Kicked Out

“Mom’s kicking me out.” This is what Omar tells Chloe on the phone this week.

“Sure, right. I’m kicking him out,” I say to Chloe. “Was he talking about this morning when I told him it was time to find his own apartment and that Daddy and I would support him every step of the way? That we’d even help with his rent if he needed it?”

“Yeah, I think that’s what he was talking about,” Chloe says. “He was on one of his talking jags, so I heard all about it. For an hour and twenty minutes.” Most days, all you could get out of Omar were a couple of words grunted in answer to a question. But occasionally he barrelled out the front door with his car keys in hand, shouting over his shoulder, “I’m calling Chloe!”  

Omar turned 21 this week. It’s hard to believe that the little toddler we brought home in June of 2001 has turned into this tall, handsome, bright and hilarious guy. Everyone loves Omar. I learned early to judge people’s character (mainly teachers’) by whether or not they liked Omar. People who don’t like Omar are bad people. Or maybe it’s that Omar is unable to suffer fools gladly. Either way, only good people see Omar’s heart shining forth. 

Nick wanted to buy Omar his first legal drink, so on Monday, Omar’s birthday, they headed over to happy hour at Nick’s local hang-out. They ran into our friend, Gene who bought Omar his second legal drink, a Kamikaze. Then another friend bought him his third, another Kamikaze. “Bars are fun!” Omar said when they got in the car to come home. Great. Chloe brought his favorite meal of ribs, pulled pork, mac and cheese and collards and we had dinner and cake out on the patio. I made him eat a couple of plates of food and drink a bottle of water to sober up before he went out with friends later in the evening.

On Tuesday, I told Omar that now that he’s 21, it’s time to get serious about finding an apartment. Omar is not happy about this turn of events. He thinks it’s wiser to live at home. Last year, he asked me, “If I’m making $200,000 a year, do I have to move out?” I said, “If you’re making that much money, I think you’ll want to move out.” He scoffed, “I’m not stupid.” 

Omar is having a hard time getting his head wrapped around the idea of moving away from home, of moving into his own place. Nick is also unsure that it’s a good plan. But that’s mainly because Nick will miss him. I’m fairly certain that our mother-son relationship will improve by Omar having his own place, but I worry that he’s not ready for all that responsibility. 

And apartments in Los Angeles are outrageously expensive. On Wednesday, Omar surprised me by informing me that he’d set up a tour in an apartment complex two blocks from our house. Featuring amenities such as a gym, a swimming pool and outdoor grilling areas, the place was pretty impressive. But the studio apartment was tiny and came with a price tag of  $1000 a month. I could tell from his face that the whole thing made him uncomfortable. Seeing the apartment made him realize that he didn’t want to live alone. So after the tour, he enrolled his friend, Zion to find an apartment with him. They agree that a 2-bedroom in Beverly Hills would be just about perfect for them. (All these two have been able to do since the shut-down is drive around in Bel-air and look at rich people houses.) Their expectations are high, but neither of them have full-time jobs.

“Omar do you want me to go look at places with you?” I ask him on Thursday.

“No, me and Zion will do it.”

“Okay, Omar but seriously, you and Zion cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment right now. Two-bedrooms start at like, $2000 a month,” I say.

“Well, I have my savings account. I’ll just spend that.”

“That will only last a couple of months and then you’ll be saddled with a rent you can’t pay. And you won’t have any money to go out and do anything fun.”

“There’s nothing fun to do!”

“This shut-down isn’t going to go on forever,” I say. “Believe me, you want to be comfortable with the amount of money you’re paying in rent. I know you guys would like a two-bedroom, but I’m telling you that everybody who starts out in an apartment shares bedrooms. My first apartment was a one-bedroom that I shared with Deb and Nance. Deb and I slept in the bedroom and Nancy had half of the living room with a screen dividing the other side from her bed.

“Well, you guys were in Kentucky. You were poor.”

“We were college students. And college students are usually poor.”

“I’m not a college student,” he said.

“Well you’re college aged, so you’re not going to start out with something luxurious. You should have seen that apartment I rented with Deb and Nance, Omar. It was in the basement of this old house down the hill from campus. It looked good on the surface, but underneath, it was a dump. The place flooded every time it rained. We ended up naming it The Swamp.”

The Swamp. The name brought memories flooding back. My first semester at Western Kentucky University was spent in a dorm with a girl assigned to me as my roommate. By the second semester, I had met Deb in an acting class, so we moved into a dorm room together on her sorority floor. I don’t remember how Nance got involved but the three of us decided we wanted to find a place and live together off campus. Deb put herself in charge of the apartment search, viewing a few apartments that August before school started in the fall. In order to appear more legit, 20-year-old Deb pulled her hair up in a bun and wore fake glasses that must have really fooled the landlords into thinking this woman knew her way around a tenant lease. She must have used her budding negotiating skills on the owner of The Swamp because we ended up with an apartment that was totally renovated on the surface. Deb had no way of knowing it was missing many of the details that keep a tenant comfortable.

We were all so excited about that apartment. It was the first time any of us were truly independent and we couldn’t wait to show off our new digs. When I escorted my boyfriend, Donnie through the place, waving at all the cool features, like the small cellar door which opened to concrete steps leading down to an underground tunnel serving as the entrance to the apartment, the new rust-colored carpet covering the floor and the small basement windows above that let in slivers of light, Donnie replied, “I don’t see any heating vents. You don’t have any heat.”

“Oh, yeah, we do,” I said, undaunted, indicating the staircase ascending from behind the refrigerator up to the first floor and sweeping my arms down towards the living space, “It comes down from upstairs.” Donnie, three years my senior, had been half-boyfriend, half-parent to me since I was fifteen. And he was a plumber. “Leslie,” he said. “Heat rises.”

Nance, who had a little more parental support and a little more sense than either Deb or I, brought her Dad to check the place out. Egress and fire were his main concerns and he made us review safety precautions and evacuation procedures. Nance’s parents were worried. 

We didn’t care. We adjusted. We borrowed Shop-vacs and towels, sopping up the water that saturated our carpet every time it rained. We risked our lives by using the oven for heat, opening the door to keep us warm. Deb went through a rough patch after a difficult breakup and slept through many a class on the floor in front of that oven, her strawberry-patterned robe wrapped tightly around her and a jar of marshmallow cream empty at her head. We had friends over, we hosted parties, we created a whole alter-ego family with Nance as Mama, the figure-head and Deb and me as Pighead and Sleazebag. After four decades, Mama and her Sweet Darlins still make us laugh. We fought over peanut butter, shivered under covers together and Nance and I ran Deb’s unstable boyfriend off. We grew up together. We learned life lessons through trial and error and some pain. We figured out how to survive. 

It’s not easy pushing Omar out of the nest. It’s tempting to just let him continue living at home. It’s risky letting him go out on his own, letting him start his own life. If we allow him to stay, it will rob him of the chance to experience the challenges we faced when we were 21, and it will also rob him of the adventure. 

“You know, Omar, it’s gonna be so much fun having your first apartment, sharing it with Zion. You guys are gonna make a lot of memories just like I did with Deb and Nance.” 

“Yeah, except it’s 2021. You guys lived in the Dark Horse Ages when rent was $400 a month.”

I have to fight my urge to jump in and make sure he chooses something safe and habitable. I have to force myself to allow him and Zion to find their own version of The Swamp. They should be so lucky. 

“At least make sure you’re looking in safe neighborhoods, okay?” I say on Friday. “And then Daddy and I can come check it out if you guys like it.” 

“Okay, Mom, chill,” Omar says as he goes out the front door to meet Zion for an apartment tour.

“We’ve got it under control.”

“If you don’t like the landlord, don’t even consider it,” I say to his back as he jumps off the front porch. He puts up a little wave.

“And make sure there’s heat!” I yell.