The Debt.
In 2007, I moved to East New York, Brooklyn. There were eight apartments on my floor: at the time, only two apartments, including me, were white, and the other six were black. So they lived, greeting at random meetings, knowing nothing about each other.
At nine o’clock one night someone called on my door. Knowing that there were cameras in our building, I opened the door without fear and saw a tall, unfamiliar black teenager.
I looked at him questioningly, and he said:
“Sorry, I’m the son of your neighbor Bill, my father invited me tonight, but I’ve been waiting for him for two hours, and he’s not there and he doesn’t answer the phone calls either.
I cried out: I did not want to let a completely unfamiliar black healthy teenager into the apartment, but he was so confused that I regretted and invited him to the kitchen. I asked if he was hungry. He said he ate lunch at school at noon.
I baked him my favorite dish: an egg of three eggs on a salad with onion and tomatoes, then, looking at his hungry appearance, I cut there two more sausages. He easily swallowed it all, even wiping out the plate with bread.
We talked to him: his name is Patrick, he is 16, his father and mother are divorced, he lives with his mother, but sometimes visits his father. Before he called my door, he walked around all the black neighbors, but no one let him go. We tried to call his father again, but he never answered, and the time was about eleven. What to do, don’t throw him out at night! I gave him a pillow, he lay on the couch in the room, well, and I was there on the couch. I will not go to bed in the bedroom, leaving him unattended.
At six in the morning, to my joy, his father came and took him.
Later, when I told this story to my friends, they scared me by saying that if Patrick was an affair, he could easily blackmail me: he is a minor and spent the night with a stranger! As I imagined such an outcome, so I became uncomfortable!
10 years passed. I didn't see Patrick all this time: his father brought a fellow resident, and the boy didn't want to see her. When Bill suddenly died of a stroke, Patrick expelled his father's fellow resident and settled in the apartment with his wife. When he saw me, he almost stifled me in his arms, but he could have - a two-meter version of 150 kilograms of weight!
A few days later, Patrick came to me and brought me a large bottle of Hennessy.
What is it? I asked.
I am returning the debt. Do you remember having a lot of mini-bottles of alcohol at the bar? I took one with Hennessey.
There were only 50 grams.
In 10 years, the percentage has risen. He was smiling.