September 25, 2012
Out
there, somewhere, there’s a doppelganger for us all. Or so some say, anyway.
A
twin. A double. A real life, maybe mirror-universe, copy.
Today,
I saw one. Not of myself, or anyone I actually know. But, on the trolley to San
Diego State, I met—or was vaguely near—what can only be described as the
spitting, although perhaps inverse, image of Honey Boo Boo Chile and her maw-maw June.
The
almost-June was a large, large woman, who could barely fit in the hard plastic
seat she was awkwardly trying to sit in. She was a brunette, and appeared as
classless and white-trashy as Boo Boo’s slightly fairer-haired momma.
The
woman sat; dressed in a sleeveless top, with one black bra strap noticeably
slid halfway down her thick arm, not a care in the world.
The
little girl, blonde as Boo Boo, and as hyper too, greedily drank from a
7-Eleven Big Gulp. I can only assume the “go-go juice” mixture in that cup was
her breakfast, as it was around 8:00 in the morning. A breakfast of champions,
indeed. Certain beauty pageant champs, at least.
I
noticed all this as I entered the trolley car at the Morena station. The doors
had only just closed when the mother of Boo Boo’s twin bellowed, in the
direction of someone sitting a few rows away, “Maria! Wa’chu doin’, gurl, come
ere” in an almost comically affected accent that told me one thing immediately:
she was from San Diego’s own dirty South, Klan—I’m sorry, San—tee.
An
exaggerated hand movement, beckoning the slightly-Mexican woman seemingly named
Maria to sit immediately beside her, further accentuated Big Momma’s ghetto
cattle call and caused her flabby arm-parts to jiggle and jostle more than
they already were from the natural swaying of the carriage.
As
the two friends took up a conversation, I mostly tuned out. For I had my
earbuds in, you see. And I didn’t have a clue what was about to be said.
But
I still heard bits and pieces here and there. While Boo Boo drank and
frequently flipped into seat-shimmying fidgets of caffeine-fueled attention
deficit hyperactivity, her very own momma June described their plan for the
day.
The
details are not important, but the gist of it seemed to be that they were going
to the doctor.
Why?
“Oh,
you know, the usual,” the momma-double said coolly.
But
not the usual, because—and I kid you not—she relayed that only one of this
massive, wheezing woman’s lungs actually worked, and she had also recently had
a mild heart attack.
It
became quite difficult to hear what they were talking about for a few stops.
Between
Fenton Parkway—the stop just before Qualcomm Stadium—and Grantville—the trolley
stop in the sky, just before the San Diego State University transit center—I
blasted my music, not bothering to stain my ears to hear their horrible,
terrible, and surely no good things that would ruin my day.
A
day already tainted by stumbling across Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” on the car radio
that morning. Somebodyyyyy
But,
before I departed and left these truly terrifying TV caricatures come to life,
and as we passed into the SDSU tunnel, I did hear this one final, wonderful,
tidbit, loud and clear.
“Oh,
he was gonna get life, but they got it down to 9 years. He’ll be out soon.”
It
seems—at least from what I gathered in the final, frenzied, moments I gleaned
as much as I possibly could in my confused state, before the train stopped at
SDSU—that Boo Boo’s brother, whom the almost-Mexican used to date, was a
convicted felon. And whatever he did was horrible enough for Life in Prison to
be an option at some point.
“That’s
good,” said Maria, “it’ll be nice to see him then.”
I’m
actually glad I had to get out of there as fast as I could, and hop-along to my
early morning class.
My
head was spinning from the stink of white trash. And it might’ve exploded had I
heard any more.
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