Vadim’S Life #2
“And then there are the couples desperate for money, who already have three or four kids of their own and who cram you all into a bedroom together, just so they can collect the foster care maintenance payments. The ones who don’t look at you, don’t talk to you, just feed you chips and park you in front of the TV until they forget you exist. And when you try to get their attention, they dish out slaps and kicks, because that’s what they believe parenting consists of.
Until I was twelve or thirteen, I changed families about once a year.
I’d run away, they’d find me, and it would all start again.
Eventually, I was declared a lost cause—an unmanageable child, undisciplined, impossible to raise.
And it was back to where I’d started: the group home. ”
But all I wanted was for someone to be a parent to me.
***
I set the camera down on the counter of my open-plan kitchen, pull my battered wallet from my back pocket, and take out the photo I never leave home without.
Four little snapshots taken in a photo booth with Felix, when we were fifteen and thought we were gangsters.
He’s wearing a bandana on his head and four or five gold chains around his neck, and he’s making a gun with his fingers, aiming it at my temple.
Meanwhile, I have a shaved head, my chin is held high, and my arms are crossed.
An arrogant smile plays on my lips, and the overall impression is that of a little punk who isn’t afraid of anything.
A kid who wants to challenge the whole world just to prove he can.
Now, five years later, I find us ridiculous, but those were probably the best years of my life. We didn’t have much, but we felt invincible. And we were rich when it came to something that’s priceless: our freedom. It’s a story worth telling.
“That’s Fe. Felix Alonso. Same age, roughly the same background.
We met at the group home, got into a fight the first day, and after that we were inseparable.
Together, we came up with shady little schemes and lived our little lives, stealing whatever we could—especially things that we didn’t need.
Wandering the streets until we found something to do, often something pretty stupid.
Driving cars we hadn’t really stolen, because after our joyrides we always returned them to where we had found them.
Sweet-talking girls, or just trying to catch their eye, and getting blown off sometimes, but not always.
We thought we were the kings of the world.
Nothing could stop us, because the two of us were a team, a mini-family, the only one we’d ever had.
We covered for each other, protected each other, and got even for each other.
And when no one could see or hear us, we talked, we opened up to each other, and sometimes we even cried.
A friendship like that only comes around once in a lifetime. Felix was all I had.
“Until I met Alma.”
Abruptly, I stop. I need to go get some air.
Talking about my life doesn’t work for me.
What’s with this trembling voice-over? If I keep this up, I’ll turn into the kind of teenager who bawls into his diary, leaving big, round tear stains all over the pages.
Right next to the little hearts in the margins.
I wrap my camera in one of my T-shirts to protect it and slip it into my backpack.
Then, I walk to the park and start filming the trees, the paths, the old people shuffling along in slow motion, the determined joggers chasing after some invisible goal, and the children playing in the grass, who have no idea what awaits them when they grow up.
Suddenly, I realize that I don’t have a photo of Alma to film.
But I’m not sure Keith would even be interested in that part of my life.
Alma isn’t my past, my wounds, and all the other stuff he wants me to talk about.
She’s the complete opposite. She’s my bandage.
My ointment. The antiseptic that stings a little but heals me.
And Keith plays the part of my savior, but he doesn’t like seeing me do better, especially if it isn’t thanks to him.
Sometimes, he thinks he’s a bit like God.
I’ve seen other social workers struggle, forget their own needs, work incredibly hard to help kids pull through.
But him? He doesn’t like happiness. It makes him feel useless.
When I finally reach the bench—our bench—at the very back of the park, I can’t bring myself to point the camera at the inscription I carved into the wood.
“You + Me” means exactly what it says; it’s just us, so no one must know, no one must see it.
It’s too precious. It would be tarnished if someone else laid eyes on it.
So, I film everything else: the December sky, almost blindingly white; the wooden slats of the bench, worn down by all the bodies that have sat on them; the little pebbles on the ground that I pick up and hurl as far as I can when life pisses me off; the tiny pieces of wood she twists between her fingers when life hurts her, fills her with anxiety, frightens her, overwhelms her. Which is pretty much all the time.
“Alma is a beautiful name. It means ‘soul’ in Spanish; I looked it up the other day. But it has nothing to do with her roots. Half French, half English, she lives in the United States, with a Latin first name and a British last name, but she’s moved around her entire life.
She’s from nowhere, and home for her is kind of everywhere, all at once. She’s a mystery.
“When she showed up at the beginning of the year, I thought she was a daddy’s girl.
Rich, well-behaved, polished, boring. But also genuinely beautiful, with big, green eyes that bore deep inside you, and then look away, afraid of what they might find.
When she finally dared to speak to me, her sharp wit floored me.
I realized she carried something inside her, something that didn’t want to come out.
“That damn film professor paired us up. Probably to set her free and to keep me in line. But our two worlds were never meant to meet. It’s like asking the Queen of England to have tea with Al Capone—though that probably flatters me a little.
Plus, it’s a cliché. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t understand each other.
Or maybe we understood each other too well, I don’t know.
“Anyway, it happened. I asked her to meet me, she came, she kept saying she had to leave, and she never left. I didn’t want her to leave. I think that’s where it all started.”
I place the camera on the bench, angled up at my face. I don’t feel like filming anymore; I’m just going to talk.
“There are a bunch of things about Alma that annoy me. She never has time. She always has to go home. Her parents are waiting for her, Clémentine is waiting for her, and her boyfriend used to wait for her, too. And then she’s afraid all the time.
Of what she might do, what she might regret, what people might think of her, what could go wrong.
She’s suspicious of Felix, too, even though she trusts Abrams and his son—who she barely knows.
Oh yeah, and then there’s her taste in movies.
I can let Forrest Gump slide, but Dances with Wolves?
Honestly, that’s unforgivable. And she’s always freezing, even though, where we live, it’s sunny all year round.
But I suspect she acts like she’s cold on purpose, just so I’ll hold her in my arms.”
The people passing in front of me wonder why I’m talking to myself. I consider rocking back and forth or jumping up and running around screaming, like in the good old days. But they’d probably call the cops. It’s crazy how people can’t handle it when you’re different.
“That’s what I love most about Alma. She doesn’t judge.
She scratches beneath the surface, she digs deeper, and she forms her own opinion.
She wants to know everything, understand everything.
She always asks the right questions, presses where it hurts, and when she puts her finger on something, she doesn’t let go.
It’s irritating sometimes. She thinks too much.
But her laser-like, green eyes see things that others don’t.
When she looks at me, she sees right inside me.
She points out my contradictions, she stands up to me, and she never agrees with me.
On principle. She dares to tell me that I could heal.
That I could stop hating the whole world.
Just to see what happens. And she makes room for me, she gives me a role.
“For the first time, I’m useful to someone.
There is someone waiting for me who needs me.
Someone who yells at me, someone who cries when I disappoint her, someone who smiles at me when she’s proud of me.
Someone who loves me for who I am. Alma is the best of me.
And I’m going to end up believing her when she thanks me for making her better too.
Together, we pulled off a magic trick. Being ourselves, but better. Our real selves.”