I went across town or through our never ending valley town to a pretty waldorf (not salad) school where Bess was having her last game I would ever see. They charge $13 dollars to get in which is a scandal since most games at the humble Burbank schools charge $5 bucks, and once I tried to sneak in here with a mom friend and we got caught and I imagined my life on the run forever but instead I just paid the horrible ransom and then didn't go to games there for a few weeks in protest and japanese shame.
But this is the last one so Bess and B went early and I went after shoveling my mom safely into bed, driving her slick stickshifty car on a moody Friday night in May of my lone teenager's twilight years.
I ended up heaving up a hill with all my fat slapping around as I ran because the game had already started but I paid my stupid money while giving the lady the frigid courtesy of not looking at her, trying to ice her out as my final protest which she noticed not one bit. In the movies I would have grabbed her hand while she handed me my 2 dollars in change and I would have said do you realize you are taking advantage of hard working parents when you charge easily 3 times as much as every other game venue sorry I said venue but don't you see man, you're part of the machine of uncaring this is how it started in Berlin in the 30s. It's not JUST A GAME MAN
but instead I just took my 2 dollars like a tired dog. And sat.
Here's how it is with the ending of things. It's a fizzle. The firework that sort of goes off but mostly you don't realize you're already seeing the best in the show when it's happening beforehand so when it gets to the end you're all keyed up and then it's just a regular game like you'd see in the background on a bad teen 80's tv show.
Bess was in there for sure. She tossed a few balls basically toward the net. She blocked players and shots with her semi-ferocious body. She had just had her nails done for the prom tomorrow so I'm sure in the back of her mind she was like I want to win but I really want to not ruin the hard earned tips of my beautiful fingers
Then the buzzer and she's saying good game in a line with her team and then there she is next to me with her backpack and her ponytail and I look up at her and say end of an era Bess
And I force her to take a picture which she leans away from me so not much has changed but I wanted to mark the moment even though she resists cause we got here on this winding path of childhood I got to witness. B did most of the driving but I was there to see whatever she was doing, she was always following some path and whether she knew it or not, B and I were trailing behind, picking up her trash
We walk out of the game into the black night, surrounded by acres of neighborhoods in the never ending LA, but in this school there is a meadow and a copse of trees (sorry I just learned that word it's not very satisfying) also copse is itself just a group of trees so
ok
We're walking down the hill past some copse
no
It's pretty, trees make you feel you're not choked by civilization, and most of the other cars have left. I say bye to B and Bess and zoom out of the gate in my mom's car and then I get about half a block and Bess calls me mom we have a flat tire
Circle back
There's no solution for flat tire. I can't blow that one up and pat it on the butt and head it on its way. B has been nauseated for days taking an antibiotic for his chopped out back skin cancer and he's standing there unshaven and befuddled and it's already like 9pm and Bess would really like to get started being on her phone
So we call Nathan the family car guru and we're suddenly hefting all the stuff in the car around looking for the spare. Bess's coach Ray shows up with Mya his star player daughter, going to their car and sees our flinging stuff around and says hey I'll play, he's always up for any game
So we finally figure out the spare tire is in the WALL of the back of the car which we didn't even know comes off and it's also flat hahahaha
Triple A is coming but Ray says well we can get it started and finds the jack shit of jacks in the wall of the car, and shows Bess how to jack up a car and after the childhood he had, he is no stranger to a car jacking. Ray is the same age as B's older son Bruce, but Ray has two teenage daughters and is a struggling coach in a challenging divorced dad life while also weighing about 85 pounds, and Ray is always ok with everything going wrong. He is cheerful. The best thing that could happen to Bruce is two teenage daughters and a divorce and a coaching career. Ray is grateful.
Mya is freezing so I look through the pounds of crap in our trunk and I say how bout these wetsuits can you put them on? I search through the goodwill bag we haven't dropped off since last summer how bout this lingerie
She takes her dad's sweatshirt since he's sweaty from jacking the car and finds a granola bar in his front seat so once Mya's fed we're just staring at the trash in the car and looking at two flat tires and Ray on the ground and then we're just laughing because that's how flat tires are, he says, there's nothing else to do
AAA Jeff shows up and Ray unfolds himself from the ground and the tire gets pumped and changed in under twenty seconds and Ray says ok you'll be ok now and the girls are sitting in the middle of the black parking lot giggling over tiktok
And I follow B and Bess home looking at the three fat tires and the one ridiculous cheerio sized clown tire and think yes
I belong here
