Saturdays and maybe also Sundays. They drove through the dark streets, moonless mornings, everyone else in the world asleep. David Cassidy would definitely still be sleeping somewhere in the Hollywood Hills. Got to get there. Get a good pitch. Got to be early. East on the 405 (Hollywood Hills and David were in the other direction) and out to the 5. Sylmar, Newhall, Saugus. The girl tries not to remember, but when she does, it’s Saugus race track she sees. Dusty side of a mountain is how she describes it. There was a train that went by high above weaving through brown crevices every few hours. She knew she had to hear four trains go by before they could go home again.
When they got there, it was just about dawn, but you couldn’t go right in. Had to stay in the car and wait your turn. Pay your fee and get allocated a space. A corner was best to hope for or anywhere near a taco stand or the Slush Puppies was good. Her father knew after the second or third time that it was best not to ask for a good spot ’cause you’d only be given a bad one, somewhere around the back stretch, somewhere only the die-hard bargain hunters ever made it to. There was a snake lady and the girl didn’t care where they were as long as they were not near those snakes wriggling around her neck reaching out to tourists who passed by her stall. God knows what she was selling. The girl didn’t know – couldn’t see past the king cobras, vipers and pythons, fat and lazy wrapped around the fat and lazy snake lady. The other place the girl really didn’t want to be was next to anyone selling Latino eight tracks, she didn’t want to hear Mexican music all day long.
Good kids, good kids. Her father and mother would compliment them when they helped to unload the car. Set up the card tables. Set out the stuff. This week he had bought hair clips and hand cream, plastic earrings and a pile of cheap belts that looked like they came off cheap dresses. The dresses were probably sold to someone else so that they could take them to another swap meet, Torrance or La Mirada – those were held at drive-in movie theatres. Butter and popcorn and half-sex in the nights – huge flea markets during the day. Her father was terrible at buying, wouldn’t think to get the dresses to go with the belts and anyway he’d have to buy the hangers then too and racks to hang them on. She knew that he always paid too much for everything; could just imagine how they took advantage of him.
Good kids. Go for a walk, buy yourself some churros for breakfast. Donuts, black coffee or, sure if you want to, have a chilli dog, it’s never too early.
But the girl didn’t want breakfast. She wanted to stay in the car. Now that the car was empty, she could lie across the backseat, cover herself with a white sheet Dad had put in at the last minute in case the earrings had to be protected later from wind or dust. She could read this week’s Tigerbeat. Look at pictures of David Cassidy. Her mother passing the window would say, stop looking at that girl; oh it’s a boy. The girl couldn’t stand it. Her mother made the same stupid comment every weekend. And now her father had started his day.
Lice Cream, he was almost singing out, Get your lice cream here. 9
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