La Conchita-Personal Narrative

There is an accident on the 405 so we take PCH. I look at the window, into the sea. I am looking for dolphins or whales, but I have never seen a whale from this road. Once, when we were driving to Summer Nationals, Dad offered me two-bucks if I saw a whale. We drive past La Conchita. La Conchita is a small town that was built at the bottom of a mountain. Last year a mud slide burried half-a-dozen houses. Eight people died, suffocated in mud and debris. You can still see the mountains of mud and the destruction. You can see five white crosses and one Jewish star. My mother says people are stupid for living in such a dangerous place. I tell her it is their home. They have a view of the mountains and view of the ocean. I tell her living in a dangerous

She asks me if I doing okay. She says she bought the belt at the dollar store. She says I have a pink one and she has a purple one and this means that we are a team. I look around the gym for my mother, but she has yet to appear. I ask Lydia and Keric to sit with me in from the adjacent cafeteria. Lydia sits besides me. She is squirming and Keric is quiet. I order a bagel, but I don’t eat it. Lydia asks if I am nervous. This is the last chance for the two of us to qualify for nationals. After I eat, the three of us jog back towards the gym. Somewhere along the way I lose

She has gray hair. She limps towards the strip. Lydia and Keric openly laugh at her. Lydia picks up the electrical cord that registers the points I score. She clips me in because she knows this part gives me trouble. I wipe my shoes, one at a time, on my socks. This dirties my socks, but it also makes my shoes less slippery. I salute this woman. Her last name is Jokovsky, it is printed on her pants and on the back of her jacket. Jokovsky limps towards me, shakes my hand, marvels, briefly, at my youth before limping back to her starting position. When the judge says, “Salute, begin,” I take a step forward. I say to myself: be calm, wait, wait. The woman scores one touch on me, and then another and another. She seems, suddenly, forty years younger. She predicts my moves before I make them. She laughs, openly, beautifully. I try every aggressive attack I know, but in the end I wait out the three minutes that signals the end of the match. I lose