“Where have you been?”
“It’s not important.”
“As long as you had a good reason.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can never make it up to you, I know, but can I try? Can you let me try?”
“Get out.”
He did just that. My mother started to talk about movies and mixed tapes and walks and cold shoulders, all while sitting on the floor. I understood that she was talking for her sake, not mine. A week later, he came back and the scene replayed itself. That time, after he had left, my mother asked me what I thought of my father, and I said, Not much. When he came a week after that, my mother had been gone for two days and I understood that I would never be allowed to have two parents; it would always be a relay race where the baton you had to deliver to the next person was me and the distance between players was nearly infinite, almost the span of a lifetime. I accepted without question my father’s invitation to live with him.
From when I was six and a half to seventeen, we lived in a basement apartment that was unlike the basement apartment I had shared with my mother, in that it didn’t flood, the landlord had a healthy amount of respect for humanity, and it never smelled like anything because we didn’t cook anything that smelled. Our meals were cereal, pasta or macaroni—my father said there was no difference between the two, I asked why did they taste different then, he said they didn’t unless I could taste shapes, and this was my first clue that I might be extraordinary—grilled cheese for me, roast beef for him. Once in a while, we went to Legal Sea Foods, where at sixteen, I unofficially became the oldest Bostonian to sample shrimp for the first time. I had had to work up the courage to partake of something that looked so naked.
As I flew to B______, I thought only of my mother; she had always wanted to be an airline stewardess, but during the reign of Haile Selassie, there were weight, height, and beauty requirements, and she was declared too short. I mourned for her loss, which felt connected to my own. I think I would be less surprised than my father if she were to eventually find her way to us here, at last.
ON THE SUBJECT OF HOW WE MET AYALE
On my fifteenth birthday, my father gave me permission to travel to and from school on my own. This news was delivered as a gift-wrapped-with-trust privilege, but it didn’t escape me that this also meant he no longer had to drop me off or pick me up. I didn’t mind. I knew that he needed to be alone and still for as long and as frequently as possible.
My father worked in various public high schools, fixing mechanical mishaps that could blossom into full-on catastrophes at any moment. He liked this job because it required almost zero contact with other human beings. An administrator would call into the service whose employ he was in and, when my father arrived, would recount the nature of the issue by repeating phrases that included, but were not limited to, “it wasn’t my fault,” “it just happened,” “maybe we should replace the whole damn thing.” My father would nod and wait patiently until left alone to determine what had actually occurred.
Despite long hours alone in his car, on the job, in the car again, my father still had to contend with the fact that he had a live person to feed, clothe, and sign report cards for. Weekends were torture; I could see it in his face. He would stare helplessly as I moved around the small space, asking if we could go to the movies, the park, someplace that served food I liked, which was a rare thing. He wouldn’t let me out alone because as much as he wished he could put me to sleep for specific hours of the day, he never could have lived with the guilt of something happening to me. We are similar in this way: by caring too much about what might happen in the future, we end up caring not enough in the present, too worn out to maintain that kind of attention, no matter how genuine. On those long-ago weekends we would sit in silence in the apartment, reading or watching sitcoms on our small television set (he didn’t encourage laughter but could stand it if I insisted). I would follow his progress as he heated up coffee or smoked and wonder how it was possible that we were here, together, in this place.
On the birthday of my transport liberation, we went to the arboretum. He sat on a bench, I halfheartedly biked up and down a few paths, we had a slice each of the Carvel cake that had been melting next to him, because he’d forgotten that I was too old for ice cream cake, we went home, he presented me with a T pass for the month, we watched the only Robert Redford movie he could stand (Three Days of the Condor, a classic), we went to bed.
Public transportation made punctuality a thing of the past since the truth of tardy trains and delayed buses was irrefutable. After school, I would go to Jamaica Plain to explore dusty thrift stores and brunch-all-day cafés, sneak into movies at Copley, watch pretty waifs at the Common perform original songs available on the CDs in their open guitar cases. I learned how to navigate the city in which I had been living for more than a decade. I was confused by the intersection of Tremont and Tremont; I watched men kiss on the mouth in the South End, but my father said that I must have made a mistake; I ate Vietnamese food in Chinatown, which made me sneeze; I got a free ticket to the Wilbur Theatre’s production of Hamlet, which the Globe called unconventional because the lead was fat but thank God he was British.
It was a Friday afternoon when I exited the Park Street station, eyeing the hot pretzel carts, for which I had no money because my allowance never lasted past Wednesday. I had reached the parking lot near the hat store from which my classmate Seth Taschen would later be banned when he politely asked the saleswoman if they sold hats. I was just about to double back when Amharic stopped me.
“On the one hand, he wanted his mother to like her, but on the other hand, he wanted the girl to like him.”
“Muslims are ruthless.”
“Pretty, though.”
“Doesn’t matter now.”
“Why not?”
Four heads swiveled toward me to identify the source of the question before pivoting back to a fifth man, who was still watching.
“Because he’s dead,” this last said.
He was wearing a stained sweat suit, the same shade as the booth against which he leaned, his face this side of perfect. The others lit one cigarette off the last, furtively flashing looks at the speaker before beaming their gazes back down. I felt embarrassed by my interruption, at having forced someone I didn’t even know to pin down and call out mortality. I didn’t feel sad. I don’t remember feeling sadness at that point. I watched things happen to me, adjusted myself, and resisted reflection until my mind relented and let me live blindly once more. Sadness would come later, in never-ending and expanding waves, as if my psyche was punishing me for all the years I’d dodged.
“What’s your name?”
I told him.
“That’s an important name.”
“So they tell me.”
I hadn’t yet discovered the phenomenon by which Ethiopians recognize fellow Ethiopians by face and manner alone; I might have actually believed my parents and myself to be the only Ethiopians in the world. The concept of “Ethiopia” seemed too fantastical to entertain as anything but a lovely origin story. I perhaps even thought this man was a mind reader, a prophet. I wasn’t entirely wrong.
“What happened to him?”
“Kassahun? Wrong place, wrong time is what they’re saying.”
“Who?”
He slid the Metro out from underneath his armpit. Five lines about Kassahun Beyene, age twenty-three, newly arrived from Gondar, non-drinker. Immediately after was a more substantial piece about an Allston divorcée who swore there was an ancient Native American settlement below her hedges.
“How are his drinking habits relevant?”
“I suppose everything counts when it comes to murder.”
“I didn’t know about him.”
He tossed the paper to one of his friends, who caught it and seemed pleased that he had.
“Most people don’t. Bigger papers didn’t seem overly concerned.”
“That’s kind of sad.”
He
laughed. “Isn’t it? You get used to it, though.”
“What?”
“Objective reporting.” He looked over my shoulder. “Are you by yourself?”
“Yes, but I’m going to meet my father soon.”
“Who’s that?”
I gave his name. He eyed the others, who promptly supplied the mutely requested information.
“Thin.”
“Mechanic. Or something.”
“Addis Ababa, his mother knew Mengistu.”
“Been here a while, doesn’t go out.”
“Had a green-card wife, no sign of her now.”
The man absorbed these facts without taking his eyes off me, while I stood there, stunned at how much they knew. This was my first encounter with the unofficial intelligence network that includes all Ethiopians in any given locale. The minute someone leaves the borders of his or her adopted state, it’s like they’ve vanished as far as the remaining inhabitants are concerned. This is particularly apt if they move to Washington, D.C., or L.A., where our people tend to get devoured by the sheer amount of homeland.
“Where do you go to school?”
I told him. He looked impressed.
“What are your favorite subjects?”
“English and history. I hate math.”
“You still do well in it?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
One of the men, dark and steeped in stale smoke, asked if I knew what an Achilles’ heel was. When I defined it, the men nodded appreciatively.
“A real scholar.”
This came from the apparent leader, and though I didn’t understand why, it meant so much to me that he might believe it.
“What is a square root?”
“Can decimals have square roots?”
“Who is Napoleon III? Careful, that might be a trick question.”
“What is more important, the body or the soul?”
“What is virtue?”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Laughter for the first time, in an interrogation I found I was enjoying.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
They laughed even harder before the man by the booth silenced them with a look.
“Ayale.”
“He’s famous.”
“Everyone knows him.”
“I don’t.”
Ayale smiled.
“Admission of ignorance is the first step to gaining real knowledge.”
“I have to go now.”
“Come back soon, anytime during normal business hours. Tell your father that he’s welcome, too: anyone who creates a genuine scholar in this day and age is a friend of mine.”
“Thank you.”
I escaped, almost running to Government Center, where I took the next train home. I tried to do my homework as if nothing had happened, only to strike out when my fidgeting knocked my father’s toolbox onto the floor, where he was carrying out his weekly polishing. He looked at me, aghast. I braced myself for rebuke, but he merely began retrieving the casualties. I made as if to help, but he shook his head.
“Do you know someone named Kassahun Beyene?”
My surprise when he nodded made him laugh.
“How? No, but really: how?”
He kept chuckling as he examined a gleaming monkey wrench.
“Well, if it’s the one I know, his father worked for the same cab company that I did.”
I told him what I’d heard. When I’d finished, his face looked as if someone had scooped out everything inside, leaving only a flexible shell.
“His father must be devastated,” he whispered. “To lose a child … unthinkable.”
“I’m sorry.”
“How did you find out?”
I explained.
“Are you sure it was really Ayale?”
“I mean, I’ve never met or heard of him before, but everyone else seemed convinced.”
The hollows under his eyes and below his cheekbones seemed more pinched than usual as he got up and began heating water on the stove, tools forgotten.
“Are you hungry yet?”
“Wait … that’s it?”
“What do you mean?”
“What are you going to do about Kassahun?”
“What do you expect me to do?”
He seemed furious, and though circumstances would soon prove that I was anything but the most observant, even I could tell that his anger was meant for someone else.
“When are you going to see Ayale?”
“Why would I go see him?” he shot back.
He was just snapping for snaps’ sake now.
“He invited you!”
He gave me a small smile and nothing else.
“How about tomorrow? Can we go see him tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“So?”
“He only works on weekdays.”
“How do you know?”
“Ayale is a famous man.”
“Famous for what?”
“For being where he shouldn’t be and disappearing from where he should.”
He refused to say anything more, busying himself with a box of ziti, pretending he couldn’t hear any additional questions. I finally left it; I didn’t want to pester him to the point where he’d decide I was to never see Ayale again, not as long as I was living under his roof. Furthermore, if such a decree were to be issued, I knew I’d have to disobey.
The weekend passed uneventfully, and on Monday, I found myself taking more copious notes than ever before, listening to everything my teachers said, searching for tidbits of information to pass along to Ayale as a sign of how each day brought me closer to wisdom. It didn’t bother me that I sat with the unpopular Asian girls at lunch—all rejects from all races were relegated to their table—and I was unimpressed by the newest tattoo acquired by the boy who yearned to be Goth enough to sit at the Goth table. I was above all this. A scholar had to be, in order to better observe the masses, ponder self-created theories, scoff at the notion that life followed the maxims of our school’s Statement of Vision: Good Citizenship, Kindness, Honesty, Character, Art, Sports, Teamwork, Success!
In my last-period study hall, lulled into drowsiness by the rhythmic snores of the monitor, I saw my father in a new light: perhaps he, too, was embarked upon this path of solitary intellect. We all knew the man could unclog drains and reanimate lifeless pieces of heavy-duty machinery with the best of them, but perhaps, concealed behind his curt responses and taciturn companionship, he was generating theories that he thought too mind-blowing for the world and the century into which he had been born. I wondered if he realized that I, his sole progeny, had inherited his burden, that it was I who would be compelled to carry on the mantle of brilliance once he had departed for other, lovelier shores.
I went straight to Ayale’s lot after school, where I posited that Tess of the d’Urbervilles was less a novel, and more the pathetic swan song of an imbecilic weakling. He asked me if I had read a lot of Thomas Hardy. I was surprised that he knew who he was and then ashamed. Ayale noticed, I think, but didn’t say anything.
“Did you tell your father that I’d like to really meet him?”
“What do you mean by ‘really’? Have you met before? I thought you didn’t know him at all.”
Ayale patted me approvingly.
“I’m glad you caught that, good listening. Keep your ears open for inflection, tone shift, odd word usage. It will tell you everything you need to know about the person you’re dealing with.”
I was so delighted that I forgot to pursue my line of questioning. I watched as Ayale talked to customers, mostly older white women at that time of day, wives who no longer worked because they didn’t need the money, who volunteered at urban youth centers in order to fill the otherwise idle hours between when their husbands left for their in-name-only directorships and when they returned with a bottle of something that Jean at the wine shop had promised was the best the Loire Valley
had to offer. I’ve never understood how much money one must accrue in order to be certain that one no longer needs any more. Even after a windfall of frozen boiler systems, my father still had to save for when work would fall off around the school holidays. The difficulty with money wasn’t earning it but controlling it.
Ayale had an enormous wad of cash that he kept in the back pocket of his pants. It was this lump that he added to and withdrew from as he accepted payment and doled out change. He barely looked down at what he was doing, laughing and gesturing with abandon, and yet, if you watched closely, his attention never strayed from the precious cargo he carried under the bulk of his fleece jacket. One of his favorite topics was his luck at having escaped the plague of office work and its accompanying tortures: the ties that choked, the bosses who hovered, the cigarettes that were forbidden, the buttons that constrained, unlike the twin blessings of zippers and drawstrings.
The location of the lot was ideal for escaping unwanted—i.e., unpaid—notice, surrounded as it was by an uneven ring of massive glass buildings, all starkly contrasting with the filthy square of the lot, whose lines demarcating parking spaces had become so faded that they barely counted. Because of their angles, many of these structures didn’t reflect the lot, and later, when I couldn’t bring myself to leave Ayale’s side, I would sit in the attendant’s booth and stare through its window at the building directly in front, unable to see myself or the people around me. I imagined scenarios where the lot was a magic box that no one could see into but from which we saw and judged everything. The accumulated dirt and cigarette ash of the parking area gave off a unique stink. If I could do it all again, I would.
It was five P.M. when Ayale went into the attendant’s booth and closed the door. He emerged minutes later carrying two yellow manila envelopes with names and figures written across them in fine black pen. Ayale always bought the same brand of pen and could abide black ink alone. Blue drove him into a rage.
“I’ll give you a ride home if you show me the way.”
Thanks to my recent habit of idle exploration, I didn’t hesitate. He drove expertly, never speeding up to overcompensate for previous hesitations, using every single one of the mirrors and, what’s more, using them correctly. When we arrived at my building, I got out and thanked him. At that moment, my father rose from the stoop and stepped forward, zipping his navy blue jacket up to his Adam’s apple. Ayale peered out of the passenger-side window, smiled, and offered his hand to shake. My father took it after the tiniest moment of seeming like he might refuse it, like he might detest Ayale with all of his heart. Ayale told him that I had been very helpful, I had finished my homework, he was lucky to have such a wonderful daughter, it was nice, so very nice, to meet him.
The Parking Lot Attendant Page 3
