Under the Bridge Read Free Page B

met in a Vegas casino called Circus-Circus. He wasn’t taking the trailer this time. He was moving into the widow’s home, where there was a collection of art and a view of palm trees. Though he’d never traveled outside Canada, Warren knew a few things about California. He knew his namesake, Warren G., as well as Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, lived in the cities of Long Beach and Compton. He knew those Mexican gangsters,
cholos,
roamed the streets, and he thought
cholos
were pretty cool ever since he saw them in the movie
Once Upon a Time in America.
(“I liked the way they wore Virgin Mary’s around their neck.”) Yet View Royal had this and mainly and truly this: Syreeta.
    For six months, he’d spent every day with her, or as he put it, “Me and Syreeta, we were together 24/7.”
First love, true love.
He believed these were the words to capture the experience of always, always, forever wanting to be by her side. First love. True love. So when his dad offered the information about the move to California (which was perhaps more information than invitation), Warren said, “I think I’ll stay here.”
    Him and his dad, they didn’t have much of a relationship anyway. His dad was the strong, silent type. He looked the part, kind of like Clint Eastwood. You wouldn’t want to mess with him. He wore tight jeans and cowboy boots and tinted shades, and his hair slicked up just slightly on his forehead in the shape of a treble clef. Warren’s mom, she liked those kinds of guys—she liked men like Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood. (“She had a huge crush on Dwight Yoakam.”)
    Warren knew this: he wasn’t supposed to be born. Not that he wasn’t wanted, but his parents weren’t married and they both already had a couple of kids and bad marriages in their history. Warren’s mom, she’d had it with motherhood, gone so far as to get her tubes tied, and still, somehow, he was born. How could that be? “You must have been one strong kid,” his mother told him.
    The surprising birth of Warren occurred on April 26, 1981, in a town called Medicine Hat. His parents tried to stay together, for him, though they didn’t get married and didn’t really like each other at all. It was a disaster right from the start. Maybe they’d been in love once. Yet he couldn’t imagine they loved each other, and he knew in his heart he was the son who caused all their fights.
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    In 1996, Warren’s father moved his family to Nanaimo, to the last place the three would reside before their familial demise. Nanaimo, on the far end of Vancouver Island, was a town of strip malls and the Harmac Mill, where Warren’s father worked as a welder from 7:30 A.M. to 6:00 or 8:00 or 10:00 P.M. Some Sundays, he’d take Warren to the swap meet, and he’d look for welding equipment while Warren wandered around looking at the chipped dishes and toasters, and once his father bought him a hockey net.
    In Nanaimo, at the age of fourteen, Warren discovered on his own: acid, how to drive, the collected works of Too Short. Clara, an older neighborhood girl, taken, as the girls often were and might always be, by the sight of Warren’s large eyes and hopeful smile, introduced him to gangster rap, while Laura gave him his first tab of acid one night when they sat on the steps of the Silver City Theater. Clara would pinch his cheeks and tell him how cute he was, and he’d blush but enjoy the affection because he knew it so rarely.
    He learned to drive because his mom was always begging him to get her cigarettes. His mom wore tasseled moccasins and spandex pants, and because of her predilection for almost ceaseless inebriation, Warren never invited Clara or Laura into his home. He’d dress his mother in the morning, when she was dizzy from drink. He’d get her some food, drive off to get her cigarettes, and then