Sharing Cars with Strangers
Part one
I seize up at my desk because it’s five days into March and I haven’t accomplished anything real in recent memory and I should probably move far away from here. I’m thinking about where as I get into a car that will take me home from the office through downtown traffic.
The driver apologizes for the CD, which he’s playing at barely more than a murmur. A study guide for his citizenship test, he says. He got it yesterday after the fingerprint check. It’s still murmuring.
Have you ever had to apply for citizenship? he asks.
I grew up in Hawaii, I explain, as if that answers the question. I try to remember when it became a state — 1954?
It must be beautiful.
Yes, it’s beautiful. I don’t miss it as much as I should.
•
He explains that the Sri Lankan army killed his father, so he went to the government to complain — that’s the word he used, complain — but they kidnapped him. He escaped to Thailand and found a way, through a friend, to come here as a refugee. I can hear in his voice that he’s smiling as he says the words “San Francisco.”
It’s strange to listen without seeing his face, focusing on each word as I face forward, looking straight through the windshield. Maybe it’s easier to tell stories like this, when you’re both driving the same way.
What do you do for work? he asks.
I do a lot of writing for technology companies, startups mostly. My words drift off and I bring them back. Yes, I like it. I just fell into it. I find myself saying these words often. As if jobs are things you fall into, like love or a black hole.
•
He lives in the East Bay, actually, and is taking classes to become a physician’s assistant. He only drives at night and sometimes on the weekend. School here is easy, he tells me, but the writing can be difficult. He takes classes about things he’s already mastered — in Sri Lanka he performed bypass surgeries and removed shrapnel from flesh without anesthesia. Sometimes he’d get supplies, but the government confiscated most medication.
He wishes he could visit his mother in Sri Lanka. Maybe someday she’ll make it out here. At least his brother is nearby, in Oakland, finishing up medical school and about to enter a residency program. His brother was a doctor back home. Now he’s studying all over again.
Have you had a long day? he asks.
I want to know more about the Sri Lankan army and how it feels to perform heart surgery as a 17-year-old. But the ride is over and all I can do is give him five stars.
