Mom was making progress in this strange culture, and she inspired me. In Russia work for a girl my age would’ve consisted of learning to cook and sew ghastly dresses from ghastly Soviet pattern books, but Hollywood teemed with opportunities.
For a while I simply went door-to-door, asking if anyone was hiring; from an Allstate office, to a tattoo parlor, to a Chinese massage parlor, to a place that was called Pussy Parlor but wasn’t a parlor at all.
I soon learned that most immigrants in L.A. worked in their families’ businesses, and that those who didn’t found something in their families’ friends’ businesses. Per Olga’s nagging, Dad kept suggesting I learn tarot cards and channeling and set up shop with them. “This way you could take over when I retire and have something to fall back on in case you fail at everything else,” he’d say.
Dad and Olga’s business was booming, and they could spare a few clients if I wished to make a little money.
On several occasions Dad hinted that he’d give me his special porcelain divination plate, or even the photo album Grandpa Andrei had forbidden me to look at all those years ago. Some of the pictures in it were so old, they’d nearly faded into white. I knew how much these items meant to him, but I also knew that by accepting them I’d be agreeing to be the keeper of my family’s legacy. And at the time, I believed myself unsuited for that job.
To complicate things, Olga continued to drill Dad about my unengaged status. I started seriously to consider life away from the pressure to follow such outdated traditions. Dad wasn’t the staunchest of conservatives, but even he treated girls as if we were a part of the home decor. Were I a boy, I would’ve been encouraged to go out in the world and get into as much trouble as I could. Romani boys are pampered first by their grandmothers, then by their mothers, then sisters, wives, and eventually daughters. They’re passed on from one to the other like a suckling pig on a golden tray.
Misha, I remember, was the cause of an explosive argument between Grandma Ksenia and Grandpa Andrei. One day Aunt Laura sent her teenage son to the market for a tub of sour cream. After Misha sulked out of the house and down the street, Grandma flew to the open kitchen window, yanked aside the curtains, and yelled for him to come back. He was too far to hear, and when Grandma turned around, her cheeks puffed out in fury. When Grandma got really mad, she threw things at people. If livid, she would become theatrical, bawling and lamenting while down on her knees. At the counter Aunt Laura was rolling meat patties between her palms for Moldavian meatballs that would be simmered slowly in paprika and sour cream sauce.
“Mother, leave him be,” she said.
“Why’d you have to send the poor boy out in this wind? I could’ve gone instead!”
“This is the first time I’ve asked him to do a chore in months. He’ll be fine. The market is only around the block.”
Grandma squeezed her fists to her chest and shouted, “Andrei! Andrei! Come here right now. Come see what your daughter has done.”
Grandpa shuffled in from the living room, where he’d been reading the morning paper in his striped pajamas, sitting in his favorite armchair. He examined his wife and his daughter from above the rims of his glasses with the expression of a man perpetually harassed. Grandma pointed a finger at their daughter, who kept rolling those balls. “She forced my Misha to do woman’s work. What if someone we know recognizes him? What will people think? That we use our firstborn for a working mule, that’s what. Tell her to leave my Mishenka alone.”
Grandpa continued to stand in the doorway with his paper rolled up in one huge hand.
“Tell her!” Grandma demanded again.
Suddenly Grandpa raised the newspaper and whacked it against the doorframe, making all of us jump. “Leave her alone, woman. Your Mishenka is eighteen. His pecker’s been over this neighborhood like last year’s cold. You know how many girls he’s already knocked up?”
“My God, but you can be vicious,” Grandma breathed.
“He’s a man, so let him get sour cream for his mother once in a while. Let him show he’s good for more than—”
“Stop accusing my boy.”
“He’s not yours, Ksenia, and he’s not a boy anymore.”
No one thought twice about how many trips for sour cream or anything else the girls in the family made inside a week. Grandma used to send me and Zhanna across the street to a neighbor who kept chickens in his backyard. The coop was stuffy and dark, with three rows of nesting boxes lined with straw shavings. It housed about twenty hens and smelled like farts and old grass. I minded going only when this neighbor, an ancient man with a beard that resembled upturned shrubbery, was in the process of wringing chicken necks, but Misha was never asked to carry out this task. Collecting eggs stained with chicken shit was definitely women’s work. So was carrying the still-warm body of a freshly slaughtered and plucked chicken across the street.
When I finally found a job, Dad let me know exactly how he felt about it the day I brought home my new aquamarine uniform embroidered with the insignia of my first employer: Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’d found the job by sheer chance. After hitting every spot up and down the neighborhood streets, which included a doctor’s office, some jewelry stores, and a copy center, I’d come to the conclusion that to be employed, I had to be either a nineteen-year-old with colossal boobs or a college graduate with ambitions of being underpaid.
Worn out, I spotted a fast-food restaurant and went inside to get a drink; the place was packed with chicken lovers of all ages. Dad had recently developed a taste for McDonald’s, where he regularly attempted to bargain down the price of a cheeseburger. He’d argue amicably, in broken English, while cussing in Russian.
“I buy six cheeseburgers. Four dollars,” Dad would say, smiling.
“I’m sorry, sir, but the prices are nonnegotiable.”
“Come, come. Nasral ya tebe na golovoo (I shit on your head).” Still smiling. “Okay. I buy ten. Five dollars. End offer.”
I don’t know why the KFC manager hired me. Based on numerous interview books I’ve read since, the phrase “I really need a job” sounds way too desperate. But then and there, Mr. Dai gave me a chance without even seeing as much as an ID.
As I made my way to the kitchen back home, I distinguished Igor’s baritone arguing with Dad about Russian politics, as well as a hubbub of other chatter. I sent up a silent prayer begging for Alan not to be one of the visitors, and once inside the doorway, I let out a thankful breath. As always, the people at the table were clients who had, with time, become good friends. My father was telling a joke about a man who’d used vodka to cure his insomnia. He was holding his guitar, strumming the strings as if the joke were meant to be accompanied by a musical score.
But he stopped when he saw me and, in my arms, the uniform.
“School ended three hours ago,” he said.
“I should’ve called. But look … I found a job.”
He placed the guitar next to him like it was a small child and gestured for the uniform, which I handed over with a nervous smile. “Look, everyone. My daughter found a job. Isn’t that something? We’re going to be rich.” That produced a few chuckles. “How much will this job pay?”
I hesitated, feeling stupid because I’d forgotten to ask. “Well, Mr. Dai didn’t say specifically.”
“So. You refuse my offer to teach you what I know, but you’re willing to bake chicken for this Mr. Dai without even knowing how much he’ll pay you?”
I was stung by his callousness, especially in front of guests. “I thought you’d be proud,” I said. After all, I’d done it all on my own.
“Sit down, Oksana.”
I did, and he gave me back the uniform. Somewhere in the recesses of the house, Olga’s voice rose and fell. She was with a client, and that meant that with luck Dad wouldn’t throw any major fits. Then again, he’d been known to kick clients out for not taking their shoes off before walking into his living room.
“I ask you, my friends.” He placed both elbows on
the edge of the table, brought his hands together as if in prayer, and nodded at the silent faces around the table. “Is this why we come to this country? So our children can slave their youths away while making some asshole rich?”
“You’re absolutely right,” said Igor, considerably more opinionated in the absence of his wife. “They’re exploiting our kids, like the Soviets exploited us. These two countries are twins separated at birth. Had I only known…” His voice trailed off.
“But this isn’t forever,” I said. “Lots of my friends work just to have a little pocket money.”
Dad wagged his index finger at me and then pointed it straight up. “They make you believe that you have all the time in the world, that you can work a five-dollar job until the real thing comes along,” he said. “It’s bullshit. One day you’re seventeen, the next, your teeth are floating in a glass of water.”
I sighed, louder then I’d intended, and he narrowed his eyes at me.
“Perhaps you are turning into an American, my daughter, living halfway, like they do.”
Grandpa Andrei often said that the Kopylenko clan didn’t live halfway. This meant that we spent lifetimes learning our craft from each other, not trading it in for a safer occupation. No one I knew was an accountant/musician. You were either one or the other. But like many old-school Romani, my grandfather had his own idea of what the right choice for his family should be. When Grandma Ksenia was invited to sing at the Bolshoi, it was my grandfather who forbade it. Grandma was a coloratura soprano, her agile voice capable of rich ornamental elements, sought out by the opera scouts. No matter. No Roma wife went against her husband, especially in such a public matter.
Grandpa ruled, onstage and off
But times were different now. There was no stage, there were no Roma songs, there was no touring. And the only thing my father was interested in teaching me was the language of the dead. My family was in a limbo, suspended between two worlds, and I for once was in a hurry to leap into the new one.
If a job at a fast-food joint wasn’t going to accomplish that, I was out of ideas.
“Dad, come on. Not everything’s a conspiracy. What’s wrong with working a regular job, anyway?”
“I forbid you,” my father said.
I took the job regardless. He knew about it. The smell of fried chicken saturated my clothes, skin, and hair. I sneaked home after changing at work, and if Dad and I happened to bump into each other in the hallway before I showered, he’d utter, “Znachit tak (That’s how it’s gonna be),” with a bitter shake of the head.
I’d feign ignorance with the sincerity only a teenager is capable of, but he’d lumber toward the kitchen with long, meaningful sighs.
I was at work one day, in the back, making mashed potatoes from a powdered mix. It struck me as most innovative, to have prepackaged food that required only water to be transformed into something fluffy and moist. I remember begging Mom when I was a kid to buy chicken nuggets stored behind the frosty windows of our local market.
“Eto poloofabrikat govno (This processed crap)? I don’t think so. If you’re hungry we’ll go home and you can have kotleti and barley.” Now I could have all the poloofabrikat govno I could wish for, to make up for years of homemade meals.
I heard Dad before I saw him, his voice reaching out for me with chilly promises of doom. I’d expected a scene, but he didn’t ask for me. Instead he called for Mr. Dai.
I gathered enough courage to peek around the wall separating the registers from the prep counter where Dad was demanding that my manager fire me.
“Is very good here.” Dad gestured around the store. “Good energy, good peoples. But is not for my daughter, you understand? You have childrens?”
Mr. Dai nodded. “I have three.”
“Then you understand. You forbid my daughter to make chicken, yes?”
“Perhaps you’re being a little hard on her. It’s good practice for when they’re adults.”
“No good,” Dad said. “We Roma make money for family, not boss man.” He got his wallet, pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, and handed it to Mr. Dai. “You do this for me, okay?”
My manager didn’t take the bribe but quickly made an excuse to end the conversation, promising to think about it. Dad left disappointed, unprepared for such a catastrophic bribe failure. Soviet life thrived on bribery; that was how things got done.
I came home that night bearing gifts from my manager: a bucket of fried chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy, coleslaw, corn on the cob, and biscuits. “A peace offering,” he’d said. Dad took the bag, saying nothing to me as he chewed on a drumstick. Olga was with a client but came in as soon as she was done, her nose searching out the unfamiliar aroma. They both ate with zeal, licking fingers and noting the smoothness of the potatoes and the sweetness of the coleslaw. The corn dripped with butter. The biscuits, when broken, released sinewy steam.
The next morning, when I opened the fridge to grab some eggs, I found no leftovers from the feast the night before. It was a good sign, and I made sure to thank Mr. Dai for his clever idea. My family’s obsession with Mr. Dai’s chicken took root. Soon Dad and Olga grew so addicted that they left me alone as long as I kept the food coming. At the end of the night shift, Mr. Dai would also take some of the unsold chicken to a homeless family living in the bushes across the street, until the day we got a memo from the corporate office stating that stores must dispose of all leftover food in the industrial-size Dumpsters provided.
“How did they know we were giving away the leftovers?” I asked, reading the note over my boss’s shoulder.
“They have secret cameras all over the stores. Didn’t you know?” one of the other workers said.
“Right. And they fly by night and fight evil with lasers shooting out of their eyes,” I joked nervously, especially since Mr. Dai had refused to comment.
The free chicken dwindled. My father and Olga thought it strange that so much food should go to waste, but since I didn’t understand it myself, how could I explain it to them? I still managed to sneak some out now and then, but most of the time I ended up giving my loot to the homeless family, who apparently did not get the memo.
WHERE OLGA’S SECRET IS REVEALED
I signed up for the year-end talent show the same week I got my job. Every time our school gathered in the auditorium for an assembly, I’d savor the theater’s dusty grandeur and make plans for our future together. Here was my chance to mold that piece of clay Mr. North had shown me I held.
Brandon claimed the place was haunted by ghosts. About fifty years earlier, a girl student had an unfortunate accident with the overhead lights, and more recently, a boy hanged himself from the balcony. But to me it felt like home, and I navigated the theater’s murky atmosphere with light in my heart.
At Dad’s, things were getting out of control. Not only did Olga keep magically disappearing when she came into money; she now disappeared with it for days at a time. The longer she was gone, the more he practiced his guitar, playing scales and riffs until my eardrums felt blistered. To stay out of their way I did all of my own practicing at school. I composed an instrumental song for the concert as I held together the pieces of enthusiasm I’d started to feel weeks earlier.
Still, I couldn’t become invisible. Dad revealed to me his theories about Olga’s whereabouts, expecting me to pitch in on the investigation, until one night Olga got caught in the web of her own deception.
It was two in the morning and I was about to go to bed when the phone rang. Dad was eating lunch with the phone at his elbow (he usually got up at four or five in the evening, so this was typical for him). He answered promptly, his scrambled eggs momentarily forgotten. He must’ve said “What?” at least twenty times before he thrust the phone in my hand, ordering me to take down the address the person on the other end of the line would give. As I did, I watched him stuff the half-eaten eggs down the garbage disposal, cursing them to Hell. The call had come from a Chinese gambling hall where Olga apparently had had
a scrap with one of the poker dealers. “Gambling,” he shouted. “Can you fucking believe it? If she thinks I’m gonna stand by and watch her shit away all our hard work, she doesn’t know me. I’ll divorce her in a fucking wink.”
In the old country, the trains we rode teemed with quick-fix gambling houses. No cops patrolled the locomotives, which made a train compartment the perfect place for setting up card or dice tables and picking wagers out of the crowded, smoke-filled cars. During the stops, a couple of guys kept watch and whistled a warning if a guard boarded. My father participated in his share of all-night betting. “But I was young and money was no problem,” he rationalized. “Your stepmother doesn’t realize that dollars are much harder to come by than rubles.”
We drove through slumbering Los Angeles in the direction of Chinatown. My father never stopped talking about his nerves wearing thin. I almost laughed because he reminded me of Mom. In the past, it was she who rode countless taxis around Moscow, searching for Dad in the local bars or bailing him out of jail. Before Roxy was born, I remember riding through the bitter cold often, all the while dreaming of the cozy bed I’d been forced to leave. Once, we found Dad at a nightclub just as he was ambushed by several members of a notorious Ossetian gang. Dad, drunk enough to insult one of the men’s mistresses, hadn’t expected such a severe retaliation. When Mom and I showed up, one of them had my father in a chokehold, a curved blade at his throat. The place swarmed with patrons trying to flee a potential crime scene. My mother got on her knees, begging him to let go of her husband. She was seven months pregnant with my sister.
It turned out to be a long ride before Dad and I came to a stop in front of a peeling two-story building on the outskirts of Chinatown.
From the outside it looked abandoned. The shiny black windows gave no indication of activity.
American Gypsy Page 24
