My Grandmother's Words

Over the phone my grandmother asked if I had any boyfriends.

"No," I said. "I've just been dating."

"That's good. Concentrate on yourself. I remember one night when my friend and I were taking the trolley from West L.A. to East L.A. Going through all the neighborhoods. It was always fun to do that. There were the whites, then the Russians, then the Mexicans. Everyone went to where their language was, you know. I told my friend how I was tired of dating these alcoholics. I don't want to clean up anyone's vomit! I said. We had to take two or three trolleys to get to East L.A. We were going to a dinner. And that's where I met Joe. He had come back from the war and was living at his aunt's house so he could go to college. His aunt was a mean old thing and didn't approve of him going to school. So she wouldn't let him in the house. He had to stay in the garage. After we started dating, and I knew he was going to call me the Saturday after we met, I asked him why doesn't he get an apartment of his own. I told him he was going to catch pneumonia in that garage. Eventually he did get his own place. On 8^th and Slauson. He had twelve cousins who all lived in East L.A. The oldest cousin was a boxer. As he got older he got punchy, from getting hit so much. He wasn't right in the head. He had a good pension and would ride around in a limousine. He would take all the cousins shopping and buy clothes for them. The same shirt in twelve sizes. Later on, though, he killed his neighbor. He shot his neighbor and the neighbor died, and then the cousin was put away. He tried to attack Joe once, too. Joe was taking psychology classes at college, and his cousin began to suspect that Joe knew things about him because of the classes. So one day the cousin got into Joe's apartment when he was out, and he sat there waiting for him. When Joe got home, though, he was able to talk the cousin out of doing anything to him. You would have liked your grandfather."

East Los Angeles. 1940s. 8^th and Slauson. I would have liked my grandfather. My grandfather died of lung cancer, but not just any kind of lung cancer. It was certified government lung cancer. He was exposed to radiation during the war--exposed on purpose, for testing reasons. My grandmother was left to raise six daughters. She didn't bring her babies to family gatherings where the boxer cousin was.

Though unrelated by blood, my father is like my maternal grandfather. They are alike because they are linked through my mother. And I am my grandmother on that trolley, declaring to refuse to date any drunks, declaring to refuse anything less than a wonderful man.

Once we are immersed in a thing, it becomes us, and we become it. It's not that we like it, it's that it becomes all we know. If you are walking down a street, and there is a cool wind, and there are people and cars and objects that you must dodge, that is all you know. My grandfather was shot in the back of his head during the war. The bullet did not penetrate the skin. It bounced off, leaving an indentation that my mother used to feel with her fingers. When you feel something like that, in that moment, how can you know anything else?