Brighton Beach Daydreams
By
Maria Odessky Rosen
The pure, synthetic tones of Deep Forest are not pure at all in this apartment on the 13th floor of a building in the Trump Village projects.
The music is polluted and so are my thoughts. Martha’s Song gets distorted in the cacophony of a passing Q train. As I put in the earplugs and raise the volume, I lose the feeling that this particular song gives me. I also remember to lower the volume after the train leaves because papa is sleeping; papa is always sleeping.
Papa moved with mama back to Brighton Beach as soon as I left for college. They had entered the lottery for these Trump-built, rent-controlled co–ops years before, and finally their number came up. The choice was between this tiny one-bedroom closet and an even more miniature studio. The rent is very cheap, and because mama can’t work anymore, this is what SSI buys. There was never going to be a room for me. When I left for college, I was on my own. I consider myself lucky to have a couch to sleep on when I return home on breaks. Where I will be living after college is a problem for the future. No use worrying about that now.
Mama doesn’t want me to become a writer. “This is not why we sacrificed everything and left everyone behind to come here,” she reminds me. We have relatives to support back home. I have to make money to send them. It is all up to me. There is no chance for me to pursue my dreams. Dreams are not for immigrants. Dreams are for people who can afford to have them. Immigrants must be practical. Writing is not practical.
“Mama, I am not practical,” I want to tell her. “I don’t want to do anything else but write. I can’t do anything else. Mama, if I can’t write, I ….”
I try to imagine that I’m someplace else, but it’s impossible to daydream with so many car alarms going off. Searching for serenity is a hopeless, fruitless pursuit in this apartment. Coherent thoughts stay long enough for me to sense them, but they quickly vanish. Just when I begin to attain clarity, I lose it in the passing of another Q train.Sometimes, I jam earplugs in my ears just to get away from my own thoughts.
It’s amazing how one moment you think you have found the perfect set of words to describe your feelings, but as you grab your writing tools, they’re gone. Kind of like when you’re sure you’re going to sneeze, but you don’t, so you never get any relief.
Papa is up and wants to know if I heard that Tatiana, a local supper club, is the last of its kind still open. No, I did not know. There were at least ten Russian supper clubs on Brighton Beach when we first moved here from Moscow. Papa wants me to tell all my friends about Tatiana so it never goes out of business like all the others. He often says, “Americans don’t know how to party. They go to a restaurant and gorge themselves until they’re sleepy. Where is the show? The dancing? The wodka?”
“Goodbye, mama. Goodbye, papa,” I whisper as I grab my old school notebook and march down to the boardwalk, under the elevated train line, past the Skovorodka restaurant on my left. “Not like Tatiana, but still better than any American restaurant,” I imagine papa saying.
I head straight for the rocks that break the waves. Someone is always fishing or sunbathing around Brighton Beach. Temperature is irrelevant. And this is a particularly warm October day which has brought out so many different people.
As I lower myself on the least populated island of rocks, I meet the gaze of a fisherman stationed a couple of feet in front of me. His eyes follow me as I take out my journal and pen. I give him a quick nod. He smiles and turns back to his fishing, forgetting me only momentarily because he continuously turns, casting quizzical looks at my notepad. Probably thinks that I am an artist.Lots of budding artists come here to develop their talents. Poor old bastard—if he only knew that I am just a writer, not an artist.
Then he turns around again and smiles a big toothless grin. “Look,” I want to say, “Save it! I’m not drawing you.” All of a sudden, I visualize my mother staring at me over his shoulder: “What are you doing? Get up! You know you can’t sit on damp, cold rocks. Do you want to give your ovaries a cold?” Even though I know that you can’t give your ovaries a cold, I get up anyway. I can’t write with Captain Ahab and my mother peering at me.Moving to a bench on the boardwalk will be more helpful for my writing and healthier for my ovaries, just in case mama is right.
I came to the beach to be alone, to think. But you can never be alone at Brighton Beach. I return to the boardwalk, grab the first empty bench I see, and look around. There are people sitting on the benches to my right and to my left. Families with strollers are meandering behind me. A walker approaches and stares. Maybe he, too, thinks that I am an artist and wants to peek at my masterpiece.
“I am not an artist!” I want to scream to the world.
I look out at the water. The sand and the ocean beckon me. I oblige, remove my motorcycle boots, and trudge onto the sand. It feels cold and silky. I head for the water. I step in and am stabbed by millions of piercing freezing needles. The pain makes me gasp. Although the water is frigid, my body feels like it is on fire. It feels good.
I take another step into the ocean as though somewhere in that great depth is my panacea, my daydream come true. My feet go numb. I look at my two white stumps sinking into the sand and wonder if I will be swallowed whole if I stand here long enough. I imagine the tenacious beachcombers scouring the sand with their huge headphones and metal devices searching for long-lost hidden treasures - like curious astronauts looking for evidence of life on other planets. Their detectors will go crazy over the spot where I will have sunk under their feet. They will find my hamsa ring, by then dislodged from my bony finger. Will they find me under the waters of Brighton Beach?
That gives me something to write about.
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