Dead Man's Honda

* "Running With Scissors" is my new favorite movie. Dark and humorous, it tracks the insane adolescence of Augusten Burroughs. As we left the theatre a man who sat in the row behind us commented:

"Wow. I feel like going and jumping off of a bridge," then laughter. He added, "But I fear I might have to wait in line once I get there." It's not every day you hear that after watching a movie.

* Yesterday a woman at my work confessed to me not only that she takes a strip pole dancing class--but that she has a pole in her bedroom she uses every morning. Seriously.

* A very kind, handsome man at my work once told me that he receives the American Girl Catalogue. Today he brought me his copy of it.

* Yesterday it was eighty degrees outside. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. And half of my workplace is covered in snow for holiday season filming.

* I have a yam in my briefcase today. It's cooked and ready to eat for lunch... but still-- I have a yam in my briefcase.

* A woman in Brazil claimed her cat had a litter of puppies. It took blood tests to debunk the claim.

I sat on the bench with her tiny frame nestled against me. She stared at the ceiling.

Everyone said this was the best day to be at court—-everyone wins, they say. No one loses. Everyone is happy. I discovered on Saturday that isn’t true. Not entirely, anyway.

“One…..two….three….” I heard her say softly under her breath. That tiny five year old face was filled with such seriousness and contemplation that I kept trying to turn my head to see it. When I couldn’t see her face I listened to the counting.

“Eighteen…nineteen….twenty…”

Her foster brother sat on my lap and whispered that he hoped the attorney would sit down soon so he could see his brother who was being adopted. He had metal in his teeth and had already overcome a heroin addiction he acquired in the womb, that little two-year-old on my lap. My nephew is two, I thought to myself. He plays with blocks.

On Saturday at National Adoption Day I met a family whose children’s faces keep swimming around in the back of my head. One face in particular just seems to hang there, hovering, asking for a response from me. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I can’t help her. So why doesn’t she go away like the others?

“Fifty seven…..eighty….eighty six…..” I keep hearing her whisper.

I’ve seen plenty of suffering children—it’s what I planned to dedicate my life to doing—seeing and changing their situations. But this one in particular seems to walk around inside me without permission. I don’t want her there anymore—but that doesn’t seem to matter. She’s still there.

Her foster brother was adopted that day. Her foster father told me that the other two foster children would be adopted next year. Then there was the little girl. She would not be adopted.

Her foster mother told me she would be leaving them soon—leaving that little bunch of laughing and smiling children and adults. Jalith was the only one not smiling. She seemed disassociated and catatonic as she stared into nothingness. Her last foster family had beaten her and locked her in a tiny room before a social worker found her. Now Jalith would be returned to her mother—-her mother who is addicted to drugs but swears she isn’t. And apparently Arizona’s laws against such things are not as stringent as they are in CA. So her mother moved to that state.

“Thirty-two….forty-one….forty-seven…”

Everyone smiled and laughed and hugged each other after the boy was officially adopted in that courtroom. I heard a lawyer crack a joke. I ushered the little ones out of the room to call in the next family. Somewhere in that rush Jalith disappeared.

Why…of all the children I’ve seen who broke my heart she sticks in my head, I don’t know. But she’s there….counting….staring….smiling softly after I teased her….and I ask her in my head, what should I do with you? And she doesn’t answer….just keeps counting……

“Twelve….fifteen…..nineteen….twenty….”

I think Honda is mocking me after the nightmare (part ten?) she put me through this past weekend. She’s running exceptionally well.I want to put her in the corner but now she’s behaving. Little brat.

Friday night I planned to meet with some very dear friends whom I’ve missed for a long time. I got off work early, took my place in the slowly inching parking lot we call the 5 South, and sat tight. Honda was jerking and groaning and making me car sick—but that’s to be expected when the poor thing never got to go over 8 mph.

2 and a half hours later, and only just north of Irvine, south of L.A., I noticed the overheating needle was attempting to crawl out of the ceiling of my dashboard, i.e.: really overheated.

Ok, no worries. Just turn on the heater and she’ll be fine again.

The heat resulted in soaking me with my own sweat and removing any semblance of oxygen from the car. I stuck my head out the window gasping for air. As Honda rolled down a little hill in the freeway I saw the red break lights of the car in front of me turn on so I smashed my breaks in response.

Stupid sucker went straight to the floor. I grabbed the emergency break and yanked. Images of the last two times this happened (once resulting in a baaad accident and once resulting in a tow and a near-heart attack) flashed before my eyes. My heart seemed to have beat its way into the back of my skull.

I wisely decided to slooooowly move off of the freeway. Surely the breaks would work once the car cooled down. I realize my logic seems skewed here, but just go with me.

Next thing I knew I was in what can only be described as the…uhh….hood? I’m not sure what it was. All I know is that I couldn’t read the signs--either because they were not in a language I knew or because they were too dilapidated. Everything seemed exceptionally dark. People seemed to walk around as shadows. Uniquely structured, broken down buildings appearing abandoned encircled a gas station that seemed like it should have a shining light over it and angels singing in the background.

One important and annoying detail in this saga—my cell phone was dying. Because it was dying I turned it off on the drive south and planned to turn it on and get directions to my friends’ house.

After I left a message for those friends and as I was leaving a message for my sisters (I yelled cross-streets into the phone) another good friend called through and listened to my panicked voice.

“I’m surrounded by very intimidating-looking men in a not-so-friendly-hood, my car is overheated, my breaks aren’t working and now my cell phone is dying!” I yelled.

Then the phone died.

I felt really, really badly for the anxiety I was certainly causing everyone. I was missing dinner to boot. No good, very bad night.

I can get out of this, right? I’m fairly resourceful. I’ve been stranded in places without a cell phone, without any knowledge of the language, or knowledge of the place for that matter. I survived. At least I know the language in the states, I thought. Or, most of it anyway.

Another group stranded in this location approached me. It was a small family.

“Do you know where we are? We’re lost.” The mother whined softly. “My girls won’t use the bathroom here because it’s soo scary.”

“No, sorry. I have absolutely no clue where we are other than that we are south of L.A.” I said with a flat tone that probably disclosed my exhaustion and frustration. From the sweat, chills from the cool air and my half-tousled half-flattened hair--I looked like I had West Nile Virus.

I checked Honda’s fluids as if I knew what I was doing. Under the glare of strange men I put on my super-duper-tough face. Yeah, I can fix a car. Filled up the radiator. Too much. It overflowed. Hopefully no animals or organisms who need all of their brain cells were anywhere around THAT bio-hazard.

I then looked at the oil. Not only was it extremely low, it was black. Crap.

At the counter of the gas station I requested oil.

“What kind?”

“Whatever you have.” I said.

“I mean, like is it 20/60 50/30..(ok I don’t know the exact fractions she was listing off but you get the idea) ?”

“It’s a 1988 Honda.” I answered. Her face stared at me as though I was the biggest moron on the planet. I was.

“Use fourteen.” I heard a man with a thick Spanish accent behind me say.

“Oh thank you,” I said. “I’ll take fourteen.”

“You mean forty?” She said. I looked at the man. He nodded and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah forty.”

So the kind man helped with my car. Apparently it worked on the overheating problem. Or perhaps it started working because I was languishing in a parking lot fit for obtaining any number of diseases. Whatever the reason—Honda was working. Her breaks, however, were still a bit sketchy. I could get her to stop, but I’m fairly certain I pulled a hamstring doing it.

I missed the birthday outing Desiree planned because I wanted to be down south for my friends and celebrate with Lindsey the next day. Instead I missed both events.

No good, very bad night.

And today? Honda is working just fine thankyouverymuch. Just stinking fine. Little biotch.