Offtrack: A story of Poverty and Hope

I will now have a column called OFFTRACK, which I will post often.  These stories will be stories outside of baseball.  It will be stories in other sports or just about events in our everyday lives.  Todays is a story in which something happened to me I would like to share with others.  It is called: A story of Poverty and Hope.  Enjoy

 A STORY OF POVERTY AND HOPE

           As I stand in front of this man, I search for any means of money in my pocket.  I pull what seemed to be a thousand dollars in change from my pocket.  I look up to the register and it reads, “$2.69.”  I look back down towards my worthless treasure in my hand and I begin to add the coins up to $2.69.  While counting, I think to myself, what a dumb price.  Why wouldn’t they round it to $2.70, or for the consumers benefit, round down to $2.00 so it wouldn’t take me forever to get the exact amount, all in coins?  As time stood still for the man behind the register while I added up all the coins, I kept on losing track on what dollar I was on and how much I already added.  As I recounted for my sixth and hopefully my final time, I peered away from my hand and slowly looked up towards this man probably thinking to himself, “This kid is a real jerk for using coins.”  I could see where he was coming up with that thought because for how long it takes me to add up all these coins will probably take him twice as long.  I stare at him and I see a wounded soul.  Or he might just be tired because it’s open twenty-four hours a day and he has been pulling a triple shift.  I see a cold and placid look on his face.  His eyes do not give any signs of emotion except for maybe, “Why the hell am I working here?” 

           I ask him, “How are you doing this fine evening?”  He replied, “$2.69.  No more.  Thank you, come again.”  A puzzled look comes across my face on why that would be his answer.  Maybe it is because everyone who comes here doesn’t care about this man and how his day was going.  Or maybe it was because I didn’t pay yet.  I inquire one more time, “How are you doing today?”  A new reaction is created by this man.  Every muscle in his face responds. His mouth starts to quiver and his cheeks begin to shake.  His eyes start to water.  I was thinking maybe I upset this man.  Maybe I called him a swear word in his national tongue.  I hope not.  His mouth begins to move as the words begin to float out, “Good,” he pauses and then asks, “You?”  I respond by saying, “Good.”  After I speak, there is awkward silence in the air.  You know the feeling you get when you are in an elevator with a complete stranger.  I quickly asked him what his name was.  He tapped on his name tag and said, “Shezar Bhurgi.” Here I am, talking to Shezar Bhurgi from the local Seven Eleven.  He works endless shifts and lives to get by on $7.75.  I tell him my name is Ryan Neiman.  He stares back at me and nods his head in acceptance. 

The silence lingers again until I point at the shelf in front of me and proclaim, “Wow, you got a lot of magazines there.”  I was about to speak again to get rid of the silence until he interrupted me.  “Yeah, it took me a long time to fix that in put it in order.  I hate it when people read the magazines and place it in the wrong spot when they are done,” he explains.  I smile and look away hoping he wouldn’t recognize my face.  “Aren’t you that kid who knocked down that whole shelf of magazines last time?  You know that took me three hours to fix.”  I quickly change the subject and ask him where he is from.  He tells me he was born and raised in Pakistan.  He moved away because of all the strife over there and there was a need for better opportunities.  He stops in mid-sentence and asks me what’s with all the questions.  I do not know why I was asking him.  The only response that came to my mind was “just passing time.”  He came around from where I was standing and I asked me if I wanted a tour of the Seven Eleven.  Even though I pretty sure know my way around, I said it would be the best tour in the whole wide world.  As we made our way down the aisle of cleaning supplies and toilet paper, he spoke to me briefly about his life.  He told me how beautiful Pakistan was and how he would have to go to Church to worship basically everyday. 

He told me that most of his family is back in Pakistan while he is trying to raise money for his family.  He is trying to raise money for his two sons and daughter to go to school in America.  His sons are ten and his daughter is eight.

 He told me every time he goes down the cheese aisle, he thinks of his wife whom he has not seen in five years because how expensive it is to fly back and forth.  Cheese was her favorite food.  He told me his favorite dish in Pakistan was Idali which was rice with some other stuff.  He explained to me how he hates it when teenagers call him Apu from The Simpons show all because he looks exactly like him.

  He even hated The Simpsons even more when they decorated his Seven Eleven to look like the Quik E Mart for promotional purposes for the movie and wore a name tag that had the name Apu on it.  He told me favorite his TV channel is MTV because it shows a radical lifestyle and viewpoints that are not rarely seen in Pakistan.  He asks me who won in the MTV show A shot at love with Tila Tequila.  I told him and a disappointed look came upon his face.  As we made our way down the candy aisle, he told me what his favorite candy was: Baby Ruth.  He says how he dislikes kids coming in and making messes of the slushy machines.  He told me he had been at gun point five times and so far nothing has happened.  He told me he will have a world outside of this place, but not yet.  As he is about to finish this fascinating three minute tour I compressed all the information about this man and compressed it into a single thought.

This is man named Shezar Bhurgi, age 36, moved to America for the hope of a better tomorrow.  He is searching for that light at the end of the tunnel and it will get brighter and brighter for him.  For he is a determined man who stays up all night like an owl trying to make money to help raise money for his families well being.  This is a man who will not stop at anything to help his family, even if it is someone dropping slushy’s on the floor.  Not everything around us is what it seems.  Cheese reminds him of his wife.

He gets back behind the counter and stares back at me before I make my steps towards the outside world.  Before I go, I tell him I was glad to have spoken to him.  I was glad to hear about his life and I hope everything will go as planned for you.  Then something out of the ordinary happens: a smile forms on his face.  I wave goodbye and tell him have a good night as I make my way towards the door slurping my drink.  Before, I open the door, he speaks to me and says, “Ryan,” and I answer, “Yes?”  He looks down to the ground and back at me and speaks once more, “That will be $2.69.”  I pull out all my change again and I start to recount until I ask him, “Do you take debit?”  With a large smile and a laugh, he replies. “Thank God we do.”