Tara Hills, Anaheim, Brookhurst and Crescent Ave

     One of the first largesse apartment complexes in north-west Anaheim is called Tara Hills.  Brookhurst Junior High is diagonally located from a gas station that had been there for as long as I can remember.  All the other buildings on the east side of Brookhurst grew over the years.  Next to the gas station, there was a large dirt lot.  The neighborhood kids and I would pull our off-road bikes out to the poorly designed track.  It was a lack of vision on everyone's part, although I blamed the older kids, the one with any strength, for not doing more.  There was one jumping hill.  The rest was a winding dirt track.  After it rained there were puddles that would last for days.  It was a mess and mud would fling up our backs if we rode it.

     In the brown angular complex, with plateau upon plateau of steps and stairwells and courtyards, there was a day care.  These were the days before 'pre-school' (right behind the Rental Office).  There was no learning here.  Shit, even kindergarten, what little exposure I had to it (I was skipped to 1st), was barely enough to be called learning.  The pre-school was loosely structured.  (Apparently it has changed into a Montessori since.)  We were fenced in high gates, surrounded by the tallest complex structures.  Sunlight came in, but there was barely any nature in our small court.  Cities often fail at the natural touch.

     There was a playground with play sand that was infinitely moist.  It was hard packed because of it.  It didn't drain.  If you hit it the wrong way, it was as bad as hitting the meandering sidewalks that flowed around the grounds.  The kids wandered around it aimlessly.  There was simply not a lot to do.  The sand was wet and stinky.  The playground equipment was wet and not fun.  We felt like Clarence did in Richard III.  Our reprieve was outdoors, but only somewhat.  Children's faces were a blur, the earliest memories do that.  We see the macro.

     ...
     Famously remembered after a weekend, we found a hole in the middle of play sand.  I walked around it.  It had to have been three feet down.  We all speculated why it came to be.  More than likely it was to be the base for some new set.  I walked around the hole, dying to jump in.  I walked away, the the periphery of the fences and turned back.  The dark shadow circle feet from me, calling to me.   There was magic in there, surely.  I walked back, but didn't leap.  The hole was daunting enough because of the play monitor.  I lay on the side and looked down.  It would prove difficult to get out.

     There was a blur next to me.  One of the larger boys had the same idea, although he didn't have the same measure of reserve.  He jumped right in.  I flew back from the edge and smiled.  He went in.

Seconds went by and I did not see him.  He found the magic portal to another place.  He was riding rainbows on roller skates, eating Fun Dip on the way to the candy slash pizza parlor.  The grey sky cast over all of this.

     Then, out of the hole came an arm, straight up to the sky, then landing in front of me.  Then the other arm.  The top of his dark blond hair barely crested the edge.  "Get me out," he said, "Get me out."  Then as I saw his fingers claw at the wet play sand, not able to get traction to move out, he barely made it out, "Ants."

     By the time I stood up to help, he was kicking and screaming.  I looked down into the hole and he was covered in ants.  Black ants.  Ants that bite.  I can see them, wrapping their mandibles into his cheek.  I tried to help him, but he weighed twice as me.  The monitor saw us and jumped to my side and we pulled him out.  He was crying by now.  "Crap," said the 20 year old monitor as they brushed away the ants.  I didn't see the boy for a week.
     ...
     I didn't like to take naps.  They pulled out this awfully uncomfortable leatherette blue mat.  We laid them out and was in awe at the kids that actually went for it.  I took a nap once, and even then it was for no more than five minutes.  Boring.

     "Just be quiet," the indoor monitor would say.  She was an old woman and not many of the lighter shade of skin went for a brown Filipino kid.  I made squirmy motions on the mat, but tried to stay quiet.  There was no sheet to get comfy with.  It was damn hot on the mat.

     One day, as everyone slept, I turned toward the door that led to the playground.  I saw a new girl walking with her father toward the office.  She had a white blouse and a blue skirt with straps.  She had black Buster Browns and white socks.  And, one of the few times in my life, I was seeing an albino.

     She was pretty.  She had to wear dark glasses, so I never saw her eyes.  She had white curly hair that fluffed above her head.  She looked like Annie.

     Her father held her as they came to the office.  I can see on his face that the decision was already made.  He didn't like what he saw.  I had no idea of the propriety of the day, but he saw something he didn't like.  I took offense, but not exactly sure why.  There was a dissonance from what he saw and what I saw.  What I saw was fine.  What did he see?

     I tried to get her eye line, but, with the glasses, I had no idea where she was looking.  The father spoke with the indoor monitor for some time.  I just stared, laying still.  The father spoke conditionally, the monitor was growing tired of it and her answers became increasingly curt.

     They walked off and I never saw her again.  I learned of disdain.  I recognize it quickly today.