by Tom Hanks
Assan reached into his pocket. His American paper money was gone. Some coins remained, that was all. Just as the Chief had warned, he had stopped moving and a thief had pocket-picked him. His head ached as he sat for a very long time.
As the afternoon became early evening, he didn’t want to walk all the way up to the Central Park, but a cop came around and eyed him. So, he got moving. An hour or so later he was asleep under a park tree, his head on his rolled-up pair of extra pants.
—
There were other people in Demetri’s office, all wearing suits and carrying leather cases filled with papers. None of them were Greeks. Demetri was standing in the window, yelling into the telephone, in English, as he had the first day Assan saw this place. Two of the men in suits laughed at something Demetri said, others lit cigarettes. One man blew smoke rings. Assan could hear Dorothy typing, clack clack clack without the aid of the record playing music.
“Hold on,” Demetri said, seeing Assan, cupping his hand around the telephone. “Dorothy has your suit. Dorothy!”
Every eye in the office looked at Assan, his rumpled clothes, the growth of his beard, seeing another of the poor, ignorant bastards that were forever showing up in Demetri’s office. Dorothy came out with the suit on a wire hanger; the jacket and pants were crisp and fresh, his shirt folded into a square like a tablecloth. Assan took his clothes and backed out of the office, nodding his thanks. The eyes and faces of the men in the office had him feeling small, like in the old country when soldiers searched him, roughed him up, and checked his papers longer than necessary, like when the guards made him stand and answer questions over and over, or like when he and the other prisoners in the camps were lined up for the roll calls that took hours.
As he descended the steps to the street, he heard a burst of laughter from the men and Dorothy taking back up her typing: clack-clack clack. Clack.
—
As Costas was counting out his supply of change in the cash register, a man in a clean blue-striped suit took a stool at the counter. The lunch rush would be picking up soon, the regulars would come and go until after 3:00 p.m., and Costas would need to make change for paper money. After that, Costas would have time to read the paper and find his list of new words. English was not a hard language to learn as long as you studied the newspaper every day and had a lot of American customers to listen to talk and talk and talk.
His wife was wiping down the tables, so it was Costas who asked the man in the clean and pressed blue pin-striped suit, “What can I bring ya, pal?”
Assan laid his few coins on the counter, the last of the money in his pocket. “A coffee, please. American coffee, sweet, with milk.”
Costas recognized Assan and flushed with anger. “You some kind of joker?”
“I make no jokes.”
“Demetri send you back here? Again?”
“No. I just came for a coffee.”
“Bullshit you came for just a coffee!” Costas was so angry he slammed a mug down so hard in front of the coffee urn he cracked it. “Nico!” he yelled.
A boy, as short as Costas, popped out from the kitchen. “Huh?”
“More coffee mugs!”
Nico carried out a tray of heavy mugs for the American coffee. There was no way the boy was not Costas’s son. The only differences between them were twenty years and ten kilos.
Costas almost tossed the hot coffee into Assan’s lap. “That’s a nickel!” he said, taking one of the thick coins off the counter, the one with the humpbacked cow. Assan poured milk and sugar into the mug and stirred slowly.
“You walk into my place and think that because you made it to America a job is waiting for you.” Costas was leaning on the counter, so short his eyes were equal with Assan’s. “You go cry to that Corfu bastard and he says, ‘Go see Costas,’ and I’m supposed to pay you to work for me?”
Assan sipped his coffee.
“What the hell is your name?”
“Assan.”
“Assan? Not even Greek and here for a job!”
“Today I’m here for coffee.”
Costas was rocking on his heels, like a man so angry he could leap across the counter and start a fight. “I’m supposed to be so rich I must have jobs for anyone, eh? ‘Costas is a big shot! He has his own restaurant! He does so much business he has jobs coming out of his ass! You can come to America and work for him!’ Bullshit!”
Assan’s mug was almost emptied. “Can I have another, please?”
“No! No more coffee for you!” Costas stared Assan in his eyes for a long moment. “Bulgarian, huh?”
“That’s right.” Assan had finished the coffee, setting the mug on the counter.
“Okay then,” Costas said. “Now take off that nice jacket and hang it on a hook in the back. Nico will teach you how to scrub the pots.”
* * *
* * *
Our Town Today
with
Hank Fiset
* * *
* * *
YOUR EVANGELISTA, ESPERANZA
CUPPA JOE, PAL? Addicted to the stuff! Coffee, that is. I’m a newsman, you see, and the newsroom that doesn’t run on coffee puts out a lousy paper, I’ll bet. The pots here at the Tri-Cities Daily News/Herald are filled to the brim, even as most of the staff head out for the ubiquitous high-end spots, the ones with baristas and flavor shots for six bucks a throw. A tour of the caffeine parlors in our three conjoined metropolises will prove that good wake-’em-up is roasted, brewed, pressure-steamed, and poured in damn fine style. Try Amy’s Drive-Thru, a converted taco stand on the Miracle Mile. She’ll pop your eyes wide with a triple-bang espresso with a hot-pepper stirrer….The Corker & Smythe Coffee Shop in the old Kahle Mercantile Building on Triumph Square just recently offered takeout, and reluctantly at that. Better to sit at the counter and sip that nectar d’noir out of those deep porcelain mugs….Kaffee Boss has three stores—one at Wadsworth and Sequoia—serving the locals in leather-sleeved mason jars. Whatever you do, don’t ask for milk or creamer. They are coffee purists and make a point of telling you why. Java-Va-Voom on Second Boulevard at North Payne in East Corning has something no other coffee place can match—a unique sound. There is the whissh of the frother, the chitter-chatter of the staff and customers, and music, soft, in the background, like the musical score of a movie playing next door. Occasionally, there is also the click-clack made by a typist, but in no ordinary sense of the word.
* * *
ESPERANZA CRUZ-BUSTERMENTE, born and raised in nearby Orangeville, is an Account Adviser for a local bank, though, to many people, that is her second job. Many folks know her as an evangelista, a typist who uses her words-per-minute skills for other people. In Old Mexico, educated nuns served their flocks by typing important documents—applications, receipts, official papers, tax records, sometimes even love letters for the illiterate and those who lacked access to the once-technological marvel that is a typewriter. Esperanza’s parents, like many others, learned touch typing from the evangelistas, then made a living by typing the messages, missives, and memoranda needed by the public. No one got rich, but sentences got stamped into paper.
* * *
ESPERANZA HAS A table at a Java-Va-Voom, where, with her large drip-with-soy, she works from a stack of blank, naked pages at the ready beside her typewriter. She’s been using the place for a while now. For those unfamiliar with the sound and rhythm of a typewriter in use, Esperanza’s clacking took some getting used to. “There were complaints at first,” Esperanza told me. “I’d be typing away and get asked why I wasn’t working on a laptop, which is quieter and easier. Once, two policemen walked in and I thought, Have they called the cops on me? Turns out, they were just coming in for lattes.”
* * *
WHY GO ANALOG? “My email was hacked,” Esperanza told me. By who? “The Russians? The NSC? Fake Nigerian princes? Who knows? My data was stolen. My life was such a mess for months.” These days she uses the Internet sparingly and has an old-style flip phon
e, with which she can text but which she prefers to use the old-style way—by getting and receiving actual telephone calls. She never has to ask for the wi-fi password. And as for Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, et al.? “Gave them up,” she says, almost bragging. “When the hack happened and I went off social media, my day gained, like, six hours! I spent so long checking my phone every few minutes. Never mind how much time I wasted playing SnoKon, catching colored balls of ice in a little triangle cup for points.” The only negative? “My friends had to be taught how to get ahold of me.” What is written, exactly, on that typewriter of hers? “Lots! I have a big family. Birthdays, the nieces and nephews get a letter and a five- or ten-dollar bill. I write memos for work that I either copy or rewrite and email at the office. And here…” She held up a page filled with the neatest, most perfectly formatted document you could ask for. “This is my grocery list.”
* * *
OTHER CUSTOMERS SEEK Esperanza for her Little Nun services. “The kids are fascinated by my typewriter. I let them peck out their name as Mom waits for her order. Older ones type out raps and poems.” Grown-ups seek her services, too. “No one has typewriters anymore, none that work. But typewritten letters are special. Some folks come with letters they’ve composed on a computer they want me to type out for them and make one of a kind. Before Valentine’s or Mother’s Day, I could sit here for hours and type notes for folks lined up around the block. If I charged, I’d be as rich as a good florist.” For such personal service Esperanza may accept a free coffee. Regular in the mornings. Decaf in the afternoon.
* * *
“THIS ONE FELLOW was waiting for his coffee and started telling me about an old typewriter he had thrown out. He wished he still had it. He was going to ask his girlfriend to marry him. If he did so in a typed letter, it and the moment would last forever. What could I do but roll in a new sheet and let him dictate? I was his Steno-of-Love. We did six different drafts.” What did he say to pop the question? I asked. “None of your business.” Did the girlfriend say yes? “I have no idea. He read over the letter a dozen times to make sure the words fit the occasion. Then he left with it and a vanilla-shot cappuccino and has not been seen since.”
* * *
HER PORTABLE TYPEWRITER allows Esperanza to take her keyboard services anywhere, but Java-Va-Voom is her faux Plaza Centrale. “This place puts up with me and gets my mind churning. I like having people around,” she said. “And, some of them have come to need me.” Oh, more than you may know, Evangelista Esperanza!
* * *
* * *
Steve Wong Is Perfect
Because videos go around the world in nanoseconds, little pigs are celebrated for saving little lambs from drowning. No, wait. That video was an Internet hoax. What Steve Wong did was real, it happened, in front of witnesses, even, so he went viral.
We went bowling one night, you see, and Steve truly was the alley-ooper who threw or rolled—who bowled—an impossible number of strikes, so he deserves the reverence of all who bowl for fun and profit. Still, if you had not been there to eyeball Steve’s run, you might think Anna, MDash, and I had faked it all.
Steve’s accomplishments were not falsified, nor were they a fluke. He’d been the captain of the Freshman Bowling Team at St. Anthony Country Day High School, winning trophies at Young Bowler Tournaments at the Surfside Lanes. He even had a perfect game—twelve consecutive strikes for a score of 300—when he was only thirteen years old. His name was in the paper and he was given a lot of free swag from the Surfside.
When MDash hit the Year-One anniversary of his becoming a U.S. citizen, we celebrated by taking him bowling. We convinced him that it was a great American Tradition, that immigrants from Vietnam, Chile, et al. went bowling after a year of citizenship and that he should, too. He bought it. Steve Wong brought his professional-quality glove for his rolling hand as well as his custom-made bowling shoes! We wore crummy rentals with mismatched laces that were kept in dank cubbies behind the front desk while he wore one-of-a-kind yellow and brown bowling slippers, STEVE and WONG written across the toes, with three Xs on each heel—XXX—representing the final frame of that perfect game of years before. The shoes came in a matching bag in the same hideous two-tone brown-yellow. We kept rubbing them, hoping to summon a genie as if they were magic lamps. When our beers arrived, I hollered, “My wish came true!”
MDash had never bowled in his native sub-Saharan village, so we got him his own lane and had the staff pull up the kiddie rails, the things that help little kids keep their balls out of the gutter. With his ball ricocheting from bumper to bumper, he always hit some pins for a high score of 58. My top game was 138—respectable as hell, what with all the Rolling Rocks I’d chugged. Anna, bless her, focused so much on her mechanics that she beat my high by six pins—a 144. Flushed with the thrill of victory over me, she was giddy, wrapping up MDash in her taut-as-coiled-rope arms and calling him “our American friend.”
But the surprise of the night was Steve Wong and his alley prowess. His three games—236, 243, and a final high of 269—made moot our competitive loop. He was so good we grew fatigued marveling at the splits he turned into spares. At one point he rolled eleven straight strikes over two games. I threatened to steal that glove of his and burn it.
“Next time I’ll bring my own ball,” he told us. “I couldn’t find it.”
“But you keep those ugly shoes where you can grab them in a jiffy?”
We bowled again the next week, the four of us. Steve found his ball with my help. I picked him up from his too-big house in Oxnard and went through the garage and three closets. His bowling ball bag—that lovely yellow and brown leather—was behind an old, beat-up plaid typewriter case on the highest shelf in what had been his sister’s closet, next to a box that held about a hundred old Barbie dolls with vacant smiles and impossibly trim waists. The ball was also that odd color combination, like a sphere of fake puke from a novelty store. The Chinese character for lightning was stamped within the trinity of finger holes. When we got to the Ventura Bowling Complex, he put the ball in a machine that turned out to be a bowling ball polisher. And he fitted Anna with her own glove, one with a lot of wrist support.
MDash was still on the bumpered lane beside our alley—his four games topped out with a high of 87. My first game was a 126, then I stopped caring because, well, we had bowled the week before and to my sensibility four games of bowling in one year is a fine total. Anna? Possessed! Again! She changed balls three times in the first game before going back to the rack for her original choice. With that special glove of hers, her concentration on her stride and on her release point, and constantly drying her palm with the little fan above the ball return, the woman flirted with 200 all night, finally topping out at 201. She was in such a good mood she took swigs from my beer.
And Steve Wong? With those three fingers of his slotted into the precision-fitted holes in that shiny orb, he put on a show of shows. His years of experience appeared in the grace of his footwork, the arc of his swing, the release of his ball hand sweeping upward to the projected computer scoreboard. He had the balance of a dancer, his cantilevered foot splayed behind his left shoe, his right toe tapping the hardwood in a triple-X kiss of brown and yellow. He never bowled less that 270 that night, finishing with a score of…300.
That’s right. The computer flashed PERFECT GAME PERFECT GAME PERFECT GAME as the manager rang an old ship’s bell behind his desk. Other patrons—who take bowling seriously—came around and shook Steve’s hand and slapped his back and paid for every Rolling Rock I ordered, proving that yes indeed, his were magic shoes.
We played again a couple of days later—at MDash’s demand. He’d been dreaming about the game. “Sleeping, I can see the black ball, curving to the 1 pin, to knock down all of them, but they don’t smash like I want. I want to smash them all down!” Breaking 100 was now a Vision Quest for him. On what would be only his third trip to the lanes, he eschewed the kiddie bumpers and promptly rolled five gutter bal
ls in a row.
“Welcome to the varsity squad,” I told him before missing the 9 and 10 pins by a foot. Score me an open-frame 8. Anna picked up a spare by nicking the 7 pin so was already beating me. Last up, Steve Wong rolled a strike.
A flash flood begins with a drop of rain on stone. A forest fire tells with just a whiff of distant smoke. A perfect game of bowling is a possibility only when an X is recorded in the little box in the corner of frame number 1, the first of twelve in a row. Steve Wong racked up nine straight strikes, so in the tenth and final frame of our first game that night—MDash posted a 33, and I had a 118, Anna a 147—a gang had gathered around our lane, about thirty people (by frame 6 the other games had quit to watch what might be Steve Wong’s second perfect game in a row—an oddity and marvel as rare as twin rainbows).
He opened the tenth with a strike. The crowd crowed and Anna screamed out, “Atta baby!” A hush fell, Steve strolled and swiped, and all ten pins fell again, his eleventh strike of the game with one more needed for perfection redux. It would be a bad joke to say, “You could hear a pin drop,” but you could. Dead silence met Steve’s final roll. When PERFECT GAME PERFECT GAME PERFECT GAME honked on the computer scoreboard, you’d have thought it was New Year’s Eve on the same night the Brooklyn Bridge opened, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and Saddam Hussein was dragged from his spider hole. Wong-mania was in full force, and we didn’t get out of the place until exactly three in the morning—3:00. Get it?
Had we bothered with a second game that night, you might not be reading this. Steve could have bowled a 220 and then played pinball. But Fate is a kooky dame. Four nights later, bowling for free as a prize for his twenty-four consecutive “tens-at-one-blow,” we returned for a goofy night of watching MDash try for something other than an open-gutter 33. But Steve Wong altered the tenor of the evening by rolling Chinese Lightning for a strike. He then rolled another. And, well, holy cow, as they say at bowling alleys on the subcontinent of India.
