COMING TO AMERICA - WHY I STAYED HERE

Prelude

I met Karcsi in 1979 when I worked at a pharmaceutical company. It was love almost at first sight. If we had been gay we would have found our respective partners for life. As it turned out we had found friendship, we became best friends for life. He had just come back from Australia and found out that his girlfriend left him. He was devastated and talked about nothing else but leaving Hungary. It lasted for a couple of months until he fell in love again. We talked for days, sometimes skipping sleep. We decided to take a trip together the next time we could both apply for a blue passport. We played with the idea of going to Spain but settled for the US. We applied for exit visas for an extended 6 week stay. My boss; Emil B. had to sign off on my passport so he called me in to his office. “Tamás – he asked – are you coming back?” I smiled and said: “Emil, if I did not, why would I ask for an extra 4 weeks, I could just as well not return with a 2 week exit visa!” And indeed, I was not planning to stay.  Earlier we asked my Uncle what we could do in the US if we left Hungary. His answer was not very encouraging, telling us that a degree from Karl Marx University might not be the best recommendation when looking for a job. Anyway, my uncle sponsored me and Karcsi’s aunt sponsored him, we each had $1,100 for the trip.

The Plan:

Our plan was to travel all around the US and find free lodging just about everywhere.

Karcsi had a friend, Tom whom he met in Budapest years earlier who recommended his friends in New York, Redondo Beach and her sister in Santa Barbara. Karcsi knew Emil, a weird Hungarian who lived in Toronto and who, according to Karcsi, had the strange habit to pick his teeth with a thread every night. (We had never heard about dental floss). Emil, also scratched his head like clockwork every 15 minutes. He had other little idiosyncrasies, but none were annoying. Karcsi’s last connection was in Chicago, I don’t recall where he found this tiny man, a survivor of Nazi concentration camps, but he also opened his home for us.


I secured a place in Manhattan at the dorms of Columbia University. Mustafa, my uncle’s best friend’s daughter’s ex-boyfriend studied there. This friend of my uncle had another daughter in San Diego. And Laci in St. Louis, was the kindest person in the world and he was my father’s cousin. And last, but not least my Uncle in Santa Fe. So we were set.

New York, April 16, 1981:

We arrived late. Mustafa was nowhere to be seen, but somehow I seemed to hear a faint voice calling my name. One of the airport personnel kept whispering my name like a secret code, and miracle of miracles I heard him while passing by, half asleep. He gave me a hand written note that read; take a cab to Columbia University. As the good boys we were, we followed the instructions. We came prepared with guide books, and we learnt that half of New York City’s cab drivers were Eastern Europeans. And lo and behold, a Hungarian called Lakatos, was our driver. He was an aspiring gypsy musician who made his living driving people around New York. “Had I known you are from Hungary, I would not have started the meter" – he said. I still wonder, what stopped him from shutting it down after he found out that we had come straight from Budapest. We told ourselves, at least he was not going to drive us around half the city. He most likely did, but at least he pointed out the spot where Lennon was shot barely four months earlier. We made it to the dorm and somehow we passed security, and found Mustafa. His room was more like a small prison cell with one twin bed, in which he was going to sleep. We were supposed to sleep on the floor next to the bed. We had about 3 feet between the bed and the wall. Well, we wished we could go to sleep but there was a party going on in his room so we missed the second night of sleep. I remember staying in the hallway watching Ten Commandments instead of cramming in his room. By next day, one of his friends offered his room after noticing the two zombies walking around deprived of sleep. So Karcsi and I shared a twin bed for a couple of nights.

They were there

New York was everything we dreamed about and more. The Twin Towers were still there, but the wind was too strong, we were not allowed to go up on top. We planned to return.

We went everywhere and tried everything, even when we were warned by kind passers-by not to. On Fifth Avenue a crowd was watching some black guys doing their regular card tricks, and Karcsi told me: “You are good with cards, let’s bet on this”. Of course the red card disappeared and so did one of our hundred dollar bills. We were slow, but finally we got it that we were coned, by one of the oldest tricks. We swore to one another never to reveal to anybody how stupid we were. I am breaking this promise now.


Our transportation in New York was free, either we walked or we used Russian three kopeks as tokens for the subway. Karcsi, the avid reader found out from Time magazine that this little worthless Russian coin worked at the subway system. Half of Budapest was collecting them for us.


Our guide book provided some other useful information other than checking the origins of the cab drivers. It warned us that finding a public bathroom is no easy task. The book was right, as Karcsi could easily testify. After having lunch he really needed to find the loo as the Brits would say. His steps became faster as he moved along the streets, his eyes were darting in every which direction but to no avail. He succumbed to the fact that he had to use the subway's public bathroom. He rushed in and he rushed out just like if he had been stung by a wasp. "I can't do it there", he screamed and I was not sure if he was about to cry. The place was filthy, no toilet seats, and huge, scary looking men were eying him like hungry animals just before closing in on their prey. We were both ready to burst except on two different body orifices. I was ready to burst out laughing, and he was ready to burst out in tears as well as the contents of his stomach. By then my head was twice as big as its normal size, my face was red from trying not to laugh. Karcsi's struggle was of a different kind. And then Macy's loomed in front of us as a savior. How Karcsi found the bathroom so quickly, how he knew which floor it was on, I will never know. But the fact is, when we got there, we both used it. Later, Karcsi recalled that the first sign in Macy's he saw read " Small Joys". Small things can mean a lot! Yet, it does not explain how he found the small boy's room so fast.

My sister-in-law’s uncle was happy to take us out for dinner, for it was Passover and he was sick of eating Matzo for 8 days. He was embarrassingly kind to us and through his travel agent we bought our 30-day Greyhound passes. Off we went to Toronto.

Toronto, Chicago, St. Louis:

Emil, scratched his head, but delivered us to Niagara Falls, and at night we entertained ourselves with the only book he left on his nightstand; Joy of Sex. Alas, there was nobody to share all what we learnt. We met another character in Toronto who worked on the skyscrapers. Mostly native Indians work up there, supposedly they are never afraid of height. Our new friend was the exception, growing up he only knew about Indians from Karl May’s books. He taught us the expression; tons of fun, when he described his wife of 300 plus pounds.

We took the bus to Chicago. We stayed in an apartment with two tiny old people and their daughter. We asked him where he worked, he told us but our British English was not good enough to decipher what he said.  He was from Czechoslovakia (it was still a country then) and his English was not the best, especially after the words passed through his toothless mouth. So he walked us to the window and pointed out the garbage can. “I work for the city”, he said. He was a garbage man. A real good, safe, city job. Next day we found out he spoke Hungarian. I guess he was too shy to share this little secret of his with us before, he was sure we did not talk bad about him. Then he opened up and told us his life story.

He was a Jewish youth during the war and was taken to Work Camp run by Hungarians. He was beaten every day by one particular guy. The only thing that kept him alive was his oath; if he ever survived he would kill his tormentor. He did survive. And he followed up on his oath. The most surprising about this story was the way he told us. No emotion, everything was matter of fact. We had a person in front of us who went through hell and lived to talk about it. He was five feet two, at the most. And he shot a man twice his size. Then he walked away, went to America and worked for the City of Chicago. Life went on.

"Corn Houses" of Chicago



Baha'i Temple

There were three pictures in my elementary school geography book about the US; Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park and the “Corn Houses" of Chicago. I was determined to see them when I was 12 years old.  I did see one of them together with Sears Tower, the Art Institute, Baha’i Temple and many other attractions.

Back to Greyhound, to the Gateway to the West. There was not much to see in St. Louis, but Laci, my father’s cousin showed us a good time.  We crawled up to the small chambers of the Arch and peeked down to see the road to the West. He introduced us to the wonders of Banana Slip, the first ice cream that was too big for me to finish. He told us about his life which was one of those amazing survival stories again. I suppose we only hear about those who made it against all odds. The other millions have no chance to tell their stories. Laci was sent to Serbia to labor camp when he was barely 16 years old. He was freed by Tito’s partisans and fought with them until the end of the war. He went back to Hungary and in 1956 begged my father to go with him to the West. He drove the truck to my parents’ place one cold night when the borders were still open, but my father, using me as an excuse, refused to go. Laci became an insurance premium collector in the worst neighborhoods of St. Louis. At times, he had a body guard and he always carried a gun. But he said he had nothing to fear, what could have happened to him after the war? He was the only relative of mine who had red hair and blue eyes. His double recessive genes showed up in my daughter’s red hair. One more Jew who was indestructible.

Santa Fe and New Mexico:

                   Click on pics to enlarge








                               My unlce's house

We took a seemingly endless bus ride to Albuquerque where my uncle waited for us. We felt, we had come home and I believe I speak not only for myself but for Karcsi as well. He considered us family. New Mexico is a wonderful place: we loved the adobe houses, the mountains, the unpaved dusty streets. (The more elegant the neighborhood was, the less you found paved roads.)



Originally my uncle told us: “Speaking good English may be an asset in Hungary, but it does not cut it in the US, even if you have diplomas from Karl Marx University.” Yet, he made sure we met with Professor Jonas who taught Economics at the University of New Mexico. Pali, (Professor Jonas) told us it would be easy to get an MBA and stay in the US. We, however, at that time, did not think about staying. One of our biggest shocks was that most people we met randomly were totally ignorant about the world and we saw no books in people’s houses. Today, I realize that our judgment was premature and harsh, and we compared everybody to the small circle of friends we were used to. Yet, it was unimaginable to stay in a country where we felt we would never find friends. This changed later.

We went to Taos and saw Indian cliff dwellings at Bandalier. We admired Gorman and O’Keefee’s paintings. And then we said goodbye to my uncle and his family.

For more pics on New Mexico click the yellow highlight:
PICTURES

Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, San Diego:

We got off the bus close to the rim of the Grand Canyon. We were supposed to take a sightseeing bus around the rim a couple of hours later. So we kept waiting and waiting in front of the gift shop. Finally we decided to go in, we had nothing else to do. And it turned out that again we were just stupid tourists. We were not close to the rim, we were at the rim! On the other side of the gift shop was a walk-out balcony right above Grand Canyon with breath taking view.

As we sat there and talked a couple of older gentlemen approached us, curious what language we were speaking. When they realized we were from Hungary, for some reason they were impressed. Two twenty some guys from behind the Iron Curtain. They invited us to visit them in Connecticut in their mansion. And Karcsi did so on his way back to the East Coast. One of the guys was the retired president of the New York Stock Exchange.

Hoover Dam

We dropped by at Las Vegas, and there we spent our second night at a hotel, paid by my uncle. For us it was real luxury. Swimming pool and all. We got out of town without losing any money. We had seen Las Vegas. We were more impressed with Hoover Dam.


On we went to San Diego. We needed some laundry done, our jeans were dirty. When our hosts told us they could wash them for us and we could wear them in two hours time, we were sure they were out of their minds. Oh, the miracle of drying machines! The advanced technology of the Communist world had so much to learn.
The famous San Diego Zoo was cool, but petting the tongue of a dolphin took the prize. My uncle's friend's daughter left us with her room mate and her boyfriend, who was a highway patrol. Not sure if he slept with his girlfriend or with his gun. He loved them both, and he told us just to mention his name next time anybody wanted to give us a speeding ticket in the area. I took notes.


Redondo Beach, Santa Barbara:


Tom, Karcsi's old friend came through. We stayed with Tom's friend Doug and his roommate in Redondo Beach. Doug told us it was not a problem"we ha two bedrooms but we only use one" Hm. And hm again??? Two guys using one bedroom. We were not spies coming in from the cold as Le Carre wrote, but we were two guys coming in from Hungary who knew nothing about homosexuality. Karcsi was a bit paranoid until we got to know Doug and his partner. They went out of their way to host us, especially since they did not even know us from Adam.


Then we called Pam, Tom's sister and asked if we could stay with her for a couple of days in Santa Barbara. She said she would clear it with her roommates. We got suspicious. Pam explained the word roommate to us, assuring that it did not mean that her friends were lesbians. They just shared a big old house. We had the most fantastic time with them, and it was not only because we got to eat shark meat and got high the first time in our lives. It was some potent shit! We were walking down the street in Santa Barbara, and I knew where I was, yet I kept seeing the old East German made Trabants and Wartburgs that parked in the street next to my house in Budapest.  Karcsi, on the other hand, was scared out of his mind, afraid to turn off the light in the big house.


Me, Pam and her then only friend Tim 1981

Here I met people that I could relate to, who knew about art, history, literature and they had books in their houses. They played a crucial part in my future and they did not even know it. They probably still do

Me, Pam and her husband Tim 28 years later

not know it. Thanks Pam and Tim and Linda and whoever shared that big old house in 1981 in Santa Barbara.

Decision Time - San Francisco:

The bus took us to San Francisco. While it was winding its way north in the hills, I made my decision to stay in the US. I thought about Santa Barbara, New York and wondered if I ever could see these people, these places again. I had some personal things I preferred to leave behind as well. Professor Jonas also painted a rosy picture for me. I told Karcsi; "I am staying". I don't recall him ever trying to talk me out of it.

Being in and seeing San Francisco strengthened my decision. My aunt's brother Carl took us to a Chinese restaurant, and my strong disbelief in god was shaken. My fortune cookie read:"It is time for a new start". And so it was.

I called the parents of my good friend who actually flew with us to the US, and told them I would not return to Hungary. They freaked out. The father had already warned us before leaving to be careful with whom we talk in the US, and now, a friend of his son stayed here. And on top of that, his own son was about to go to the US.   Bad example. He made me swear that I would not call my own parents. He was perhaps afraid of phone bugging, although, even in retrospect, I don't really know what harm could a phone call have done. So he said he would let my parents know and indeed, they were so kind as to go to my parents house directly from the airport when they got to Budapest. I of course called my parents and told them I was staying as soon as I was back in Santa Fe with my uncle.

I went back to my uncle in Santa Fe, Karcsi, continued on to New York. 

I had times when I did not know if my decision was right for me or not. I was always sure it was right for my daughter. Today, I know it was the hardest and the best decision I have made.