo and I had begun dating a pair of girls from Westminster. It was one of these girls who would deliver me – albeit violently – my first kiss. That night, after rolling the van out and picking up the girls we made our way to the pier at Seal Beach. The night was clear and just cold enough to where you could do the things that fifteen year old's do. She was an Italian girl who's daddy was a cop. I was a virgin who had never really kissed a girl – ever. We talked all night about the things you talk about when you're fifteen and eventually we had to go home before it was discovered that the girls had sneaked out. I don't remember much of the drive home (I may have blocked it out of my mind much like a trauma I have repressed). Although, I do remember pulling up to their house and leaning out to give her a hug as she got out of the van when I felt my mouth being violated by a foul monster of a tongue (one that apparently had never learned not to randomly jump down peoples unsuspecting throats). She kissed me for what seemed like hours in a way that I imagine boys who think they are good kissers kiss girls. I was never the same after that. But to this day, I remember the Italian girl with the slobbery technique. Sometimes in life, the “firsts” we play parts in aren't exactly as we imagined they would be.

In the following years Alfredo and I would have many adventures in that van: several girls, several heartbreaks, first trips, first wrecks, first close calls, first arguments; but the thing I always remember is that unexpected moment on a summer night when a girl I cared about showed me she cared about me – the way your rottweiler does when she hasn't seen you in a few days. I miss that girl.