Stanley's Grand Adventure

The last time I saw my mother was at a daycare center. I was 12. The cops escorted me to her. She had a cigarette in her hand and black roots growing out of her bleached blonde hair. Her eyes were bloodshot, probably from the night before when she had been drinking on the bar floor with various truckers who weren't awake yet. The day care workers looked down as they let me in and whispered among themselves that I should "be strong" for my mom.

She took one look at me, threw the cigarette to the ground, and said, "You ruined my life." Then she turned away, leaving me dumbfounded and alone.

My father hadn't seen me since I was born, so he didn't count as family. My grandfather died long before I could remember him, so he didn't count either. Aside from my mother, no one seemed like family.

Years later, thinking about my mother would make me feel sad, and then angry, but mostly just sad. You see, it wasn't really just one thing that ruined my mother's life; it was too many things that had built up over time until there was nothing left except a shell of a woman who was once beautiful but never quite grew out of her teenage years. And those things didn't just ruin her life: they ruined mine too. She wasn't much of a mother, but she sure could drink like one. My earliest memory is sitting in a bathtub while she stood over me drinking beer after beer after beer while telling me stories about how good looking she used to be and how men would beg to have sex with her (I'm not exaggerating). She also told me about all of the important people she had slept with--and slept around with--in Hollywood when she was young and how she had gone to Harvard but dropped out because she wanted the fun life instead. She said that if I ever got into trouble she'd be able to help get me out of it because she knew lots of important people--powerful people--in America and abroad! She talked about herself nonstop for hours on end without ever asking about me or asking about my life or what I wanted to do or anything else like that--she never did that...she never did anything like that...it was always about herself: what she thought, what she did, where she went, who she saw and fucked...it was always all about her...I guess you can blame that too for ruining my life.

So when I heard Mr. Guevara say he wanted to sponsor me in his new program for kids who need some direction in their lives and wants to go beyond their current possibilities by going on an adventure through South America (like in the old days) so they can learn valuable lessons along the way and then use those lessons to change themselves and others for the better back home...well...you can imagine that made me think of my mother again and how I wished someone would have sponsored her long ago so maybe things would be different now...maybe we'd be together...maybe we wouldn't be apart forever...maybe we'd have real feelings for each other instead of resentments....anyway...I decided to accept his offer even though his English wasn't very good and he couldn't explain exactly what he meant by "change others" or "go beyond your current possibilities" or really anything else specifically at all really because he spoke terrible English (or Spanish if you want) which is why he never got into any colleges in America or abroad in the first place (he got accepted into none of them because his grades were awful). But I understood him enough to know what he meant: He wanted us kids to go on a grand adventure through South America where we'd meet interesting characters (like him!) along the way along with learning valuable lessons (he called them "lessons") that we could then bring back home (to America) so we could change ourselves (and others) for the better using those lessons along the way through South America (that's how Mr. Guevara explained it).

So with his promise that we'd be sponsored by Coca Cola for our journey (but only if we said positive things about Coca Cola whenever possible during our trip), we all signed up right away! We were excited! We were eager! We were ready! And so began our journey into South America!