Crenshaw

The family moved out of their house at the end of Jackson’s first-grade year. Though his parents did not “own a lot of stuff,” their possessions filled the minivan. Alone in the van as he waited for his parents and Robin, Jackson noticed the back windshield wiper, which was “awfully hairy,” swishing back and forth, despite the sunny day (92). He rushed outside to look and saw that the windshield wiper was neither moving nor hairy, and he realized “that something was about to change” (93).

Jackson remembers that no one wanted to get in the minivan after it was finally packed. His mother wanted to drive, but his father insisted on taking the wheel. Sara asserted that they would only live in the minivan for a few days. Tom added that it would be two, or three, or four weeks. “We just need to catch up a little,” Sara added, then they would find an apartment (96). Jackson wondered aloud why they could not stay in their house. Tom replied that the situation was complicated, and Jackson would understand when he was an adult.

Robin asked to hear the Wiggles, a children’s musical group, but his father said first they needed B. B. King for “hitting-the-road” music (96). Jackson explains that this is a form of blues music that his parents like. He notes that though the music is sad, listening to it makes “you feel happy” (97). The song Tom played that day is about a man singing that no one loves him except his mother, who may also be lying about loving him. Jackson asked if kids “always have to love their mom and dad” (97). Tom replied that you could love someone and still be angry at them.

As the family drove past a neighbor, Jackson asked if he had a cat. Sara replied that he did not.

Jackson recalls that living in a car creates “problems with feet”—smelly dad feet, fresh toenail polish feet, little sister kicking feet, dog feet scratching at your imaginary friend feet, which are walking on your head (101-02). Jackson found a cardboard TV box, decorated it, and slept inside it. He knew that he was lucky to be living in a relatively large minivan as opposed to a small VW car, like an acquaintance of his. He knew that he was lucky to be living in a box inside a minivan rather than a box on the street, like other people. “Those were just facts,” he says, not “looking on the bright side,” like his father, who insisted the family was not homeless but “car camping” (103-04).

Jackson recalls the family’s first night in the minivan as being fun. At a park near the Golden Gate Bridge, a man allowed them to look through his telescope at the constellations. Unable to park overnight, they went to a Denny’s, where Sara knew a cook, and parked in the restaurant lot. By morning, everyone was “grumpy and sore” (106). They went to the library to “kill time and wash up” (106). Jackson recalls that before being homeless, he had never thought about whether public bathrooms were clean or not. The library’s restrooms were clean, and the family enjoyed the air conditioning and comfortable seating. The librarian shared her lunch with Jackson and Robin. Robin decided to become a librarian when she grew up, and Jackson too, “[i]f the animal scientist thing doesn’t work out” (107).