WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

Heart race- muscle pain- elevator- my room. It looks just as it was left. An hour ago my roommate called me saying that somebody broke into our apartment.

I think pretty much everyone faced robbery or burglary. I got my phone and wallet stolen right from my pocket in a crowded subway in Moscow, but no one had actually broken into MY house and taken MY possessions (and memories) away.

9:30 pm my roommate called 911.

10:30 pm no one came

11:30 pm still no one came.

We called them every hour to find out how they were doing and finally, decided to ask them to get us donuts with chocolate as well.

12:30 am still no door bell

My roommate says Ukrainian cops are cooler than that- it takes them only 1-2 hours to get to the crime scene

1:30 am loud banging on the door.

Two cops have arrived. They are both young (looks like younger than me) and they speak some language from the Caribbean. They are probably idols for their villagers: they are American cops, just like in the movies. And they have guns too. Yeah.

It took them and us an hour to fill all the required papers.

He tells me they could have looked for my missing money if I knew the unique number on each of the bills.

He brings 3 more people with him. They just walk around stumping the dust and dirt they brought into our apartment.

3:00 am everybody finally leaves.

4:00 am I get a phone call from the one of the cops. The young ones did not fill out the papers correctly, so they have to come back.

4:30 am they come back, wake my roommate up and make us fill out the same papers again.

4:50 am they leave.

8:30 am 2 women come.

They are here to take fingerprints, but they tell me that since everybody touched everything last night, they can do nothing. So off they go.

I did not quite get why they came if they knew there was another layer(s) of fingerprints on top of the one they needed. Even after I asked them to take fingerprints from the drawer where the criminal took the knife to open the doors, they refused, because it was made of wood.

11:30 am Ta-Da!! comes the detective. Tall, in a suit with a touch of gray in his hair. His speech is content, his voice is velvet, he wont waste a single gesture. THIS is the man from the movies, and not the cops with guns.

“We will be looking in pawn shops. They have to have some type of id to get cash for gold.”

And if the owner just takes the gold without ID, they can get closed down, because police sends a lot of undercover agents there.

Yeah, good luck with that.

The next day I found the knife that the unwanted guest used as a door opening tool and called up the detective. He sent someone to take the fingerprints.

Two Hispanic women, one with butterfly on her back above her hips, another with nails so long, they gave her hard time dialing her supervisors number to tell him how they did not find taking the fingerprints useful in this case simply because I assumed that the knife was used here. I know it was, because it was misplaced and there was nothing else big enough to open both doors.They finally took a DNA test, because the detective is new and he told them to do so.

As a conclusion…

Being robbed is a hard work…

Sleepless nights and pointless visits of numerous people with guns.

My first essay.

Enjoy.

Will you marry me for twenty thousand dollars?

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
(Proverb)

          “No, God, no! Why??” I opened my eyes and saw a silhouette of Anna on the floor in the middle of my room. I jumped off the bed, went on my knees, stretched my hands towards her, afraid to touch her. “What happened?” I could hear my heart beat now. “Aaa hen djin geen” Anna’s red eyes were full of tears, her face was all wet and her mouth was stretched in a grim of sorrow. “What is going on?” Rape? Robbery? Violence?- flashed in my head. “He did it again! We just had sex in the car on the parking lot, and then told me he has a new girlfriend who lives with him and sleeps in our bed!” I went to the kitchen to get some Valerian root pills. I gave her three.
Anna came to the US from Russia 6 years ago for the summer to work as a nanny. She realized that she wants to stay in this country and the easiest way for her was to get married. “By the time you find a real husband, you may turn forty and I want my green card now”, she told me, that’s why she went for a “paper marriage” and her husband charged her 20 k, frequent sex and took her heart as an add-on. In order for the officer to believe them, they had to live together, which made them both happy for about a year, when after, as it always happens, their happiness was shattered by an everyday life. He started staying at work a little longer, she forgot when was the last time they went out together. Anna became paranoid: looking through their mutual bank account to see what he was doing, where he was spending time, read his e-mails and texts. Eventually she got her green card and soon is getting her passport. But was it worth it?

          “What do you mean, he died?” screamed Svetlana in her phone. “-When did he die? Why nobody told me? What am I gonna do now?” She did not even ask why or how he died, she knew it was an overdose or death in prison- people of this kind do not have much of a choice, they all end up the same way.
Lack of work and her sick mother made her leave Russia and search for any job, so Svetlana became a go-go dancer in New York City. She was dreaming about a green card now, life in Russia did not seem to be a future for her, so she started looking for a husband. She realized soon that not only good husbands, but husbands in general are hard to find, and in her situation she was ready to marry whoever, even a bad guy, even to pay him to do that, and that was exactly what happened.
Igor was introduced to her by a mutual friend. She bought his black suit and a nice car. Later she bought their marriage. They started living together. A flow of shady people went through her apartment. Skinny, poorly dressed “friends” sneaked into his room and left with their eyes wild. “I dont know what drugs he was doing, but he was bad” she told me. “He was very aggressive, did not want to speak, did not show up on the interview for their green card and was stealing money from me. And then my hubby died.” She said she only got her papers because the officer saw everything she went through in her eyes and felt bad for her.

“What? You dont have a passport?” Victorias eyes rounded as red spots came out all over her face and neck. She felt like he was ruining her future she has been building all these years. “You went for a marriage to make me an American citizen and you have no passport?”
” I dont have money to get it, I dont work, you know.”
Victoria was so tired of working in restaurants that one day after she saved the required sum she married a guy she barely knew anything about. She saw him once before, he looked OK to her. Later she found out he never worked, does not have money to pay the rent, lives with his parents and multiple sisters, never got any degree, and those several thousand dollars she paid him was the biggest amount he ever had. And only for a couple of days.
“I hope he does not withdraw all the money from our mutual account” she told me once. “Ha ha ha, thats so fucking hilarious!” Tyrone was snorting and squealing on a couch with a huge pack of Cheetos and bright red Kool-Aid while watching Harlem Shake videos. “Does this kid even know what a bank account is?” went in my head.
This couple has not had their interview yet, but Victoria is doing everything possible for her dream to come true while Tyrone is playing video games and probably does not even remember her last name.

          We always think its always better somewhere else, not where you are now. We think life is easier in a different country, but most of the times we are mistaken. The failure does not live in a particular country, it lives in you and it will follow you anywhere you run from it. Some choose to do anything to stay in America, obeying all religious and moral canons. And what are we left with? A green card and a future or a lie and a solitude? Is it better to marry a real man and start a family or a country where no one needs you? Its up to you.

Have been trying to create a blog as a means of outsource for my writing/journalistic/investigative energy and here I am!

Will post stories happened to me, or to other non-native English speakers/immigrants.

The stories are interesting, I promise. Most of the people who come to NY are struggling. They know what they put themselves into, they leave their nice and cozy nests in their countries, hoping for the best future just to get sucked into a deeper hole full of rats and roaches and sometimes, flying roaches.  They run away from their relatives, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends just to see “whats out there” and you know whats out there?? Nothing, unless you work as a horse six days a week washing/cleaning/serving, because since you dont have an American diploma, you are no one here. Still, some manage to find happiness. These people inspire others to come to the U.S. and to dig their way through rocks of nonacceptance, loneliness and poverty.

Enjoy.