Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [75]
Khoi introduced himself in a flamboyant way, standing and bowing as if he were before a crowd of thousands. He was good-looking and cocky, with dyed red hair and dragon tattoos all over his arms. He wore a silk shirt and baggy pants that almost slipped off his bony hips. He carried a CD player and CDs of Jay-Z, OutKast, and Snoop Dogg.
I'd met Khoi's parents the first day of school. His father had been forced as a POW to clear land mines from the fields and he'd seen several of his friends blown up at this job. In Vietnam the family had been so poor that, as Khoi's mother put it, "cockroaches couldn't survive in our kitchen." As a boy, Khoi had prayed that his father wouldn't be beaten and that his mother would not cry from hunger.
Whatever trouble Khoi was in wasn't because of family dysfunction. His was a loyal family, well connected to their community, but the parents didn't have control of Khoi. His father worked two factory jobs to support his big family. He hadn't been able to learn to drive or speak English. Khoi was the oldest son of an oldest son and the family had pinned their hopes on him. He was smart but had twice been suspended from school. He'd been arrested for petty theft and he sometimes came to school stoned on pot. Clearly, he was in a gang. Still, Mrs. Kaye felt he was a good kid. However, his virtues wouldn't be of much use if he ended up in our state penitentiary.
Cahn, the alpha male of the class, wore baggy pants, a shiny jacket, gold chains, and three gold watches. However, his flashy clothes couldn't mask his basic homeliness. He had huge ears and an uncorrected cleft palate. During class he challenged Mrs. Kaye constantly, but he backed down when she dealt with him respectfully and firmly.
Cahn's father had shoulder and back injuries from being a beast of burden in a POW camp after the war. His father was a broken man, whipped first by the communists, then by a country he couldn't master. He stayed home and drank beer aH day. As Cahn developed problems and rebelled, his father had tried to control him with threats and beatings. For the last year Cahn and his father hadn't spoken to each other.
At school the Vietnamese homeboys sat together, speaking Vietnamese and laughing at whatever happened in class. Cahn and Khoi sparred, poked, hooted, and generally created quite a ruckus.
Next to Cahn sat Alberto, a quiet kid who seemed ill at ease in school. Alberto looked down and said softly, "I am from Mexico. This is my second year in America."
Zlatko was an Ichabod Crane look-alike with a confident manner. He was a Russian Baptist from Siberia whose English was already very good. His family had moved here because they were persecuted for being Christians. In Russia they'd lived in a condemned building. The brick stove was falling apart and they fastened it together with wire. They had no running water and only an outhouse. He laughed sadly. "At that time, except for the Mafia, no one in Russia ever had hot water."
When his family came to America, they had many misconceptions. Zlatko laughed, explaining, "We thought money grew on trees here. We thought all American women would be beautiful. When we got to Lincoln we were shocked to see Lincoln looked like Siberia. The trees were bare of dollar bills, it was freezing, and not all the girls were pretty."
Anton interjected, "The girls in this class are all pretty."
"Of course," Zlatko responded gallantly. "I was referring to girls who do not go to this school."
Zlatko stayed in good touch with Russians. After school, as he cleaned a bank, he listened to CDs from Russia. He e-mailed his Russian friends, many of whom were in the army. He said they hated it. They had no money and the army shaved their heads. Older soldiers beat them. He said, "I am happy to be in America, far from the clutches of the Russian military."
Zlatko hoped his family could someday buy a home. He had great optimism about our country. He thought American