"The Young and the Jobless" — Afterward

As I labored over the keys yesterday, trying to find the perfect words to capture my newfound contentment, Michael was already dead. He’d been dead for a while by then, even before I sat down at my computer.

I didn’t know it, not until 10. My friend called me then, announcing the news.

I can’t say I’ll never forget yesterday because I already have: It zipped by after that phone call, and I went to bed still feeling chills all over my body. But today, the day went slow — a quiet, eerie kind of slow. When I had my mind on work, my mind wasn’t on Michael. But when an assignment was completed or when I opened my browser to double-check a word on my online dictionary, his face popped up on my home page, and the sad realization sank in all over again.

I don’t want to read about it anymore. I want to make my peace. If you happened to glance at the New York sky tonight, it was an orange-red color, with cotton dabs of white dotting its surface. It looked exactly like a painting. A quirky painting covering the sky.

What is there to be said? So much, yet every word seems too small to capture reality. His gentle soul is gone. And so many people mourn him. It brings me comfort to feel the collective sadness, and I wish he knew and was here to see that this is what he left behind, this is how well-loved he is. Because he had so many troubles, stresses and debts — the mountain of mindless, living things that brought on his demise — and this simple fact could’ve brought him comfort … even perhaps, reprogrammed his perspective.

But I don’t want to talk about his troubles tonight. Not his nose, his glove or his fabled skin diseases, thank you. There’s too much of that all over the Internet. But what there isn’t enough of is this: Michael Jackson donated in his lifetime a total of $300 million to 39 charities. That’s impressive. All proceeds from some of his best-selling singles went to charity. And let’s remember why he created Neverland in the first place: to offer kids that would never see a playground in their lives a chance to experience the greatness of childhood. I consider this idea fascinating, sprung out of the quirky imagination Micheal was blessed with. (What rich person would actually ever think to make this out-of-this-world, almost-imaginary ground filled with rides and animals for impoverished kids, instead of just making a standard donation?). And yes, I don’t buy the child molestation charges. I’m much more inclined to believe the opinion of his psychiatrist (who said that Michael was then a regressed 10-year-old unable of molesting kids) and of his close friend who also frequented his house during the time (Liz Taylor, who supported MJ on “Larry King Live”).

And aside from ALL that, he was an amazing performer. His boundless energy will be greatly missed. I’d like to thank him for all those amazing moments he brought to my own life, from my earliest memories as a kid, when we’d blast his songs at parties, to the time when I entered my true ’80s phase in college thanks to him (and Kim Wilde), to the many subsequent moments of joy, from practicing the moonwalk in my own living room, to dancing at ’80s bars and perfecting the robot. But most of all, for that refreshing feeling, when I’d leave his music on while working, and after a while, I’d stop and realize that my psyche was completely in tune — and in peace — with the rhythm and flow of his songs.

This is the day that I know I’ll remember for the rest of my life. The day when I mourned my No. 1 ’80s idol. The day when the red sky hung in mourning with us, masking in its lethargic feeling the sinking realization that the world is already a little emptier without him.

May he rest in peace after a lifetime of achievement.

Taking my pants off, I can see the priests marching, as if in holy procession, outside the church. They’ve gathered their things and are going home, perhaps, after a long day of sermon — or just hanging out — at the Greek church. Even when I lie down, I can see its bright-blue domes looming against the sky.

When I come home from work in the evenings, I lie down to take off my top. (In case the priests can see me, I wouldn’t want to expose them to the unholy sight of privates) I could make the short trip to the bathroom and change there, or to the living room even since my roommate is almost always not here. But I don’t want to miss it. With my bed set right against my window and my window facing out into the beauty of the giant trees and the massive church across the sky, it’s like I’ve got first-row seats to a gorgeous, living procession. I wake up to it, with the birds’ sweet song, and in the evenings, I sit next to it, eat, read and play guitar, and lean with elbows on the ledge and hear the gentle whispers of the leaves.

It’s really quite nice.

The other thing is, rewind before I reach my house in the evenings, and as I walk down the streets and make that last turn onto my block, this quiet, delightful feeling sinks in: a welcome realization that I’ve stepped onto a set. A set out of those movies set in small, iconic villages on the Italian countryside.

In this film, I’m not the protagonist, but one of the extras … the girl who walks every day during rehearsals from point A to point B, holding groceries, watching the priests and still smiling as she turns, walks up the few steps and disappears into the building.

I like this role, yes, quite like it, and I’m proud of myself. I’m building my life quite well. One step at a time. And though I call it “rehearsal,” truth is, they’re shooting the whole time.

Love it or hate it, it holds the answers. Where else can you find a $20 TV, a cheap date and a free bicycle in just a few clicks’ time? Yes, it’s taking over the world, and its well-known name is Craigslist. Yet not all great things in life are free — or CG-standards inexpensive. Post an ad selling something, and you’ll find out firsthand.

Let’s take my example: Last weekend, I posted a friend’s iphone for about $340. A long overdue favor, the sale was going to be a bit of proof of my good friendship to him — well, in my head at least. So when the first reply hit my inbox, i jumped! “Is the item still available?” said Mercy James. Well, Mercy James, hallelujah! I wrote back instantly offering my phone. In a few minutes, she wrote back:

“Thanks alot for the reply,i very much appreciate it….actually i
supposed to come and check the item out but im out of states right now
so i wont be able to come over and pick the item also pay by cash and
i believe that the item is in its best condition? and can be presented
as a birthday gift? please note that am shipping the item to an
overseas partner so i will include $80 shipping fee,i will arrange for
the payment of the item though paypal cos i believe its the best to
make an online transaction,so send me your paypal email address or
request for a payment so that i can proceed with the payment of the
item asap.Thank you very much
Hope to hear from you soon.”

Lawd have Mercy, I thought: Not only does she want to pay me the full price, but she’s offering to pay shipping too! I was ready to send her a payment request, but suddenly, I hesitated; something wasn’t right. I wasn’t sure quite what it was — I mean, it’s not like they were asking me for my bank account numbers, so I figured it couldn’t be a scam — but I decided to sleep on it. I shut my computer then and went to bed. This morning, as soon as I reached work, I shifted through emails in my inbox.

“I give you $200,” said some overconfident jerk. “How’s $100 sound? Meet tomorrow, downtown?” How’s about NO?! Then, I came upon good news: A woman wanted the iphone for the full price! But when I looked closer, Latifudeen Olamide’s circumstances sounded suspiciously similar to Mercy’s:

“Thanks for your mail,i am buying the item for my son who school in
oversea.i will add $120 for shipping,i would have prefer a local
transaction but i am out of town presently…kindly get  back to me
with your paypal email account so i can pay now.hope to hear from you
soon
best regard”

What I remember most about the day I moved to New York City last year was the taste of the coffee. No, not a superb cup at some artsy Brooklyn cafe, but a regular, cup of Folger’s.

I drank it sitting on an inflatable mattress — my bed, then — laid on top of a futon mattress on the floor. My room was tiny (still is, which is why I’m moving), but the makeshift arrangement made it feel even smaller. There was a plastic closet in one corner — one of those cheap zippered ones, always leaning just a bit to the right — and a set of plastic drawers in the other, always sinking downward with the weight of my whole existence crammed in.

So there I sat on my little bed, in this tiny hole of a room in one of the many apartment buildings that spotted the streets of Queens. My window faced into a shaft, and I could sometimes see my Chinese middle-aged neighbor in his wifebeater, scratching his belly as he lingered over the fridge. The shaft gave my room some light but not much, so it was always ominously dark in here, especially since back then I didn’t like to have the lights on during the day.

So anyway, I’m sitting there drinking my coffee, really the only thing left that is familiar at this point. The coffee is watery and bitter, but it tastes good, just as it did back home, even a little better. And with every sip, I feel this wave of anxious hope wash over me and just know deep down that everything will be all right.

I was only vaguely aware of it then, but what I did is I mapped out my days with coffee as a destination. The times it was served were set, and I just had to get through the time in between. It was a coping mechanism. A way to keep myself sane. Show myself that even though there was nothing anymore — no familiarity of the past, no friends, no lovers, no job or school even — there was still a cup of coffee. It was always there for me and always would be.

My friends ask me now, why the obsession with Folger’s? But they don’t know about those moments. Those midday mornings on my little bed drinking the coffee, the only times then when everything was quiet, my soul comforted, hope glimmering between the sips.

I’m packing up now to leave this room. My problems now entail how to move the bed that my job enabled me to buy last year into my new, sunny, beautiful apartment. Whether my spacious sunny new room is the best I could find. What kind of desk I can buy to match the walls. I’m drinking coffee still as I ponder, but coffee doesn’t have the same meaning anymore. Folger’s isn’t my savior, not a stepping stone leading to another stepping stone. It’s just coffee. Coffee on a Saturday morning, coffee that gives me something to do as I sit back and take a break from the familiar. It’s till good — yes, I’ve yet to become a New York coffee snob; you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve been busy — but not the end all. I’m still nervous about moving, but overall excited to be building my life for the better. To be moving on. To be leaving the last of everything I’ve left behind in the last two years — and to be lucky to still value that same coffee that helped me make it through so many days and hours and feelings of despair. What I’m trying to say is, life is never stagnant: Time floods in and changes the face of everything. But when something as small and insignificant as a sip of coffee is strong enough to bring you back to those memories of square one, then two things have happened here. One, the miracle of life has just occurred, as it did in the case of cockroaches surviving the Ice Age. And two, you, my friend, are lucky to have these moments, these tiny, tiny keys unlocking the past and your resilience.

Because we are resilient, and that’s what Folger’s tells me.

OK, so they say when you have nothing to say, write anyway. Of course, that’s exactly how you end up with a world full of morons. Because they speak, though they have nothing of substance to offer. But if you’re speaking, they say, you’re already in motion and the flow might lead you to something brilliant – in the same way as, say, you’d stumble upon a block of gold while spring cleaning your Ikea closet.

Exactly. You woulnd’t. That’s my point. So why then am I writing again, my friends? Because it’s been a long tim since I last found joy in writing…or rather, wrote freely at all. And I’m a born entertainer. Back then I entertained – yes, maybe myself, but you gotta start somewhere – and maybe I wasn’t superb, but I did get a sense of joy, a feeling of “alive” out of writing that I didn’t get anywhere else.

But I don’t want to talk about my life. Not what I do for a living, how I feel in my little room, at my 9-to-6, on my weekend treks to Brooklyn. That’s all normal stuff. I don’t want to be a fake-o, who writes about reality, grasping at its straws to pull them out and dig up its essence. I don’t care about truth, essence, reality. I refuse to write thinking. I refuse to think and then write. I want it to come freely. Like a song, like a creek. Like a liquid “ruisseau” flowing from your lips as you pronounce it correctly. It’s just there. Automatic.

But that’s hardly enough material for a book. I say I want to write a book, but all my ideas require embellishing, and I don’t wanna. I wanna write “wanna” when I wanna and not feel badda bout it. That’s the kind of writing I want to do.

Now I’ll tell you that my neighbor left yesterday. She has a huge thing for Jews, though she’s Asian herself. Why? I don’t know. At first I used to think girls with Jew crushes were instinctively drawn to a clean phallus. Now I realize that most guys have that. So perhaps it’s their hairiness. But she says it’s the way they’re like Asians – except hotter and more successful. How a Jewish guy can be hot I don’t know, but then again, thank goodness for differing opinions and rosy goggles or we’d be stuck with a world full of penguins. Black and white, and that’s all.

There, you see that? That was it. The spark. It came out on its own. Where did I get penguins out of Jews?! But I did, and I didn’t understand it myself why I wrote that, until I hushed and went on, and let my brain express itself. You see, this isn’t me speaking really right now – me entails a shy girl sitting behind a desk most of her days, sipping on coffee and trying to fit in French, the news, running, and cooking all in her schedule – but this…this is my brain. My brain alone. Hello there, I’m saying. And I is I, the brain. Nice to meet you, paper, typeface, audience. This is why I like to write: Because most of the time I’m hidden inside, but when I write, I express myself.

If I had the guts, I’d convince this girl who types now and sees the words I dictate to her fingers to let me sing, to let me dance, let me act. But she doesn’t want to do all these things. She longs for them, dreams about them, but when it comes down to it, she gets scared away, retreats to her 9-to-6 and sips a second cup. Well, nice to meet you, too, but she’s sleepy now, dragging me with her heavy eyes to close already.

And so we’ve reached the end already. If I had one last wish tonight, it’d be to write. Keep writing. Not just tonight, but beyond. You know, I want to write stories so bad. Just fiction. Pull fragments out of thin air. Just like I see them sometimes, moments that pass beyond me for a second or two, then let me go. I want to learn to catch them, write them, share them. Scratch the last one; that I only want for me. In truth, it’s enough to write it, enough to satisfy this girl. But fame seals the deal. And so I hope to write it. Yes, I am that selfish; I am The Brain of the operation. And I like it.

Alors, adieu!

PS. Merci to Abby for the lovely notes, like two blue tulips laid on my profile. And this is just the rough draft…