bubbles in maywood

"What's your favorite childhood memory?" Ab asked me as we sped away from our family after a good long day, on the 710 freeway. I knew the answer right away because its something that I've thought about over the years, narrowing it down amongst the cobwebs of my 26 year old mind.

"Well," and I explained, "and I've thought about this so, that's why I'm saying it so soon, this one time, you and I went to the liquor store and we bought these bubbles.." "The BUBBLES!" my brother exclaimed, "That's my favorite memory too!"

There was a tiny liquor store on Everett in Maywood in between 54th and 55th St where one day, my brother and I on our way home from school picked up two bottles of liquid bubble solution. The kind with the wand in the bottle. We took it home and proceeded to blow bubbles everywhere. Soon the rest of our building caught on. Kids everywhere were bringing out their liquid bubble solution, getting more and more high tech with each blow. Some were running with the wands, others brought out fans that they held their wands to. By the time the sun had set, about 10-15 kids were blowing bubbles outside. By then I'd gone inside, possibly bored of bubbles and went outside again. When I opened the door, I looked up and the atmosphere on 52nd St was illumiated with the glistening soap of bubble solution. I knew at that instant what something beautiful in the midst of ugliness was and that memory has stayed with me ever since.

"My second favorite memory," my brother began, "would have to be the time we killed the rat." "I was just going to say if I had to have a second favorite memory it would be the time all five of us killed that mouse." I enthusiastically agreed.

Mom worked long hours (possibly just normal eight hour shifts but when we were kids that was an eternity) and we were home alone a lot. There wasn't much we could do to entertain each other, though that never stopped the girls from inventing hilarious games like "Jerry Springer" and "Headless Horseman" (another story for another time).

During this time our two bedroom apartment had become home to an unwelcome guest, a mouse. We'd set traps for him but he was still alive, as evidenced by the tails we'd see running by every now and again. My brother, never one to let his family be infiltrated by an unwelcome outsider decided that day we would all kill it, together. "There it goes!" we'd yell and we'd move couches, coffee tables, dinner tables, bookcases, until finally, we had the mouse localized. It made the fatal mistake of running across the living room and on it fell a black, silver, and pink throw pillow and on top of it, five pairs of sibling feet. We fell upon the pillow with such gusto that you would have thought we'd given each other a "NOW!" war cry. We jumped up on that pillow/mouse laughing and giggling that it didn't really matter that it ended up getting away after all.

"Let's go to the old apartments!" Ab decided as we continued north on the 710, passing the freeways that would take us into Orange County where we now live. "Okay!" I agreed. And my brain was flooded with memories that Ab and I would bring up together, remember when, oh this one time, oh hey, remember, and pretty soon the exit was upon us. "Want me to take the Julio route?" he asked me, harping back to our former step-father's shortcut home. The route that took us past all the factories we would pass on our bikes, the bread factory where once an employee gave us a box of bread to take home, the dumpsters where we once found a film strip with porn on it, the General Mills factory. As we took a left onto 52nd St from Maywood Ave we were hit with an all familiar and all too unfamiliar street. We both knew the old place when we came upon it. It was even painted the same, white with brown borders. "I'm gonna drive in, just for a second," Ab decided as he pulled mine and my husband's Corolla into the narrow entrance that takes you into the parking lot of the old place. Wow.

It shrunk.

I used to race a girl named Mirella back and forth from one half of the building to the other. I was the fastest person there until she came and took the crown from me. She and I would race so much and the distance between the parking stop and the concrete wall that was home felt like an eternity. Now I could take about ten long strides and get to the other side. It was tiny. Or maybe it was I that had grown.

The next place was on 54th street. The one where we were only one of four families and where our memories were mixed with half happy and half sad ones. We approached the place with two wary homeowners giving us the evil eye. "Good evening, we used to live here, when we were kids, about fifteen years ago!" Their eyes shifted into that of acceptance. "Can we walk to the back just to look around?" Their arms led the way, go ahead kids. So we walked to the back and found ourselves in the backyard where we'd build stuff in the garage. Where we'd play football. Where we rollerskated. Where we'd play Monopoly with Lucero, Zeus, and Nancy.

We made a full circle around Loma Vista Elementary. It was from there that my love of learning and Mac computers came. I gleefully pointed out the mac lab to Ab. We nodded enthusiastically to every reminiscence that came out of our mouths.

Nimitz Middle school was just as big as we remembered, though the gates were much thicker than when we were there. Its funny that as ghetto as all the places we had been to so far has been, we did used to live there and it was all familiar, it was once our home and would forever be a part of our lives. Middle school is scary no matter what but I looked at it braver than ever. There was the meeting place for Gracie, Erika, and Maria and I some mornings before school started. We met in a corner. By a bar meant for parking bikes perhaps that we used as a gymnast bar and we'd do flips and turns and backflips on. I sent the picture to Gracie to see if she could remember the place we always refer to as "The Bar."

Bell High school was closest to current events but still, it had been eight years since we'd set foot in it. Set foot in because Ab found that the gate by the tennis courts was open and we strolled the campus where we became adults. There's the sex ed classroom where I was assigned a mechanical baby to work as birth control. There's the room where we took math. There's the.. GASP! "My name is written on the wall!" I remembered and broke into a light jog. There under the Class of 2000 logo was the names of the girls who had painted it. My maiden name now my middle name. For years to come on the walls of Bell High.

Cudahy was next and we both agreed to skip out on a trip to Elizabeth School because it was the darkest chapter of our education. I hated that school. Ab hated that school. Neither of us gave reasons but we didn't need to, if you hate a place that much, there is no need to go back. "What two stops?" Ab asked when I said we'd have to make two in Cudahy. "The place on Walker Ave. Did you forget?" "Oh yeah! That's where we killed the mouse!" Yup. The street itself reminded me of something out of training day so I hesitated to even so much as slow down when we got to the end of the little cul de sac and the last apartment on the right that had been our home. Around the corner past the house where a lady used to plant rice and was now apartment homes you came to Elizabeth St and the two apartments that were right next to each other and where we moved three times. The crappy apartment had the best apartment. The one with three bedrooms where Ab finally had his own room. The one that was directly over my pal Jose's room and we'd call each other and make faces through the window. Then the apartment next door that was much nicer and where we moved twice. The second time we moved I'd packed boxes I would not unpack until I would arrive at Hart Hall 249 at Biola University.

For a second on the way back, Ab completely forgot where he lived. I almost did too after that stroll down memory lane. It took us about fourteen years to make those memories and about forty five minutes to relive them. And though we moved a mere 17 miles away to La Habra, it might as well have been 17,000 it feels so faraway.