Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

My father, however, had one piece of unfinished
business in California: his only son, Al Miranda Jr.,
still living with his mother, Beatrice, in a small L.A.
apartment. Never having married, my father felt he
and Beatrice had nothing legal to dissolve, and I
guess he thought that applied to custody of Little Al
as well.
In one of the most audacious moves I’d ever heard
of, my father simply flew to California on Mother’s
Day, picked Al up out of his bed, got on another
plane, and flew home to my mother and me. No
custody battle, no drawn-out negotiations, no
lawyers.
“He’s my son,” my father said when he set out.
“Ain’t nobody gonna keep me from having my son.”
It was my first real experience with another side of
my father, the side everyone else but me knew about:
the patriarchal, dictatorial, indisputable king of the
family. He Who Must Be Obeyed. El Jefe. The way
my father told it, Beatrice made no effort to resist the
theft of her son, or to see him, or to check up on him.
She simply gave Little Al up without a fight. My
father had an uncanny, threatening aura of authority
that silenced any dissent or questions; as far as I
know, no one ever challenged his assumption of sole