A Nice Boy

“Oops! So sorry.”

The tall, thin man wearing a brown hat crashed into me in the crowded airport, knocking me over; spilling me, my comic books and my colored pencils across the floor. My chin throbbed from smashing it on the hard, slick ground.

   “Are you ok, son?”

I of course didn’t understand a word he said as he easily lifted me off the floor by my arm and then picked up my books and pencils. His voice had a lilt to it, like a glissando. I liked the way it sounded, but I just stared up at him with a blank expression, noticing his moist blue eyes under his arched eyebrows. He reminded me of Opa. I already missed him. I missed every one of them, terribly.

   “Are you ok?”

He kept standing there looking at me and wouldn’t go away. I started to worry that he was angry, even though the expression on his face belied that. I dared not rub my aching chin, lest it set him off. He looked at my comic books and noticed that they weren’t in English.

   “Ah. German?”

He pointed at me.

   “Dootch?”

I nodded as my mother returned from the luggage carousel with our suitcases. I ran up to her and grabbed her hand. He handed my comic books and pencils to my mother and apologized to her.

   “I’m afraid I knocked your son over in my rush. I’m very sorry.”

My mother answered in halting English.

   “No problem. He iz ok.”

The man pulled a dollar bill out of his pocket and crouched down to my height to hand it to me. I looked at the strange bill in my hand.

   “Zay sank you.”

I looked up at my mother, not understanding the instruction.

   “Sag danke.”

   “Danke.”

   “You’re welcome, son.”

He patted my head, stood up and then rushed off, waving over his shoulder.

   “Welcome to New York.”

I rubbed my chin as I examined the bill the man gave me. It was green and white and warm. I held it against my cheek. It smelled musty. My mother grabbed the suitcases and headed down the corridor to join my father, brother and sister in the customs office. She looked back and noticed me smelling the dollar bill.

   “Komm schon, kindchen.”

I caught up with her, trying to avoid the swinging suitcases and lunging knees while I hopped and ran to keep pace.

            We entered a small square office that still had Christmas decorations up. There was a small silver aluminum tree with large blinking lights on top of a tall grey file cabinet. Two red paper bells in opposite corners and a long gold garland connecting them framed the otherwise bare far wall. It seemed sadly austere to me, and hardly cheery. The man talking to my father reminded me of the Great Leslie’s bald sidekick in The Great Race. I watched the movie with my uncles and aunts at my grandmother’s house in Höchst, the week before we left. I laughed until tears rolled down my face. Especially during the pie throwing scene. Unlike Hezekiah, though, the man in the office had a thinning crescent of blonde hair on his giant head that connected to his bushy mustache via thick blond and grey sideburns. My father motioned to my mother.

   “Heer ees.”

My mother took over answering questions and signing paperwork, while my father dealt with my fidgeting infant sister who’d just awoken and started crying. My brother stood next to his chair, with his arms wrapped around my father’s legs

   “What is the nature of your visit?”

   “Ve arr nut visiteeng. Ve arr leeveeng heer.”

   “You’re leaving?”

   “No. Ve arr komming heer.”

   “You’re returning from a trip?”

   “Nein, ach… no. Ve hov movet heer.”

   “Oh. You’re moving here?”

   “Ja! Yes.”

   “Hmm. Customs gave me the wrong information. These are the wrong forms.”

He then ripped up all the forms my mother had been signing and pulled new ones out of his desk drawer. My father frowned at her.

   “Was ist loss?”

My mother shushed him.

   “Here we are… Do you have your visas?”

   “Ja.”

She handed over all our visas. He held up my mother’s and father’s visas while checking their faces against the pictures.

   “This man is your husband?”

   “Yes.”

   “How long have you been married?”

   “Ayt yeaz.”

He bent his head forward to fill in the information on the forms. The blonde fuzz on top of his head looked like the fuzz on top of my sister’s head. Though she had more of it and her’s was darker.

   “These are your children?”

   “Yes.”

He held up our visas and checked our faces against the pictures. He checked my brother, my sister and then me.

   “How old are they?”

   “Von yea oold, feif yeaz oold und zex yeaz oold.”

He winked at me as he handed the visas back to my mother. I clutched my comics closer to my chest. My mother stroked my hair and whispered that I should tell the man what she taught me in Germany, before the flight. I shook my head.

   “Komm schon… Bitte.”

   “I EM eh NAYSE BOYee.”

My cheeks turned red hot. I sounded like Bela Lugosi; putting emphasis on every other syllable, as if the inflection carried the meaning… which was a mystery to me. I could’ve insulted his mother for all I knew. My own mother beamed at her polyglot son and the man raised his eyebrows in appreciation.

   “I’m sure you are, kid.”

He handed me a candy that he pulled out of the same drawer in his desk. I unwrapped it and put it in my mouth, but then spat it out immediately. Butterscotch. What a cruel trick. My father smacked the back of my head as my mother distracted the man from my bad manners by asking a question.

            My head hurt. Not merely from the smack- though that didn’t help, nor the fall to the floor- which exacerbated it. The unfamiliarity of everything overwhelmed me and I was terrified. The bright white lights made my temples throb and my eyes burn. The cacophony of beeping trams and rolling luggage and shouting travelers and stern staccato announcements over the intercom… I wanted to go back home. I hated it here. I missed my uncles and aunts and Oma and Opa. I missed my friends. How was I going to make friends here when I couldn’t understand anyone? Everybody talked like they were chewing gum. Ngow, ngow, ngow, ngow… I bit my lip to keep from crying. I failed. Which set my sister off again. Which angered my father. My mother snatched my sister from him and balanced her on her left knee as she sealed our fate with a flourish of her right hand. She slid the forms over to my father so he could do the same. It was right then, with those signatures, that I realized that my parents wouldn’t always look out for me. The packing, the goodbyes and even the flight over - it all seemed reversible, but this action was as indelible as the ink. The epiphany started me sobbing; and now, my brother joined in, making it a trio.

            “Verdammt noch mal!”

My father picked up my crying brother and yanked me hard, by the shoulder, towards the door. My mother apologized to the man as he handed back our visas.

   “Eet vas loong flate. Dey arr verry teyered.”

He nodded like he understood. The door closed. My father, brother and I stood in the bright hallway again. I could still hear my sister cry over my own wailing. It sounded like she was being rocked: “Aa-yaa-yaa-yaa.” My father jerked my arm. I looked up to see him glowering at me. I stopped crying immediately; though my shoulders still convulsed as I sniffled.

   “Halt’s maul!”

My brother stopped crying as well; knowing, as I did, that it was the prudent thing to do. My father sighed angrily and lit a cigarette. He ran his hands through his hair as it dangled between his lips. It burned down to the filter before the door opened again and my mother came out with my sister. She’d stopped crying and was sucking her thumb.

   “Welcome to the United States.”

   “Sank you verry match.”

The man waved goodbye to us in the hallway.

   “Vertig?”

My mother ignored my father’s question. Instead she handed him all the paperwork along with my sister. She picked up my brother and stroked my hair again. I took her hand as we headed down the long hallway towards our connecting flight to our new life.