With her son about to head off to college, Julie Dolcemaschio reflects on the moments they’ve had together.
I awoke one morning this past summer to the sounds of my two perfect children skipping hand in hand down the coral-pebbled lane. Birds chirped and bees buzzed, and when these harbingers of new age bliss finished skipping, they hugged each other and then brought me coffee in bed. Blissful, yes?
No, not really. First of all, I don’t have a coral-pebbled lane, and they can’t find the coffee pot, let alone make me coffee. The truth is I awoke to one saying “ow ow ow” then crying, and the other one spewing spew in some alien language. A song echoed in my head.
Someday you will find me
Caught between the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky.
Sometimes a little Oasis is all you need.
The older one just got his driver’s license. He’s been driving for three minutes and already the laws and rules of the road don’t apply to him. I have been driving for 33 years and I pushed two children out a hole the size of a dime without drugs of any kind, and I haven’t come close to this kind of arrogance.
The father and I had to explain that the law he broke was designed to keep the sub-species known as TEENAGER alive long enough to reach eighteen and vote. The boy took umbrage, and then explained that he didn’t think he was above the law; the law was just stupid.
While he spoke, I mixed a batch of martinis. The father alternated between prodding me in the ribs with something long and sharp, and sticking the aforementioned sharp thing into his right eye while muttering incoherent blather that sounded a lot like, “Hurry the fuck up with that drink.”
Between batches of Testarossas (pear vodka, cranberry juice, a splash of Rose’s Lime, and a fresh lime garnish), we managed to convince the boy that following the rules would be more comfortable for him than the alternative: riding the Big Blue Bus with the mumblers, ass scratchers, and masturbators. He agreed. I was almost sorry.
Then guess what happened! The man I said “I do” to 25+ years ago, the man I make love to on demand, rain or shine, the one who laughs at all my jokes, the one who says he loves me—yeah, that one—well, he left me. Oh, not for another woman … or man. Not for a change of scenery, not to “find himself.” No, nothing that dramatic … on the surface. Yet, dramatic it was, for he left me with the boys. Doesn’t matter where he went off to. Gone is gone.
♦◊♦
Now, those who know me well know I don’t like to sleep without the ol’ man. I don’t like to raise the children without him, either. I vacillate between which displeases me more.
“Hey, mom?” This is never a good sign. Ask any mom who’s been hey mom’d and they’ll back me.
“Hey mom? If you could buy me a new car, what would it be?”
Ah. My little dreamer.
“You’re not getting a new car.
“Well, if dad said yes, I mean …”
“If dad said …?” Really, dude?
“… What would it be?”
I sighed. Not that sighing ever helps. It doesn’t. Not ever. “We have three cars in the family,” I said, “and oddly enough, we have three drivers. Do the math.”
“C’mon, what kind of car?”
We’re at the car wash. Now that he drives I can get two cars washed at once. This bit of fabulousness I never dreamed up on a dare while waiting for him to get his license. I could get used to this.
The drying bays were marked, not by lines or cones, but by tubes that snaked out of the ground like interplanetary squid. Fast, noisy air blasted from those snakes, and suddenly every nook and cranny on the car was dry.
The sun was out and a gentle breeze blew from the west, and it was with each whap of hair across my face that I thanked a god I truly didn’t believe that I lived by the beach. I fisted the receipt and a $5 bill, and my son, the new driver, held the same.
He wore Adidas track pants half way down his ass. Always makes me want to ask if his pants are too small and suggest a trip to the mall—that, or yank them down just as a girl walks by.
“A Smart Car,” I answer. “If I bought you a car, it would be a Smart Car. Can’t have sex in a Smart Car.”
He sighed. Seems to work for him, the sighing. Maybe not. He’s heard this one before. He’s 6’2” and whenever I make the Smart Car joke, his little brother pulls his knees up under his chin and simulates driving. “Here’s how he’ll look, mom,” my comedian says. It never gets old.
“C’mon, why can’t I have a new car?”
Why can’t you lower the seat on the toilet? I want to say, but I don’t. What’s the point? I’d still sit on pee every time I went to the bathroom. When you’re outnumbered in a house full of men, you’re pretty much invisible.
We’re on our way to baseball practice in La Habra, which is a shade under an hour away with no traffic. We’re taking a new route from the batting cages. I’m in the back seat with the little one—the comedian—while the boy drives.
The boy’s friend, whom I will call The Pitcher, sits in the front. The Pitcher, who has yet to take driver’s ed, is in charge of the iPod. Why am I coming along on this E-Ticket ride when I could be home nursing a gin and tonic?
Remember that law the boy thought was stupid? Well, I couldn’t agree with him more. For the first year after he gets his license, he can’t take anyone under 20 in the car without an adult along. AN ENTIRE YEAR! The law says nothing about said adult needing to be sober, but I fear this goes without saying.
I have discovered new and exciting ways for kids to torture their parents. Wanna hear? Stick them in the backseat while gangsta’ rap thumps through the speakers. Make sure it is loud and the bass is boosted as high as it will go.
Make sure every song sounds exactly the same, has the word fuck in it, and the rants are about bitches and ‘hos. Since I am neither, I should not be offended, yet, oddly, I am. Add to this the following exchange:
“You need to get on the 10 East at Crenshaw,” I say.
“What?”
“YOU NEED TO GET ON THE …” The Pitcher turns the thumping down a notch. “… 10 east at Crenshaw.” And just as quickly, I am pointing dumbly out the window saying,
“Uh, that was the 10 east…”
“What?”
“THAT WAS YOUR ON-RAMP!”
“You mean I have to get in that long line?” he asks. Even The Pitcher sees the absurdity of this, and laughs.
“What?” I said. “You think there’s a special on-ramp just for you?”
My right foot is cramping, and we have another 45 minutes of this fresh hell to go. Imagine if we couldn’t take advantage of the carpool lane? Kill me now. Needless to say, after the practice was over I drove home, tossing bags of In-N-Out to them as I entered the freeway and zipped into the carpool lane, with John Mayer on the iPod to sooth the one nerve I had left.
♦◊♦
This was day one of the ol’ man’s absence. That night, after the kids were in bed and I refreshed myself with a second martini, I texted him.
Having fun? I wrote. I am. And I told him why. He responded with a sympathetic LOL and then toddled off to an expense-report dinner with a view, and his own martini. He was laughing—I’ll bet anything.
We’re seeing the boy off in a few months. He’ll attend Oberlin College in Ohio, which is far from Los Angeles. He will spend four dream-years playing baseball for two men who seem to adore him almost as much as his father and I do, and he will study film.
I have been preparing for this goodbye in a serious way since the first day of his senior year. I have been quietly letting him go in ways both subtle and profound. I go between grabbing for any amount of quality alone time with him, and snapping at him like a possessed shrew over inconsequential stuff.
I have a habit of climbing aboard every teachable moment that comes along with words of wisdom and encouragement to keep to the path, and I have learned that all these moments are not necessarily good ones. I’ve been blown off as often as I have been embraced during these times when I desperately want to save him from himself.
Sometimes the light bulb goes on, and he engages me in expressive and intelligent dialogue. Other times his eyes glaze over and he’d rather take a beating than hear my voice for another second. I have learned these things about my son over the years, and I have adapted.
It is not easy raising teenagers, which is why his father and I drink expensive wines and fly first class. We’ve earned it.
♦◊♦
A year or so ago the boy and I were in the car together. The subject of a former girlfriend came up. This had been his first serious love, and he was the one who ended it. In that car, on that day, he went off. I heard about the times she messed with him, hurt his feelings, stressed him out, and made him feel less-than.
And then I heard about the manipulations from her mother. I could have easily made a detour to her house at that moment and ended their lives.
“I’ve been talking to her,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because she texted me.”
“What does she want?” I held my breath. Nothing good would come out of this, I was certain.
“Just, you know … how are things.” He paused. “She thinks we should get together and clear the air.”
The sky was decorated with cumulonimbus clouds that resembled the aftereffects of a well-placed A-bomb. The air was crisp and dry. The boy wore a green plaid shirt the ex had given him for his 16th birthday and a big, brown Michael Kors watch she had given him the previous Christmas.
To his mind, any sentimentality he once felt about the giver of these items was all but gone. Now, they were just nice things that he liked. Period. His caramel eyes stared out the window instead of at me—no one out there to give him shit over this latest bit of news. The traffic was heavy, and I’d taken the wrong street.
I wasn’t used to being on the road this time of day, so I miscalculated. This is a flaw I need to work on, these miscalculations. I see what I want to see, and it’s usually through a designer pair of rose-colored glasses.
I see, usually for too long, and then I act, usually too late and at half-strength. No good can come of negativity, seeing the glass as half-empty, and seeing the bad in people right off, so I tend to miss a lot, while my husband gathers all the intel and fills me in later.
Do I think this is a character flaw? Je ne pas—and maybe that is the problem.
The father and I knew early on that this relationship was a train wreck, and we fought with our son constantly over priorities and expectations. But I will always be grateful for the opportunity I had to watch him be a boyfriend. He handled her like a gentleman, no matter how she behaved. He took care of her, he was solicitous; he was caring and protective and nurturing—all the things a woman wants in a man, and most don’t find in men twice his age.
I cannot begin to know where my son got his strength when girls half the caliber of this one have toppled nations. She was too young to appreciate him, and she lost out. Someone, someday, will win, and she will have earned it. This is my hope.
Now they were talking again. Clear the air? Oh, Christ-on-a-toad-stool.
“I told her I cleared the air the day I broke up with her,” he said. “No more air to clear as far as I’m concerned.”
Just like his father. Clear, concise, no bullshit. “Good,” I said. To say anymore would have ruined the moment. See? I’m learning. A song came on the iPod. I turned up the volume and we sang together.
How many special people change?
How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannonball
Where were you while we were getting high?
Someday you will find me
Caught between the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky.
I can feel his hand slipping out of mine and I want those days back, those days when he sat on my lap and we watched Thomas the Tank Engine together. I want back those nights when he’d make me sit next to him on his high bed until he fell asleep.
I want to return to those easy conversations we had during hours of catch in the backyard, because he’s a kinetic kid and talks more when his hands are occupied. I want to experience again that moment of awe when he took his first steps at nine months, and that day we discovered he was ambidextrous when we set him up to hit a masking tape baseball right handed, and he simply waited for the ball to pass before hitting it behind him.
He was 18 months.
I want to take back all those mistakes I made because he was my first and I thought I was doing all the right things because books and my mother told me they were. I want to take back the frustrated sighs and short-tempered slights when he demanded just a bit more of me than I could give right then.
I want to listen to him now. Now I’m ready. I am. I’m ready and I’m listening. Talk to me, kid. Come on. I’m here now. I’m here now and I’m ready. Here and now. Before you go. Before it’s too late.
—Photo Magic Madzik/Flickr
What a unique perspective. Thank you.
JD
Wow I wasn’t expecting a response! P^) Disability is often taboo! So many think that disabled people have no humor. They do, but it’s the difference between laughing at and laughing with. Look up Josh Blue – American Stand Up – and Then there is The UK Lesbian Feminist Disabled Comedian Liz Carr. Her take on Wife Swapping Parties is worth a look – and even The Holocaust is not taboo! You Tube is quite a resource. Discrimination is so endemic it’s a “Cripple Culture” – with little to no air time! Odd how some talk of culture and miss… Read more »
I was enjoying reading this – and then….. Sorry to have to say there was a Blooper – It was Hugh! B^///// I’ve dealt with equality for years – sex – gender – sexuality – age – disability. It’s when it says – “we managed to convince the boy that following the rules would be more comfortable for him than the alternative: riding the Big Blue Bus with the mumblers, ass scratchers, and masturbators. He agreed. I was almost sorry.” That Big Blue Bus Metaphor and Stereotype! Why not save a few words and write “Window Lickers”. B^/ If that… Read more »