Rodney, 40
America is great and everything, but people are evil.” I met Rodney while walking through a park in the Bronx. He takes great pride in mowing its every corner.
When Rodney was little, his family moved to Texas from Trinidad and Tobago. A childhood in the Caribbean made him appreciate the natural side of the world and the value of peaceful living. This philosophy helps him get by with a smile, amidst the bustle of the city. Sometimes he misses the sea, he told me with melancholy eyes, and looked out across and through the buildings towards his faraway home.
Rodney suddenly introduced the topic of different dimensions. He told me how reality in the Bronx is just one dimension of the many others that exist in the world. I nodded. The military, he explained, is a completely alternate dimension. When you put on a uniform you are instantly transported to a place of respect. But when you are a homeless veteran lying on the street, people are coldhearted. Rodney served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a medic, and was stationed in Texas for a long time. He remembers his time fondly for the friendships that he made. When I told him about Mexico his face lit up and he recalled crazy, drunken nights in Ciudad Juárez. We were young, and all we wanted to do was drink and run around in tanks. So we would go to Juárez dressed up in army clothes and find parties.
Rodney went on talking about crazy stories in the army. One was very sadistic, where a man he thought was dead suddenly grabbed his foot, and later fell off the helicopter while they were flying him to the hospital. The other was imperialist and sad, and took place in Baghdad. Rodney was driving in a tank when a group of people started shooting at them with AK-47s. He grinned when he said that, and explained to me how tanks resist most bullets. In true American fashion, the tank turned around and bombed the entire street, without any regard for the families living there. “There was nothing left but rubble. It was awesome, though. It was also sad.
He then stopped these stories short, and that melancholy look covered his face once more. He misses Trinidad. Rodney told me about how growing weed is legal back home, while “all the evil drugs people shoot up in the Bronx” are looked down upon. His dream is to save some money, go back to the Caribbean and build a home from where he can look out to the sea. I will just step out and walk to the beach and my life will be complete. His eyes lit up again.
Story by Ernesto
