Samuel said, “America has no birthright.”
In Moscow, from the balcony on the tenth floor of number 7 Bolshoi Kharitonevskii Street, Samuel watched the rain fall in neon patches onto the Bulvarnoe Ring Road. The pond in the park that ran the center length of Chisti Prudnii Boulevard caught not only the yellow and red lights from cars, but numerous other electric hues from buildings, from windows pouring out softer glows and from millions of blinking invitations in the form of signs or billboards. Somehow transcending this manmade illumination, the wet and busy scene was everywhere touched by the chemical and dust tinted sunset, the fiery edges of which were passing below the line of concrete and glass structures, punctured by cranes and smoke columns, that hurried up the Moscow fall sky. Oddly un-dwarfed by the Soviet neo-Gothic towers or the blue frames of Moskva-City, the trees—some still green—most various shades of orange, red or the gold of Russian birch, dominated Samuel’s gaze this wet October evening.
“October the fourth two thousand and eight…” Jefferson breathed the long drawn out formal version of the date from his place on the open pullout sofa. He lay there, shirtless, and his half unzipped gray dress slacks, which had been crisply pressed several hours ago, were now creased and mashed between his muscled legs and the thin mattress.
Samuel looked over his shoulder at Jefferson, who now was sitting up—his back to Samuel—stretching one defined arm upward and unsuccessfully attempting to button his slacks with the other.
Jefferson stood and his slacks fell to below his cotton-covered buttocks—he turned to Samuel and raised his hands and shoulders. “ I thought you might catch me.”
“Catch you how? With your pants down?”
“ Yes.”
“I did.”
They both laughed.
“A month,” Jefferson continued. “One month more.”
Samuel wondered if Jefferson’s inversion of the more casual word order—one more month—was a reference to the “One Day More” from Les Miserables. He quite clearly saw the two of them—nearly thirteen years earlier in this same city—as young Mormon missionaries. Both just 20 years old—walking a relatively empty summer street somewhere near Metro Timiryazevskaya—dressed in white shirts and ties—black nametags on the their breast-pockets—half laughing, half singing, the bald but still rousing act one finale from the popular musical adaptation of Hugo’s novel—which neither of them had ever really read.
An observer of the scene—one who would have understood, first the language in which they sang, secondly from whence the song came—a Broadway musical—and thirdly, and most importantly perhaps, the observer would have to be perceptive enough to surmise that Jefferson was not necessarily the kind of twenty year old boy who often sang songs from Broadway musicals—at all—let alone in public. If the observer of this scene was astute enough in his knowledge of both American musical theatre and American perceptions of masculinity, he might have thought that Jefferson was only humoring Samuel. Samuel himself often thought so. Samuel knew though, somehow, that there was between them a recognition of the absurd overthrow of social norms that often characterized their interaction, and that both of them took great pleasure in the humor such overthrow provided.
Samuel decided not to ask Jefferson if his allusion was intentional.
Instead he continued his own thought.
“I don’t think there is much question at this point. Another month or tomorrow. We know who will win. Right? But it will be a big deal.”
“We’ll see, ” Jefferson cautioned.
“We will,” Samuel conceded—somewhat.
“ But it will—would be a big deal,” Jefferson agreed.
“That’s why I say its not,” Samuel continued, “—as some have tried to observe—it won’t be a fulfillment of America’s birthright. America has no birthright.”
Jefferson pulled up his pants—didn’t bother to button them—and shuffled toward the bathroom. “What does that mean?”
“Birthright is so…so… Old World—“
“European.” Jefferson called as he closed the bathroom door slightly.
Samuel heard the sound of the plastic seat hitting the porcelain rim. “Old Testament even. It’s the stuff of patriarchs and bloodlines and inheritance. Its everything—are you going to shit?”
Jefferson did not answer.
“Anyway—it’s everything, ostensibly—that they were trying to get away from, right?”
“ They who? Our founding fathers?” From in the bathroom, Jefferson’s voice tugged at the phrase with obvious cynicism.
“Something like that. Shut the door!”
“Good lord,” Jefferson mumbled, shut the door and shouted, “But even that phrase founding fathers sounds Old Testament.”
“Yeah. Totally.”
“ Did you say totally?”
“Shut up. Focus on shitting, please.”
Jefferson ignored him, “ People wanna think of them as fathers—as our theoretical patriarchs—Jefferson, Adams and Franklin may as well be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
Samuel nodded as he looked about the small apartment. It was Jefferson’s apartment, but furnished in the practical and warm aesthetic of the Utah born and raised mother of two—confined to life in a foreign capital—who had inhabited it with Jefferson for over a year. Her picture—next to another of her with Jefferson and the two children still rested on a shelf. Samuel picked it up. The boy looked like her. The girl—like Jefferson. Her little face was defined by his impossibly squared jaw against his nearly delicate nose and clear eyes. Golden eyes. The little girl had golden eyes—did Jefferson have golden eyes?
Samuel put the photograph back on the shelf and returned to the conversation, “You just like saying the name Jefferson.”
Jefferson came out of the bathroom—his pants still unbuttoned. “I like to hear you say it.”
Samuel smiled involuntarily and then recovered. “Except that none of them were each other’s father. Fathers.”
“Who? Jefferson, Adams and Franklin?”
“ Yes. Jefferson, Jefferson and Jefferson.”
“Thank you Samuel. Samuel. Samuel.”
Samuel smiled again, still without entirely wanting to.
Jefferson noticed and smiled back allowing the moment to grow somehow—following Samuel’s eyes as they shot from his uncovered torso back to meet his own. He stepped closer to Samuel.
Samuel asked, “You have golden eyes, don’t you?”
Jefferson wrinkled his nose and closed one eye—spinning the other about its socket, “ Brown-ish.”
“Gold-brown.”
“Maybe.” Jefferson was very close to Samuel now.
“You should get dressed—you’ll get cold,” Samuel said, leaning down to take Jefferson’s long sleeved blue button-up shirt from the back of a chair.
Jefferson laughed out loud and, after a second, Samuel joined him.
They knew a moment had passed and that one of them had won the moment.
“But most Americans see them as the fathers of American political thought, “ Jefferson said, taking the shirt from Samuel and turning to put it on asked, “You know what I mean?”
Samuel watched Jefferson’s back extend and tighten as he pulled his body into the shirt. Samuel raised his hand to his face and the scent there of Jefferson’s body from the shirt shocked him—as it had three hours earlier when they had met, entirely by chance, on the Metro platform at Plozhad Revolutsii.
They had embraced, awkwardly at first, and as Samuel inhaled he had been stung by memories of Jefferson and their time working together as missionaries.
Far more than the unexpected sight of his face, the smell of Jefferson had triggered an electric acuity in Samuel. A buzzing awareness switched on in his body—rushing him with memories over a decade old. From within his brain, a neon web of long forgotten scents, sounds, colors, and emotions pulsed through Samuel and in the seconds within which their embrace was held, both men knew that the other was passing through the same emotional and neurological experience.
The Metro train had screamed out of the station—lights shooting into the tunnel—its racing steel form trailing a wake of gale-like currents that sent newspapers and dust across the marble floors and then circled the two embracing men—now lost somewhere between that moment and a July day in their early twenties.
When the embraced—its seconds or minutes—had ended, Samuel said, “I had no idea you were here.”
“I knew you were here. I’ve been looking for you.” Jefferson winked, nodded and softly punched Samuel’s shoulder.
Samuel had remembered the wink-nod-punch combination from their two months together in Timiryazevskii and he felt almost light-headed.
“You—what?”
Jefferson laughed. “Not really. Well, sorta. I heard you had moved here for a while. I was wondering when I’d see you.”
“I had no idea you were here. You live here?” Samuel’s voice had risen sharply. He thought to himself that he needed to calm down. He should try to be cool.
Jefferson nodded, “I have been. Yes. For over a year and a half now.”
“Doing what?”
“Consulting. Financial.”
“Is that what you do? I hadn’t heard. I mean I heard somewhere that you were getting an MBA—but that was—“
“Five years ago. And you—I heard you were in…”
“New York.”
“Right.” Jefferson had paused and looked at Samuel, thoughtfully, “Do you wanna go for a walk?”
“It’s raining.”
“It’s stopped.” Jefferson smiled.
“Okay. Sure. Let’s go for a walk.”
They had turned around and left the platform in silence. In the middle of the Metro hall—lined with bronze statues of crouching revolutionaries and brave young women—they paused to decide which exit to take and having chosen to walk towards Jefferson’s apartment on Bolshoi Kharitonevskii Street near Metro Chistii Prudi they rode the long steep escalator up to Teatralnaya Street. Samuel had asked Jefferson if he remembered how unbelievably long and deep the escalator at Timiryazevskaya had been and Jefferson responded that, of course, he remembered—adding that he also recalled how at night—coming home from the long days of work—they had often attempted to race up the moving stairs. Samuel laughed and said, “We were younger,” and then added, “ but I still run up the Metro escalators a lot.”
“Me too,” Jefferson said.
When they reached the street it had, in fact, stopped raining but the air was still misty. It was mid-afternoon and the sidewalks of the center of Moscow were typically crowded with Armani clad businessmen carrying glossy thin leather briefcases and iphones, beside them swaggered arrogant young men in black crinkled nylon stiff-collared coats with hard fixed faces, between these stumbled round wrinkle-faced babushkas with outstretched palms muttering to themselves, while middle-aged red-faced men in tweed suits passed by them, and—somehow floating above them all—were the high-fashion, sleek-haired, empty-faced, red-lipped young women who swayed swiftly across intersections in pencil gray business skirts and sleek high heeled black boots on their way to their banking and retail jobs.
“Can you believe how much it’s changed?” Samuel had asked.
“I can’t get over it.”
At some point, as they wandered up Myasnitskaya Street to where it met the park and Sryetenskii Boulevard became Chistoprudnii Boulevard, Samuel had asked Jefferson about his wife. “Sarah took the kids and went back to Utah about 4 months ago,” Jefferson had responded flatly.
Samuel had felt quite certain that Jefferson was not interested in explaining further so he awkwardly changed the conversation by mentioning something about the number of American cars in Moscow—“ There are more Fords and Chevrolets here than you’d ever see in New York, don’t you think?”
Jefferson hadn’t responded for a moment—and when he spoke it was not to agree or disagree with Samuel’s observation about the number of American cars in Moscow—he simply said, “ I think that’s what is meant by a separation.”
Not long after that, it had started to rain again in earnest and they had to run across both the Boulevard and the park to reach Bolshoi Kharitonevskii Street and Jefferson’s apartment on the tenth floor of number 7. They rode the elevator up, both of their heads heavy with wet hair. Once inside Jefferson had bent forward and fiercely shook his head sending bullets of fall rain against the walls, wood floors, and against Samuel, who only laughed as he was already wet. Jefferson, having removed his jacket, had then loosened his shirttails, unbuttoned his collar, pulled off the damp shirt and placed it over the chair where Samuel would, in a few hours, picked it up and hand it back to him.
Jefferson had made tea and they drank it in relative silence, sitting in two hard- backed wood chairs, watching the rain and the afternoon pass over the city. At some point, Jefferson had gotten out of his chair, spread himself out on the already opened sofa-bed and after a few moments he reach out his hand to Samuel.
“What’s this?” Samuel had asked placing the tips of his fingers in Jefferson’s open palm.
“My hand,” he answered closing his fingers around Samuels.
They sat like that for an immeasurable amount of time—not immeasurable in its length or weight but in its lightness and possibility—in the luminosity of its capacity to contain both the moment at hand and all the years behind them and the unseen moments ahead.
“I’m tired, “ Jefferson yawned and pulling Samuel onto the sofa bed he said, “Let’s take a nap.”
And they had slept—rather peacefully. The rain falling on the constant murmur of late afternoon city movement—voices, traffic, construction, horns, music, bumps and knocks from the apartment above—all had a lulling effect on the two men so that when Samuel woke three hours later, his cheek resting on the warm flesh of Jefferson bicep, he felt disoriented. He inhaled and the smell of Jefferson’s body sent a charge of memory into him and he sat up quickly, looked around the room and then down at the still sleeping Jefferson. His confusion at the sight of the shirtless object of so much unrequited yearning lying next to him did not quickly subside, so, in an effort to move the situation forward into some state of clarity, he rose and stepped to the window, opened it slightly and waited for Jefferson to awake.
Now with Jefferson awake and dressing in front of him, Samuel was attempting to make a believable and sensible account of the afternoon’s events for himself. They had slept together—quiet literally slept together. There was nothing figurative about the sentence. They had slept in the same bed—taken a nap together.
Now they were talking about the upcoming presidential election, the founding fathers—whom Jefferson had likened to the Old Testament patriarchs—and Jefferson was pulling on his shirt and Samuel was watching Jefferson’s naked back.
“You’re giving most Americans too much credit.” Samuel spoke confidently, but he could not get over the youthful way he responded to the sight of Jefferson’s back—its full blooded smoothness running down his spine in parallel ridges that disappeared into the tight triangle just above his sagging slacks.
Samuel looked down, closed his eyes and shook his head, “ Most Americans just use the phrase founding fathers because some neo-con columnist they read used it or they heard their minister throwing it around his sermons about the horror of American depravity—abortions and gay people—”
“Gay people are depraved,” Jefferson interrupted him.
Samuel got the joke, “I know. Sick faggots.”
“ Hell bound all of ‘em.”
Samuel continued as Jefferson sat down on the windowsill, “They don’t really think about what it means—but you’re right—if they did they would like it. They want an Old Testament world. It’s their way of re-appropriating the framers of the constitution—
Jefferson pointed to Samuel and nodded his head approvingly, “Framers—good. Much better.”
“—for their own Christian Conservative Neo-Fascist Ideology.”
“Are you, by any chance, angry?” Jefferson gently prodded him.
“Not at all, why?” Samuel played along.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” Samuel responded quickly. “ But you see how that feeds right into that? They want America to have a birthright because a birthright is passed to a rightful heir, right?”
“Right,” Jefferson smirked.
“And their whole paradigm depends on the idea of rightful-ness.”
“Right-fullness,” Jefferson shook his head up and down, “Right.”
“They wanna own right,” Samuel gestured, rigidly slicing the air with his open left hand.
“Ok.” Jefferson narrowed his eyes, raised his own left hand and repeated the gesture, “ What was that? Were you slashing the right or just cutting off the article?”
“Knock it off.” Samuel threw up his hands, “ The right then. Are you making fun of me?”
Jefferson leaped forward from the window and grabbed both of Samuel’s raised hands, “ No, no, no. Just…you know, trying to keep up.”
Samuel looked at their hands for a moment, then stepped back and started again. “The right, then. If they can create an America where only those ideas and those people—”
Jefferson let go of Samuel’s hands and shoved his own into his pockets, listening.
“An America where only those leaders—those people—immigrants, politicians, teachers—”
“Cub Scout masters.”
“Right—an America where only those people whom they deem as in the right have access to power, to rights—yeah? —If they can create that America than they’ve won—its so bizarre how these same people go on and on about the evils and defunctness of the European Welfare State—you know, those Liberal Socialist blah blah and they don’t even realize that their own world view is exactly the world view that has led modern Europe to embrace the ideals it now embraces. Pre-Enlightenment Europe and even so much of it right up to the Second World War—I mean come on, where the hell do they think Hitler’s ideology came from?—so much of European thought was about the idea of what rightfully defines an English-person or a Frenchmen or a German or—whatever—I mean—nationalism! My god. And these people are creating—at least doing their damndest to create it right here…” Samuel finished his thought with a measured amount of finality and looking around the room, again noticed the photos of Jefferson’s family. He saw Jefferson follow his eyes. “Do you have a clock?” Samuel quickly asked.
Jefferson laughed, “ Not one that works—actually —well somewhere but—here, let me get my cell phone. If I can find it…”
Samuel shook his head, “No, no, no. That’s all right. Mine’s right here—in my backpack.”
Samuel crossed to the hallway where he had left his backpack as Jefferson said, “Right here?”
Samuel was confused and looked back at Jefferson, “Huh?”
“Nationalism. You mean in Russia.” Jefferson more stated than asked.
Samuel picked up his black and red backpack and brought it into the room, “No. No. In America. You know what I mean.”
“I do—but I hope the point’s not lost.”
“Huh?” Samuel unzipped various pockets crowded with small black notebooks, pens and loud numerous gatherings of silver five and ten ruble coins—
“In America and in Russia.” Jefferson folded his arms and watched Samuel’s uncoordinated search with an expectant smile.
Samuel finally pulled a black cell phone from a side pocket and several crumbled receipts floated to the ground after it. He looked at the glowing display momentarily and then at Jefferson, “In America and in Russia. Right.”
“Right. Do you have to go?”
Samuel picked up the receipts and returned both them and his phone to the backpack, “Soon. I have to teach at seven-thirty.”
“Where?”
Samuel nodded toward the window, “ Here. In the center, on Tsvetnoi Bulvar.”
“Ten minutes from here,” Jefferson smiled. “ It’s only six o’clock. You still have plenty of time.”
“Hmmm.”
“Do you wanna go?” Jefferson asked.
“No.” Samuel said it fast.
“Are you hungry?”
“Not really. Thirsty.”
Jefferson started toward the kitchen pointing, “I think I have stuff to drink—juice—milk—water—I don’t have any soda. I stopped drinking soda.”
“That’s good. I stopped drinking it years ago.”
“Good for you.”
“Yeah.”
Jefferson stopped and turned to Samuel, “So which do you want?”
“Water.”
“Water. Okay.”
Jefferson went into the kitchen and Samuel sat down on the sofa bed, tightly closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands.
After a moment he asked, “How did you get this apartment? Work?”
Jefferson called from the kitchen, “It was part of the deal when the firm transferred us here. They did everything. Nice, huh?”
“Very nice. Do they pay for it?”
“Yup.” Jefferson returned with the water. He handed Samuel a glass decorated with cartoon honeybees swimming across the clear surface. Samuel looked up at Jefferson, who was already drinking from a bright semi-transparent purple cup—the kind usually seen covered by an equally bright but differently colored lid and in a toddler’s grasp.
“Is that a Dora the Explorer cup?”
“No. It’s…” Jefferson held the cup to his eyes, “ I think its Diego.”
“They’re cousins, right?”
“They are.”
Jefferson exhaled—pushing out his bottom lip—raised his eyebrows and drank his water. Samuel looked up and caught Jefferson’s eyes over the purple rim. They knew that both Dora and Diego—and the bees—should lead to a few words concerning the children who had, until four months earlier, drank from the cups. And, thought Samuel, from the children, shouldn’t the conversation turn to a more detailed discussion of Jefferson’s absent wife?
It did not. There was a silence in which Samuel unthinkingly looked again toward the photographs on the shelf and then, realizing, he looked quickly, and perhaps too obviously, into the honeybee encircled cup. Samuel knew Jefferson was watching him and he waited for him to speak.
Eventually Jefferson asked, “ Do you think the same thing is happening here?”
“Huh?”
“Nationalism. Here.”
Samuel understood Jefferson’s tactic and felt as if he wanted to call attention to it—but suddenly, he felt hypocritical. He recognized that the empty sensation, which had begun when he looked at the picture of Jefferson’s family, was dulling the rush of memory and possibility they had both been enjoying.
A sense of guilt began to settle on the surreal electric peace of the rainy afternoon.
It was not pleasant.
Samuel tried to breathe slowly.
Then he began, “Completely. And it’s not just an issue of the uneducated and disenfranchised masses being duped or manipulated by a government that has never been accountable to its citizens—never, right? I mean, there has never been any sort of respected or trusted—an honored contract here between the people and the government. The Russian citizen has never had any real access to power. Right? I mean, that fact alone is scary when you think how galvanized this country is, and has always been, by the idea that Russian culture and language is great and rich and beautiful and should be cherished and, now, how under attack it is by the West. Russia has always been like this—a huge unrepresented population with no access to real power but a population that is hugely supportive of what it perceives as its cultural and national identity. The whole idea of pride in Russia and Russian and what a “rich language” and deep history of suffering and art the nation has is…. endemic here. The educated, thinking Russian is necessarily very concerned about the disappearance of Russian culture, the invasion of the language by foreign—English—words. There is this mad rush to preserve Russian culture—and understandably so. Right? I don’t have a problem with that, principally. But it’s the profound misunderstanding of what culture is that is so disturbing in this movement. I mean culture is change, right? I mean it really is change. Culture isn’t static. It cannot be. I mean, where did Russian culture come from? Did it just appear one thousand years ago placed on the earth by the hand of God? I mean, come on! What people try to define as Russian culture today is a result of thousands of years of countless and most likely untraceable influences from other cultures. Right? So—at some point, there were the Ancient Slavs somewhere… here. In western Russia. And then there were the Viking traders who came with Rurik through Novgorod from where—somewhere in Scandinavia and then there were Byzantine missionaries who brought Christ to Kiev and baptized Vladimir and brought a very Greek structure and sensibility to Russian grammar and writing and—I mean, think of what a huge—almost cataclysmic—shift the introduction of Christianity must have been and how much Pravoslavnaya Vera—Orthodoxy—defines Russian culture. I mean, is that when Russian culture began? And then there where the Khans—the Mongols…. I mean it goes on and on. So how do you direct that type of development? You can’t. The very idea or belief that you can do so is terrifying. It leads to…. bigotry and…. it’s dangerous. So if—I mean—speaking of Nationalism, if you don’t value or try to understand the process or acknowledge the unpredictability and undirectablity of cultural development and just charge ahead with some campaign to guard against the destruction of your beloved culture—Yes, I think that’s pretty dangerous. And the people in power here—everywhere—people in power know that people can be manipulated by appealing to his sense—to this love of culture. Which I think is a great thing to love, to love your culture and country. But you have to understand that it isn’t some definable sacred unchanging object to be preserved and worshipped. I think it’s dangerous to call that type of belief love for your birth land…for your country. To think that whatever those in power—or whatever set of values can be said to encompass the prevailing moral and cultural definition a nation—to think that this idea—this definition has to be preserved and promoted above any other—and that based on this glorious idea of what your nation’s history or heritage is—that based on this idea, that a nation is entitled to some sort of destiny. That idea—that type of thinking should be like a nuclear bomb to the American mind. People can be made to do bad bad things with that type of love. I mean that’s what I mean when I say America has no birthright. I mean, I hope to God, Americans never assume that the nation is entitled to a birthright in that sense.”
“You say I mean a lot.” Jefferson said when Samuel had finished.
“I know, but do you know what I mean?”
Jefferson smiled kindly, “ I know what you mean.”
“You’re just trying to distract me.”
“From?”
Samuel squinted and lied, “ I don’t know.”
“No. Really. I like hearing you talk. I don’t do anything but talk about liquidity and leverage and the credit default swap and the finansirovii krizis! krizis! all day,” Jefferson said “financial crisis” in Russian and threw up his hands in mock horror.
Samuel laughed, “Well, it is scary. Isn’t it?”
“You don’t have to tell me that. It’s scary all right.”
Samuel said, “Besides being terrified, I’m fascinated by it all—I knew nothing about finance or credit or liquidity—about capitalism before this. I mean I thought I did, but I was—I am—ignorant. I’m listening to NPR podcasts constantly.”
“Its hard for me to imagine you ignorant of anything.”
Samuel’s eyes widened and he insisted, “No. I was. I really misunderstood capitalism—economics, period. I guess saying I misunderstood isn’t right—I didn’t know anything. I like learning about it.”
“Trust you for that.”
“You could probably help me understand a lot, too.”
Jefferson nodded and looked into the purple Diego cup, “Maybe. Tell me more about America’s—or America’s lack of birthright.”
Samuel ran his hand over his face, “No. I should go. I need to go.”
“ What does it have to do with Obama?”
“ Well, I already told you my opinion, didn’t I?”
Jefferson shook his head ‘no’, “ I was…shitting and we started talking about the Old Testament Patriarchs.”
Samuel rolled his eyes, “Right.”
“And how the founding fathers weren’t patriarchs but that it is just dumb inbred Southern Conservatives who wanna make them into Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
“I never said anything about dumb inbred Southern conservatives.”
“No—you said Christian Conservative Neo-Fascist Ideologues.”
Samuel was surprised, “Wow. You do listen. Did I really say ideologues?”
“ I think so.”
Samuel shrugged and began to speak again, “Well if America had a birthright—”
“Which it doesn’t.”
“Right. But if it did. If America had a birthright. Obama, or what he represents, would be a partial fulfillment of it, in my opinion. In some ways, America unlike any other nation—particularly European ones—has something like an actual birth-date. Sorta…I mean, where did the ideas for the American State, those which the founding fathers implemented or tried to implement, I mean, come from?”
“You mean.”
“I mean, yes, those ideas are a result of thousands of years of almost untraceable political thought. So, it’s hard to say that July 4th is really America’s birthday. Maybe its closer to a birthday than most other nations have,” Samuel sensed his logic double over on itself and stopped—confused for a moment by his own thinking.
Jefferson noticed the face Samuel made and smiled gently, “You do that a lot.”
“What?”
“Make a very strong point and then you contradict and deconstruct your point and then you kinda synthesize the two arguments to make a new thesis…it’s like you have your own dialectic going on. You don’t need anyone else.”
Samuel saw something like admiration in Jefferson’s eyes and he remembered the first day they had met—thirteen years ago.
It had been a bright June morning on a street named Deguninskaya, found in a somewhat inaccessible section in the north of Moscow between Metros Altufevo and Rechnoi Vokzal. Both Samuel and Jefferson had been working with other missionaries in neighboring areas and had yet to meet. They had only heard of one another.
On that day, the two companionships had decided to spend the afternoon finding people together. The chosen method of finding for the day was known as “signboarding”—essentially the missionaries would stand near a large poster-board sign with the name of the Church written in Russian across its length and below the name would be spread numerous pictures of temples, Book of Mormon characters, images of families kneeling in prayer, diagrams of the Plan of Salvation, and paintings of a young Joseph Smith, on his knees in the forest, overwhelmed by that other-worldly light —all arranged in a way to intrigue and invite the curious passersby.
Samuel enjoyed this form of finding interested people most of all because, he reasoned, it tended to winnow out people who had absolutely no desire to speak with them. As a general rule, Samuel stopped people who looked and appeared engaged by the media before them.
Samuel and his companion at the time, Elder Whitney, had arrived late and the other two young men had already set up the signboard and other materials. Samuel was new to the area and Elder Whitney introduced him to the other two missionaries.
Despite the uniform of white shirts and modest ties that all missionaries wore, it was not difficult for Samuel to surmise something of a fellow missionary’s pre-mission life, his social circle and pursuits. When he shook Jefferson’s hand that June morning—and as Jefferson held Samuel’s hand firmly in his own—Samuel immediately felt the familiar mix of fear, awe and arousal he always experienced in the presence of, what he called, a jock. The palpability of athleticism and confidence that Jefferson possessed seemed typical of the boys Samuel had, since childhood, gazed at with longing and an acute realization that he was categorically different from them. At some point in his early adolescence he had bestowed on these characters a hardness and lack of sensitivity for those around them that, not only further alienated him from their ranks, but allowed Samuel to take some comfort in a sense of superiority. This had been in his early teens, and now—on that June morning—Samuel was nearly twenty-one and clearly saw how unkind and misguided his thinking about jocks had been—but still, his beliefs had not developed without some evidence and the experience of being both drawn to these young men and intimidated by them persisted.
Jefferson, standing only an inch or two shorter than Samuel, had looked directly into Samuel’s eyes and smiled. Had he noticed the golden quality of Jefferson’s eyes then, wondered Samuel? He did remember that he had guiltily admired Jefferson’s jaw—sharp and smooth—and that he had strained his eyes toward Jefferson’s full muscled back through the light white cotton of his short sleeve shirt. Samuel had abruptly turned himself away and busied his mind with thoughts about the full day of work ahead. That was the method for combating such thoughts—fill the mind with other thoughts—don’t give them any room.
As there were still very few people on the street, Samuel had decided to re-arrange some of the photographs and information on the signboard. Elder Whitney had taken Elder Schmidt, Jefferson’s companion, to a small corner grocery store to buy snacks—most likely Orange Fanta and some kind of packaged cakes. There was a light breeze that made the oval birch leaves above the street dance. Across the street was a large park—full of already green oaks and birches and a few odd evergreens. A dirt path meandered through the park and circled a large central pond, upon the banks of which sunbathers were already gathering.
Samuel finished his re-arranging and looking around noticed that Jefferson had wandered several yards down the street to a group of young boys of nine or ten—playing with a large rubber ball. Jefferson was joking with boys, who were laughing—most likely at his American accent—and after a few moments, Jefferson had begun to do soccer tricks for the boys, bouncing the oversized ball from head to ankle to knee to hip and back again. The boys shouted for Jefferson to pass the ball to them and all took turns showing off for one another.
A stout and kind-looking woman with an orange scarf wrapped about her graying hair had stopped to watch Jefferson and the boys. She set her heavy bag on the ground and shifted her gaze back and forth from Jefferson and the boys to Samuel and the signboard. Finally, she inched closer to the display and began to read—squinting—the name of the Church under her breath, “Tserkov IIsusa Khrista Svyatikh Poslednikh Dnei…shto eto takoe?”
Samuel took the opportunity to answer her question “what is that?” and eventually convinced her to take a Book of Mormon and an invitation to attend the local branch meetings. As he was finishing his conversation with the woman, Elders Whitney and Schmidt returned. Samuel watched as Elder Schmidt called Jefferson back to the signboard and gently scolded him for not joining Samuel in his contact with the woman. Jefferson had seemed to listen intently, nodded and then, turning to Samuel, had said—with a sincere smile, “Sorry I wasn’t there for you, Elder.”
Samuel had batted the apology away casually with his hand and turned to Elder Schmidt, “Oh come on, Elder Schmidt, Jesus spent most of his time playing with kids, right?” Elder Schmidt just shook his head and shrugged.
Samuel and Jefferson’s had looked at each other and both simultaneously skewed their faces and rolled their eyes—their coincidental synchronicity had surprised them and led to a peal of laughter that had made Elder Schmidt turn and say, “What?”
Later, somewhere between the varied encounters and brisk conversations with both curious and apathetic listeners, Jefferson had turned to Samuel and asked, “So Elder, what did you do in high school?”
“Besides go to high school?” Samuel had smiled back.
Jefferson made a face, “I mean I know we’re not supposed to talk about pre-mission life, Elder, but…”
“Balance. Its all about balance, right?”
Jefferson had winked, nodded and gently punched Samuel on the shoulder, “Right…”
Samuel smiled and feigned injury.
“I did a little track and cross-country, but was…ummm…mainly…I was a drama freak ” Samuel winced and closed one eye as he said it.
Jefferson laughed, “Drama. Cool. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Thanks,” Samuel smirked, “What about you?”
They had been standing next to each other— facing the street, Books of Mormon in their hands, observing the passing people and watching for potential listeners. Jefferson looked at Samuel sideways, “I was on student council—I did a lot of sports, too. Football and soccer.”
“Cool.”
“What?” Jefferson sensed something in Samuel’s voice.
“Nothing,” Samuel laughed.
Jefferson smiled knowingly, “You drama geeks have always got something against jocks.”
Samuel shook his head, “Nah.”
“You could spot me at ten paces, couldn’t you?” Jefferson was still smiling broadly.
“Something like that, yeah.”
They again had both laughed loudly, drawing another disapproving glance from Elder Schmidt. Samuel remarked that they should talk about something more appropriate and Jefferson had agreed.
Their conversation turned to their families and after that—between long talks with passing men carrying newspapers, between pleasant chats with waddling grandmothers lugging sacks of potatoes, between clipped dialogues with young mothers trailing pig-tailed daughters or blue-eyed sons on tricycles—Jefferson and Samuel had begun to speak of ideas. More than once that day, Samuel had been taken by surprise at Jefferson’s intellect and when Samuel himself spoke—intensely and hurriedly—Jefferson listened to him. Samuel stopped once, filled with curious and unexpected pleasure at Jefferson’s sincere gaze—
“What?” Jefferson had asked, waiting for Samuel to complete his thought.
Samuel could only smiled back, a bit of wonder in his eyes. Finally he had said “Nothing” and continued his thought.
Here in this moment, thirteen years later—with so much time and so many old questions between them—in the same city they met as boy-men—Samuel knew that Jefferson was listening to him again—to what he knew was his own brand of tangential, circuitous and often flawed logic.
Samuel did not want to leave, and so he continued to speak, “Other countries’ births are lost in these unfathomable lines of ethnicity—of millions of unknown couplings, marriages, migrations, and births that eventually, in some gradual and continuous movement, lead to what it may someday mean to someone when they say ‘I am Russian or French or German or Thai or Japanese.’ But if someone says ‘ I am American’, it has nothing to do with ethnicity or ancestry. It’s an ideological ethnicity really. America has no ethnic birthday—that’s not to say America has no ethnicity—America contains all of that. I mean, it’s hard to find an American who can’t tell you where they’re great-great grandparents came from…I’m Swedish, Irish and German blah blah. And you only need to visit communities throughout the country where they celebrate things like Heritage Days or Swiss Days or have a St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Cinco de Mayo or have a French Quarter or Chinatowns—it may be a lot of schlock and kind of distasteful to a lot of us, but ethnicity is big in America. It may be a melting pot—I hate that phrase—but the elements don’t just melt into nothing. E Pluribus Unum still means out of many one—but the many is still there—very much a part of the one, right? No, if America has a birthday, it’s not some imagined ethnic birthday, it’s only a birthday of the confluence and codification of its ideology, right?”
Jefferson rolled his head in a swimming motion.
Samuel leaned forward, “Did I loose you? Am I talking like a crazy person?”
“I only have an MBA, you know?”
“Shut-up! ” Samuel jerked his head and rolled his eyes back, “ That’s not what I meant. I mean, listen, I’m sorry. I’m boring you, right? I should shut-up. If you don’t stop me I go on and on—it’s horrible.”
“I asked you to, remember?”
“I do. I remember—Wait, what was your bachelors in?” Samuel asked.
“Philosophy.”
Samuel stuck out his chin, “Really?”
“Yep. Surprised?”
Samuel shook his head, “No. No. I just—why didn’t I ever know that?”
Jefferson met Samuel’s eyes again and leaned back in his chair. He exhaled and then looked away, “We never really talked much—after…after the mission, did we?”
“No. We didn’t.”
Jefferson rubbed his arm and said, “I guess that’s my fault, isn’t it?”
Samuel didn’t answer him but looked directly at Jefferson and said, “ Thank you, Jefferson.”
“For?”
“For letting me talk.”
Jefferson chuckled gratefully, “Oh. Well...you know, you’re not done, though. Come on: birthright.”
Samuel couldn’t help the large smile that spread across his face, “No, I really do need to go though.”
Jefferson was sitting on the hard backed wood chair across a small space of floor from where Samuel sat on the sofa-bed. Jefferson scooted his chair forward and with one hand shook Samuel gently by the shoulder, “You have time. Come on. So what is a birthright, in the Old Testament sense?”
“In the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sense?”
“Yeah.” Jefferson affirmed.
Samuel suggested, “How about you tell me?”
“Okay, “ Jefferson conceded, “ Well, I’d say its what you’re promised as a result of your birth. Isaac got his birthright from Abraham and Jacob got his from Isaac and it was….what? It was land—it was inheritance—it was offspring like the sands of the seashore. I guess it was the fulfillment of what God had promised Abraham.”
Samuel nodded, “ I would agree.”
“And…?”
Samuel frowned, “ And…and—what time is it?”
Jefferson sat back in his chair, “What time is it? You have time. Why do wanna leave so much?”
“I don’t necessarily, I just feel…I feel...” Samuel struggled.
“You feel…?” Jefferson waited—eyebrows raised in anticipation.
Samuel did not respond. He only looked at Jefferson and guiltily half-shrugged his shoulders.
Jefferson, understanding, half smiled and looked down, “So…” He exhaled and looking back up at Samuel, opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. He raised his hands—palms open—as if he were caught in front of an intense light and then—somehow, before Samuels’ eyes, the supposed light subsided, and Jefferson—exhausted by the brightness—let both his head and hands fall. After a moment, he looked up and asked, “Do you want me to talk about them—about her?”
Samuel looked at him softly. “Are you all right, Jefferson?”
“I’m fine.”
Samuel nodded and looked out the window on the darkened sky and electric burning city evening. “Yes,” he said and then turning back to Jefferson, “Yes, I do. I want you to talk about them—about her.”
Jefferson bit his lip and looked squarely at Samuel, “You finish with the birthright thing and then I’ll tell you all about it. Deal?”
“Are you joking?”
“Nope. Go.”
Samuel exhaled sharply and shook his head. In the silence, he picked up the honeybee glass and finished his water, watching Jefferson who was watching him.
“Okay,” he began, “So if America was promised something at its birth—for me—it was that it would eventually realize the promise of a government literally for the people and by the people…a government and a country where all men—all people—were really held and defined as equals and entitled to liberties and inalienable rights. And, very importantly, that this would be a nation where this ideal, however unattainable and lofty it might be, would be honored and fought for. And the tragic—the enormous flaw—that Jefferson himself, your namesake, saw was the issue of slavery…and that women were not considered in the equation—”
Jefferson stopped him, “I don’t think Jefferson saw that. Jefferson Jefferson Jefferson.”
Samuel shrugged, “Right, he didn’t. I don’t think…and that there were no Catholics or Jews or anyone other than men of real English stock involved in the drafting of the constitution—”
“But wait—weren’t there a lot of Catholics in Maryland? Wouldn’t those delegates have been there?” Jefferson raised his eyebrows in anticipation of Samuel’s concession.
“Good point. Yes. But the point is—”
“Not everyone who was a part of America was really represented.” Jefferson finished Samuel’s thought.
“Right and you can’t just say that religious affiliation or color of skin or ancestry don’t matter anymore because we’re making a law about it and building a country on the idea that everyone is equal, you have to follow through with it.”
Jefferson got up and sat next to Samuel on the bed, “Differences have to be accounted for.”
“Exactly—accounted for and respected. And an attempt to honor them and see that they are not entirely marginalized needs to be made. I mean the minority opinion and the protection of it really did figure into the way the founding fathers set up the workings of the government, much to the chagrin of many a conservative, I think.”
“It’s ironic, isn’t it, when you set out to say that race or gender or that generally difference doesn’t matter you are forced to acknowledge how significant differences really are.”
“Ironic, sure,” Samuel said as he watched Jefferson fall back on the sofa-bed. “—but the point was never to say that difference doesn’t matter, was it? It was to say that it does matter and because it matters we cannot allow a majority or a leader or a government to take away or infringe upon our ability to make choices of identity or conscience that may differ from our fellow citizens. It’s the opposite of Nationalism. It’s saying that we categorically deny that it is possible to define America by one set of morals or ideology…. it’s a balancing act.”
Jefferson had shifted onto his stomach, resting his head on his folded arms, “A precarious one, Samuel, my boy.”
“But one that is worth it. I mean, its not that I don’t agree with people who say race shouldn’t be an issue in this election—lets judge the candidates on their ability to lead, not their skin color. Of course they shouldn’t be judged by their skin color. That’s all well and good, but what it represents to have a black president in this country must be acknowledged. —To concede that the implications of such an event shouldn’t be a factor is impossible to do in America because of our past and present failures to really do a good job with the aforementioned balancing act.”
Samuel took a big breath.
Jefferson smiled and said, “Birthright.”
“ I am almost finished.”
“Take your time.”
Samuel cringed, “Don’t ever tell me that.”
Jefferson looked up at him, “ You think I’ve forgotten how you are?”
“What?”
“It’s not a bad thing.” Jefferson grabbed Samuel’s arm and pulled on it, “Birthright.”
“ Okay. The birthright thing. The great and foul stain of slavery, to quote John Quincy Adams, son of one of our founding father-patriarchs, and its effects on this country—the manifestation of this lingering belief that really not everyone could or should be held as true equals has prevented America from really making good on her promise. I mean I really don’t believe that presidents, and politicians in general, have as much power to bring about such great change as we often think they do—nor do I believe many of them to really be exemplary individuals. Though I agree with much of what Obama and his party ostensibly stand for—much more than that other party—I don’t really think he is going to bring about many of the changes he claims he will. Presidents rarely do. But it is what he represents for America and for Americans…that we can make good on this promise—that really—we do believe that all people are equal… and in a country where theoretically all people have access to power—that the government is, in fact, the people—in a nation as diverse as America—it is a profound and jarring sensation to recognize that the office of President has only ever been occupied by men, white men, and with few exceptions, rich men. To finally pass that right—that office to a person who, figuratively at least, represents those who began without even the legal status of a human being is like…like…I guess it is like Abraham blessing Isaac—or maybe its more like Jacob giving Esau back his birthright after he had stolen it all those years before. You know? Maybe it’s him handing over Canaan—the Promised Land and saying—yes you have a right to this, too… and…and…”
Samuel trailed off and lowered himself back onto the bed to lie next to Jefferson. “So,” he breathed out, “ I don’t know…I’ve just completely destabilized and undermined my original point haven’t I?” He laughed, “Maybe I do wish—believe—that America has a birthright…”
Jefferson reached out and with the back of his forefinger touched the side of Samuel’s face.
“Sounds pretty Old Testament to me”
“I know,” Samuel said looking from Jefferson’s eyes to his brow.
Samuel turned his head away and, as he often did in such moments of anxious ambivalence, tightly closed his eyes and concentrated his sightless focus on the electric pulses of light gathering at the backs of his eyelids. He could hear and nearly feel Jefferson breathing near his cheek.
Another immeasurable amount of time passed with no movement or sound beyond Jefferson’s breath and the muted night-lit city outside—wet and endless.
Finally, Samuel opened his eyes and searched the white plaster ceiling. No cracks, he thought, and turning his face back to Jefferson, said “Your turn.”
