On a Mission, to the Mall

I’m driving on the freeway, my son chatting at me from the passenger seat. We’re going shopping for clothes, which sounds mundane but it’s a momentous occasion. The day before, he did his first shift as a volunteer at the aviation museum. He needs pants to wear with his uniform shirt, a belt, and he’d like a new backpack. He talks as I drive, about jet fuel, and engines, “I assume you know what a turbocharger is, and what it does, or maybe you don’t?” I don’t, but I love listening to him talk.

I’m listening but not retaining much. I’m proud he found this volunteer opportunity all on his own. His friend who works at the aviation museum started out as a volunteer, so there might be a path to a paying job for our son and I’m glad for that, but mostly I’m happy he has this friend. They met when they were 13, at a school for students with emotional and behavioral health issues, and their friendship has endured. They’re now 19, finished with high school, figuring out what to do next. They’re in contact most days, they talk and play games together online, but during the pandemic they didn’t see each other much in person. My son is happy he’ll be able to pick times for his volunteer shift when his friend is at work.

Our son hasn’t needed to shop for clothes since before the pandemic. He wears tee shirts and athletic pants around the house, but for his shifts at the museum he’ll wear a uniform shirt that should be tucked into belted trousers. He needs khakis, and he wants them to be cargo pants. I’m not expecting it to be easy to find pants for my 6-foot-two-inch son with the small waist and long legs, but I’ve decided we’ll start at Gap, where they sell pants by waist size and inseam length.

The Gap store in our little downtown doesn’t have the size he needs in stock. The sales clerk suggests we try their store in Valley Fair, the gigantic mall at the interchange of I-80 and I-280, so we’re back on the road. My son explains to me the difference between diesel fuel and the other kind of fuel, the difference between V engines and whatever the other kind of engine is, how the cylinders are stacked so that they take up less space. He tells me about some of the unique items on display at the aviation museum. How lucky he is, I think, to have found a place to volunteer where he can geek out about this stuff.

I haven’t been to a mall in years — even before COVID I avoided it. The parking structure is all automated now, with a digital display at the end of each row showing how many spaces are open. I notice this too late, as I’m turning into the first row on reflex, preparing to zig-zag up and down until something opens up.

You have to approach parking — and shopping — at the mall during the holiday season with the right attitude, I tell my son. Patient. Chill. Prepared to wait. He points out there are lights strung overhead, red and green — Christmas colors, I think, but of course that’s not why. We’re creeping along a row with all red lights above, because there are no empty parking spaces in this row. When we make it to the end, I search for a path to the upper level, hoping it will be less crowded than the ground level, and it is, the lights are mostly green, plenty of open spaces.

I slide into a space against the far wall opposite the mall entrance. Park, and scramble in my purse for a pen, get out of the car and scan for markings, location coordinates to write down on the parking ticket. I’ve parked in a place that will be easy to remember, but I’ll feel better if I write it down, I tell my son, and I see the letters painted on a column — level M, row F. I lost my car in the garage of this mall once, years ago, I tell him, before he was born, and I still remember how frightened I got, how embarrassed I was that I was frightened. Stepping out of the car on the other side, my son says to his phone, “Hey Google, remember where I parked.”

At the Gap store inside the mall, we know not to bother looking at the racks, to go straight to the sales clerk to ask, but they don’t have pants in my son’s size. Not in stock, and they can’t order it online. The clerk suggests we try Old Navy and Nordstrom. We strike out at Old Navy, but at Nordstrom the clerk finds a few pairs of pants my son can try on — they’re khakis, but not cargo pants, and he’s not keen on the color, but we all agree it would be good for him to try something on for size. If he has to order online, at least he’ll know what will fit.

I watch my son — who is no longer a boy, who is a young man with autism and anxiety — I watch my son disappear through the doorway and of course I’m not going to follow him into the men’s changing room but I’m thinking about him, knowing this is an unfamiliar experience for him, and he might be finding it hard.

I drift around the display tables stacked with folded pants. I check the price tag on a pair like those I know my son is trying on — $178, good grief — and I would never spend that on a pair of pants for myself, but by now I’m thinking if my son finds a pair of pants that he feels comfortable in, I’ll pay that price with pleasure.

He’s back now, saying he knows what size he needs. He hands over the pants he tried into the arms of the kindly sales clerk, who I thank very much for his help. As the clerk walks away, I ask my son if he wants to buy any of the pants and he says, “Mom, they’re all too expensive. I know what size to get now, and we can look for them online.” We leave while the salesman is busy restocking the pants we don’t buy.

My son’s had enough shopping for one day. We can get shoes another time, now he’s thirsty. We head for the parking structure, looking for food kiosks along the way. At Mrs. Field’s, I get two bottles of water from the refrigerator, no cookies, and we step out into the December air, lift our face masks, crack open our bottles, drink deep.

We’re merging onto the freeway toward home when we hear a roaring engine noise overhead, and four military jets in formation streak across the sky. Are we under attack, I ask, joking.

He says that’s highly unlikely. We’re close to the airport, though, yes?

Yes, I say, the San Jose airport is less than ten miles away.

Which direction from us?

We’re south of the airport, I say, heading south.

He consults his phone, says whatever those jets were, they came from Moffett Field.

We drive for a while, in quiet.

“I think from the pandemic, and from the little social interaction I had during that time, I have heightened anxiety,” he said. “There were a couple times at the mall I broke out in a sweat.”

I asked what parts of the outing were hard for him, did he notice?

“Talking to people,” he said, “and going into the changing room.”

We drive for a while more, in quiet.

Over the mountains we’re driving toward, the sky is filled with drama. To the west, the sky is blue, with scattered white fleecy clouds. In the east, dark storm clouds swell and swirl. In between, there are holes in the clouds where beams of sunlight stream down.

“I love how the light looks,” I say to my son, “coming through the clouds.”

God rays, he tells me, is the term used by graphic designers for that effect. The atmospheric conditions have to be just right, he says, with water vapor filling the air between the clouds and the ground. Otherwise we wouldn’t see the sunbeams.