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In 2010 I was twenty years old. I had just finished a semester of school at a prestigious New York art and design institution. And without much deliberation or choice for that matter, I began living in my father’s three bedroom apartment in West, but almost East Harlem, which he owned since the early two thousands. The unit was spacious, though felt claustrophobic by effect of the low drop ceiling and my father’s propensity to keep every window shade drawn during the day. This perhaps in equal measure, a response to his chronic paranoia around air quality, the invisible particles that we all inevitably spread through touch and speech and a more general lack of interest in human contact — a paradox given his gregarious nature. The shades in his apartment were not completely opaque, they let in a beautifully diffused amber light inside of which the unkempt dust on his window sills would dance to the syncopated rhythm of his harangues. They weren’t completely transparent either. Through them one could see the shadows of life from beyond the apartment, each movement undulating and rippling across their imperfect folds. Against this fabric one could feel every passing car or idling bus on the small section of Lenox Avenue below. In this particular moment, the apartment held a stillness. I was a alone and waiting for my father to return with food and the inevitable recounting of something that irritated him outside. 

“Some asshole said this, I had to park my car here, this thing cost this much,” he might say.

On days like this, when the sun is still slightly East, the windows gave us just enough information to know we weren't completely alone. To know that the city was still out there, functioning loudly as ever. Anyone who knows the city, understands that it has a pulse like any other living thing and a heartbeat and that the sidewalks breathe like gills of a fish. And through these curtains we could feel its erratic temperament at most during the day, but even at night with the passing bus or a passing cop car. 

While the shades, with the doily crocheted pattering at the bottom told a story of a vibrant presence, they often reminded me more of an absence. I imagined when the shades are drawn, that my father would revert or escape, rather. That when they were closed he could imagine his life without the pressures and impulses of the city outside of them, or the hurried New Yorkers he chauffeured around on a daily basis, and the gradually deteriorating empire that once was the city’s livery industry — a milieux that lifted him up from criminality and imprisonment and communism-fleeing immigration, to a place of security and a dependable, but in certain political climates, tenuous green card status. This space with the grease-stained walls, popcorn ceiling and incongruent color palette of teals and purples and maroons, and mixed materials like cheap leathers and polyester carpets, together reflects that of the immigrant sensibility. Its absence of western metropolitan, or specifically, New York American, amenities, with its obvious failings and evidence of neglect, provides not only a reminder to the way of life in his small town of Bar in Montenegro, but a respite and a space for dreaming the American dream. For me, however, it provided a discordance. While, I liked its blithe presentation, it only felt this way to me as I viewed it through the lens of the suburban niceties I was provided vis a vis a life with my mother. Because, to my father, this apartment wasn’t a run down, unattended dump in Mid Harlem, this was his kingdom. It was equity in the most competitive city on Earth and despite its presentation, to my father, the endemic sense of value should be obvious to anyone fortunate enough remove their shoes upon entering.

While the Eastern European immigrant’s preferences in the home are full of dissonant colors and worn textiles, religious iconography and plastic coverings on anything new, America has its own kitsch as well. I can recall after any prolonged trip to Serbia or any other slow-to-modernize European country, the immediate delight that every trek back into the city would bring.

23rd e to parsons-archer — Jackson hts-Roosevelt ave Walk to 74 St broadway  — 7 to main St flushing — 111st wapiti Roosevelt ave  — W48 bus. 

Traveling back to my father’s apartment from LaGuardia, often after several connections through Europe and later, the American heartland, I would watch through the fogged windows of a bus frozen with AC, the particular urban American predilection for kitsch. Driving through forgotten areas of Brooklyn and Queens, I would note oversized coffee cups hanging precariously on the tops of awnings, large signs desperately calling to attention the sale of mattresses or cheap recliners. Fashioned to the top of a motel in Queens, somewhere just off of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is the Eiffel Tower. It’s both the illuminated neon beacon for affordable wanton acts and a cogent example of this American imperative toward appropriation. It’s a kitsch soup that I used to be ashamed of but am now deeply enamored by.

His capricious behavior was often difficult to track, and so the idea that this space would provide tranquility was unfortunately absent. There was a stillness to the apartment when he was out. Though, while I was living with him, he tried not to work on the weekends unless a “big job” came through. This time off would give him the opportunity to lecture the captive audience of no more than two people consisting of your truly and his friend Marko who helps with toilets from time to time. These big jobs would typically consist of long haul trips to the Hamptons or to Connecticut with executives or celebrities or political dignitaries. He was proud of his status as a driver and often touted his acuity behind the wheel and the degree of trust that it elicits in his customers — especially the celebrities. His oversized SUVs were an obvious extension of an already engorged ego, both subject to breaking down on the highway as well. When I was younger, well after his divorce with my mother, he kept a signed portrait of Cindy Crawford in his bedroom. 

“To Ray,” it noted. 

Around that photo evolved a mythology of vague recapitulations intended to provoke tabloid-like curiosity in others, but especially in a boy of thirteen years. The ambiguity was also enough for me to tell my friends that “my father slept with Cindy,” well knowing that this must not be true. And if it were true, certainly it happened at her house and not here, underneath the popcorn ceiling. I would often stare at this uncolored headshot with her direct gaze and studio blown hair and wish that she wasn't the reason I had to love my father, that perhaps there was something else redeeming to balance out the overwhelming difficulties of her personality.

A text chain with other veteran drivers in the city would alert him to potentially lucrative opportunities in between insensitive remarks told in jest and the occasional smattering of endearing photos of children and grandchildren from “back home.” This free messaging text chain was a community. It was his community. And though he felt that he didn’t need them and that his pedigree and ability as a driver was above these other men in every way, he nonetheless checked in regularly for any potential “big jobs.” Perhaps a byproduct of communism, or his defective ego, around these men he behaved like some kind of diluted leader, appearing in these group chats as a courtesy. However, this text chain was a salient reflection of socialist ideals; free workers unionizing and sharing in a mutuality of resources. Though he was always apprehensive about revealing too much to these other immigrants, afraid that they might penetrate his looming mystique of perfection. Perhaps it was his thirty years in the throws of American capitalism however that gave him his hardened sense of competition. There was often a demeaning smirk or ridiculing laughter after checking the text chain, followed by a comment on their collective stupidity. 

“These other drivers, I just text with them for some laughs,” he’d say in his thick Montenegrin accent which was often misconstrued as being Russian or even Turkish, to most. “I love to make fun of these guys. They’re like my bitches.”

Unfortunately, I share an unwillingness to participate in community with my father. His reaction to this text chain would often indicate when it was appropriate or necessary for me to speak. Because the general state of his attitude was dependent on how much money he made at the end of any given week, so I often avoided conversation around work and driving, afraid to offer anything up, even in jest. Uncertainty tends to breed paralysis, so I opted for silence, and instead remained fixated on the dancing dust in the window until conversation made its gradual announcement. There’s a stillness to the apartment when he’s not home.

***

The front door to the apartment opened and all the dust which had previously been performing its languid dance on the window sill, was suddenly sucked out of the room in a vacuum.

“Okay, Marko is coming over soon, so get dressed,” he exclaimed before any sort of greeting.

On this particular day, he declined a “big job,” opting instead to cook lunch for Marko and me. His lunches consisted of a few well-rehearsed dished and an abundance of cheese and bread.

“I am dressed,” I said.

“Well wash your hands then, because we going to eat and I don’t want to get sick from you touching food. I got a wonderful salmon. A very good salmon. I asked the guy if he ever saw a better salmon and he said he hadn’t. So… Not from the farm like the way these shit Americans like it. FRESH. From the sea.”

“Salmon habitats are rivers, not the sea.”

“Okay, don’t be an asshole. You know what I mean. Of course I know that. I am from the sea. I grew up before you were born going to the sea. The best sea in the whole world. It’s a gem of a sea. I would catch fish and then run in the mountains. Of course I know the difference. But you want to be an asshole about it.”

In the yellow kitchen, he stood holding several grocery plastic grocery bags, framed under a fluorescent light, trapped by its plastic cage. The light flickered from time to time which often bothered my sight, but didn’t seem to have any effect on him. In fact, he often asked for more light. Especially when he cooked.

“When’s the last time you saw Marko?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t care about him to be honest. But he’s nice entertainment. Someone for me to make fun of for a few hours. Plus he needs to clean my bathroom.”

“To clean your bathroom?”

“You know what I mean. He needs to fix my bathroom. I paid him to paint and fix a toilet. So he needs to finish this. He’s really testing my patience to be honest. I shouldn't even cook for him. He’s lucky to have my cooking. Plus this salmon is very expensive. But don’t worry, I’m going to let him know this needs to be done, immediately.”

There was a performative nature to his cooking. As an act, it could never be listless or tired. Cooking was a matter of pace and rhythm. Behavior is learned through modeling and mimicry as well as through response to trauma and surroundings. My father had developed a manner of being that consisted of patterns; a tessellated syntax of physical responses used to sooth the decades of pain. To anyone unfamiliar with this degree of anxiety, they might just look like ticks, or momentary lapses in the familiar modes of operation. In these ticks I saw a shared languages of pain and an inability to sort through the influx of feeling. Checking doorknobs, compulsive escalation of a conversation, excessively coughing into an elbow until hoarse. All these moments were the language beneath language. This was the language of pain.

Sitting at the table next to the kitchen I stared to the window in the living room.

“So, what are you making with the salmon?”

He laughed in mockery.

“Salmon isn’t enough for you?”

“I can just go out to get something.”

“Why are you always looking out there? Engage with your father. You know, I won’t be here forever. In fact, I might die tomorrow. I could die right here, in this kitchen. And then what? How will you remember your last sight of me? In the reflection from the window?” He laughs. “Believe me my friend, under God, I’m good. He’s seen what I’ve done on this earth. He knows.”

“You usually make something with the salmon is all I’m asking.”

“For your information, I’m going to make a delicious cabbage salad, which is very healthy. Very delicious. And I’m going to make one nice lamb stew.” He paused to notice my despondency. I shook my head and smirked in disbelief.

“It’s just that, as you know I don’t eat meat. I haven’t eaten meat in several years.”

“But this is not meat. It’s lamb.”

The front door opened. Marko, a hollowed out man in his mid-thirties entered.

“Hey, desi, brate. You don’t knock? I could have been naked in here, man? You want to see my dick?”

“Rajko, relax. I thought to just come in because you told me to be here at three exactly and it’s now three-fifteen, so I figured I could just come in.”

Marko’s speech slurred to the point of seeming inebriated at all times. His head was shaven haphazardly and his general manner was one that exuded very little confidence. I think more than unintelligence, he was plagued by profound exhaustion, falling into the Eastern European immigrant paradigm of blue collar job after blue collar job. He was a factotum of manual labor efforts.

“Sit down. Sonny is here. And hey, man, when you gonna fix the toilet?”

“I’ll do it today. Do you want this wine?”

“What kind of wine is it?”

“I don’t know. Some guy from the store. It’s in my price range, let’s just say that.”

“Okay. It doesn’t look so good, but it was nice for you to bring something. After all, I’m making this big lunch for us. So…”  My father grabbed the wine from Marko and kissed him three times on the cheeks. He returned to the kitchen.

“Hey, Sonny is here are you going to say hi or what? This is my son, dammit. Jesus. You’re really an asshole sometimes, my friend.”

“Hey Sonny.”

“It’s okay, Marko. I know you just walked in.”

“Okay, that’s enough. I got a better idea. Instead of this wine, let’s have one nice cold glass of rakija. I have my son here, I have my friend — even though you owe me a lot of favors for everything I’ve done for you, and the  situation with the toilet, I’m glad you’re here. So let’s celebrate this. After all, life could be worse.”

“How?” I asked.

He looked to me with a severe confusion.

“You want me to tell you how it can be worse?”

“Hey, let’s not get into that,” Marko offered.

“You right. Let’s have a drink! Marko, go wash your hands. And please, remove the shoes. C’mon, man.”

“Ray, I just walked in the door, okay?” Marko removed his shoes with an expected pace. My father returned to the galley kitchen where the fluorescent illuminated the tops of every hair on his shoulders. He always let his arms be exposed in the house. His broad shoulders were typically framed by a white tank and when he turned to his right, I could see the tattoo of my name in a prison blackletter, on his left shoulder. I stared at me on him and for some reason, the distance between us seemed infinite.

***

“Okay. Sit down. Please.”

Marko and I made our way to the table. We had been in the living room talking about futbol and his current jobs as a mover. For thirty minutes or so, while my father cooked our late lunch, I listened to the words spill out of Marko’s head like a thick liquid in a chilled glass.

On the table were potatoes, crisped in a rich oil, a large cabbage salad doused in nothing more than apple cider vinegar and salt several pieces of salmon which had flaked to perfection in the oven, and a large bottle of Montenegrin brandy. Before any meal, my father liked to announce the dishes he’d created not dissimilar to the way a scientist might outline his test subjects during a lecture. Standing above us, he pointed to each dish and requested we admire its level of polish and appeal. And just as we were going to dig in, he insisted that we first sample the lamb stew.

“So what is this, Ray?”

“It’s one very delicious. Very healthy and very delicious lamb stew. And one that my son is going to eat.”

I laughed to myself and watched as the blood from his heart rise to his face. I often got nervous for my father’s health and as a result never wanted to antagonize him. Any excess in stress would often send him to the couch where he had positioned a small arm cuff to monitor his blood pressure. He refused medication and instead opted to employ the same will power which helped him move from two packs of cigarettes per day to the impressive single cigar, now self-rolling organic tobacco pouch.

“If you don’t eat this stew, okay, there’s going to be a big problem. A big problem.”

“I haven’t eaten meat in several years, so I think there’s going to be a big problem if I do.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that meat, okay? This is the best lamb the butcher, who is my friend, has ever seen. So you need to eat it.

“I refuse.”

Marko sat silently. He sipped the brandy and withheld a smile. My father poured himself another small glass of brandy and downed it in an instant. The brandy was like accelerant for a temper. It was the starting gun and the sprinter at a race. So with this shot, his fourth or fifth, I knew the lamb stew dilemma was not one to be quickly abolished.

“Ray, if he doesn’t want to eat the stew, I’ll eat it, okay?” Marko offered in a way that was more self-preserving than it was offering me a lifeline.

“It’s not the point. My son needs to eat the lamb stew because it’s very healthy for him. And once he does, then we can eat the salmon and the cabbage and the bread and the other stuffs that I also made, which is all very healthy and extremely fresh and organic.”

“Well, just eat it, Sonny,” Marko added. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“I could get sick.”

My father rose from the table with a force. Like a flash of Serbian lightening aimed at the gods and not the grounds. Like a geyser covered in hair and tattoos.

“You’re going to eat that fucking lamb, or so help me God, I will never serve you food again so long as I live.”

I felt the apartment shake. The paint on the Easter eggs, which sat on the shelves where books should be, and which had survived the brutality of New York summer, were beginning to fade. The ceiling above us seemed lower as if it were weighted with everything he loved and also everything he's lost. I looked to Marko who was also scared, but kept his tepid smile. He reached for a drink of brandy, but my father quickly snatched it from his hand. The harsh acid spilled all over his ceremoniously set table, but he threw the glass to his face anyway and with force. I sat still, not unlike a traveler encountering a bear, but not exactly like that either. I sat still with a profound boredom and wondered what how many buses had gone by on Lenox Ave in this few hours.

Later, at McDonalds, I order a large chicken sandwich with extra pickles and honey mustard for dipping. I was never afraid to eat McDonalds’s meat sandwiches because I never assumed they were actually meat. I suffered a stomach ache nonetheless and returned to my father apartment in the early morning. He passed out on the couch with his community in his hand. In the bathroom, the walls were unpainted and the bottom ring of the toilet oozed a green sludge.