New Comm Ave

Jackie Otto is a freshman at (unfortunately) Chapman University in Orange, California. Jackie wrote a story when she was sad one day and that is why you are reading her biography. That's the type of person she is. She does not really get along with kids her age, at least Californians, and so she finds herself having fun most times by herself. She enjoys hard rock from the 80's like Motley Crue, Guns n' Roses, and Van Halen, and pays dearly for it when driving with passengers who like rap or chick music. She attributes her style to the Matrix, her Mother, Indiana Jones, the British, Camp River Ranch, and the Shift Button. In the distant (hopefully not too distant) future she would like to have a horse ranch and spend the rest of her days riding. Hopefully not alone.

I am locking my bike up on the bike rack outside of Target.
I do it all the time so I don't need to pay attention to it.
I get to look around.
A very pregnant "of latino origin" totters into the Target with three tadpole children orbiting her protruding belly.
An elderly white couple look on with an air of such self-righteousness.
I hate them.
They are the types to say they will vote for a black man in a survey,
but are really unable to carry through that fraud at the toilet-less stall with the velvet doors.

Two bags apiece, two guys with corn-rows hold the door for another white elderly couple.
This door is automatic.

A pained smile emerges from the wrinkled lips of bigots.
Still fumbling with my locks, I send them the evil eye full blast.
Too bad my mirrored sunglasses hide my loathing.
It's always about hatred isn't it. That's not a good way to live.
People are racists. They always will be, I can't stop them.
That is time's job.
Outsourcing!
I bet you are racist too, that word makes you hate, doesn't it?
Outsourcing, outsourcing, outsourcing.

Why do I carry around two locks for my bike?
One made of plastic and twisted metal. Another of steel.
I have to carry around a key now for the steel lock. The plastic just has a combination.
Why do I sometimes lock with steel?
What makes one place safer?
Target is not in Orange. I spend more time in a target than in any place in Orange.

I like to tell myself these things. I like to lie to myself. It’s great.
I hate myself too.
I put on the two locks because of the people I see around here, don't I?
The time it is taking me to put the second lock is hard and tedious. My stomach hurts.

I only came here to buy some toilet paper...they don't supply that at the university, isn't that something! You pay so much to go there and...

I go to an expensive university that makes me buy my own toilet paper.
And I put two locks on my bike.

I don't want to watch people anymore.
It was interesting, but now it hurts.
There's too much to see, so much to read, and now I have to apologize for my lack of misfortune.

The old, white, holier-than-thou folk.
The "I'm-not-Mexican-I'm-Columbian" folk in corroborative Lacoste polos.
The black guys and that same strain that caused Chappelle to leave comedy
They can all see me hunched over,
threading shackles,
struggling against an adjacent bike's handle bars.

They walk by. Occasionally our eyes catch and I combat that stupid desire to sob.
Damn sentiment.
I want to talk with each of them.
I want to tell the old people to kindly keep their unrelenting hate to themselves until they "pass on" and to cease that notion of superiority to future generations.
I want to tell the Southern and Central Americans that I would not judge them, wherever their origin. The color of my skin does not reflect the shade of understanding.

I want to tell the African Americans that that look they stole in my direction to see if I was watching them out of the corner of my eye was not necessary--oh yes I noticed that you did that. I don't blame you.

There I sit, putting on two locks and everyone can see me doing it.
Why does it take so long to attach this damn thing!

My fingers! How did they get so coated in grease and dirt? Why are there tire marks on my legs? Where did the bleeding cut on my ankle come from? Why did I not see this soot before? Is there no water nearby to quickly disguise the guilt I am covered in?
Guilt...? That's not what I meant...

I just noticed that I have only put on one lock. I still have to put on the other. Come on, I can't risk losing the only way I have of getting around!

The cut starts to show the reddening promise of blood.
Why don't I put the steel lock on when I go into Orange?

I hate coming here. I love shopping in Target, but I hate coming to this stupid bike rack.
Right now everyone can see my insecurity, live and in concert in the spotlight of the sun.

There's conflict in this parking lot. I wonder if the building can feel it rise and ebb. I wonder if the Starbucks across the road could see it too.
Here the 1997 Oldsmobile minivan and 2009 Cadillac Seville have to park together!

I shut up. I have glimpsed the triumph smiling upon Target's plastered exterior.
These people are together here.
These people are together at Target.
The Target store got them here together.

It's like these poisonous aversions are suddenly not as important as the fact that you can get socks here as well as crayons or milk.

Even though people take the time to sell their houses to find a new insular community as soon as
"there goes the neighborhood."

But they can still come together here.

Yes I locked my bike today with two locks, each a physicalization of mistrust,
but those that keep the keys and those who get locked out are forced to see each other in these aisles.

Here I can look a Puerto Rican man in the eye and see him as a man and not just as a Puerto Rican.

In this Target we are expected to look people in the eyes, brush past each other in an aisle, point out where the Q-tips are, and I get to forget that I wasted good time locking up my bike excessively, rubbing my insecurity in the faces of the people that notice things like that.

But I didn't tell you this part.
It most likely does not mean anything to you, but you know what?

I don't give a damn.

I left my water bottle on the bottle-rack on my bike.

I have a nice water bottle. It was a gift from a friend at my job this summer, so it carries some sentimentality for me.
It also has this great part inside of the bottle that pops off, so that you can freeze it and then reattach it to the inside cap so it can keep the water cold.

When I go biking I always bring water to put on the bottle-rack.
You know, those wire holders for easy water access?

Anyways, I left it. All you'd have to do would be reach underneath the seat and yank it up, possibly without even breaking stride if it is important for you to appear slick.
You thief.
Well no such strutting thief happened to come along. The two locks on my bike were laughing at me as they blazed in the California sun in the Target parking lot.

As I sit here thinking over the toilet paper run I just made, I resent many things. My water bottle sits here on the desk--probably making one of those little rings that come when a cup or bottle condensates--forcing me to brood on the need for locks.

Will I have to buy my children locks for their bicycles? Their tricycles?
In the future, will their houses still need locks? Will they need even more locks?

The brobdingnagian glaring of my bike locks seeps deep onto my memory, and I feel out of my mind.

These locks did lessen the chance of my bike being stolen, sure, but they also indirectly lessened the atmosphere that Target had created.

The bottle was realistically just a test of my faith in the locals and if not, an apology.
Here. I am leaving my water bottle out for you, to cover for the bike that you won’t be able to steal today.

And somehow when I returned to my bike (toilet paper slung over my shoulder in my bag), I managed to look sanctimoniously indifferent to the fact that my bottle was still there.

Apologetically,
I undid the two locks, put my headphones in, turning on the loudest music on my Ipod to drown out my thoughts
("I wouldn't buy it, I got it for free, it came with my laptop. I had to get the laptop for school. Universities require that we buy our own laptops. I go to university because my parents expect me to go. Of course I appreciate this privilege but...")

Thinking of every apology feasible for the fortune I have been granted, I biked back to school, careful not to take off my sunglasses or wipe away the unwanted tears with my dirty hands,
and where does this grease keep coming from?

I blink away enough of the tears that inundate my eyes so that I can see and quickly turn the tumblers on the bike lock, and return to my dorm room where the door locks itself
automatically.

• 2009 Spring
• Personal Essay