Be Someone

In the front cab of a Ford F150, Betty McMiller lies sideways, blood trickling from her forehead. From the shattered windshield of a Range Rover EX, Dr. Hetal Sanghavi sees the side panel of the Chevrolet sedan lying on her hood. The babies, she cries, and then turns to see her own son still buckled in his seat but leaning forward limply, the formerly spacious rear trunk now smashed into a two-foot metal and plastic sandwich. In the backseat of a Chrysler sedan, an infant and a preschooler wail mightily, but to no avail. Their mother will not wake up. 

****

She eyes the Range Rover getting ever closer to her rear bumper, or at least the last time she checked the bumper was still there–but just barely. 

What? WHAT, goddamnit, do you want? YEAH I’ve got a fake temporary paper license plate, n corrosion is gnawin up the edges of the lower side panels and I can only go 50 miles an hour, tops, which is a hell of a lot faster than my other option which is to walk. I’m in the damn rightmost lane. Isn’t that enough? Or do you need to still judge me for riding in this damn heat with my windows down, my two kids screamin their heads off and if I was to guess, snot rolling down their faces? Do you think I’m just another young single mom with not enough sense to roll the damn windows up and turn on the AC? I guess you got all the money in the world for gas and AC. But then again, pretty girl like you don’t need gas in your pretty little electric Range Rover do you? Yeah, just pass on by, BITCH! Don’t let nobody like me hold you up. 

“Bubba! Bubba! Shh! Look! Look here! Here’s your sippy cup! See Momma shaking it?! Junior, I’m gonna reach back there and hand it to you. Can you give it to your Bubba? No-no-no-no-no-no-no! Do NOT be throwing that at him, Junior, he’s already crying. Look, I’ve got Cheez-Its! Give Bubba the sippy cup and then I’ll pass you the Cheez-Its. That’s my baby boy, thank you Handsome. I know it’s hot." Just a few more miles and we’ll be there and it’ll be nice ‘n cool inside, she sighs.

“Junior, remember what I told you. Today’s Momma’s first day working at this daycare, they said both of you can stay too since I’m comin in as an Admin Assistant. Don’t be fussin and runnin around, I don’t want no trouble outta you. I don’t want them thinkin I don’t know how to raise my own kids. This is a nice place with real nice toys, real clean, and they’re gonna feed y’all breakfast and lunch. 

“Junior, Junior, Junior, why you crying now, boy? Don’t you want to move into our own apartment? You n Bubba can have your own room! ‘N we can get rid of this nasty-ass car and get something with AC! Junior, stop that hollerin! Look! Look at that sign! What does it say? Sesame Street Live coming this September! Ohhhh! N what about that one? Look! It says Downtown Houston 2 miles. Can you see the number 2? Oh man, Junior, look at that, someone done painted letters across that bridge. It says BE SOMEONE.” 

She snorts at this. Now how am I supposed to do that? Being someone is for people with money, people with fancy cars carrying their fancy kids to their fancy daycares so folks like me can change their diapers and teach ‘em their A-B-C’s so they can grow up n drive electric Range Rovers and whizz past me like I’m nobody. N I can’t even ask for more than $18 an hour because I’m supposed to be there because I LOOOOVE the kids, like I don’t have bills? Hey, how about BE NOONE? I’m doing REAL good at that! 

Her racing mind comes to an abrupt stop as she finds herself suddenly too close to the Camry in front of her going even slower than her. How is that even possible? Her own speedometer swings back, back, back, 50 mph, 43 mph, 38 mph, oh jeez. The kids wail in the back as the hot wind blasting in from the windows has been replaced by a stagnant, clawing heat. At this rate, she’s going to be late and the kids’ new daycare teachers are going to judge her for their nasty sweat soaked diapers and clothes. How is a woman even supposed to get ahead when everyone and everything is getting in her way? She pounds on her horn and decides to break out of the right lane into the fast lane. As she passes the Camry, she sees it’s one of those maid service company vehicles with two Hispanic women inside. The driver is an older woman, the passenger is a pretty, much younger woman. She’d heard that when they don’t have papers they drive extra carefully so as to avoid being pulled over. 

Well, at least I’m ahead of somebody, she thinks. She sees the Range Rover again, in front of her of course. A grey pickup truck with flags all blazing patriotism, honks something like an air raid siren before overtaking her. The alarmed reaction of the kids in the back seat is even louder.

*********

Why? Why? Why? Why are you calling me again? She jabs the ACCEPT button on the screen. He wants something, he always wants something, everyone always wants something. Where is the dog’s medication? That’s a great question Samir, why the hell are you asking ME when you’re the one who’s been alone with the dog for the last 36 hours and the meds are supposed to be given every TWELVE hours? She tells him they’re about forty-five minutes from home, she’ll look for them when they get home, she’s gotta go now, Mahir is asking her something. 

“Why’d you say that? I’m not even talking to you.”

“Because it’s not enough in this family to just say I don’t feel like dealing with this. I have to be doing something else for someone else to excuse myself. Anyway. So now that we’re talking again, you want to tell me why I drove you halfway across the state to compete in a competition you clearly didn’t even practice for? It’s really disrespectful Mahir, not to mention reckless. This was supposed to be the cherry on top for your college applications. What the HELL are you thinking?”

He roll s his eyes. Silence. Again. 

“TALK TO ME!”

More silence. 

“You don’t pull this not talking BULLSHIT with your dad. Why am I so special? What makes you think it’s ok to treat ME like this?”

Persistent, militant, silence. She glares at him as if to burn off his defense shield with her laser focus but it doesn’t work, it never does. She sees from his passenger side window a slow slung sedan, two little kids in the back, both crying. The poor mother is pleading with them to calm down as she reaches for something in a diaper bag beside her. 

The familiar downtown skyline looms ahead just past a bridge. The bridge is graffiti tagged with the words BE SOMEONE.  

She eyes the young black mother once more through her rear view mirror. Now that’s a woman who’s going to be respected. Black mothers are respected, it’s a fact. That woman is no doubt busting her butt for her kids and her kids know it, everyone knows it. They’ll grow up one day and thank their mother for all her sacrifices. She will die knowing she made a difference, that she was appreciated, if the basketball star biographies her husband and sons were fond of watching were any indication. There was always a strong mother figure, sainted by all who knew her story of sacrifice and hard work.

 As for herself, sure, she had a medical degree which she paid for herself, a successful practice, killer backhand stroke, pretty good skin for a 48 year old, and a nice car to let the world know she was #winning. But there was the fellowship in pediatric cardiology she didn’t take because being a mom was more important so she was just a pediatrician in a boring suburban clinic, and she was always running late and therefore disliked by her tennis team because she had to make dinner after getting back from the clinic and before heading out to the courts, and she looked good (“beige don’t age!”) but needed to lose about fifteen pounds, and her car wasn’t her choice because it was unapologetically expensive (apologizing was more her personal comfort zone) but it was her husband’s choice and since he made more money, it was only fair to give him the deciding vote. If anyone were to make a biographical documentary about her boys, she’d be a side note, another rich, brown, doctor-type. Nothing heroic or saintly about paying your bills, doing your job, staying in your lane.  

A massive pickup truck with US flags flanking both ends of the passenger cab appears out of nowhere, it is suddenly just behind her and getting uncomfortably close. She reaches to signal right, she intends to move into the right lane and let the woman pass, but reconsiders. She eases her foot onto the brake, just a touch, just for a moment, an anti-apology for not driving fast enough, an assertion of her right to be just as she is. She taps the brake ever so lightly, as if to be someone who mattered.

*******

On the radio, they’re talking about Critical Race Theory being taught to second graders. Second graders! She nearly turns the radio off, she is so disgusted. The rearview mirror is angled so she could keep an eye on the stacked flats of Vincas, Pentas, Salvia, and Mexican Heather filling the bed of the pickup. Gone were the days when she could grow Hydrangea and Irises, Calla Lillies and Gladiolas. Between the heat, drought, flooding and freezing, her garden had to shed all its finery until it was down to the robust regulars. Nothing was the same any more, the world had changed too much for her taste. The last freeze wiped out every flowering plant in Houston, causing a run on supplies of new stock in the nurseries. The newbies in the neighborhood, the Californians and the immigrants, didn’t know about the wholesale nursery at the edge of town. That was the problem with those people, they had money and thought that qualified for sense. Let the interlopers get robbed at the local garden center, serves them right, Betty McMiller was done sharing.

When the first Indian family had moved into the neighborhood twenty years ago, Betty didn’t think twice about it. It was an affluent neighborhood, meaning you had to earn your way there, the good old American way. Plus, they were the kind that did normal things like join the neighborhood Christmas display contest, though theirs was never very good. Still, they made the effort to belong. But then came another, and another, and another. Hell, she wasn’t quite sure if they were all Indian or maybe some were Pakistani or Bangladeshi or Sri Lankan or Arab and heck, some of them might be Hispanic for all she knew but they sure weren’t Americans. And how did all those people make so much money by the time they were in their 30’s and 40’s when her own adult children were barely getting by? The nation had gone too soft on immigrants who only helped themselves and their own kind. 

 Betty went all out with thoughtful, artistic lawn decor including a nativity scene, reindeer artfully crafted from wooden twigs, and a large wooden cutout of the words “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” all tastefully lit with twinkling lights, most of the neighborhood contributed nothing more than LED lights around the outline of their remodeled homes. The interlopers had their homes lit up and festooned as they wished, when they wished, with no regard for neighborly tradition. Some had lights strung for Diwali, others for Eid, and still others for Lunar New Year. Where once Betty’s yard was part of a holly-jolly magical Christmas wonderland, now it was a lonely oasis for the long-gone spirit of Christmas.  

With no comedic Santa on the neighbor’s rooftops, the neighbors had room to install solar panels as if the world was going to end unless they stopped burning gas. These people were killing the lifeblood of the Texas economy. Betty worried profoundly for her grandchildren’s futures with the way things were going. She herself felt so very lost in her own country where everyone just did what they wanted without a care for customs or consequences.

As she nears the Crockett Street bridge, she sees the bold white spray painted letters across the span spelling the words BE SOMEONE. She’d heard it was a Mexican guy who’d tagged the bridge and the police weren’t doing anything about it. Apparently, breaking the law by vandalizing property made you someone these days. The speed limit was 55, but all around her cars whizzed past her going 70, 80 miles per hour. Being a law abiding, legal citizen didn’t matter anymore, she might as well be invisible. 

It hurt like hell to see her children and grandchildren passed up in the very country for which their forefathers had fought in two world wars. It took bravery and leadership to save the world like we did, but now we’re told to be nice, don’t speak your mind, cooperate, move over and make room for others. She purses her lips, shakes her head, and makes a split second decision. 

She revs the made in America Ford F150 engine and jerks the pickup into the left lane, blaring her horn as she narrowly squeezes between a shiny white electric Range Rover and some ratty old sedan but hey, at least it’s American made. She gets a good look at the Range Rover in front of her. Imported electric vehicle huh? Figures. She rolls her eyes and taps the accelerator a smidge more, not a lot, just enough to stake a claim to her rightful share of the road.

****

The first people to run out of their car to help are two Hispanic women. They look nervously over their shoulders even as they attempt to open the smashed doors of the sedan. They should get out of there before the police come and ask for ID, they know this. But despite the fact that they are nobodies with no money, home, nor country, suddenly they feel in this moment somos importante, we matter. And these poor people smashed into their cars, ellas son alguien tambien, they are somebody also.