Family – Page 8 – Another Day at the Point

Hey!! I Got my Driver’s License & a Playboy Magazine

For the last few weeks I’ve been asking my mom to take me to the driver’s license center. I’m ready to get my license! I’ve been driving since I was fifteen, so that part is no big deal, but I’ve studied that manual & know every single answer. Mom keeps telling me that she does not have time, so I hope she has time this week.

I’ve driven many times and have even been spotted by the cops driving without a license. I don’t want to take the chance of getting caught. So today I asked her again. “I can’t take several hours from work to take you there!” She yells. I am so pissed off. I am sitting outside and I guess I must have looked pissed off, because Joe comes up to me and asks me “why are you mad?” As I am explaining how I am never going to get my license, how my mother does not have time to take me and how I am never going to get what I want, I can see his face getting a strange look. “Why?” he asks. “what! haven’t you heard what I’m saying?” I yell at him. Again he gives me a puzzled look. “I don’t see your problem. If you want to get your license, let’s go!”

He gave me a new possibility that I would have never considered. “lets go” was totally not expected. See Joe is described by my dad as a “bad seed” an “irresponsible hoodlum” is how the neighbors describe him, but I knew different. I like him & he is not that scary to me. He is my brother’s best friend and he pays attention to me. The fact that the Carteret cops lump him together with his older brother as a criminal, does not convince me that he is all bad. I am doubting my instincts, though. I’m not sure if I should trust him. “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to go?” he urges me.

So going the six miles to Rahway all of a sudden is not that far fetched. We get on the bus & sit all the way in the back. I’m a little worried since I’m going to another county with somebody the cops consider a criminal. “Don’t worry” he assures me “I will get you there.” For some reason, those words were extremely reassuring. No matter what anybody thinks of him, I know he is a good guy.

We are sitting there quietly for a few bus stops when all of a sudden Joe breaks the silence & says “Hey you gotta pass a test to get your license.” So I reply “Sure, I’ve studied for it…” when Joe cuts me off. “No way man, not that kind of test! You need to pass the ‘Being a man’ test.” He asks me two questions (which I answer almost immediately) & he asks me: “Do you think you are a man, yet?” He thinks for a while & then he tells “OK, you’ve passed the test! Now I have a surprise for you.”

jan 1979 Playboy Cover Sitting there in the back of the bus, he reaches into the breast pocket of his coat and pulls out a magazine. He hands me the January 1979, 25th Anniversary Edition of Playboy magazine, and says “this is a special issue.”

“It has your favorite girl from Love Boat & Fantasy Island – Barbi Benton.” This is a WOW moment. Not only because I am holding my first Playboy magazine, nor because I am getting my driver’s license. But because I am gaining a new found freedom,

Joe did for me what my father could not do. My father showed me love & showed me faith but Joe showed me how to assert my independence & to trust. He showed me to follow my instincts, to trust myself and to go for what I want in life no matter what people make you out to be.

That day I got my license, but the biggest lesson I learned is not to judge another solely on people’s opinions.

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Late Arrival

Ever since we moved to Carteret my dad has had a difficult time keeping a job. As a leather craftsman, his work is very specialized and not available just anywhere. Its been up and down for a long while.

Even when we lived in the Bronx, I remember mom and him getting into fights over his job. For years, he would work Spring, Summer and Fall and without fail he would be out of work all Winter.

I remember that when he was not working, he would spend the day in his pajamas, stuck in his bedroom reading the bible, not interacting with anyone. And the months when he did work he would be gone for a long part of the day. Saturdays were taken up by church activities & services. Sundays were the only days we were all home together. Together but separate. Over the years, I’ve given up expecting to spend fun times with my dad. Little by little, I’ve detached myself from him and expected less and less. No longer do I ask him to play with me and even less to sit with me and read a book.

It has gotten to a point where I have a hard time even dealing with him. Everything he is and says revolves around religion. It makes me sad that this is the way it goes, but it beat getting my heart broken every time he says ‘no, not today.’

So why is today any different? This morning I woke up early & heard my father preparing for work. It is 5:30 and he needs to catch the 6:05 bus to Manhattan in order to make it to work by 8:00 am. He works a full day, has only a half-hour for lunch and then works till 5:00. At the end of the day he walks to the Port Authority bus terminal to catch the 6:15 bus.

Normally he would be home by 7:45 – 8:00pm, but today he is very late. He called home “I fell asleep on the bus…” he says. He overslept and ended up at the end of the line- at the bus terminal in Woodbridge. Mom is so pissed that he did that and that she had to drive out to pick him up. That night, when he got home, I paid attention not only to the clock, which reads 10:00 pm, but to his face. He is worn out, tired and almost seems to be beaten by the drudgery of his long and tiring daily routine.

No wonder he does not have time to play with me. Even if he wanted to…

I realized that maybe he was just too physically worn out to even try. So I ask myself what makes him want to – or – need to go thru this?

This is when I realized that my dad was doing this for us. Sure, he had given up his spare time to earn money – was the easy answer. But really why put yourself thru that? When I looked deeper, I saw his struggle. He came to the U.S. at the age of 51. He lives this life (giving up his dreams of Ecuador) so that me and siblings can have our dreams come true.

He has given up more then just his free time. He has given up himself so that we can have a better life then he would ever dream of having. He has given up his passion so that we can have ours.

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Moving Day

Today is the day! “We’re finally getting out of the war zone,” my brother yells out. As we drive away from our house on Dawson St, I can’t help but miss this place already. It is a war torn area and it is a bad environment for a kid to grow up in, but it was what I called home.

As the car turns right on E 156th Street I turn around to get one last glimpse of our three-story brownstone. The house fades out of view and my mind drifts away. A feeling of loneliness sets in and I can’t help but feel sad. This is where I learned to survive. Where the battles of the street toughened up my character and where I grew up in a hurry.

See my usual, daily routines will never be the same. Walking down the streets and cutting thru the middle of a group of Savage Skulls, without them beating me up, will no longer be normal. Hearing the sounds of their gang fights on a hot summer night will no longer be the reason to interrupt my dreams. What about walking down to Westchester Ave and hangout at the library? I can’t do that anymore. I will have to find a new way to fill my afternoons.

Up ahead is the George Washington Bridge, I can see New Jersey on the other side. I closed my eyes, so as not to feel it and before I knew it we were in New Jersey. I must have fallen asleep in the car and missed the whole crossing because this place definitely looks different. We got off the Turnpike at exit 12 – The sign reads Carteret, New Jersey. This town is so small and surprisingly lined with a lot of trees.

Almost like Leave it to Beaver’s neighborhood – trees and white picket fences everywhere! The town even has a park – Central Park. – with a lake at its center.

We stop to get directions to the house at a corner gas station. “It freezes over in the winter, you know” the gas attendant yells out as he sees me staring at the lake. “We have a Winter festival there every year. Its great skating on the ice!” he adds. All of a sudden I felt a sense of peace come over me. I have not felt that in years. I would always see this type of town on the Beaver’s reruns but I never thought that I would ever see it in person for myself.

As we continue over to our house I breath in the air. It is not musty or smokey. Strangely enough, it smells refreshingly clean and fresh. To my right is the park, kids are playing baseball and on the left are detached homes with front porches just like in Leave it to Braver.

As we pull up to our new house, mom yells out “here it is!” Wow! the house even looks like Beaver’s Pine Street house, except ours are a row of townhouses. It has a front yard for the vegetable garden that mom always wanted!

Mom has always had big dreams – many people looked at them as unattainable. But her biggest dream – getting us out of the Bronx and finding a quiet place to call home – is now fulfilled!

We did it – my mom has realized her dream!

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