“Alcohol is the perfect drug.” The man said, and then sipped his coffee.
Jonathon looked at the middle-aged man, and mustered the courage to continue to engage, now that he felt the man genuinely wanted to chat.
Jonathon gently replied, “Well, that’s an interesting point of view. How did you get to that conclusion?” Realizing he sounded like he was back in the hospital in Switzerland.
“It works, obviously, and it’s easy to control the dosage. Hard to overdose. Intermediate half-life. Longer than cocaine, shorter than an opioid.” The man replied without shifting his body position, sat back on the bench in front of the coffee shop, sipping his coffee.
The relaxed demeanour of the man had a relaxing effect on Jonathon, and he suddenly felt more relaxed than he had felt in days. He studied the man’s anglo features- blue eyes, high bridge of a nose with a slight curve, while he considered how to reply. He noticed the vape on the bench next to the man and thought he might fall in love with Americans.
“Well, some might point to all the harms caused in society linked to alcohol abuse, which is much more than other drugs.” Jonathon felt a little embarrassed by his clunky English.
“That’s because it’s cheap.” The man replied without hesitation.
The man continued, “You just let some yeast metabolize the sugar from your grapes and that’s it. Okay, maybe it’s a bit more complicated if you’re making a scotch, because you have the malting, or you are making a sake, so you add some Aspergillus, the Japanese call it Koji, to produce some sugar from rice first, but it’s still not complicated.”
Jonathon was impressed, “Okay, so it’s cheap. But should drugs be cheap?”
“Yes. What, you think they should be expensive? Only rich people should have the drugs? Are you an elitist?” The man now took the vape to his mouth, but didn’t shift his position, didn’t become aggressive.
Jonathon thought for a moment, “I’m not an elitist. But as I said, I was previously a resident in a psychiatric hospital. A lot of people I treated were drug users, or even experiencing drug-induced psychosis.”
-“They were coping.” Continuing with his rapid-fire replies.
“Well, that’s one way to put it.”
-“How would you put it?”
Jonathon thought for a moment. “Well I guess they were coping, yes. I’m not sure the drugs were helping though.”
-“You said you were Mexican. How did you end up in Switzerland?”
“I finished medical school in Mexico, but there was not a good place to do a psychiatric speciality, so I applied to a Medical School in Switzerland and was accepted.”
-“Have you ever used Sevoflurane?”
“No I haven’t, it’s an anaesthetic, right?”
-“That’s right. It also has an alcohol in its structure. I once did some research on it. We still don’t know how it works.”
“Wow.”
-“I’m Nick by the way.” and extended his hand, surprising Jonathon in post-covid times.
“I’m Jonathon.”
-“I was also an immigrant to America. Been here a bit longer than you though.” Nick said with a smile.
“Oh, where are you from.”
-“Middle-earth, some people call it Russia. But I have a Latin heart. I like to dance. You dance?”
“Not so much. I was a bit of an outsider in Mexico, in that regard.”
-“Pity. The Swiss won’t ever fully accept you. You think because they accept you to their medical school they want you. They don’t really. Unless you really become white. You want to be white? Sorry- a gringo?”
“I don’t think so. I just wanted to help people.” Jonathon let out a soft chuckle and he saw Nick smile. He hadn’t felt this positive since when he had first arrived in Switzerland for his residency, full of hope for his future then, and now he was full of hope again.
-“Is gringo for white people or only Americans?”
“It depends…usually for Americans but basically used for foreigners in general. Younger people don’t use it much.”
-“I see.” Nick said, seemingly disappointed.
Nick and Jonathon talked a bit more, Nick lived on a boat in the Berkeley Marina. When Jonathon asked him about his work all Nick said was that the last time he had worked was when he had invested in Wheat Futures as soon as the war in Ukraine broke out. Jonathon explained that he had quit his residency and to pursue neuroscience research instead and Nick had almost no reaction. No sympathy, but also no pity, no questions, no encouragement. Just puffing away on his vape. Nick’s lack of response gave Jonathon the space to think maybe he had done the right thing. The first time he had firmly thought so. This interaction was the first one of depth that Jonathon had had since the week and a half since he had arrived in California. Satiated, and needing to do some chores before dinner, Jonathon said his goodbye and headed home on his bicycle.
Jonathon was feeling like he might belong to this place. He was immediately relaxed by the diverse ethnic faces he saw, and the Indian and Chinese restaurants he passed on his bicycle on the way to the lab he was working at on the UC Berkeley campus. Day to day, he would change his route to see more of the area; fusion restaurants, bakeries with women in tight pants lined up in the morning, some looking like professional athletes - lean pure efficient muscle, maybe some kind of triathlete, others with largeness to them, thick bones and muscle covered by more fat than he would have expected from somewhen dressing in what he had learned from his labmates is called ‘athleisure’, like they had been bulking up — a similar build to the highschool American football players in Mexico.
On these rather long bicycle rides to the lab he fantasized about a life here. If this contracted work went well, his professor had told him he would probably be accepted to the PhD program here. Maybe he would meet a beautiful Asian American like he saw walking around the streets. They laughed and talked loudly, in sharp contrast to the women he saw in Switzerland, where he had felt isolated the entire time he stayed there. Maybe he would get along better with these bubbly exotic women than the white women, maybe they could relate to each other — having an immigrant background. While he had tried talking to some women in Switzerland, well two that were also residents, a Czech and German, he couldn’t seem to build any kind of rapport with them. Maybe it was his fault, he had always felt that he was not especially charming, and struggled to keep a conversation going at times.
The house he had found was shared with two men, Nobu, a Japanese man a bit younger than Jonathon, working as a chef at a high-end Japanese-French fusion restaurant, and Allen, a Chinese-Malaysian studying in an ‘Extension’ Program at UC Berkeley.
None of them spoke much to each other.
The chef worked late nights and the Malaysian stayed mostly in his room, doing what — Jonathon had no idea.
When he had moved in, Allen, who had the largest room on the first floor had come off as easy-going and friendly. When Jonathon had asked him about the neighborhood Allen had responded so quickly.
“Oh ya, you know, this neighborhood iz veeerry quiet. No problems at all. You can see people walking outside, women, children, very safe la.”
Allen had showed off his parrot that was kept in a cage in the living room.
“I show you a trick la.”
Allen took the parrot out of cage by sticking his finger near the perch and the parrot happily hopped on.
Allen spoke to the parrot, “You SpIIn now, SPIN”
The parrot leaned back and then spun forward on Allen’s finger.
Then Allen got Jonathon to take the parrot on his finger.
“Ask him to sing.”
Jonathon spoke to the parrot, “Can you sing for me?”
The parrot responded immediately with a screech-tinged, “You sing-”
“Can you sing?”
-“You sing- you sing” the parrot chirped, bobbing its head up and down in rhythm.
“Could you please sing?”
-“You sing bitch~” the parrot responded, still bobbing.
Allen laughed from his belly.
Jonathon, while a little taken aback, found himself oddly laughing with Allen, and felt that they would soon be friends.
A few days later Jonathon was moved in. On the second day at the house he had heard an odd beeping from his room in the early morning. At first he wasn’t sure if he was dreaming. But he continued to hear the screeching beep with an awkward pause in between, so the lack of beat speed made it more alarming, as it could not be confused with something like music. He looked at the time, and it was about 7:10, so he was willing to get up. He quickly threw on some clothes and as he opened the door he heard a “REEEP” and realized the sound was coming from downstairs. A bit alarmed now, he walked downstairs and discovered the beeping coming from the living room. He looked at the bird cage, mostly covered with a towel, and took off the towel to meet the eyes of the parrot as it let out another “REEEP”.
Jonathon, bewildered, but suddenly quite awake, was still.
“REEEP”
Maybe something was wrong with the parrot? Why was no one else alarmed? He went and lightly knocked on Allen’s door.
No response. He thought about knocking on Nobu’s door, but privy to his hours, he thought better of it.
“REEEP”
Jonathon inspected the bird and the cage, the bird seemed uninjured and it still had food and water. He thought he would just hurry up and get to his lab and try not to worry further.
It would be two more days of the screeching bird, with Jonathon everyday knocking on Allen’s door in the morning, to no response. Jonathon was getting home too late himself to be able to knock on Allen’s door in the evening. He had been thinking of texting Allen, but was worried that it might come off as passive-aggressive.
On the the third day, Nobu had been in the kitchen have coffee and reading a book, the title of which remained a mystery due to a paper cover around the book.
“Hey, what’s up with this parrot screeching? It wakes me up every morning. Is the parrot sick or something?”
Nobu had laughed and put down the book.
-“No, the parrot’s fine.”
“How can it be fine? I don’t think birds are supposed to make this kind of noise.” A REEEP in the background went off, making Jonathon feel a sense of justification in his alarm.
“When Allen bought the parrot, we were waiting on the landlord to come and replace the smoke detector. The smoke detector was beeping constantly because it needed to be checked. So the bird learned to make that sound.”
Jonathon didn’t know what to say.
Nobu looked at him with pity and told him he should buy some earplugs. Jonathon would also learn that Allen rarely came out of his room.
