The Final Strech Home
I was sent home Friday, with the warning to keep my bags packed.
I hate flying. I hate it the same way I hate being the passenger of a car. I trust no one but myself in such matters. If I actually had my pilots license like I wanted to get as a teenager I would have rented myself a Dr. Killer and trekked it myself. What if the pilot is sick, or is suicidal? What if a mechanic was lazy that day, or the airline wanted to cut corners? I would have swam to australia and ireland if I could.
So Friday night I landed at JFK, ran back to the city collected as much Craigslist listings that I could live with, and set the clock early
The next day I made as many calls I could staggered enough that I could hit them all. I was determined to make the april 15th cut off date.
I crumple them in my moleskine, I set my jaw, and decided to make them one of mine.
The last realtor leads me into a really old building, pre-war (maybe even pre WWI). It’s a walk up, six stories to be exact. He opens the door, and a slightly spacious one bedroom greets me. It was recently vacated, the lighting was ripped out of the ceilings. The place was filthy, dead roaches are scattered in the cabinets. The hardwood floors that were advertised were underneath the linoleum that was peeled and cracking.
The Realtor swears that an exterminator will be there, the hardwood floors too. Cabinets, and counters fixed and cleaned. The lighting will be fixed also, the bathroom will be re-grouted.
I notice that it’s unusually light in the place for early evening. I walk up to the barred windows, and look outside. Before me for miles stretched my homeland, smoke stacks, houses, water towers, and the river. There were no outside impediments like a brick wall or another scummy apartment building like what I’m used to. It was just me and my beloved borough separated by one thin pane of glass.
I confirmed the price, thought for a second.
“Ya know Joel, I just want to go home. Every since I left, I want to breathe in Brooklyn, I want to take it all in. I felt my alignment in the universe here. I carried an ache for way too long now, homesickness is like cancer. It will kill me eventually.
Have you ever felt robbed of your birthright?”
Joel rubbed his beard, and straightened his yarmulke. “I have an idea.”
“They don’t understand do they? My great grandpa died just down there,” I pointed towards the Brooklyn Bridge. “My pop worked there for most of his life down there,” I gesture to the south towards Coney Island. “in horrible conditions so his sons wouldn’t have to. Sometimes when I’m at work I feel like what I’m doing is a mockery to all of them, I make more money than they did, and I’m the most useless that my bloodline produced. They’re proud of that too, my mother tells her friends about her kid who plays video games all day and makes a real living from it. My dad loves talking about his big-shot son at MS. Hows that for irony?”
Joel looks down on the floor at his leather shoes.
“I know I should be proud and happy with everything. That I managed to buck the chances and actually do well, but no matter how many times I say that it doesn’t feel earned. Everytime I talk to someone about how great it all is, it feels hollow. Like I’m spouting a company line, and it’s like I’m trying to justify it all to myself. I just wish I could talk to someone at work about it, because I want to know if I’m the only one or not.
But somehow everything me and my family worked for, is just for me to return to a tenements. That’s a sign that there is something wrong with us as a culture as a whole.”
I sigh and look out the window again. “I’m sorry Joel. None of it is your problem, I’m sorry for bugging you during your shabbat. You said it’s rent stabilized right? It is? Good, lets get some papers signed. Lets just finish this.”
So that’s it, the search is over. I’m going home.
Good night.
