Eviskar Island (2 page)

              “’Course they will.  They encouraged me to apply for the job.  Only, I figure what they really want is to get ridda me for a while so’s they don’t hafta pay old lady Bartoli to look afta me during the daytime.  Ya ask me, that’s all school’s good for anyway—to baby sit kids while their folks’re at work.”

              Hey, you shoudn’t talk smack like that about your folks, Spence.  They’re good people, know what I mean?  They’re gonna miss ya.  I know your grades are top notch an’ I think they realize this is a great opportunity for ya.”

              “Yeah, whateveh.”

              “’An thanks for lettin’ me know.  What I mean is I gotta plan my inventory for the summer, and seein’s how my best customer is goin’ away…”  Charlie paused, his gaze was now fixed up the street, behind Spencer.  “Speakin’ of customers, here comes another one.”  Spencer turned to look and blushed as Carmen de Jesus, one of his classmates, approached.

              “Hi, Charlie.  Bonjour, Spencer,” Carmen said brightly as she passed by.

              “Yo, how’s it goin’,” Spencer muttered, barely making eye contact.

              Charlie and Carmen spoke briefly while Spencer sullenly sipped his soda and tried to act casual.  When the girl was gone, Charlie did his best Spencer imitation: “’Yo, how’s it goin’?’  Want my advice?  That attitude ain’t gonna get you very far with her.”

              “So?  You think I care about Carmen de Jesus?  ‘Sides, why should I?  ‘An what’s it to you?”

              Charlie held up his hands defensively.  “I’m just sayin’ you could be a bit friendlier is all.  I can tell she likes you.  Beats me why, though.  I guess it could be those condescending looks you’re always giving people, or maybe it’s those sarcastic comments you’re so good at.  Or maybe it’s your sexy, elitist attitude.”

              “Whateveh”

              “She’s real cute, Spence.  You guys have any classes together?”

              “She’s in my French class.  What about it?”  Charlie just smiled.  “Well, I gotta go.  Thanks for the doag, Chahley,”  Spencer hoisted his backpack.  His eyes were fixed on Carmen as he trudged home.

Charlie was a neighborhood fixture in the part of East Williamsburg where Spencer lived.  It was one of the many working class neighborhoods in the great melting pot of Brooklyn, NY.  During the winter he worked part time for the city, shoveling people’s steps clear of snow and driving a small snow blower around sidewalks.  When the weather was warm enough, and for Charlie that meant anything above freezing, he operated a small, but quite lucrative, hot dog stand that he would set up on any of several street corners.  His friendly, loquacious personality lent itself perfectly to such a job, and Charlie, having no kids of his own, took it upon himself to look after the children in the area.  The avuncular septuagenarian was appreciated by all of the parents in the close-knit neighborhood, and his constant presence helped to keep the crime rate well below what would be considered normal in other parts of New York.

Having known Spencer for most of his fifteen years, the two had become quite close.  From what other kids said about him, Charlie learned that Spencer was intellectually gifted, a curious boy who always helped his fellow students while struggling with boredom for his own part.  Spencer was lanky and handsome, sporting the aquiline nose and high cheekbones of his Mohawk Indian father, and the dark skin, curly black hair and expressive brown eyes of a mother who was born in Haiti and who emigrated to New York by way of Puerto Rico.  Such an ethnic mix would have made him stand out anywhere else in the country, but he blended perfectly with all of his neighbors in East Williamsburg.  Most of the residents on his block were East Indian, the majority of them being Haitian, like his mother.  He could carry on a passable conversation in the Patois French heard up and down his street and, in the Dominican enclave two blocks away, he picked up enough Spanish to speak and play comfortably with the friends he had over there.  Spencer’s grandfather had been a high-rise iron worker, one of the fabled Mohawks who had performed much of the dangerous work dozens of stories above the metropolis.  As a very young child Spencer had absorbed enough of the complex Iroquoian language spoken by his grandparents to carry on intelligible dialog with them.  In short, Spencer Bowen was borderline genius, a gifted offspring whom his parents had yet to fully appreciate.

Despite his prodigious intellect, however, Spencer was a troubled youth.  He’d been born with a slightly clubbed right foot.  Charlie knew of the problem but wisely never discussed it unless Spencer brought it up.  And the emotional pain Spencer felt was particularly acute at this time of year: basketball season.

Spencer loved the game.  Back in November he’d been crushed when, for the second year in a row, he didn’t make the final cut to be part of his school team.  No one could hit threes like Spencer Bowen, and none of his peers, even the stand-outs in the fast-paced offense the coach liked to run, could match him in free throw percentage.  But Spence just couldn’t keep up.  He lacked the necessary agility to play at a high enough level.

Spencer never blamed his folks for not seeking treatment for his foot.  The condition wasn’t even diagnosed until he was almost a year old.  When he began to walk, his mother noticed his decided limp and brought it to the attention of her "doctor."  Unfortunately Mrs. Bowen possessed a strong mistrust of M.D.s, preferring instead the advice and care rendered by a local medicine woman, an elderly Haitian crone with legendary healing powers.  After the sacrifice of innumerable chickens and goats, Spencer‘s foot hadn’t gotten any better. His mother had then gone into a funk, entertaining the notion that it must have been something she’d done to condemn her young son to a crippled existence.  Despite her anguish at having wronged her young son, she still felt compelled to eschew modern medicine as an alternative for his care.

Spencer’s father, Markus, was swing shift manager at a shipping warehouse on the East River.  A confirmed acrophobe, he’d broken from his family’s tradition of lucrative employment in high-altitude construction work, vowing to keep his feet as close as possible to terra firma.  He and Spencer were close, and they enjoyed going to ball games and movies whenever his working hours and his son’s time in school allowed.  Markus was not an educated man and he also lacked the common sense and backbone to combat his wife’s forceful enthusiasm for what he called “voodoo treatment.”  As long as the boy’s health was never at risk, he reasoned, Caribbean faith healing was probably good for his wife’s psyche and had the added benefit of broadening Spencer’s awareness of the human experience.  Thus, Spencer’s club foot went untreated.  Aside from routine visits to a local clinic for school-mandated vaccinations and check-ups, he received no real medical care.

Spencer stoically accepted his fate and made the best of things.  Frustrated in athletics, but driven to excel in other areas, he’d become an academic standout.  Archeology and paleontology were among his personal interests, so when he’d heard of the opportunity to participate in a serious archeological project, he’d dashed off his application immediately.  Although he didn’t know it, his essay had placed him at the very top of Morgan Holloway’s short list.  Morgan had immediately sent him an invitation to join “the dig.”

Jacek Malinowski

“Gdzie to jest?” (“Where is this place?”)  Despite having lived in the United States for fifteen years, Jacek Malinowski’s mother didn’t like to speak English.  She was self-conscious about her accent and insisted upon conversing in her native Polish while at home.

“It’s well north of the Arctic Circle, momma, off the northeast coast of Greenland.”

“Why would anyone, especially my son, want to go way up there?”

“I think it is great opportunity,” interjected Jacek’s father, Stanislaw.  He turned to his son.  “We will miss you in garage this summer, but you must go on this trip.  It is best for you, Jack.”

“His name is
Jacek
,” Mrs. Malinowski said disapprovingly, “it is Polish name, not American.”

“Yes, yes,” her husband replied.”  He laughed and got up to hug his wife.  “I too have read his birth certificate.  You are indeed correct.  But his friends call him Jack.  It is the way with Americans, my dear; they have diminutive names for one another.  It is quaint custom.”

“I wanted your blessing before writing to Dr. Holloway and accepting his offer,” Jack said.  “I know I told you about it when I wrote the essay, but…” he shrugged.  “I guess I never expected to be selected.”

“Nonsense,” his father gave him a hearty slap on the back.  “They will soon learn how fortunate they are to have Jack Malinowski on their team.  He will ensure the success of their project.  In fact, I suspect he will make great discoveries for them.”

Jack smiled wanly, “You sure you don’t need me in the shop, dad?”

His father gave a dismissive wave, “You are great mechanic, Jack, but we have others.  You go.  Make us proud.  You deserve opportunity.”

Jack nodded and took his dinner dishes to the kitchen.  He returned momentarily.  “Well, I guess I’d better send in my reply; wouldn’t want someone else to get my spot.”  He turned and headed up the narrow staircase to his room.

The Malinowskis lived in Parma, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland with a substantial Polish-American population.  The family’s journey to get there was one of perseverance, sacrifice and hard work, a story typical of many immigrants who seek economic prosperity and a better life in America.

Stanislaw (‘Stas’) and Dagmara Malinowski grew up in an exciting but difficult time in their native land.  The eighties were a decade of tumultuous unrest and change, an era when their native Poland led the fight in Eastern Europe to break from the stranglehold of communism.  Perhaps, as Stas felt, it was the rise of the Bishop from his hometown of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, to become Pope John Paul II, that kindled the great popular uprising that spirited in political change.  Maybe it was simply the death of the faulty social economic system.  Whatever the root cause, labor strikes and the formation of the Solidarity union exerted tremendous pressure on the authoritarian, atheistic regime to force it to negotiate with the reformist leaders.

Times were hard back then.  Strikes, martial law, international sanctions and triple digit inflation threatened to undermine the labor revolt, but Poland and her people persevered.  In 1990, decades of communist rule finally came to an end.

The couple celebrated by getting married, and as the economy slowly improved, they worked to build a future together.  Dagmara finished her degree and found a job in the clinical laboratory at the local hospital.  Stas, who was an acknowledged genius with machinery, rose to be a foreman on a large farm.  He assumed responsibility for maintaining all of the antiquated equipment so essential during the periods of planting and harvest.

Despite Poland’s transition to a free-market state, and the gradual improvement in their financial situation, the Malinowskis grew restless.  When one of Dagmara’s cousins suggested she apply for a temporary position at the Cleveland Clinic, she tentatively asked her husband if he would consider taking a leave of absence from his job.  She needn’t have been apprehensive.  Stas didn’t need any encouragement when presented with an opportunity to seek the American Dream.  In 1999, the young couple packed their belongings into two large trunks, and they and their toddler son, Jacek, then headed overseas toward a new life.

Parma was the perfect place for them to settle.  Dagmara loved her job at the Clinic, working at the forefront of medical science.  Stas, a determined entrepeneur, started his own business as a specialty auto mechanic.  The business thrived, and it wasn’t long before most of the power brokers in the city became regular customers, unwilling to entrust their precious Bentleys, Mercedes and Beemers to any other shop.

Young Jacek grew up in the garage.  While other boys in his neighborhood occupied their non-school hours playing sports and video games, ‘Jack’ helped in the family business, gradually learning the design subtleties of various high-performance internal combustion engines.  Like his father, he had a flair for all things mechanical, and his capable, easy-going manner endeared him to their customers.  Everyone who knew him assumed he would take over the workshop when his dad retired.

However, in his teens, Jack’s interests expanded beyond those of school and helping his father.  As a boy he’d been fascinated by the mechanics of cars, but in recent years he’d gradually become bored hanging around the garage.  A few days after his sixteenth birthday he’d gone with a friend to a local gym to work out, and on that fateful day he’d become captivated by the demanding sport of rock-climbing.  He soon became a regular member of a climbing club, and Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons were now spent at the climbing wall, setting routes and developing the strength and balance he needed to become an elite climber.

Integrating work, school and his new time-consuming hobby required real discipline on Jack’s part.  During the week his schedule was exhausting.  He labored hard to satisfy all of his obligations, but most evenings, after finishing his homework, he increasingly made time to pursue yet another newfound passion.  It was a subject quite apart from those he studied in school, and it fascinated him to the point where he began to think about maybe going to college, to learn more about it from experts in the field.  Jack had fallen in love with astronomy. 

Books on the subject now lined the shelves in his room.  He subscribed to ‘Astronomy’ magazine and ‘Sky and Telescope,’ and on weekends he would often journey to the local planetarium, or drive to Cuyahoga Park on moonless nights where he could look up at the stars without interference from city lights.  Navigating through the heavens became as easy for Jack as driving through his neighborhood. In the back of his mind, though, he was tormented by a looming problem: should he be accepted at a university, would his father approve of his plans to leave the family business?