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The Neighbour’s Boy

Nov 01, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

How is your son doing these days?” I asked of my host as we sat around the small glass dining table. The reaction was instantaneous: my host’s eyes lit up, a new energy seemed to have taken hold of him and when he spoke his voice hit a high that I had never heard before.

Raising his shoulders, and removing his hands from the dining table, he said proudly, “The boy is doing just fine. You know I always knew that he would make it big one day. He is going to college you know. Computer studies and later perhaps law. He is a bright boy. Did very well in high school. Always studying! Since he was small, he always wanted to be a lawyer. I have enough set aside for his law studies.”

I could see that he was proud of his son. He had come to this country as an immigrant many years ago. He had started at the bottom and had worked his way up to a manager position in his firm. He had married a Guyanese girl who was not educated but was a hard worker in a restaurant. Together, they had built a life for themselves, secured a nice home and had two children, a boy and a girl. Now he was telling me about his plans for the boy. He was an immigrant whose dream of financial security had long been realised and who now wanted the best for his kids.

Gesturing towards his neighbour‘s home, he said, “That one over there has a boy who also wants to become a lawyer. But the child is too playful. Always skating up and down the street as if he was still a child. Too much play. I told him he should come over and let my boy help him out, but he does not bother. Only interested in girls and partying. Giving his parents rudeness. Poor father and mother working so hard. But it’s their fault also. They have no time for their children. They come up here on visitor’s visa, you know…”

Five years after, I paid another visit to my host. We sat at the same table. The tablecloth was the same. I raised the subject about his brilliant son, inquiring about his progress.

“Oh, he join the army! He serving right now in the Philippines”.

Now this was news, “Whatever happened to the law studies?” I asked.

“You know how the system is against us immigrants. The boy write the entrance examination. He finish before the time. He was sure of passing. But they had to keep places for their friends. You know how the system works here?”

How does it work? I asked.

“He did not make it,” he said. But is a good thing. He always wanted to go into the army. He always wanted to serve his country. And he will get more training in the army than if he went to law school.”

“Whatever happened to your neigbour’s son?” I asked, “ The one you said was a good-for-nothing. The one that is always playing and partying and womanising; the one whose family had no time for him and who was rude to his parents. Whatever happened to him?”

“You would not believe it,” my host said. “The boy is one top lawyer today. He pull he socks up. He get in to law school and he did so well that he win a scholarship. Was a good thing. I don’t know how his poor parents would have managed to pay the fees. But he lucky – is so with some children. The ones that study do not have any luck, but the ones that are wild and carefree, they get all the lucky breaks.

“The boy working for big money. He working with an investment bank. He buy a huge house in Long Island. I hear though that the parents can’t go by him.  Is the girl he take! She don’t want them there.”

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