Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
I know it just means how much you have to pay for necessities like food and rent. But in my head, I relate it back to the stories that Cintia used to tell us kids in camp. She, and Ling, and Sissy raised us. Maart was in charge of training, Cort was in charge of money, Rainer was in charge of making sure we didn’t snap, and the older women in the camp were in charge of the little bit of school we did.
Cintia was my favorite because she didn’t want us to write, or spell, or math. She wanted to tell us stories about gods and goddesses who lived long, long ago. I liked all of them, but the story I was really intrigued with was the one about crossing the River Styx. And it wasn’t the river that intrigued me, but Charon, the ferryman. He is the one in charge of your journey and you have to pay him in silver to take you across the river when you die.
That was the image in my mind when I heard the phrase ‘cost of living.’
It’s not about bills. It’s a trade. If you want the condo, and the waitressing job, and the BFF, and the beach to walk on just a few blocks over, then you gotta pay the fuckin’ ferryman.
But there’s always someone who can’t pay, right? I mean, sometimes people just can’t pull it together. They cannot fit in to society. They don’t just disappear. They’re still here. They’re just on the edge, doing something else.
I know this better than anyone. No one in the Ring of Fire camps is spending one moment of time thinking about their damn credit cards. They don’t even think about food. It appears twice a day and they eat it. They don’t think, Hmmm, not really in the mood for chicken and rice today. They just shovel it into their mouth.
They have a cost of living, but it’s different.
The cost of living to people like me is a fight. That’s our cost of living.
And it pisses me off because I never asked to be here in the first place.
Maybe there is some magical world underneath this one where I agreed to this shit, but if that’s true, then whoever sold me on the idea of being born was a fuckin’ liar.
There’s no way I would agree to this cost of living.
And, well, yeah. That’s the truth of it.
So now, what do I do about it? That’s the question.
When I first got here, I just wanted to be American. I wanted the dream. And I think I got it. I do. It’s just not all that satisfying.
I like having my own space, but only so I have a haven to retreat to. A place where I can stop being American and just be Irina.
I am unfulfilled because I have achieved my goal and I don’t have a new one.
Whenever I came back to camp after a fight—whenever anyone came back to camp after a fight—we had a little party. Ling would cook up something good, beef and noodles or something similar, and we would celebrate. We would get one day to feel safe and cared for.
But the next morning we all had to meet with Cort and Maart. Cort didn’t talk, of course. Maart did. But it was very clear that Maart was talking for Cort. And they told us that we were not safe. We were never safe. And we should forget about that last fight because it no longer mattered. It was no longer able to save our lives.
In other words, they gave us a new goal. Win the next fight too.
And there’s where I went wrong. I was so busy paying the American ferryman, and then so busy getting lost in the dream, I forgot to give myself a new goal.
But when those words came out of my mouth this morning, it all became clear.
I need a new enemy.
And now that I know the old one still exists, it’ll do.
After work is over, I go home. It’s nearly ten o’clock. I take a shower so I can stop smelling like a Cuban restaurant and then I pull on some shorts and a tank top and leave.
I don’t go find Eason. I don’t go back to either of the gyms.
I go to the beach. I walk all the way down to South Pointe Pier to warm up my muscles, and then I turn around, facing north, and I run.
It’s ten miles from South Pointe to Bal Harbor Pier. I run the whole way.
Then I turn around and I run back.
When I get back to my condo, I’m dead tired, my legs ache, and I haven’t felt this good in seven fucking years. I turn my phone off, lie on my rice mat, and for the first time since I got to America, I let go and really sleep.