Crack the Spine - Issue 8

Expatriates

By M.Y. Pastorelli Today two Russian dudes came up to me at Starbucks. One of them looked at me with some curiosity, my necklaces and multiple bracelets and chains running up and down my arms. He was drunk and red-faced, and leaned over to me and reached for my pack of smokes. He took out a cig and showed me his own pack, a Chinese brand I had never seen before with "8 mg" labeled ostensibly on the front where the government warning should have been. He replaced my cigarette with a roll from this Chinese package, as he spoke nonsensically to me. I made out that it was his friend's birthday and they were celebrating. He lit up right there to my surprise, and the girl from the counter came to tell him in English that this was a non-smoking area. He handed her the freshly lit cigarette with a dopey smile, and she took it outside and put it out on the pavement with annoyance on her face. This frivolous performance of theirs was repeated exactly once, and exactly one more cigarette was wasted. What was not so exact was the amount of stress tolled on the hapless women behind the counter by this intrusive presence of the duo in unruly foreigner act, and particularly on the head barista, who this second time around disposed of the flaming cigarette with understandable anxiety. She threw the smoke onto the ground with clumsy force, which I thought uncharacteristic of her, while still somehow managing to appear girlishly cute in the act. She must have anticipated that I'd be watching. The birthday boy remained remarkably wordless and devoid of drama throughout all this, but was clearly complacent in his friend's antics.

My heart started pumping extra blood to my brain as I thought to figure the nature of the goons' stupor and posturing, and my place and stake in the spontaneity they had created.

Then the sociable smoker handed me an unopened bottle of sesame seed oil he had with him, and wanted me to tear off the plastic wrapping around the bottle cap. I hesitated, because I did not wish to open a can of worms by catering too much to their scripted stupidity, but I said why not, better me than the girls. As I received the bottle, I felt that it was a mistake; I had become the victim you see in Hollywood movies, where the rare spotlight shines on the yellow guy in an embarrassing and compromised position. I cleared this thought quickly, though, corrected myself, and resolved not to think in such drastic and dreary terms. I could just as easily have been a cool and strong man of character, responding in exactly the same way I was, had I not been exposed to those racist Hollywood scenarios.