You had a gang in school before Trinity didn't you?
Who told you?
Someone who knew you well
They're not too many
And it's on purpose?
If too many people say they know you well it's because of two things, either you're a crook or a church pastor
So you did
It wasn't much but it opened my eyes
On what exactly?
You can play by everyone's book and lose
Or?
Make your own rules and win
That comes at a cost doesn't it?
There is no greater cost than putting up with things
You've been bullied at school, why you formed a gang I've been told
Just once, see if it happens to you once it's what life is, if you let it happen to you twice that's on you
And it stayed, became way of being from what I can tell
For better or worse we are the choices we make
Do you mean we can't change?
That too is a choice
Trinity was another world almost for you
Oh yes, those theater classes really saved the day
How
What do you have in theater classes
Roles, role play, repetitions, improvisations, acts
And you could be anyone you wanted
So you became a banker
You can't tell
So Bank of America was your big act
It's many acts and still playing
Ridgewood High, in the evening
Hey Winter let me see that potato chip bag
What? No way
Not sharing the wealth? Give me that!
Give it back Nolan!
In your dreams Winter, now if you don't bring me a bag like this one every other day am gonna beat your ass up when school is out
Philippe what happened to you, your shirt is thorn out
I don't want to talk about it
Yes you do, someone did this to you?
A crazy guy at a bus stop
I told you never to get near those crack heads! I told you!
Okay okay it won't happen again
Handle your own, rule number one, although gang was maybe a big name for five 12 years olds and a kid that was 10, Axel's brother, we just didn't want to be bullied by other kids, but in life in general, rule number two if you can't handle it on your own don't say it
Life has a tendency to throw things at you, and you can't always run for cover, maybe even if you do it once that's all you'll end up doing, somehow you keep that thin shell for life
If you keep repeating it without fixing it that's all you'll get, if someone fixes it for you than you're just bringing your own troubles and putting them on someone's else's plate, nevermind if it's your parent we all have stuff to deal with
If you still find the means to enjoy your childhood while taking care of your own good for you, if you don't that's also life, if you cannot relate to any of this it's because you and I have very different stories, mine is made of growing poor in a broken New Jersey suburb, 80's recession and drugs epidemics in New York you know that part, losing my father at an age where the fact he died a hero only made sense much later in life, and definitely of what would have been a career in teenage crime if there wasn't the Trinity scholarship miracle
So you may say I failed at being a gangster, but I got to learn the ropes quick, taking no shit from no one, you hit us once we hit you twice and so on
Now in retrospect I don't think anyone of us knew what a gang was, a white kid, that was myself, two Vietnamese American that was Axel and his brother, Easton, a fat black kid, and Isaiah a skinny Jewish kid with round glasses who seemed to float in his clothes and would later become the brains of the organization
I was still the leader, I mean it was my idea to have each other's back at school, as each of us was picked on every now and then, but we didn't have the muscle, it's Isaiah who figured out we could buy that, for soda pops, bags of chips, baseball caps, a pair of jeans, you name it
And soon enough we started bullying the bullies, although it came with payoffs to about a dozen other kids who were only too happy to have extra stuff just for showing up and roughing some feathers every now and then
Baseball caps and tickets to the games that was on me, my old man's best friend worked at the Yankee stadium and I could have as many of those as I wanted even when he passed and maybe more because he did, Easton's father worked in jeans retail he could have all of those that didn't pass inspection, Axel and his brother worked the crowds, Isaiah kept the books, we had something
Kids came to us they wanted in, we went from the measly week into the untouchables, the thing had kind of snowballed, enough to bring us to the attention of the school's board, as the gang of five, the wiseguys who traded comics books, Marvel, Spiderman if you're into the stuff that provided a fantastic escape from the projects, and above all we felt we were more, more in life than to be robbed of our bags of chips
But you have to believe in yourself, no one will give you that, and when you do you have to believe in others, because no one can take that away
Six of Diamonds this morning while having coffee, on a box of glasses I never paid attention to, lucky money now out of the blue, I remembered the King of Diamonds at the coffee place, same suite
I guess they go in pairs, action and retribution, I felt I was badly in need of a break, but the usual seat at the coffee table had been robbed from me, this card came on its own, didn't even have to take a walk to get it
Sometimes often we wait for things, or we seek them here and there, almost forgetful of how all meaningful things come of their own, not that we do not have to pursue them, but very much they come in their own due time, not sooner or later and only when it makes sense
One of the hard earned truths of life is we are not to say when things happen, and it is almost always when impatience had run out that the cards of life play themselves, as much a work of cunning as patience, card games, and the deck of cards that is life itself
The other hard earned truth of life is all hard earned truths, the ones that matter, are well hard earned, you can start life by being dumb but it doesn't mean that's where you end, eventually feathers grow back and you have something
I never truly felt the need to prove myself and so I didn't, or only to myself, and I have met many people who resented me for it, not knowing I didn't share their resentment, being content with your lot is the greatest gift in life, and those who don't know it are often the first to reproach others, for not sharing the collective guilt of being in the shoes next to those of John Gadsby
Black coffee, no sugar, well life has taken the sugar off me I guess, I do fancy myself as sugar coated every now and then, even sprinkled with glitter, just like John
The things he had no use for every time since I first saw him at Hugo Boss Marrakech Ryadh during my first novel, looking visibly younger than his age and shrouded with the careless glory of youth, I wondered what was his secret
I suspected behind the appearances were more somber things which he had inevitably overcome, as if all the rest, the money, the looks, the success, the women, was dues getting paid
But what I couldn't explain to myself is how he considered him as mere occurrences of life the things anyone would have done anything for, as if he was in all more interested in knowing the person he had in front of him and knowing life, not like most of all of us would consider knowing life but knowing its difficulty same as its ease
And staying whole that is the thing, or maybe he had been shattered more than once, had splintered of anything that wasn't his true self
The other time I saw him at La Mamounia Casino playing Black Jack, with quite a crowd around this table, he won with ease and he lost with style, the things which applied to everyone else didn't seem to apply to him, and we may argue his vast wealth provided him that life, but no, he was the same painter making a living for himself by painting the scenes of Casablanca's Medina
I had begun piercing the veils of a multifaceted existence, and different personas in different parts of the world, the people he could afford to be, that he sometimes suffered to be in the slums of New Delhi, as so many lives he pieced together as one, not content with having a single life, not content with being a single person, which he still was behind his characters, for I haven't found another word to describe them
Why, why not would be the unfounded light headed answer, we can only understand why if we could fathom, which we can't, his drive or even obsession at knowing life, of being not just another of its stories but many of them put together, and winning life's favor, at his own risks, beyond what we unfailingly consider as reasonable
He would be the man who abandoned the life of a New York heir and magnate to pursue the meanings of existence in a life of hard labor, for what outcome we do not know, what was his business of changing a life for another when all we know is clinging, hopefully, desperately, to what we have
Time had passed, but the projects had stayed the same, the worst had passed, but they still managed to remain as shabby as they had always been, maybe even since they were built, maybe they were meant to be that from the day fresh paint had expired
Emily had woken up at 5AM, just in time to make breakfast for her kid and hitch the commuter train to the coffee place where she worked as a waitress, only returning after long shifts to get her child from daycare and pursue her passion for journalism during online courses
She worked all week, rested on a rotating day of the week, and worked overtime for the remainder of her days off, and through it she was many contradictions in one person, an avid listener who answered in few sharp words, with a big heart yet blunt when confronted by anyone, who had learned to stand her ground from very young in life in the concrete jungle New York also was about, where being smart and tough was not a hobby but a way of life
Many visitors of the city didn't suspect this city could even be harsher for women, something other women knew for a fact life for them was more challenging, but being a single woman in New York epitomized feminine independence and the will to achieve in life, and still with all of her toughness and resolve, if it wasn't for the low rent unit she had been granted Emily wouldn't have been able to part of the city she loved more than anywhere else
It wasn't history repeating itself, as much as life in New York with its ups and downs but never easy for anyone writing its own rules, yes you could make it, many did, and many also failed, getting by as a single working mother with the cost of living, of groceries, of daycare, was here in one of the most expensive cities of the world an achievement
But still if you asked anyone born and raised in New York, or it's immediate New Jersey extension, they wouldn't change it for anything else, and for most it is all they knew
The Statue of Liberty stood in the Hudson estuary, the liberty to which others came and which they had to earn, making New Yorkers resent even a couple of weeks away from the city, that had a certain vibe, a certain electricity in the air, which was made of a sheer diversity of people from all over the world, and maybe prided itself as its capital for having succeeded through the years at the unlikely exercise of still being home to all New Yorkers