Worlds Apart (13 page)

“It is really hard to make it as anything, not just as an actor. I’ll just keep trying until I do. I’ve been acting in small parts in off Broadway productions since I was a kid. I know its going to be hard, but there is no plan B. I plan on making it as an actor, period.”

The day brought few customers, and Vincent and I talked a lot to each other. We had to pass the time somehow. He was a very cool guy, different from the academic types that I was used to at Stanton. I told him that I was planning on going away to college. Vincent was not impressed with this.

“College is good for parties and girls and stuff. But anyone that really makes it in life, does it without college,” he said smirking.

“I am planning on making it and going to college also,” I fired back.

“I bet you have no clue about a future and that’s why you’re going to college,” Vincent smirked.

“So what do you have against college?” I asked him.

“It’s four years of wasting money by figuring out who you want to be when you grow up. I want to be an actor, so I’m going to LA to audition. You know…the real world.” Vincent had a point. “A college education allows you to walk around Manhattan with a trench coat, a folded
New York Times
under your arm, and you’ll look like you read it.”

“I’m more of a
Daily News
guy myself,” I said.

“I’ve got talent as an actor. Some people have talent in athletics, or music, or some other field. For people with talent, college is a wasted effort.” Vincent kept working with a customer. “Do you have any talent?”

“I play the guitar and sing,” I said.

“But are you talented?”

I took a deep breath, puffed my chest out, and said, “I’m talented.”

“So why not a career in music?” Vincent asked.

“Because I need college to fall back on, in case I don’t make it.”

“Sounds like you already plan to fail. Look, even if you don’t make it big as a guitar player, I’m sure you can find work.”

“I don’t want to end up poor and starving.”

“You won’t if you really are talented.”

At school on Monday, everyone was asking about the SATs. I gave the obligatory answer, “I aced it.” Sam said he didn’t see me taking the exam, but thought he saw me in the boys’ bathroom. Sam wondered if I saw anything in the bathroom.

“I didn’t see anything.” I said stonefaced. He remarked that he did not see anything either.

Sam and Doreen were mailing their Harvard applications together. Carlos perked up; he seemed to be on high alert. Dogs sometimes did the same thing with their ears when something caught their attention.

Delancey wore a tee-shirt with a picture of a large crow on it. Delancey explained that the tee-shirt was for a new rock band. We talked about the SATs. She said she did pretty well on the verbal but she wasn’t sure about the math.

“I used to be really good at math. But not anymore. Even my science grades are not what they used to be,” she said. She was applying to five colleges. All of them had two things in common; they were all private schools, and they were all very expensive.

It must be nice not to have financial worries,
I thought. Natalie walked by, and I waved hello. Delancey noticed that I was checking out Natalie, though I was unaware of my wandering eyes.

“I used to be the girl that all the guys checked out,” she said.

I put my hand on her shoulder, and said, “You still are, and always will be.” We laughed and went to our classes.

At the end of the day, John and I were walking to the subway together. Smoke was coming out of a nearby mail box. The mail box was on fire and a fire truck quickly arrived to put out the flames. Burning a mail box was a federal crime. When the fire was out, firemen emptied the burnt contents.

“Do you think it was the Deceptors?” I asked.

“Probably not. They’re into beating people up, not burning a mailbox,” John said. “Besides, there’s no money to gain by burning a mailbox.”

At the subway station, Carlos stood waiting for a train. The three of us began the long ride home. Carlos hardly spoke. John and I discussed college applications.

The next two days I stayed home with the flu. John called and said that Sam and Doreen were over. Sam had broken up with her during lunch in the cafeteria. I wasn’t surprised. I surmised Sam was able to get what he wanted out of the relationship.

Thanksgiving arrived and I felt completely better and healthy enough to go out. My father was driving a cab until three p.m. Harry and I spontaneously decided to go to the Thanksgiving Day parade. We had not been to the parade since our mother had passed. It was still early enough that we may see the end, but late enough that we’d be far away.

We took the subway to the west side of Manhattan and had to push and shove our way out the crowded exit of the station. A million people lined the streets to see the parade. A colossal Superman balloon towered above our heads. One block down, thirty people were barely hanging on to a Garfield balloon. The balloons were twice the size of our house. The wind blew the balloons forward, and the balloon holders struggled to hang on. Harry and I walked north, hoping there were fewer people in that direction. On Columbus Avenue, the frigid winds picked up velocity.

A two-story Snoopy balloon was making its way toward the crowd. It must have been more than forty feet high. In the distance, we could see the last float, Santa Claus in a sleigh. The crowd cheered loudly as Snoopy slammed into a street light, smashing it to pieces. Harry wore a big smile on his face; his eyes lit up brightly, more than I could ever remember. It was overwhelming to see my brother so happy.

After the Santa Claus float went past us, I bought us hot dogs and hot chocolate. It was good to have money from my job at the café.

Someone tapped me on my shoulder. I turned around, elated to find Delancey behind me. Her cheeks were red from the cold, as were her nose and ears.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” she yelled out.

“You too!” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“I live nearby, and came down to see the end of the parade.” Delancey asked the vendor for a hot chocolate as well. “What about you?”

“We also came for the parade. This is my brother, Harry.” Harry shook Delancey’s hand, and commented on how warm her hand was, despite the cold weather.

A large crow flew very close to us, trying to swipe the final small bite of hot dog out of my hands. Delancey was petrified. The bird flew away.

We talked about her holiday plans, and I discovered that she was heading out to Long Island to spend Thanksgiving with her mother and stepfather. After she left, Harry noticed that I couldn’t stop smiling.

“She’s really pretty, David. How well do you know her?” Harry asked.

“She is, isn’t she? I know her from school.”

“You should ask her out; I can tell that she likes you. Girls are never that happy to see just anyone,” Harry remarked.

“She’s always full of exuberance,” I said.

Harry looked at me confused. “Is she exuberant around you or everyone else as well?”

“I’m not sure…but she’s definitely not that exuberant around Sam.” We both laughed; Harry was familiar with Sam. “Besides, Harry, she’s out of my league.”

Harry chuckled. “What? She’s on the Mets? And you’re on the Yankees? Don’t be ridiculous…there are no leagues…” He sounded a lot like Christine.

“She’s rich, Harry, and we’re poor. I don’t want to embarrass myself.”

“You’re nuts. Girls are girls, and guys are guys. Who cares who’s rich and who’s poor? One date isn’t going to lead to marriage or a life time of anything. Just ask her out already. She’s practically crazy about you.” Harry hit me on the chest. He could be right, maybe Delancey liked me too. I didn’t bother telling Harry that Delancey had already turned me down, sort of.

That night, we went to my grandmother’s home for Thanksgiving dinner. I saw all my relatives, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was the first of many holidays without my Grandfather.

One of my uncles offered me a beer, and I drank it fast, hoping my father wouldn’t notice. “When parents say no, uncles say yes!” he boasted. I was still smiling from bumping into Delancey earlier.

My grandmother distributed some of my grandfather’s personal items. Harry received my grandfather’s U.S. Citizenship documents from when he became a naturalized citizen. The name read “David Arfayus.” My father received my grandfather’s army uniform. My grandfather’s college education was on a battlefield in Korea. “He had arrived in New York at a young age, and was drafted for war soon thereafter,” my grandmother explained.

At the very end, my grandmother handed me my grandfather’s high school diploma from British Guyana. His last name was spelled with an O, and the other letters were different as well.

“That was the original spelling, but when he came to Ellis Island, because of his accent, they changed the spelling of his name to the way he pronounced it.” My grandmother was an emotional wreck, everyone tried to console her.

I suggested that we should change our last name to the correct spelling. My father said that he was okay with his last name, but advised me to contact the government to change my name. He joked that even if I changed my name, I still had to obey his rules.

The next day at City Hall, I filled out the application and changed the spelling of my last name, and never looked back. They gave me a copy of the paperwork, which I was to submit to my school. I think my grandfather would have approved.

Chapter 8

Sometimes a new month begins, and nothing in the air indicates the change. Some months just feel like other months. This is never the case with December. Whenever November ends and December begins, every kid in school can tell the difference without looking at a calendar. There is a countdown that begins for the holidays.

The café was busy that weekend. Business was booming, largely because New York City, more than any other city in the world, draws lots of tourists for the holidays. I filled the muffin trays with each type of batter. My job entailed baking 200 muffins every morning, which was enough for the tour buses of people that came in for breakfast. Last month, we threw out 150 muffins a day. But lately, tour buses have been arriving on the weekends, and there weren’t any muffins to throw out. I also had to bake 400 cookies. The batter was rock hard since it had been refrigerated all night. I learned that by using an ice cream scooper, a little elbow grease, and my hands, the cookies came out perfectly round. I baked chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, macadamia nut cookies, almond cookies, vanilla cookies, and double chocolate cookies.

The smell of freshly baked muffins and cookies filled the World Financial Center, and even though the building was enormous, and had 35 floors, the smell permeated every nook and cranny of the building.

Music is similar to aroma. Music moves people, whether they are old or young, warm hearted, or with a heart of stone. Music, especially the way I played the guitar, penetrated souls. When I played guitar, it brought joy, and sometimes sorrow to listeners.

The morning crew arrived a half hour late. It’s not like Mike would notice, as he was still snoring in the back. The crew looked like hell. Christine explained that they all had a rough night. They drank all the coffee I had brewed. I asked Christine about her night and she said, “You don’t want to know,” but agreed to tell me later.

Mike the manager eventually woke up, and decided to show me how to make a cappuccino. I took it step by step, loading the espresso, steaming the milk, and learning how to make foam. He drank it and said not bad. I made another one; this time I drank it, and thought it was the best drink I ever had. Mike explained that the cappuccino was a lot like the “people in this godforsaken world.” He said that the grinds sink to the bottom, and that the middle part is just for the caffeine and taste, but the part that everyone likes is the foam, and the foam needs to be perfected if it is to rise to the top and stay there. “Foam is like the top 1% of people, there is nothing of substance in foam.”

I was prepared for more anecdotes from Mike, but I had grown skeptical of his advice, since he seemed like a big loser. But Mike was particularly loquacious that day.

“So have you given any more thought to your future?” he asked. I told him that I didn’t have any answers, but was working on a school project that would hopefully map out what I should do.

“The problem with school is that they always ask the wrong question. The question should not be ‘what do you want to be when you grow up,’ but rather, ‘who do you want to be like when you grow up?’ They should ask what source of income you plan on having, rather than what kind of job you are planning on having,” Mike said.

I was hoping to avoid Mike having another mental meltdown at my expense. I mostly nodded and agreed, while I continued to work, cleaning counter tops, baking, cleaning the oven, and making more coffee. Still, I gave way to an involuntary grin at the thought of a guy who sleeps on park benches giving me career advice.

Mike continued. “It makes more sense to emulate people that you know, rather than to figure out a career path. Don’t make the mistake that the rest of society makes. How you make your living does not define who you are. How much money you make is not who you are. First find out who you are, and then worry about everything else. A job is temporary, but self identity is for a lifetime.” Mike seemed pleased with himself.