Life rarely prepares us for small victories. I was on my way home to rest before my night-shift kitchen job when I was held at knifepoint by a young man with a South American accent. He wanted money and whatever else I had in my duffle bag. I put my bag on the ground and started to unzip it. Next — half pretending and half not — I told the man, in my broken English, that I didn’t understand his words but that I knew what he wanted. Some things are the same no matter where in the world we are. The man lowered his knife-wielding arm, extended his other hand’s two fingers, as in the peace sign, and waved me to be on my way. Besides his knife, he left empty-handed. And, walking away from the scene of the encounter, I was thinking that I should avoid taking this street again. What if the next bandit wasn’t so understanding? But then I realized that this was the only viable route for me to walk to the subway station from the place I lived. So, no matter if I was afraid to take this route again or not, I was stuck with it. Later that evening, before catching the red line to downtown Boston, where I worked in an Italian restaurant, I was still shaken by that afternoon’s encounter and glad to be alive.
It was a very busy Friday night in the kitchen of Ciao Mambo. The waiters were knocking each other’s elbows running in and out of the kitchen. The restaurant had only ten tables and was on the second floor of a building on Boylston Street near Copley Square. Each time the dining room door opened, the cheerful sound of conversations, mixed with the clinking of wine glasses, would flood the kitchen and motivate me to speed up my work. As the evening progressed, the waiters would repeatedly leave the kitchen with plates full of hot food and return minutes later with a pile of dirty dishes which they then placed next to me. I picked the dishes up, one at a time, cleaned off the leftovers, rinsed them by hand under the tepid tap water, and then I carefully arranged them on the racks of the dishwasher near me. Now and again, Maria, the restaurant’s owner, would peek in and prod me with her serious face to keep up with the waiters’ pace. She had a much more relaxed look on her face when she met me on the first day of the job a few weeks back. ‘Remember,’ she said in slow-motion English, ‘Do not tell anyone about your work here!’ She would then say a Polish word ‘Rozumiesz?’ erroneously placing the accent on the first syllable. I responded with one of the only few Italian words I remembered from my days in the Italian refugee camp: ‘Capisci!’ Yes, I understood very well the individual words she was saying, but the overall meaning of her words somehow eluded me.
The stack of dirty plates, left by the waiters on the metal table next to the sink, was getting larger by the minute. But I was now asked by the chef to stop my work on the dishes and fetch him the ingredients for antipasto. He was the general in our small army; the waiters were his officers and Maria was the head of state; I was the foot soldier. Each night a small battle took place in the kitchen and ended with either a victory or a defeat. Once in a while, the defeat ended with a casualty and a new draft had to take place to replace either the waiter or the kitchen help who, for whatever reasons, were let go.
The chef was maybe fifty. Thin and short in statute, with one very distinct feature: his piercing green eyes, which let us know that he was smarter than we were; maybe even smarter than anyone else we knew, or would ever know. When he looked at us, we knew that whatever we said, it had better be somehow interesting, made sense, and we did not beat around the bush with a small-talk stick. He had a longish head and small ears and red hair. He was never clean shaven and his face was tired from too many long, kitchen nights in which he spent making sure he remembered what to put on the plates, how to present it, in what order, and for which waiter. His system of arranging the food on the plates was as logical as the words that came out of him.
I knew where to find cheeses, olives, mushrooms, and the meats in the large stainless steel fridge by the wall. I quickly took the ingredients out and placed them in front of the chef. Then I looked back toward the sink where the pile of dirty plates was getting taller. ‘You know,’ the chef said in a calm voice, without taking his eyes from the plates he was readying for the appetizers, ‘I envy you; where you are in your life....’ I did not understand what he meant: I was twenty five, had no marketable skills, I knew only a few words in English, I had no money, and I was sure I was getting too old to continue with my world-class running adventure; still, he envied me. I didn’t know what to say to him, so I only smiled and shook my head, letting him know that I had no idea where he was going with this. I stepped away from the kitchen island, his working area, and started moving towards the sink. But the chef stopped me by raising his hand, as if signaling me to hold on. The plates were soon loaded with olives, pre-sliced cheeses, and meats, and as he was admiring the arrangements in front of him, he let the waiter know that the plates were ready to be carried out into the dining room. Then he said to me: ‘You don’t get it, do you? That I envy you.’ I let him know that I didn’t by simply being silent. He noted my vacant stare and asked, ‘What’s you name again? And I told him. ‘Marek, what are you, a Russian?’ ‘Polish,’ I said hoping to hide my indignation about his guess.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I won’t hold it against you.’ He smiled as he said that, then he leaned forward on his arms, and introduced himself: ‘My name is Johann.’ I knew this; Mary had told me a few nights before; as well as that he was either German or Austrian (she couldn’t remember which). He left his family riches so he could become a chef in America. I acknowledged Johann’s introduction by nodding and repeated my own name. ‘I envy you,’ he said again. ‘The world around you is everything you see, hear, and touch — nothing else. You are just an atomic fact, an object made of millions of chain links which hold you together. The older a person gets, the chain gets longer and heavier,’ he took a break as if letting what he just said to sink in. What you did, by leaving your country, was to leave a large part of your chain behind; what is left of your chain is much shorter and much lighter now. Don’t you see? Now you are free to add new links to the chain; whatever you want — you can do with your life anything you wish; think about it. Not many of us will ever be able to do what you have done: to free ourselves from the past and from the gravity of our national identity.... Isn't that just a beautiful thing?’ I looked at him: the philosopher and the chef. In response, I smiled, because I knew that what he just told me involved thinking outside of the box, and it had to make him feel good — and somehow I realized that he one day he himself not that long ago was a man with a very long and heavy chain of atoms bound to him, like patina to a bronze statue. ‘Do you see this antipasto? It is made of many links of its own chain — each different, each more beautiful and tasty than the other; all different, yet all in a way the same.... Now go and finish your work,’ he concluded and pointed his head in the direction of the sink.
When the last customers left the restaurant, it was time to take the edge off. Everyone gathered in the kitchen and we all drank beer straight from the bottle. After a busy night, holding a cold beer in my hand felt better than being awarded a medal for winning an important race. Everyone made small talk about their boyfriends and girlfriends and shared their weekend plans outside of work. The tables in the dining room were set up for the next day, the lights were turned off, and Maria entered the kitchen. Her sleeves up and her black hair let down, she produced a rubber-band-secured stack of envelopes. She handed paychecks to the chef and the two waiters. She praised them for a job well done that evening and told them, half jokingly, she was hoping to see them back tomorrow. Then she wished them good night and after they left the restaurant she turned her attention to me. With her exposed forearm, she wiped sweat from her forehead and then handed me an envelope with the usual $200 cash, the amount that the two of us agreed upon before I started the job. As she handed me the money, she said: ‘It isn’t much but it is something.’ Then she asked me if I learned any new English words lately? I recited to her what I remembered: ‘colander’ and ‘curving knife,’ two words the chef had taught me the other night. She corrected my pronunciation of colander by repeating the word back to me with stress on the correct syllable; and she did this in her Italian accent. Still, she said, she was impressed with my progress. I thanked her and I bid her a quick goodnight by saying our customary ‘Ciao!’ I ran out of the restaurant as fast as I could because I didn’t want to miss the last outbound subway which was leaving downtown at 1 a.m. After I got to my apartment in Dorchester, I undressed and crashed without washing my face or brushing my teeth. I felt physically defeated, but, because tomorrow was Saturday, I felt satisfied as I could sleep in.
It was Sunday, and on Sundays I never slept in; it was church day. I got up at 8 am, put on the only nice shirt and pants that I owned, and I waited to catch a ride with Heniek, one of my three Polish immigrant housemates and the only one who had a car. The house was owned by Mrs. Kowalska, a third-generation Polish immigrant who had never learned Polish. There were four of us renting rooms from her. The stocky and short Heniek was an employed locksmith, with an interest in hard rock. He was proud of his complete collection of Deep Purple audio cassettes. He had found the job quickly, a week after his arrival to the States, and was already looking for his own two-room apartment in a better neighborhood. Edek was the oldest one of us, maybe forty; already balding and with a visible beer belly — he never wore jeans and T-shirt, just dress pants and an ironed shirt with no tie. He was a sewing machine repairman who saved every dollar he earned, so one day he could afford to buy a used car and be able to make house visits for his clientele. He constantly struggled to find new customers, but had a voluptuous American girlfriend who, as he claimed, was never satisfied in bed. Then there was Christopher, the youngest of us all, perhaps twenty-two. He was slim and blond, smoked long cigarettes, was well groomed, neatly dressed, and never complained about being out of money. None of us knew where Christopher worked. Every Friday afternoon he would be picked up outside the house by an older man with an expensive car and wouldn’t return back to his room until early morning hours on Sunday. We never worried about Christopher; we were happy for him, because deep inside we knew that he could take care of himself. Among the four of us, I was the newest arrival — neither the youngest nor the oldest — less than a month in the country. I looked like a runner, I was transparently skinny, I wore glasses, and I always had my running shoes on, no matter the season or the weather outside. They all knew where I came from in Poland and that twice a week I went for a run. None of them knew where I was heading, and, to be honest, neither did I. But they knew that, like them, I had my own small dreams, which I kept to myself, and that right now all I wanted was to stay afloat.
It was a ten minute car ride from our house, on Mt. Ida Road, to Dorchester’s Old Lady of Czestochowa Catholic Church. The Mass started at 9 am. If you were a Pole in Boston, you joined the tribe and on every Sunday you showed up in the church; you prayed and you went to confession. It was a modest wooden building, all painted white, both on the outside and on the inside. It had narrow, stained-glass windows on its side walls. There were also more windows on the far wall opposite from the main entrance and above the altar. High above the altar, a large wooden Jesus on the cross looked down on all who had gathered to worship; neither smiling nor frowning, just looking. The Polish and American flags hung inside above the main entrance. The flags fanned the smoke of the scented candles set on golden candelabras placed next to the rows of pews packed with the parishioners. The scent of the candles mixed with the smell of perfumes and sweat all floating gently over our praying heads which rested on the tips of our hands tightly joined in front of our chests. The congregation was composed of all ages and all professions. Many women wore faux fur coats and men donned fake leather jackets. Today, we all wore the best of what we owned and it was obvious by looking at us that this tranquil hour spent on this Sunday morning made some of us content with the place where we were in our lives. We converged here to sing, and to tell Jesus that we were not worthy of His attention; and He would often agree with us. Maybe we thought that the whole idea of attending the Mass was to gain an upper hand over those who had not bothered to get up in the morning and show up in the church to pray and ask Him for forgiveness — as we were all hopeful that, after we kneeled in the confessional and revealed our sins to Him, we could, if even in a small way, put all our guilt behind us and He would let us continue with the day unscathed.
Shortly before the Mass was over, the collection baskets were passed around the church. According to the teachings, sins could rarely be separated from money, the latter to be either shared or disposed of — nothing was free in America and we had to pay for enjoying our privileges, be they spiritual or corporeal. The wicker baskets filled with monetary donations circulated from hand to hand, from pew to pew, and, at the end of their journey they were packed with loose change, wrinkled bills, and white envelopes containing personal checks. As usual, those of us who wore the furs and leather jackets were the first to leave something in the baskets and the last to leave the church. Those of us who did not have much to offer, hastily placed either loose change or a one dollar bill in the basket and couldn’t wait to hear the Mass’s concluding words: ‘Now go in peace,’ so we could leave.
Afterword, we cheerfully assembled outside the church to talk. The new immigrants smoked cigarettes and asked about under-the-table jobs available at the places that their countrymen worked; desperate for any income, they were ready to start work anytime, on any day, and do anything, as long as a knowledge of English was not required of them.
Ewa adjusted herself in her fur coat and approached me. She was all-smiles, and asked me in Polish how I liked working for Maria in the restaurant. I said that the money allowed me to put food on the table; I added that I worked nights and on the weekdays attended English lessons at the Hebrew College. I didn't mention my running, or my aspiration to apply to a university; one should never tempt one’s fate. When I shared my aspirations with the oldest and the most distinguished member of the Boston Polish-American Club, Mr. Chochołowski, he had laughed in my face. In a well-meaning voice, the white-haired third generation Polish emigrant informed me that many Americans who have jobs cannot afford attending a university. With my total lack of funds, and equal deficiencies in the language, he suggested that I’d better stop looking to the clouds and step down to earth, where I was really needed. Then he waked away from me and Ewa to comfort other new immigrants. I thanked Ewa for finding me the kitchen gig; ‘No problem,’ she said in English ‘It was a small fish to fry.’
I kept hearing how the rookies to America were told about the hardships awaiting them. And about the near impossibility of finding a well-paying job. The key to success, someone insisted, was finding any job, especially if one didn’t know English; a small job was better than no job. The gatherings outside of the church were also a perfect opportunity to exchange gossip about other emigrants’ failures and fortunes. No one was given the benefit of the doubt, even though all of us had just left the house of God in peace. But, from what I had heard and seen, the ‘fortunes’ of many Poles remained the same, even years after they had immigrated. Many never left Dorchester, never became fluent in English, and kept buying food only in the shops operated by other Poles. Many were happy to never fly too far away from the nest, and, as long as it made them happy, I was fine with that; we all had our little battles to fight, no matter what war we were fighting.
After the Mass, the basket with donations ended up in Reverend Doohowski’s back room. Later, on that Sunday evening, the overweight and over-kind Reverend had a small celebration of his own: he put the wicker basket in front of himself and tallied its content while enjoying a glass of red wine. The money would sustain the congregation for the next week to come, the blood of Christ would sustain his soul.
I GOT HOME FROM church, I ate an apple and drank a cup of hot tea. I put on my running shoes, shorts, and the jersey and was off for my Sunday run in Dorchester Bay on the Harbor Walk along the coastline. It was a sunny but chilly late morning in June. My breathing was easy and my stride was relaxed. Despite the two months since my arrival in the United States I was still in excellent shape. Nobody in the Polish community knew that I represented Poland internationally as a distance runner. Some knew that I was a runner, but not how good I was. Each time they tried to pry and get specific information from me about my defection — somehow they did learn about that — I quickly changed the subject of the conversation. ‘Let’s focus on the now,’ I insisted, ‘and don’t linger on the past.’ And they were usually glad to accommodate my request.
As I ran along the promenade, I saw a group of some fifty runners gathering on the road. I realized that they were getting ready to run a road race. There was a makeshift canvas banner above the runners, with ‘5 Kilometer Race Start’ printed on it. Men and women of various ages were lining up along a white line chalked on the road. They were dressed in colorful outfits and the breeze coming from the ocean widened their smiles and invigorated them. I understood that Americans had to pay money in order to participate in road races; but I could never quite understand why. In Poland, the road races were organized between clubs to demonstrate which club had better runners as well as for the audiences on the streets of the towns where the races took place to enjoy the spectacle. All runners had racing numbers affixed to the front of their jerseys with safety pins. They were shaking their arms and running in place to keep warm. A race official wielded the starting gun and stood on the side of the road. He now raised his arm — the starting gun high above his head — and the runners froze their movements and looked ahead in anticipation. I could not control my urge to join them and, without much consideration, I joined the group. ‘Ready?’ The race official yelled, and the starting gun went off. We were sprinting ahead, trying to get in as good a positioning as possible. After about thirty yards, we slowed down and settled on a comfortable pace. I was thinking how much I missed racing. I controlled my temptation to go faster in the beginning of the race and decided to save my energies for the finish. I focused on maintaining the cadence of my steps and on controlling the rhythm of my breathing. I knew that the pains in my legs and in my chest were only temporary and were caused by the sprinting in the beginning of the race, and I didn't linger on them. I pushed away my thoughts about winning the race and instead concentrated on the synchronicity of my movements and the efficiency of my steps.
The attraction of the most natural of human activities, running, manifests itself to those who witness a road race first hand. But the glory of running is on its fullest display only for those observers who are willing to fathom the runners' uncanny ability to move through time and space. Except for the shoes and minimal outfits, runners are not constrained by or dependent on excessive accessories; runners are almost naked when moving through the spatial and temporal continuum; as if they were trying to keep up with the earth rotating on its axis. And on a very rare occasion, if ever, a runner might experience a phenomena called a runner's high — a mysterious occurrence during which, for a long stretch of the run, the runner does not feel tiredness what-so-ever. It is when experiencing a runner’s high that a human being is closest to being triumphant in defying the earth's gravity; to being truly free.
After the first few hundred yards of the race, I positioned myself with the leading group of three men and one woman. Just by looking at them run, I became aware that the three were all runners to reckon with. Even though the mile run was my main event, racing 5K did not worry me: I did it before and I always did well.
There were large numbers chalked on the side of the course, informing the runner how much of the distance they had so far covered. We just ran by the 3.5-kilometer marker and the course led through a flat open space, next to the beach, marine air brushing our faces. Not far ahead, I could see an area densely populated with spectators and a banner announcing the end of the race stretched above the finish line.
I relaxed my running form and began to strategize how to finish the race. My pace was not overbearing to me and I knew that I had more than enough energy left in me for a strong finish. Using peripheral vision, I took a few seconds to evaluate the faces and the bodies of my competitors. How tired were they? How focused? Yet, I knew that although a runner’s breathing might be loud, and their moves laborious, it did not mean that they were spent. A runner could be a fighter. A runner could look tired on the outside, but inside be still capable of exerting some inhuman energy to finish strong, and even win the race…. It was all in the athlete’s mysterious ability to dig deep down and still find that small but very potent reserve, and somehow bring it to the surface, just when it counted.
The four of us were quickly approaching the finish line. We had about than two hundred yards to go. My best recipe for winning a race was not by accelerating gradually as I got closer to the finish line; it was by surging ahead suddenly, and unexpectedly. This approach did not give the other runners time to react until I was already a few yards ahead of them. With some hundred and fifty yards left in the race, I sprinted away from the others and I did not slow down until I crossed the finish line, ahead of everybody else, my hands up in the gesture of V, for victory.
The race officials soon surrounded me. One of them grabbed my elbow and tried to pull me through the crowd and towards the TV cameras and microphones. The reporters were nervously readying themselves to interview the victor. The runner who took second place in the race now began moving in my direction, no doubt intending to congratulate me. But when he reached me, he stopped in his steps, his eyesight fixed on my jersey. He noticed that I had no racing number pinned on me: ‘A bandit!’
The stack of dirty plates, left by the waiters on the metal table next to the sink, was getting larger by the minute. But I was now asked by the chef to stop my work on the dishes and fetch him the ingredients for antipasto. He was the general in our small army; the waiters were his officers and Maria was the head of state; I was the foot soldier. Each night a small battle took place in the kitchen and ended with either a victory or a defeat. Once in a while, the defeat ended with a casualty and a new draft had to take place to replace either the waiter or the kitchen help who, for whatever reasons, were let go.
The chef was maybe fifty. Thin and short in statute, with one very distinct feature: his piercing green eyes, which let us know that he was smarter than we were; maybe even smarter than anyone else we knew, or would ever know. When he looked at us, we knew that whatever we said, it had better be somehow interesting, made sense, and we did not beat around the bush with a small-talk stick. He had a longish head and small ears and red hair. He was never clean shaven and his face was tired from too many long, kitchen nights in which he spent making sure he remembered what to put on the plates, how to present it, in what order, and for which waiter. His system of arranging the food on the plates was as logical as the words that came out of him.
I knew where to find cheeses, olives, mushrooms, and the meats in the large stainless steel fridge by the wall. I quickly took the ingredients out and placed them in front of the chef. Then I looked back toward the sink where the pile of dirty plates was getting taller. ‘You know,’ the chef said in a calm voice, without taking his eyes from the plates he was readying for the appetizers, ‘I envy you; where you are in your life....’ I did not understand what he meant: I was twenty five, had no marketable skills, I knew only a few words in English, I had no money, and I was sure I was getting too old to continue with my world-class running adventure; still, he envied me. I didn’t know what to say to him, so I only smiled and shook my head, letting him know that I had no idea where he was going with this. I stepped away from the kitchen island, his working area, and started moving towards the sink. But the chef stopped me by raising his hand, as if signaling me to hold on. The plates were soon loaded with olives, pre-sliced cheeses, and meats, and as he was admiring the arrangements in front of him, he let the waiter know that the plates were ready to be carried out into the dining room. Then he said to me: ‘You don’t get it, do you? That I envy you.’ I let him know that I didn’t by simply being silent. He noted my vacant stare and asked, ‘What’s you name again? And I told him. ‘Marek, what are you, a Russian?’ ‘Polish,’ I said hoping to hide my indignation about his guess.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I won’t hold it against you.’ He smiled as he said that, then he leaned forward on his arms, and introduced himself: ‘My name is Johann.’ I knew this; Mary had told me a few nights before; as well as that he was either German or Austrian (she couldn’t remember which). He left his family riches so he could become a chef in America. I acknowledged Johann’s introduction by nodding and repeated my own name. ‘I envy you,’ he said again. ‘The world around you is everything you see, hear, and touch — nothing else. You are just an atomic fact, an object made of millions of chain links which hold you together. The older a person gets, the chain gets longer and heavier,’ he took a break as if letting what he just said to sink in. What you did, by leaving your country, was to leave a large part of your chain behind; what is left of your chain is much shorter and much lighter now. Don’t you see? Now you are free to add new links to the chain; whatever you want — you can do with your life anything you wish; think about it. Not many of us will ever be able to do what you have done: to free ourselves from the past and from the gravity of our national identity.... Isn't that just a beautiful thing?’ I looked at him: the philosopher and the chef. In response, I smiled, because I knew that what he just told me involved thinking outside of the box, and it had to make him feel good — and somehow I realized that he one day he himself not that long ago was a man with a very long and heavy chain of atoms bound to him, like patina to a bronze statue. ‘Do you see this antipasto? It is made of many links of its own chain — each different, each more beautiful and tasty than the other; all different, yet all in a way the same.... Now go and finish your work,’ he concluded and pointed his head in the direction of the sink.
When the last customers left the restaurant, it was time to take the edge off. Everyone gathered in the kitchen and we all drank beer straight from the bottle. After a busy night, holding a cold beer in my hand felt better than being awarded a medal for winning an important race. Everyone made small talk about their boyfriends and girlfriends and shared their weekend plans outside of work. The tables in the dining room were set up for the next day, the lights were turned off, and Maria entered the kitchen. Her sleeves up and her black hair let down, she produced a rubber-band-secured stack of envelopes. She handed paychecks to the chef and the two waiters. She praised them for a job well done that evening and told them, half jokingly, she was hoping to see them back tomorrow. Then she wished them good night and after they left the restaurant she turned her attention to me. With her exposed forearm, she wiped sweat from her forehead and then handed me an envelope with the usual $200 cash, the amount that the two of us agreed upon before I started the job. As she handed me the money, she said: ‘It isn’t much but it is something.’ Then she asked me if I learned any new English words lately? I recited to her what I remembered: ‘colander’ and ‘curving knife,’ two words the chef had taught me the other night. She corrected my pronunciation of colander by repeating the word back to me with stress on the correct syllable; and she did this in her Italian accent. Still, she said, she was impressed with my progress. I thanked her and I bid her a quick goodnight by saying our customary ‘Ciao!’ I ran out of the restaurant as fast as I could because I didn’t want to miss the last outbound subway which was leaving downtown at 1 a.m. After I got to my apartment in Dorchester, I undressed and crashed without washing my face or brushing my teeth. I felt physically defeated, but, because tomorrow was Saturday, I felt satisfied as I could sleep in.
It was Sunday, and on Sundays I never slept in; it was church day. I got up at 8 am, put on the only nice shirt and pants that I owned, and I waited to catch a ride with Heniek, one of my three Polish immigrant housemates and the only one who had a car. The house was owned by Mrs. Kowalska, a third-generation Polish immigrant who had never learned Polish. There were four of us renting rooms from her. The stocky and short Heniek was an employed locksmith, with an interest in hard rock. He was proud of his complete collection of Deep Purple audio cassettes. He had found the job quickly, a week after his arrival to the States, and was already looking for his own two-room apartment in a better neighborhood. Edek was the oldest one of us, maybe forty; already balding and with a visible beer belly — he never wore jeans and T-shirt, just dress pants and an ironed shirt with no tie. He was a sewing machine repairman who saved every dollar he earned, so one day he could afford to buy a used car and be able to make house visits for his clientele. He constantly struggled to find new customers, but had a voluptuous American girlfriend who, as he claimed, was never satisfied in bed. Then there was Christopher, the youngest of us all, perhaps twenty-two. He was slim and blond, smoked long cigarettes, was well groomed, neatly dressed, and never complained about being out of money. None of us knew where Christopher worked. Every Friday afternoon he would be picked up outside the house by an older man with an expensive car and wouldn’t return back to his room until early morning hours on Sunday. We never worried about Christopher; we were happy for him, because deep inside we knew that he could take care of himself. Among the four of us, I was the newest arrival — neither the youngest nor the oldest — less than a month in the country. I looked like a runner, I was transparently skinny, I wore glasses, and I always had my running shoes on, no matter the season or the weather outside. They all knew where I came from in Poland and that twice a week I went for a run. None of them knew where I was heading, and, to be honest, neither did I. But they knew that, like them, I had my own small dreams, which I kept to myself, and that right now all I wanted was to stay afloat.
It was a ten minute car ride from our house, on Mt. Ida Road, to Dorchester’s Old Lady of Czestochowa Catholic Church. The Mass started at 9 am. If you were a Pole in Boston, you joined the tribe and on every Sunday you showed up in the church; you prayed and you went to confession. It was a modest wooden building, all painted white, both on the outside and on the inside. It had narrow, stained-glass windows on its side walls. There were also more windows on the far wall opposite from the main entrance and above the altar. High above the altar, a large wooden Jesus on the cross looked down on all who had gathered to worship; neither smiling nor frowning, just looking. The Polish and American flags hung inside above the main entrance. The flags fanned the smoke of the scented candles set on golden candelabras placed next to the rows of pews packed with the parishioners. The scent of the candles mixed with the smell of perfumes and sweat all floating gently over our praying heads which rested on the tips of our hands tightly joined in front of our chests. The congregation was composed of all ages and all professions. Many women wore faux fur coats and men donned fake leather jackets. Today, we all wore the best of what we owned and it was obvious by looking at us that this tranquil hour spent on this Sunday morning made some of us content with the place where we were in our lives. We converged here to sing, and to tell Jesus that we were not worthy of His attention; and He would often agree with us. Maybe we thought that the whole idea of attending the Mass was to gain an upper hand over those who had not bothered to get up in the morning and show up in the church to pray and ask Him for forgiveness — as we were all hopeful that, after we kneeled in the confessional and revealed our sins to Him, we could, if even in a small way, put all our guilt behind us and He would let us continue with the day unscathed.
Shortly before the Mass was over, the collection baskets were passed around the church. According to the teachings, sins could rarely be separated from money, the latter to be either shared or disposed of — nothing was free in America and we had to pay for enjoying our privileges, be they spiritual or corporeal. The wicker baskets filled with monetary donations circulated from hand to hand, from pew to pew, and, at the end of their journey they were packed with loose change, wrinkled bills, and white envelopes containing personal checks. As usual, those of us who wore the furs and leather jackets were the first to leave something in the baskets and the last to leave the church. Those of us who did not have much to offer, hastily placed either loose change or a one dollar bill in the basket and couldn’t wait to hear the Mass’s concluding words: ‘Now go in peace,’ so we could leave.
Afterword, we cheerfully assembled outside the church to talk. The new immigrants smoked cigarettes and asked about under-the-table jobs available at the places that their countrymen worked; desperate for any income, they were ready to start work anytime, on any day, and do anything, as long as a knowledge of English was not required of them.
Ewa adjusted herself in her fur coat and approached me. She was all-smiles, and asked me in Polish how I liked working for Maria in the restaurant. I said that the money allowed me to put food on the table; I added that I worked nights and on the weekdays attended English lessons at the Hebrew College. I didn't mention my running, or my aspiration to apply to a university; one should never tempt one’s fate. When I shared my aspirations with the oldest and the most distinguished member of the Boston Polish-American Club, Mr. Chochołowski, he had laughed in my face. In a well-meaning voice, the white-haired third generation Polish emigrant informed me that many Americans who have jobs cannot afford attending a university. With my total lack of funds, and equal deficiencies in the language, he suggested that I’d better stop looking to the clouds and step down to earth, where I was really needed. Then he waked away from me and Ewa to comfort other new immigrants. I thanked Ewa for finding me the kitchen gig; ‘No problem,’ she said in English ‘It was a small fish to fry.’
I kept hearing how the rookies to America were told about the hardships awaiting them. And about the near impossibility of finding a well-paying job. The key to success, someone insisted, was finding any job, especially if one didn’t know English; a small job was better than no job. The gatherings outside of the church were also a perfect opportunity to exchange gossip about other emigrants’ failures and fortunes. No one was given the benefit of the doubt, even though all of us had just left the house of God in peace. But, from what I had heard and seen, the ‘fortunes’ of many Poles remained the same, even years after they had immigrated. Many never left Dorchester, never became fluent in English, and kept buying food only in the shops operated by other Poles. Many were happy to never fly too far away from the nest, and, as long as it made them happy, I was fine with that; we all had our little battles to fight, no matter what war we were fighting.
After the Mass, the basket with donations ended up in Reverend Doohowski’s back room. Later, on that Sunday evening, the overweight and over-kind Reverend had a small celebration of his own: he put the wicker basket in front of himself and tallied its content while enjoying a glass of red wine. The money would sustain the congregation for the next week to come, the blood of Christ would sustain his soul.
I GOT HOME FROM church, I ate an apple and drank a cup of hot tea. I put on my running shoes, shorts, and the jersey and was off for my Sunday run in Dorchester Bay on the Harbor Walk along the coastline. It was a sunny but chilly late morning in June. My breathing was easy and my stride was relaxed. Despite the two months since my arrival in the United States I was still in excellent shape. Nobody in the Polish community knew that I represented Poland internationally as a distance runner. Some knew that I was a runner, but not how good I was. Each time they tried to pry and get specific information from me about my defection — somehow they did learn about that — I quickly changed the subject of the conversation. ‘Let’s focus on the now,’ I insisted, ‘and don’t linger on the past.’ And they were usually glad to accommodate my request.
As I ran along the promenade, I saw a group of some fifty runners gathering on the road. I realized that they were getting ready to run a road race. There was a makeshift canvas banner above the runners, with ‘5 Kilometer Race Start’ printed on it. Men and women of various ages were lining up along a white line chalked on the road. They were dressed in colorful outfits and the breeze coming from the ocean widened their smiles and invigorated them. I understood that Americans had to pay money in order to participate in road races; but I could never quite understand why. In Poland, the road races were organized between clubs to demonstrate which club had better runners as well as for the audiences on the streets of the towns where the races took place to enjoy the spectacle. All runners had racing numbers affixed to the front of their jerseys with safety pins. They were shaking their arms and running in place to keep warm. A race official wielded the starting gun and stood on the side of the road. He now raised his arm — the starting gun high above his head — and the runners froze their movements and looked ahead in anticipation. I could not control my urge to join them and, without much consideration, I joined the group. ‘Ready?’ The race official yelled, and the starting gun went off. We were sprinting ahead, trying to get in as good a positioning as possible. After about thirty yards, we slowed down and settled on a comfortable pace. I was thinking how much I missed racing. I controlled my temptation to go faster in the beginning of the race and decided to save my energies for the finish. I focused on maintaining the cadence of my steps and on controlling the rhythm of my breathing. I knew that the pains in my legs and in my chest were only temporary and were caused by the sprinting in the beginning of the race, and I didn't linger on them. I pushed away my thoughts about winning the race and instead concentrated on the synchronicity of my movements and the efficiency of my steps.
The attraction of the most natural of human activities, running, manifests itself to those who witness a road race first hand. But the glory of running is on its fullest display only for those observers who are willing to fathom the runners' uncanny ability to move through time and space. Except for the shoes and minimal outfits, runners are not constrained by or dependent on excessive accessories; runners are almost naked when moving through the spatial and temporal continuum; as if they were trying to keep up with the earth rotating on its axis. And on a very rare occasion, if ever, a runner might experience a phenomena called a runner's high — a mysterious occurrence during which, for a long stretch of the run, the runner does not feel tiredness what-so-ever. It is when experiencing a runner’s high that a human being is closest to being triumphant in defying the earth's gravity; to being truly free.
After the first few hundred yards of the race, I positioned myself with the leading group of three men and one woman. Just by looking at them run, I became aware that the three were all runners to reckon with. Even though the mile run was my main event, racing 5K did not worry me: I did it before and I always did well.
There were large numbers chalked on the side of the course, informing the runner how much of the distance they had so far covered. We just ran by the 3.5-kilometer marker and the course led through a flat open space, next to the beach, marine air brushing our faces. Not far ahead, I could see an area densely populated with spectators and a banner announcing the end of the race stretched above the finish line.
I relaxed my running form and began to strategize how to finish the race. My pace was not overbearing to me and I knew that I had more than enough energy left in me for a strong finish. Using peripheral vision, I took a few seconds to evaluate the faces and the bodies of my competitors. How tired were they? How focused? Yet, I knew that although a runner’s breathing might be loud, and their moves laborious, it did not mean that they were spent. A runner could be a fighter. A runner could look tired on the outside, but inside be still capable of exerting some inhuman energy to finish strong, and even win the race…. It was all in the athlete’s mysterious ability to dig deep down and still find that small but very potent reserve, and somehow bring it to the surface, just when it counted.
The four of us were quickly approaching the finish line. We had about than two hundred yards to go. My best recipe for winning a race was not by accelerating gradually as I got closer to the finish line; it was by surging ahead suddenly, and unexpectedly. This approach did not give the other runners time to react until I was already a few yards ahead of them. With some hundred and fifty yards left in the race, I sprinted away from the others and I did not slow down until I crossed the finish line, ahead of everybody else, my hands up in the gesture of V, for victory.
The race officials soon surrounded me. One of them grabbed my elbow and tried to pull me through the crowd and towards the TV cameras and microphones. The reporters were nervously readying themselves to interview the victor. The runner who took second place in the race now began moving in my direction, no doubt intending to congratulate me. But when he reached me, he stopped in his steps, his eyesight fixed on my jersey. He noticed that I had no racing number pinned on me: ‘A bandit!’
Dariusz Janczewski is a fiction writer. He emigrated to the United States from the then communist Poland in 1984. Dariusz has an MA in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University and a BS in graphic design from the University of Cincinnati. He lives in Missoula, Montana (USA).
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