You're Not Your Kids

“I need razors and lotion,” Jenn told the skateboarder. “I’ll buy you gas if you drive me. I just got paid.”

“He said he’d drive you later,” Charlie told Jenn. “He couldn’t resist a trip to the skate shop.”

She sat on the half-finished deck staring at the skateboarder’s car. The longer she stared, the more ideas went through her head.

“I’m bored of waiting for him,” she said. “Let’s toilet-paper his car.”

Charlie thought this would be a good father-daughter bonding opportunity. “Okay.”

She ran up to the bathroom and returned with two toilet-paper rolls. “You’re probably a pro at this.”

“This is the one thing I’ve never done,” Charlie said. “I’ve done everything else, but not toilet-paper a car, especially not with my daughter. Too tame.”

<>The skateboarder returns and notices his newly decorated car. He doesn’t say anything. He looks over at Charlie and grins, then runs upstairs back to his chat room.

“Jenn did it,” Charlie yells up to the skateboarder.

“You helped,” she says.

Instead of getting razors and lotion, Jenn convinces the skateboarder to drive her downtown. Her semi-ex-boyfriend recently moved from Eugene to his new home in the Sunset Transit Center parking garage.

“When do you think you’ll be back?” Charlie asked. I wouldn’t think of asking a twenty-five year old pregnant woman this question. Then again, I wouldn’t think of even talking to someone living in the Sunset Transit center parking garage.

<>“No,” I said. My rash is getting worse.

“I’ll take you,” Charlie said. “I have to go to my home away from home: Home Depot.”
<>She doesn’t tell Charlie very much. On the way, he tried to get her to talk. “It’s a small world, you seeing a friend from Albuquerque out here in Portland.”

“I told you I had friends here.”

Charlie let her off at the Carl’s Jr. parking lot. He drove away after watching her stand there for a while, looking around. He hasn’t seen her since.

“What are the chances of her running into old friends in a new town?” Charlie asked me when he got home. “That doesn’t happen when you’re shopping. That happens when you’re in shelters, hooking up with other dirtbags, doing dirtbaggy things. That shrinks your world, increasing the chances you’ll find dirtbags you know.”

“At least she’s honest,” I said. I don’t want to think of what a pregnant twenty-five year old with twenty tattoos would do in Portland all night long, two nights in a row.

“She’s been here over a month,” Charlie said. “All of a sudden her semi-ex boyfriend moves up to Portland and all of a sudden she has friends up here. All of a sudden she’s not coming home at night and all of a sudden she’s going out all the time. Even with my Florida education, it’s pretty easy to do the math.”

We couldn’t talk anymore, even if we had something to say. The annoying neighbor kid and his friend started up their go-carts. No amount of insulated window panes could prevent a headache.

The neighbors have an obstacle course set up with plastic plant pots covering the whole cul-de-sac. The Dad rides around first, leaning into the corners and going fast, but very smoothly. He doesn’t knock anything over.

Charlie sets up his saw to work on the deck. He looks up to see the neighbor kid driving this time. He stops working for a minute to watch him.

The kid notices Charlie watching him. He starts speeding up, showing off. Each time he goes around the course, he gets a little faster. Charlie thought he ought to stop watching so the neighbor kid would stop showing off and slow down.

<>Before Charlie could turn his back, the kid loses control of the go-cart and knocks over all the plastic pots. The kid’s Dad, the smooth driver, looks over at Charlie and shakes his head, laughing at his son. How much of a mini-man-pig do you have to be for your own Dad to shake his head at the neighbor?

Nobody picks their child’s personality.

Some friends call and convince us to get our minds off Jenn. “C’mon,” they said. “A movie would be good. Somebody else does all the work. You just pay, sit and stare.”

It’s me, though, and I’m not known for my silence. There was too much time before the movie started for that.

I tried very hard not to talk about Jenn, but they asked. I couldn’t be rude.

“Everybody’s like that at twenty-five,” my friend said. “You don’t think about consequences and responsibility when you’re twenty-five. Weren’t you like that?”

“No!” I said. “I’ve never been like that. I can’t imagine not filing taxes, not thinking about how I was going to pay for things, not thinking about my future. Thinking about it gives me a rash.”

“Now I’m stressed,” my friend sayslater. She takes a big breath and gets in her car slowly.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to bring you down.”

“I’m going to worry all night,” my friend says. “I can’t help it, either.”

I hope she doesn’t get a rash, too. She probably won’t. It’s not her child.

A little help? [] 6:05:42 PM