Free My Hollywood by Mona Simpson

wanting their parents. And no family visited, all the time we lived there. The youngest of the ones who made the flyer, he told me the government pays them. But they are not really teaching! And the retardeds can learn. They are docile; before maybe, the ones who made the flyer, they were hitting. I taught the retardeds to dress themselves. Little by little. We spent many days on tying the shoe; the bow Tommy made, it was wobbly, but still a bow. We stayed forty days. The hotel is a pen. The ones who made the flyer, they just keep the money.
    “I observe that I am losing weights,” Lucy said.
    They were not paying us, just our food. I had headaches trying to think. All around was chain-link fence. The two from Iloilo said they had to go to the Veterans Administration. “None near here,” the old lady snapped. But the tatay , he receives a benefit check!
    “We will go with you,” the old lady said the next time. Her conclusion.
    At night, the distant relatives watched TV, the tatay went to sleep, and I talked to Lucy. They took a boat from their place, then a bus, then a jeepney to the airport in Manila.
    “Where is your mother?” I asked, because usually it is the mother who will come.
    She is still there, running the store. I hug her goodbye, my arms do not go all the way around, she is so fat! She smells like water and sugar .
    Their point of entry was LAX. The bus driver looked in the mirror and said to them, “Chinatown?” In the Philippines, it is better to be Spanish. Here, better Chinese. They found the Veterans Administration Building and brought in their papers, with the decoration of honor from the Second World War. Their family had that frilled ribbon on the wall before these two were born and now, here, they were spending it.
    The ones who made the flyer learned right away that Cheska can cook and now every meal, she was the one preparing. I washed the dishes, and I saw the purse of the old lady open. I observed that the payments came in a certain kind of envelope.
    “How about if you share that with us too?” I said, over my shoulder, like throwing a thin ball into the air, the one we use with the retardeds in the swimming pool.
    The room behind me changed shape; it now had points. I scrubbed. Every chink and ring widened. Then I wiped my hands, turned around, and they were staring. “Because we are working hard. We are new here, we need money.” We did all their work and they partied around, the tatay they asked him to bring them pineapple and coconut milk drinks by the pool. That is what they are doing!
    The room made a funnel; the old lady the opening. “Not even legal here. We take you in. We could call police, they’d send you out on a jail boat.”
    A ring of my head lifted off the top.
    “Not legal?” Lucy whispered. “But we registered already.” She kept papers in the purse for novenas hung around her neck.
    “You are lucky you have relatives,” the old lady said, the jaw closing. I had made things worse.
    Good we know it is a happy ending , Ruth said, when I first told the story.
    The hotel is the shape of a saw; the big end a lobby they changed into a kitchen, the smallest room number 9. The pool makes a saw the opposite way. On the other side of the fence there is another building the same except pale blue, where old people live in bathrobes. I observed, the people who took care—Sri Lankans—they are good. But the olds came right up to the fence and stared. They liked to watch the abnormals.
    Then it was a heat wave and the retardeds were all the time in the pool. Every day the ones who made the flyer sat by the side and let the retardeds bob, in life jackets. Like human corks. They get no exercise! That is why they stay fat! I showed Tommy and the twins to hold the side and kick. The ones who made the flyer became wet, where they sat with their drinks. They watched me. They could not hate Cheska; she was making their foods. There was a cake they craved, with almonds and