“The only person who has less power than a class president is the General Secretary of the United Nations, and I don’t appreciate you threatening me,” I said. I could feel Juan’s blood pressure rising.
“David, you are being selfish. Brooklyn is dangerous. How could you protect Delancey? You have no posse. You can’t fight, and you have no money. Be reasonable here. You can’t give her anything. If she sticks with you, she’ll become a loser girlfriend to a loser guitar player.”
“I am not a loser, and it’s her choice anyway,” I said, disgusted.
“High school is nearly over. We have a handful of months to go. I am going to take Delancey to the prom. I will buy her a ticket, and arrange for a limo. We will go to the best after party in the city. I will buy her an expensive present. The prom is a special night in a girl’s life. Don’t ruin the prom for her, David. You can be friends with her, all you want. But…she deserves a memorable evening, and you can’t provide that for her.”
His words were daggers in my heart.
I wrote a nice article about Juan. I thought about his career choices for me, in the garment industry or working for the government. I know he was kidding, but neither of these really appealed to me. I grew sullen and depressed. He was right about Delancey, about the prom and the fact that I did not have the money.
Juan Cabeza de La Vaca Perez was smart and confident. Harvard was a school for the cream of the crop. I felt like a lost sheep. I did not have a job that reflected well on college applications. Juan Perez wanted a career in politics, and was able to get a job in a congressman’s office. Sam wanted to be a doctor, and wrote on his applications that he worked in a hospital. These guys planned well, and I had failed to plan.
I had insomnia. Did I jeopardize my future? Was it really better to go to a private college? Should I have applied to an expensive school? I truly believed it was up to the student to take advantage and make the most of their education. But, at the same time, I knew that having a degree from an elite school made a difference.
I grew more depressed thinking about wasted opportunities. I wished I had completed an internship, but I didn’t because internships didn’t pay. I needed money, and worked at the café. As usual, I was upset about my family’s financial situation. I wished it had been better. I considered making money selling drugs, and shrugged it off. What’s the point of going to college to become a criminal?
About an hour later, my biggest fear hit me. I saw myself as a balding, middle aged guy disinterested in life and my career, working at a boring job, and not living up to my potential.
It’s worse to be indecisive than to make a bad decision. My grandfather knew what he was talking about. It was better to be on some course in life than to be stagnant like a moored boat. This was a revelation. I needed to go full speed in the direction of my choosing, which was state college. No more looking back with self doubts.
I was going to State college and I was going to make the most of it. I didn’t have Sam’s emotional problems, and I wasn’t a political opportunist like Juan. I was just as good as those guys.
I went to school that week, feeling like a million bucks. The entire week was a joy. John asked if I was on drugs, and I said that I had a new philosophy for my life.
“I call it never look back. It’s basically that I am going full speed ahead in my choices in life, without second guessing myself. I’m no longer going to be a sitting duck, or a moored boat, or Hamlet,” I proclaimed to John.
“Hamlet?” he said.
“Yeah, Hamlet. His biggest problem was that he couldn’t make a decision. That’s not me,” I said.
“You sound like you didn’t get any sleep last night. I really don’t follow.”
“Okay, say that I decide to go to state college. Then I go there with the purpose of giving it my all. I go and do everything to get ready for state college. Choosing a dorm, finding out about classes, etc. I’ve been sitting around and questioning my decisions. I’ve been full of regret instead of going full speed ahead. It doesn’t do any good to be indecisive or regretful. I’ve been too careful, and too cautious, second guessing everything that I do. Imagine that I am a captain of a ship. Imagine if I needed to bring that ship to the North Pole. I could spend months deciding if it’s a worthwhile trip. I can sit around moored or docked and debate the entire thing. Or I could get some food, some clothes, and start heading north.”
“But what if you get there and decide that the North Pole is too cold, too dangerous, and there is nothing there. What if you spent all that time and energy and decided it was a mistake?” John stared at me, waiting for an answer.
“There are no mistakes, because I would have accomplished the task of making it to the North Pole. For the rest of my life, I can say that I have seen the icy waters of the North Pole. I can turn around and head in a different direction. The point is that once I choose a destination and direction, then I will go there full speed ahead!”
John sighed. “I guess I’m guilty of the same thing. I still don’t have an answer from my father about whether I can go to college next year. Right now, I’m in one of those indecisive ruts. Man, I hate that everything is up in the air. My entire future is waiting on my father to make a decision.” John was clearly dejected.
Friday night arrived and I went to the Kettle of Fish to play guitar for the Grim Reapers Band. The bar was packed. The band was a group of college kids. I had practiced Journey songs all week. Their manager’s advice was “just go out there and cut loose.”
I was grateful Delancey was able to get me this gig. The first set of six songs was greeted with cheers from the audience. At the end of the second set, I sang parts of one song. The band played until midnight, but I would’ve played until sunrise. I was having a great time and made the equivalent of three weeks worth of pay at the café. The college crowd loved the band. The band’s manager took my phone number and said he would call me again. The lead singer was dropping out of college to pursue his musical career.
The bar gave us free drinks, but I only had two beers, because it was long subway ride home. I called Delancey the next day to thank her, but she was in Long Island with her mother.
The school holidays came the last week of February. I was looking forward to having a few days off of school, and I had arranged to make some extra money working at my regular part time job. I went to work at the café at six in the morning on a Monday, my first time working on a weekday. The café was the busiest I had ever seen it. There was no time to chat or to think. I think I made four hundred cups of coffee.
A café worker named Shesha approached me and introduced himself. He was from Pakistan and I had a hard time deciphering his accent. I left the café at 4pm, weary from a very busy day. Shesha left at the same time, and we took the subway home together.
I was starting to understand Shesha’s accent better. He told me that he had been in New York for less than a year, and had previously worked as a cab driver. He was thirty years old, and left Pakistan because his family had chosen the wrong candidate to support in the last rigged election. Every other word he muttered was an expletive, and I was surprised at how much profanity he had learned in the short time he was in New York.
I told Shesha that I was a student, and this opened up a new topic of conversation for my loquacious coworker. Shesha described his days as a student in Pakistan as the happiest time of his life. He played a lot of cricket and soccer, although he insisted it was proper to call it football. He described himself as a good student, but not good enough to have a real career in Pakistan. Only the top 10% of students had a real shot at getting a further education in Pakistan. The rest of the students in Pakistan fall into the category of having to fend for themselves.
I disclosed that I was accepted to a college upstate. Shesha thought I must be some kind of a genius, but I told him that things worked a little differently in America. “Everyone can go to college here,” I said.
“Even the rotten apples?” he asked.
“There are many different tiers of colleges, but if a student with poor grades wants to, they can find a college somewhere that would accept them,” I said.
“That doesn’t make any sense. It might better be that they learn a business or a trade and not waste their time and money.” Shesha seemed perplexed.
“America is the land of opportunity,” I remarked. “Everyone is entitled to an education.”
Shesha smiled sarcastically. “I’ve had the opportunity to become educated as a cab driver and a coffee boy.”
“Well, you just got here. Who knows where you will be in ten years or twenty years?”
“I have a plan,” Shesha said as he pulled out a folded piece of paper.
He had written down a plan for his life in America, and it started with him working at the cafe, and becoming the manager. The plan called for Shesha to open his own coffee shop, and buy buildings where he would open a coffee shop in each building.
“This is a good plan. When did you write this plan?” I asked.
“The night before I left Karachi. College is not necessary for owning fifty coffee shops.”
Shesha asked if I had a girlfriend. I told him I did not and said he did not either. “I guess we’re both bachelors!” he shouted. He asked if I went to prostitutes. I was not interested in prostitutes, and said that I was looking for the right girl.
“The right girl for what?” he asked.
“The right girl for everything.”
“I think I knew one in Pakistan,” he said. “And she was expensive.”
At home I called Delancey but learned that she was on vacation in Florida with her mom and stepfather.
I made plans to visit John at his family’s store in Forest Hills. I took the F-Train to Forest Hills, and walked a few blocks to Austin Street, off of Continental Avenue.
Forest Hills was a fancy neighborhood with plenty of senior citizens. High rise apartment buildings were on every other block. It was a busy commercial district, with various retail stores, cafes, restaurants, and office buildings. I walked to the Four Moons Mini Market. His mother, who spoke little English, angrily asked what I wanted. She was suspicious of me because I was not Korean.
“Mrs. Moon, I am here to meet John.” I explained myself for ten minutes while she stared with disapproving eyes. Finally John came out of the back area of the store covered in dirt and sweat. John’s father also walked out of the back area of the store, yelling at him in Korean. John looked embarrassed.
“Don’t worry, I don’t speak Korean,” I said.
Mr. Moon pointed toward the basement. John said “wait here” and he went back into the basement. His father walked outside, his face still red from the yelling, and lit a cigarette. In a thick Korean accent, Mr. Moon said “Stupid. My son is very stupid.”
I no longer wondered why John was always telling us how smart he was. I think he was reminding himself.
About fifteen minutes later, John emerged from the basement, and we walked to his family’s apartment. It was on the second floor, above a hair salon. John took a quick shower and changed his clothes, while I waited in the living room. Hardly any furniture was in the apartment. I saw a kitchen table, with two chairs. There were Korean silk blankets on the floor, and large overstuffed pillows. I surmised that the Moon Family all slept on the floor. The apartment smelled like
kimchee
.
An old lady emerged, and started yelling at me in Korean. She was about 4 feet tall, with white hair, and a wrinkled face. I could not understand what she was yelling about, but tried to explain that I was with John.
She briskly walked into the kitchen, brought out a broom, and started sweeping me out of the apartment. She backed me into the doorway, unable to understand me. She kept yelling and sweeping me out of the apartment with her traditional Korean straw broom.
John came out of one of the bedrooms horrified. They spoke in Korean for a couple of minutes. She paused, looked at me, and smiled.
“So nice to meet you,” she said, and then offered me some
kimchee
. It burned my throat going down, but it was very tasty. I bowed to John’s grandmother at least a half a dozen times.
We went to Beefsteak Charlie’s, a local low priced steak house restaurant chain, which had an unbelievable buffet for only ten dollars. We ate steaks, baked potatoes, and drank a few beers.
“From what you told me, I have to ask, why didn’t you have drinks on the ski trip?” John asked.
“You know, I really wasn’t comfortable having drinks on a school trip with kids that I didn’t know well. It’s different with you and Sam and Carlos. You guys are my friends, and I trust you guys…well, I trust you. There’s a time and place for everything.”
“I think you are right. There are certain things that you allow yourself to partake in, but it should be in the right setting.” John said as he finished his beer.
“Its amazing how certain behaviors are inappropriate and appropriate, depending on the location.” I signaled the waitress for two more beers. The drinking age was changing to twenty at the end of the year, and we enjoyed it while we could.
I was a lightweight, and drinking three beers had me very buzzed. John and I split the bill and headed out. I said goodbye to the waitress, and without thinking twice, I told her that she was beautiful. She laughed and said that I had drank too much beer.