Driving a Man to Drink

Living overseas has made me acutely aware of the needs of others. Yes, in the first year or two of international living, everything is exciting. Every challenge is seen as something that pushes you to become more independent, self -reliant, and “worldly”. However, when the rush and excitement begin to fade, those daily challenges that once stirred the spirit of the traveler in me have now become more of an obstacle. Not having someone to talk to, complain to, rely on, or simply show up and give support for no apparent reason has a tiring affect. 

So, when I saw an old man in a wheelchair this morning scooting himself with his feet slower than an inmate on death row with shackles on his ankles, I decided to help. One of the great moments of living internationally is that moment when language is no longer an obstacle. Communication and language has caused disagreements, arguments, fights, even wars, so when you have the opportunity to look someone directly in the eye, wait for that split second when one human connects to another human and you are united, it is a stirring experience. 

Not being able to speak any Japanese other than the obligatory “hello”, “goodbye”, “thank you”, etc. I make a gesture of “pushing” and he smiles and nods in silence. He points in one direction and I begin to push. Intersection after intersection, block after block, my pushing becomes slower...not because I was tired or weak but because I was slowly beginning to realize that he was simply enjoying a stroll around the block as I was making myself late for work. However, one very important thing that my daughter, Kristen, taught me when she was 3 years old...wherever you are...that is where you need to be. The Buddhists call this idea “being fully present”. Living “in the moment” without concern for the past or the future. So, after a few quick thoughts, I begin to enjoy the stroll as well not worrying about the stacks of work that will still be waiting for me whether I am on time or not. 

Just as we get about 7 blocks from our origin, the next thought I have puts both me and him in a dead stop...I can't push this guy all this way in one direction and leave him here...I need to get him back to where we started. So, I stood in front of him and again make some pointing gestures. He knows that his stroll has ended, so his eyes quickly scan the immediate area and he sees a 7-Eleven (yes, they still exist and they are flourishing in Asia). I push him inside and, as we make 2 complete tours of the store, I ask a cashier for help. I ask if he speaks English and his reply, in Japanese, must have been “do you speak any Japanese”...we didn't make prolonged eye contact and share a moment. 

I begin making gestures to show the workers that I don't know the man I just pushed into the store nor do I know what he wants. He makes the gesture of drinking and I suddenly realize that our shared silence was not quite as magical as I had thought it was...he was unable to speak! So, I push him to the soda area and he quickly side-grabs the cheapest sake alcohol on the bottom shelf...then grabs a second one. Now, immediately my thought was, “Oh, crap. This old, crippled, crazy man who can't speak wants to get drunk...this could possibly kill him.” Then, two moments after I complete that thought, I began seeing myself alone, helpless, and wanting to enjoy a stroll with someone and I began seeing myself in that wheelchair. So, my next thought was, “Well, if I was old, crippled, crazy, and unable to speak while relying solely on strangers to give me a morning stroll, I would not only be OK with an alcohol induced death, I would most likely welcome it.” 

So, as we left the store, and I helped him open his alcohol, he and I enjoyed the 7 block stroll back to where we started. 

He, with alcohol in hand, and me with him in my hands. 

I think we both enjoyed that stroll without words.

Our Virginal Violation of NYC

To be fair to this unfair city, I must admit that I was in New York unplanned, unexpected, and unwilling.  In short, I did not have my Chinese Work Permit transferred into a Work Visa in my hometown prior to departing on the first career step towards a life filled with overseas teaching and traveling.  Admittedly, if I had planned a vacation, had expendable monies, and sought out the culture and fine arts that this city has to offer, I am certain that I would be reflecting on my virginal violation of NYC with a fond grin and not the burrowed brow that turns down at the mention of the 1st city.


Our treacherous 3-day layover would define New York in my mind as a city of inconvenience and expense and, as many mistakes in life, it began with ignorance.  Had my Delta concierge informed me in my hometown of slow talking hospitality that my paperwork was not complete and had he turned me away from the first leg of my International lillypad hopping, I could have been miserable in the comfort of my St. Louis accoutrements.  But, neigh, my Delta Demiser pushed papers and ate at the growing queue that skews the data of efficiency and I boarded my plane in ignorant bliss thinking that my year long travels in China were to begin in mere hours instead of mere days.


Of course, landing in an airport and having to claim your luggage, spend the superfluous $5 for a luggage cart, and hauling ass to the next terminal in order to re-check your bags and face the almost impenetrable TSA is always daunting but to do this on an International flight and also change airlines in one of the busiest airports in America set my sweat glands to the putrid factory setting that seams unique to nervous perspiration.  Now add to this anxiety the stress of exhaust from awoking half an hour prior to my 4am alarm at the onset of the day because my body was ticking slightly faster than Einstein’s space-time continuum and skipping any pre-flight breakfast for fear of nervous projectile vomit as well as skipping our meal once landing in JFK for the sake of time and all the played-out scenarios in my mind that prevented us from making the iron curtain of the boarding platform, we anxiously stood in the queue of China Eastern with Ethiopian pangs of hunger that were only exacerbated by attempting to trick our stomach by flooding it with water in the hopes that engorgement would satisfy the digestive balloon that disdained being deflated.


Still oblivious to the bureaucratic labyrinth that lied ahead, I remained hopeful and positive while standing doe-eyed in front of the multiple ticketing agents and on-duty managers that didn’t seem to understand that...I simply wanted to get on the plane!  That’s when the first punch landed in my hopeful gut.  When I was told that I could not and, worse yet, would not board my second plane…I immediately entered the first stage of the grief process…denial.  I discovered that the famous idiom that “ignorance is bliss” only applies when the ignorance has no direct impact on your life.  My ignorance, however, came with a specific cost…in the amount of two airline tickets that cost $1,474 that were now being forfeited.  It is at this point that I learned lesson number one…take your own advice.  Even though I had been a commissioned travel agent for nearly 5 years and espoused that the Internet was fantastic for information but when it came time to purchase...ALL bookings should be done by a human hand, but instead I took the easy and convenient late-night, in home, booking ease of comparison shopping for the cheapest fare and jumped on the ignorance band wagon that I had so many times cursed before called Travelocity.  Why did I curse this super-convenient, glossy point-and-click website of travel reviews and false independence?  Because when there is a problem…it is difficult to argue with the Internet on the phone…and that is precisely what I faced.  No refund, no exchange, no support…even though I had been transferred to 5 different incompetent personality-less recitations of the Six-Sigma flow chart of options that always led to the same answer..."no".


Having wiped out our entire bank account in preparation for our new life in the Yellow Land, we were left with no money for food and nowhere to sleep.  Of course, one is always told that “you get to choose your friends, but not your family” and there is always this lingering hesitation when calling family for money but, given our circumstances, our nauseous hunger and our 5 hour debacle with the ticketing agent, I resolved to tend to Maslow’s hierarchy first and swallow my pride (which incidentally did not go down as easily with such a hollow stomach and dry throat).  We needed to eat, shower and sleep in a bed prior to our 19-hour half-circumvention of Earth and that meant I needed to call my father for money. 


When families split, there is residue.  Residue that tastes of differences in priorities, differences in beliefs, differences in how we decide to live our lives.  It is often an unforgiving difference that defines not just our relationship but “us” as new and different individuals…individuals that were once connected in an unspoken agreement to never admit those differences that had its silence shattered by disappointment and pain.  This is what I had to face when calling my father for money.  Money that he barely had and, even if that factor not been ever-present in my mind, the differences in us were rooted in a split that seemed to not only define both of us now but seems to also direct our wretched attempt and incomplete wholeness that lacks the depth of unspoken agreements.  So, when he agreed to help me, to send me money without hesitation, my bruised heart of idealized fatherness sunk into the abyss of my fasting stomach and hit with an echo that resounded into the tear ducts in the recesses of my eyes.


With renewed hope, we found the cheapest hotel in Queens…one who’s skunk weed carpets were befitting for the town named Jamaica, even if missing the moniker of ‘new’.  The beds laid heavy with the worries and anxiety of what they could not accomplish in less than 8 hours of sleeplessness but did what they could.  As I lay awaiting the peacefulness of not thinking, not trying, not wanting, I realized that of all the abuse I have willingly taken, given, or deserved, my stomach took the blunt end from several directions today.  But, I am thankful that I am healthy, that I have family I did not choose and that I have learned today that ignorance is painful, it is frustrating, and it is expensive.  So, I enter tomorrow with less ignorance than I did today.