Hester Street NYC, Friday Night

(these aren't the kids who I'm talking about, didn't have film in my camera though and I want to give you an image)

It was Friday and after a long day I just wanted to relax. I'd woken up at 6:30 because I am forcing myself to get up at 6:30 everyday, did my push-ups, taught three classes, helped someone water the concrete that he'd laid a few days before and I found myself in a village one over from mine. A few kilometers brings you into another world. I didn't want to talk to anybody but I still wanted to be out, so I made a little treck. I ordered something to quench my thirst and this woman who is a high school teacher, who I'd met once before, started talking to me and then asked me to go play with her son. What can you do? I walked across the street to where her son and three girls were playing with a ball. They were all 10 years old.

I'd never really played with kids or spent much time around them before moving to Bulgaria but I imagine that 10 year old girls are pretty much the same everywhere, tough critics. The boy was happy to have someone bigger and stronger to play with but right away the girls were laughing at my clothes and called me a liar when I told them how old I was. We got past all that though and they were actually nice kids. The boy's name was Yani and the girls were Rubi, Elli, and another Elli.

They ran to the top of a big double set of stairs which leveled out before another set of stairs that lead to the Church. My back was to the Mosque (This area of Bulgaria was Muslim, Communism came and it was "No Muslims Allowed," now that's not the case). I would throw or kick a ball to the kids at the top of the stairs and they'd kick it down to me and I had to catch it. I wanted to see if I could hit the Church so I kicked the ball as hard as I could. I didn't quite make it but the ball landed on the roof of a small "Sport Toto" building. (Sport Toto is the Bulgarian Lottery and it's an actual place you have to go to to play your numbers.)

I felt terrible. A ball is like a piece of gold, maybe even more precious. The building was about 12 feet high. I couldn't run, jump, grab the roof and pull myself up. Plus, I was dressed in my new stone washed jeans, a Polish-looking shirt I'd just bought in Poland and I had on Sean Thomas boots. I decided the ball was more important. The girls had climbed up the other set of stairs and they were looking down on the ball and pointing at it. The boy was sad. He looked like Ricky in 'Boyz N the Hood,' when they go to see the dead body and he throws his football to the older kids who don't give it back and Doughboy tells him that he's stupid and that he's gonna tell their mamma. I had to get the ball, for Ricky's sake, but I wasn't going to jump the six feet from the handrail to the thin tin roof like the girls wanted me to; I'd probably have fallen through.

I walked around to the back of the building and I saw the doorway that led from the kitchen to the television room of the house where I grew up. My brothers and I would take turns putting the smalls of our backs/butts against one side, our feet against the other and walk ourselves up to the ceiling and then jump down. I'm a pro in a doorway but this space was at least a foot and a half wider than a doorway. The girls saw me sizing it up and they probably climbed up their doorways too because they started clapping. I had my audience and didn't think twice. Actually, I thought about getting my shirt dirty mid-climb but I got up, no problem, threw the ball down to the boy, Yanni, and stopped to watch him smile. Then I hung off the side and dropped about five or six feet.

We played some more kick/throw and then everyone sat down and said they were tired. I walked back to the cafe and meet the high school teacher. One part of the story I left out was that she'd invited me to meet up with her 12th grade class at a bar later that evening. Now, she apologized and told me that she didn't think it was such a good idea because everyone would be drinking a lot and the girls would be upset because they would have wanted notice that I was going to be there. I get invited to and then dis-invited all the time so I didn't question it at first. Her and I hung out at the cafe for a bit and then I left to meet up with one of my colleagues and his wife.

Mid-meal, the conversation turned toward marriage as it often does. Every time I hang my laundry out to dry, an old woman asks me, 'Don't you want a wife to do that?'
'No,' I'd think, 'I want the nice lady with glasses and a fanny pack on Hester Street in Chinatown to do it.' (It took me two years to break her down to accept pennies. She wouldn't tell me her name but she finally accepted pennies.)

I know 18 and 19 year olds who are married. I know women who got married when they were 16. So, I fielded the questions but when she asked me what kind of girls I like, I said, 'I only like girls if they smell like cow's milk and have bigger hands than mine.' That's not totally true but I have a tendency to think about so many things while I am talking to someone in Bulgarian, and I pretty much only talk to people in Bulgarian, that I might have and A, a B, and a C for what response I will give and I always go with the one I know to be the most grammatically correct. I'm not too self conscious about sharing what I think or feel but a year in Bulgaria, speaking this foreign language, has turned me into a grandpa. My filter has almost disappeared. That might be the secret to life: become like a grandpa while you're still young. You might get invited and uninvited to stuff all the time but you enjoy yourself wherever you are.