• • •
A week went by. I checked emails to make sure there were no emergencies and stuck to my original plan of showing the guys around, not getting involved in all of their struggles.
Paul and I attended a medical meeting over the weekend. At the cocktail hour, teetering on heels, balancing a gin and tonic in one hand and carrot sticks in another, I shared with a microbiologist who worked at the university the symptoms so many of the Lost Boys were suffering from.
She shook her head and smiled. “Definitely parasites.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. How could that be? I’ve been running around with little white bags of poop samples for months and the results all come back negative.”
“You can’t go to those commercial labs. They always put the newest person on stool samples. None of them here know how to look for the eggs anyway. Every parasite is different. Some shed eggs one day in six months.”
“How do I guess that day?”
“You can’t. Treat them prophylactically.”
Hmm. No doctor had suggested that before. What did it mean exactly?
We sat down at a table with a white cloth, china, and three sets of glasses. The parasite conversation continued and spread. Only physicians could discuss those miniature monsters and their science-fictional relationships with humans over a pasta appetizer.
A doctor across the table got everyone’s attention. “Tapeworms, pinworms, roundworms, they’ve got a real zoo over there in East Africa. Can’t leave out river blindness, the evil Medusa. But her three-foot-long cousin, the guinea worm, is the one that creeps me out. Emerges through the skin like a strand of this angel-hair pasta.” He pointed to his plate. “You have to wind it up on a stick to keep it intact until it has completely left the body or you’ll have one nasty infection. Or schistosomiasis, that’s the sneaky one; it’s calcified the liver by the time you have symptoms.”
I whispered to Paul, “What’s his specialty?”
“Infectious disease.”
I leaned over. “They mostly have migraines and intestinal symptoms. The weird thing is that they’ve gotten worse since they arrived here.”
“You said they were in a camp for some time, right? Just imagine, they were all starving. Now the worms are eating too. You’ve got an exploding parasite population pooping in their gut. Think of the toxins. That’ll give you one hell of a headache.”
“Yes, so many of them have headaches, but no doctor has explained this before.”
He smiled in a knowing way. “Most of the parasites will die eventually without their reproductive vectors here, which is usually some specific insect. But others, like onchocerciasis, can live for eighteen years.”
Yikes. I needed to do some more googling about all this when I got home.
A gastroenterologist beside me added, “In Mexico, they give worm medicine to the kids every six months. It’s harmless to humans. Just affects the sugar uptake of the parasite.”
“What’s it called?”
“Mebendazole or albendazole, depends on the country. Don’t know if you can get it here.”
“Where can you get it?”
“Mexico.”
We had friends who went to Tijuana every day for their work. Worm medicine I could get. I finished off my pasta pomodoro with a newfound enthusiasm.
• • •
Several days later, I went to the Euclid apartment. Blistering sunbeams streamed through the bare front windows. “Where are your curtains?” I asked.
“The Bols have family visiting,” Benson said. “They needed both apartments.”
“Your sofa cushion covers are gone too.”
“They said they need good cleaning.”
“They” no doubt meant the pretty Bol daughters. These five young men would, of course, oblige any of their requests. I hoped the girls knew that curtain and cushion fabrics were not designed to be washed like a pair of jeans. Looked like I’d arrived too late to save them from what would surely be their ultimate demise at the Laundromat down the street. I sat down on a bare foam inner cushion on the sofa and bit my tongue, knowing the destroyed items would come out of the guys’ security deposit.
The two Bol girls came back up and began to unplug the computer equipment. “Hey, wait, not that,” I said. We compromised by shoving the computer table into the corner.
Alepho came from the back bedroom. “Hey,” I said, “I think I found a medicine for your headaches and stomachaches.”
His lips pressed together. No response. I thought he’d be ecstatic.
“Wouldn’t it be great to feel better?”
“Is it pills?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“I don’t take pills. I need the natural medicines my mother used to make.”
Exasperation nearly made me throw my arms into the air, but I held them at my sides and said nothing. I guess this was a good indicator that he wouldn’t be interested in Zoloft for PTSD or depression either, even if I could get him to see someone. A friend was getting me the worm pills. Maybe the other guys with the same symptoms would take them.
Lino plopped down next to me on the couch where there was no cushion at all. It felt strange for him to be six inches lower. He handed me a pamphlet. “What do you think?”
The brochure was for Job Corps, a federally funded program where young people looking for a new start could learn a trade or skill—all free, if they qualified. “I think it’s a great idea.”
I’d heard that a few of the Lost Boys had gone there with mixed results. The vocational and educational programs were excellent, but the instant immersion into a rough American crowd had been brutal. The natives took it out on the foreigners, like leaving bananas in condoms on their dinner plates or greetings like, “Hey, asshole.” Some of the Lost Boys left, but a few stuck it out and would graduate in the coming months. One of their friends would soon finish the yearlong office-skills program and complete his GED there as well. Then two more years of free tuition and board at the local junior college were available to him.
“Which one should I choose?” Lino asked, pointing to the categories under construction and looking more enthusiastic than I’d seen him in months. “I like masonry and carpentry. What’s this mean? Drywall?”
“That’s this white stuff on the inside walls. Like the mud for your huts. Brianna suggested that you try a few different things before making a final decision.”
“Oh, that is good. But you get no money.”
“You don’t need money. Everything is free, room and board included, and you come out with a valuable skill. Construction pays well.” Lino was smart, tough, and independent, very good with his hands and mathematics. If he could handle the crowd at Job Corps, the construction industry might work well for him. “Why don’t you take the tour with Brianna?” I put my arm around his shoulders. “This could be a really good opportunity. I know you’ll do well there.”
Benjamin burst through the front door. “Ju … dee,” he said and grabbed me in a hug. He’d been working at the Ralphs in Hillcrest for a few months and seemed happy with his job, but Job Corps would give him a skill. Benjamin could tolerate the crowd; he could handle any group. He looked over the brochures.
“Are you interested?” I asked.
“Ju … dee, I work and work, no time for school. I study American culture. What I need to be is a movie star.”
I almost started into a list of reasons why Hollywood was not a good choice but stopped myself. Why discourage him? What were his chances anyway?
• • •
Nothing had yet materialized in their quest to find a safer place to live, so a few days later Benson and I stopped by the property management office again.
“We need to find something farther west,” I explained to Candace at the front desk for the umpteenth time. “More out this way.”
“There’s the list,” she said, pointing to the other counter. “There’s a new list of available units every week.”
I knew that. I’d been picking up the list for a month.
A young white man walked out from behind the partition and asked Benson, “Do you know Alepho or Daniel?”
Benson looked taken aback and didn’t answer.
“Meet Benson,” I said. “Alepho is his brother.”
“I’m Derek,” the young man said and shook Benson’s hand and mine. “Alepho and Daniel and I work together at Ralphs. They’re great guys.”
I glanced over at Candace to see if she’d heard that personal recommendation from her own office mate. “That’s who needs an apartment,” I said loudly enough for Candace to hear. “Benson lives with Daniel and Alepho. Alepho got beat up in his neighborhood out by Euclid. They really need to move over this way.”
“Oh man, that sucked when he got beat up,” Derek said. “They’re real nice guys.”
Candace was still listening. “It was great meeting you,” I told Derek. “I’ll tell Alepho and Daniel that we ran into you here. And thank you, Candace. We really appreciate anything you can do.”
“I’ll call you if one comes up,” she said. “We’re always looking for good tenants.”
CALM SPIRIT
Alepho
Benson’s words came back to me over and over. “Remember your past. You survived greater challenges.” His words shamed me. The only person I hadn’t lashed out at was Benson. I respected him for his calm spirit. Whatever problem presented itself, Benson wouldn’t react. If you pinched Benson’s finger he would just look at you like, Why did you do that? If you pinched my finger, I’d scream and be angry with you.
Benson was right, I had survived challenges. I understood how to fight hunger and disease or run from danger, like a lion or guns. But in America the challenges were unknown. How did I fight them? This was the first world, the new world. A new environment for me. It even had a new energy. The energy in Africa was different from the energy in America. People woke up in America and they had things to do. In Africa, we’d woken up and said there is nothing to do. There was no hope or opportunity. Americans had a clear sense of purpose. In the camp, our sense of purpose was what to eat, what to drink, where to sleep. In America people were thinking beyond those things. How do I make more money? How do I buy a house? A better car? I didn’t think of those things. They seemed so far away from what I could do.
Those conversations with my brother and roommates made me realize I needed a way to think and survive in this new world.
Responding to a threat had been my survival for so long. In San Diego, there was not a lot of threat. I realized that I had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time that night. I would avoid those kinds of places. We needed to find a safe apartment, and I needed to find better survival skills.
My first challenge was to adapt to the American standard. I had to look nice, smell good, and be successful. Those things were not the standard I had been used to. They contradicted my survival thinking. I’d failed at those American standards. I needed a solution to the sweating so that I could go out like Americans and smell nice and look good. I saw the commercials on TV for soaps, sprays, and deodorants that made a person feel fresh and smell good for others. I would try more kinds.
When we’d first arrived in America, we’d heard that some people lived on the street. We could not believe that at first. Then we saw with our own eyes. People without homes carried their possessions with them like refugees. They had not adapted to the survival in this country. We sat down and talked. We tried to identify the problem.
Now we faced some of those challenges when we tried to get a new apartment. They wanted us to have a credit history. How did we get that? Food was easy to get, but some things, like a place to live, they made difficult.
FIVE PLATES
Judy
Candace called. “Hey, I’ve got an apartment available on Adams.”
Adams Street, west of the 805 freeway. Great location. Once again, a connection had given them the break they needed, but this time the connection had been through someone they knew. That meant all the difference.
We took a look. The apartment was small and in a good area. After some debate about affording it, they gave notice on Euclid.
• • •
On moving day, I arrived at the old Euclid apartment early. Outside their door, boxes and bags waited to be loaded. I opened the back of my SUV and picked up a box.
James was flinging things from a box into the large trash bin. “No, no,” he shouted, “is trash.”
“But these are the plates and kitchen things.”
“Five guys. We need only five plates, five forks, five knives.” He resumed sailing things into the bin.
A bowl I’d given them was about to lose its useful life. “Wait, wait, I gave that to you.”
“We don’t need, is extra.”
I stood back and watched without feeling a smidgen of the cultural sensitivity I usually tried to apply. When he tossed the instructions for the camera I’d given him at Christmas, I said, “Wait, you might need those.”
“I throw camera away too. My friend tell me these things distract. I must concentrate on my school.”
Remember, pick your battles, I told myself. I stayed to watch more and more “extras” meet their demise just in case something indispensable was at risk. As items flew into the trash bin, my own cabinets, cluttered with unused items, came to mind. Did I really need that set of used, chipped, brown stoneware dishes? Or a dozen other wedding gifts I’d never used? Could they be useful for someone else?
I hoped America didn’t change James’ priorities too much. But next time, I’d encourage him to take his discards to Goodwill.
The move to the new Adams Street apartment took only two trips. They decided they needed a sofa bed for weekend visitors. Weekend visitors, huh. I bit my tongue and hoped they liked sharing the five remaining plates.
We found the perfect pullout couch at a thrift store.
“Now this is the really tricky part,” I told them once we’d unloaded it from the truck. “See the twine it’s tied up with? We have to tip it to get it through the door. You don’t want these babies to open up, so it’s tied closed.”
Benson and Alepho each lifted an end. The particularly deep-seated sofa bed wasn’t cooperating with their narrow door. “Okay, now tilt it as little as possible to get it through.” A screen door reduced the opening further. They tilted and tilted and tilted. No good. Still wouldn’t fit.
“More,” I said.
The sofa bed flew open like a jack-in-the-box and jammed in the door frame.
Damn. That happened every time I’d moved one of those things. I burst out laughing. From the expression on their faces, nothing was funny.
“Ju … dee!” Benjamin yelled, coming into their courtyard. “I got callback.”
Did he say callback? “Benjamin. Glad you’re here.”
“You take me?”
“First, hurry. Grab this end.”
With four sets of hands we wrangled the sofa closed without losing any fingers, got it the rest of the way through the door and arranged against the wall.
I took a deep breath and brushed the dust off my pants. “What did you say you need to go to?”
“I have callback at four o’clock. Can you come and talk with these people?”
“You mean like a second movie audition? How did you get that?”
“Paper say all African men come. I go and they take my picture and make video. They call and they say, ‘Benjamin. Come back at four o’clock. The director want you.’ ”
Boy, had I been wrong thinking he would have no chance with Hollywood. He sure was resourceful. The meaning of his Dinka name, Akuectoc, came to mind. The self-relia
nt one.
“They say I have to go for three week.”
“Three weeks? Really. What movie?” I’d heard a student had been following him around with a movie camera for several days and disrupting his work.
“I don’t know movie. They say I go to Mexico.”
“Mexico? You’ve got to be careful. We better find out what they pay and stuff. Who are they? Sometimes these movie companies don’t really have money, so I don’t want you to lose your job for nothing.”
Or be in a porn film.
It wasn’t all that surprising someone had discovered him. He was tall, stunning in appearance, and full of charisma, charm, and confidence.
“No, I cannot lose my job at Ralphs. You take me then?”
“We need to get the other sofa section at the store, and then I have to pick up Cliff from school.”
What was I saying? I had to go with Benjamin. Who knew what these people were up to. He could not go alone.
“Never mind, Benjamin. Cliff can go home with a friend. I’ll pick you up at your apartment at three forty-five.”
• • •
Benjamin was waiting in front of his apartment in a white golf shirt tucked into black jeans. He squeezed into the front seat. “You look nice,” I said. “How do you like Benson and Alepho’s new apartment?”
“It is good.”
“I think it will be safer. I hope you’re always careful.”
Creasing his brow, he said, “I was attacked too.”
“Attacked? What do you mean? When?”
“Nobody believe me. Before Alepho beat up, one night when I get off work at Ralphs, like eleven o’clock in the night. I just waiting at the bus stop on University and two men, they speak Spanish to each other. In English they say, ‘You want to fight?’ and they attack me.”
“What happened?”
“They attack me and I knock them down. They didn’t get up; they just lay there. When the bus came, the driver is African American. He say, ‘Hey, what the hell’s going on here?’ I show him my Ralphs badge.” Benjamin grabbed his shirt where the badge would be, as though he were showing it to me. “And I say, ‘These men, they attack me.’ The bus driver say, ‘Come on, get in.’ ”
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