1983: Memoirs Of A Gentleman Caveman

By Oscar Barajas

My family had just arrived from Mexico, and my social interactions with other kids were limited to cousins and other children from the neighborhood. In other words, I had never been around other American children. I had only been around children who settled their differences with rocks and their fists. My mother warned me that these children were different, because they used their words. My mother reminded me that I would receive a beating if the school had to call her regarding any fighting. My father reminded me that he would beat me if I had lost said fight as if he had money riding on the outcome.

I still remember one of the biggest lies my mother had to tell was to the administration of Second Street Elementary about living in their jurisdiction. Fortunately for her no one knew where Bodie Street was located. The sign had been knocked down by a drunk driver and the city had never bothered to replace it. I was not used to hearing my mother lie, but I knew better than to try to correct her. I had felt the sting of that backhand before when I added contradictory details to any of my mother’s stories. There was no need for any reminders.

My mother relied heavily on our next door neighbor, Doña Amelia, in order to navigate the English speaking world. It’s not that Doña Amelia spoke the language; she was just louder than anyone else. She knew a couple of choice four letter words and she was not afraid to use them at the top of her lungs. Her son Hector was my age and therefore became my best friend by default. She was the official captain of the carpool. My mom would be the navigator, although her real duty was finding a parking spot closer than the one they had passed up only seconds before.

Doña Amelia was the kind of parent who drove and executed corporal punishment in one sweeping motion. Her steering wheel looked like the car had been stolen or at the very least salvaged from very tough raccoons. There were wires everywhere that went to work when put together. Red and yellow would have to be intertwined to make the lights work. Blue and orange would have to come together in other to have the car horn beep. It would be a violent dying scream that once connected could not be disconnected until the car was turned off. Sometimes a car would cut her off at the top of the block, and she would scramble to connect the wires. However by the time she fought back the shock the wires released, the offending party would be blocks away – and she would have to drive the rest of the way with the car horn announcing her arrival before she was even seen.

Second Street Elementary was far from the prep school you might be envisioning right now. My first grade teacher, Ms. Fernandez, was a crazy Spaniard who always preached morality in her classroom. At that point, I thought I was Spanish from Mexico because I spoke the language. Ms. Fernandez was quick to point out that there was a difference. I remember she called my mom for a parent conference because she was concerned about the way I ate with my bare hands rather than with the rarified dignity of a plastic Spork. Doña Amelia’s always recommended the swiftest path to conflict by sending her to hell.

It would not be the only parent conference Ms. Fernandez would call my mother for. She was worried about my antisocial caveman ways. She was worried about the way I gripped a pencil and the fact that I was struggling to make friends. She was worried about the way I walked down a flight of stairs and the way I used glue. I would receive a beating whenever I got home as well as a promise from my mother to send the teacher to hell the next time she was called in. That never happened although I did start making friends, and in the process I shed the caveman in me and became more of a gentleman. The kind of gentleman who covered his hands glue and threw the dead skins at the girls he liked.

[Photo by  Lord Jim]

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