15 November 2003 DRIFT by Manuel Luis Martinez, St. Martin's Press/Picador, March 2003, ISBN 0-312-30995

"I spend the whole day alone in this cube, having to raise the red, white, and blue Christian flag when I want to whizz or even just stretch. It's a drag. But it's my own fault since I just got kicked out of high school again. Twice in two years, and Grams decides she has to send me to a religious school, one of those Christian fundamentalist ones, the kind that keeps students in line by making them sit facing the wall and putting wood partitions between them. One thing Grams didn't count on, though, was all the fuck-ups and caranchos ended up in the same place, and I know I'll get in trouble I never would've found in public school if she hadn't gotten scared that I was going to wind up dead. After eight hours of this place, I'm ready to roll out and do anything--fight, get high, look for girls--just to forget everything until tomorrow. This 'place' is Sunnydale Christian Academy. I know--ridiculous name. Why not just call this motherfucker Happytown? It's embarrassing to tell people when they ask where you go to school. But that's what the place is called and it's as bad as it sounds."

Sixteen year old Robert Lomos is a product of the barrio of San Antonio. He has mastered the attitude and the face. But he is also a kid who has spent years with a bleeding ulcer. Small wonder--he's got a musician father whose long absences and extramarital behavior drove Robert's mother crazy--literally. Robert had spent years as the primary caregiver for his little brother, Antony, until two years ago when Robert's take-control Aunt Naomi drove to Texas to pick up the pieces and transport them back to LA Robert was the piece that didn't fit, the piece left behind to live with his paternal grandmother, and so he hasn't seen his mom or Antony since.

School is consigned to the back-seat of the alcohol and smoke-filled bus that is Robert's life as he cruises the roads he hopes will make him a man and permit him to reunite with his mom and little brother. But his sense of direction seems faulty, and the road filled with potholes and trash, as he repeatedly plows that bus face-first into trouble and dead end streets.

For instance, we get a succession of vivid looks at the work available to a kid in Robert's position:

The Construction Industry:

" I introduce myself and get a few waves and a come'ere gesture from Brace, the foreman. 'You're the new gopher, um?' he says as he sits leaning against a stack of throwaways. 'You'll do fine here if you remember one thing. You's just shit labor.' The others nod lazily. That seems to be the orientation.

"Our crew is one of the last ones in because the building has to be up already before we put up the ceiling. We also put in the insulation, either laying rolls of itchy fiberglass or spraying glop above the ceilings. Brace told me not to ask what's in the shit. 'I don't know, so don't come to me if you start shitting blood.' "

The Restaurant Biz:

"Maurice keeps on going. He talks fast and he makes what he says sound important, like he's on to something you're not. 'See, at other jobs I've had, it don't matter what you do or what you make. If you're just expendable labor, you had something with everyone else around the place. But in the restaurant game, it's different. Goes like this, young man: manager, assistant manager, head waiter, waiters and waitresses, head cook, cooks, cockroaches, rats, bad meat, and finally busboys. There's no chance of mistaking that shit, either. That motherfucker Ayala and his little bitch Ponce, they mean that shit when they say they don't want to hear noise from you. The busboy's only reason is to whip around with a greasy brown tub and clean up after the guts as fast as your ass can take you.' "

The only constant in Robert's life--aside from the pain in his gut and the pain on his face--is Grams:

"She's always trying to teach me how to be tough because she knows I need to be.

" 'You don't ever feel sorry for yourself. Nothing ever been easy for Mexicans. You don't got a choice, boy. The best you hope for is that God lets you see the problems coming so you can get ready.'

"She's old school. She went through the Depression Mexican-style. That means poor, sick, and getting chased off like a dog by cheating-assed farmers and the like. So I gotta believe her, especially now. I mean about trouble. It comes and it comes. I'm trying to learn how to see it better.

"Grams was cool from way back when my folks were still cohabiting. She'd roll up on Saturday mornings and pick me up. That meant Pizza Hut, going to the grocery store, and my one-dollar allowance.

" 'You save that up and you'll have enough to buy what you want.'

"She was like that. Don't get the wrong idea, though. I had to work for that dollar. Every week I was in her big backyard, mowing, pulling weeds, helping her plant shit. Then she'd send me to the store to buy some ice cream. I'd take my bath, eat good, and watch Star Trek with my treat. Then in the morning, what she calls 'early-early,' she'd wake me up to get ready for church."

Robert is given plenty of practice, watching for those problems that just keep coming one after another. And though he is has built up an attitude in order to face the onslaught, inside Robert is a kid who is longing to fix everything and to find his way:

" 'I'm tired of drifting. You don't have to be on the road to do it, either. You can do it right where you live.' I stop for a minute and then decide just to keep on going. 'I get this vision of myself like I'm a needle and I've got this red thread trailing behind me, and everywhere I've gone in my life, I've left this line, a threaded line, back and forth over this patch of white cloth, and if I look back to see if there's some sensible pattern, I find that there's nothing, just this messy crisscrossing web. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't mean anything. The way I'm thinking now is that this bus is the needle and it's punching across the land. and I'm going to look back when I get to Los Angeles and I'm going to see that I left a beeline in my wake. I've got direction. I'll be able to see that I knew where I was going and figured it out, finally, that the shortest distance between two points is a direct line.'

" 'Well,' Zappa says, 'they might say that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but what they don't tell you is that drawing a straight line is the hardest thing anyone can ask you to do.' "

Robert Lomos is a kid who we ache with. Author Manuel Luis Martinez provides an unparalleled look at a Mexican-American culture while painting a picture of a grandmother who loves unconditionally and her damaged teenaged grandson on the edge.

Richie Partington

http://richiespicks.com

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