Lucas Numa VI, Bobby Luca II, Declan Murphy II, Miguel Angel Rincon II, Keaton Sahin II, Alex Uek II, Javi Werner II, Reid Corless I, Nikey Cruz I, Rijs Johansongordet I, Javi Rios I
In a sandy parking lot a few yards from the Atlantic sits the Beachcomber, the popular restaurant and bar where I, along with a collection of college kids trying to save up some beer money, work in the kitchen. The days are long, hot, and soul-crushing; working perilously close to the fryers and open grill makes the August heat exponentially worse. I often forget to put a burger on the grill while trying to catch the eyes of a beautiful group of girls wearing bridesmaid attire. Coming to the Beachcomber would be fun for a bachelorette party, they all thought, not anticipating the unsettling stare-down from the desperate grill guy. We don’t come back every year for the twelve hour days, the never-ending shrieking of the ticket machine, or even the delusional hope of a personal relationship with a bachelorette. We come back for Saturday nights.
On Saturdays the restaurant closes early to get the day drunks out so that the band can set up for the night. This means that we get off early, to set up for our night. After I finish scrubbing the solidified grease off the grill, I am free to go. I walk out of the back door, and head to the backhouse: a shack in the middle of the sandy parking lot that my best friends call home for the summer. Chris, Brian, and Paul knew each other from high school, and the college kids decided to rekindle their friendship through tireless work and shared sleeping quarters. I don’t think they anticipated befriending an innocent seventeen year old along the way. Without knocking, I push the old door open. It is simple living in the backhouse. There is one main room with a Craigslist leather couch and a TV propped up by two stools. I spend more nights sleeping on that coach than at home. There’s a stained fridge that contains spoiled milk and Busch Light from the local liquor store. The floor is always sandy and covered in unclaimed flip flops and t-shirts. There’s a bathroom where the toilet rocks from side to side like a boat on the open sea and a sink that hasn’t worked in years. There are two bedrooms for the three of them with doors that never stay closed.
I’ve become a regular at the backhouse, like your bachelor uncle that sleeps in the guest room. When you spend all your time with the same people, you start to notice the little things. The sink is always scattered with squeezed lime quarters; Chris thinks lime juice gives his orange hair a hint of blonde. If you hear The Band’s Greatest Hits echoing through the parking lot, Brian is taking an outdoor shower underneath the summer stars. Paul is clean shaven every Saturday night; he thinks it gives him the boost of confidence he needs. I’m sure they notice the little things I do, but it’s not really something you talk about.
I borrow Chris’ towel and go to take an outdoor shower. The smell of fried fish and grease can serve me no good now. The sand eroded wooden shower closes with a hook and eye latch. There are about ten different shampoo bottles along a wooden shelf, all half empty, but no soap. As I wait for the water to heat up, I can hear the murmurings of a family packing up the car from across the fence that acts as a border between home and parking lot. I can hear a man, a woman, and two little children. Their voices have the slight aggravation that people get from being in the sun all day. The cheap metal beach chairs clank together as they are thrown into the back of the car. I like to imagine that they are husband and wife who love each other, quietly – not the same passionate fire that burned before the kids and the mortgage. The father works a couple extra shifts to save up for a week long beach vacation for his family. The kids will not know the sacrifices their parents made for them until dad can’t make it down to the beach anymore. A mind likes to wander in rare moments of solitude, like a stint in an outdoor shower.
In front of the backhouse there are wooden pallets stacked up like cans of preservatives in a bomb shelter. When a US Foods delivery truck comes, the lot boys ask for the wooden pallets on the truck used to transfer the food. The truck drivers don’t care why we want them, as long as they don’t have to worry about the now useless palettes in their trucks. The palettes are saved all week inside the fence of the backhouse for this fateful night. The four of us carry them over our shoulders to the edge of the parking lot, beyond which lies the beach. The palettes look like children cartwheeling as they roll down the sandy dunes. Sometimes yours doesn’t make it all the way to the bottom – you have to slide down the dune on your stomach to your failed attempt, and push it the rest of the way down. When you climb back up you can see your friends laughing at your expense from the top of the dune.
We get the bonfire started, and it does not take long for some curious bar goers to make their way down the dune to investigate. Soon the guys and girls from work make their way to the beach after going home to clean up. The crowd is always a mix of drunk locals, drunk tourists, and people from work. It’s hard to imagine a place where this group would gather otherwise; everyone likes fires. The tourists are always so enthralled by the simplicity and the beauty of the beaches of Cape Cod. It’s funny to think that our regular Saturday bonfires might be the high points of countless vacations, perhaps a novelty, a good story to tell the folks back home.
The missed orders, dropped plates, or inter-kitchen feuds don’t seem to matter as much when flaming palettes warm you from the chill of night ocean breeze. But sometimes a thought creeps into my mind that is hard to push away. The day when I will look back on these nights, with eyes a little sadder and memory a little more foggy, is coming faster than I’d like. These nights will become distant stories, and we will be somebody’s mom or dad, loading beach chairs into the back of the car. That day is not today, however. Today, I am sitting next to my best friends with sandy jeans and empty pockets. Today, I am looking across the fire, and I can see her eyes through the flickering of the flames and notice a sly smile across her face. Today, I get up and walk to the other side of the fire.
As I took the folder, my fingers were shaking slightly with nervous energy. When I opened it, I first scanned the headings of the rough pages: Stravinsky, Smetana, Tchaikovsky. I disregarded the first two names and pulled out the Tchaikovsky. As I took my first look at the piece, my heart suddenly began to race and I felt my face burning. My fear was confirmed. I was to play Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony.
About one month prior, I had auditioned for the Massachusetts Music Educators Association’s Eastern District Festival. To my gleeful surprise, I had been seated as principal horn. This success unofficially named me the best teen french horn player in Boston. While I was proud and excited about this distinction, I was nervous as well. Being the principal horn meant that I had a target on my back. I had beaten out some 20 other contenders for this position, many of whom I had known for several years, and I was now the one to beat. Everyone would be judging my performance in the festival. When I saw that Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony, which includes one of the most famous and exposed horn solos in the repertoire, was on the program, I knew that this festival would be a true test of my playing.
Horn playing, at its most basic, can be described as a large number of very small decisions. Each note comes with a set of decisions to make, including volume, tone, intonation, and general pitch. One cautious camp of thought encourages an astoundingly high level of focus and concentration to make all of these musical decisions independently, to think about every aspect of every note. A second theory on horn playing offers that a larger stylistic resolution about playing is needed in order to direct all of the smaller decisions. By believing in oneself and ‘going for it,’ everything will fall into place. It takes a considerable amount of courage to play in the second style, which I thought I lacked. So, I decided to play it safe. However, even as I practiced more, I seemed to be making no progress by playing cautiously. I was faced with a quandary: continue with my current trajectory and deliver a mediocre performance, or take my chances with the second style, risking failure and other players’ disdain.
As the day grew closer, I began to fret. My performance remained average. While I was trying to play more freely, I could not seem to muster the courage to let go of my nerves, which had already been bubbling in my stomach. I listened to countless recordings of professional performances, and I practiced doggedly every day. At last, the day of the festival came. As I took my seat, I warmed up nervously, fiddling with the keys on my horn. My conductor introduced himself briefly, and then the work began. The first thing he instructed: “Please take out the Tchaikovsky.” My heart began to beat rapidly, and my hands turned clammy. Then, he turned to me and said, in front of the entire orchestra, “Don’t worry about this. Just go for it.” Doubting him, I played through my solo the first time timidly. The result was the same average performance that had been happening for the past few weeks. After I finished, he said, “No, Daniel. Play it how you feel it.” This simple direction finally gave me clarity. I needed to play from the heart. There is no other way to be a musician. The decision about which I was torn for weeks was no longer a decision. I needed only to play how I felt.
The next day was the day of the concert. I still had nerves, but it was more of a nervous excitement. Armed with my newfound strategy, I was ready. I felt like a splinter had just been pulled out of my thumb. Everything had simply fallen into place. When I went on stage with the rest of the orchestra, I delivered the best solo I had played yet. It was by no means perfect, but when I was finished, and when the conductor motioned for me to stand and receive the audience’s as well as the orchestra’s applause, I never felt more satisfied.
With the help of my conductor, I was able to overcome this sizable musical hurdle. At times, I felt hopeless, but at the end of the day I came out of this experience a significantly better player and a much better performer. I now play as fearlessly as I can, and I have also made an effort to apply this mindset to everything I do. Out of this time of indecision came a moment of true clarity for me, and I am all the better for it.
For the first time we could remember, the stars sprinkled over Hyde Park, joining the moon and the lamp in lighting up the driveway. In return for this gift from the gods, red-faced men gave their hearty bellows to the heavens, sitting around two plastic tables with bowls of leftover sauce and empty bottles. Warm watermelon juice tapped the concrete ground from the side of the table, playing the rhythmic background music to the chorus of alcohol and glee.
Most people hate the smell of cigarettes. I mean, who can blame them for getting nauseous from inhaling gaseous cancer? Sure, I hate the smell too, but every time someone lights a cig near me I breathe in a little harder. I’ve come to savor every particle of burnt tar in my nose. Not for the scent, but for the place the scent takes me. The person it takes me to.
I have always been told that the first thing you lose when you miss someone is the sound of his voice. You could have heard it a million times, but as time goes on it becomes a distant memory until it is not a memory at all. You pray that you have a recording, so that little clip can help your mind revive every word he ever said to you. Cigarettes are my recording. They give me his voice back when nothing else can. So I inhale them every chance I can even if it takes some time off my life expectancy.
When I was younger I wasn’t a daddy’s boy or a momma’s boy, I was a rare grandpa’s boy, if those are even rare anymore. I had nothing against my parents; my grandpa simply loved me so much more, and who was I not to reciprocate. The thing I remember the most was his grey coat. It was nothing special, barely even a decent coat, but it was where he kept his cigs. It reeked of cigarettes, but it never smelled bad to me. His grey jacket attracted me the same way that some people enjoy the smell of gasoline. Looking back, I must’ve been conditioned to be fond of the smell.
He always took me wherever I wanted to go. Even when he didn’t, the place he ended up taking me was the place that I wanted to stay until the sun set. He always kept me until the sun started to set. He said that the sun beginning to set was how he knew it was close to my bedtime, but I honestly thought it was because he was too embarrassed to admit how tired he was. When I think about it now, it was probably the longest he could go without smoking. Since he never smoked in front of me the addiction probably got to him after a few hours. The fix most likely ate him up the whole car ride home, yet he still never lit one in my presence. Scared to curse me with the same addiction he had placed on himself and his sons.
The sunset was a clock built by the hand of God to give him an excuse to take me home. Except there was one day we got to watch the sunset, only once.
Keaton Sahin II
One day we were in our homeland, Haiti. I believe it was the summer, but every warm day was summer to me back then, and every day was warm in Haiti. It was “summer in the country” for me, and all I could do was have fun. We were in my father’s hometown of Leyogàn/Leogane, or as my grandpa called it, “lion’s den.” Just as well, he called me Ti Lyon, a little lion. He never fancied himself a lion, though. He was a tiger.
I remember the summer heat blurring the days into a dream. There was one day in my mind that stood above the rest, singular and cut away from that dream. I had been drinking from a glass coke bottle on the porch. When I finished the drink, I was still thirsty. I asked for a coconut from a nearby tree and he looked at me, “Anything for you, Ti Lyon.” He called one of his men to get a coconut for me and the man pulled out his pistol. I remember my grandpa being so mad that a pistol was pulled in front of me. He asked another man to climb and retrieve it with a machete. The man sliced the coconut open, and to my dismay it didn’t have much water in it. I didn’t want to drink from a bad coconut. Knowing I was spoiled, he told me that he would take me somewhere where all the coconuts and fruit were perfect. He called for someone to drive us.
I don’t know where we drove to because I haven’t been there since, but I remember how the sun turned to honey. The sun glazed the sky so perfectly that it seemed like a memory, even while it was happening. The man who drove us stayed by the car. My grandpa took me down to watch the sunset by the sea. I had forgotten about the fruit during the car ride and was more focused on the holy sweetness of light produced on the horizons. We played checkers even though I had no idea what I was doing. And something came over me. I asked him about the gun, “Grandpa, why did you get mad about the man pulling out his gun? Everyone has guns. I’ve seen them before.”
He responded to me in our mother tongue, “If you use a gun to get something as simple as a fruit, you’ll use it for any obstacle.”
“Any popsicle?”
“No,” he chuckled, “any obstacle. You know, something in your way or something bad.”
I looked at him with wide eyes filled with confusion and unanswered questions. “Well, then, how do you deal with something bad if you don’t have a gun?”
“With my voice. When I speak, people listen to me. When I stop, they stop. When I say ‘do,’ it’s already done.”
“So you use your voice and people listen? Just like Mufasa? Just like a roar?”
He finally looked up at me. He chuckled under his breath. “Oui. But Ti Lyon, you are the lion. I am the tiger. I still roar too. A roar is a good way to get people to listen without your claws. Lion or tiger.”
“So why are you a tiger and I am a lion? Why can’t I be a tiger too?”
“Time for me to ask you a question. Who is the king of the jungle?”
“The lion is the king of the jungle.”
“And so, if the tiger is stronger should he bow to the lion?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked at me with his smile fading from what it once was. “I don’t know either. I do know that the lion is the king and the tiger is not. Lion is stronger because he gathers his strength from everyone else. He needs them and they need him, they all need each other. The tiger needs nobody. The tiger is lonely and only has the power to show for it. He is unsatisfied.”
“So if you are a tiger, why do you have so many people that surround you?”
“I am a tiger among lions. They follow me because they fear my claws, not because they honor my mane.”
“Well maybe if you gave them jolly ranchers, maybe they wouldn’t be scared of you.”
He laughed and grabbed his gut. I was one hundred percent serious, but he couldn’t help but be amused. He was present, but the way his eyes lingered it was like he was remembering something that had yet to come. “One day you will have people who follow you. Not because you are a tiger who must bear his fangs, but because you are a respectable lion. They will honor your mane and listen to your roar. They will trust you to lead them. Even then you will always be my little lion.”
I don’t remember the rest of that day, except how the summer glaze covered me. The only day and the last day I would see the sunset with him. Cigarettes killed him, but they were the only things that kept him alive in my mind. The only things that bring me back to that honey-glazed day.
Six months ago we booked our annual trip to DC to celebrate the Passover seder with my relatives. The visit to DC isn’t just for the seder, though; it is also to catch up with cousins that I never see and to spend time with my grandparents. We see cherry blossoms in bloom, we go to museums, and there is nice enough weather to walk around because, unlike in Boston, spring actually starts on time. When concerns around COVID-19 grew about a month ago, we started canceling our vacation flights. Our flight to DC, however, seemed far enough away that we might still be able to make it.
Passover drew nearer and nearer and news about the pandemic only got worse. Our temple’s services of Shabbat, a time when we usually put aside electronics, went online, and I began to wonder what was going to happen with Passover. When it became clear that our trip to DC was not going to happen, we started digging out old recipes for Passover foods, because we could no longer rely on my grandma’s cooking. People started thinking about a Zoom Passover.
One of the best parts of Passover at my cousins’ house is searching for the afikomen. This is a Passover tradition where the parents, at some point in the seder, would hide a special piece of Matzah called the afikomen, and the children would have to search for it. We often made teams and the parents sometimes made bets on which kid would find it first. Once the afikomen was found, the children would engage in lengthy negotiations with the parents for extra desserts. Whatever we do this year won’t be the same. This is just one of the many ways that our Passover tradition will have to change. For example, just like Shabbat, part of the tradition is stepping away from our phones and TV and other electronics, but instead, we are embedding electronics into our seder this year. We are planning for there to be a big screen in the center of the table on which we are going to Zoom and for everyone to have their phones out with a pdf of the Hagadda, the guide book for the seder. Another huge difference this year will be the fact that I will not have the opportunity to see and connect with my cousins and grandparents in person.
Passover is only three days away and I’m optimistic about it, but it won’t be the same. At the end of every seder, we say, “L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim,” or, “Next year in Jerusalem.” I have no clue what next year’s seder will bring. I don’t even know how Wednesday’s seder will turn out, but I know that it will be unlike any that I or anybody has ever had, and I hope that my family and every other family will be able to make it through this epidemic and spend next year’s seder together. Instead of “next year in Jerusalem,” we will all say, “Next year in person.”
Ms. Lau called out the names. A Diego lunchbox sat in my lap. Dora wasn’t my favorite. First days at new schools are always nerve-racking, let alone the first day of school in my life. Her voice echoed through what felt like a colossal classroom. The anxiety made it hard to focus on the names.
I should pay attention. Soon these will be my friends.
“…Sophie Chase?” she called out, looking around. “Here.” “Martin Coffman?” Her eyes darted around the room. “I’m here.” “Brendan Decker?” “Here.” “Please raise your hand, Brendan,” Ms. Lau said as she searched for him. “Sorry.”
She looked up from her clipboard. “Ro… heel? D- is that right?” She said as she stared straight at me. Everyone’s eyes turned to follow hers. “Yes,” I hesitantly replied. “Are you sure, honey?” Her caring gaze looked at me through the wide brown eyes of a hawk. “Yes.” I wish she would tell me why she decided to start struggling on my name. My classmates were looking at me like the foreign object that I was – the ugly duckling with the ugly name that didn’t belong. She stared back down at her clipboard, trying her very best, but puzzled as if she couldn’t figure out the last word in a crossword. 8 Across: surname for Punjabi Bhatti Rajputs originally from Daranagar. “And how about your last name, how do you say that? Diwali?” “Da-li-wal.” “Da-li-wa-li, like that?” “Yes.”
“What’s your middle name?” “I don’t have one.” “You don’t have one? But everyone has one.” He turned away from me with the perplexed look still on his face, as if he wasn’t able to fully grasp the idea of someone with only two names. “Hey, do you have a middle name?” “Yeah, of course I do. But it’s a secret.” “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” “Okay.”
I looked down at the table. Diego grinned back at me with his plastic brown eyes. He hid the chapatis inside.
He looks like me. His hair is brown, though. Mine is black. Everyone gets his name right. I wonder if he has a middle name. Maybe he’ll tell me it.
I smiled up at them as they whispered among themselves. It was everyone now, all exchanging middle names like an inside joke. Everyone but me. One of them looked around and met my eyes for a brief second. I think. Maybe she felt bad. Maybe she was just looking for Ms. Lau. Either way I kept smiling.
Lauren locked the door on her way out. She smiled sweetly as she left. Everyone else’s Amma came to pick them up but not mine. I placed my lunch box on my kitchen counter like I did everyday after school. I’ll clean it soon – before she gets home so I don’t get in trouble. The door to my room shut behind me. The colored pencils lay quietly on my desk. I took out a piece of paper and started my project. We had to draw our favorite family trip. Mine was our trip to India. It was a group project and my partner was Aaron. He had never heard of India.
Aaron McConnell. It seemed like a weird name to me but no one ever got it wrong. People laughed at me when I messed it up the first time. No one ever laughs at Ms. Lau, though. Or at themselves.
I wish I was a McConnell. Or an Aaron.
I wish I could just skip attendance. Maybe if I got to school late Amma could just sign in for me instead. But then maybe they’d hear me call her Amma when I said goodbye.
“Rohil means to ascend,” Amma replied. “We got it from Menaka Gandhi’s book of names. It’s another name for Vishnu.” My bed creaked under the weight of my parents. I was light enough that the small wooden frame barely noticed my presence. “He’s the preserver, remember? We read about him in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata every night. You love those stories.”
I wasn’t fully sure what they had said and I still didn’t really know exactly what it signified. But it meant something to me, something important, something that connected who I was to Rohil. Ascend was a big word. So was culture. And identity. And race and religion and heritage. I’ll look them up sometime.
many people find solace in the old midnight diner snuggled in a cozy alcove hidden in the shadows under the spiderweb of colored lights in Tokyo’s most vibrant alleyway illuminated by the soft light of the moon overhead gentle buzzing neon signs provide a soundtrack to this movie’s scene amidst the silent chatter of hovering passersby gliding on two feet or four
no matter the time at least one table will be occupied, though not always by one who is seen, by someone in search of rest for peace of mind a rest of soul of one who spent that night tossing and turning rolling and groaning or of one whose apartment is lost in a coffin dead to the world in need of slurping a bubbling bowl of ramen to stay sane.
I.
I used to be tired but now I’m comfortable.
Like midnight poems and streetlight
Peeking through the window
Like starry lawns and moonlight
Our craterous noses dipping and glistening
Like metal flakes bedazzling the gray callouses of my hand
Like glitter
Like midnight commuter rails and the warm buzz of light
Lulling you home.
II.
Whatever happened in that church basement
Its tan walls hugging us as I pull you closer
Like Manila folders
We’ll never grow old.
I cried that night in the living room
As my dad did pushups and I
Saw him dead, dying, why
“Nothing lasts,” he laughed
“Except gold, maybe.”
III.
My name is Nhật Huy
Which means a beam of golden sunshine in my mother’s tongue
A language laced with the sweet scent of sweaty hugs and basil
My grandfather’s vision
Of his refugee boy and his teen bride
Of America’s dream
Of me.
IV.
Why do I feel out of place?
Maybe it’s the son who left his country to escape the gunshots
Maybe it’s the woman telling him to go back
Maybe it’s the broken words stumbling off my mother’s teeth
Maybe it’s the glare the cashier doesn’t give her
Maybe it’s me looking a little longer just to make sure
Maybe it’s the slant in my eyes
Accenting the way I see the world
Maybe it’s the way I see the world
Maybe it’s the way I see.
