By Hamed Alipoor
Translated from Dari by Farhad Azad
January-March 2000
Lemar-Aftaab
God knows each day, perhaps more than a thousand times I walked through
this restaurant. On each trip with an empty bus-tub, I would go to the end of
the dinning room of the restaurant and pick up dishes with leftovers, coffee
cups, glasses of water and alcohol and a hundred other types of drinks. My job
at the restaurant was a dishwasher and bus-boy.
It was interesting that I had came from a culture where a man didn't make that
much money by cooking and cleaning, but here survival was by cooking
and cleaning. Without this work, I would have had nothing.
Not counting the owner of the restaurant, who was there from open to close,
seven other people worked in the dinning room: Black, White, Chinese, Hispanic, Iranian and Afghan. In the kitchen, where I worked the most, there was a cook, his assistant and I. The noise of the pots and pans, the cooking of the soup and the running water of the sink
all mixed in the air. In addition to that, no one talked to anyone else. Everyone was busy
with his or her work.
The owner of the restaurant was a rich, talkative Iranian man. From time to time, he would
drink and in his state of drunkenness, he would give me long lectures about how this wealth
was not given to him from the air and was not inherited from his father.
He would say, "Like you, I worked very hard until I got myself here."
I don't know why he would lecture me like this. Was it that he wanted me to work
harder and better for him or did he want to support the reality that I faced?
My uncle was the owner's friend. And it was my uncle who after a week of my
arrival to America, took me to the restaurant and got me this job. From the first day,
I didn't like it. This job was hard to favor for a man who in his entire life had not washed
a cup, glass or dish.
This was the first time I had seen the kitchen of a restaurant. I couldn't imagine how this
little kitchen could feed all the customers. All the employees were under an ill-humored
man who was called a "manager". In working hours, we would work like machines. The only
thing we could do was think.
I never would have guessed that in America they had pots like these! These pots reminded
me of my brother's wedding in Afghanistan. It reminded me of the cook whom we called
Agha Lala. Although he looked like a very cold, dry man, once you got to know him,
he was a very kind, wise person.
Here, you could not cook "plauw". In this pot, they cooked something similar to a
"shor-ba", and it was called "soup". The soup was enough for hundreds of people and
made thousands of dollars for the owner of the restaurant. At the end of the night, it was
poor me who had to wash these pots, pans, ladles and bowls. I didn't discuss my discontent
and accepted this with myself.
I heard from many people that their first job in America was at a gas station or a
dishwasher like me who worked 60 to 70 hours a week and so forth. Before I could
discuss my work with them, I was obligated to listen to their repetitious sad stories. My
ears were very full of their talk and my pockets very empty. And this was my reason to
keeping this job. Having a wife and child was not a small responsibility. I was not a child
who did not feel the condition I was in, but I hated my job.
I felt that America had presented me something bad. After all, I was a writer and poet
for many years. I had been in this field and had finished my schooling. But I knew that
to boast and talk about myself did not matter here, and discussion on the subject of poetry
and arts for many people was laughable or a sign of lunacy. I had once borrowed from a
friend the book, "No One Knows in the West", and in three nights finished the book. Now,
I knew what it was about.
Nevertheless, this job was better than no job, which equaled to no pay. I was waiting to
receive my first paycheck. And with it, I wanted to buy cloths, pencils and notebooks for
my five year-old son to get him ready for kindergarten and to get my wife money for
transportation to go to the city college for language classes. If after all the expenses,
there was still some money left, I wanted to buy some things for home.
I worked seven days a week from two in the afternoon until eleven at night. The owner
of the restaurant knew that with my limited English, I couldn't find better work. For this
reason, even if I worked harder, he would not give me a raise.
My wife always said, "Mr. Javid, the owner, has found a helpless person to use."
I always agreed with her but didn't say anything.
I didn't own a car, yet. I had told myself that the first car that I would buy would be for
my wife. For hours, my wife and I would study the driver's guidebook, although at the time
we didn't know the rules of driving.
The restaurant that I worked at was a long way from home. And I couldn't take the bus
the whole way. First I had to walk about two miles to the bus stop. I waited 15-20 minutes
for the bus, which would take me 45 minutes to the closest stop to the restaurant. When I
got off the bus, I would then walk for 20 minutes or more to get to the restaurant.
At any rate, I would leave home at around 12:30 PM and get home at one in the morning or later.
I would always tell my wife not to wait up for me and sleep, but she wouldn't listen. She
would be half-awake until my arrival. For these reasons, this job at the restaurant was
taking my life.
At that time of the night, the bus home was empty. The people I saw on the bus where
the same people sitting in the same seats as the night before, and their manners never
changed from pervious night. I felt that we all had become a part of the bus.
There was a fat Black woman who like me was returning from a hard job; she would fall
asleep on the bus. Every time the driver stopped, the bus rocked. She would move a little,
open her eyes and after a few seconds, she would fall asleep again.
There was a young man, perhaps a student, who always carried a school bag and a book in his hand. He would
sit on the first seat and was deep in his studies. His real focus was on his book, and he never
looked outside or at the other passengers. I didn't know how he knew the bus arrived at his
stop.
Usually, I sat in the middle of the bus and gazed at the stores and streets. I was
always thinking of my various problems, which yielded no results.
The rest of the bus didn't change much every night with the exception of a few drunken
fools. Some of them slept on the long seats at the back of the bus; they spoke loudly to
themselves. Sometimes young girls with babies would get on the bus. Sometimes other
women would come in; God only knew what they did.
The bus driver was a friendly, elderly man. From time to time, he would look from his back
mirror at the passengers who were being loud. He would look and say, "Control yourselves!"
The noisy people would listen to the driver, but after a few minutes of silence, they would
became loud again.
I still am haunted by the memories of that night. It was the night of June 11th, and it was
15 days since the start of my work. I got my first pay, which consisted of one-dollar and
five-dollar bills. The owner very slowly counted the money in front of me. I again counted
the money myself. It was $225.00. I put the money in a wallet that my uncle had given me.
I thought about which needs of life I could first embrace with this money.
However, I knew before everything else, I had to take care of the needs of my child who
was enrolled in kindergarten. I needed to buy him cloths, a school bag and some toys.
They had told me many times, and I knew; in America, you should never carry too much
cash with you because there was always a chance of being robbed.
But I couldn't help it because the arrangement between the owner was to pay me in cash
twice a month. When my work was finished, my appearance was unkempt and shabby. No
one could have imagined that I had any money.
When I got off the bus at 12:30 AM and headed for home, I felt very thirsty. It was the first
time that I wanted something to drink at this time of the night. I entered the first store that
was on my way.
Inside the store, there were a few young men who without any interest
were looking at various magazines. When a customer came inside with the ring of the door,
they would look at the customer and talk among themselves and laugh. I knew it was best
to pretend not to notice these young men. Whenever I found trouble anywhere, I tried to
change my path. I tried to do that here by swallowing my pride, saying my prayers and
heading my way.
I got my drink, took out my wallet and payed the storeowner.
All day long, I was running around at work and was very exhausted. My body was full of
sweat. I quickly drank; it felt good.
I wanted to get home quickly. After a few feet, I heard the sound of a car halting. Some
young men called out from the car, "He is by himself, he is by himself!"
I looked and was not scared. But this street was known for its high crime rate. However,
in the middle of the night, wouldn't you be scared of a group of young men?
They quickly got out of the car. I thought that I had seen one of them a few minutes ago in
the store. He seemed very cruel. He had a bottle of liquor in his hand and a cigarette in his
mouth. Another one called out with profane language, which I didn't really understand.
He then said to me, "If you want to live, give me your wallet!"
People always warned me of this, and now this was happening to me so soon! I thought for
a second, if I got in a fight with these drunk guys, perhaps I could quickly run away. But I
realized that in these situations, in my country, physical fights would have already started
by now.
I slowly gave my wallet to the young man who had yelled at me. He continued to yell and
curse. The only thing that I understood was that they would have beaten the hell out of me.
The car quickly drove away. I saw two other people far behind me who had seen the whole
incident from a distance, but they had turned into another street.
A few minutes later, I started to head home. At once, my eyes were full of tears. The tears
of a man are tears of true pain. My tears were not for the money but for my helplessness. I
felt that they had raped me, and I couldn't do anything. They not only stole my wages, but
they stole my pride as well. They took away my hopes in this place. I thought about my
five-year-old child who was quietly asleep and my wife who was half asleep awaiting my
arrival. My tears dried. And I walked home.
This short story was published on Caravan
(issue number 61). Permission for translation was granted by Caravan Publications.
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