From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel Read Free Page B

hard on its own. It took everyone in as orphans, but if you didn’t pull your own weight, you could be squashed. I learned this after that most memorable dinner, as I was standing outside Steak Chicken Pizza Grill, studying the foldout map of my guidebook. I was to go east on Forty-second to get to Bryant Park, the site of New York’s fashion week. Twice a year it became the beating heart of the industry, and I wanted to walkits grounds in order to feel it pulsing beneath me. When I looked up to get my bearings, I saw a man about my age, a South Asian. Our resemblance was remarkable. Like me he was five foot one, nearly a foot below the average New Yorker. He seemed to share my same build, though one couldn’t really tell because he wore a giant menu over his torso. He was an advertisement for the Sovereign Diner. I began my approach in order to get a better look at his face. His eyebrows were overgrown and had formed a prominent unibrow, whereas I plucked mine daily. He had my mustache, a neatly trimmed whisper, just the right dash of masculinity. But it was looking down the length of the cardboard menu—2 EGGS, HAM, SAUSAGE, OR BACON $2.95—that I saw the biggest tell of all, the trait which bound us together as brothers of this world.
    His hands.
    His small, dexterous hands.
    His hands were just like mine. And in his hands were menus, replicas of the giant board he wore like armor. “Take one, take one,” he said, rapidly. “Take one.” And then, “Please.” This was his job, to stand in front of the Sovereign Diner distributing menus. Had he come here hoping for something better? Of course he had. What he got served, however, was hard-boiled reality, the city’s ruthlessness, and he had to wear it every day, bearing the brunt over his shoulders as a sign.
    PANCAKE SPECIAL $4.95 .
    I took one of his menus and at the next corner threw it away with a hundred others. Bryant Park had suddenly lost its appeal. Instead, I went back to Ludlow Street to spend more time with Olya.
    Look at how far she had come. The beauty and generosity this little Polska had was bursting from every invisible pore! She sharedher Icelandic yogurt and showed me all of the cable channels. We talked about movies, fashion, drive, ambition. She promised to take me with her to the week’s castings and introduce me to other models and designers, with the intention of getting me a job on a show somewhere. When we retired to the bed, she kept me up, tired as I was, in order to practice her English language skills. She was preparing to take a TOEFL exam and planned to study at Baruch College in Manhattan. Olya read to me the opening pages of
The Catcher in the Rye.
I had read the book in high school, but hearing it through Olya’s Polish accent, with her poorly timed inflections, gave it a new place in my heart. “If
you really
want to hear
about
it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know
is where
I was born, and
what
my lousy childhood was like, and
how
my parents were occupied
and all
before they had me…”
    I wanted to make love to her then, but I am not an animal. You see, I respected the boundaries of our new friendship. A girl who would share her bed with a total stranger didn’t deserve to be taken advantage of. Plus, she had a new boyfriend, Erik, who she talked about constantly.
    I had no delusions. In a city that could reduce a virile young man to dressing up as a menu on Forty-second Street, pleading, “Take one, take one, please, take one,” I understood the force I was up against. One needed friends much more than lovers and enemies. This city was cutthroat. This city, crossed with the exclusivity of the fashion industry, was a closed network to new talent. This city wasn’t hard on its newcomers—it was goddamn relentless. Don’t believe me, take a look outside the Sovereign Diner, and surely a walking, talking menu will be there—feast your eyes! Under that menu is a human being whose English is good enoughto have