Worlds Apart Read online

  I did not look like I was about to graduate high school. I had not grown into a man like other boys had. To tell the truth, I was still waiting for puberty to fully kick in. I was medium height, thin, and insecure about my build. Actually, I was insecure about lots of things. I wished I was built faster and stronger, that my body had produced more testosterone. I wished that I had developed hand-eye coordination like a short stop or a point guard. If that had happened, I could’ve been a great athlete. But I can’t waste anymore time looking back at what could’ve been. No more looking back, only looking forward.

  There was a school newspaper meeting after school. Not only was I the sports editor, but frankly, I was the only normal person on the school newspaper editor’s staff. Everyone else was uptight, never smiled, never joked around, and only talked about how important they were to the fate of the newspaper and the minds of the students. The other senior editors on the paper talked about how they were prepared to work on the school newspaper all night. It was not the New York Times; it was just a crappy high school newspaper that no one read.

  The editors were engulfed in a media power struggle existing in their own minds. Each tried to prove that they were smarter and knew better than anyone else. They would debate headlines for hours. I was part of a staff of pretentious type-A personalities. As far as the notion of working all night on the paper, it was for not me. I was leaving by six p.m. no matter what. I had to get home to study. I also had to prepare dinner two nights a week.

  Besides, the other editors on the school paper were Ivy League types. They were smart, annoyingly so, tightly wound, pedantic, and mentally disturbed; a winning combination for acceptance at an Ivy League school or for living in Manhattan.

  I couldn’t even apply to the Ivy League schools. I didn’t have the grades or the money for the applications. The little money I had made during the summer helped pay the bills at home. I couldn’t ask my father for the money; he was too busy reminding me that we didn’t have any. My father worked hard, but we were barely getting by. Our family went from middle class to poor when my father lost both of his jobs, and we took on boarders to survive. This happened a couple of years prior, and we’d been playing catch up ever since.

  I felt too guilty to ask for money for another reason. How could I convince my father that I was an adult, capable of living on my own, and then ask for money for college applications? I needed to make my own money. I had to make smart choices in life. If I was accepted to an expensive college, how would I even pay for it? I suppose that I could have taken loans and spent the rest of my life in heavy debt. This was something that he would not understand. My father didn’t even use credit cards.

  Besides, I didn’t want to be another poor kid doing dishes at a college for rich kids. It was not a question of placing my ego within harm’s way; rather, I wanted my college experience to be different from the poor life I was living. Already humbled by my family’s lack of money, I didn’t need to get humbled at college as well. Private schools were out for me.

  What was the difference anyway between a private college education and a state college education, other than price? Exclude the brand name recognition, and just consider the actual education. Were their books different from the ones at state college? If so, I’d just read their books. Were their professors smarter than the state college professors? I read somewhere that many state college professors actually went to expensive, elite schools. What’s the point of going to an elite private school, if all you aim to do in life to teach at a state school?

  I was determined to be a self-made success story no matter where I attended college. College was my ticket to the middle class and beyond. I had to also avoid membership in the growing class of people that were educated and poor that drive beat up cars with multiple bumper stickers from various private universities. We lived on the same block as a guy with a PhD from New York University in mechanical engineering, a Master’s degree from Columbia in Applied Sciences, and a Bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth in Early Languages. He drove an old clunker with a bumper held up by duct tape. So much for his degree in mechanical engineering. That will never be me. He needs a bumper sticker in sanskrit telling him to get a new car.

  I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. But I knew that I needed to be smarter, make money, and not end up like my father, my grandparents, or my aunts and uncles. I came from a long line of hard working poor people. What good was that? They all dropped dead of exhaustion at an early age, never getting to enjoy retirement.

  Some of my teachers had graduate degrees from expensive universities. They wore clothing from twenty years before and took the subway. It was like they had a degree in being poor. Why can’t there be a PhD in being rich? There wasn’t a college offering this degree. There is no crime in being poor, but there are serious repercussions. Poordom prevents people from pursuing their God-given talents and dreams, such as playing the guitar for a living. The most serious consequence of poordom was the inferiority complex that I had developed which prevented me from asking out the girl of my dreams.

  Delancey was a girl I had known throughout high school. I’m not one for clichés, but she was different from all the other girls. She wasn’t necessarily the prettiest girl at Stanton, though she was in my eyes, and she wasn’t the highest ranked either. Delancey had never been a cheerleader, but she brought a cheer wherever she went. There was a certain quality about her that everyone noticed and some boys chased after. Perhaps it was the way she smiled. Often friendly, she was a regular Miss Congeniality, like a ray of morning sunshine after a long, dark night. I liked so many things about Delancey, but especially the fact that I could talk to her about anything.

  The previous year we had talked about her dreams of success, her addiction to Coca Cola, and her infatuation with everything British. Her favorite band was Journey, and her favorite song from that band was “Separate Ways.” Delancey and I had been in so many classes together that I actually knew a lot about her. Junior year, she dressed as the Statue of Liberty for Halloween, and it really didn’t seem out of place or even out of character. If it wasn’t for the green makeup, no one would think she was wearing a costume. She had thick, brown locks of hair atop her tall, demure figure, and she walked with a certain regal gait. Delancey almost always wore blue jeans and sometimes a tee shirt emblazoned with a rock band. She dressed bohemian, and that was by design. She had the long, elegant fingers of the aristocracy. Delancey went out of her way to look like an average girl, but there was a soul behind her eyes, something far above average, that made me yearn for her to be closer to me.

  Delancey was an average tennis player, and I wrote a few articles about her tennis accomplishments last year, which annoyed the good tennis players. I really didn’t care; I wanted to write about Delancey, and made a five minute interview stretch for an hour and a half. She could trace her genealogy to the Mayflower. She belonged to a country club in Long Island, where her mother lived. She once mentioned this in passing. No other student at Stanton, or all of Brooklyn for that matter, belonged to a country club on Long Island. She was a true American beauty, having grown up on Long Island, and moved to the city to live with her father when her parents divorced. Sometimes I thought that she liked me too, but I could never believe that. What would a girl like Delancey see in a poor boy like me? Although I really liked her, my malevolent friend, Sam, was obsessed with her.

  Sam, like most kids at Stanton, was hell bent on getting into an Ivy League school. Sam’s parents would have to struggle to pay for it, but he was more than okay with that. Sam boasted that his father was a doctor, but his father was not the kind of doctor that made a lot of money. Sam’s father, an immunologist, did mostly research at a hospital in the city. His family had recently spent their life savings to pay for his sister’s hospital bills. She had died of cancer the previous year. It was ironic that an immunologist’s daughter died from a cancer of the blood. The death of his sister left his family mentally off kilter,
and financially and emotionally broke. Sam once said to me, in a rare moment of sincerity, he felt his parents would never recover from his sister’s passing. A family can recover from financial hardships, but tragedy lingers in silence for generations.

  Sam definitely had the grades and the motivation to get into a top school. He planned on writing his college essay on his sister’s health crisis, and how it motivated him to become a doctor. Sometimes I believed him, sometimes I didn’t. Sam would say or write anything to get into Harvard. He was the quintessential Stanton student. He wanted to be a doctor to satisfy his parents, and to make lots of money.

  Sam, Carlos, and John were already at lunch sitting at our usual table when I arrived at the cafeteria. There are only two times in life that people have a ‘usual table.’ The first is in the high school cafeteria. The second is when you’re rich enough that people who own restaurants remember who you are, where you sit, and what you like to drink. Most people only experience the first. The boys and I were discussing our classes and teachers when Delancey walked in, unseen by me.

  “Wow,” said Sam, “Delancey really grew over the summer…in all the right places.” Carlos, amused, agreed with Sam and then went back to eating. This was typical of Carlos, always in agreement with Sam, and never really saying too much. Some people are leaders; Carlos was definitely a follower.

  John, my closest friend, asked if any of us had classes with Delancey this year.

  “I have English class with her,” I said with a sheepish grin. We kept eating, none of us saying another word on the subject. The wheels were turning in Sam’s head. I was friendly with Delancey, and found her very attractive, but never had asked her out, chased after her, or expressed my feelings. She was out of my league. I was a realist, pragmatic to the core. She was too much of a long shot, and too much of a dream. She was someone I could reach out towards, but never hold.

  September was shaping up to be a busy month. I had to work on the paper after school and could not go with the guys to the park. I told them I’d see them tomorrow, and explained that I had to “work all night on the school newspaper.” They laughed, detecting my sarcasm and what I was alluding to. John had to work at his strict Korean parents’ fruit and vegetable store, which was usually the case.

  After gym class, I was in the boys’ locker room changing out of the required Stanton gym t-shirt. The room smelled like jock straps and sweat, and that was with the windows open. The boys were talking about a street gang attack after school and the best ways to leave the school and head for the subways. This street gang, the Deceptors, was infamous.

  The Deceptors always planned a secret attack on the first day of school. Everyone always knew about it, except the police and school officials. I was more than familiar with the gang’s well deserved reputation for terror. I wasn’t concerned. By the time I finished my sports articles, the gang would be long gone.

  At six o’ clock, I exited the newspaper office. Bellicose voices roared in the background. They continued to argue about the lead story, sounding like a parliament meeting of a third world country. The only thing missing was fisticuffs. The editors smirked and made snide comments that I didn’t work as hard as they did and that sports was easier than the news or the entertainment section. This of course, wasn’t true, but probably was not false either. I never had the patience for office politics.

  I walked my normal route to the subway on Dekalb Avenue. There was a clairvoyant’s store front I was accustomed to passing. I don’t call them fortune tellers because that would give them credibility. The psychic was a slightly chubby woman, probably in her late thirties. She wore black clothing, and often sat outside her storefront. She smiled a sexy smile and asked if there was anything she could help me with. I said no, thank you. She smiled back, and continued with her sales pitch.

  “I could tell you your future. It’s very interesting.” Or, “Maybe I can help make your dreams come true.” Or, “I know what you’ll do after high school. I know the right path for you to study. I have the answers to your questions.”

  I never paid her any attention. Her customers always looked desperate. Sometimes her clients were high school students. When this was the case, the girls always came out crying, and the boys always came out nervous. I may not have had all the answers to my future, but she didn’t have any. Her profession implied that the future is already written, and ready to be foretold. I made my own future and not a single person could convince me otherwise.

  I rode the subway home that first day of school. One day down, three hundred to go. No sign of the Deceptors, just as I had predicted. The first day of school and the last day of school were always wonderful; the days in between were a problem. It’s not that I disliked school. I saw it as a means to an end, a necessary odyssey. School is penance for being young.

  I had made a promise to myself that if I was going to have a successful career one day; I needed to get in the habit of never missing a day of work or school. After all, I would never have this opportunity again. Once high school was over, it would really be over. No one can go back in time and relive high school. No one can ever bring something back once it is gone. Too many people come to this realization when it’s too late. Like at their twenty year high school reunion.

  After much reflection over the summer, I had made it a point to stop hanging out with the negative people in my life. This included those who did not share my ambitions or desire for a better future. This meant not hanging around some of the losers I knew the previous year. This also meant that I was running out of friends fast. John Donne wrote “No man is an island.” In other words, I still needed to sit with someone in the cafeteria during lunch, or risk appearing to be a total loser.

  Sam could be construed or misconstrued as a really negative personality type. He was kind of apathetic and expected everyone else to be apathetic as well. At the same time, there were few students in all of Stanton who were better academically, or more driven to succeed. No one was more determined to go to Harvard. Sam was hard to explain. Rather, my friendship with Sam is hard to explain.

  During sophomore year, whenever I tried to sign up for a club, or try out for a team, Sam showed up to talk me out of it. Sam knew exactly what to say and when to say it. During football tryouts, Sam walked by. I was already nervous about the tryouts because I was not as big and strong as some of the other guys. Sam shouted out, “Don’t waste your time…you are too small, too weak, and too slow. You’re just going to embarrass yourself.” Everyone laughed. I walked off the line and went home. It wasn’t always what he said; sometimes it was the way he said it.

  Sam had the uncanny ability to be very convincing and spoke with conviction. He would bad mouth every student trying their best or striving for greater achievement.

  Sam had a problem with anyone who achieved any form of success. When I had announced to Sam and John that I’d been named Sports Editor of the school paper, Sam threw a fit. He tossed my backpack across the hall, yelled obscenities, and stormed off. John, on the other hand, congratulated me and said I deserved it after all my hard work. John was a much better friend, and I liked him better than Sam. But for some reason, Sam was always around, and it was hard to cut the cord. My father always said, “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.” Well, that may be true, but looking back, I can take it a step further. Your friends in high school are a reflection of your insecurities, self doubts, and vulnerabilities. John believed that the prettiest girls always hung out with the not so pretty girls, in order to make themselves look prettier. I think the pretty girls sees themselves as the not so pretty girls, and birds of a feather flock together.

  My father warned me about my friendships, and I heard his voice in my head often. I hope I’m not making him out to be Polonius, because he was, in fact, the opposite. My father was quiet, blue collared, and rarely offered advice. My father’s best friend had betrayed him in high school over a sports competition. His friend had tricked him to believe the compe
tition was moved to the next day because of rain. Guess who won the competition? “Never trust your best friend,” my father would say.

  Sam hated the fact that I participated in school activities. He spent all his spare time chasing girls and smoking. Sam was not a good looking kid, and was physically awkward and socially inept, more so than the rest of us. Sam tried his best to get any girl to like him and to be their friend. The truth was that people, often found him a little creepy. He was famous for emotional meltdowns in school, which often left him red-faced and in tears. At the end of last year, I had promised myself that I would never surround myself with people like Sam again. Already it had cost me a lot of wasted time…time that was now running out. But Sam just wouldn’t go away. He was like a leech.

  I had to interview Michael Noah Torres this week. I had known him since freshman year, and like everyone else, I called him Mino. Mino was the star running back for our football team. Two things were consistent about him: he was always fast, and was always in the weight room. Mino took football very seriously. His mother was often at school for practices, games, and to talk to the guidance counselors and coaches. She was determined that her son would go to college and play football on scholarship.

  When we were freshmen, Mino and I were almost the same height. He had a real running back’s build, like a bull about to break out of a stable. His legs were thick like trees, and he had a neck to match. I hadn’t seen him in a while – Stanton is a big school, and it was not uncommon to not see someone for an entire year.

  My eyes almost popped out of their sockets when I walked into the weight room. Mino was lifting more weights than anyone I had ever seen. He was enormous; his wide back was shaped in a perfect V. I waited in awe for a half hour for him to finish his workout. Mino squatted more weight than two average football players could lift. He was clearly the strongest kid in the school, maybe even in all of Brooklyn. But he had not really grown and was six inches shorter than I was. I marveled at his bench presses, military presses, and bicep curls. His biceps were bigger than my thighs. I never felt so weak in my life.