Medal of Honor, Pt. 2

The stairwell and second-floor corridor smelled of fried fish and potatoes. My grandmother opened the door, revealing our halfway house—a 3-bedroom apartment. (My dad's cousin, his wife, and two kids temporarily, patiently occupied a single bedroom while my father, mother, brother, grandparents, and I split the rest of the digs.) She was wearing a ‘50s-era Russian apron with faded sunbeams radiating upon a dewy meadow, upon which she wiped the palms of her hands when I walked through the door, sweat beads lining her brow, taut as a clothesline. She waved me on, a bit more brusque than usual.

It was our eighth week in the apartment, and though I overheard my parents’ whispers, I dared not believe that my dear Uncle Lenny’s famous forbearance was wearing thin, his shrew wife engineering our eviction as they murmured in the dark foyer, pretending to check for a parcel. “This is what America does,” my mother hissed. But I didn’t share my mom’s rushed verdict. For one thing, it had Ninja Turtles. For another, 3 weeks and counting that my dad wasn’t called a kike by drunken subordinates.

One thing I did miss was friends. It was too early to seek initiation into one of the many street gangs that patrolled the Boardwalk with their water-guns and worn-out BMX bikes; too late to befriend the black kid downstairs my dad had shielded me from when he came over to say hello. It was another 2 hours until 5 PM and Ninja Turtles with nothing to do but attack the Victorian English workbook my mother had dug up for me with a friend in Moscow. So, it was time to polish the medal, daydreaming as I rubbed the engraving between my thumb and index finger. “Savour the flavour,” I enunciated.

Under my cot, my hands reached inside a plastic storage tub, ferreting through a jumble of Soviet coins, threads and needles, bubble gum comics, photos of friends left behind, cheap trinkets, Russian adventure books, laminated certifications of academic achievements, and a purloined airline sleeping kit. But there was only one item my hands were concerned with—the only item that was…wait…yes, gone!