I recently learned that the cause for incredibly lucid and
scary nightmares that attack people who have Parkinson’s Disease is not the
disease, necessarily, but the medications used to treat it. (see 2017 Blog, Perchance to Dream). So I am
blaming this latest nightmare on my treatments.
Then, again, before I fell asleep I was watching some uneducated bozo
with orange hair and a lexicon of five words deliver a State of Disunion
speech. I could be wrong. The cause
might have been my dinner of kale burger with turmeric and fennel pollen
aoli. Whatever the reason for my lucid
dream, I am recalling it here in as much detail as I can piece together—you
know how disjointed dreams can be.
There was this big hall, big and shadowy and dank and dark
gray. And people in gray uniforms were
interviewing/questioning other people not in uniform. My dream’s camera zoomed
in on two men in uniform, one inhaling a Camel, not the animal but the
cigarette and exhaling large puffs of cloudy white smoke. He had gray hair. The young man he was talking to was much much
younger, early twenties.
“So what did you do?”
The older man took another puff.
“I felt sorry for the guy.
He said he was from Honduras.
Where is Honduras anyway?”
“Not sure. I think South America.”
“Really? I thought it
was near Greece. He had a Greek
name. I think it was Greek. Adelmo?
That sound Greek to you? Man, I
got a lot to learn about this job.”
The man with the Camel shrugged his shoulders.
“So what was his story?”
“One of these days I am going to get me out a map and see
where all these people come from.
Anyway, his story, according to him, is he was a physician back in
Honduras, South America.”
“Probably one of those
‘get-a-doctor’s-degree-in-five-weeks-school.’”
“That’s what I thought. So I tells him, ‘Look, fella, you ain’t going
to practice medicine in the U.S. of A.’
You know what he says?”
Camel man shakes his head.
“He says he heard that certain parts of the United States
need doctors. Imagine that!”
“Some people will say anything to immigrate into our country.”
“Yeah, I’m learning that.”
“So then he tells me he will take any job—any job at
all—sweeping streets, picking fruit, collecting garbage.”
“Some doctor he must have been.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I tells him if we give him those jobs we are
taking them away from our American workers.”
“Good answer.”
“So I look at #3 on our questionnaire, ‘Why do you want to
immigrate into the U.S?’ He answers that
he is a member of a political party and the members of that party are in danger
from gangs. He says his life and the
lives of his wife and children are in serious danger. He says friends have been killed by these
gangs.”
“I says to him, I says, ‘We have gangs here in the United
States. How does coming here solve his
problem?’”
“So what was your final decision?” “Rejected. He and his family will be on the first boat to South America…..do they take boats back to South America?”
“Break is over. You
want to take the next one?”
“Sure.”
Suddenly, as if materializing out of thin air, an elderly
woman with gray hair and a dress straight from the forties stood at the young
man’s desk. Her hands were folded in
front of her.
“Okay, lady. You can
sit down.”
The lady in the green dress remained standing.
The young official was half sitting, half standing.
“Lady, I said sit down.
I gotta ask you some questions.”
The lady in the green dress did not move. “I am accustomed to some preliminary bowing
at first meeting.”
“Huh? C’mon, lady,
sit down. This will take a while. Rest your rump.”
The eyebrows of the lady in the green dress lifted
dramatically. “I beg your pardon?”
“Look, lady, you wanna immigrate to the U-S-of-A, you gotta
go through me. So please sit down.”
The lady in the green dress sat down on the small chair in
front of the desk.
“Good. Now, what’s
your name?”
“Why, young man, I am Queen Elizabeth!”
The young man looked up from his questionnaire and waved his
hand holding a pencil. “Is that like a
stage name or somethin’…a rock band?”
The lady in the green dress looked up the high ceiling for
understanding. “Very well. My full name is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary of
the Royal House of Windsor.”
“So your last name is Windsor?”
“Young man, Royals do not have last names.”
“I sees in your family history here that you wasn’t always a
Windsor.”
Queen Elizabeth stared again at the ceiling. “Dear me, your generation could certainly
use some history lessons. We changed our
family name from Saxe Coburn and Gotha to Windsor.”
“So why did you do that?
Running from the law or somethin’?
I mean, you gotta admit it looks suspicious.”
“If you must know, there was, in the nineteen forties, a
great deal of unpleasantness going on, and it was not fashionable in England to
have German……shall we say, ‘attachments.’”
“Hmmm. Okay, Liz,
we’ll put that aside for now. Geez, we
got quite a dossier on your family and it goes back a ways to some powerful
guys. And you got some sketchy things in
your background—gunpowder plots, terrorists, some questionable stuff.”
“Yes, if you study closely, you will learn that my ancestry
is rooted in a number of kings.”
“Liz, I gotta tell you.
Kings in history don’t mean anything to me. All they were were the biggest and strongest
thugs on the block. When they plopped
their asses on the throne, they tell everyone they are descended from God. Who says?
I don’t buy it.”
“My word!”
“Liz, in this building it is my word that counts. So
let’s skip your family history, which, I gotta tell you is iffy, and go to why
you want to immigrate to the United States.”
“Well, young man, I have thought about it a great deal. At first I thought it was my frustration
with Brexit and all that folderol, but, essentially, I would like to come here because,
well, I am quite bored.”
“Bored?”
“Yes, bored. Whenever I want to do
something, there is always this big fuss and much ado about nothing. The other day, I told my escorts I wanted to
play skee ball.”
“Skee ball?”
“Yes, skee ball. One of my grandchildren
discovered the game at the beach in, I believe, the state of New Jersey, and he
bought one of them, the whole alley and those wooden balls, and brought it back
to Buck.”
“Buck?”
“I do apologize. Buck is Buckingham
Palace. I absolutely adored the game.” Queen Elizabeth turned slightly in her
seat. “It might surprise you, young man,
to learn I have become quite good at skee ball.”
“So you want to come to the United States because you are
bored in your present position?”
“Essentially, that is correct.”
“All right. Let’s
see. You know, every day we get another
memo telling us to be very very discriminating in who we let immigrate into the
U.S.A. We gotta make sure we don’t let
the criminal element in.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“C’mon, Liz. I was
surfing tv the other night, and I started watching a fight when a soccer game
broke out…a British soccer game……”
Queen Elizabeth looked straight ahead.
“Liz, that’s a joke.”
“I am not amused.”
“Hey, I’m just doing my job.
What we don’t need is to let in a bunch of criminals into our country.”
“Young man, if you had studied your very own history, you
would have learned that crime, crime of all sorts and manner, existed long
before immigrants began coming to your country.
That is a fact.”
“Okay, I admit it. I
don’t know much about England. All I
knows is what I see from watching shows from England like Benny Hill or old
movies. I always thought I could make a
fortune being a dentist in England. All
the guys look like they have Roquefort cheese for teeth…..Liz, another
joke. Okay. Back to business. Liz, what skills do you have?”
“Skills?”
“Yeah. What are you good at? I mean, suppose we allow you to immigrate to
the U-S-of-A. How you gonna make a
living?”
“Oh dear. Let’s see.
I am very very good at waving. I
have practiced since I was a child, and I think I have it in hand.”
The young man stared at the lady sitting on the other side
of the desk.
Queen Elizabeth looked disconcerted. “Hmm.
‘In hand?’ That is British humor,
young man. I do it quite well, the
waving, with just the right touch of enthusiasm without forfeiting any
dignity.”
“Okay, Liz. I will
write down ‘waving.’ Maybe someone
politico will hire you to be in a crowd.
Anything else?”
“Well, let’s see. I
can wait.”
“Wait? You mean
waiting on tables? That’s good. I’ll put that down.”
Queen Elizabeth’s brows arched. “Hardly.
I mean I can wait. When one is
the queen, one has to learn to do a great deal of waiting. Not just being waited on, mind you. Waiting for spectacular events to begin,
waiting for horse races, waiting for people to bow before you…..most of the
dullards never do it correctly and so you have to simply stand there and wait
for them to finish.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll
down simply “waiting,” and let whoever reads it interpret what it means. Anything else?”
“No, I do believe that is it. Oh, wait.
I can ‘appear.’”
“’Appear?’ What do
you mean by ‘appear?’”
“’Appear!’ Exactly
what it means. I appear at places. ‘The Queen
will appear at the Tate gallery, the
Queen will appear at the Opening of
the Royal Silverware Inventory, the Queen will make an appearance at the Dorchester Dedication of the City Tulip
Bed.’ Appear. I am very good at
it.”
EGHAM, ENGLAND – JUNE 24: Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh attend The OUT-SOURCING Inc Royal Windsor Cup 2018 polo match at Guards Polo Club on June 24, 2018 in Egham, England. (Photo by Antony Jones/Getty Images)
“Geez, I don’t know.
But tell you what. I will put it
down on your application.”
“Thank you.”
“Look, Liz, my co-worker is calling me over. I’ll be right back.”
“By the way, young man, I overheard your earlier
conversation with the gentleman you examined before me, and, for your
edification, Honduras is in Central America.”
The young man hurries to where the older man is standing by
a massive pillar. He is twitching an
unlit cigarette in his hand.
“Yeah? I see you
waved me over.”
“I did. How many
people do you see standing in line?”
“Couple thousand.
Just like every other day. Why?”
“Listen to me, and listen good. You and I evaluate them, and you and me get
evaluated by our bosses. And a big part
of our evaluation is how fast we
process these immigrants. Get ‘em in,
sit ‘em down, and make a decision. Three
minutes or less.”
“Geez. Three minutes
is not a lot of time to digest their stories, evaluate and make a life changing
decision.”
The older man put his arm around the shoulders of the
younger man.
“Let me help you, kid.
You know where the negative term for an Italian, Wop, comes from?”
“Uh Uh.”
“Without Papers. You
know all these terms like “undocumented immigrants,” “illegal aliens,”
“refugees,” “fobs…”
“Fobs?”
“Fresh off the boat. Kid, they are all
code for the same thing—-non-white. So
we make it simple. Whites-yes,
non-whites-no. Look over at your
desk. What is the color of that broad
sitting there?”
“White, I think, but her documents said there is some Celt
in there….whatever that is. She does
seem to know her geography, though.”
“First glance, what is she?”
“White.”
“Go over and tell her the good news.”
Then I woke up…….thankfully.
Well, that is my nightmare in as much detail as I can recall. I have to lay off the kale burgers. You know how screwy a dream can be….even the American dream.
“Mr. and Mrs. Maltese,” the letter began, “This is to inform
you that you have seven unused days at the Freemont Park Hotel in New York
City. You must use these days before
August 1st of this year.”
Polley and I sat down at her Ipad and carved out a four-day
getaway in New York. On the New Jersey
transit to the Big Apple, we discussed what museums to visit, and, as we exited
a station, a woman in Islamic garb entered our car and sat down across from
us. I noticed that what looked like a
brown turnover wrapped in white parchment protruded from her beige tote
bag. The smell of whatever that brown
turnover was drifted to my nostrils, and the salivation began. I turned to Polley.
“So where are we going to eat?”
As we exited the womb of Penn Station, we were born into the enormity of choices of eateries and shops and things to do in the bustling, hustling city. I hailed a cab.
“You are visiting New York?”
We were stuck in a massive, typical, traffic jam on Seventh Avenue. Balaaj, our cab driver, softened our impatience
with conversation.
“I was born in New York, well, the Bronx, actually.”
Balaaj nodded.
Polley is the brave one.
She always is. “I noticed your
accent. Where are you from originally?”
“Iraq.”
My stomach began to growl as the traffic began to move. I watched the conveyor belt of restaurants glide past my window: Indian Palace, Ethiopian Oasis, Wild Ginger Thai, Pho Pleasure, Joey’s Pizzeria.
By the time reengaged in the cab conversation, Balaaj and
Polley were deep into sharing family histories.
Balaaj had learned all our grandchildren’s names, and Polley knew his
wife’s names and the names of his two sisters and two brothers still in Iraq.
“Yes, I had to leave.
I did not want to leave my brothers and sisters but I must.”
“May I ask why?”
“Of course. I was
interpreter for American army forces. Once
the troops leave, it was too dangerous for me.
I must leave.”
Our movement stopped.
Two unloading trucks double parked side by side forced four lanes of
traffic into one. I stared again through
the sparkingly clean cab window at Rosa’s Mexicano. Images of flautas de pollo and queso fundido
and ceviche de camarones stimulated my hunger, and I coughed loudly so Balaaj
would not hear the growling of my stomach.
I wondered if I could slip out of the cab and buy a carnitas just to
tide me over till dinner. Once a craving
paralyzes my brain, it is hard to eradicate.
Aside from my daughter-in-law’s home cooked carnitas, the best carnitas
I ever devoured were not from a restaurant.
We were in Colorado, staying in a flyfishing lodge near the Black Canyon
of the Gunnison River, and the owner of the establishment took us on a tour of
his property. I wish he hadn’t because
we had driven a long way that morning and afternoon, and it was exceptionally
hot for a Colorado July day. I wanted to
collapse in our room and check out my fishing gear in preparation for the next
day. But I acceded to my host’s wishes,
and drove, then walked, to a corner of his land. The sweat poured off my head
and dripped onto my loafers.
“I’m gonna offer quail hunting next season, but I gotta
change the grasses.”
“The grasses?”
“Yeah. The
grasses. I’m buying two hundred quail
from England and stocking my fields here, but for the quail to survive they
have to have the right habitat…the right grasses.”
“Oh.” A drop of sweat
fell off an eyebrow and found its way into my eye. Through my partial blindness I noticed four
men in the field below me hoisting heavy pipes and laying them on the
ground. Their shirts clung to their
bodies.
“What are those guys doing?”
“The Mexicans?”
I didn’t know they were Mexican. I nodded.
“They are laying pipe for irrigation. To have the right grasses you need water. And if you want people to irrigate your land,
you pick Mexicans. They are the best at
irrigation.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Oh yeah. Definitely. Even if they didn’t come cheap, I would hire
them because they really know their stuff.”
“Come cheap?”
My host slipped into a sotto voce pattern. “I can’t get regular guys to work for the same
price. Last year I hired four American kids
from nearby Montrose and they were worthless….and they wanted three dollars
more per hour.”
I watched the men work on the pipes, and I just wanted to go
back to my room. I lost my appetite.
I got it back when I entered the dining room of the lodge and the rich, earthy, complex smells of Adalia’s magic teased my nostrils. Adalia, our cook, prepared the best carnitas I had ever tasted. The meat was tender and moist and the spice had just the right amount of kick, and the ceviche de camarones lingered on the tongue just long enough to make one delight in being alive. Adalia offered us coffee. We nodded appreciatively and asked her to join us. She politely refused at first but then we waved her to a chair.
“You like the meal?”
Adalia took off her head covering and silky black hair cascaded down her
shoulders.
“Very much. How did you
learn to cook like that?” Stupid
question what I really wanted to gain some information, some secret into the
delicious dishes we had just enjoyed.
Adalia gave a little laugh.
“From my mother, Engracia. She
taught me. I didn’t want to learn at
first, but then I had to.”
Polley inhaled the aroma of the dark brown coffee before
sipping. “Really? You certainly can’t
tell. That was exceptionally delicious….and
I love Mexican food.”
“Thank you. I am
pleased.”
“Why didn’t you want to learn at first?”
Adalia leaned back in her chair. “Hmmmm.
I was in school, in Universidad del Valle de Mexico. Yes. I
studied there to be a…” Adalia looked at
the ceiling….”a what you say, lawyer but not lawyer…..not yet lawyer.”
“Paralegal?”
“Yes. That the
name. Paralegal. I almost graduate.”
“Do you have family here in Colorado?”
“No, I wish. I work here, save money, go
back to school, finish studying.”
We smiled.
Adalia smiled back and stood up. “You have now dessert?”
We smiled and nodded, and Adalia soon returned with two
plates of Pastel de Tres Leches.
The light turned
green, the traffic inched forward.
I heard laughing. Balaaj
turned and said to Polley, “See? It
works that way.”
I was still in Colorado wolfing down Adalia’s carnitas when
my mind slowly worked its way back to the present.
“So, Balaaj, what did you do before you were an interpreter
for the Americans?” Polley leaned
forward.
“I was an engineer.
Built bridges.”
Polley smiled widely.
“My dad and two brothers are engineers.”
Balaaj shrugged slightly and a shadow of lost dreams spread
across his face.
We registered at the Freemont Park Hotel, unpacked, and
focused on our first major decision on this getaway—-where to go for
dinner. The Freemont Park Hotel strongly
recommended the Greek restaurant Milos. “Very good and just across the street.”
So when twilight arrived and we could hold our hunger no
longer, we crossed Seventh Avenue and entered Milos. We were escorted to
our table and introduced to our waiter.
“Good evening. My name
is Aindrea, and I am honored to be your waiter this evening. May I get you something to drink?”
We sipped our Sauvignon Blanc.
“As a kid I worked one summer in a sweatshop cleaning ink
bottles and fixing copy machines.”
“Hmmm. The wine is
really good. What made you think of
that?” Polley put down her glass.
“Four of the five older guys I worked with were all Greek…and each one was
named ‘Nick.’”
“No!”
“Yes. When I met the
fourth guy, I said, ‘Oh. You from Greece
as well?’ He stood up straight, struck
his insulted pose and said, ‘No!!!!! I
am Macedonian. From Macedonia!’”
“I thought Macedonia is part of Greece…you know, Alexander
the Great and all?”
“So did I! I guess it
is the regional thing. Like when someone
asks, ‘Are you from New York?’ and I reply ‘the Bronx,’ just so they know I’m
not from Staten Island….or Brooklyn.”
Then the food came. Grilled Octopus in olive oil with grilled Holland peppers and oyster mushrooms, Tzatziki, Taramosalata and Htipiti, warm pita and marinated raw vegetables, followed by Grilled Mediterranean sea bream with steamed vegetables and Grilled Madagascar Shrimp with endive salad.
In between those courses Aindrea stopped by to check on us and chat. Aindrea was really into basketball, especially college basketball. Polley graduated from Duke, I from Villanova, (which, just to remind people, won the 2018 national championship), so the chatting went on quite a while. Aindrea knew the names of all the players on our college teams, their strengths and their weaknesses.
“How do you keep track of all these stats?” I was on my second glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
“Oh. It is easy. I keep track on spreadsheet. Back in Larissa I was computer technician.”
“How beautiful is Greece?
Never been there.”
“Greece is beautiful.
I go back to Larissa once a year.
See family. But no work there….and
no college basketball like here. I come
back with your dessert.”
Aindrea soon returned to our table with two plates of
Karydopita, traditional walnut cake with honey lavender ice cream.
Back at the Freemont Park Hotel we discussed our next decision. What to do on the morrow. All the way up on the New Jersey Transit Train I considered taking the 8th Avenue line up to the Bronx, my boyhood home, and visiting Arthur Avenue with its shops of fresh made pasta, marinated artichokes, Tuscan salami, coppocola, and provolone. I wanted to inhale the rich aroma of parmesan Reggiano, and fresh baked Italian bread with sesame seeds and buy a paper cup of real lemon ice.
But back at the Freemont Park Hotel I was too full of grilled fish and walnut cake and Sauvignon Blanc to seriously vote for the Arthur Avenue option. Instead we decided on another nostalgic experience—visiting the Museum of Natural History, a wealth of lore and science that consumed hours….days….of my youth.
The next morning we had difficulty hailing a cab, so I
dialed in my Lyft service.
Sunatillo was our driver, a young man, thin with thick black
hair. We judged him to be in his twenties,
but at our age people in their thirties we mistakenly judge to be teenagers.
As always, Polley initiated the conversation. She has a way of letting people feel
comfortable enough to share freely.
“I am from Uzbekestan.”
I don’t think I ever knew anyone from Uzbekestan.
“What did you do in Uzbekestan?”
“I go to school, play soccer. Lots of soccer.”
“We like soccer, too.”
Sunatillo beamed. “Ubekestan
not good in soccer but getting better.”
“You like it here…in the States.”
Sunatillo turned so far around in his seat that I thought the
car was going to swerve off the street and onto the sidewalk.
“Here is great. Just
play soccer in the park and work. Work
all time and play soccer.”
“Work all the time?”
“Oh yes. Work seven days a week…finish
work play soccer.”
“All week?”
“All week. Must work to support family.”
“Are you married?”
Sunatillo turned around again a huge smile lighting up his
face again, and I was afraid he would go through the red light.
“Too young. Have
mother and two younger brothers, one younger sister. Too much work to marry.”
“Some day.”
“Oh yes. Some day.
Some day I finish school, become a lab technician like my father before he
die.”
We arrived at the museum.
“Good luck to you.”
“And to you sir and lady. I love it here. Thank you.”
The only disappointment in the Museum of Natural History was that the long canoe filled with statues of Native Americans had been moved to the Smithsonian. I taught Catcher in the Rye, and one of Holden Caulfield’s favorite pastimes was to admire that exhibit. To Holden the canoe and the poses were frozen in time, a metaphor for his desire to remain forever in the innocence of childhood. But that was the only disappointment. The best thing about the museum was the people. People from everywhere, accents from everywhere, garb from everywhere. It was not about observing humanity, it was about being in humanity.
That night in the Freemont Park Hotel, I surfed the five hundred stations and settled on a cooking show featuring barbequing. The show was half over, but I was able to determine that it was some contest somewhere in the south, and the three hundred pound finalists sporting massive aprons and cooking in front of pickup trucks showcasing the stars and bars, the confederate flags, were sweating over charcoal grills. I wondered, as I watched them carefully monitor their briskets and pork shoulders, if they knew that barbeque owes its origins to slaves who received the worst cuts of meat to eat. The slaves learned that the only way to make those meats palatable was to slow cook them, and since they were not allowed to cut trees down for smoking, they became experts on types of driftwood and downed trees to use for smoking—mesquite and hickory and pecan. I wondered if that knowledge would change anything. Maybe change the decals on their pickup trucks.
On the way back home on the New Jersey Transit train, I
wondered about many things. My neighbor
Charlie’s engineering company sent him and his family to Brussels, Belgium for
a year to work. When he returned, I
asked him about his experience living in Europe. He was unenthusiastic.
“It was all right, I guess.”
“Well, at least you got to eat great food…..I mean, Paris
alone is nearby.”
Charlie looked at me, surprised. “We ate every night at the
hotel restaurant. Steak and potatoes.
Every night. Layman and Curry
picked up the tab, of course.”
“You can’t be serious. Tell me you never, the whole year,
ate any of the local cuisine.”
“Those people eat things like snails.”
I just sighed. What
was poor Charlie missing?
What are we missing? What would our nation be like without the import of panzanella and pizza and ravioli and moo goo gai pan and Szechuan chicken and egg rolls and baklava and minted lamb and pulled pork and hickory smoked chicken and sushi and sashimi and ramen and that is just the food. What about the importations of genius and energy from peoples from distant lands and distant views? What about jazz and the blues and Mardi Gras and Italian opera? What if we had not imported Greek democracy?
To my knowledge I have never heard of a couple engage in the
following conversation:
“Let’s go out for dinner.”
“Good idea. What food
are you feeling? Chinese? Italian?
Mexican? I heard a new Ehtiopian
restaurant opened in the next block. And
there is always the Rib Cage—-pulled pork sandwich?”
“I was thinking, maybe Anglo-Saxon white.”
It the pilgrims had succeeded in keeping other immigrants out, then today fine dining would mean kidney pie and mixed grill.
And I continue to wonder. It is not about acceptance of difference. If I “accept” you, it implies that I am superior to you, allowing you to enter the bubbly environment around me. It is not about accepting difference, about accepting barbequed ribs. It is about appreciation of food, appreciation of diversity and all the rich potential they offer.
