Made in America

I had just turned 36 when I found myself without a relationship for the first time in my life. I’d come here from Greenwich Village, where I experienced plenty of gal-pal love, and now straight and gay friends alike were giving me the same advice: “Being alone will be good for you.” I bit the solitude bullet and took to my couch for a long overdue rest.

Once a leading lady, I now was a very lonely lady living in a small house in Silver Lake. One afternoon, I pulled myself out of my reclining position, roused by my two whining mutts, which had interrupted my jagged sleep one too many times. Following their stares through the French doors, I spotted a shock of color in one of the backyard fruit trees. The three of us were transfixed by a man-child munching peach after peach. I took a long, slow drag on a Carlton and contemplated my next move.

I made a casual approach to the tree. All was still. Looking up, I found myself observing at a terrified Latino kid, about 12, who was staring down at me. “Hello? Are you OK?” His eyes shifted in fear from me to the wagging dogs. I silently reprimanded myself for being so clumsy. “It’s OK,” I said. “The perros es bueno.”

As we headed back to the house with the dogs in tow, he suddenly jumped and a dozen peaches fanned from their hiding place under his T-shirt. Our eyes connected as he jumped the fence and hid. “Dos perros are finito,” I told him. “Mi. . . . fruta es su fruta. . . .”

Eventually, a can of soda broke the ice. Then came an animated, charade-like attempt at communication. His name was Joe. “Jose?” I asked, thinking I was not hearing correctly.

“No, Joe!”

He seemed sensitive and smart. I clumsily blubbered forth in my strange mix of languages. “Votre casa es ici?” He looked perplexed before pointing to the house next door. “Really?” I gasped.

The House of Concha. A 90-plus recluse whose favorite pastime was to screech obscenities out her front door. “Concha es ab-uel-a?” His face wrinkled in disgust. “No!” He motioned that he lived under her with his Uncle Fernando and Fernando’s girlfriend, Alicia, who did not get home until 6:30. A latchkey kid without a key. Silence. I mimed: “Hungry?”

I set the table for the first time since my crash and burn. When I asked Joe to light the candles, I saw his face flush with pride. I proposed a toast: “Mucho gusto!” Joe bowed his head in prayer. I immediately followed suit. A stranger in a strange land indeed.

Over the next days, we fell into a groove. Each day after school, something was bound to happen: dog walks, wild Monopoly games. It was amazing what a little competition could do to heighten his command of the English language. At first, I let Joe win. But when I discovered that his Monopoly account had grown tenfold after one of my trips to the refrigerator, I laid down the law. Lying and cheating did not work for me. He got the point as he wrinkled his nose in disgust over my ashtray.

On the fourth day of our fusion, we had arranged to meet with his uncle after work. Fernando, 23, and Alicia, 19, greeted us shyly. I fought the urge to look around their studio apartment but noticed there was only one bed, with a folded-up comforter on the floor. Alicia’s eight-month pregnancy was a bit disorienting as well. We muddled through and somehow came to an agreement: Joe was going to get a key to his uncle’s apartment. It was OK for me to take Joe on errands and hikes.

I smiled as I walked home and couldn’t help wondering if I might be feeling a maternal pang. Moi?

Reading in bed, I drew a macabre parallel between my two mutts sleeping on their backs, spread-eagled on their cushy Costco bed, and Joe, only a few feet away on an old comforter. A reality check of just how fortunate my life had been.

The next morning I woke up hours earlier than usual. My mind was filled with new thoughts: Did Ross Dress for Less carry hiking boots for kids? As I reached for a cigarette, I made a mental note to get the patch. I had responsibilities to live up to. No more weekend bong hits or bargain Chardonnays from Trader Joe’s. Time for change.

A few days later, as we set up our armies for the game of Risk, I announced that we would make a pact: “If you don’t cheat behind my back, I won’t cheat and smoke cigarettes.” He loved that.

Trying to ignore my nicotine cravings, I cleaned my chaotic back room, making a space for a daybed. Joe got permission to spend the night. It was, after all, Friday, and Fernando and Alicia could use a bit of privacy. Plus, I had a date with Joe to go hiking and to dine at Sizzler.

As Joe ran ahead, I thought about all my petty rationales on why I’d never adopted a child. Never enough money. No spousal safety net. Would I be trusted? A gay woman with a child? But I certainly didn’t want to spend my whole life without the company of someone younger. And Joe was smart as a whip. I loved the challenges of communication. He seemed to feel the same.

As we nestled around our all-you-can-eat salad bar plates, I watched him devour a mountain of raw broccoli. Finally, I got the guts to ask a personal question: “Did you come from Honduras with your mother and father?”

“Si.”

“Are they living here?” Burrowing into his pile of carrots, Joe replied: “Mi mama esta with cousin en LA, mi papi esta Nuevo York.” He rubbed his jaw, seeming distracted.

“Will your papa retorna L.A.?”

“No. Fernando took me so I not be a houseboy no mas.”

“A houseboy?”

“Si, mucho cooking, cleaning and watching ninos. No go school.” Joe had been taking care of everything for his mother.

“Mama es no in casa?”

“Si, si, she drinking cervezas with mucho hombres--no good.”

In the restaurant parking lot, I noticed that Joe had three small plastic straws he was twisting into little crosses. On the trip home, he insisted on sitting in the back seat with the dogs. Through the rearview mirror, I saw him with his arms around each of them, singing softly. He had attached the straw crosses to each of their collars. My Adam’s apple swelled to the size of a grapefruit.

At home, he rubbed his right cheek again. “Are you OK?” He nodded yes half-heartedly. “Please show me,” I implored. Finally he opened his mouth and, to my horror, I saw six or seven black holes, several that covered the whole top of a tooth. I put my arms around him and said, “I’ll get that fixed for you. Promise.” He smiled shyly, enjoying my touch. Later, as I puffed on a hidden smoke and sipped a glass of wine, I wondered: How could I get Joe onto my Screen Actors Guild health insurance?

Monday morning arrived and miracle of miracles, I got an audition for a role as a saucy, middle-age madam from the Wild West. I was normally never without jeans and clunky boots, so I had to do a lot of fluffing and puffing to pull off the “Miss Kitty” thing. I had to laugh: “Too bad Joe is missing this show.”

When I returned home, still dressed up for the audition, he was sitting on the curb. I blushed as I saw his eyes light up at this new image of me. I even got a cheesy wolf whistle. “Now it’s my turn to punish you,” he said with a glint in his eye, pulling a lipstick-stained Carlton from my car’s ashtray. I was caught. “OK, you, me, go for a walk?” he asked. “Just to stores on Sunset. Say hello to people.” I blanched, feeling like I was in full drag. He pulled on my arm. “Vamonos!” Thus began a series of comments from shopkeepers, hauntingly reminiscent of my youth. “Oh, how nice you look in a dress!” Joe loved it. I was mortified. My inner acting voice screamed, “Become Miss Kitty, dammit!”

That night, Joe was scheduled to go to his mother’s for a few days but it was clear that he didn’t want to go. I encouraged him to please say hello from me and to request a time when I could talk to her about his dental problems. He showed me a note from his school guidance counselor requesting a parental interview. “Mi Mama no go. You?” I replied: “You sure?” His eyes said it all.

I immediately made an appointment for the next week at Joe’s school, near his mother’s apartment in Pico-Union. Joe spoke to the counselor in Spanish, explaining my presence: “It’s OK, I be with her now.” The rumpled counselor sat across from me with weary, kind eyes. He asked Joe to please wait outside and then proceeded to bombard me with questions: College educated? Homeowner? Other children? Do you love him? “Uh. . . . sure. Yes.” Then he leaned across his desk and demanded: “Why don’t you do something about that?”

“Well, I did think about becoming his legal guardian so my insurance could take care of his teeth problem.”

“What’s your relationship like with his mother?”

“I will meet Maria for the first time Sunday. Why?”

The counselor leaned back. “Let’s put it this way. Joe’s 12 years old. It’s the start of the school year, so you’ve got about three months before he’ll be a gangbanger. If you care about this kid, do something. Pronto.”

According to SAG rules, I could indeed be a legal guardian if Joe’s mother signed the necessary documents. Guardianship would provide an opportunity for Joe to go to a better school, in my neighborhood.

Maria was not thrilled to meet me. She was shy and threatened and avoided my eyes as she deferred to her “boyfriend,” a trashed-out guy named Carlos whose hands shook while he chain-smoked GPCs. Joe transformed into an amazing negotiator but eventually his impatience turned to anger with every negative wag of her head. I attempted to reassure Maria that the guardianship documents were solely to help Joe get medical attention through my insurance and that I was not there to steal her son. Maria kept shaking her head. As I got up to leave, she ordered Joe to stay. My eyes pleaded with him not to fight her.

On the drive home, my heart went out to her--her son, her 7-year-old daughter, the whole rotten deal. She spoke no English, her husband had abandoned her at the border and the most responsible person in her life was her 12-year-old boy. Could it be that this meeting had done more harm than good?

The next day, I telephoned the counselor. “Does the school offer assistance for a child who’s in need of immediate medical help?”

“So it was a bust?” he replied. Silence. Lowering his voice, he said, “Offer her money.”

I stammered. “Excuse me?”

“That’ll be your answer. Start at $1,000. She’ll probably take it. Have the guardian papers with you to start the ball rolling.” This was surreal. A school official suggesting a bribe for another woman’s child.

I couldn’t wait for paperwork to get Joe’s teeth fixed; I took him to my dentist and paid in cash. With X-rays in hand, I went to see Joe’s mother a second time. Again, she was not pleased to see me. No matter what the X-rays indicated, she wasn’t about to sign anything, especially in English.

I played my last card. “I happy give you dinero. . . . uh. . . . pay something to you and. . . . daughter, por otra medical problems, OK? You sign papers?” Silence. I was desperate. “I can fix his teeth! He can go to a good school!”

Suddenly, Maria wheeled around and snapped: “How much?”

“Three hundred now, $600 at the signing of the final papers.”

She shook her head.

“OK, $400 now and $700 at the signing of the final papers.” She shot a look to Carlos. “Si, OK.”

As I put down the papers, she demanded that Joe stay. He said no under his breath.

“Please,” I said to him, “this is good news. This is going to work out.” Tears welled in his eyes as he squeaked, “Later.”

Since Joe had “reconnected” with his mother, he no longer was showing up at my place after school. When we talked on the phone, he sounded miserable. Finally, at the end of the week, he was allowed to visit Fernando. But his lightness had dimmed.

In the interim, I found out that I’d landed the Miss Kitty role in “The Gambler, Part III” movie and would be traveling to New Mexico for three weeks of filming. I agonized about leaving but tried to reassure Joe that I would fix our “problem” somehow, some way. “Please, let’s not pressure your mother. Your Mama needs time to look over the papers I gave her. She needs to feel that I’m not here to take you away from her.”

He fought back tears. “No, I want be with you. It’s no good for me here.”

I pulled him close. “Please, we’ve got to be strong now. When I get back, she’ll sign the documents. Come on, you know we are friends for life. Comprende?”

I phoned Joe every day from Santa Fe despite the cold reception I would receive from Maria when she answered. Joe’s voice was full of pain. I tried to reassure him but he felt abandoned, especially with his birthday coming up. I begged the producers to let me fly home on my two days off. I had a plan, another offer for Maria.

Could Joe come with me for a week in Santa Fe and be an American Indian in a cowboy movie? For $400? If the school gives me permission?

Maria shrugged.

“When dinero?”

I coughed up some cash. I waved $200 and said, “Otro dinero later.”

School books in tow, we boarded the plane at LAX. It dawned on me that Joe had never flown before. He grabbed my hand and buried his head into my side as the plane took off. The hand-holding continued for the whole flight.

I cringed when a limo met us at the airport. It was bad enough that my suite at the hotel had a full marble bathroom. How could I explain all this luxury? I just tried to let it go because we were in dire need of being with each other in whatever way possible.

Joe raced around the grounds in complete awe of all the amenities: pools, saunas, game rooms and--the coup de grace--the gym. After two days on the set, he opted to stay at the hotel with the production’s baby-sitter, who kept me apprised that our man Joe was quite the flirt. After pumping iron to tunes on his Walkman, he’d dog-paddle around the pool in his shorts, chatting it up with the young ladies. I discreetly arranged for new bathing trunks and swimming lessons.

On our third night together, I arrived at my room to find Joe in his briefs, rocking out on his Walkman, leaping from bed to bed, flexing his newly discovered physique in the mirror, singing “That’s the way, uh-huh-uh-huh, I like it!” I quickly closed the door and guffawed.

The night before his 13th birthday, we were invited to a big cast party at a local art dealer’s glamorous digs. It was awe-inspiring to observe the changes going on in this young being. He was proud, inspired and in love with a freckled teen, Sarah, who was on location with her parents.

Later that night, I asked Joe what he wanted to do for his birthday. He shook his head. I persisted. He handed me a glossy leaflet he’d found in the lobby: Water World. “Sure, we could do that. Maybe Sarah could come as well?” Joe smiled his approval.

I watched the two innocents clinging to each other on the giant slides, eliciting gales of laughter, and I was grateful. This trip had done Joe a world of good. He was joyful, youthful as I had never seen him before.

I knew it would be a while before Maria would let us hang out together after this week so I tried not to let the future creep into my thoughts. Departure wasn’t going to be easy, but Joe’s mood stayed high through our goodbyes to his new friends. He had gained about seven pounds from the free food on the set. I actually had managed to get him a couple of days of extra work as a Lakota Indian. On our flight home, I counted out the money he had earned: $80. “Keep this for yourself. You worked hard for it.”

Joe’s sense of accomplishment was a joy to behold. “Before I go home,” he asked, “we go to store I like?” “Sure,” I replied. I had a hard time not laughing as Joe pawed through the most garish clothes I had ever seen. I finally had to wait outside. Then he appeared--Don Jose of Union Street, zoot-suited out with suspenders that hung to the ground. Pachuco.

Outside his mother’s apartment, I hugged him and gave him an envelope to give to his mother. “Don’t worry, my friend. We will see each other sooner than later. In a week I will be finished in Santa Fe. The guardianship papers should be filled out by now so try to get them from your mother, OK? I’ll call you as soon as I get back to the hotel. And you can call me. Here’s the number. Just say, ‘It’s a collect call from Joe.’ ” There were tears in our eyes. We whispered that we loved each other. Then he was gone.

That was the last time I saw my friend Joe.

My final week on the shoot was pure hell. I called and called but Maria’s telephone had been disconnected. Every free minute I returned to my hotel room for fear that I would miss his call. I summoned friends to give a message to Fernando and Alicia, to no avail. Finally, I begged my friend Brad to drive to Joe and Maria’s apartment. I went into meltdown when he called and said no one knew where they were. I called the guidance counselor, who thought Joe was still with me. I checked my home machine every hour on the hour. Nothing.

Only when I reached Los Angeles did I discover that Fernando and Alicia had moved as well. I grabbed the dogs and went street by street through Joe’s old neighborhood. I cursed myself for not having taken photographs. I had only a Polaroid of Joe, dressed in Indian garb on the set of the film. I cried, screamed and pounded the steering wheel as I shouted to the gods to please help me. The search continued for days, weeks and months.

My grief was staggering. Why hadn’t I gotten more information? I cursed myself for being so neglectful. Eventually, I healed on the outside, but never at the core.

*

I met Joe in 1986.

One day, four years later, I was reading on my couch with the front door open when I heard someone talking to the dogs through the fence. The gate opened and I screamed at the sight of Joe.

My first instinct was to shout, “Where have you been? Why didn’t you ever call me!?”

He looked down, ashamed, but really there was little emotion. He was 16 now and a man of few words. We were coming at each other from different planets.

“What happened after I left you?”

Joe summed up his life in a few sentences: “My mother made us go to El Monte. I almost got killed in a gang, so she sent me to Honduras. It took me more than a year to earn a little money. Then I walked to Tijuana.”

“You walked all the way from Honduras?”

“I walked for almost a year, working here and there. That was two years ago.”

He could see my disappointment and, trying to break an awkward silence, he said, “Come, I want you to meet someone.” Outside, sitting on the same old curb, was a 15-year-old girl holding a newborn. A boy of 2 clung to her side.

Joe smiled. “This is my family. Please meet Sandy. She is my family, too.”

*

Sandy Martin is a screenwriter/director in Los Angeles and president of Olmos Productions.