“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
– Wendy Mass, The Candymakers
My dear son,
I know this letter will come to you as a surprise, after so many years of silence. As you can guess, things have not quite worked out the way I hoped. I have been wandering around different European cities for the last four years, loading and offloading trucks in marketplaces, taking the odd job here and there. Life is tough, on most days I don’t make enough to buy a meal and pay rent. And the winters are harsh… without money for a bed, you’re out in the cold, and the cold here is insufferable. Alcohol, at least, is cheap. It keeps you warm. And then it drags you down.
I always had great dreams for us, or at least for me. I always thought I would make it big. That’s what your mother admired in me. She thought I would be different, that I would get us out of our slum, that we’d have a better life. But I am no angel, you know it. I have stolen and lied. I have beaten up a lot of people. I was respected, or at least feared, because I always put myself above the others. That faith in my own destiny is what kept me going, made me work my way up and allowed me to build my little empire.
I tried, I gambled big and at a point I really thought I’d pull it off. But I broke the legs and the egos of the wrong people, I got myself in trouble, I made powerful enemies and they came after me. I had to leave, for your mother’s sake and your sake and your brother’s sake, some day you will understand…
Here I am not respected, I’ll always be a thug and a liar, but no one fears me anymore. I am just an old man trying to make a living, hauling heavy crates on my frail back. I have become that which I always mocked, those petty laborers whose only ambition is to make enough to buy their daily meal. My entire life’s battle was to show that I would be different, not the broken man that my father was, that I could be more than what fate had reserved for me.
I know you want nothing to do with me. I know I was not there when I should have been there to protect you and your brother. Now Juan José is gone and I cannot bring him back. It kills me to know he is dead because of my mistakes, because the two of you needed to prove to the world that you could succeed where I had failed. It kills me to know your mother will never recover, that I failed the one person who trusted in me.
I beg you, don’t follow my steps. It’s not too late. I know I always taught you to think big, go out and succeed. I thought if I got rich everything would work out. I was wrong. I know it is easier when you have money, but the fight just isn’t worth it anymore. I wish I could tell you it is easier elsewhere, but for people like us it isn’t.
There is another way. If there is one thing my exile has taught me, it is not to dwell on the past. Every day still brings its small joys, even when all seems lost. Those are the moments I’ve learned to keep my eyes open for. Those are the moments that make it worthwhile, those are the ones I want to share with you.
That is why I am writing to you. Your mother told me you had a daughter, she got a message to me. I cried when I found out. I never cry, real men don’t cry, but on that very moment you were born again and Juan José was born again. It brought me back in time, when we were young and foolish and still had dreams.
I really needed good news, it has been tough. Tougher than I’d care to admit. Just that week, the outdoor markets had closed because of a freak blizzard. I hadn’t eaten all day. A Spanish baker I know gave me some bread and a cup of tea. But I knew he couldn’t house me. The tea and your mother’s message kept me warm for a while, but I needed to find a bridge or an alleyway where I could sleep without getting frost and the police on my back. It was already late, the avenues were empty, and I’d be easily spotted. I started walking briskly into the more discreet side street. But as I struggled through the snowstorm, I noticed a vagrant in front of me. He was struggling to walk, crouched forward and obviously drunk. To be honest, the only think that crossed my mind was whether I’d be able to get my hands on his bottle.
Then suddenly, just a few steps ahead of me, he collapsed on the sidewalk. I felt this deep empathy as I watched him lying on the ground, a collapsed marionette whose strings had been cut. I feel for vagrants, not because I have become more human, but because I’ve been in their shoes. I crouched over him to make sure he was okay. First the smell hit me. He’d obviously not had a shower or a change of clothes in at least a month. But otherwise he seemed surprisingly peaceful. I looked around, found an alleyway and dragged him in, away from the blizzard. There were a few empty boxes in a garbage container, which I used to build a little cardboard house. I took my sleeping sack out of my duffle bag and wrapped him in it. I used a sweater to prop up his head. He looked cozy, I almost envied his tranquility in this bitter cold. I realized the spot he was lying in was as good as any to get some sleep, so I cuddled in next to him. The alleyway sheltered us from the wind and the cardboard from the cold. We kept each other warm.
I woke up at dusk the next morning as a police siren screamed by. My body was aching from the cold and my throat was sore, but strangely I was more concerned with my companion’s state. He was snoring gently.
I got up and walked over to the Spanish baker. He was always in very early. He saw me through the basement window and I asked him if he had anything left for a vagrant I found. He told me to sneak into the courtyard behind the bakery in five minutes. The few times I’d had to ask him for bread, he’d always jammed the courtyard gate open, allowing me to walk in and reach the garbage containers. And sure enough, in one of them, a plastic bag was waiting for me with two loafs of bread and a cup of warm tea. I snuck out of the courtyard and strolled back to the alleyway.
The vagrant was sitting peacefully in the improvised cardboard house when I got back. It was still dark. I handed over the warm bread and the tea he was obviously grateful. We didn’t speak. He ate slowly, enjoying every bite. I wished I had had some cheese to go with it. He asked me my name and I told him. He spoke slowly, asking me how we had ended up there and why I was sleeping in the streets. He looked much older than he was, and he spoke with remarkable clarity. I had a hard time finding the right words in French, but he did not seem to mind. He lit up when I told him I had just learned I had become a grandfather. He gave me a big awkward hug and I am pretty sure he dried a tear from his tired eyes.
The daylight became more insistent so we parted ways after our celebratory breakfast. My clothes were in better shape than his, so I could pass off as a hardworking laborer, but he was obviously living off scraps.
The storm passed and spring blossomed out of nowhere. The markets re-opened and I got work on most weekends… but still not enough to sleep indoors every night. As a token of appreciation, I got my Spanish baker a little box of chocolates which he struggled to accept.
A few weeks went by, and then last week something strange happened. I was walking down in the same neighborhood, walking briskly towards my preferred cockroach motel. It had been a hard week, with a fluke rain shower canceling the Saturday market. An old man in a grey suit suddenly called on me and walked slowly towards me, the wrinkles in his freshly shaven face a testament to the hard life he had had. He started to smile and spoke to me slowly, asking if he could buy me dinner. I looked suspiciously on to him, but agreed. Never say no to a warm meal. He reached out to me, I held his arm and we strolled slowly towards a bistro.
Only after we had crossed the street together did I realize I was talking to the vagrant, the same one who’d shared my first meal as a grandfather.
As we started eating a warm soup, Gabriel – that’s his name – asked me this question I’ll never forget: “You and I have spent way too much time surviving. But it is never too late to start again. What would you do different if you could start again? We can all choose to start again, every day is a new day. Whatever it is you would have done differently, do it! Do it now, we should all get a second chance if we decide to take it.”
He told me he’d met an angel, an angel who’d offered him a small apartment and companionship. He wanted me to share it with him, if I’d also stop drinking and we’d tidy each other up. Grandfathers shouldn’t sleep in the street, he said, and he’d really like to meet his grandchildren someday.
So now I have a warm place to stay and to wash. We get free meals at the soup kitchen where we help out in the evenings, and I’ve been able to put some money aside for the first time in a long time. I might even be able to get a return flight someday, assuming I have some place to return to.
Here I am, an old man writing to a son who wants nothing to do with his father, a father who represents everything he despises, like his own father despised his grand-father before him. It scares me, even as I write this, realizing how much we have in common.
You and I share this overwhelming longing for greatness, for recognition, this urge to prove ourselves more than what we were cast to be. I have trailed through life like a shooting star, burning many of those I have touched. And yet, that has not brought me any closer to immortality.
If I am to be remembered, I now realize, it will not be for what I have built, not for the size of my empire. Those who will remember me long after I am gone will do so because of what I represent and what I accomplished for them and those around them. They may not build statues for me, there may not be thousands of onlookers at my funeral, but if a few faithful souls tell my tale, then I will live on.
So as I toil to pay off my debts and buy an airfare, as I work to become a worthy grandfather, I leave you with my lifelong dilemma, a dilemma which you have already inherited: whatever path I decide to take in life, my children will follow suit, whether or not they realize it; for their sake, I pray that I may choose wisely. Only then may someone find it worthwhile to tell my tale.
Until we meet again,
Your loving father
***
Mario was tired but it had been a good three weeks. It all started when he was hanging around the park with his friends, bored and a little depressed. It had become their daily routine, loitering around the old basketball court and waiting, waiting for better times, more exciting times or just different times.
But on that day three weeks ago two young guys walked onto the basketball court dressed in white T-shirts and baseball caps with some fancy wave-like logos. Global coalitions for local action, it read. Mario assumed they were missionaries from a local church or from a new political party. They might even be bearing gifts.
The two youngsters were a little too neat and smart-looking to be from this part of town, with their nerdy glasses and notebooks, clean shoes and skinny build. Probably university students, he thought. They walked up to Mario and his friends and started to talk about some major campaign they were involved in, that would change their block, their neighborhood and ultimately the whole city. They talked of how local problems needed local solutions, and that politicians weren’t going to solve their problems. They talked of the great things groups of youngsters were doing in other parts of town and how they wanted change now.
Mario couldn’t quite explain why, but their passion was evident and their energy was contagious. Once Mario and his friends overcame the initial suspicion and, perhaps more importantly, the initial surprise that anyone would even care about their opinion, they got more comfortable and shared their life and challenges. They told the students about the lack of jobs, the fact that they didn’t have money to leave town, that they wouldn’t know where to go. They explained their sense that they were trapped in this neighborhood, in this town. They shared how they stopped going to the city center at night, just because they got tired of being harassed by the police. They talked about the stern looks they got from the older folks in their neighborhood because of the clothes they wore and the way they had their hair. They talked about the recent municipal elections and all the excitement about the free T-shirts, food kits and flashlights. But they also explained they knew nothing would change.
The students were smart; they really seemed to understand the city and the challenges of young jobless guys. But more importantly they actually seemed to care about their problems. They got it when Mario explained that they felt trapped in trying to play roles that weren’t theirs to play – for instance when they dressed up for interviews for positions as a clerk or for waitering jobs that they never got. They much preferred just hanging around the park and having to deal with the disapproving looks of their parents or neighbors, than having to deal with the abuse of despondent bosses paying miserly wages.
They tried to stay honest and keep away from trouble, but options were few. Luckily the biggest drug lord had been killed a few years ago, so the pressure to join the local gang had reduced. It was still the best way to make money and maybe even find a way out. They mentioned the lack of training, the lack of opportunities, the need to get by with whatever skills you had without ending up in prison.
The two students were taking notes and seemed fascinated by their stories. They wanted more detail and pushed Mario to find what was keeping them from moving forward. Somehow they convinced him to join a chat at the local animal shelter on mapping local problems. It seemed a strange proposition, but the students displayed such good spirits that he hadn’t had the heart to turn them down.
So Mario showed up for the course a few days later, sat in a room with a bunch of other youngsters from the neighborhood and played games with local volunteers, young and old, wearing T-shirts with logos from different organizations. They learned about drawing maps, scales and symbols. And they taught each other a few new dance moves on bachata music.
Mario agreed to attend another chat two days later, and he learned about community cohesion, the power of working together and salsa dancing. His dancing skills were going to improve for sure. They drew another map at a larger scale. He was paired up with a girl, Judith, who lived in the same street as him, and they learned about asking questions to their neighbors. They were given a green volunteer cap and a single task: ‘go and talk to every neighbor in your street and find out what their main challenges are’. Mario had never been given so much responsibility in his life, with his official notebook and uniform. He had never felt quite so galvanized about taking on a challenge, nor had he ever felt quite so empowered.
Mario and Judith met up on the following Saturday, and started tallying all the houses on Mercedes street, the Calle Mercedes where they both lived. There were 22 houses in their street, or roughly 30 families. He knew three families well, Judith another five. They started with those eight families, explaining the project and asking them to walk down the street with Mario and Judith to indicate any of their concerns. Street lighting came up a lot, as well as the distance to the public transport.
Mario and Judith got introductions from neighbors they knew to neighbors they didn’t. It took them four days, but they eventually reached 25 of the 27 families. One grumpy old man did not want them anywhere near his front door, and one house seemed to be always closed.
As Mario and Judith knocked on the other doors in their street, they found out that four homes were getting flooded every year, and another five had been broken into in the previous year. Gang fighting and theft were high on the list as well, especially due to the dark streets. They came up with a list of six priorities, and asked every neighbor they spoke to to join for the presentation of this first quick mapping exercise. That was planned for this morning.
Ernesto – the older of the two students who had showed up on the basketball course three weeks earlier – joined them for the presentation of the findings. It took a while to round up the neighbors, even on a Saturday morning, but by 10 am they had twenty adults and eight toddlers under the old mango tree by the corner shop. People looked on a little eerily, recognizing familiar faces and not-so-familiar neighbors. Salutations were exchanged; discreet conversations went on until the brief talk was formally launched.
Ernesto led the talk. He explained the purpose of the study, the importance of getting neighbors to meet, know each other and discuss common issues, especially in dense urban areas like this one. He explained that he was a student hoping to become a teacher some day and he was also a part-time volunteer in this mapping exercise. He had been asked to help the Santa Rita neighborhood identify some of its concerns, to see how they could tap into existing resources of the government (muffled groans from the crowd), local organizations, foundations or even big businesses. Some older participants seemed skeptical, so Ernesto shared some success stories from the La Colorada neighborhood, and how it had led to the construction of a pedestrian bridge over the southern ravine. The materials for that bridge had been donated by the G&W Hardware company, the UAM University had provided the engineers and the same La Colorada residents found a carpenter ready to give a hand.
Eventually, after a passionate discussion, the Calle Mercedes crowd came to a consensus on which were the most important and time sensitive priorities. They reviewed the rough map that Mario had drawn, indicating every house, every corner shop, every tree and even every electric post. He had included a large blue patch, the flooding area where four families had reported damage. The map was basic, yet colorful and reflective of the different challenges the families had expressed.
A few additions were suggested by the group. Mario quickly added them. On Ernesto’s request, they then volunteered two participants to represent them in further meetings: Miss Yesica, who owned the street shop, and Mario, who had been so convincing in presenting the map back to them. They would speak on their behalf in the block discussions for the Santa Rita neighborhood.
The whole presentation and minor changes to the map were over in an hour, and all gave a warm round of applause when the street map was finished. Ernesto thanked the neighbors for their time and quickly put on some salsa music. After a little convincing, he got Mario and Judith to give a demonstration of their newly-acquired dance moves. The neighbors, initially amused by the youthful enthusiasm of the dancers, quickly resumed their discussions in smaller groups with old acquaintances and newly-met neighbors. They talked and talked, generated heated debates but all seemed to ultimately agree, and Miss Yesica, taking her new representative role very seriously, fielded questions and suggestions from her neighbors late into the night.
***
As he helped Ernesto wrap up, Mario – ‘the Nica’ as he was known locally because his grandparents were from Nicaragua and had arrived in the neighborhood a mere thirty years earlier – felt, for the first time in his life, a sense of belonging to this group of houses that he had drawn so carefully on the map.
Long gone were the days of bullying in school, for being foreign, in name only, but foreign all the same to many of his bigger classmate in the constant lookout for new scapegoats. Gone were the name-callings, the drubbings, the cigarette burns, the isolation in the playground. He had made it through school and his bullies had moved on, many of whom had joined the local gang, Los Santos, “the saints”, an ironic take on the name of the neighborhood, Santa Rita. Others had left the neighborhood and never returned.
Even today, Mario was cautious to always steer clear of the Los Santos headquarters, a run-down house that served as a meeting point for the gang members and their small drug trafficking. It was easily discernable, proudly on display rather than hiding, painted in vivid colors with its English-language logo over the entranceway: “Get rich or die tryin”. He knew from experience the gang members had a very literal interpretation of their mantra.
Somehow, those painful childhood memories and the gang just a few blocks away suddenly seemed but very distant memories. The weeklong discussions with his neighbors had suddenly given him a renewed credibility in the eyes of his community. As if carefully representing every single noteworthy item from his street had forced Mario’s neighbors to look at his neighborhood differently, as if it had given him new rights over the street he had always lived in.
So perhaps it should not have come as much as a surprise to Mario that he would have been chosen to speak on behalf of his neighbors in further meetings. As if his neighbors now saw something in him that he did not know existed. Perhaps he was more than just the skinny kid who wasn’t really from Santa Rita.
Something had changed in Mario’s street. He wasn’t sure what, but something was different. He was now part of something, something that went beyond him, something that went beyond any individual family in the Mercedes street. Something that connected all of these other people who had lived in the same place for years and who, often to their surprise, suddenly realized how much they shared and how many challenges they have in common. And they had tasked Mario to take them down a path that none of them could take on their own.
A sense of community had emerged. Mario would not let them down.
One Billion Legacies 