Mama Lia

Mama Lia lived down the street from my grandmother. She was really, really old. Probably in her nineties. She was big on the bottom and wobbled when she walked. She wore bright flowered dresses and it seemed like she had an endless number of these flowered dresses. The houses on my grandmothers street, including my grandmothers and Mama Lia‘s, were about 500 square feet. It was as if someone took one large room and put up walls to make it a miniature house.
Me and my cousins, Janelle and Jackie, would go visit Mama Lia when we were visiting our grandmother. When you walked through the little gate in front of her house it was only about two more steps to her screen door. We could see her sitting in her chair and she would see us and scream with excitement. Then she’d do the thing that old, bottom heavy people do when they try and get off a cushiony chair. That rocking trying to get out. After about five rocks, she finally gets enough momentum to hurl herself out of the chair and opens the door, smiling.
We would sit and she would talk about people we didn’t know but we pretended we did because right next to her chair was a drawer filled with candy bars. After about an hour of hearing about Helen in Lubbock and Frank in Oklahoma City, she would open the drawer and give us our candy which was the equivalent of payment for a mental health provider. It was usually that simple. God forbid she was squabbling with Bernice from Waco or Martha from Deming. We could be there for hours and at some point you don’t care about the candy bars and you just want out.
Back then that was how old people were. Little kids and their parents didn’t have to be afraid of what insane, inappropriate thing they would do. We talked to everyone, including drunk men and they never did one bit of harm. It was a completely different time. These days that conversation would never happen. “Where’s Tommy?” “He’s in the house of the old lady that lives down the street. Don’t worry. She gives him candy.”
Mama Lia was a lonely, old lady, that’s all. She was so happy to see us and sad to see us go, walking out the screen door with candy bars in our hands.
Aside from visiting old people that our parents and grandparents did not know, we also walked to the shopping mall.
We would walk for a long time through neighborhoods. One after another, we’d walk. Then we get to the only freeway in Albuquerque at the time and there was a tall chain link fence so that children, like ourselves, can’t go running around on the highway. But on one adventure we found an actual tunnel that let out in to an arroyo that was on one side of the highway. Then, another tunnel to get to another arroyo, then another tunnel that dumped out to the edge of the parking lot of the mall. An arroyo is like a very dangerous ditch but it’s concrete and really wide. The tunnel ran right underneath the freeway. The exciting part about crossing an arroyo is that at any second, at and time, water could come flooding and rushing down the arroyo and in to the tunnels. So if you were going to cross this way to get to the mall and risk your actual life, you better really want to go the mall. If the water came, there would be no possible way to escape it. This is why before we began to make our way across we would stand on the edge and think about it. That’s not to say that thinking helped. We never once said, “This isn’t safe. We better not do it. Now that I’m thinking about it.” We always went in the arroyo, in to the tunnels and before you knew it we were looking at handbags and shoes.
We didn’t have any mall money. Ever. So we did what normal ten year olds do. We begged for change all day long and made a bunch of money every time. Me, Janelle and Jackie. We took turns. Jackie sucked. She was the worst liar in the history of lying. I made a mental note that if I ever formed a street gang or girl band to not include Jackie because she would have us locked up and sent to prison with the smallest level of pressure from the authorities. I loved her, but she did not have the rebel gene.
It was almost a competition to see who’s lie and the acting out of the lie would succeed. If it didn’t work you had to think of a better lie. You had to really give it up to the strange adult if you wanted the change. They would look down and smile at how pathetic you are and pat your head and hand you the change. The lie that never worked? I lost my parents in a fire and I need to eat at the food court. The one that worked every time? I need bus money. By the way, that line still works. I can’t say how many times I have given a person money for the bus. And when they say bus, they mean Bud. Whatever. I’m happy to help.
So, we’re doing our thing. Making quarters hand over fist. Mainly me and Janelle while Jackie stood there with her hands over her face saying, “Oh my God. Oh my God.” I walk over to a lady and say, “Mam. (in a complete Oliver Twist way) Uhm. I can’t find my mom and I need money for the bus to get home. I think she left me here on purpose.” Who knows why that worked. She smiled, patted my head and gave me the change. Ten year olds are notorious for not being all that bright so I walk away, I am no more than two feet from the lady that gave me the quarter. I see Janelle has dumped all our change on a washing machine in Sears. There is about thirty dollars in change on the washer as I flip the quarter on the top of the pile and say, “I got another quarter!” I didn’t even have the chance to turn when the compassionate, giving woman that had tears in her eyes when I told my story of abandonment, spun me around and pointed her finger in my face. “You are a disgusting little child. Give me my money.” I fished a quarter off the mound of change and handed it to her. She says, “I bet your mother did leave you here and I do not blame her one bit.” And she huffed away. Give me my quarter? Are you fucking kidding with me lady? Even after I give you your quarter we will be chewing gum and riding the medal horses out side for the next six hours. That’s what we usually did. There was a horse ride in front of Sears that had three horses on it. The three of us sat there on the horses for hours putting our beggar money in the little slot. Did we feel bad? Not that much. We had pockets filled with gum and candy and the horses went around and around.
Well the day with the lady, our conscience unexpectedly struck us. It may have had something to do with the fact that my Uncle Cecil, Janelle’s father, worked at the Sears where we did most of our begging and had been informed by his boss, via the angry lady, that his kids were panhandling in the large appliance section. We got in a ton of trouble and got thrown out of Sears by my Uncle. We hung our heads and very sadly walked to the tunnel knowing we disappointed someone we loved, with pockets filled with money. Our pockets were so full that we could hardly bend down to run through the tunnel.
We were walking back through the neighborhoods and we came up with an idea so we could repay our debt to society. We decided to give all our money to Mama Lia. She’s poor. She needs money. But we knew Mama Lia wouldn’t just accept the money because she was too filled with pride and gin.
So we quietly stood by Mama Lia’s house far enough so she wouldn’t see us or she would want to talk about her family and we had to get home. In front of Mama Lia’s house was a bird bath. Our ten year old heads decided we would dump all the coins in to the functioning bird bath. The water swirled around and it even had a little waterfall for the birds to enjoy. It was pretty. So, we dump the change and we walk away feeling like children of God before we could see the change go down the drain of the bird bath. Excuse me heaven! It’s us! Let us in!
The next day we are walking down the street and see Mama Lia outside by her bird bath. We’re thinking that she is probably really pumped up about the fact that she is suddenly rich beyond her wildest dreams. But, no. She’s cursing. She’s pulling the coins out with a knife and cursing.
We walk up using our beggar acting skills, pretending we did not ruin her bird bath.
“Some dumb ass put change in my beautiful bird bath! It’s clogged and broken.” She’s wearing a white dress with giant daisies on it. “Who would do something so stupid?”
Me and Janelle glare at Jackie as she begins to open her mouth, then she covers her mouth with her own hand and that seemed to work.
We all tried to help and get the change out but it was futile. From now on the birds would be dining elsewhere.
Aside from completely destroying her bird bath, I think us girls took a tiny piece of Mama Lia’s loneliness away. Even though we were in it to get a candy bar. But we learned something that day. We learned not to dump change in a bird bath and we discussed it the following weekend when we were begging for change in front of JC Penny.