Bald Mountain

We race down rugged Pue road,
the one that lags on forever,
the one I used to time how long it took us to travel down.
Two lefts, then a right, and Bald Mountain it is.
I don't know anything of the houses on this end,
but soon I see my side of the street, and everything to it.

Ashley's creepy, somber house stands quietly during the day,
but comes alive at night.
Laughter fills the stiff air.
Nortenos reach my ears and wake me.
We always see empty beer bottles on the curb and in the bushes on her lawn.

Across from her, our neighbors live awkwardly.
The man, either washing his car, in other people's business,
or walking around looking like a homeless person.
The wife never comes out, and I sometimes question her existence.
But then I smell the spices and herbs she uses to make Filipino food for our priest.

"Hey! That was so gnarly, man!"
Yet again, a Fernandez boy is smoking and talking on the phone.
The father, who has the same name as mine, is always grumpy.
The chubby mother teaches at the local school.
The three sons waste away their lives in their driveway.
That's all I know of them.

The house with three or four families is cryptic.
Babies everywhere, parties every weekend,
there never seems to be a peaceful moment in that house.
They never say hello or wave, the chaos up to their shoulders.

The umber house next door is home to the Villa's.
The two teenage girls whom I used to be friends with,
always play basketball and flirt with boys.
Their little brother, shoots BB guns and makes my ears bleed
when he "plays" his trumpet.
The father brings us cases of Coca-Cola and the mother baby-sits all day.

Then there's us.
The family that is hardly ever there, who gets home late and stays up even later.
There's Denaldo, my dad, the serious man who is on TV and jogs at the parking lot.
Momma, who is a teacher on the Southsideand prays every moment she can.
Mandy, "the one in college", always wears sunglasses and has the music blaring in her tiny car.
"The one in high school", that's me, the dorky daughter in band who plays her clarinet insanely when she's home alone.
I've lived here my whole life, in this neighborhood, and this is what I call home.