At this time, I wasn’t even aware of what my mission in life was. For now, it just seemed to be about surviving until the next day so I could at least say I didn’t die despite whatever life had thrown at me. My impact in the world was still at a minimal level. Certainly I had many wonderful and meaningful interactions with people no matter what the situation turned out to be in the end, but was this really all I was capable of? I felt like there was a lot more that was possible, and travel was the only possibility that I knew of that could potentially open this door for me. Nothing in my immediate environment seemed to suggest that I would find the answers I sought nearby.

Occasionally we meet people who become a catalyst in our lives for some kind of activity. Sometimes they are mentors, sometimes they are people we call friends, and sometimes they are rivals. Sometimes it can be hard to figure out which one exactly they are, but one way or another, they always find a way into our lives as though they had been seeking us all along.

At Pasqual’s, before opening hours, sometimes as I would walk through the deli area to use the bathroom or seek someone out, I would come into view of someone who was being interviewed by management at one of the tables. There was once a man with dark hair and a complexion about the same as mine wearing a leather jacket and looking unconcerned as he was being interviewed. I gave him a quick head nod, to which he responded in equal gesture, and as it turned out, it had a strong impact on him because after he was eventually hired, he mentioned that one other person and I were the only ones who seemed to acknowledge his presence. This man I will call J. for the purpose of protecting his identity. J., like my friend Gina, was also adopted from Brazil. As a result of contracting Polio at some point in his youth, J. lost some mobility of his leg and walked with a slight limp. J. was hired as one of the deli staff, dealing with customers, serving food and beverages, and replenishing their stock of salsa, guacamole, and dip that we kitchen workers spent all morning preparing. It often brought him into contact with the kitchen staff whenever he had to come back into our area to make his preparations.

1. and I developed an affinity quite easily, even though at 23, my age was the inverse of his. One of the biggest factors pertaining to our compatibility was probably our sense of humor. His was a little on the brash end, but he often made me laugh by making silly noises and faces. It didn’t take long to figure out he was the kind of person who truly spoke whatever was on his mind as well. He was so adept at this that one time Lindsey, another deli worker and I were having a conversation about him, and she told me that the things he says to her she can’t even repeat, not because she had a listening comprehension issue, though she did have a hearing aid, but it was rather because what he said was so vulgar.
2. was someone who liked to go out and have fun. That was another area of compatibility for us, because I liked to as well. I had a sense of adventure that seemed to match his own. The problem was that it wasn’t always fun that was encountered, for either of us. My stint of abstinence from alcohol didn’t last long at all as I was continually tested by J. and his plans and I failed time after time.

We would go to bars and clubs here in Madison and also out in Milwaukee, like Victors(AKA Victims), The Dragon Lounge, and several other venues on weekends. One thing I noticed about J. was he seemed to have trouble with authority. He and I went to Club Majestic one night, and after I passed through the front security, I began to settle in and noticed J. was walking in with a bouncer who displayed the body language of being in a defensive modality. I didn’t catch their entire conversation, but it ended with the bouncer saying to him, “You better watch yourself,” before walking away hastily. I didn’t know what it was about exactly, but I backed up J. by following the bouncer with my eyes as he stormed off like, “YOU better watch YOURself.” J. explained to me that the bouncer was hassling him for not having the unexpected cover charge readily available, to which I sponsored him for. Some of those bouncers seemed to be very unreasonable and quick to find an excuse to beat up on someone they perceived to be weaker than they were in true predatory fashion. One night, back when people still did such things, I picked up a hitchhiker close to midnight who was almost in tears about how Club Majestic’s bouncers treated him. He told me they knocked him to the ground and kept tripping him over and over to prevent him from getting up over a misunderstanding over a girl that he had with them. He vowed that he wasn’t going to cry about it, and being a driver at night, I didn’t have the visibility or opportunity to see if he maintained his vow, but he was quite emotionally distressed over the event, so I know it would’ve been a great challenge for him. After a situation like that, I didn’t have much sympathy for the bouncers and it wasn’t hard for me to take up odds against them when I saw a friend in trouble.

It wasn’t only authority he had problems with, but just about anyone who he felt disrespected by, I found out. Another time, J., another Pasqual’s kitchen worker named Ben (not the owner), and I were at the Mercury Cafe downtown. Downtown seemed to be J.’s favorite area in Madison because not only were we going to bars and clubs all throughout that area at night, but we were also going to coffee shops during the day like Michelangelo’s on State Street to play chess and drink coffee and tea. On this particular evening, there was a small concert at the Mercury Cafe. Ben was talking to J., which was not easy because of the loud music and the loud guests all around us. J. was giving him his ear and scanning the room briefly while listening. A girl sitting at another table nearby took offense to J.’s wandering eyes, though he didn’t remain fixated on her for more than a couple of seconds.

“What are you looking at?” she asked with a strong sense of revulsion.

“J. became intensely offended and insulted by her choice of words, looked her up and down, and shouted, “*** YOU!” like he couldn’t believe what she did.

1. wasn’t a policeman, but the girl had the right to remain silent, which she did. At first I thought he was talking to me, but then he explained the whole story later. It didn’t seem to matter who he was dealing with. His words were going to exit his mouth the same for anybody when he felt that someone had insulted his pride.

Another thing I noticed was that J. seemed to be some kind of a player. Not that such things didn’t occur at bars regularly, but one of his highest priorities, once we were there, was chatting up the ladies. He even admitted to using entrance lines like, “Oh, I like your rings,” as a segway to getting a more intimate conversation going. Literally no one was off limits for him. In fact, one time I invited him to my grandmother’s when we were having a small gathering, and he started talking dirty to one of my female cousins right in front of everyone, to which I was extremely embarrassed about. Fortunately, my father intervened so I didn’t have to. It’s probably not necessary to mention that it was the last time I ever invited him to a family event, but I did just in case.

Sometimes I ignored the red flags in other people because I had areas where I was too optimistic and saw people for what I wanted to see them as rather than what they really were. Ben at work said that J. had the Devil in him. I made an excuse for him by saying that we all have evil in us. Ben doubled down by saying that J. shook hands with the Devil. I didn’t want to see him that way because of the way he treated me most of the time, though he could get careless with his words to me occasionally.

My assessment of his relationship with women appeared to be correct, because after only a few months of working at Pasqual’s, he was fired in one of the worst ways. From what I was told, he got fired for trying to pick up the second owner, Paul’s wife, without knowing she was his wife. She must have gone to Paul immediately about it because it was an instant firing. I laughed and thought it was a pretty silly thing to do, but I still hadn’t considered what kind of character a person needs to possess to do such a thing, even if it weren’t the owner’s wife. He still had a duty to respect a customer’s space, and trying to get more than her order is a violation of his job duty.

1. didn’t seem to have much trouble finding another job, which was at State Street Brats. He called me up on the Pasqual’s landline and invited me over there after I finished my shift on this Saturday night. I agreed to it and met J. at State Street Brats at about 10:30 pm. While I was there, I saw a few old schoolmates from West High School. One was named Beth, who I had an innocent crush on after she sat behind me in my Spanish class sophomore year. She was beautiful, had intense but friendly eyes, and was somewhat popular in school. Based on how I’ve been treated by many such people in the past, I didn’t know why she was so friendly to me. The day before her birthday that year, she made an announcement to everyone about it that was within audible range without yelling. Since I did have a small crush on her, I decided I was going to do something about it.

For some reason, I’ve always been a good instinctive shopper. I decided to get her some chewing gum and a small Coca-Cola Bear stuffed animal. After class on her birthday, I caught her in the hall as she was walking with one of her friends. I presented her with the gift and she said she loved it. She gave me a big hug, not the quick kind, but the kind that lasted longer than expected, and her friend watched us with a little smile on her face.

“I love the Coca-Cola Bear! I have a giant one at home!” she exclaimed after she pulled away.

It had been at least seven years since I last saw her, but it was like nothing changed between us. J. jumped in and started talking to her while repeatedly touching her arm, which means one of two things, and in his case, I knew exactly what it meant, so I watched him carefully so that he did not try to go too far with my friend.

Ironically, there was a second girl I had a crush on back from middle school days who was also present. Her name was Jessica, and she was one grade ahead of mine. She and I rode the infamous M-N bus which was known to pull over almost every single day and the bus driver would call the cops on its way to the south side. I guess we had a reputation to uphold. If people in other parts of the city heard that the M-N bus made it back to the bus station without incident, they might think we had gone soft and try to invade our space.

In middle school, each year they would give us a student directory. I have no idea why. I don’t have any memory of them asking for consent. Besides wasting our time prank calling people and pretending to be someone else to get that other person in trouble, the student directory was a great means for giving us a channel to communicate with our crushes. I called Jessica and told her that I liked her without disclosing exactly who I was. She was not impressed. Before I was able to reveal who I was, she hung up the phone in my face, leaving me quite stunned and embarrassed. I probably wasn’t much of a smooth-talker in seventh grade.

I thought I had blown my chance completely, when all of a sudden, almost as though she figured out who called her, she and a friend of hers sat behind me on the bus one day and both started tapping me on the shoulder playfully to get me to look behind at them while pretending it wasn’t either of them. I played along with it and couldn’t believe that someone I was crushing on was flirting with me like this. Just before she got off the bus, I tapped her shoulder and looked out the window, causing her to think it was her friend who did it.

“Smooth move,” her friend said.

I was ecstatic that my wish had come true, even for a day.

Fast-forward to high school three years later. I was walking down the hallway surrounded by an assortment of other students. I felt someone tap my shoulder, so I turned around, but no one claimed responsibility for it. It wasn’t until later that I recalled Jessica in that group walking past me as I turned around. It made me wonder if she got revenge on me for what I did to her on the bus years ago.

For a while I contemplated confronting Jessica and telling her that I used to have a crush on her, but in the end, I decided to let it remain one of life’s mysteries. No telling how she would react.

There was a third classmate who I used to clash with in gym class. He recognized me and apologized for his behavior back then, but I told him there was nothing to be sorry about. Most of the people who were humble enough to ask for forgiveness never did anything that was unforgivable to me.

While at State Street Brats, J. had finished a couple of glasses of Jameson whiskey and had untold amounts before I even arrived, so I wasn’t completely sure what condition he was in. I was sure that I wasn’t going to catch up to him anytime soon, though. After about an hour he decided that we should go to Bull Feathers and see what was going on there.

As we were walking down State Street, J. was limping, partly because of his Polio condition, and partly because of his Jameson condition, and we passed a group of about a half-dozen guys who appeared to be college students on the rougher end of the spectrum.

“You’re f***** up!” one of them turned around to J. and said after we passed him.

“J. did some rambling and ended by saying, “...mother******.”

The guy turned around and questioned J. about what he said to him. I explained to him that he talked that way to everyone, including me. Another of them, a larger and more intimidating one approached me and questioned me about J. talking to me like that.

“Well he should be talking to your little b**** a** like that,” he said, to which I had a retort to.

He was totally drunk off his own ego, and whatever else he managed to slurp down.

“We’re on a boat right now. You gonna knock me off the boat?” he asked.

“You already fell off the boat. You tried to swim but drowned,” I said.

“He thinks he’s gonna knock me off the boat!” he said while turning around to laugh with his friends, probably because of the size difference between us.

Just then, J. grabbed onto me, using all his strength to pull me away. I faced him back and held my place. I didn’t know if he went crazy or what. Even the guy who first made a comment about his appearance said he shouldn’t treat me like that.

The guy who was trying to start trouble with me came back and tried to push me a few times, getting more frustrated each time I pushed his hand away. Finally, he grabbed onto me, which I also did as we looked each other intently in the eyes and I waited for any movement from him. Suddenly, I heard a bunch of chanting.

“Chi Town!” “South side!”

At least ten other guys, apparently from Chicago, formed a circle around us. There were now around 20 people involved. Just then, I knew this situation wasn’t going to end peacefully.