Don't You Forget It

MCG with "Sammie"
photo by Bill Fox

         Almost every morning during my early elementary school years, until I cut my hair short, a betrayal of my Mexicanisma, my mom would brush my long hair to get all the tangles out. I'd sit between her legs, and she'd pull the blue brush with the long rat tail through my hair, slowing the brush through the tangles unless I pulled away or winced. If I moved too many times, she'd get frustrated and brush hard or whack me on the head. I learned to sit still and let her braid my hair because I liked having her this close. I thought it must be how kittens felt when their mother's licked them clean with their scratchy tongues. 

         It was hard to sit so still and not wince when she had to work out a big knot, but I knew she worried what people would see if I went to school looking dirty. I knew that worry had something to do with why she yelled at me for not changing out of my school clothes to put on play clothes right when I got home, or when I got holes in my tights, usually from tripping and falling on the playground. My hair in tight braids was my mom's way of making sure I looked neat and cared for and not a dirty Mexican.

         But my straight hair and my braids caused people to assume I was Me-wuk – what a pretty little Indian girl. And I was in Indian club at school. Mom had made sure that my brother and I be in the club. Having grown up in East LA during the Chicano movement, my mom had learned some things. She told me that Mexicans were Indian, Indian and Spanish mixed together, Aztec or Mayan Indian, so we could be in the club too. It sort of made sense to me at the time, and I liked getting out of class make crafts with tiny beads on a small loom, even beaded Christmas ornaments for our tree. But sometimes, even I wasn't sure who I was. Some people assumed I was Me-wuk; others asked, “what are you,” and I'd answer the best I could at that moment.

         One spring afternoon, when I was nine or ten, mom had company – some riff-raff from town, a couple, who came around from time to time to see if she had a joint to smoke. Being the oldest of three, I liked to hang around and listen to the adults talk. I'd wash dishes as quietly as I could so I could eavesdrop on their conversations. I knew my mom didn't really want me “hovering around,” but I also knew not go too far in case my sister woke up from her nap because if mom's friends were still there, I'd have to take care of her. So I had to be there, but I also had to make myself invisible.

         I looked out the window over the sink. The sunlight filtered through the massive oak tree that loomed over our house. The light on the ground looked like shadow lace. The neighbor's rooster was crowing as it began doing every morning at around four and continued throughout the day. The conversation in the living room went from being about someone who got pulled over by the cops in town, to a fight in the bar, to the joint they were smoking. Once I finished the last of the pots and pans, I noticed that it had grown quiet in the front room, so I wiped my hands on my pants and went to investigate. Mom's friends, the guy with long blond hair and a blond beard and the woman in jeans and barefoot and wearing a halter top, even though it wasn't quite warm enough yet, were sitting on the couch not talking just leaning back quietly with heavy eyes. I could hear the water from the toilet, so I knew mom must have just gone to the bathroom.

         “Hey Michelle,” the woman said in one of those voices adults use when they don't have kids of their own and don't know how to talk to kids in a regular voice.  “Look at your hair. It sure is long and dark. What are you Indian?” she asked. It was the question most followed with making a comment about my skin or hair.

         “Yes,” I said, looking up to see my mom. “Indian.”

         I could tell from the look on my mom's face that I said something wrong, but she just sat down and finished her conversation with her friends. Figuring I should try to make myself invisible again, I went back to the kitchen to put some of the precariously piled dishes in the cabinet before they fell over and got me in trouble. I decided then to make sure that my sister was still sleeping and to see whether my mom was mad at me by passing again through the front room and testing her reaction. When I passed by, she didn't react at all which wasn't a bad sign, but it wasn't a good sign either. Once in the middle-room, I held my breath and peered into the crib at my sister. I listened as the conversation in the front room wound down and heard the screen door slam. Not quite two years old, my sister stirred in her sleep, the honey-blond curls around her forehead were damp with baby sweat. At this I decided to go outside and read, but my mom stopped me in the front room. Coming out of the kitchen with a glass of water in one hand, she charged at me and grabbed my arm with her free hand.

          “You’re Mexican. Do you hear me?” she said, looking me hard in the eye. And don’t you ever forget it!” And she squeezed my arm tight to make sure I had really heard her.

         I opened my mouth to speak but all the air used to form words had been sucked out of me. All my senses now humming, I could hear the neighbor's rooster crowing in the distance.

Faking It

MCG sophomore year

MCG freshman year

Lolani Hawkins was popular, and she was Hawaiian. She wasn’t Me-wuk or Mexican, but she was popular anyway. Everybody knew Lolani Hawkins, but no one in Tuolumne knew that much about Hawaii apart from what we learned about leis and hula dancing from Lolani and her family. We certainly didn't know that most Hawaiians are a mixed-race people: Polynesian, Japanese, Puerto Rican, Chinese, Portuguese, Malaysian, Korean, and white. Lolani had dark skin, long dark hair, and dark brown eyes. From elementary school to high school, everything about Lolani set her apart from the others and in a good way. Striking but not particularly feminine in the way she moved her athletic body, walking with purpose, her broad shoulders sturdy and her head held high, she was smart, did well in school, had friends, was close with her family, and she was proud to be Hawaiian.
         PE teachers and coaches loved Lolani because she was good at sports. Growing long, powerful legs in fifth, sixth, and seventh grades, she was best at basketball, easily dominating the court and intimidating the girls from neighboring schools, with the exception of Jamestown, whose team of girls we kindly referred to as amazons.  Lolani was the kind of player who made the teachers, doubling as coaches, feel their time after school coaching the Summerville team worth it, though it was hard to ever tell if Ms. Martz, who rarely smiled, unless it was to sneer like she was smiling, was ever glad about anything. I remember her barking orders from the sidelines of the court during games, always with a look of disappointment, in her weird beige loafers, beige polyester slacks, and shiny, white windbreaker. Maybe it was the school mascot that was getting her down, coaching a team of girls whose mascot was a beaver.
         Summerville teams were never viewed as much of a threat, didn't have a reputation for winning most of their games, or having whole squads of excellent players, largely because there were girls like me on the team, girls trying to find their way, sports being one uninspired stop on the journey to finding the one thing in which they truly excelled. But Lolani's tenure in school sports changed the Summerville reputation a bit. She became well known around the county --  a real stand out. Most girls were either intimidated by her, or in awe of her power -- usually a combination of both. And the boys thought she was cool. She was in with them too. Practically one of them, she could speak their language, copy their swagger, hold her own.
         In fifth grade, I went to a couple of basketball games to see some of my friends play and got it into my head that I could do that too, not remembering that I was only about 4'9, afraid of getting hit by any kind of ball, and usually picked last for any teams during PE. I played basketball with Lolani just one season in the sixth grade, but I was never any good on the court. With all the passing, dribbling, and running about, I couldn’t remember which way I was supposed to be running, which basket I was supposed to be taking the ball to. My best move was grabbing the ball at the toss, as it was coming down, and holding onto it in a tug-of-war, waiting for the referee to blow the whistle.  Of course, Lolani was the star of the team, and she would go on and be one of the stars of the high school team too. The court was her universe, and the rest of us on the team were just in it -- she had those she relied on for rebounds, like the super tall Emily Ames, but everyone knew to keep their eyes on Lolani; she was the girl to watch, and she never got too big-headed about it either. Making baskets and scoring points for the team was just a fact of life for her -- it's what she did. Everyone called her a jock and tomboy, which seemed just fine with her. Nothing seemed to phase Lolani, either, not even my terrible plays. In fact, she didn't come down on anybody for not holding her own. Cool under pressure, she did what she needed to do to score points for the team. 
         But for me, basketball was something that I was just trying on, and watching Lolani play down court, in possession of the ball, made me realize that it didn't fit. I was at middle court, waiting around, not really playing at all when Lolani stole the ball from Jamestown. A handful of friends and parents in the stands, were whooping wildly, when she made a run for it, a pack of black and red jerseys a ways behind, unable to catch her. Just south of the net, she shot the ball, and course, she scored. Her power was impressive, and it made me think two things: I was never going to be that good, no matter how hard I tried, and I didn't care enough about basketball to try. Lolani went on to become the star of the high school basketball team, and I began to find my way in the high school pep band, marching band, jazz band, and choir where my actual talents were put to good use.                  

          However, in high school, my talents didn't get me cheers, trophies, or accolades, or popularity, which I tended to look down on. What they got me was a snowball with a rock inside upside my head. I thought I was just being myself, but to everyone else, choosing to be a punk girl and a band geek, I was just asking for it. One snowy, winter day, sophomore year, Jeremy Fong, the school counselor's son came after me more viciously than he had before. He had been taunting me for weeks, calling me a freak, and purposefully crashing into me in front of my locker. I was leaving pre-Algebra which took place in a classroom in the same building as the administration office. Passing in front of the flag pole and the school mascot statue, a giant black bear, when whap, a snowball nailed me in the temple. Breaking apart on impact, icy snow skidded across my face, and I could feel a lump forming, where something harder than a snowball had hit. Jeremy was ahead of me, laughing and carrying on -- the only Chinese guy in the whole school, not particularly tall with thick, dark hair and almond-shaped eyes, had assaulted me, to make himself look cool, and he would get away with it. Holding my head, and trying not to cry, I turned, and stomped through the snow-covered grass toward the school's office. I busted through the door and demanded to speak with Mr. Fong. I was prepared to be greeted by his snide smile; he had a way of making you feel like he never took you or anything you said seriously. He wasn't there.
         "I want to speak with Mr. Fong, right now," I shouted, startling the office assistant behind the counter.
         "Is there something that I can help you with?" her voice light and airy and without urgency.
         "I want to speak with Mr. Fong," I repeated, holding my head.
         "Michelle, I don't believe that Mr. Fong is even your counselor."
         "I need to speak with him."  By this time another office assistant had come out of the back room to see what all the commotion was about.
         "Mr. Fong is not in," the second office assistant announced. "Is there something we can help you with?"
         "Mr. Fong's son just hit me in the head with a snowball, and it had a rock in it. Look at this, look at my head," I said turning my face in their direction. They both looked at my head from their place behind the counter, not bothering to move too close.
         "We will let Mr. Fong know about this incident," said the first assistant, "as soon as he gets in." They didn't even offer me an ice pack.
         I didn't understand it. I didn’t want to be popular for things that the popular kids were known for, like sports, having an upperclassman for a boyfriend, for being a cheerleader, but how did Jeremy Fong rate? How could someone like Jeremy Fong be popular? Was it simply because his dad was the school counselor? I got it with Lolani, for the most part, and I understood why I wasn't. I was a weirdo, and she had great athletic prowess, a great personality, and she was Hawaiian, which seemed somehow cooler than being Me-Wuk or Mexican, and maybe the hula dancing helped too, but I didn't think so.
         Lolani had literally sweat a lot for her popularity, but maybe she was just doing what came natural. Maybe this is what made her a standout. I was doing what came natural to me too, the weird clothes that I could afford because I bought them from second-hand stores, the short hair because I was tired of people pointing out that I was a Mexican girl, and the heavy dark eye-liner just in case anyone didn’t get the point that I was trying to make. I just wanted to be noticed for something other than my skin color and my last name, the stuff that made me visible and invisible all at the same time.

I had seen what happened to many of the other dark-skinned kids. Many of the native kids who lived on the Me-Wuk reservation and not in town had dropped out of school already. School didn't seem to fit them at all, and it certainly didn't support them being there, not like elementary school had, or attempted to, at least. The curvy and quick-tempered Rhonda Kerzer who always wore a folded navy blue bandana on her forehead to hold down her full, thick mane, Jimbo and Louis, who I slapped once for whacking me on the head on the back of the bus, and several others, who I had shared teachers with in elementary school had long dropped out and been forgotten. The Maria sisters, the few only bilingual Mexicanas were practically invisible too until the older Maria got on the yearbook committee and made sure there were lots of pictures of her and her sisters in it that year. And during my four years at Summerville High, there were only three African American kids: Mona, Jay, and Lloyd. The best we could do for them was to pretend that we didn't notice that they were black.
         But for all I know, Lolani could have been pretending too. I remember watching her perform with her petite and beautiful mom and older sister at the high school. To see her swiveling her hips in her grass skirt and bikini top seemed wrong somehow. Each time I saw the act, I never quite bought it. Nonetheless, she, her mom, and her older sister continued performing here and there around the county, a kind of exotic novelty act. Instead of her face serious with sweat and determination, she smiled awkwardly with a gardenia behind her ear, her thick muscular legs fouling up her attempt at femininity but getting her noticed just the same.

Queen Of Chlorine

MCG's son @ the Tuolumne Pool

Her name was Colleen, and she ruled the pool. Each blow of her whistle was followed by a “Heeey, don’t run!” or “Get off the staaairs!” or “Nooo splashing!” She usually wore white-framed Vaurnet sunglasses that matched any of her brightly colored bikinis: a solid pink, a solid yellow, a solid turquoise, and white. When she wasn’t screaming at us and blowing her whistle, she’d spin it around her finger with the intensity of boxer jumping rope. With her left hand on her hip, she’d get that whistle spinning to the right, and once the string had wrapped itself around her index finger, she’d get it spinning to the left. It was like her special lifeguard lasso – you didn’t dare get too close.

         I don’t know if it’s because she seemed to single me out, or because I was intimidated by her sun-bleached blond hair, and all-American beauty, or a combination of the two, but Colleen was my nemesis. She was everything I wasn’t: beautiful, blonde, and powerful. Sure, she was a bit thick around the hips and had cellulite, but to me she fit a standard unattainable to all those around me. All the kids who swam at the pool were afraid of her, and she seemed to revel in her role as queen of chlorine. You didn’t dare pee in the water anywhere near Colleen’s umbrella perched high above the mass of sun damaged bodies. She was tightly wound, that was for sure, but it’s true that the majority of the kids at the Tuolumne pool had been sent, or dropped off, by parents without jobs who used the pool like they used elementary school, as a babysitter, only the pool stayed open much later and there was no homework.

             It always seemed that nearly half the town’s kids were there. Even on weekends, after having walked fifteen minutes to get there with my brother in tow, wearing a hand-me-down hot pink bikini, which glowed against my sun baked skin, there was always a line of kids waiting at the gate before the pool had even opened.  Even though we lived month to month on a skimpy welfare check and food stamps, my mom always managed to scrounge enough change from pockets of dirty pants and under the couch cushions to get us into the pool and enough for a treat even though she didn’t like us eating candy. Meanwhile, she’d stay home, drink coffee, and get stoned with her friends.  We’d usually see their kids at the pool or across the street in line at the little store -- a lot of poor and working-class white kids, and a few super dark Me-wuk kids from the rancheria, and me and my brother, two of the only Mexican kids in town, passing as town Me-wuks. Like my brother and me, the Me-wuk kids never came to the pool with their parents; they often came without towels. They’d simply lie down on the hot, scratchy pavement, their skin turning ashy until they jumped back into the pool and emerged dark and glistening from the blue water.

         There were a few kids who came to the pool with their parents; these parents often wore swim caps and nose plugs while they splashed around in the water with their spawn, or sat on big colorful towels in the shade. They were an oddity and their kids complete dorks. I don’t think I ever heard Colleen or any of the other much younger lifeguards tell those kids to take a shower before entering the pool, and they never came wearing cut-offs, so they were never turned away. I had seen a couple of teen Me-wuks with long, dark hair, wearing fringy cut-offs who paid to get in to the pool, get kicked out after diving into the deep end and pulling themselves out of the water to reveal long, bleached out, denim strings snaking down their legs and dripping with water.

            Colleen always glared at me. Maybe I wasn't the only one, but I could feel her glare track me whenever I had to walk passed her and her flying whistle lasso on the way to the diving boards. There were two boards, the low board and the high board. Just climbing the stairs to the top of the high board made my stomach flop over, but it was a fear I knew I had to conquer. Some days, I’d march right past Colleen, daring to get close to the blur of her whistle, and other days, I’d walk the long way around the pool, opposite of Colleen, as slow as I could until I reached the high board. I’d let a kid or two who seemed more eager cut in front of me, and once the board was empty, I’d make a panicked assent to the top. The slight bounce of the board under my feet gave me a floaty, slow motion feeling that I savored, as I made my way out to the tip. It was exhilarating to be up so high above the smell of coca butter, baby oil and chlorine. Inevitably, my thoughts were interrupted.

            “Heeeey, you on the board; you’re taking tooo lonng,” Colleen would

scream and blow a long shrill blast on her whistle.

         When spooked, I would turn and make my way to the stairs then down, each one a mark of inadequacy.

I only remember Colleen using my actual name one time – it made me feel so important.

         “Michelle, is there anyone else in there?” I had just walked out of the changing room,  “I need to send one of the guys in to unclog a toilet,” but normally she’d shriek, “Hey!!!!!!!” or “Hey, you!!!!”

After about the third summer in row of Colleen screaming and blowing her whistle in a way that had nothing to do with saving my life, I forgot about wanting to disappear.  Instead, more swiftly than ever before, I climbed the ladder, hand, foot, hand, foot, then pulled myself up and onto the board, and marched to the end. Hesitating at the tip, I waited for Colleen to notice, and I forced myself to jump at the first blast from her whistle. I heard a “heey” cut short as I fell through the air, until, splash; I was under the water, fighting my way back to the top.

Secret Rivalries

           Being in a class with another kid who has the same name was a drag. It made extra work for everyone, and there is always some kind of confusion or rivalry. Michelle Brewer and I were both in Mrs. Plescia's second grade class; we were known as Michelle G. and Michelle B. We were both petite, but Michelle B. was blonde with dainty English features, and I looked her opposite: dark-haired and indigenous. Our moms were friends, sort of -- they both hung out at the Logger's Club, one of the three bars in the one block radius that made up downtown Tuolumne. My mom and Maureen were both interested in the same guy, so by extension Michelle B. and I became rivals too. Robert Mason was a tall, rugged, blond haired guy, who sometimes wore Indian leather and who all women loved. They would both eventually date him but at different times.

         Michelle and I we just went to school and pretended we were normal. I wore dresses with tights and kept my hair neatly braided. I was polite, respectful, and easy going with the teachers. Michelle kept her unusually long fingernails clean, smiled when she was in trouble or spoke in a cutesy voice. But as extensions of our single, beer-drinking, pot-smoking, bar-carousing mothers, we were at risk of being exposed. 
         We should have been friends, but mostly we tried to pretend we didn't know the other, hadn't both stood around in front of the bar, closer to the little store as cover, waiting for our moms to finish their beers and come home. Michelle's mom, Maureen, also a pretty, petite blond, had a son and a daughter, and was on welfare just like my mom. Just like mine, she had to fill out a monthly income report, meet with the family's social worker in Sonora in the hospital building, and buy food with brightly colored food stamps -- the mark of poverty. The monthly income report had to be filled out every month and sent in or hand delivered by a set date in order for a family to receive its benefits: a check for cash, food stamps, and those green medi-cal stickers that my brother and I used to stick all over each other once we received a fresh batch to be used in the new month. My mom complained about those income reports each month as she was filling them out, usually at the last minute and in need of a ride to Sonora to get them there on time. 
         "The same fucking thing every God damn month," she'd say, rummaging through her purse for the envelope sent by the welfare office. "Every god damn month."
         I had heard this tirade before. I knew that they always asked about how many people lived in the house, if the recipient has made any money, or received any cash gifts, and on and on. And most of the time, the information that she put on those forms was the same information that she had included the month before that and that and that, but sometimes she did lie -- usually about whether or not she was "co-habitating," or not. It seems the welfare system liked knowing if they're single parent recipients were getting laid or not and/or whether parties responsible for making sexual contributions to the head of household were also contributing financially. If that were the case the recipients’ benefits would need to be "adjusted." Michelle B.'s mom, Maureen had to fill out the same forms, and decide whether or not to report the short-term live-in boyfriend whom she had hoped would have lasted longer than he did, not necessarily expecting him to begin providing for her children of her former husband, or as it turned out, to stick around.
         For these reasons, Michelle B. and I were sort of friends; we sometimes played together on the weekends when our mothers took us with them to visit their mutual friends. When our mothers weren't getting along or were competing for the same man, or accusing the other of being bad mothers, we'd argue and Michelle would pinch me on the underside of my upper arm with her long fingernails. At school, we kept our distance, always still aware of what the other was doing, or saying, and to whom.
         We made an unspoken effort not to be associated with the other for several years.  We probably weren't the only welfare kids who worked hard to not look shabby and to blend in. Michelle used her petite femininity, and I just tried to stay out of trouble. As I got older, the biggest complaint from my teachers was that I talked too much in class, but not in second and third grade. In those early grades, I kept to myself and spent a lot of time observing the other students act up and the teachers' reactions. 

         In Ms. Plescia's second grade class, it was Jimbo Dry who had become known for getting into trouble. Jimbo was stout and muscular in the second grade. I suppose his stature, his dark skin, and his often serious face intimidated some teachers; it seemed to make our second grade teacher, Mrs. Plescia angry. Jimbo had what I recognize now as a great deal of difficulty with authority figures and anger issues. And maybe this was the case because his most important authority figures weren't meeting his needs, or because being male and Me-wuk, he was expected to act up and probably to fail, or some combination of the two. Our teacher, Mrs. Plescia, also had anger issues. She was widowed and lived with her sisters in a mansion that bordered the school grounds. One of her sisters, Mrs. Robinson, also taught at Summerville Elementary school; I had her in first grade. Mrs. Plescia was what kids called a strict teacher. She often warned our second grade class to behave, threatening to turn into a "grumble snort" if we didn't
         "Class, you know what happens when you don't listen when I'm talking," she'd warn. "I turn into a grumble snort. You don't want me turning into a grumble snort do you?"

         Frankly, I never saw much of difference between the real Ms. Plescia and her grumble snort, but I did see her very very angry one time, and it was at Jimbo.
         The class had been particularly rambunctious that day and Mrs. Plescia had already threatened us with the grumble snort several times and asked Jimbo several times to do as he had been told. While transitioning from working at our desks to the next activity, there was lots of talking, the sounds of desks opening and closing, chairs scraping the floor, and children milling about. But a much louder commotion brewing between Jimbo and Mrs. Plescia stopped time, freezing each kid in place.
         "I said, sit down," Mrs. Plescia shouted at Jimbo, her face in his.

         Jimbo just stood still, his arms crossed in front of him.
         "Sit at your desk. I said, sit down" Mrs. Plescia repeated, this time leaning in and grabbing Jimbo by the elbow.  
         With that, his face suddenly a dark, dark red, Jimbo, went toward his desk. Half growling, half shouting, he threw the desk over, going immediately to the empty desk in front of him. Mrs. Plescia who had jumped out of the way of the first desk, was now lunging for Jimbo, who was lunging for another desk. Just as he grabbed a corner, Mrs. Plescia grabbed one of his arms, put him in a kind of bear hug, and dragged him writhing and half growling, half screaming out of the room, crashing into empty chairs and desks with kids sitting in them, their mouths agape, along the way. Stunned into complete blind obedience, each second grader went to his or her seat if not already there and sat quietly until a teacher from another classroom came and told us to read quietly to ourselves. We remained in a silent shock until Mrs. Plescia returned alone to the classroom a few minutes later, still breathing hard. We were quiet and on our best behavior for the rest of the afternoon.       

                                                                                                                                                    
         Though no one mentioned his name for the rest of the day or the incident ever again, I couldn't help thinking about Jimbo. Why couldn't he listen to the teacher? Why did Mrs. Plescia get so angry? Didn’t Jimbo know what he did meant? How what he did was now always going to be associated with who he was? It was the kind of attention I avoided, the reason Michelle B. and I pretended we didn't know each other, or that our lives were any different from any of the other kids in our class -- except Jimbo. We certainly were not like Jimb; that much had been made clear. 
         I managed to lay low for a month or so after the Jimbo incident which was still fresh in my mind. I managed not to bring any unwanted attention to myself, my image still intact. I couldn't say the same for Mrs. Plescia who had taken to reading to us often from her favorite Mrs. Piggle Wiggle chapter books, but who we were all still afraid of. One morning after reading a chapter or more, the class was getting restless, and Michelle spoke out of turn.  
         "My mom saw Michelle G's mom at the Logger's Club on Tuesday night. She was dancing and she wasn't wearing any underwear."
         Stunned, I turned my head with a quick jerk in Michelle's direction. Waiting for an audible reaction from the class, she looked smug, her pointy nose in the air. But the room was mostly quiet, probably waiting for my reaction. 

         And I hadn't been there, but I could see it. The Loggers Club. The juke box playing "The Boys are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy. My mom dancing with some guy, the only lights coming from the juke box display, the lamp over the pool table in the back of the room, and the low lights at the bar. Hazy lines of cigarette smoke and mom dancing in circles, her hands over head, her cotton prairie skirt lifting, lifting, floating higher and higher on a naked gust of wind.
         I didn't say a word.

         And I didn't look at Mrs. Plescia either, but I knew that she was looking at me.