Three strikes and we're out?

Not every story has a happy ending. Or maybe I’m being a bit presumptuous, for who can truly determine when is the “ending” for any one story? All I know is that I’m filled with joy, confidence, and motivation when I see a student graduate or accomplish other great feats of personal gain. On the other hand, my spirit saps, my heart sinks, and an overwhelming, foreboding sense of “compassion fatigue” sets in upon me whenever a string of opposite events manifests itself. And so this week, I am feeling a bit down.

I want to tell the story of three different students. Like I said above, I can’t really say their story is complete yet; in fact, I am holding on to the hope that there must be brighter chapters ahead. But I can relate to you the end of this chapter in each of their lives.

What’s so important about basketball? I’ll tell you what’s important about basketball. Basketball serves as a vehicle through which young men can be mentored through older, responsible, loving adults. Basketball teaches teamwork, discipline, and perseverance. Basketball keeps wayward youths busily engaged in positive extracurricular activities during after school practices, during late Friday night games, and on Saturdays that might otherwise be lost amidst a haze of marijuana smoke and gang banging. Basketball serves as a carrot by which improved class attendance, grades, and citizenship become mandatory. But basketball cannot last forever. Seasons begin and end. Staff members do not have endless amounts of time to be spent above and beyond what is already given during the week. My marriage cannot endure 52 weeks of Friday night “dates” wherein my wife and I are accompanied by 10 sweaty youths in the back of our van traveling from Watts to East Los Angeles or any other number of “romantic” locations (Me: “Come on, Honey, won’t it be fun to watch another game together?” She: “No, not really.”). And so basketball season ended, and not long after that, so did the school terms for two of our players: Kenny and Robert (not their real names).

Robert had recently moved from Washington to Watts a few months back. He was a real handful, a non-stop LOUD talker who always seemed to be getting into trouble. But he could DUNK, so Robert was on the team. And for a while, things seemed to work out. Robert was passing all of his classes; Robert only received one “U” on his progress report; Robert was finally finding success after endlessly bouncing around from one school to the next, and in this case, from one state to the next. But after the championship was won and the basketball banquet was held, all hell began to break lose.

Robert was becoming an uncooperative, disruptive presence in the classroom. The teachers couldn’t take it anymore. Something had to be done. So a parent conference was set up. And when Robert’s mother showed up, it became real clear why Robert was the way he was. As the conference ensued, it quickly became apparent that not all was well. She was combative and abusive, and she appeared to be high. We certainly weren’t going to receive any help from her. Robert lives with her, his baby brother, and his older step-brother (who is an adult, the son of a man Robert’s mother used to live with). Later, through a personal conversation with Robert, he revealed that his step-brother was actually the father of his mother’s baby boy. What a mess! Could that be why they left Washington? Who knows or could straighten it all out; I couldn’t. Well, a few days after the parent conference, Robert made some inappropriate sexual comments to one of my female teachers, which necessitated a suspension on my part. I called his mother this time to inform her, “Being that you just were down at the school the other day, I didn’t want to have to drag you all the way over here again. But I’d be happy to meet with you in person if you’d like.” Thankfully, she declined. Robert returned after his suspension but more of the same ensued. He cursed out a staff member and walked out of the school. His mother later told us over the phone that she was going to check him into, yet, another school. Subsequent phone calls to the house have not been returned. And so the tragic cycle continues, despite our best efforts to the contrary.

Kenny couldn’t dunk. In fact, in all honesty, he really had no basketball skills whatsoever. But I could care less; if he had any desire whatsoever to be out there, then I was not about to let this opportunity go by. I nicknamed Kenny “the Joker” because everything was hilarious to him. He’d be running up and down the court, and there’d be a gigantic smile on his face. I’d guard him during practice and he’d start giggling. The ball would bounce off of his foot and go out of bounds, and he would laugh. This didn’t exactly endear him to his teammates but, hey, he was here under our tutelage instead of being “out there” under someone else’s. And so the season progressed and Kenny managed to stay out of trouble and pass his classes, barely. I recall him salivating next to his English teacher as she computed his mid-term into his progress report grade. “Pass me with a D! Pass me with a D!” he chanted. And when his grade, indeed, was a “D,” he cheered and jumped up and down as if he’d just won the championship.

Well, not long after the season ended, Kenny missed a couple of days of school in a row. When we did some investigative inquiring, we discovered that Kenny was in jail for grand theft auto. It didn’t help that he parked the stolen car in front of his house (he was, however, a “D” student so that should be no great surprise). And so one of our counselors accompanied Kenny to court where he was released until his next court date. “Kenny,” we warned him, “you’re going to have to shoot straight these next couple of weeks. You’re on probation and there’s a good chance the judge will decide to lock you up.” A couple of weeks later, Kenny had to go back to court and we accompanied him again. Just prior to that, his probation officer had administered a drug test to him, which he apparently failed. The judge ended up sentencing him to one year in “camp.” As he was led away in handcuffs, his grandmother sobbed. “I’m sorry, Grandma, I’m sorry,” he told her as he was shuffled out the door. We later referred Grandma into one of the parent support groups that a counseling organization that partners with our Watts school site, offers. As for Kenny, hopefully we’ll see him back in class in about a year from now.

The last student I want to share about is Carlos (not his real name either). Last school term Carlos was kicked out of the school for stealing one of the teachers’ purses. He threw it in trashcan down by the train tracks; luckily one of our other students saw him do that and the purse was retrieved and returned. But we are a second (and sometimes third and fourth) chance program so Carlos was given the opportunity to return to school the next term. Things seemed to be going better, but looks can be deceiving. One day this week Carlos started crying during class. The teacher, mindful of a teen boy’s fragile ego/machismo, quickly ushered him outside to talk more privately. Soon I received a hushed phone call (I was at one of the other school sites). “We have an emergency,” she confided to me in hushed tones, “Carlos is having a personal crisis right now and he has specifically asked to meet with you.” And so I quickly made my way into what has become my mobile office on wheels, and I drove down to Watts to meet with Carlos. What I found out was heartbreaking.

Carlos’ father is a crack addict. He, his father, and his sister had been living in someone’s garage but due to his father’s drug use, they had recently been kicked out. Lately they had been staying with some people in the projects. Carlos, like many of our students, is also on probation. Although he, too, knows that he needs to shoot straight, nevertheless, he as been hanging with the wrong crowd after school. He’s been using drugs and he knows that if his probation officer drug tests him, he’ll test dirty and will be locked up. Carlos turns 18 in two weeks and at that time, he will be appearing before a judge (and he’ll also be tested). Everything seems to be falling apart for him and the thought of being sent to an adult prison versus a youth camp scares Carlos to death. I referred him to one of our partnering counseling programs. They met with him and told him they would enroll him in a drug group right away. They would also advocate on his behalf before the judge, and they believed that there was a good chance that Carlos would not be locked up, given the recent judicial trend to favor treatment over lock up. All seemed to be on its way to working out and I drove away feeling like I actually accomplished something. But the next day, Carlos surreptitiously passed a note to his teacher and then walked out. The note said that he had basically given up. He didn’t want to take the chance that he would be sent to the adult prison so he was going to go turn himself in to his probation officer now so that he would be sent to a youth camp. He ended his letter with, “Thank you for all your help. I’m sorry.”

Like I said above, not every story has a happy ending. Maybe it is stories like these that make the stories of success that much sweeter. I yearn so much to be able to write a different ending for these three youth, and maybe one day I’ll still get the chance. But we just can’t be there 24 hours a day for them. Although we gave it our 100%, and then some, it was just not enough. There are success stories, however. For every Carlos, Kenny, and Robert, there are three others who do turn it around. That’s a good feeling, but one that is always tinged with bitter-sweetness. I want to turn them all around.

The lesson underneath the lesson

Sometimes the most important lessons are the ones not covered in the curriculum.

How many times have I stood before a class intent on getting them to stay on task and complete my lesson plan? How many times have I had to discipline a student for failing to do his or her work, for acting out inappropriately in class, or for not coming on time or not coming at all? How many times, despite my professional facade, have I secretly entertained favoritism towards the “good” students while harboring dislike for the one more challenging? Yet, how many times must I be brought to my knees when, in the odd teachable moment that seems to occur at a time least expected, happenstance affords me the opportunity to peer beyond the exterior and obvious, and gaze upon the greater tragedy that encompasses the life of one of my more challenging students as it exists outside of the classroom? At those moments, as my presumptuous and short-sighted self-righteousness beats a hasty retreat (along with the undue importance I had attached to my lesson on calculating the surface area of a cube), I am brought face-to-face with what is so easily misplaced during each day’s tyranny of the urgent—the precious human life lurking underneath.

I have a student named Janice (not her real name) and boy does she have a temper! And to top it off, she cannot get to school on time, she runs with a fast crowd, and her grades are poor. In the beginning of the semester, I tried to talk with her but she just would not listen. “She has a capital B.A.,” I said to myself, “a Bad Attitude!” What can I do? “She’s not gonna make it,” I sadly predicted to myself.

One day Janice was late again, but this time something was different. Another student, who was also late, came running up the stairs, “Mister, there’s a fight in the parking lot!” I hustled down the stairs, hoping not to see a gun, and there was Janice engaged in a wrestling match with a man whom I later found out was her cousin’s boyfriend. One thing led to another and Janice ended up sprawled on the asphalt as the boyfriend got into his car to drive away. Before I could even attempt to try to attend to her, she jumped up in a rage and chased after the car. Without any regard for her personal safety, she dashed into traffic and, with a brick in hand, heaved it at the car as it sped away.

For about 30 minutes after that, Janice was inconsolable…the tears would not stop flowing. Later, as I was able to piece together her story, I learned that she and her siblings do not have a stable home. They bounce back and forth between her mother (who works nights), her grandmother, and her aunt. Furthermore, Janice is the parent-figure to her younger siblings. She has to get them up in the morning; she has to dress them; she has to make them breakfast and get them to school; and then she has to get her own self to school. When she goes “home,” the whole routine begins again. Was it any wonder she didn’t always get to school on time? Was it any wonder that her attitude was on edge? The untold story was sitting before me in class week after week, but I was too occupied to read between the lines.

That day I resolved to try to reach out more to help Janice; I was determined to see her “make it.” One Saturday morning I took a van and went to pick-up Janice and a couple of other students. There was an orientation for a job for teens as peer health counselors. When we got to Janice’s aunt’s house, out came Janice with a trio of younger siblings trailing behind her. Her aunt wasn’t home and her mother was still at work, and she couldn’t leave the children unattended. So we loaded them all into the van and it was off to Grandma’s house. I pulled up to the curb, they unloaded, and trudged on into the house. But less than a minute later, out of the house streamed Janice followed by Grandma. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying but I could hear snippets of, “Uh uh, you better not leave them here at my house!” and so forth. The children looked like bewildered ping pong balls. Grandma stormed up to my van. “Don’t you bring her by here no more,” she scolded me, “I don’t want them in my house!” All I could manage was a weak, “Sorry, Ma’am.” Now Grandma was crying, Janice was crying, and the children were crying; I wanted to cry, too. We loaded the children back into the van. Janice was inconsolable again. I didn’t really know what to do. I finally decided, the heck with it, I’m taking ‘em ALL to the job interview.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, Janice got the job…but she couldn’t keep it for long. You see, she couldn’t seem to make it on time consistently, she had too many absences, and she had an “anger problem,” her employer said. She was just a bad employee…but I knew better. I had seen the truer, fuller picture. And I knew that my mission was not to just teach about the thirteen colonies or how to convert an improper fraction to a mixed number, my job was much larger than that. My mission was to create a stable environment where all my students are loved unconditionally, where safety abounds, where a family-away-from-the-family and a community-away-from-the-community can flourish in peace and health. The most important lessons I can teach Janice are that she is valuable and loved, that positive relationships without violence and betrayal can exist, and that she has a future full of abundance and hope, and we are here to help her reach this destination.

Crack Cocaine & a Bullet to the Brain

I woke up early this morning replaying over and over again in my head snippets of conversations that I had last night up in the Santa Monica mountains with some of my new students. As you may or may not know, I run a charter high school in inner-city Los Angeles for students who dropped out or have been kicked out of their traditional high schools. Part of each student’s enrollment into the school involves a week-long camping trip into the local mountains where they get a chance to get away from it all, bond with each other, and begin to take the first steps down a new path that will lead to hope and wholeness for each of them. I find that I also learn more than I could ever imagine about them in the short time I spend with them during that trip. I help facilitate the activities for one of the nights up in the mountains, and my particular lesson plan involves a lot of personal introspection and sharing. Normally, I do this on the first night but this time I did it on Wednesday night. As a result, I think my young charges had already bonded together and this allowed for a deeper level of sharing. They usually share some particularly intimate details about their lives but last night the small group that I was in was probably the most painful I've ever experienced.

By the end of the night, I have the young people broken up into small groups, where they share their “life maps.” I was in a group with about 10 students. There was a girl named Crystal [names have been changed] sitting across from me. She seemed detached and emotionless as she shared about her life. “I went to Kennedy High School...I never knew my father...I dropped out...”—she shared as if rattling off mundane details, making no distinction between one topic from the next—“...my mother passed away last month on November 7th.” The gravity of that last comment, shared in the same report-style monotone, was belied by the tears that welled up in her eyes. So now she is all alone in this world, parentless at 18. I didn't know what to say, there was nothing I could say, but I surreptitiously scribbled down a note so that I wouldn't forget to follow up with our school counselor.

We moved on to the next student. Olga was very pale. She had herself covered up in a big sweatshirt so I couldn't really see her body type but her face looked gaunt and her hands were bony. She seemed wispy and ghostlike; she spoke in a barely audible whisper. “I grew up in L.A. ... I went to Berendo ... I dropped out in the 10th grade ...” She paused, “This is hard,” there was an uncomfortable silence. “Then I began using crack...” At this last comment, her head dropped. The group was silent. There were tears coming out of Olga's eyes but no sounds whatsoever. A student next to her put his arm on her shoulder. Two of the girls left the room and returned with some tissue for her. There was still silence. Her face was in her hands and her fingers were rubbing against her temples, as if trying to drive the pain out of her head like one would do when experiencing a migraine. Olga stayed in this position for the next half-hour and did not move nor make a sound.

Latoya, one of the girls who had went out to get a tissue, spoke up. “I know life is hard, you guys,” she began with, and then proceeded to tell us about her life. She kept her composure until she shared that at eight years old, she was molested by her step-father. “This went on for eight years.” Her voice had now lowered to a hush and then she stopped, unable to go on. The girl next to her (named Monique)—who had earlier shared that she had run away from home, had been a “stripper,” and had spent time in jail before finally “getting into the Bible” and deciding to change her life—blurted out, “I was molested by my cousin when I was six years old. It's not right to be six and to always be thinking about having sex. I told my mom but she wouldn't believe me; she said I was lying. But he gave me gonorrhea.” Besides Latoya, Monique, and Olga, there were now two or three other girls crying, as if silently confessing they had experienced something similar. There was more dead, uncomfortable silence. I tried to pitch in with something encouraging, but my words felt empty and inadequate.

At this point, Jermaine, one of the jokesters in the group, tried his hand at providing comfort and encouragement. “I feel your pain,” he said with uncharacteristic seriousness. He went on to share about how he was born in jail; his mother is serving a sentence of 25 years and is still in jail. He talked about the series of failures he has experienced. He said, however, that he has been “doing good” for eight months now and this is the longest he has ever stayed out of trouble for one time. Despite this success, he shared that his brother was recently sentenced to life in prison. Then he made an odd statement, “Sometimes I just wish I was sentenced to life in prison.” I peered intently at him trying to decipher what he meant. He went on, “Sometimes I just want to put a bullet into my brain and end it all. I think about it a lot.” Inside I was panicking but outside I remained calm. I did not have the words to provide any modicum of healing. There seemed to be a sense of hopelessness in the air. It was as if the young people were saying, “My life is so broken and messed up, I will never ever be fixed.” I tried to encourage them that they were all on the right path and that there were people here who cared about them and that the past does not necessarily equal the future...but it was all for show; the future may be unwritten but the past is forever, and nothing I could say would change that. I felt empty inside but I still tried to smile warmly, as if it would all be okay, and then we adjourned for the evening.

Afterwards I compared notes with some of my staff who were also up there. They, too, were both a little shell-shocked. It seemed like each group had a similar experience. Earlier that night, I had the students write a journal entry about what “personal baggage” they needed to leave at the door of the school. We looked these over. One student—Jose Ramirez—wrote about his drug addiction, “What started out as a pleasurable habit has now turned in to a living hell.” There were a couple others who had revealed addictions: Martin Diaz and Jessica. One of my teachers mentioned that another student—Raul—had mentioned suicide. And so, as I said, I drove down the mountain deeply disturbed by what I had heard, and then I woke up early this morning with the same thoughts on my mind.

Dreams of Surrogacy and Sacredness

I was sick recently and, as a result (I think), I had some very unusual dreams. In fact, over the course of one week, I had three dreams in particular that really stood out. All seemed to involve my students in some way, sharing a common theme.

The setting for the first dream was the Arizona desert. My wife and I were living in a house with a bunch of the students from Watts. We were living a commune-like existence, and my wife and I were kind of like the parent-figures. It was 4:30am and I was standing out on the driveway with some of the students. We were gazing up into the sky at some shooting stars. One of my students—Naliesha, I think—fearfully asked me, “Are they [the meteors] going to hit the ground?” “No,” I reassured her, “Most of them are just made up of small dust and ice particles. They will burn up in the atmosphere long before they reach us. You don’t need to worry.” I continued scanning the horizon for shooting stars when suddenly, out of the east, emerged this gigantic meteor. It hurtled across the sky at a low altitude; its immense girth, glowing hot like an ember, slowly rotated before my eyes. It was so close that I could clearly see details upon its surface, which was covered with flaming, scraggly, rocky points, still raw and sharp from the lack of smoothing friction in outer space. It streaked over our heads with the deep rumbling sound of a Concorde jet, and I whispered to myself, “Oh my God, it’s going to hit!” My eyes continued to trail its downward arc while my body was paralyzed. Off in the distance, at least some several miles I saw it make impact. A mushroom cloud exploded and I told all the students to run into the house. “Get down!” I yelled to them, and we assumed the classic hands-clasped-over-the-back-of-the-head earthquake stance. I didn’t know whether the impact wave would completely obliterate the house, and us, or not. Soon the earth began to rumble and shake. The quaking became more and more violent, but it was not enough to tear the house apart, and then it subsided. I was relieved to find that everyone was safe.

The second dream took place in a wooded area near Belmont High School (I know no such place exists, but this is my dream world). I was walking along near a group of young people, but I was not with the group. I recognized one of them as a student of mine named Brenda. She was with a group of boys. They were all gang bangers; I didn’t know any of them. I stayed within earshot of the group, just far enough away not to be conspicuous. I could overhear their conversation. They were trying to get Brenda to murder someone. It was as if they were “jumping her in” to the gang. They picked out the victim, who was within sight about 20 yards downhill. They passed her the gun and I could tell that she did not want to do this deed. However, she also wanted their approval, desperately. They were fervently whispering to her, “Do it! Do it, Mija! Shoot her!” I was paralyzed by indecisiveness. I knew it was my role to intervene, to save the innocent woman whom the gang had selected for death, to save Brenda from the gang’s evil influence, but I knew then that the gun would likely be turned on me. I was stuck between self-preservation and self-sacrifice, and I chose the former. And I was ashamed.

In my third dream I, again, was with a group of students (some were my own while some were not). I had been selected to participate in a radical new form of therapy called “surrogacy counseling.” [In real life, I’ve never heard of what I am about to describe to you although such a thing might exist.] The clients were all young people who had lost a loved one (i.e., their loved one had died). Each client was paired with a surrogate counselor, usually someone whom they knew before and felt close to and/or could trust. I was paired with one of my Watts students named Aidee. Aidee married young, as a teenager, but her husband had been killed in a drive-by. The surrogate counselor’s role was to fill in as the deceased loved one so that closure could take place. The group’s facilitator took us through a series of activities that progressively drew the group closer and allowed us to open up. The session culminated with Aidee and I standing and talking, face to face. “Why did you leave me?” she sobbed, “Why did you have to die?” “I’m sorry,” I whispered, “I’m so sorry.” We both hugged and tears were streaming down both of our faces. I intensely felt her pain; psychologically, I had transformed into her lost loved one; I was deeply, deeply sorry.

The way I interpret all of these dreams is that we are the surrogate fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters for the youth in our programs. Their lives are laid before us, vulnerable, wounded, in mortal danger. Our lives are expiable healing forces to be poured out upon them. In my heart, I feel like ours is a sacred role. I am reminded of the New Testament passage in Matthew 25 where Jesus says to his disciples, “I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.” Then the disciples incredulously ask him, “When did we see you hungry and gave you something to eat? When did we see you thirsty and gave you something to drink?” And Jesus answers them, “Whenever you have done this for the least of these, you have done it to me.”

"Sun Sets On South Central"--a poem

Magical dancing rays
Playing across boulevards
And alighting upon porches

Sprinklers sputtering forth misty sprays

Wet lawns breathing sighs of relief
From the smoggy squalor of the day
Retiring behind grids of chainlink and iron

Golfers strolling patched concrete fairways

Intermittent, hypnotic, thunderous droning
Once again descending from above
Into the hushed consciousness of dusk

Orange orb rolling west past South Central

"Street Life"--a poem

Every time I go and look inside
Some cranny of this urban blight
I find them there...

...Cracked up, insane, fizz on a brain
Sinners in the hands of angry gods
Disposed and deposed
Nagging symptoms of the cancer we refuse to acknowledge

“Get out of the street or I’ll arrest you!”
The Law spoke and I listened with guilty-glee
It doesn’t matter that he’s my brother, she’s a mother
None of us are angels in this city

My Licuado Fix (aka Freedom, part deux)

After completing a mound of paperwork, I decide it is about time for a licuado so I begin makng my way towards the neighborhood panderia on Maple and Adams.

Along the way, I always pass by this abandoned, decrepit house on the corner of 29th and Maple. There are all kinds of mattresses and old couches in the yard; it has become the “homeless home.” Without fail there are several men congregating in the yard. The strong stench of beer wafts my way as I walk on past.

“Where do they sleep when it rains?” I wonder. The doors and windows are boarded up so they can’t possibly sleep inside the house. I shoot a closer glance out of the corner of my eye as I walk on past, invisible, when I notice some kicked out crawl spaces. "They don’t sleep in the house when it rains, they sleep under the house!“ runs my epiphineal inner dialogue. This is no life to live, is it?” I continue conversing with myself. But then I consider the stray dogs. Could these men be experiencing true freedom? Maybe I’ve sold my freedom in exchange for security? Now I’m locked into the confinements of a 9-to-5 routine while they can do whatever they want, whenever they want! I try to consider this for at least a moment.“...Nah, forget that.”

Their malodorous mutterings slowly fade as I proceed to shuffle forward towards my daily fix: a strawberry-banana licuado.

Stray Dogs and the Meaning of Freedom and Life

One of the neighborhood characteristics peculiar to Watts is the large amount of stray dogs, and in this particular case, the large amount of dead stray dogs. One day I happened to observe several dead dogs discarded along the side of the road. It’s kind of sad, but then I also have this weird theory, so maybe it’s not so sad. The mornings are the best time to see my theory in action.

As you’re driving down the streets of Watts, you’ll probably be stopped at a light and you’ll glance over and see a stray dog making its way down the street. That dog is trotting along, frenetically smelling trees and bits and pieces of refuse scattered here and there across its path. It has a look of sheer joy; the whole world is open before him. It might be limping and dirty but that dog knows it can go anywhere it wants to, at anytime, and it’s absolutely loving that freedom. So what is the prognosis for such a dog? The answer is not good. It’s probably going to become malnourished, maybe pick up some worms and/or mange, and then die an early and violent death crushed under the wheels of some anonymous speeding car. Common sense would dictate to us that this is no life to live. A more humane scenario would be for that dog to be kept safely behind a fence in some resident’s yard, where it can receive regular meals of nutrition-packed Alpo. But is this really true? I propose a radical, alternate take on this.

What is life anyway? Is life measured by length alone? What kind of life can it really be to remain imprisoned within a caged yard too small to suit your evolutionary, roaming, wild genes, tethered by a rope or chain, left to hunger until by the whims of one’s master it is determined that the time has come to be fed? Or does the essence of life lie in freedom, the freedom to be the master of your own destiny, to roam to your heart’s content, to fend for your own, to live a life more approximate to that afforded to you by nature? If the other slice of life is so much better, why then does a fence need to be put up, why then does a rope need to be noosed around the neck? Sometimes I even see stray dogs happily trotting down the street trailed by the ragged end of a rope chewed or snapped from its anchoring base. Yes, the prognosis for a stray dog includes greater risks and a shortened life span (or dare I say a more natural life span?). Isn’t that, however, what would be expected in the wild? We don’t feel it is inhumane when a wolf suffers through a subfreezing night or when a deer meets an “untimely” death at the mouth of a wolf. That is just the natural course of events. Why then do we feel differently about a stray dog? Maybe the short time of freedom it enjoys as a “stray” is really the time of its life. Just something to consider.

Seeing Red on the Red Line

The relatives were coming in from out of town and someone had the bright idea, “Let’s take them to Hollywood on the subway!” What had looked three weeks ago like a beautiful no-brainer suddenly began to show its flaws in the harsh light of reality when, as we headed into the Vermont and Wilshire station to buy our tickets, the first words out of my three-year-old daughter’s mouth were, “Eeew, it smells stinky!” Just a little local color (odor?), I tried to reassure myself, as I then proceeded to try to demonstrate for my relatives how to purchase a $3 Metro Day Pass. I put in my $20 bill, pressed the Day Pass key, and immediately it sounded as if I had just won the jackpot—clank clank clank clank clank! Along with my ticket, I now had 17 Susan B. Anthony dollars to stuff into my pockets. We managed to successfully get everyone else a ticket (sans any more Susan B. Anthony’s and Sacagawea’s) and then we descended into the labyrinthian bowels of L.A.’s subway system.

It was approximately 5:00pm on a Sunday and the place was fairly desolate. There were probably 15 other people waiting for the next train below. My parents, who are in their 60s, remarked that they found it both odd and unsettling that there were absolutely no attendants or law enforcement to be seen anywhere underground. In short, they didn’t feel like it was safe, and as much as my urban braggadocio wanted to preach otherwise, I’d have to say I agreed with them. It hadn’t been two months since some deranged transient had poured a few ounces of Mercury out onto the platform of a downtown L.A. subway station, after which he proceeded to call the Metropolitan Transportation Authority emergency call-box to inform them of what he had just done. A full eight hours later, MTA officials finally got around to responding. While Mercury is certainly a toxic and dangerous substance, the frightening implication was to imagine what would have happened if the substance had actually been Polonium-210, the same substance recently used by former KGB secret agents to poison and kill former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko with only a couple of drops in his tea in a London café. How many people would have died in Los Angeles if a few ounces rather than a few drops of Polonium-210 had been allowed eight hours to have been trafficked off of the subway platform and onto trains, off of trains and onto busses, off of busses and into schools, etc., etc., etc.? What is starkly apparent to a first-time out-of-towner but callously forgotten by the officials and regular users of L.A.’s subway lines is the abject vulnerability of being in an isolated municipal space where there is no one to look to for help or protection. And this shortcoming can manifest itself in both big and small ways.

So there we were, finally. As I tried to put ideas of terrorist attacks out of my mind, I turned my attention and concern to the color-coded subway maps, which have gotten surprisingly complicated. There is now the Blue Line and the Red Line and the Green Line and the Purple Line and the Gold Line and the Orange Line…we wanted the Red Line and we managed to find our outpost down below. Our train came, we boarded, and sure enough, about 10-15 minutes later, we made it to the Hollywood and Highland station. As we exited out onto the streets in front of the Kodak Theater, I began to think, “Hey, this might work out after all.” I did the out-of-towner Hollywood tour. We visited the Grauman’s Chinese Theater to put our feet into the footprints of stars bygone now fossilized in cement. We took a photo up at the pinnacle of the Hollywood and Highland Mall, with a great view of the Hollywood sign looming over our shoulders in the background. We walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard glancing at the different stars on the ground (along with probably the greatest amount per square mile of tattoo and/or fetish clothing stores you’ve ever seen—nope, my relatives certainly weren’t in Kansas anymore!). After a couple of hours of this it was about 7:30pm and we headed back down into the subway to make our 15-minute trek back to Vermont and Wilshire. We’d be home by 8:00pm I figured, we’d get the kids to bed on time, the relatives would be sent on their way with their L.A. experience, and it would be all good. Alas, the “L.A. experience” would be the only one out of these four that would come true, and it wasn’t the experience I had envisioned.

Upon boarding the subway in Hollywood a voice announced over the loudspeaker that our train would only go as far as Vermont and Santa Monica because “there is some sort of police activity or something at Vermont and Beverly or Vermont and Wilshire.” There was no further information given. I did a double-take and my relatives looked to me for reassurance. Did I actually hear what I think I just heard? We had no idea what we were going to do once we got off, as Vermont and Santa Monica was still a few miles from our initial starting point, and most importantly, our car. I also couldn’t help but notice that the announcement was made only in English, and that there were plenty of non-English speakers (including tourists) who had even less of an idea of what was going on than I.

And so as we pulled into the station at Vermont and Santa Monica, everyone on the train had to get off. There was no one to go to in order to ask questions or get help. At that point, we also noticed a good portion of the crowd making a mad rush up the stairs to catch what, we supposed, were maybe busses or shuttles waiting for us outside. Needless to say, we were not the first ones up the stairs and all we caught was a glimpse of one very packed bus pulling away, leaving behind us and about 100 other people. So there we were, stranded, with my elderly parents, my wife, my brother, and two young children, on the corner of Vermont and Santa Monica, with no idea what to do next.

We decided the logical thing to do would be to wait for the next bus. We weren’t sure but we figured Vermont was a main thoroughfare, and any bus coming down that street would probably continue on to Wilshire. We also weren’t sure whether the Metro Day Passes we purchased for the Red Line would be accepted on a bus—again, there was no one around to give assistance or any information whatsoever. So we waited. Eventually another bus came headed our way but it didn’t even stop, as it was packed full of people already. We waited some more. Directly behind us, taking up the seats of the bus stop, was a cadre of drunk, homeless people ranting on about how Cassius Clay beat Oscar De La Hoya in a boxing match, repeatedly calling out something along the lines of “blah blah blah white mother fu----,” and when one of them mentioned something about “Oh man, I sh—my pants!” we decided that it was time to pack up the kids and move to a different location.

We proceeded to have a family huddle where we discussed our options. It was now about 8:00pm. One option was for the family to go sit inside El Pollo Loco while I would try to run from Vermont and Santa Monica all the way to Vermont and Wilshire to get the car, and then drive back to pick up the family. I figured it was maybe 2-3 miles, and at a 15-minute mile pace, I’d reach the car by about 8:45pm, and then I’d get back to El Pollo Loco by 9:00pm. That plan wasn’t met with much enthusiasm because no one wanted to split up, it looked like it was going to rain, it would be very taxing physically, and it just didn’t seem like a safe idea. We thought about calling a taxi but we didn’t know where to find a number and we only had about $25 cash on us (most of which was in dollar coins), which we weren’t sure would be enough (or even accepted as “real” money by a cab driver). At some point we decided to take our family huddle back underground, which actually now seemed safer than out on Vermont Avenue. As we walked down the long escalator (it was broken), we noticed that there was a large group of what appeared to be Asian tourists looking very lost, along with an assorted group of other folks (not one of whom seemed to know what was going on). Lo and behold, not long after we made it to the bottom of the escalator, a train pulled in that said “Union Station” on it. It was pretty full already and no one got off so we figured the “police activity or something” must have ended. We piled on with everyone else who was in the station, including the Asian tourists. It was standing room only. One Asian woman was asking me in halting English about “7th Street.” I tried to point to “7th Street Metro Station” on the map in the train but as we continued to try to communicate, I realized that maybe she actually was saying something about a hotel near “7th Street and Lucas,” which I realized was probably closer to the Westlake/MacArthur Park subway station. I successfully communicated to her to get off at that station, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I was sending a dozen Asian tourists on a misguided, mistranslated journey into MacArthur Park miles away from where they were supposed to be. But our stop—Vermont and Wilshire—arrived before I was able to do any more help, or damage. My family got off and the tourists pulled away and I thought about how ill equipped of a subway attendant I was and how sad it was that I was the best “help” the City of Los Angeles could provide to those folks as part of their Red Line experience.

As we exited the subway station, it was now raining and I was so happy I was not jogging down Vermont at that point probably only 1/6 of the way to my destination. We drove home determined that we’d stick to our car for transportation in L.A. from here on out.