Frank is Emptiness

June 15th, 2018

I thought that I was going to read to the kids. Most Friday afternoons I drive from our home in Oak Creek to the south side of Milwaukee to visit the Syrian family. They live in the heart of the Latino district. A taco truck does a thriving business just down the street from their house. I sincerely doubt that the members of the family have ever purchased anything from that vendor. I don’t think that he makes anything that qualifies as halal.

I found a parking space on Scott Street across from their home. Being as it was a warm, sunny afternoon, I expected to see several of the children outside playing, fighting, and doing normal kid activities. The only child from the family that was out of the house was one of the youngest sons, Muhamed. He was playing on a makeshift swing, along with a little friend. Muhamed waved to me as I got out of my car, and yelled, “Frank!”

I waved back, and crossed the busy street. I don’t know Muhamed’s age. I would guess that he is five or so. Muhamed was dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, but his friend was wearing a shirt and tie. I didn’t catch the friend’s name. He looked like he was of south Asian descent, maybe Pakistani. They had been taking turns on the swing, but now Muhamed was excited to see me.

Muhamed turned his freckled face up toward me and smiled.

“You come inside!” he said. Then he grasped my hand with his own, and led me to their front door.

We came to the door and one of Muhamed’s older brothers, Ibrahim, answered it. He was wearing a suit and tie. Through the door, I could see that the house was filled with people, mostly excited children. My mind couldn’t quite grasp what was going on. There was so much talking and laughing.

Eid al-Fitr.

It was the celebration of the end of Ramadan. Of course. The Muslims count days like the Jews do: from sunset to sunset. Eid began yesterday after sunset, and now the party was in full swing. The house was packed. In the dining room, the table was overflowing with food: stuffed grape leaves, salads, fruit, candy, cookies, and baklava. There was water and lemonade to drink.

Even if the family has been celebrating on their own, the house would have been full. After all, there are eleven children. There were also guests. Some of the people were like me, local folks who came to assist the kids with schoolwork, or people who just wanted to help this refugee family.

Except for Ibrahim, the seven boys in the family were all dressed casually. The four girls were all dressed in their finest. Maybe that is just what girls do.

The mother, Um Hussein, encouraged (nay, commanded me) to eat and drink. I did.

There was a man who I had met once or twice before. He told me to eat, and I asked his name again. He said it was Turki. I spoke with Turki, who I thought was a family friend. I asked if he has kids. He gave me a perplexed look, and said,

“I have seven sons and four girls. This is my family.”

I think I blushed. If I didn’t, I should have. I felt like an idiot. Of course, he was their father. He was almost always working when I came to visit, so somehow I never connected him to his kids. He pulled out a chair and asked me to sit down.

I stood. I guess that was impolite, but I was restless. Partly, it was due to all the noise and chaos. I don’t handle that well. Also, the celebration reminded me of parties when I was a little boy. I grew up in an old house just like the Syrian home. I had six younger brothers. We had family get-togethers just like this gathering, except that at ours beer and wine flowed freely. I half-remembered the old celebrations, and I felt a pang of sadness. My family is scattered, and those days are gone.

After a while, I felt the need to go. I went up to Turki. He stood and he wanted to give me his seat. I told him that I was leaving.

I took his hand in both of mine, and said, “You have a good family.”

He smiled and thanked me.

I walked through the front door and on to the porch.  Um Hussein was out there with several of the children.

She looked at me severely, as always, and said, “I am happy you come.”

She paused and asked, “You happy that you come?”

I said, “Yes.”

She smiled just a bit. “Good.”

I saw Muhamed kneeling on the sidewalk, eating a Tootsie Roll. I knelt down next to him, and told him goodbye.

He said, “You come next Friday?!”

“Yes.”

“We read?”

“Yes.”

He smiled at me. “Good”.

I waved to the kids and said, “Ma’asalaama.”

They replied the same way and waved back. Nizar shouted, “Goodbye, Frank!”

I got into the car. I drove off.

As I stopped in the traffic on 16th Street, I could almost still feel Muhamed’s little hand in mine.

 

 

 

 

June 13th, 2018

Court rooms are like emergency rooms: nobody really wants to be in either of those places. A person is in a court room because they have to be there. On Monday I escorted two undocumented men to a court room, because they had to be there. I have done this sort of thing before, and it has been generally uneventful. This time it was very eventful.

Usually, when I write about people, I do not use pseudonyms. In this essay I will. Because of the things that occurred at the courthouse, my paranoia is quite high. I do not want to endanger the persons that I am trying to help. So, three individuals will be referred to by names that are not their own. I don’t like to do this, but it seems to be necessary.

Jose is middle-aged. He is a painter at a company in one of the exurbs of Milwaukee. Because southeastern Wisconsin has little or no public transportation, Jose has to drive a long distance from his home to his workplace. Because the government of Wisconsin is run by reactionary cretins, a person who is undocumented unable to get a drivers license. Jose is undocumented. Therefore, he can’t get a license, and he drives to work without one. Due to the law of probabilities, Jose eventually gets caught by the cops while driving without a license. Then he gets arrested and has to go to court. Then he meets me.

I had met Jose several weeks ago. I have taken him and his son, Jose Jr., to the court twice already, prior to this most recent visit. Jose speaks a minimal amount of English. Sadly, I speak the same amount of Spanish (un poquito). Jose’s son serves as his interpreter in most cases. Jose Jr. is a very intelligent young man. He is going to college and he is working a job. He has ambitions of becoming a lawyer. In particular, he wants to be an immigration lawyer. His heart is in it. He would do well.

The elder Jose is in a bit of trouble. The judge has identified him as a repeat offender with regards to driving without a license. That’s no good. That means he is potentially looking at jail time. Jail time for an undocumented person is an open invitation for I.C.E. to come and take him away. The immigrant in question is no longer a moving target. That is bad. Seriously bad.

Anyway, on Monday, I took Jose times two to the court. I also took another person, Marcos, with me. Marcos was going for his first court appearance. He had pretty much the same scenario. Marcos had been driving without a license. Almost all the Latinos that appeared in that courtroom were there for the same offense.

The court in this particular county only has a Spanish interpreter there on one afternoon every month. Economically, for the county it makes sense. There is an unintended consequence to this arrangement. What happens is that all the undocumented persons show up in that court room at the same time each month. This makes it very convenient for I.C.E. agents to find their prey. I do not believe that the local enforcement officers at this court work together with I.C.E. However, these cops don’t impede the I.C.E. agents either. The sheriff deputies in the courthouse are consistently courteous and helpful. They just turn a blind eye to the activities of the immigration enforcers.

I sat in the court room with Jose and Marcos. After having done this sort of thing for a while, I have become aware that there are always the “usual suspects” in the room (I am thinking of the quote from Claude Rains in the movie Casablanca). Certain people always show up, at least for that hearing. I always see the judge, the bailiff, the court stenographers, the lawyers, and the defendants. The defendants are all Latino. Everybody else is white.

Not this time. There were two guys in this court room who did not belong in the picture. They sat in the back row, staring silently at the judge. The two men wore polo shirts and khakis. They were big guys, kind of buff. They had file folders in their hands. They didn’t speak to anyone, not even each other.

I lost interest in the two strangers. I focused on Jose when he went up to bat with his attorney. Jose pleaded “not guilty”. That was a smart move. That gives him and his lawyer more time to cut a deal with the State. I know other people who have done the same thing. Jose needs to avoid jail time. A fine and/or probation would be okay. His next appearance will be his opportunity to make his bid.

The judge released Jose on bond. He needed to get fingerprints before he could leave the premises. Jose and son went out of the court room to talk to his attorney. I followed them. I asked Jose squared if they wanted me to go with them for the fingerprinting. They said yes. I was a bit concerned about leaving Marcos alone in the court room, but I can’t bi-locate. I chose to go with the Jose’s.

The location for getting fingerprints is in the same space as the visiting area for the county jail. I have been in a county jail, so I am always a bit edgy when I go near one. Initially, we couldn’t find the office for the fingerprinting. The office had darkened windows and there no sign even indicating that it was an office. It was only after Jose Jr. rang a buzzer that somebody told us where we needed to be.  The process for fingerprinting was mercifully quick, seeing as they already had Jose Sr.’s prints on file from the time of his arrest.

We all returned to the court room. Marcos and his lawyer were just finishing up when we arrived. Marcos had pleaded guilty. The judge gave him a $25 fine, plus the court costs. The court costs were expensive. The fine was kind of an after thought. Once the judge pronounced sentence, Marcos had to give a DNA sample to the State of Wisconsin. That is a mouth swab. He had to do that before leaving the building.

We all went out to the lobby of the courthouse to find somebody to do the DNA sample. Marcos and two of his family members were there, along with Jose times two, and myself. There were people coming and going. I was concentrating on keeping track of Marcos. A deputy was typing up the paperwork for the DNA sample.

Then the senior Jose smiled at me and motioned me to the exit. He said,

“Hey, you come outside with me? We talk?”

I followed him through the exit.

He pointed to the parking lot. The two guys in polo shirts were getting into an unmarked Suburban with no rear windows.

Jose said, “They I.C.E. They take some guy. Just now.”

Apparently, the two undercover agents snatched some poor bastard as he entered the court house. I had never even noticed. Jose had. So had his son. The agents had moved swiftly and silently, and everybody else had just gone about their business.

Jose and I stood in the doorway until the Suburban drove away.

Jose asked, “We go to your car? We wait there?”

He got into my Toyota. I was worried about Marcos. I was about to leave to check on him, but Jose said,

“You stay with me here? Yes?”

Of course, yes. We both sat in my car, and I sweated out the minutes until I saw Marcos and Jose Jr. come out of the court house. They got into the car, and we left promptly.

Later that day, I spoke with my son, Stefan, about the whole ordeal. Stefan has a Latina girlfriend, and he has often worked with Mexican welders.

Stefan said drily, “Those I.C.E. guys, those are some shady fuckers.”

He went on, “They are just American KGB. Can you imagine being an I.C.E. agent, and going home to your family? Your kid asks you, ‘What did you do today, Dad?’, and you answer, ‘I was a shady fucker all day.’ Shit.”

Stefan shook his head.

“Shady fuckers.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

June 14th, 2018

Recently, I had the same letter printed in the Chicago Tribune, the Capitol Times, and the Racine Journal Times. Trifecta.

The article is as follows:

 

June 10th, 2018

I sometimes meet people who are outraged by almost everything: limited access to birth control, attacks on LBGTQ rights, lack of action on climate change, white privilege, prejudice against immigrants, militarism, school shootings, ad infinitum. These individuals seem to have an unlimited capacity for righteous anger. They also seem to be convinced that everyone else should be as incensed as they are.

The people I mentioned in the preceding paragraph would probably qualify as liberals. There is a population on the right that serves as a mirror image. I think of those who rail against every aspect of secular humanism. It is difficult to know what they are for, but it obvious what they oppose. They know what they want to fight. It is unclear as to what they want to create.

I am suspicious of people who want to participate in every fight. I don’t see that is desirable to do so. I don’t see how it even possible to do so. It seems that some folks sign on to an entire agenda without ever considering what aspects are good and which are bad. They become total team players. Unconscious team players.

I don’t subscribe to any particular political agenda, mostly because I don’t have the stamina to do that. I only have so much time. I only have so much energy. I can’t be passionate about everything. However, I can be passionate about some things.

What am I passionate about? I care about veterans. I care about immigrants. I care about ex-prisoners. Why? I care about them because I know them.

I have a son who is an Iraqi War vet. He was in combat. He has PTSD. He suffers. I care about him, and by extension, I care about the welfare of other veterans.

My wife is an immigrant from Germany. My youngest son is in love with an immigrant from Peru. I lived overseas for three years. I understand the struggles of immigrants and foreigners. I care about them. To some extent, I have been in their shoes.

I love a young person who will soon be released from jail. Through her, I have come to know more about the criminal justice system than I ever wanted to know. I am aware of the fears and pain that ex-prisoners experience. I care about this young person I know, and I care about people who are like her.

In short, I have skin in the game.

I have focused my passion in areas that are important to me in a way that is up close and personal. Issues with vets and immigrants and ex-prisoners are real to me. None of this is theoretical. I am involved with these issues because I live with them every day.

I have chosen my battles.

Choose yours.

 

 

 

June 8th, 2018

“He blew his mind out in a car.” John Lennon, from the song A Day in the Life

Today is Marc’s birthday. He was (is) a brother of mine, eleven years my junior. He’s been gone for over twenty years. He died in a car wreck when he was only twenty-eight. He slammed his Mazda into a bridge abutment, and he flew through the windshield. I believe that he died instantly. He left behind a young wife and two little girls.

Time is a funny thing. Twenty years can feel like forever, or it can feel like nothing at all. As I sit here typing, twenty years gone by feel like only yesterday. I can still see Marc’s face. I can still hear his voice in my head. I can still remember shaking his hand and saying goodbye to him for the last time in 1997.

They say that time heals all wounds. That’s not true. Not really. Memories fade, and that is probably a blessing. However, the sting of death lingers. That feeling of loss never completely disappears. Perhaps that is as it should be. We only grieve for the people that we love. If we hurt, it is because we love.

In an odd way, Marc’s life paralleled my own. He was intelligent and ambitious, as I was. He wanted to get far away from home, as I did. Marc settled in Texas. I was all over the map. He tested military life, as I did. Marc was smarter than I was, in that he quit the military early. I was a slow learner, and I stuck around the Army for ten years. Both Marc and I married foreigners. He married a Texan, and I married a German. Despite the gap in our ages, we had similar interests and similar goals. I felt very close to Marc.

Marc was a complicated person. I suspect that every person is complicated, but with Marc it seemed more obvious. Marc was very religious, intensely Catholic. He was an excellent bass guitarist. He and his wife, Shawn, played in a Christian punk band. Marc could be very loving and generous. He was also insanely competitive, and he suffered from OCD. Actually, the people near him suffered more from his OCD than he did. Marc was athletic, and he could also sit for hours playing old school video games (e.g. Missile Command).  He had a twisted and infectious sense of humor. He could be both humble and vain about his looks. Marc was a bundle of contradictions. In short, he was completely human.

There is a temptation for me to wonder what Marc would have been if he had lived. That train of thought never leaves the station. I can’t know what might have been. I don’t want to know. I do know that his life has left a trace. He made things happen. He set things into motion.

Marc’s daughters, Maire and Roise, are grown up now. Both of them have their own children. In some ways they resemble Marc, which seems to be natural, but is also a bit eerie. Stefan, our son, was Marc’s godson. Stefan has many of Marc’s attributes, which seems strange, since they barely had time to know each other. For instance, both Marc and Stefan love fast motorcycles. I don’t know why that is: is it heredity, or karma, or simply my over-active imagination?

Our oldest son, Hans, lives in Texas, as Marc did. Hans would not be there now, if not for Marc. Marc opened a pathway there. Hans followed it. Our family has connections down south that would never have existed without Marc. We can thank him or blame him. In any case, he is responsible.

Marc’s gravestone in lies in the Catholic cemetery in Bryan, Texas. His body lies beneath that marker. I’m not entirely sure where his soul is. At this moment in time, I believe that he is close to me.

Marc loved watching Wallace and Gromit. Today would be a good day for me to watch that too. Maybe have some cheese with the movie.

 

 

June 5th, 2018

“Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.”

from Paulo Coehlo, author of The Alchemist

Karrin and I sat with Jane in the Daily Dose coffee shop. It was very early on a Friday morning. Karin and I showed up right when the cafe opened at 6:00 AM. Jane arrived shortly after we did. Jane is a busy woman. She is attending classes at a seminary, she is helping to run a sober living house, and she is working with people in recovery. We were having coffee together at an ungodly early hour, because that was the only hour that Jane had available.

Karin and I wanted to talk to Jane about a girl. We care about a young woman who is currently in jail. She will be released in a couple weeks and her future has a lot of question marks. She does not know where she will live, how she will get health care, what she will have for transportation, or how she will find a job. (I don’t know either.) This young woman calls us when these questions become overwhelming. When she phones us, she usually starts by saying,

“I’m feeling really anxious!”

Understandable. After a few minutes the anxiety seems to diminish for this young woman. Her voice becomes calmer, and she sounds a bit more relaxed. Generally, we can’t completely answer any of her questions, or solve any of her problems. Somehow, just talking about things ease her mind, at least for a little while. Somehow, it helps for her to know that we are at least trying to help.

Jane talked to us about her experiences with anxiety. She mentioned that, at one point in her life, she self-medicated in order to make the fear go away. I am very familiar with that technique. It is a short term solution that creates long term problems. Jane explained that eventually she learned to deal with the tension and the uncertainty. There are problems that simply cannot be fixed, at least not right away. Jane told us that she became aware of her feelings, and she found that she could handle being uncomfortable with a situation. She could exist in that moment. She didn’t like it, but she could accept it.

I understand that anxiety and frustration. I have spent almost all of my adult life as a problem-solver and a trouble-shooter. I’m good at it. I am not good at situations that unsolvable for me, especially situations that involve people I love. I spin my mental wheels, and I can almost smell the clutch burning inside my head. Even fixing a problem only brings temporary relief. There is always another riddle to solve. There is never a time when everything feels okay.

So, what to do? That depends on the individual. To reduce my anxiety I sometimes meditate, or take the dog for a really long walk. Jane helps other people, and that gives  her a different perspective on her own issues. Some folks pray. Karin knits or spins yarn on her wheel. Some people play a musical instrument. Some people paint or draw. Some people write, like I am doing right now. Finding a effective method is all trial and error. A certain program may work for a particular person, but be absolutely useless to somebody else. Learning to handle anxiety is a lifelong process, a unique process.

We live in a scary world. It’s hard to trust. It’s hard to have faith. It’s hard to keep going.

We’re all anxious.

 

 

 

 

 

June 3rd, 2018

Today is my younger brother’s birthday. Chuck would have been fifty-eight today.

Chuck died in October of 2009. I think the official cause of death was a heart attack. Chuck had extremely high blood pressure, but he refused to take his meds. Instead, he drank all the time. I don’t think that he wanted to live. The last fifteen years of his life were like a slow motion suicide. It was an endless series of close calls, and visits to the emergency room.

It wasn’t always like that. When Chuck was young, he was athletic and smart. He was a brave man, sometimes recklessly so. He was funny and goofy and crazy as hell. He was bold and adventurous, and almost always at odds with our father. After a bitter argument, our dad threw Chuck out of the house. Chuck found a job, found a wife, and started a family…all on his own. Chuck was a self-made man.

Things fell apart. Chuck’s drinking tore up his family. He lost everything that he loved. I think that destroyed him. He never recovered from the divorce. He and our father never really reconciled. Chuck couldn’t fix what was broken, and eventually he stopped trying.

I have always felt guilty about Chuck’s death. I often kept him at arm’s length. I guess I was scared or ashamed or just clueless. Was I a good brother to him? I doubt it.

I know people who would say that Chuck’s life was a tragic waste. I don’t agree with that. Something is only a waste if nobody learns from the experience. I learned from Chuck’s experience. I learned that I cannot save anyone. I can be present and supportive. I can love them. However, I cannot save somebody who does not want to be saved.

I also learned that I have to love somebody as they are, not as I wish they would be. I often wished that Chuck wasn’t so angry, so bitter, or so depressed. I wanted him to be somebody besides the man who I knew. Because of that, I missed the chance to love my brother as he was. I often rejected the man who was standing there in front of me, because I wanted so badly to see somebody else.

Do these lessons matter? Yes, they do. History repeats itself. Now I have to love another person who in some ways resembles my brother. Now I can see that I have to do things differently. Chuck taught me to love differently. Whether he knew it or not, Chuck taught me to see the others in a new light, and to accept them as they are.

Happy birthday, Brother. It’s a beautiful day outside. Maybe be we should sit on the porch and enjoy it together.

 

May 30th, 2018

I like to walk with Shocky at dawn. It is peaceful then. There is very little traffic on Oakwood Road at that hour. I am usually already up and awake. If I am not, Shocky makes sure that I am. Shocky is an affectionate border collie, one who needs to go poddy very early in the morning.

As we left the house, I caught a glimpse of the local fox loping across a nearby street. The fox is occasionally in our yard. I once found the remnants of a rabbit under the spruce trees after a fox visit. The fox is always on the move. Hunting, always hunting.

We walked along the road, and went past a pond. Shocky got restless. I looked to my left. There a deer at the edge of the pond, staring at us. I waved to the deer. She didn’t wave back. She just stood there with her dark eyes following our movements.

The wind was out of the south, warm and humid. I could confirm the direction by looking at the steam billowing out of the stacks at the power plant by the lake. Low clouds were gathering. I looked to the southwest and was surprised to see a rainbow. The rising sun must have been just a the correct angle to catch some raindrops in the distance. Shocky and I stood still. I marveled at the spectrum of light playing in the sky.

Four mallards flew over us, quacking as they flapped their wings. I had to marvel at that too. How is flight even possible? I had that elusive sense of wonder. I looked around me the way I did when I was a child.

Shocky and I headed back home. It started raining. A light, gentle rain. It was just enough to quicken our pace.

 

May 28th, 2018

“Old man look at my life,
I’m a lot like you were.”

Neil Young from his song, Old Man

The nursing home is actually pretty nice. It’s clean. My dad’s room is small, but it’s comfortable. The staff is friendly and efficient. The food is good. My dad gets care 24/7.

He is still miserable.

Karin and I went to visit him on Saturday. We don’t see him very often. It is almost a three hour drive from where we live to the nursing home in Iola.  When we go to see my father, it is an all-day affair. Even though we are retired, we still don’t usually have entire days that are completely free. So, it is rare for us to make that journey.

We spent two hours with my dad. Mostly, we spoke with my brother, who was also sitting in the room. My father sat between us, but he seldom joined in the discussion. This was very different from how things were years ago, back when my dad would dominate the conversation. He always had strong opinions, and he would never bend. Arguments would sometimes erupt, and they would not end until my dad had completely worn down his opponent. After a while, I learned to avoid hot topics. I tiptoed through a verbal minefield, making sure that we kept to safe subjects. Even so, sometimes I stepped on a booby trap and ignited a explosion of shouting from my father. Then I would shout back. It was always a bit awkward, and a little nerve wracking.

It’s not like that any more. Karin and I talked for a long time about immigration politics with my brother. My dad scarcely said anything. He only mentioned about how his grandfather was recruited by a mining company in northern Michigan to emigrate from Austria-Hungary. We talked about unions and workers rights. My dad had always been a big union supporter, but he didn’t speak up. My father seemed uninterested or distracted. He wasn’t quite there with us. Occasionally, he would bring up a story from the past, but the story didn’t necessarily match the topic at hand. He said what he wanted to say, relevant or not.

For most of his life, my father has been wound pretty tight. It doesn’t bother me to see him calm down a bit, but he’s beyond calm. He’s apathetic. His often mind wanders through the corridors of his memories, and he doesn’t seem very interested in what is going on around him. His world in mostly in the past. He occasionally confuses names and events from the old days. He knows what he means, but the words sometimes come out wrong. I can usually figure out what he is trying to express, because I know all of the old stories by heart.

When I was young, I just wanted to have a frank conversation with my father. I wanted to be able to be straight with him, and I hoped that he would be straight with me. That never happened. We either spent all our time talking about things that didn’t matter to either of us, or we engaged in a knock down, drag out fight. I only learned about what he was really like by reading between the lines when he went on a rant. Sometimes he would let total honesty slip through the during the argument.

Now it is too late to have that frank conversation. The passion inside him has died down, but so has his mental acuity. He’s calmer now, but that is because part of him is no longer present to me. I guess that I want to speak with the man I knew twenty years ago. Well, he’s gone. We can’t have that heart to heart. Not in this world.

I’ll talk with the man who is still here. I’ll love the man who is still here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 26th, 2018

There is a lot of traffic on Scott Street. There shouldn’t be, but there is. Scott Street is lined with old bungalows, tall shade trees, and kids who don’t watch for cars. The city tore up Greenfield Avenue, which is one block to the south of Scott Street. Greenfield is the main thoroughfare through the Latino neighborhood, so many cars bypass the construction by going down Scott Street. This is especially true around 5:00 PM on a Friday. For at least an hour, a long line of cars waits to cross at the four-way stop on the corner of 17th and Scott.

A big, old house sits on that corner. That is where I go at 5:00 PM on most Fridays. It is a house full of kids, just like the house where I grew up. There are eleven children in the family, and the house is quite crowded when they are all inside. Even after nearly a year, I still can’t always remember all of their names. The two oldest boys, Hussein and Bashar, are not often at home. They go to high school, and I am pretty sure they both have part time jobs. Nada and Amar are sometimes have me help with their homework. They are of middle school age. I usually spend time with the younger children, in particular Yasmin, Nizar, Ibrahim, and Nisrin. We read stories together. The pre-school kids, Muhamed, Yusuf, and Hanin, don’t interact much with me. They all live together in that old house with their parents. They are all Syrian refugees.

It was a very warm afternoon, and some of the children were playing outside, either in the tiny yard, or on the sidewalk. Some of the kids were sitting on the front stoop. A couple of them waved and yelled to me asked I crossed the street to meet them. I walked up to the house and climbed the steps up to the porch.

Um Hussein, their mother, was standing in the open doorway to the house.

I said, “Assalam walaykum (peace be with you).”

She replied, “Wa’alaykum assalam (and peace to you also).”

Um Hussein didn’t smile. She seldom smiles. Her face and clothes are severe. She always wears a dark colored robe and a black hijab. I am convinced that she has had a hard life life thus far, and it shows.

Nisrin ran up to me smiling, her dark curls looking wild around her freckled face.

“You read today?”

“Yeah. What should I read?”

Nizar quickly came up to me with a book we had started the week before. It was “The Fugitive Factor”, a story about two kids on the run from the government.

Nizar gave me the book and said, “Read this.”

Nisrin slumped visibly. She said, “Nohttp://www.yahoo.com/t that book! That one is so boring.”

Nizar was indignant. “It is not boring!”

Yasmin stopped by. She asked, “Can we read it together?”

I answered, “Sure, I don’t care.”

Nizar said, “No! Let him read!”

I sat down on the old sofa that covered part of the porch. Nizar sat on my right, and Yasmin on my left. Nisrin stood in front of me to listen. I started reading the book by myself, and sometimes the others chimed in. We read in spurts, because there were many distractions on the street. It’s a typical urban neighborhood, so the sound of squealing tires and the wail of police sirens are not unusual. There was also the rhythmic bass thump of a car blasting rap music. Sometimes we were drowned out by the Mexican music of La Gran D, a local radio station blaring from the open windows of somebody’s vehicle.

Nizar would get up from the sofa, and shout at the driver of the the car,

“Hola! ¿Cómo estás?”

Sometimes the driver would look up at the porch and smile  at the boy. It’s pretty cool that a Syrian kid is learning both English and Spanish.

The father of the family showed up in his car. I had never seen him before. He was always working when I came to tutor the kids. He had brought some food for the evening meal, but he was also on his way to his job. He stayed in his car. His kids yelled and waved to him. I got up off of the sofa, and I waved too. He waved back. Obviously, he knew that I was there to teach his children. Otherwise, he would have done something other than wave.

We kept reading. Yasmin is good. She is almost able to read that book on her own. Nisrin and Nizar can sound out most of the words, but they aren’t ready yet to read at this level on their own. They will get there. They will get there soon.

Um Hussein informed me that I would not be receiving the customary glass of hot, sweet tea that I have grown accustomed to drinking.

She told me sadly in her very broken English, “We…my whole family…we are fasting now. No more tea.”

I nodded and said, “Ramadan.”

Um Hussein nodded back to me.

That’s cool. I never expected them to give me anything for just showing up. If they fast, then I will fast with them, at least for the time that I am there.

Nizar told me that he had had enough from the book. I stood up and asked Um Hussein if I should stay and read something else. She spoke to Nizar in Arabic, too quickly for me to understand anything.

Nizar looked up at me and said, “It is your choice. Up to you.”

I was tired. I told them all that I would come again next Friday.

I left their front porch.