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Lucky Little

I’m feeling a little queasy continued...

For one thing, I don’t like coming to downtown Houston. The traffic is terrible, buses keep cutting me off, people are honking their horns like they’re in New York or something. I hate going downtown. I’d have my route all mapped out in my trusty Key Map book. Page 432 would have just a little bit, then I would have to turn to page 436 where the route would pick up for about a half a page, then I would have to go back to page 434 to see my destination. Next to that I would have the easy directions scribbled down on the back of an overdue bill envelope. I got those from my dad. He knew downtown Houston like the back of his hand. It’s October 12, 1988. Secondly, I don’t like being in a courthouse. At this point in my life I had racked up some hours in this setting. Most of it was traffic court or as a witness to some shenanigans that had gone down and my name got brought up. Other times seeing my brother or a friend taken away into custody for some extended period of time. I had a few of my own bad decisions that led me to a judge or two. Year by year I separated myself further from my high school days and my stint in Hollywood. And day by day I dug myself into another hole that I would regret later. “Number 37!” the lady behind the small window yells. “That’s me, here we go”, I’m thinking. How many times have I said that? Here we go. I’d been talking myself into things since I was just a little guy. Over commit to some wild-haired scheme and boom, I’m on a tangent. Each exciting step, even in my aloneness, in my one man pursuit, always has many ‘here we go’ moments. Like when I first jumped off about a 50 foot cliff in Austin at Lake Travis. “Here we go.” Me, myself and I must have been who I was speaking to and of. There was nobody else. This was my journey. “Yes ma’am, I’m number 37” I tell the clerk as I lay my ticket on the counter. “How can I help you?” she asks with little expression. I knew I had to be nice to the gatekeeper. She may be my only access to the file. In a second she could shut me down and I would be no further ahead today then I had in the last sixteen years. I had literally seconds to get her on my side. I leaned down a little and rested my arms on the window ledge so we were face to face. I had been selling cars for a couple of years at this point and had on a nice suit. I had removed my tie and had my shirt unbuttoned so a little bit of chest hair came out the top. I smoothly said, “Uh, yes ma’am, I need to see a file.” She is not impressed. She backs away as though I have bad breath. I’m thinking, not good. “What file are you looking for sweety?” she asks with a hint of a smile. Ok, maybe she is in my corner. “I need to see my adoption records” I say with a head tilt and look that is trying to say, ‘please make this easy for me’. Before she can run down the list of things I would need to have the file opened, I say with confidence, “I have a recommendation from my physician I knew I would need to produce”, and I pull the letter from the envelope and hand it straight to her. It took some finagling to get that letter, that ‘recommendation’. I thought calling it a recommendation would give it more ‘clout’. Clout to me is the degree of recognition of value. I’m a salesman. I try to use words and phrases purposefully. For example, if she had to go tell her supervisor what I was giving them, I don’t want her to say I gave her a letter from my doctor. I want to her to say, “Mr. Supervisor, Mr. Little has produced a recommendation from his physician”. That’s more likely to garner my desired end result. The letter states that the doctor needs family medical history information. It doesn’t say much more than that. I’d seen this doctor since I was a kid. It would cost me $50 but he would give me the letter. I explained to him that my parents, Bobby Ray and Mary Ann knew that I was trying to find out more. I told him how they both knew very much that they are my heroes and I’m so glad I was adopted by them and that all was great. I am just one of those inquisitive types. I wanted to know something, anything. “Mr. Little, give me just a moment while I search for the file.”