means “yes” in my book. I pick up Laurie on time in my fancy Ford Falcon. She is instantly impressed as I whisk her off on our date. She has the same beautiful bright red hair and sweet smile I remember. It is so great to see her. Like me, she is entering senior year that fall. We catch up on things, relive old times, and end the night with a kiss. It is as if no time has passed, even though our lives are totally opposites—with me living on the East Coast, and her on the West. We stay in touch after that even though our lives go in separate directions.
Not until I start lifeguarding do I really begin to think seriously about girls. Being overweight as a kid had affected how I saw myself. I doubted any female could be attracted to me. That changes after I get in the best shape of my teenage life and work as a lifeguard. Suddenly bikini-clad girls are swooning over me and coming up to me for no other reason than to ask, “What time is it?” I am too naïve to realize they are coming on to me. Never in my wildest dreams do I imagine they are there because they are interested in knowing me—yes, me, the kid with the chunky past.
THREE
Making the Right Choices
AFTER GRADUATING from Farragut in June 1975, I return to California and live with Dad and Esther for a year. My living arrangement, however, is rather unconventional. In his marriage to Esther, Dad has this rule prohibiting the children from another man and marriage living under the same roof with their mother (his spouse). It is a staunch, traditional belief of his. Esther’s children never stay with them, even for one night. Dad is a very proud, macho, chauvinistic, and obstinate man. But he also is fair. Therefore, he cannot very well allow me to stay in the house with them either. Putting myself in the mind-set of my very proud, macho, chauvinistic, and obstinate Latin father, I understand and accept what he decides: I will live and sleep in a special space he makes for me in the garage.
Esther goes along with the whole idea. “Since my kids aren’t allowed here,” she declares, “Lorenzo can stay in the garage.”
It is hard for me to imagine doing that to my own kids. Yet I forgive my dad for many things, and this is one of them.
That summer, I quit my job at the Shell station to work two part-time jobs: as a ticket taker at Avco Embassy Theatre in Westwood and as an order taker at McDonald’s. I make shakes, burgers, fries, and Egg McMuffins for six months at McDonald’s before they put me out on the counter. Father loans me a car to get to and from work until I buy my own first vehicle that summer: a white Dodge Tradesman 200 delivery van. It’s just a shell inside, no paneling, no carpeting, nothing; I pay $300 for it. Dad helped me shop around, but he made sure I bought it myself. Personal responsibility is, after all, the essence of how he raised me. He could easily buy a car for me; he certainly has the money. Yet he knows the importance of my fending for myself. He never wants to hear anyone say, “Oh, it’s easy for Lorenzo because his dad did it all for him.”
After buying the van, I want to spruce it up and make it something very cool chicks will love. Dad offers to help me install wood paneling. “Let’s go to the lumberyard,” he says.
“Cool.”
I am there right alongside Dad as he drives us to Koontz, his favorite hardware store in West Hollywood, to buy the necessary paneling I want in eight-by-twelve-foot sets. With its cylinder-shaped interior, laminate is the best choice. It is pliable enough to follow the curves and be quickly installed and fastened in place.
When we get to the lumberyard, I tell Dad, “Great, they have the laminate sheets I want.”
Dad says, “Lorenzo, we’re not getting that.”
“No, Dad,” I counter, as I walk over where the laminate sheets are to show him, “this is what we need to put in the van because it bends. You can’t put real wood paneling in a van.”
My father famously says, “Yes, we can. Laminate wood is so expensive, but this other wood is cheap. Let’s just use this other wood.”
I explain, “Dad, real wood is much heavier and won’t bend.”
My father narrows his eyes and says, “Do you want me to help you or not?”
I reluctantly concede. “Okay.”
Dad has the last word. “Besides,” he says, “I’m paying for it.”
Dad marches off and buys the real wood paneling, just as he wants. We drive back to the house. Dad gets out his tools and cuts the paneling to size to fit. When he goes to install the sheets, however, he cannot bend them to catch onto the wood screws to attach them to the frame of the van. The harder my muscle-headed, short-fused father pushes to bend them, one by one the panels break and splinter in his hands. I can tell my father is quickly losing patience for the task. He mutters something in Spanish as his temper starts to get the best of him.
I explain, “See, Dad, this is why I wanted to get the laminate wood paneling. Because it bends!”
Dad throws the hammer down. We are both sweating. It is the middle of summer and a hundred degrees inside the van. In a flash, he storms out and screams, “You’re an asshole!”
“Why am I an asshole? I wanted to get the laminate wood. You wanted to get the regular wood that doesn’t bend.”
Dad is fuming at this point. “You can fuckin’ do this all by yourself. You’re an asshole.”
Now I am an eighteen-year-old asshole for wanting to get the right wood paneling all along even though my father does not see it that way.
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