Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Honest Abe, A Minecraft T-Shirt and a Hispanic Woman or Why I am a BIG FAT JERK

Across the street from DC’s most infamous theater and not a stone’s throw away from the bed where our sixteenth President breathed his last, stands a rusty brick building that houses a cadre of shops, one of which is named Honest Abe’s Souvenirs.



Elbowing each other for room on the sidewalk in front of the store are a company of souvenirs stands and street vendors waiting for customers with salivating mouths like a pride of hungry lions.  To their great fortune, it is Spring in DC, the season of the fat and happy lion where there is no need to run and chase—only to wait. 

 To the background sonnet of a high gear city, perpetually turning, 96 eighth graders with wallets and purses on fire, flood across the street, a tsunami of chattering mouths and cellphones.  They are a herd of gazelle crossing the African plain in search of water, and the vendor-lions are holding up signs that read, “Here is the pool, come drink!” 

And drink they do!

From cheap knockoff sunglasses and over-priced ice cream sandwiches, to flat-billed hats and neon hoodies, they gorge themselves, determined to fit in, determined to take a piece of DC with them.  Most spend every dime they have and I watch, with a strange anxiety because I want to scold them.
“Those aren’t real Oakley’s!” I want to yell. “Save your money!  You’ll never wear that stupid hat again!”

But before I can, the kid inside me speaks up. 

“You were just like them,” he says, “remember?”

I was…I am.
Sixteen years ago, on my 8th grade DC trip, I bought a camouflaged bucket hat, just like all my friends.  And just like all my friends, I wore it for two days before it was lost in the sands of time.
So, I take my younger self’s advice and decide to let them learn that lesson themselves while I finish the last bit of a frappachino, content to stand guard, a chaperone sentinel should any need of one arise.

But fate can be a conniving trickster ready to serve up a warm slice of humble pie.

And she isn’t going to let me off that easy. 

~

I have two young daughters and before I left I promised to bring them something back from my trip.   I’d made that promise with a memento or tiny trinket in mind, knowing that they would be happy with simple toys.  However, as I stand watch in the shade of a green canvas awning, something catches my attention. 

Under Honest Abe’s watchful eye and sandwiched between two drink and ice cream vendors, stands a small t-shirt booth.  Hanging, somewhat tenuously, at one end of the booth is the image of one of my daughter’s childhood heroes printed on a t-shirt, a literal block head named Steve.



Steve is the star of a Swedish designed video game called Minecraft, which over the past few years, has soared in popularity, swallowing more and more of children’s time and parent’s money.

My daughter was not immune.
 
 As soon as I see the t-shirt, the flame of my promise reignites inside me because I know one simple truth, my daughter will adore it.

So, I cautiously make my way through the herd of gazelle to the pool.  But before I kneel to take a drink, I make a vow to myself that if I am to drink the water and dine with the lions, it will be on my terms.

Black sharpie scribbled across a piece of cardboard indicates that all t-shirts, no matter the size, are ten bucks.

That is the cost of my daughter’s adoration and happiness.

That is two dollars more than I am willing to spend.

Manning the booth is a short brown skinned woman with gray streaked black hair and a worn face, like aged leather.  She smiles as I approach, a warm, affable smile. 

But I see right through it.

I am not my eighth grade self.

I am older, wiser. 

I smile back.  “How much are the shirts?” I ask.

Though the cardboard sign is perched just an arm’s reach away from her, she answers pleasantly in a heavy Hispanic accent, as if I’d just made an honest mistake, “Ten dollars.”

I cross my arms, deliberately deliberating.

After a moment, she asks, “Which one do you like?”

I nod toward the Minecraft shirt.  “That blue one there.”

“Do you have a son?”

“Two daughters.”

Her face lights up. “Very good,” she says.  “Very good.”

I take a breath.  Small talk is over.  It’s time to get down to business.  Time for me to rise up to the occasion.  Time to show how far I’ve come.

“I will give you six dollars for it,” I say.

She smiles.  “Ten dollars.”

“Seven,” I say.

Still smiling, she shakes her head.  “No, sorry, ten dollars.”

I take another breath and exhale slowly.  It is time for another approach. 

“What is the size of that shirt?” I ask even though I can plainly see the size.

“Child’s medium,” she replies.

I sigh, trying my best to look disappointed.  “That is too big for my daughter.”  I pause for effect.  “Tell you what, I’ll give you eight dollars.”

A brief silence ensues.  A breeze begins to blow and I feel as if it is just her and I standing under the high-noon sun with our hands at our holsters.

Though I don’t bring the fact to life with words, the woman must see in the narrowing of my eyes that my next offer will be a polite pleasantry as I depart from her life forever without buying the shirt.

Still, her smile is unrelenting.
 
"Ten dollars," she says, as genial as the first time.

We’ve reached an impasse that even the author of the great compromise, Henry Clay, couldn't break.  So, with my threshold attained, I remain true the promise of my narrowing eyes, and removed my hand from my holster while I offering a simple salutation before departing.   

There is a slight disappointment over my failure to procure the Minecraft shirt as I walk away, but it easily eclipsed by a wave of self-righteousness that surges through me.  I may have lost the battle, but I won the war.

As I stand on the mountain of triumph, somewhere, the kid in me is shaking his head.

~
Ding! Ding! Ding!

You hear that?

That is the sound of the oven timer.

My humble pie is ready...

Twenty minutes later, after the herd of gazelle have meandered over to a street musician hammering out a beat on a makeshift drum set of old trash cans and buckets of paint, I’m pondering the irony of a store using Honest Abe's likeness to hock cheaply made souvenirs at outrageous prices when I feel a gentle tap on my shoulder.

I turn to see the Hispanic woman staring up at me.

But she isn’t smiling.

"Sir," she says, with a small quiver of her lip.

"Yes?" I say, thoroughly perplexed by her presence.

The woman reaches behind her back and produces a thin plastic bag.  "For your child."

I stare blankly at her as letters slowly form into words in my mouth.  But before I can even say anything, she drops the bag into my hands. I glance down.  Inside is the Minecraft shirt.  I look up and furrow my brow.  I still am not sure what is happening.  "For free?" I ask.

She nods.  "For free."

"Are you sure?" I reach for my wallet.  "I have ten dollars right here."

She shakes her head.  "No money.  Free."

I flash a twenty dollar bill.  She only shakes her head more adamantly until I slip the bill back into my wallet. 

"Thanks," I say. 

With my offer of gratitude, her smile returns and she bows a bit before retreating to her booth.
In the wake of the transaction, I am speechless for a long time.  My inflated sense of self-importance that had accompanied my victory has vanished and a mixture of guilt and shame flood in to fill the void. 

The woman's act of kindness pulls me down from my mountain of triumph and as I fall, I realize that the mountain wasn't made of rock but sand all along.

~

Thinking back, I don’t know her reasons for giving me the shirt, perhaps it was an offering of gratitude for shepherding the gazelle to the pool or maybe she felt guilty herself for fighting for two extra dollars.  Just maybe, she wanted to do something nice.  The reasons are between her and the Almighty and for the purpose of this little ditty, they don’t really matter.  

Because of her, I’ve realized that there are times in all our lives where we take a moral stand more out of pride than anything else.  (I mean, what is a ten dollar shirt, when I had just spent nearly as much on a Frappuccino at Starbucks?)  We dig in our heels and refuse to budge.  Sometimes we lose and walk away flustered and sometimes we win and leave swelled up with vindication.   Either way we cling to our mountain until someone comes along and forces us to let go. 

They’re not always waves that crash against the shore and wash away our mountain,  sometimes they are small people with small acts and are more like a gentle spring rain, one that comes in unexpected and softens up the sand just enough for us to lose our footing. 

I’ve thought of that small person and her small act repeatedly and if or when I go back to DC, I hope to run into her again and tell her thank you.  


And if I ever come face to face with the trickster that is Fate, I will tell her that even though I don’t like the taste of her humble pie, I’m glad I had a piece.