are we there yet?

2007-01-10T00:28:00.000-05:00


	His name was Shafiq. His title was "Resident Butt of Joke." I never laughed in his face. But I laughed AT him often. There was the way he smelled of unknown spices- no Eternity or Drakkar, but an offensive melange of scents that stung the nose. There was the way he used olive oil in his hair. There was the mere presence of his accent, prounounced and undisguisable. I avoided contact with him and entered into memory, "Beware of Eccentric Foreigner." He was a foreign exchange student at the Naval Academy. From Sri Lanka if memory serves me correctly. After having survived the degradation and debasement of your first year, you are switched to a whole new set of leaders. Shafiq was a junior in the company I was moved to. A junior at the Academy is called a "flamer." That's because their job is to abuse the first years (plebes), make them do push-ups while stuttering out the menu of the day, or a newspaper article from the Washington Post. They are supposed to "flame" out at every plebe's incongruity or iniquity. The more ruthless, the better. Sophomores were called "skates." Their job was ancillary to the flamer, but rarely defined. Most sophomores "skated" through the hallways barely noticing plebes, just thankful that they weren't them anymore. Others, like my androgynous roommate (the singular person in this world that I openly hate without remorse), woke up extra early, to demand that plebes answer her trivia questions or be punished. She would wait for them in the dimmed lights of the pre-dawn hallways, so that the first plebe that sheepishly exited their room would be met with the clamor of her voice. I would happily skate out of our room, towards the women's bathroom (head in military speak), ignoring her pathetic ploy for power. I passed Shafiq, who already had two plebes against the wall, eyes not daring to meet his. He was making a feeble attempt to be rude. Looking back on it now, I don't think he had it in him. His voice was deep, quiet, and pock-marked by his mother tongue. The worst these plebes could expect from him was a scathing look from his sad, black eyes. Only once, did I see him drop them for push-ups. He was incensed by their inadequacies, and maybe, just maybe, by his own in that world of crew-cut, American boys. I grew up in a small town in Missouri. There were two minority students in my high school of 1500- Bobby, African-American, and myself, Korean. I went from the tightly knit fabric of midwestern homogeny, to an even more tightly wound society at the Naval Academy. There were a few more Asians (3 in my class of 1200), and many more African-Americans, but we were woven into the quilt of patriotism and elitism. I don't know how many times we were told we were the "cream of the crop," the "best and the brightest," the "few and the brave." We become indelibly wrapped up in our inculcated sense of self-worth. Shafiq probably didn't understand this. He was the only foreign exchange student in the entire school that was Muslim. I didn't know that then. I didn't know that the strange cut-out carpet that I spied in his room was a prayer rug. I didn't know that the strange book in a foreign script that I threw aside while searching for something to write with was the Quran. I didn't know that all of those times I joined in the raucous laughter involving him, would be a door of regret to be opened years later. One night a roar of laughter erupted from the hallways attracting a crowd. Never one to miss the action, I zoomed in on its center. Shafiq was in the arms of three upperclassmen. They had taken him out and boozed him up. Safe from his unconsciousness, they spun tales of the ridiculousness of his actions. The inexperience that deemed him a fool. He vomited in the bar. He vomited in the street. He passed out on the sidewalk. "What an idiot!" they would say amidst the laughter of the would-be-fools, myself included. That is my last memory of Shafiq. I know he graduated, and was immediately returned to his country for duty. I wonder what he would tell his compatriots of his time amongst America's "cream of the crop." I wonder what he would think of the girl who would one day love that book she tossed aside irreverently, one day, long ago.

2005-11-21T00:44:00.001-05:00

April 3, 1995

I had underestimated how much luggage space I would need for the culmination of four years' living. It was a four-day weekend, and half of my peers were already gone. I had piled my belongings in a corner. There were too many bags to count. I sat on the edge of the bed looking at my things. Almost all of them were blue, with that all too familiar golden crest, mocking me with its ostensible grandeur. I felt irreconcilable sadness and anger. All of my things stained by the hypocrisy of those dirty blue Academy bags, the same Academy that I had hoped to love, aimed to please, and ultimately failed. All of my things that had belonged here for so long...
As I rolled the luggage cart out of the room, the plebe on duty sprang to attention. "Good afternoon, Miss Chung, ma'am!"
"Hey Mr. Halvorsen," I said. "Take care, be good, and good luck."
"Thank you, ma'am. You too."
He carried on, patrolling the hallways in his white security belt, a piece of adjustable corded cotton, with a silver buckle, passed on from patrolman to patrolman. He was shorter than me, skinnier than me, and less imposing than me, which isn't saying much. I had trained him his first semester, and wondered how a young man with a squeaky voice and a penchant for classical music had ended up at the Academy. I suppose we've all got a story. He was later killed in Iraq in 2003.
"Go navy, sir! Beat army, sir!" I heard behind me.
I turned around. Three of my plebes stood before me.
"Miss Chung, ma'am," one of them said, apparently the spokesperson. "We're sorry about what happened, and we wanted to say good luck."
One of the plebes wiped her eyes. Tears began forming, and with restraint they merely blurred my vision, without going anywhere, perennial tears lodged in my eyes.
"Thanks you guys," I said. "I appreciate it. No matter what happens, just try not to give up," I said. They all nodded their heads like they knew what I was talking about. "It really is worth it if you can get to the end."
"Yes, ma'am," they all said in unison.
"Okay, take care," I said.
"Oh... and by the way," I said as I turned around, only to find that they hadn't moved yet, "call me Gena."
We shared a smile, I slid into my jacket, and for the last time, walked out of the hallowed halls of Bancroft Hall.

2005-11-21T00:44:00.000-05:00

October 16, 1995

Young first year plebes in uniform popped to attention as I determinedly strode through their company areas. "Good evening, ma'am," they would all say. Normally, I would have replied casually and instanteously, for I remember how slighted I had felt when I was a plebe, to remain unrecognized. But tonight I was stern, wordless.

I can't remember who had called the meeting, who was going to be there, or how I had even found out about it. Snippets of scenes coagulate to form my memory of the event, despite gaps of information that leave me wondering if something could have saved me from it.
I pushed on the double doors that opened onto the tennis courts. A few yards away sat a couple of guys that I knew, three others that I didn't. Jason was sitting on the edge of a bench, unwittingly spilling ashes from the cigarette in his hand as he spoke. Engaged, no one noticed me edging towards them until I was right next to Jason. "Hey, " I said. He replied the same way.
What is distinct in my mind is the tone in which we all spoke. We were the abused, the betrayed, faced with what seemed an insurmountable task. Without coming out and saying it, we were all aware of each other's plight, the stages of the day that had ended with our meeting on the 5th wing tennis courts.

Jason introduced me to one of the guys I didn't know. I managed a grin, and neither one of us mentioned that we had seen each other at Hubbard Hall. I was sitting in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service's (NCIS) pergatory, between steps of a process I did not know, and was never warned about. Of all of the buildings on the yard (campus), this one I had been to only once, during Plebe Summer, for a mandatory introduction to the Naval Academy's Crew Team Center. So, Hubbarb Hall was to pull me in full circle, at the beginning of my Naval Academy career, and at its end. I sat atop a sturdy but old brown leather couch, clutching my cover (uniform hat), waiting. It was at that moment that I realized waiting for the unknown is worse that waiting for the inevitable. The mind's capablilty to forage into the depths of the unknown, to create chilling scenarios of misery and treachery is limitless, merciless. It is never content to rest upon a satisfactory result, but goads itself into peering over the edge, to witness how expanse the distance is between the safety of the cliff and the blackness of the ground below.

I saw him. He was walking through what I now noticed to be a fingerprinting station. We gazed at each other for a second. He looked like I felt. Akin to how a lamb must feel as it passes through the stages of preparation before its imminent slaughter. I didn't recognize him, so I thought he was a subordinate, and dispatched immediately with thinking about him. I had to think about myself. Nervousness, fearformed a destructive funnel in my mind that would blur my vision and impair my faculty of reasoning. Unannounced, the Special Agent appeared.

2005-08-26T12:48:00.000-04:00

Are you rich?

She is standing amidst the parched mulch. Three children under the age of five, spanning from the nucleus mother into opposite directions. I'm in my car. The sun warms the black leather of its interior through the open sunroof. National Public Radio highlights its story on bird influenza throughout provinces of Thailand. My silver luxury vehicle is braying for its cruise pass the five dollar-a-day latte store. Hand on gear shift, I wave. She pauses, imbibing familiarity, and waves back.

She's been a friend for almost five years. She is from Bangladesh. Her husband leaves her at home with the children while he works twelve hour days soliciting ads for a small community newspaper.

She is standing amidst the parched mulch at the playground of a children's private school. In about an hour the playground, now desolate except for my friend and her children, will be inundated with uniformed school children who pay more per hour of schooling than her husband makes.

I close the sunroof of my car, step out, and click my doors locked from the top of the hill. She sees my approach, and hurries towards me.

"Stay there," I yell to her, as I tip-toe down the hill in my 3-inch heels. I repeat my friendly command.

I grab her hand in greeting, and pull her into an embrace. She strokes my back and asks me how I've been.

The little ones congregate around my interruption. The younger two teeter on fledging legs, as sweetly as their mother investigates my well-being.

I tell her, "Enough about me."

She tells me she is expecting a fourth child. She is perhaps twenty-five now. She shows no signs of distress or irritation. Only gratitude, as she pulls strawberries from her insulated lunchbox, to feed her youngest child. His tiny mouth envelopes the strawberries' sweetness, until moments later when he releases its undigested pulp into her hands.

"Hold on," as I reach into my designer tote and pull out a compact of neatly-folded tissues. I hand them to her one by one until the last one swipes his red mouth to pale pink.

"Oh! I'm so sorry I've used all of your napkins!" she says. Her voice is like purity of newly settled snow.

I laugh in both horror and insouciance.

As if on cue, her daughter returns from a jaunt in the playsand, requesting her younger brothers' fruit. My friend pulls her keys out and makes her way towards her husband's car, atop the hill. I grab the keys from her hand. I insist on going for her. She is in her first trimester of pregnancy. She has three young children clamoring for her attention. My children are inside the school. I am free. She acquiesces at first. Follows me. I turn around and smile at her.

"Please," I beg. "Please. I'll do it."

She thanks me, as though I've just disembarked on a journey of days for her.

When it's time for me to leave, she says that she also has to head towards the school. She is meeting someone else inside. She grabs her bags and her children, both in triples, and heads towards the hill. I stop, grab the pile of napkins she has set at the edge of the picnic table, a contemporary scultpure of red, brown and white.

She retreats in horror. "Oh... I can't believe I did that! You can't do that. I'm so sorry," she says, embarassed.

I'm so humbled by her.

I walk the trash to its place, and meet her at her car. She fights the children for her keys, the embattled keyhole bearing the scars of a constant war. The toddler is placed in a lightweight stroller. She hangs two bags on her shoulders. I hug her again, tell her to take care of herself, not to work herself too hard. I tell her I'll call her for a visit to her house. Keep her company while her husband is at work.

"May you be rewarded with what is best. Thank you," she tells me. "You are always there to help me."

"Please don't say that," I retort, as I think about the countless times I have let her down. I'm embarassed by her gratitude, and would ask for a rescindment if I knew that it would not insult her.

She walks away. Her children scurry towards the school buses parked in parallel lines on the lot. She follows them with the stroller, the wheels squeaking with every revolution.

I beep my cars doors open, slide into the warm seat, turn the key in the ignition. Sunroof open. NPR broadcasting. I pass her along the way, standing by the buses.

She is perhaps the richest woman I know.

2005-04-02T18:47:00.000-05:00

He was sage and practical, with enough mischievousness to keep him interesting. He listened to blues and jazz when everyone was listening to alternative. He was reading Tolstoy and the biography of FDR, when everyone else was reading the Celestine Prophecy and the biography of Elle McPherson in Sports Illustrated. He tangoed and waltzed, when everyone else was head banging and doing the Macarena. He bared his eccentricities with grit and mettle in a world of poster-boy military men. Most importantly of all, when I stepped out of line after reading the wrong article in Cosmo and heading to the wrong place in a dizzying whirl of a salacious night, he was there. He would scold me with whispers or shouts. He was the one person who could stop me along the cobblestone streets of Annapolis, abuzz with menacing Midshipman, and convince me to look him in the eye. Stop. Breathe. Stop chasing the comfort and ultimate disgrace of conformity. Stop betraying yourself.

We sang show tunes along the cliffs of La Jolla at dusk. Like lovers without the discomfort of intimate love. He carried me across the Mexican border, an inebriated disaster, negotiating truths with police who eyed me as an escapist under an actor’s spell.

He saw past the facade of high heels and new hair. He saw the melodramatic tendencies and overreactions for what they really were. He saw through it all when no one else did. He knew better than anyone else, that I had woven a finely knit cloak for a disguise that everyone else foolishly mistook for being designer.

The Tragedy of Life

2005-03-12T10:25:00.000-05:00

Excerpted from Memento Mori by Jonathan Nolan

Here's the truth: People, even regular people, are never just any one person with one set of attributes. It's not that simple. We're all at the mercy of the limbic system, clouds of electricity drifting through the brain. Every man is broken into twenty-four-hour fractions, and then again within those twenty-four hours. It's a daily pantomime, one man yielding control to the next: a backstage crowded with old hacks clamoring for their turn in the spotlight. Every week, every day. The angry man hands the baton over to the sulking man, and in turn to the sex addict, the introvert, the conversationalist. Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots.

This is the tragedy of life. Because for a few minutes of every day, every man becomes a genius. Moments of clarity, insight, whatever you want to call them. The clouds part, the planets get in a neat little line, and everything becomes obvious. I should quit smoking, maybe, or here's how I could make a fast million, or such and such is the key to eternal happiness. That's the miserable truth. For a few moments, the secrets of the universe are opened to us. Life is a cheap palor trick.

But then the genius, the savant, has to hand over the controls to the next guy down the pike, most likely the guy who just wants to eat potato chips, and insight and brilliance and salvation are all entrusted to a moron or a hedonist or a narcoleptic.

The only way out of this mess, of course, if to take steps to ensure that you control the idiots that you become.

2005-01-01T12:20:00.000-05:00

All the world is before you- do you know where you're going. Better yet, do you know where you've been?