It is mid-September. Warm, sunny, the best weather of the year in San Francisco.
I’ve unfortunately missed most of it because I’ve been rehearsing a play at the children’s theatre.
But my son, Zsolt, and I have squeezed in a walk at the beach near the place I work and he goes to high school. We’ve only a half an hour. A few weeks ago, a half an hour seemed like nothing. However, due to my self-imposed fatigue, that nothing is all I now fixate on. Suddenly that nothing has become everything.
We usually do not talk at the beginning of our walks. It’s as if our vocal chords only warm up with the rhythm of our feet. I like to let Zsolt start whatever dialogue we have. He is the funniest and most interesting person I know. Biased, you must think. And you would probably be right. Except that I’d hang with him even if he wasn’t my son.
“I saw Iklin on the bus the other day,” Zsolt says.
Ilkin is a boy that Zsolt met in elementary school. He was disadvantaged because his family came from Russia and at the time, he understood almost no English. He also seemed to have an anger management problem, which further distanced him from all the children around him. Ilkin’s punches to my son were answered by Zsolt teasing him that in English Ilkin translated to sick family—a phrase that unfortunately caught on like wildfire.
“What did you guys say?” I ask.
“Nothing really,” Zsolt says. “He just kept smiling and giving me a peace sign.”
“Did you acknowledge him?” I ask.
“I smiled,” Zsolt says, “But I hate making that peace sign in public. Everybody does it so now it means nothing.”
