this story isnt about them, but once i took a family of five from a grocery store in inglewood to LAX. turks claimed to be headed to hawaii. no luggage.
dad sat in front, and mom and the three 6-to-9 year-old kids in the back.
i was all, i hear turkey is mostly muslim.
that’s right, the dad said.
are you muslim? i asked, remembering that in polite company you shouldn’t talk about religion or politics, but that rule can politely suck it.
yes, we are, he replied. they seemed both poor and suspicious but also carefree, so rich?
outside of my benz i probably seem poor. which is the aim, even though thanks to you and you and you, i’ve had the richest life.
tell me something about the quran i probably don’t know, i said, because like records, rules are meant to be broken.
the kids were enthralled by me for some reason. at first rowdy and distracted. now they were barely mumbling. huge smiles. it could have been because when i asked them where they were flying to, and they told me hawaii, i asked them to tell me the turkish word for “brother” bc I wanted to be their brother.
turns out there’s several words for brother, one being specifically older brother: abi.
i’m your abi now, kids, i declared and they laughed and hugged each other in faux congratulations.
the dad, wearing a clearly worn t-shirt and gray trousers, told me that the virgin mary has over 100 verses dedicated to her in the quran.
WTF?! Why? I asked.
he said, muslims recognize jesus as a very important figure because he was born through miracle. no sex, no father, just mother. but even harder, mary gave birth while being a virgin. that’s bigger.
so now i gotta read the quran to see what those 100 pages are all about.
which brings us to today’s luggage-free traveler. a gentleman named petey from miami, oklahoma. not that miami, he stressed, very quietly.
timid fellow.
we were en route to hollywood presbyterian hospital where petey was going to do something that, quite frankly, i’m not sure he will succeed at.
nine months ago, he knocked up a stripper who he had met two years previously. prettiest girl in miami, he claimed.
they met on facebook marketplace for she was looking for someone who could drive her home after work.
petey is about 30-years-old, and when i asked him what he did in miami, he told me he was a box boy at a supermarket. normally he would get up around 6am to go to work but once he met his lady, he would wake up at 3am to fetch her from the gentleman’s club and drive her home.
once home, she would smoke meth and he would make his move. spoiler: he had a few lucky nights.
but as soon as her parole officer (!) found out she was pregnant, he informed her that no court would grant her custody because she has a long police record, is a damn stripper, and has a raging meth habit.
so she skipped town and went as far away as she could. hollywood blvd. blocks away from my apartment, it so happens.
i love her, but she’s troubled, he whispered.
no offense, petey, but you’re a little crazy too, i said with the tone of an older brother, an abi, if you will, who felt the need to keep it real.
you flew out here with no change of clothes, you don’t even have a duffle bag or backpack. And your plan is to somehow take a newborn child and, what, fly home with it by yourself? you’re gonna need a car seat just to get in the uber, i said.
we sped along the 110 carpool lane. watts on one side. south central on the other.
you’re right, he agreed. i did not plan this very well.
and then he told me that this would be his first child and he couldn’t sleep knowing that she surrounds herself with drug addicts, dealers, hookers, and pimps. he had to do something.
then his phone rang. it was the soon-to-be baby mama.
im on the way, he said. this is so weird being here. i see the hollywood sign. the driver showed me where biggie was killed.
they exchanged i love yous numerous times which confused me. later he explained that it was the only way he figured she would sign the declaration of paternity and allow him to sign the birth certificate when the boy is born in a few days.
we drove past a giant billboard advertising condoms. i pointed.
he laughed.
he told me his daddy was a pool shark and his momma was a thief. he didn’t want his son around either of them or anyone except for his actual girlfriend back home who was “a cougar” with three grown kids of her own. but she cant wait to hold an infant in her arms again.
Fine, fine, fine, but how are you going to feed that baby on the airplane on your way home? isn’t the momma going to get suspicious when you ask her to pump a dozen bottles of mothers milk into bottles? also, how will you keep them warm? also WTF Petey?!”
then he told me he only has money for the bus fare home, not airfare. and he was planning on getting formula at walmart.
AINT NO WALMARTS ANYWHERE NEAR HOLLYWOOD PETEY! i said, thinking, do i need to let him sleep on my couch? do *I* need to raise this poor, doomed, already drug-addicted baby?
we got off the freeway. it was so quiet the only sound was the left turn directional clicking.
i asked, are you a christian man?
he said he was.
so i said, let’s pray. and I took off my cubs cap.
Lord, please help petey figure out how to get his child to safety. he’s going to need your help. his heart is in the right place. and this looks like a job that he can’t do alone. so please guide him.
amen, petey said. when we pulled up to the hospital, he got out, empty-handed except for his samsung phone.
thank you, he said.