Frank is Emptiness

November 3rd, 2018

We got to Hans and Gabi’s house around 5:00 PM. We got to sitting around and talking. Gabi and Karin were watching “Hell’s Kitchen” on the television. Then Hans started telling us a story about one of the times he got pulled over by a deputy sheriff.

“Yeah, this deputy pulled me over one night. I’d been drinking a bit. After he stopped me, he saw the open container in the truck, and he started telling me that he was going to write me up a ticket. Well, I showed him…”

At that point, Hans pulled his t-shirt up high, and rubbed his left nipple. He said to us in the same sultry, falsetto voice that he had used with the deputy, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

Hans grinned, and said to us, “That deputy pulled me out the truck so damn fast. He threw on me on the ground and beat my ass for a while. THEN, he tazed me! He stuck me with that thing, and he asked,

“You  awake now?!”

I didn’t like that much. It’s okay, I got him back later.”

I had to ask, “How?”

Hans told the story.

“Well, I was at Yankee’s, having a beer, and that deputy was there.”

Gabi interrupted, “Just one beer?”

Hans replied, “Well, a pitcher. But that only counts as one.”

Gabi rolled her eyes.

Hans continued,

“Well, he was all messed up, and was stumbling out the door to get on his Harley and ride home. Well, that was clearly unsafe, so I followed him out there, and when he got on his bike, I took the keys out of the ignition.

He didn’t like that. He started yelling at me to give his keys back, but I told him he was too drunk to ride that bike. He went on hollering, so I told him that I’d go back in the bar and bring us out a couple beers.

I went in the bar and I gave the keys to the bartender. I told him that the deputy was too drunk to ride. The barkeep put the keys behind the cash register.

In went back out to the lot, and the deputy asked about his beer.

I told him, “What beer?”

Then he asked about his keys.

I told him, “What keys?”

He was pissed. He took a swing at me and missed. He fell over when he did that. Then he went inside the bar, raising hell about his missing keys.

The bartender, well, he got mad, and he told the deputy to knock that shit off, or he was going to call the cops.

The deputy yelled at him, “I AM THE COPS!”

The bartender yelled back, “Then I’m gonna call your boss!”

The deputy sobered up a bit, and he got on his phone to his wife. She came to get him in a big, old Suburban. She was pissed. She was so mad at her guy.”

Hans laughed.

 

 

Hans and I were at his home. The women were all gone shopping. They were out buying stuff for next day’s baby shower. Hans and I had just taken a ride to Kurten to look at the beat up, white Ford truck that he planned to eventually raise from the dead. The white whale was sitting in the tall grass on the property of Gabby’s father. Hans plans, once he has some money, to put a new transmission into the truck. First, he has to put the bell housing from the old tranny back into the Ford, just to see if the engine will turn over. Gabby’s daddy came out of his house to talk with us for a bit. Then Hans and I bought some groceries and beer, and we went back to Hans’ house.

Once we got home, I started making quiche. It was kind of like baking a cheese pie. The quiche was to be a side dish for the baby shower. Hans planned to cook up some hamburgers for the party, but he and Gabby needed some other food to go along with the burgers. Hans and talked as I worked in the kitchen. We talked about Weston, the son that would soon arrive. We talked about religion for a bit. I asked Hans if he intended to get Weston baptized at some point. Hans wasn’t sure about that. He and Gabi are both Christian, but Hans wasn’t sure if Gabby’s church did infant baptisms, or if they waited until the person was an adult.

Hans cracked open a can, and started telling me about how he went to all sorts of religious services while he was in Army basic training. He went just to get away from the barracks and to score some goodies that the different denominations offered to young soldiers.

Hans told me, “I even visited with the Muslims for a while. They used to bring food from the local IHOP. Eventually, they stopped doing that, and I got tired listening to their stuff. I spent a lot of time with the Protestants. They always had a ‘meet and greet’ sort of thing. That was kind of nice.”

Hans got thoughtful as he took a pull on his Lime-a-Rita. He said,

“You know, I learned later on that I had a higher purpose. Truck’s dad, he’s a Christian. He told me once that I had a higher purpose. He didn’t know what it was, but he said that he knew I was supposed to be on this earth for a reason.”

Hans went on, “You know, after that, when things were bad, I pulled the trigger. I had the gun to my head. That shitty Russian round never fired. It didn’t go ‘boom’. It just went ‘click’. I was still alive. I knew then that I had a higher purpose here.”

I had the pies in the oven, and Hans and I settled down to watch a movie on Netflix. We settled on watching “Hold the Dark”, which is kind of a murder mystery set in Alaska. Early in the movie, there is a scene set in Iraq during the war. Hans watched it intently. I asked him if it was realistic.

Hans shrugged.

There was a part where an American soldier fires up an Iraqi vehicle with a 50 cal. Then one of the other soldiers takes a selfie in front of the burning wreckage and bloody carnage. Hans laughed.

“Now that’s realistic. We did that all the time. But we never posted those pictures. Well, the idiots did, but they got in trouble for that.”

The movie showed American troops on patrol in the desert with their vehicles. Hans started to reminisce,

“One time we got fired up by some National Guard unit. Our own guys. They couldn’t identify vehicles for shit. We kept trying to call them, and we sent up flares. They wouldn’t answer their radio. Finally, I fired my 50 cal, and sent tracer rounds thirty feet in front of their lead vehicle. That got their attention. They answered the radio then. Damn, I got in trouble for that shit. I almost lost rank because of that.”

In a later part of the Iraqi scene, a lone soldier walks through part of a war-torn town. He comes upon another American soldier who is in the process of raping an Iraqi woman. The lone soldier stabs the rapist repeatedly, and then he hands his bloody knife to the woman, so that she can finish the job.

Hans signed and said, “I probably would have done the same thing, but I probably wouldn’t have used my own knife to do it. But we never walked alone in an Iraqi town. Only stupid guys did that. We always at least went in pairs, you know, ‘battle buddies’. Maybe there were 60% or even 90% of the people in a town that wanted you there. That meant here were still other people looking to kill you.”

We sat and watched the rest of the movie.

 

 

November 1st, 2018

There isn’t much going on in Alpena, Arkansas. It has few houses and a gas station that are located at the intersection of Highways 412 and 23. It was about five in the afternoon when Karin and I drove there in the pouring rain. We were looking for place eat something, and there happened to be a tiny sandwich shop right next to the filling station. We stopped.

We went into the sandwich shop and checked out the menu. They could make a variety of wraps, burgers, and sandwiches. At least, that’s what the menu said. We were greeted by a timid young girl who looked to be barely into her early teens. She asked what we wanted. Karin ordered a veggie wrap.

The childlike teenager smiled nervously, and said with a thick southern drawl,

“This my first day at this job. The girl who’s training me hasn’t shown me how to make a wrap yet. She’s in the back right now, but she will be here in a minute. Y’all don’t mind?”

The experienced trainer came into the shop. She didn’t look much older than the new employee. I wonder what the child labor laws are in Arkansas. The older girl told Karin that she would be teaching her young apprentice as they made the wrap together. She cautioned Karin that it might take a while. It did.

I ordered a cheeseburger. The master sandwich maker took care of my order. That went more quickly. The girls were very friendly, and I could tell that they were doing the best job that they could. The older girl was patient as she taught the newbie. I was impressed by that. We left a tip.

Karin and I were tired. Very tired. We had already had eleven hours of windshield time, and we could feel it. It was going to get dark soon, and we still had over two hours of driving left before we arrived at the retreat house at the Subiaco Abbey. The last couple hours were all going to be along the steep, narrow roads that wind through the Ozark mountains.

I took the first stretch from Alpena through Huntsville. The car has a six-speed standard transmission, and I shifted through all of those gears repeatedly. It was raining hard, and fog was starting to rise from the ground in places. It was a white knuckle ride.

Karin told me, “Now don’t wait too long before we switch drivers. Tell me when you’re tired.”

The truth was that I had been tired for several hours already. Now I was just getting scary tired.

We traded seats in some wide spot in the road called St. Paul. Karin had the last leg of the journey, and it was bad. Karin asked me to read the speed limit signs that came just before the tight turns. I called out,

“Thirty miles per hour!”

“Twenty miles per hour!”

“TEN miles per hour!”

Yês, there were hairpin curves that required the driver to slow to ten miles per hour. With the rain and the leaves on the road, it was slick. The grades were steep. Karin’s stomach tightened into a fist. She was not enjoying Highway 23.

We saw some big trucks coming the opposite direction as we came down this slalom course into the Arkansas River Valley. I cannot imagine how it is even physically possible for a tractor pulling a 45′ trailer to handle some of those hairpin turns. The Toyota barely made it.

We made to Subiaco. Karin was exhausted. It’s strange. That trip would be great on a warm, dry autumn day for somebody on a Harley. It sucked on a dark, rainy night.

 

 

 

 

 

October 29th, 2018

The rabbi said, “There is no mitzah, no commandment, that requires a Jew to believe in God.”

Wow.

I was sitting in the synagogue when he said that, and it made me think. The Orthodox Jews follow 613 different mitzvot (commandments), which they derive from the Torah. These rules from God cover almost every aspect of their lives. Yet, somehow, God isn’t all that concerned with their actual beliefs.

As the rabbi went on to explain his statement, he indicated that God does not command us to have specific thoughts or intentions or beliefs. God is interested in our actions. He is concerned with what we do, as opposed to what we think. 

This whole idea is in opposition to most of Christian thought. Christians, especially Evangelicals, place a huge emphasis on belief. As just one of many examples:

John 3:16

 

 

 

 

October 26th, 2018

The house was on a quiet street near the corner of 60th and Oklahoma, an intersection that is dominated by the church of St. Gregory the Great. I had never been to the house before. The area is on Milwaukee’s far south side, a part of town that is attractive to firemen and cops. These are people who work for the City, and therefore need to reside within its boundaries. At least, they used be required to be residents of Milwaukee. I don’t know if that is still the case. The far south side of Milwaukee is not quite suburbia, and it is not hip and trendy, and it is definitely not the hood. It is especially not the hood.

Sometimes you wind up in unexpected places. I was there because the parents of the Syrian family wanted to an English-speaker to be present as they shopped for a house. The mother, A’isha, has a friend is fluent in both English and Arabic. However, this friend was unavailable to be present as A’isha and Turki inspected the house. I just happened to be in the family’s home, tutoring Ibrahim on his homework, so I was asked to come along. My Arabic is minimal, but I have known the family for over a year, and they apparently trust me.

The realtor was there to show us the home. He was there to sell. Of course, that’s his job, but it brought back to me a flood of unpleasant memories from when Karin and I were looking for a house back in 1990. I am sure that he is a good guy, but I was suspicious of everything he told us. Just because…he’s a realtor.

Keep in mind the size of the Syrian family. They have eleven children. I am no stranger to large families. I grew up with six younger brothers. I know how much room is required for a big family. This house didn’t quite meet the requirements. There were issues.

The realtor wanted us to look at the basement. Why not? It was a finished basement, and a finished basement always makes me uneasy, because things are hidden. I asked the realtor about any possible water damage, and he stared at his smart phone until he could tell me that the sellers had indicated that there had not been any water in the basement. This told me nothing. The basement had no sump pump. The carpeting and the paneling on the walls hid any problems.

The basement wasn’t very big, and most of its space was consumed by a humongous wet bar. The bar had several stools and a couple built-in beer taps. I found this to be oddly amusing. I said to Turki, who was looking at the bar,

“I don’t think you are going to use this much.”

He gave me a wry smile, and said, “No”, as he shook his head.

I asked the realtor, “Have you figured out that these people are Muslim?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, I don’t think they will be entertaining guests at the bar.”

He shrugged, “They might find some alternate use for it.”

Really?

The deal breaker came when we looked at the one and only bathroom in the house. The place had four bedrooms, but only one bath. A’isha made it clear that one toilet wasn’t going to be enough. Thirteen people and one bathroom? Noooo.

The realtor asked the Syrians what they really wanted.

A’isha blurted out, “Two baths!”

The realtor countered, “How about one and a half?”

A’isha relented, “Yes, maybe one and a half.”

The realtor asked her, “How many bedrooms?”

“Four! No, maybe five!”  (Do the math: thirteen people in the family divided by five bedrooms. That’s still crowded.)

Oddly enough, I live in a house with one and a half bathrooms, and five bedrooms. However, the Syrian family isn’t moving in to our home. There is way too much of my wife’s yarn and wool filling up most of the space.

The realtor asked the Syrian couple how much money the bank had offered to provide.

A painful silence.

Okay, these folks are new at this game. They started by looking at a house. That seems reasonable. Karin and I did the same thing years ago. However, that is the wrong place to start. A person starts by talking to the bank. The bank determines how much of a house a person can afford. The realtor takes that dollar amount and looks for available homes. You start the process with the money, and the process ends with the money. It’s all about the money.

Buying a house is probably one of the most stressful events in a family’s life. It is a huge, long term commitment. It’s scary as hell. It was scary for my wife and me, and we actually understood English. For these people, it’s got to be intense, maybe overwhelming.

Owning your own home is the American dream. Yeah.

Welcome to America.

 

 

 

October 24th, 2018

The Dune novels were written by Frank Herbert several decades ago. Herbert was able to create extremely complex and holistic fantasy worlds in his stories. A great deal of what currently passes for science fiction lacks any kind of internal consistency (this includes the Dune books written by Herbert’s son). The genius of Frank Herbert was that he could invent worlds that were both exotic and believable. His stories always, at least, seemed to be possible. 

There is a recurring theme in all of the Dune novels. The story often revolves around the ability of the main characters to predict the future. They use a drug called melange in order to see what things would come. Herbert describes this faculty for precognition as a gift and a curse, mostly as a curse. It is both a source of immense power and a trap.

In his book, Dune Messiah, Herbert tells the tale of Paul Atreides, a man who can see the future clearly, but can do almost nothing to change it. Herbert meticulously describes the feelings of a person who knows everything that will happen, and also knows that free will is mostly an illusion. The story is a tragedy, like those of the ancient Greeks. The book is unsettling, not so much because of all the violence and suffering in it, but because the main character is bored by it all. Paul already knows all of the future. He has already seen it, and lived it.

My life is never boring. Every day God throws me a curve ball. I will not say that every surprise is a pleasant one, but I am grateful them nonetheless. I would rather say, “What the fuck?”, than say, “Oh, this shit again.”

I suspect the difference between boredom and interest is how a person engages with the world. I know people who hunker down and avoid anything new in their lives. Their lives are necessarily boring. Others seek out new things, and their lives are chaotic and a bit scary. The universe, by its very nature, is a bit scary.

There are, perhaps, two sorts of people. There are those who only want answers, and there are those who only want questions. When we know all of the answers, we are dead. Only the living can ask questions.

I am not a fan of utter chaos. I understand the need for some kind of order and logic. My wife’s parents survived World War II in Germany. I have friends who are Syrian refugees. My oldest son experienced the violence of the war in Iraq. People suffer for no good reason. There is a limit to what humans can endure. An irrational universe is difficult to accept.

I also know people who live in their quiet suburban neighborhoods, knowingly unknowing about the suffering all around them. They live in a a false security. They go to their churches and hear words that are designed to reassure them. They try to keep at bay the madness that may eventually overwhelm them. They want the soothsayers and the oracles. They want the answers. They want the solid, unalterable truths that will keep them safe forever. They want to be Paul Atreides.

I am a fool. I want to be surprised. I want every day to be a new day. I want the unexpected. I want to live.

 

 

 

October 23rd, 2018

Monday was the beginning of early voting in Wisconsin. I went to the Oak Creek City Hall to cast my ballot. I voted yesterday because I will be out of town on the day of the actual election. Two elderly women took, in what appeared to me, an excessive amount of time scrutinizing my driver’s license and trying to find my name in their registration file. Their apparent confusion did not give me a warm, fuzzy feeling about the electoral process. Perhaps, they were a bit over-cautious. In a time when our President tweets in capital letters about “VOTER FRAUD” at every opportunity, I imagine that the people working the polls are a little edgy. These women seemed tense.

When I teach my citizenship class at Voces de la Frontera, I always tell the prospective citizens of the United States to vote once they are able. I make a point of explaining to them that I don’t care how they vote. I just want them to vote. I want them to be active and engaged citizens of this country. Voting is a big part of being a citizen. It is a duty as well as a right.

I thought about that as I voted. It is difficult for me, and probably for many other people,  to see how an single vote matters in the grand scheme of things. I cannot even count how many elections did not go my way. It is very easy to conclude that the electoral system is pointless, or even rigged. Our current regime in Washington encourages the idea that the system is rigged. Elections only matter if all the parties involved accept (perhaps grudgingly) the validity of the results.

In a sense, voting is act of faith. I believe that my vote makes a difference. I cannot know this for certain. I cannot actually know that my vote gets counted. I cannot know that the system is fair and honest. However, for this cumbersome and confusing operation to work at all, I have to believe that it can and does work. I, along with everyone else, have to trust in the process.

It is hard to trust. There are people, our President included, who continually scream that there is endemic voter fraud. These people, perhaps by design, keep people away from the polls. They instill fear and doubt in the electoral process. This is a poison that destroys democracy.

Going back to my citizenship class, I often tell my students that, at the beginning of our country, very few people could vote. Back in the old days, the only persons who could vote were white men, over twenty-one-years of age, who owned land. Since then, many people in our country have struggled mightily to expand voting rights to everyone. Others have struggled just as hard to restrict the right to vote. That fight continues to this day.

There are people who find it very difficult to vote. There are the poor who cannot cast a ballot during polling hours because they are working, or because they lack transportation. There are those who lack proper identification (like the elderly). There are those who have been kicked off registration lists, for whatever reason. Voting is a right, not a privilege. There should not be any obstructions to people being able to vote.

There are also people who should vote, but don’t. My kids don’t vote. Hans tells me that he fought for in a war for American freedom, and he never votes. He doesn’t think that his vote counts. Stefan doesn’t vote because he is convinced that it as all a scam. We have discouraged an entire generation from participating in politics. This is a the path to dictatorship. This is the road to ruin.

Vote.

 

 

 

October 17th, 2018

The Latina was getting close to middle age, if not quite there yet. I picked her up before dawn at her apartment in Waukesha. It was a cold, windy morning. I had texted her that I was outside of her apartment building.

She came out to my car shivering.

The woman gave me a quick smile, and said, ” Un poquito frío, ¿no?”

“Sí,” I replied.

I was already stressed. The Subaru was acting up again. Aaron had replaced the motor, but there was still a check engine light. I had been ignoring the light, since the car had been running okay. Now it wasn’t. The Subaru has a stick shift, and it was stalling out intermittently when I stepped on the clutch at traffic stops. This scared me a bit. I didn’t know if the motor would kill, or when it would kill. It died once while I was making a left turn in an intersection.

Normally, I would have just gone home or taken the car directly to Aaron’s shop. However, this woman had a 8:00 AM court appearance in Pewaukee, and there was nobody else to take her there. If I didn’t drive her to the courthouse, then she wouldn’t be able to get there at all. Missing a court appearance is a bad thing, a very bad thing. So, I went to pick her up, in the hope that the Subaru would get us to court and then back to her home again.

It takes less than twenty minutes to drive from her apartment to the court in Pewaukee. The car stalled four times during that journey. The woman was already nervous, and she asked me if there was problem with the car. I mumbled, and told her no.

I had been told that the woman would be bringing her adult son to court with her in case there was not an interpreter available. She was alone when I picked her up. I was also told that the court could get an interpreter on the phone, if necessary. I was sure that it would be necessary.

Pewaukee is a small city. It has a combination courtroom/city hall. There was already a line of people standing in a hallway, waiting to go to court when I arrived with the woman.  Two lawyers were in a room adjacent to the hallway. The city does what most municipalities do: they have the paperwork for the court cases ready for the defendants, and the lawyers offer to strike a deal with them in order to avoid an actual hearing. Quite often, the defendants cop to a lesser charge, pay a fine, and life goes on. The lawyers were expecting that to happen when the woman entered the room with me.

The lawyer had a standard form for the woman to fill out. He told her,

“The first you need to do is to decide whether you want to plea “guilty” or “not guilty.”

She gave him a puzzled look , and then she glanced inquiringly at me.

The lawyer continued, “You are charged with driving without a license. Do you have a license now?”

She looked unsure, and then she shook her head. She said quietly,

“¿Una licencia? No…”

I sighed.

I told the lawyer, “She has no idea what you are talking about. She does not speak much English.”

The attorney frowned and asked me, “Can you explain it to her?”

“No, I can’t.”

My Spanish isn’t nearly good enough to explain the charges to her, and even if I was fluent in the language, I would not attempt to advise her as to her plea. It’s not my place to give the woman legal advice. Not at all.

I asked the attorney, “Do you have an interpreter available?”

He cleared his throat and looked suddenly uncomfortable.

“I’ll have to ask.”

He went to talk with the bailiff, and asked him if there was an officer in the building who could translate. The policeman shook his head. Then the lawyer asked the cop to ask the people in the line if any of them spoke Spanish. The policeman proceeded to ask random people if they could translate for the woman.

“Anybody here speak Spanish?!”

He found no one.

The lawyer returned to his chair in the room. He shook his head irritably, and said, “Well,  she’s just going to have to see the judge. I can’t do anything here.”

“Does the judge speak Spanish?’

“No.”

We went into the courtroom. The judge sat behind a large desk, and there was a woman sitting next to him. I am not sure what her official capacity was, but she apparently was there to advise and assist the judge. In front of the desk was a lectern with a microphone. The defendants were to stand at that podium (with their hands not in their pockets) when they were called before the judge.

We sat and waited to be called. The bailiff came up to her with a paper for her to sign. I looked at the document.

He said, “This just says that you are the defendant, and that you appeared this morning before the judge.”

She looked at me. I nodded. she signed the paper.

The judge called her name. We stood up and walked over to the microphone.

The judge spoke to the woman. She gave him a puzzled look. I took over.

“Sir, she speaks very little English. She doesn’t understand you. Sadly, my Spanish is as bad as her English, so I can’t translate for her. Is there anybody who can act as an interpreter?”

The judge turned to the bailiff. “Is there anybody around who can translate?”

The bailiff shook his head, “Well, if Juan was here…he could…but he’s not…”

The judge asked the bailiff, “Is there anyone in the hall who knows Spanish?”

The bailiff shook his head.

The judge asked us, “Can she call someone in?”

I looked at the Latina and asked about her son. “¿Tu hijo?”

She shook her head, “No, él está trabajando.”

The woman next to the judge spoke to us. She said, “We are not required to have an interpreter here, unless it is for a trial.”

I asked, “Okay, so you can’t get anybody?”

The woman from the court paused and said, “Well…if you want to wait…maybe somebody might come in who speaks Spanish.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Uh, no. We…won’t…be…waiting.”

The judge said, “Then we need to reschedule this appearance, for when she can bring along her own interpreter.”

A date and time were set for next month.

Well after the fact, I remembered that the Latina had the phone number for her lawyer, and he had told her to call him if there were problems. She never called. I didn’t think to tell her to call.

I drove the Latina home. I said to her,

“Lo siento.”

She smiled sadly and shrugged. “It’s okay. Gracias!”

She got out of the car. As she left, I said again,

“Lo siento.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 13th, 2018

“You see, you don’t have to live like a refugee
(Don’t have to live like a refugee)” – Tom Petty

The Chicago Tribune published this letter from me yesterday.

“The Trump administration has decided to limit the number of refugees entering the United States each year to 30,000 people. That is astounding. We have over 300 million people in our country. Thirty-thousand refugees represents only .01 percent of our nation’s total population. That is one refugee for every 10,000 inhabitants of the U.S.

Why so few? Are we not prosperous enough to help more than just 30,000 people, all of whom are coming to America because they fear for their lives? Are we frightened of them? The United States has a massive military budget, and we spend more on national security than on almost anything else. Don’t we have the personnel to vet these immigrants? Why are we trying to keep refugees out?”

October 14th, 2018

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.”
― Warsan Shire, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth

I was on the phone with Hussein. His father is trying to find a better job, and I suggested that he try to get into the Iron Workers apprenticeship program. Our son, Stefan, is part of that program, and he is well on his way to becoming a welder in the union. Stefan has met Hussein’s family, and he actually was thinking about getting Hussein to try out for the program, but Hussein is only seventeen years old, and he doesn’t qualify yet. Because the economy is hot, the Iron Workers Union is looking for people. So, I told Hussein to get his dad involved in the process.

Turki, Hussein’s father, is forty years old. He doesn’t have many years, but he has a lot of mileage. He’s had a difficult life. Turki, and his family, fled from Syria, and went to Turkey for a while. Somehow, Turki manged to get his wife and eleven kids to this country. I am impressed by that. His actions show a great deal of initiative and courage. He has a strength. It is a strength based on desperation, but it is strength nonetheless. He currently works as a janitor in a school. He busts his ass to take care of his family, and he struggles. I think that Turki has always struggled.

Turki speaks English passably, but Hussein had to fill out the apprenticeship application for him online. It is a classic immigrant situation. The children have to help the parents to adjust to the new world. Turki’s kids are his bridge from Syria to America.

I am not sure that Turki will be accepted by the Iron Workers. His education level is sketchy. Hussein had told me that they had not received a response from the union after two weeks. I told Hussein that I would ask Stefan for some advice. Later, I called Hussein to tell him what Stefan told me, and to ask him some questions.

I told Hussein, “My son says that you should call the local union and ask for Rich. He’s the guy who runs the apprenticeship program. He can tell you and your dad what to do.”

Hussein said, “Okay. We do that on Monday.”

“Hussein, I want to find your father some other options for work. What does he know how to do?”

“My father, he works very hard. He can do hard work.”

I sighed. The Iron Workers are involved in laying down a lot of steel rebar. The work is physically demanding. Stefan comes home utterly exhausted from his job, and he’s only twenty-four. Construction work is a young man’s game.

“Yes, I know that. But what skills does he have?”

“What do you mean?”

I replied, “What has your dad done for work?”

Hussein answered me, “In Syria, we were all farmers. He worked on the farm.”

Fuck.

My mind raced. “Can he drive a forklift?”

“No, but he can learn!”

I am sure that Turki can learn. The man is no dummy. The question is whether an employer will take the time to train Turki. Turki is extremely motivated, but his skill set is very limited.

I told Hussein, “I am going to look around to find other jobs for your dad. I don’t know what there is. I really don’t. I’ll look. I will let you know.”

Hussein replied, “Thank you, Frank. Thank you.”

We hung up.