Lost In Translation

Originally written November 23, 2006

After four restless hours of the vivid dreams I have ever come up with, I wake to the sounds of urban gentrification fifty feet away from my tenth floor walk in closet of an apartment. At some point, a building stood in this old town district where piles of broken concrete and steel are hauled away every day. Now it’s just a reminder that any history this island once had has been paved over to make sure everyone can have a two hundred square foot studio.

On my way to the trolley that I can take everywhere on the island for less than a quarter, I pass at least three fruit stands set up on the sidewalk selling the same bruised bananas, the same lettuce that is starting to turn.

At the corner the constant ding ding radiates throughout the intersection. Like an alarm clock that is just out of reach when you wake up. Cross walk signals that could tell a deaf man three blocks away that the red light was up. As the alarm fades away, the yellow light comes not from green to red, but red back to green.

The ordered chaos that is getting on public transportation in the Far East. People pushing women and the elderly out of the way, no one smiles, no one excuses themselves for bodily functions. This is not quite the L in Chicago, there's no need to be a hero today. You can't change an entire culture on your own, but I sure as hell can scare them into behaving themselves. After someone commits a social faux pas, I stare at them, in the crowded trolley, silently judging them. In an intimate social environment such as this, the target understands they are being watched, and they reflect upon their behavior. This is how we were able to have the confessions every night.

A great escape for all those concerned.

Nothing makes sense in this city. The street signs, the advertisements, store names...I don't understand what they are trying to tell me. Lost in translation doesn't begin to define that feeling you have being on your own, truly on your own. There is no backup. My friends live with their parents and have curfews despite being the same age. The culture, the dedication and servitude they practice towards family obligations, benign as they are, continues to amaze me. I am the big bad here, corrupting these family oriented adults with childlike minds. But I always have been that guy in R rated movies, the one you're not sure if you like, you don't feel good about rooting for.

If there was ever a chance for you to jump ship, this would be it. Cause there is only one way to go here. I'm not getting any more refined around the edges. A new world that I'm trying to influence, and slowly, its working. The untouchable. The most popular and visible person at the school, and it doesn't have anything to do with being the only white man. I find myself helping others through the stress of their first year of law school. My penance, am I on a path to redemption, or am I bringing them down to the world I of evermore I have created? The papers would say we were here to obtain another degree, to become an expert in the field of international commerce. The words exist only on paper. This was never about school, was it? This was never the degree. There was something else telling you this was the move to make after running through Kansas and getting that idea of what Chicago would be through our apartment harem in Evanston, it is nothing but a test of time, of patience, or virtue. Salvation comes in waves.