by Mawi Asgedom
The straw basket they guarded dwarfed the youngest boy. But what was in it? What treasures did that basket hide? Lollipops? Tootsie Rolls? Candy bars? We hoped that it wasn’t fruit, so we wouldn’t have to throw it back at their house later.
We approached the house. When we saw the orange rectangles brimming over the basket’s top, we felt our stomachs growl. It was our favorite: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. There had to be one hundred Reese’s in that treasure chest. Two hundred. Who knows, it might have even been five hundred! Certainly enough for several months!
We had seen the two boys once before with their dark metallic bikes. Their bikes glimmered with an even brighter shine than new bikes; we knew that they must have spent hours every day cleaning them.
Any kid who cleaned his bike every day would be easy picking, so we approached quietly, knowing that this would be fun.
I slid around to the back of the house, keeping low, making sure they didn’t see me.
Tewolde approached the house. He stopped out on the sidewalk and motioned the kids over excitedly. “Hey, come look at this.”
The older kid hesitated a little bit. I couldn’t wait for him to go. All I needed were a few seconds.
He went.
I shot out from my hiding place, straight for the Reese’s. The younger one screamed, but it was too late. I was already dumping the basket into my pillowcase.
I couldn’t get it all because the older kid heard the scream and started to run back. Above all, I feared that their parents might come out.
But we still got about half of that candy, and I split it with Tewolde once we were several blocks away.
I couldn’t have known it then, but that older kid would one day be my best friend.
Several Halloweens after we pirated the Reese’s, our friend Kiros from the Sudanese village joined us in Wheaton. He would make Tewolde and me look like Mother Teresa.
Kiros lived with us for a few weeks and then relocated next to our Cambodian and Vietnamese refugee brothers down on Route 38, in the yellow-and-redbrick apartments that house most of Wheaton’s refugees.
We wondered, “Is he still crazy? Does he still climb huge trees and launch missiles down onto unprotected heads?”
Soon after he arrived, Kiros and I sat in the basement of my family’s home, playing gifa, a card game we had learned in Sudan. Playing led to cheating, cheating to yelling, yelling to card-throwing, and I arose, ready to defend myself. Kiros was no bigger than me.
But he leaped up and grabbed a plastic baseball bat. Swinging it wildly and threatening injury, he lunged at my head. He was still crazy.
After Kiros moved down to Route 38, we did not see him as often. Sometimes he vanished for weeks, even months.
But each October 31, no matter how long it had been, his thick afro always greeted us at our door after school. How he beat us home, we never quite figured out, since our schools let out at the same time and he had much farther to run. I guess he feared that we would start without him or forget about him.
The three of us started on our way. Was it us or my parents who refused to let Mehret come along? Probably my parents, since they are habesha, and habeshas never let their daughters do anything.
Rounds one and two merged into one with Kiros along. Tewolde egged us on:
“See that basket full of Snickers and Milky Ways inside the porch? That porch door looks open to me. I bet you it is — who locks their porch in Wheaton? I dare you to sneak inside and get that basket, man. Look at all those candy bars. I dare you. Do it if you’re a man.
“Watch out, Selamawi! Kiros is in! He’s pouring the candy into his pillowcase. Run, dude, run! She’s coming! He’s got the basket and the fat white woman chases him. Goo-ye! Run before her husband comes! Run before the police find us! Run or our lives will be lost! Change blocks! Jump the fence!
“Are you crazy, Kiros!? I was just kidding! All right. At least share some of that candy for all of the running we had to do because of you.”
We did many deeds that were downright dishonest, but we only felt guilty about one. And we didn’t even mean to do that one.
We had approached a house and rung the doorbell, and when that didn’t work, we started to knock on the door. Was anyone there? It was one of those long, narrow, single-level homes near the railroad tracks, and most of the lights were off.
Tewolde and I started to leave. “Wait,” Kiros said. “I see her coming. She’s coming very slowly.”
The old woman hobbled to the door, peering outside before opening it. She held an aluminum tray of candy bars.
We bowed respectfully to her and put on our best smiles. In our culture, we never harm the elderly. We revere them. We rise and give them our seats if they enter a room. We refer to them in the plural, never the singular, for they have the wisdom and deserve the respect of many.
I went first and took one piece of candy, just like she said. No Reese’s, but my second-favorite, Snickers. Tewolde went next. He reached out his hand to take another Snickers.
We never quite figured out what happened next. Maybe Kiros pushed Tewolde, maybe Tewolde slipped, maybe the old woman slipped. Whatever the cause, Tewolde knocked the tray over and the candy bars scattered, some to Tewolde’s bag, some to the grass, some to the startled woman’s feet.
We bent down to gather the candy for her. “You clumsy chump, Tewolde. What did you do?”
We were trying to help her, but the old woman, convinced that we intended to rob her, raised the aluminum tray high overhead, like Moses about to shatter the Ten Commandments.
Ranting and raving and crying all at once, the old woman smashed the metal tray on Kiros’s ‘fro with frightening force.
Kiros slumped to the sidewalk, too dizzy to move. “Get up, Kiros. Get up!” We dragged him up and fled.
The old lady hobbled after us but couldn’t catch us. How could she when she could barely walk?
We had felt guiltless in taking from those richer than us in Wheaton — maybe because taking was so much fun, or maybe because we considered ourselves modern-day Robin Hoods, taking from the rich and giving to ourselves.
But even we had rules. Rules forged by the limping refugee woman, by our own flight, by our mother’s homesickness, by “African boodie-scratcher,” by all the many harsh things we had known.
Our rules demanded that we would never add hurt to the hurting.
The old woman could not catch us, but she threw her words at us. We heard them and we trembled. For we had always been taught, and we earnestly believed, that the heartfelt curses of the elderly and the weak are heard by Him above, and that they always come true — if not in this world, then in the next.
As much as our run-in with the old woman shook us up, it didn’t cure us of mischief. We still plundered many baskets and looted many trays.
It took something else, something completely unrelated to Halloween, to make us consider changing our ways. It took the parking meter.
It all started when basketball dethroned soccer as our favorite sport. Growing up in Michael Jordan’s backyard, we started to play hoops religiously.
During the height of our basketball fever, all of Wheaton’s teenage greats converged on one outdoor court: Triangle Park, just over the railroad tracks from where we lived.
We went to watch and play almost every day, each time crossing the railroad tracks illegally. We had heard that there was a fifty-dollar fine if you got caught, but we didn’t care. We refused to walk all the way around, more than a quarter mile extra, just to use the crosswalk.
One day we crossed the tracks, walked through the trees, and came out on the other side, across the street from the grassy rectangle that was misnamed Triangle Park. Close to forty Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees, Wheaton College students, and Route 38 brothers milled about the court.
We knew that we would have to wait at least an hour to get a game. We stood on our side of the street, adding our figures to the long line of parking meters that guarded the tracks b
ehind us.
Tewolde. Myself. A giant, light-skinned, Nigerian-American brother named Bo. And a dark-skinned brother with an impressive ‘fro, even bigger than the ones that Americans had sported in the ‘70s. This was the kind of ‘fro that Eritrean and Ethiopian tegadalies, or guerilla fighters, grew out in the wilderness.
Guerilla-afro brother leaned against the parking meter, and it moved. Not much, but just enough.
Glancing at the sand-speckled dirt next to the meter, and then at each other, each of us considered the same question: How many quarters did that double-headed parking meter hold?
“I bet it holds at least five dollars! Maybe even ten!”
“I bet it holds even more. The meter man probably comes to collect the money every two weeks, and with its two heads, the meter probably collects at least two dollars a day. There’s gotta be at least thirty dollars in there.”
Thirty divided by four equals seven dollars and fifty cents. Tewolde and I grinned at each other — this could double our annual budget!
Each time we went to Triangle Park, we shook our giant piggy bank just a little more. Each time, we heard our money jingle a little louder.
One day Big Bo became impatient and bull-rushed the meter, knocking it flat on its feet.
Pedestrians and cars passed by, commuters coming home after a long day’s work in the city. If they saw four brothers standing next to the fallen meter, they would suspect something. If they saw four brothers carrying it down the street, they would call the police.
But we refused to leave our parking meter. We had worked too hard for it. And we wanted our $7.50.
We picked it up. One parking meter, four teenage guys — no problem, we figured.
But the city had weighed down the bottom of the meter with more than one hundred pounds of cement, making it almost impossible to balance.
We didn’t care. It could have been three hundred pounds. Nothing was going to keep us from our money.
We dragged our prize to the secret tunnel next to the railroad tracks. Tewolde and I had discovered the tunnel long ago, when we were out hunting with our Cambodian brother. Slinging homemade bows and arrows, we had patrolled the trees that border the tracks, looking for rabbits and squirrels. One time, we hit a rabbit and it led us to the tunnel.
The tunnel was a great underground hideaway. Usually, though, we avoided it because overgrown plants guarded the entrance and darkness reigned inside. Besides, the tunnel was only three feet high.
We crept in slowly, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the dark. We kept dragging the meter until we were sure that no one could see it from the outside.
Then we encountered our first major problem: We had no way to get the money out. The meter’s money pouch had no screws near it. I guess the city had prepared for punks like us.
We returned the next morning with hammers, screwdrivers, and nails, vowing to find a way into the money pouch. We saw metal tent pegs lying next to the tracks; they would help us pop open the meter head.
One hour elapsed, and still we labored. To keep our spirits up, we shook the meter head and listened to the clang of our quarters. Laughing, we considered ourselves the boldest adventurers. Who could stop us?
At some point, I heard a noise. But I thought it was one of the others. As the static of the walkie-talkie grew louder, though, I knew. I knew even before I saw the flashlight and the metal star and the white policeman’s unbelieving face gazing in at us. I saw felony at age eleven flash before my eyes, and I saw it mirrored in my brother’s eyes, too.
Even worse, we both thought of my father and a story he always told us:
MY CHILDREN. THERE WAS A POOR WIDOW WHO LIVED IN THE COUNTRYSIDE. SHE HAD NEITHER LIVESTOCK NOR GARDEN AND LIVED EACH DAY WITHOUT KNOWING HOW SHE WOULD EAT THE NEXT DAY. SHE HAD ONLY ONE THING IN THE WORLD, HER YOUNG SON.
ONE DAY THE WIDOW’S SON, WHO HAD GROWN OLD ENOUGH TO PLAY OUTSIDE WITH HIS FRIENDS, BROUGHT HOME AN EGG. A TINY EGGSMALL, LIKE THE DUST. THE WIDOW DID NOT ASK WHERE THE TINY EGG HAD COME FROM. SHE BOILED IT AND THEY ATE IT TOGETHER.
THE NEXT DAY THE SON BROUGHT A BIGGER EGG. SOON AFTER, TWO EGGS. THEN TEN EGGS. FINALLY, HE BROUGHT THE WHOLE CHICKEN. THE WIDOW STILL SAID NOTHING. SHE KEPT COOKING THE FOOD AND FEEDING HERSELF AND HER SON.
MANY CHICKENS, GOATS, AND SHEEP LATER, THE SON FINALLY HIT THE JACKPOT: HE BROUGHT HOME A WHOLE COW. HIS MOTHER SAID NOTHING, AND THEY MILKED THE COW AND DRANK THE MILK TOGETHER.
AS THEY SAT FINISHING THE MILK, THE MAGISTRATE CAME WITH THE POLICE AND ARRESTED THE SON FOR STEALING THE COW. DECLARING THAT THE SON WOULD HAVE TO DIE FOR HIS CRIME, THE MAGISTRATE ORDERED THE POLICE TO TAKE HIM TO THE HOUSE OF IMPRISONMENT.
THE DISTRAUGHT WIDOW HUMBLED HERSELF AND THREW HERSELF AT THE MAGISTRATE’S FEET AND BEGGED FOR HER SON’S FREEDOM. “PLEASE, SIR, I BEG YOU, HE IS MY ONLY SON AND ALL THAT I HAVE. PLEASE SHOW MERCY ON HIM.”
BUT BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE COULD SPEAK, THE SON REPLIED TO HIS MOTHER: “NO, MOTHER, IF YOU REALLY CARED ABOUT ME, YOU SHOULD HAVE STOPPED ME WHEN IT WAS ONLY A TINY EGG. NOW IT’S TOO LATE.”
IT STARTS SMALL, WITH A TINY EGG. BUT BEFORE YOU KNOW IT, THE EGG BECOMES A CHICKEN AND THE CHICKEN, A COW. THEN YOU FIND YOURSELF IN THE HOUSE OF IMPRISONMENT OR WORSE.
SO I AM TELLING YOU NOWDON’T SAY THAT YOUR FATHER DID NOT WARN YOU. IF I EVER CATCH YOU STEALING THE SMALLEST THING, IF I HEAR THAT YOU HAVE EVEN BEEN THINKING ABOUT STEALING ANYTHING, FEAR FOR YOUR LIVES.
I WILL MAKE YOU LOST.
Having attended church fifty Sundays out of the year and studied the Bible as a family each Saturday and Sunday night, having grown up with our culture’s morals implanted in our conscience, and of course, having heard our father’s “it starts with an egg” fable, we should have feared to steal anything, let alone government property.
But we had not learned our lesson, and we found ourselves staring at a policeman. Had he seen us looking for the tent pegs out on the tracks? Had a passerby heard the clanging and told him about the noise? Had he discovered the missing parking meter and decided to snoop around?
We didn’t know. We just knew that it was time to run.
My brother and I had been chased by a huge dog one summer, chased for two blocks. We had run then.
We had exploded fireworks near a bully’s foot one Fourth of July, and he had chased us for almost half a mile. We had run then.
But never in our lives had we run like we ran from that cop. Keeping our heads low, hoping that the policeman was too tall to fit in the tunnel, praying that another policeman did not wait at the other end, we blazed out of the tunnel, as if a time bomb ticked behind us.
We sprinted all the way home, flew into our rooms, and changed our clothes. Put on a hat! Pat down your hair! Try to look different! Hide in the basement!
And pray that they don’t come.
Running with my best friend, my brother Tewolde. I’m to the left.
LIBEE MIGBAR
Even as we were vandalizing parking meters and terrorizing Halloween baskets, my brother and I were still what many Americans would call “good kids.” We listened to our parents, we did our best in school, and God knows, we tried to respect our peers.
It hurt my brother and me to see our parents struggle, and we wanted, more than anything, to be able to help them some day. So we worked hard at school, and after several years, we graduated from the ESL (English as a Second Language) program at Longfellow Elementary and entered regular classes full-time.
We were extremely fortunate to be in School District 200, where we were blessed with outstanding teachers. We recognized our good luck and took advantage of it.
Over the next ten years, my older brother and I missed fewer than ten days of school combined.
During that time, we thought more and more about how we could help our family. That’s when Tewolde really started to change.
Around age thirteen, he started to go through a special transformation, an emotional maturity that my people call libee migbar, or developing a h
eart.
Before long, Tewolde would teach us all what it truly meant to develop a heart.
Growing up, Tewolde and I often visited Wheaton Public Library. There are two particular visits that I’ll never forget.
The first one came in January 1989. We went with sandwiches, thick, poor-man’s ham from Aldi’s supermarket, slapped onto wheat bread and slathered with a thin film of mayonnaise. We approached the library’s entrance and saw a dark-haired white brother shivering under the awning, where kids usually wait for their parents.
But he was no kid, and no one was coming for him. That’s why he was sitting outside in the dead of winter.
We watched his reddish cheeks quiver; we couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from something else. We went to him and asked him if he was hungry, and he said, “I lost my job and never got another one, and I don’t think I’ll ever get one again. I’m done.”
We couldn’t tell if he was the address-book brother from long ago, but we knew in our hearts that it did not matter. Maybe every stranger was an address-book brother, sent to test the goodness in our hearts.
Whatever the answer, Tewolde’s heart spoke: “We should give him our sandwiches.” I nodded my head and took the sandwiches out of my backpack. I offered them to the man. “I hope you like Aldi ham, bro.”
I went inside then, but Tewolde stayed outside and braved the cold with our friend. A few minutes later, Tewolde and I left.
I forgot about the man for about a year, and I thought that Tewolde had, too. It turned out that he hadn’t.
By the time my brother reached junior high, he had mastered the art of getting things for free. Even though we had an annual budget of less than forty dollars, he still finagled Nintendos, Segas, and other rich-boy treasures from his friends and other sources.
We wanted to lift weights when we entered high school, so he set out looking for a bench and some weights. He found both at our free mall, the Dumpsters of Wheaton College.
