Uncommon Type

by Tom Hanks

  “That is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. America.”

  “Where is Chee-ca-go?” asked the Bulgarian.

  “Farther from Philadelphia than Cairo is from Athens.”

  “So far? Son of a gun.”

  “Philadelphia looks like paradise, eh? But when we dock in New York, New York, you will see a real American city.”

  Assan lit a smoke, offering one to the chief.

  “Better cigarettes in America.” The chief smoked, eyeing the Bulgarian, who had caused no problems for him. Not a single one. “Tomorrow they search the ship.”

  “Who?”

  “American big shots. They search the ship, high and low, looking for stowaways. Communists.”

  At the mention of Communists, Assan spit over the rail.

  “They count heads,” the chief continued. “If the numbers don’t match up, it’s trouble. If they find nothing, we off-load and then go to New York, New York. I will take you for a shave there. Better than the Turks can shave.”

  Assan said nothing for a moment. “If there are Communists on this ship I hope they find them,” he said, spitting over the rail again.

  —

  Assan lay in his rack faking sleep as other crewmen came and went. At 4:00 a.m. he dressed quietly and slipped into the passageway, checking around each corner to make sure he was not seen. He made his way to the fuel station and used the iron bar to lift one plate of the steel decking and slide it open.

  “It’s now,” Assan said.

  Ibrahim crawled up from below, his elbows and knees rubbed raw and bleeding from living in the low, dark space between the deck and the ship’s inner hull. How long had he been down there? Eighteen days? Twenty? Did it matter? “Let me get my can,” Ibrahim whispered in a croak.

  “Leave it. We go. Now.”

  “A second, please, Assan. My legs.”

  Assan massaged Ibrahim’s legs for as long as he dared, then helped his friend to stand. Ibrahim had been on his feet only a few minutes each day. His back ached horribly and his knees were actually shaking.

  “We have to go,” Assan said. “Follow me by two meters. We wait at every corner. If you hear me speak to someone, hide where you can.”

  Ibrahim nodded, taking small steps, following.

  A ladder led to a hatch that led to a room that led to another hatch and another passageway and another ladder. At the top of it, another passageway and one more ladder, though this was more like a stairway. Assan pulled on a heavy steel door that opened inward and halted. Ibrahim smelled fresh air for the first time in twenty-one days, that’s how long it had been since the Berengaria had left Piraeus with Ibrahim hiding under the steel decking.

  “It’s okay,” Assan whispered.

  Ibrahim stepped through the doorway and was finally outside, the night a blessing, as his eyes tried to adjust. The air was warm, the air of summertime. They were at the portside rail, facing away from the dock, the water twelve meters below. Hours earlier, the ship’s Pomak fireman had tied a rope, anonymous as any on deck, to the lowest rung of the rail. “Climb down this. Swim around to the dock and find a way up.”

  “I hope I can still swim,” Ibrahim said. He was laughing like it was a funny joke.

  “There are bushes nearby. Hide in them until I come tomorrow.”

  “What if there are dogs?”

  “Make friends with them.” That made Ibrahim laugh again as he swung over the rail, the rope in his hands.

  —

  The chief was with the captain on the starboard wing of the pilothouse taking their morning coffee. The longshoremen had off-loaded most of the cargo, and the docks were busy with trucks and cranes and workers.

  “We’ll go to the Waldorf Hotel,” the captain said just as the chief saw Assan walking down the gangway and off the ship, with his knapsack that once held bottles of Johnnie Walker Red Label. He was carrying, too, a parcel under his arm. Crewmen returned to the ship with parcels, filled with goods they could buy only in America, under their arms. But here Assan was leaving with one.

  “Big steaks, like this.” The captain held up his fingers showing the thickness of what his steak would be. “The Waldorf Astoria Hotel. They have the steaks.”

  “That’s a good place,” the chief said as Assan disappeared into some bushes.

  —

  Assan found no sign of Ibrahim and was worried that American big shots had searched the bushes for Communists and uncounted heads with no papers. Not wanting to call out, he howled like a dog. He heard a dog howl back, but it was Ibrahim, who came out of the bushes, stripped to the waist and carrying his grease-caked shoes.

  “Who’s a big dog?” he asked, smiling.

  “Were you all right through the night?”

  “I made a bed of reeds,” Ibrahim said. “Soft. And the night never got a chill.”

  Assan opened the parcel, showing some clothes and soap and food and a shaving kit. There was also a folded newspaper bound in twine. Inside was Ibrahim’s share of the drachmas the two had saved from all the odd jobs they had worked in Greece. Ibrahim pocketed the bills without counting. “How much will a train cost to get to Chee-ca-go, Assan?”

  “How much from Athens to Cairo? Find a money changer at the train station.”

  After Ibrahim had eaten and washed, Assan sat him down on a rock and took the razor to his face, shaving his friend, as there was no mirror for him to do it himself.

  —

  From the bridge wing, the chief searched the bushes through a pair of glasses. In a gap between waving branches, he saw Assan shaving the face of a man he could not recognize. A problem had left the ship without bothering the captain. No need for a coffin, either. Assan was one smart Pomak.

  As Ibrahim ran a comb through his wet hair, Assan tried to clean his friend’s shoes. “The best I can do,” he said, handing them over.

  Ibrahim reached into his pocket and pulled out a single drachma and slapped it into Assan’s hand. “Here. A perfect shine on perfect shoes.” Assan took a bow and both men laughed.

  They walked together to the end of the dockyards, able to mingle with others coming and going. They saw huge cars, trucks the size of houses grinding gears and pulling big loads, and more ships, some much larger and newer than the Berengaria, others rusted buckets. They saw men eating rolls with sausages in them at a kiosk with a sign Assan could spell out—he had been learning the American letters—H O T D O G S. Both Bulgarians were hungry but neither had American money. At the end of the dockyards there was a gate with a guard in an office, but every American walked past without so much as a pause.

  “Assan. I will see you in Chee-ca-go one day,” Ibrahim said. Then in English he said, “Tenk choo berry mich.”

  “All I did was carry your shit away,” Assan said, taking one cigarette, then giving the pack to Ibrahim. He smoked it while watching his friend walk to the gate, pass the guard with only a nod, and disappear down the road toward the skyline of Philadelphia.

  —

  Returning to the ship, Assan kept busy all morning, not getting to the galley until the first meal was nearly over and only a few of the crew were around. He collected what bread, vegetables, and soup was still available and sat at a table. The Cypriot with the limp brought him a coffee from the galley.

  “America for the first time?” he asked Assan.

  “Yeah.”

  “America is the top, I tell you. New York, New York, has anything you want. Wait until you see.”

  “The big shots. When do they come on board?” Assan asked.

  “What big shots?”

  “The Americans who search the ship. Looking for Reds. Making big trouble.”

  “The fuck you talking about?”

  “They make sure our heads match. The chief told me. Big shots come and search the whole ship.”

  “Search for what?” The Cypriot went back to the galley for a coffee for himself.

  “They check our papers, right? Line us up and check our papers?” Assan had li
ned up so many times to have his papers checked, it made sense that he’d do the same in America.

  “The captain takes care of that shit.” The Cypriot downed half of his coffee. “Hey, I know a whorehouse in New York City. Bring money tomorrow and I’ll get us laid.”

  —

  Back in his village, Assan had seen black-and-white movies flickering on a white wall. Sometimes the movies were American, with cowboys on horses shooting pistols that threw out long plumes of smoke. He liked best a newsreel that showed factories and construction sites and a new building rising to the sky in a city called Chicago; Chicago had many tall buildings and streets jammed with black sedans.

  But New York, New York, looked like a city with no end, a city that threw a haze into the night sky, making the low clouds golden and the water shimmer like colored smoke. A hot wind blew as the ship moved slowly up the wide river, the city passing like a brilliant jeweled curtain; a solid mass of a million lighted windows, bright towers shining like castles, and twin lights of cars, so many cars, buzzing every which way like insects. Assan stood at the rail, the wind rippling his clothes, his mouth open, and his eyes wide.

  “Son of a gun,” he said to New York, New York.

  —

  In the morning, the chief found him at the fuel station. “Assan, put on that striped suit of yours. I want a shave.”

  “I have duties, here.”

  “I say you don’t, and I’m the chief. Let’s go. And leave your money here so you don’t get pickpocketed on your first day.”

  Cars flew down the streets, many of them colored yellow with words printed on their sides, screeching to stops at corners as people got out and different people got in. Lights in boxes mounted on poles flashed red then green then orange again and again. Signs were everywhere, attached to poles, walls, and in windows; so many that Assan stopped trying to make out the letters. Rich-looking Americans walked fast. Americans who didn’t look rich hurried, too. Three black men, with muscles ripping at their sweat-stained shirts, were moving a large wooden crate up a stairway into a building. There was shouting and music and engines and radio voices coming from everywhere.

  A young man rode a two-wheeled motor bicycle, roaring by so fast, almost hitting Assan and the chief as they crossed a broad street. Assan had seen a newsreel with policemen on big motored bicycles, but that young man was not a cop. Could anyone ride such a thing in America?

  They passed a kiosk selling papers, candy, drinks, cigarettes, magazines, combs, pens, and lighters. Two minutes later they passed another, selling the same goods. It turned out the kiosks were everywhere. A river of moving cars, people, crowded buses, trucks, and even horses pulling wagons flowed along streets that stretched to the edge of sight.

  The chief walked fast. “In New York, New York, you have to walk like you are late for an important meeting or thieves mark you.” They crossed street after street and rounded many corners. Assan had draped his blue pin-striped jacket over his arm. He was sweating and dizzy, his head too full of America.

  The chief stopped at a corner. “Let me see. Where are we?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I’m just thinking of the best way to go from here.” The chief looked around and saw something that made him laugh. “Will you look at that?”

  Assan tilted his head and looked, too, up at a window on an upper floor of a building. He saw a flag in the window, posted like a sign—the blue and white flag of Greece with the cross for the church and the stripes for the sea and sky. A man in shirtsleeves and a loosened tie stood in the window, shouting into a telephone and waving a cigar.

  “We Greeks are everywhere, no?” The chief laughed again, then held up the palm of his hand. “Look. New York, New York, is a simple city to learn. It is shaped like your hand. The numbered avenues are long and run from your fingertips to your wrist. The numbered streets run across the palm. Broadway is the lifeline and curves the length around. The two middle fingers are the Central Park.”

  Assan studied his own palm.

  “Now those signs”—the chief pointed to two signs forming an X on a post—“tell us we are at Twenty-Sixth Street and Seventh Avenue. That puts us about right here, see?” The chief pointed to the map of his hand. “Twenty-Sixth and Seventh. Understand?”

  “Like my hand. Son of a gun.” Assan felt as though he understood. They continued walking up the shaded side of Seventh Avenue, then turned a corner. The chief stopped at steps that led into a basement barbershop.

  “Here’s the place,” he said and stepped down to the door.

  The place was for men only, not unlike barbershops in the old country. Everyone looked over at the chief and Assan when they came in. A radio was playing, not music, but a man talking and talking over the sounds of a crowd in the background. Sometimes the crowd would roar or applaud. The shelves were lined with bottles of different-colored liquids. Cigarettes were smoked, so many that two standing ashtrays were overflowing with butts.

  The chief spoke English to the older barber—there was another, younger barber, the son perhaps—then took a seat off to the side. Assan sat next to him, listening to the English and looking at the magazines with pictures of crooks with guns and women in tight skirts. Three Americans waited as well, until one of them took a place with the other barber, sitting in a big, comfortable chair made of leather and steel. After a customer paid and said something that made the men all laugh, he walked out the door and up the steps to the street. When another customer was done, he said something funny, too, gave the barber some coins, and was gone.

  The chief took a seat in the big leather barber chair and spoke, pointing to Assan like he was explaining something. The barber looked at Assan and said “Yoo bet-cha.” He draped a white cloth over the chief, pinned it tight behind his neck, then gave the chief a shave. Three times with the hot towel, the lather, and the razor, as close a shave as the Turks give a man in Constantinople. Then he trimmed the chief’s hair, shaving around his ears and the back of his neck with the lather and razor. The men laughed and told stories, the chief using so much English he must be fluent, thought Assan. The Americans laughed and looked at Assan, as if he were in on the jokes.

  When the chief was clean and smelled of spicy cologne, he paid the barber with paper money, said something in English, and pointed at Assan. The barber said “Yoo bet-cha” again and waved Assan into his chair.

  As the barber draped his cloth around Assan, the chief spoke in Greek.

  “A free shave. I paid already. And this is for you.” The chief handed Assan a wad of folded paper money. American money. “A smart man like you will do well in America. Good luck.” The last Assan saw of the chief was his shoes, climbing the steps back up to the street.

  —

  Assan walked, feeling his smooth face and smelling the cologne, as the late summer night fell on New York, New York, and the lights took on new warmth. He saw so many amazing things: a window filled with dozens of roasting chickens rotating on mechanical spits, a man selling windup toy cars on a box with a wooden rail nailed to the top to keep the toys from rolling off, and a restaurant with one wall all glass, where inside Americans sat at tables and on stools at a long counter. Waitresses swung around, carrying platters of complete meals and small dishes of cakes and pastries. Assan passed a long stairway that led down below the street, fenced in with decorated iron and crowded with people going up and others going down, all in a hurry and none of them easy marks for pocket pickers.

  The buildings stopped and the sky opened up, and on the other side of a busy street there were thick trees. Assan figured he must be at his middle fingers, at the Central Park. He did not know how to cross the broad street but followed with others when they walked. By a low rounded wall a man with a cart was selling H O T D O G S, and Assan was suddenly very, very hungry. He pulled out the paper money the chief had given him, finding a bill with the number 1 on it. He handed the money to the man, who kept asking him questions that Assan had no answer for. Th
e only word he could make out was Coca-Cola, the sum total of his English, really.

  The man handed over a sausage sandwich that was dripping with sauces of red and yellow and stringy, wet onions and a bottle of the Coca-Cola. Then the man gave Assan a fistful of coins of three different sizes, which he pocketed with his free hand. Assan sat on a bench and ate a most delicious meal. With half the Coca-Cola left, he went back to the man. He held out the coins, the man took one of the thinnest, and made another richly burdened sausage sandwich.

  The sun had gone down and the sky was dark and the lampposts were shining as Assan walked along the paths of the beautiful park, finishing the Coca-Cola. Assan saw fountains and statues. He saw men and women as couples, holding hands and laughing. A rich lady walked a tiny dog, the funniest dog Assan had ever seen. He almost howled at it as a joke, but Assan thought maybe the rich lady would complain to a cop, and the last thing he wanted was a cop asking for his papers.

  At a side entrance to the park, a gate in a wall, Assan came to where the city began again. It was late now, and people were crossing the street, heading into the park with blankets and pillows. Assan could see these people were not like the rich lady with her dog, but families of white and black and brown people with giggling kids and men and women who looked tired from a day’s work. Assan suddenly felt so very tired, too. He followed a family back into the park, coming to a big field of grass, where others were laying out blankets and bedding to sleep outdoors in the hot, humid night. Some were already asleep. Others hushed their kids and made sleeping spots near the trees on the border of the field.

  Assan found a spot with soft grass. He removed his shoes and used his jacket as a pillow. He fell asleep to the sounds of distant traffic and quiet conversations between husbands and wives.

  —

  Assan washed his face in a public restroom in a stone building. Flicking his fingers, he brushed his pants and suit jacket and shook out his nice shirt, then put his clothes back on, wondering where he would walk today.