[Reader-list] Greenpoint, you're going to Greenpoint

[Naeem Mohaiemen]

Words Fall Out of My Head
by Kevin Kinsella


Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
-- Rabindranath Tagore

"Greenpoint!" I didn't say it, the cabbie did. I had just hailed a
taxi on Ninth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street and before I could follow
through with "I'm going to--," the man behind the wheel finished my
thought.
    "Excuse me?"
    "You want to go to Greenpoint--in Brooklyn!"
    "Yes. But how did you know?"
    "When I saw you flagging me, I said to myself, "Ahmed, this guy
wants to go to Greenpoint!'" He was excited. His voice was raised and
he smacked the steering wheel with delight. He was obviously proud of
himself. It was as if he put all his money on guessing my destination
and his bet had paid off handsomely.
    "That's amazing," I said, truly amazed. "What's my tell?"
    "Your 'tell'?"
    "Yes. What gave me away?"
    "Oh! Well, sir, you look like an artist of moderate success, so I
thought Brooklyn--but not Williamsburg. You look too successful for
that, but not Manhattan successful. So I said to myself, "He's young,
not quite established, but he's on his way. Definitely Greenpoint! You
are an artist, aren't you, sir?"
    "Well, I'm a writer."
    "See! What do you think of that?"
    "Amazing. But I wouldn't consider myself 'moderately successful,'
but I try--"
    "Wait! Now, what do you think of that," he nodded toward two young
women on the corner of Waverly Place and Broadway.
    It was mid-July, so they were, of course, wearing more or less
nothing at all. But they were very young, perhaps eighteen or nineteen
years old. I took a neutral path, "I'd say they're N.Y.U. students."
    "Bah! That's too easy! I'm talking about their bodies!" He smacked
his lips with the same delight he had exhibited upon guessing my
destination.
    "Oh, Niiiiccce."
    "I see a lot of that driving around here."
    "I bet," I said and quickly changed the subject. "You know, about
a month back, I was attacked in a cab."
    "Attacked?! By who, the driver?"
    "No, a drunk Irishman jumped in the car and, not knowing what else
to do, punched me in the face."
    He grew very serious. "What did the driver do?"
    "He came to my rescue and fought him off. He was an Uzbek--"
    "Well, an Uzbek. They're tough! But it was his duty to protect
you! I'm from Bangladesh and I would do the same!
    "I appreciate that."
    The ride and conversation continued in much the same fashion as we
proceeded to the Williamsburg Bridge. I learned that Ahmed lived in
Patterson, New Jersey, and that he had a degree in engineering, but he
enjoyed driving a cab, going so far as to suggest that every man
should be made to drive a cab for two years so as to better understand
life, "especially if he wanted to be an artist." I asked him if he
knew William Carlos Williams's epic poem "Patterson." He didn't, but
he would look it up. Then he asked, "Listen, do you know the writings
of Rabindranath Tagore?"
    "Of course! He was a great poet."
    "My god! How did you know that?"
    "I studied literature in school, mostly Russian and American but--"
    "Russian? Why Russian?"
    "Just curious, I guess."
    We had just exited the Brooklyn Queens Expressway when he pulled
over at a Mobil station, switched off the meter, and handed me a
small, yellow notebook and a stub of a pencil.
    "But this isn't my stop."
    "Sir, would you please write down your five favorite poets? I wish
to make a study of them."
    I jotted down the first names that came to mind: Osip Mandelshtam,
Sasha Chernyi, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Andrei Voznesensky, and Marina
Tsvetaeva. "Now, write your name at the bottom and then sign it,
please." "Sign it? Why?"
    "I want your autograph."
    "My autograph? But why?"
    "Because, one day, I have no doubt that you will be very famous,
and I will have this page as a memory of you. Your penmanship is
terrible!"
    "Wow, you have more faith in me than my mother!" I said, truly
touched, if embarrassed. After all, all that I had told him was that I
had been beaten in a cab by an Irishman and that I enjoyed Russian
poetry--and my penmanship is indeed terrible.
    "Ah, what do mothers know? Listen, I wanted to be a writer but my
English is terrible."
    "You're English is fantastic," I assured him. It was excellent.
    "No. Words fall out of my head. I can't remember them."
    "I'm sure you must have hundreds of stories after driving this cab."
    "Oh, I do! But I can't write them down in English."
    "What about in Bangladeshi?"
    "Who reads Bangladeshi? This is my country now."
    "Well, I think you'd make a great story teller. Now give me your autograph."
    He laughed and signed a page in his notebook and handed it to me.
"Ahmed Paloub!" He shook my hand enthusiastically and pulled out of
the Mobil station parking lot, but not before turning the meter back
on.



About the author:
Kevin Kinsella is a writer and translator living in Brooklyn. Most
recently, his work has appeared in Identity Theory and Yankee Pot
Roast. His translation of Osip Mandelshtam's Tristia is forthcoming
from Green Integer Books in the Fall.