On Sunday, June 8, Lara and I took a bus from Boston to New York. The bus is much cheaper than the train, it doesn't stop anywhere, it's very comfortable. The only thing, like everywhere in America, was the problem with the ice and air conditioning. There was too much ice in the coke I was drinking and it was blowing from somewhere. The detractors say that we in Bar are most afraid of earthquakes and drafts. It took some time before I realized that it was blowing from the seat three rows behind me.
After three and a half hours we saw the outline of New York. I imagined that I would come to the center of the world from the sea, past the Statue of Liberty, and I came straight through the Bronx, a black suburb. In fact, the inner city is made up of five boroughs: Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island – each of which would be a metropolitan area if it weren't for New York.
America is a country of equal opportunities for everyone, only some, it seems to me, are a little more equal. I saw almost no white people on the rather unclean streets of the Bronx, and the buildings were architecturally reminiscent of the Soviet era in Budapest, in the last century. Everything was somehow even more depressing when we entered Harlem. Only later, as we rushed towards the center of New York, Manhattan, the picture on the streets changed, there were more and more white people, fewer and fewer blacks, and the buildings were different, they no longer resembled lined matchboxes. They say that it has nothing to do with the color of the skin, but that status is solely determined by money, that is, the power to pay. Maybe I do not know.
From the bus station, we walked to 34th Street, where Richi lives. And Richie is Redžep Redžo Petović, my friend from Radio Bar. He was a sound engineer when I started working. He was remembered as punctual, reliable, agile... These qualities launched him to a good life in New York. He is the "resident manager" of the building with twenty-one floors, a large terrace and 197 apartments, that is, the boss of all the employees who take care of the building as if it were a luxury hotel. Režo settled on the fourth floor, in a three-room apartment, with his wife, son and parents. Lara and I slept for two nights in the most beautiful room in that apartment.
The third American promotion of "Bar Tales" was held in the evening, in Manhattan. I arranged it with Zoran Janković, the general consul of Montenegro in New York, who made sure that the "Gotham" hotel, owned by our emigrant, was opened especially for that occasion. Janković, in a pleasant atmosphere, with a few suitable sentences, opened and, after Lara and I had recited ours, closed the promotion and then organized a cocktail party where there were about thirty people from Montenegro, among them Danilo Nenezić, from Ulcinj, who played chess for Marnar from Bar and now lives on chess in New York.
I had an interesting discussion with Danilo the other day in an Italian restaurant during dinner on the subject: American foreign policy. We stuck to our views - I think the worst about American foreign policy, he thinks the best. He didn't have an answer to the question: to which country did America bring democracy and prosperity (the most recent example is Iraq), and I didn't quite manage when he asked me: which democratic regime did America have a problem with?
Šime Bergam was also at the promotion, who asked me to greet his uncle Zoran Bergam, a law graduate, a good connoisseur of music, one of the most talented footballers in Mornar's history. And the first Baranin I met upon my return was Zoran, who was very happy with the greetings from New York. This digression, which mentions football, reminded me that something about that Sunday, however, bothered me. On the "Vijesti" website, I read that Djokovic lost to Nadal in the final of Roland Garros and that the players of Morna were relegated from the First Montenegrin League.
After the promotion, Safet Druškić, a native of Redžov, took us to dinner. Even though I was full, I couldn't resist trying the "cheeseburger with fries", an American specialty. It was approaching midnight when we climbed to the top of Redž's building. My breath caught. New York at night, as the light from Broadway spills out and the millions of windows on the skyscrapers flicker, it looks unreal. It seemed to me that I could touch the "Chrysler" building with my hand...
Monday, June 9, was the best day of the American tour. Lara and I visited New York and admired its sights that I recognized from the movies. I don't know what fascinated me more: the endless mass of the world in the consumer Fifth Avenue, the glittering Times Square, with advertisements that, it seemed to me, went for miles into the sky, the dreamy Broadway, where in those days the hit show was the musical "The Lion King", the green Central Park, the business Wall Street, the dizzying Empire State Building, the grandiose Metropolitan, the most famous train station in the world Grand Central Terminal... I only had such a feeling on Red Square in Moscow and St. Mark's Square in Venice, with Tanja - that I am not where I am but that I am dreaming.
In the afternoon, Rege and I went to the New York docks and the Brooklyn Bridge. In the distance, in the fog, the Statue of Liberty could be seen. And if the weather was nice, I don't think Reggio would have gone out to sea and set foot on that New York trademark, covered in green patina, because there is a belief that whoever climbs the Statue of Liberty will return home. And Reggio has no intention (no reason) to return and would not want to tempt fate.
We also went to see the place where the twin towers stood until September 11, 2001. Now there is a Memorial Center, and instead of towers there are two large holes into which water flows from all sides. The sinking of the water is impressive, it is associated with the transience of life and its renewal. On the side, in marble, are written the names of all those who died that day.
The girls and business women in New York seemed somehow more relaxed than those in Chicago and Boston. But they didn't leave behind the smell of perfume either. It was explained to me that this is not in accordance with the new time. Because no one has the right to impose anything on another, not even their own smell. Someone is allergic to it, someone is simply bothered by the fact that the air they breathe spoils, etc. Since everything comes to us from America with a greater or lesser delay and we accept everything unquestioningly, perfumes will also be a thing of the past in a decade or two.
In America, the food is excellent. There you can eat anything your heart desires, because there are all the cuisines in the world. If you have money, you can eat very well. Want a chicken that ran around the yard? No problem. It costs so much. Don't have the money and want a chicken that was sealed in wire? Yes, you will pay significantly less.
Redžo's wife, Mirsada, graduated in pharmacy in Belgrade with an A. She completed her diploma and works professionally in New York. Petović's plan is to buy their own pharmacy, and I have no doubt that they will succeed in this very soon. This emancipated woman, like Redžo, is from Kunj, a village in the southern part of Mrkojević, on the edge of the Bar municipality. But they didn't meet there, but in New York. She asked me what was new in Bar, and the first thing that came to my mind was that three large religious buildings had been built: an Orthodox temple, an Islamic center and a Catholic church. To the first, she replied that it would be better if a modern, well-equipped and well-supplied hospital were built instead, where top specialists would work and where patients would be provided with a pleasant stay in rooms with air conditioning and bathroom, good food and helpful medical staff.
A normal man in America lives as long as God gives him. If he is not too picky about food and if he is not too ambitious at work, so he is under constant stress, he can reach good years. This will allow him a good life and excellent health care. We, in Montenegro, can only live less than we should because of a bad life and, mostly, bad health care.
And New York lives 24 hours a day. However, when we wanted to go up to the famous Rockefeller Center, sometime before midnight, we were not allowed, we were late... Since everything has its end, our good host in New York, Richie, as the Americans call him, drove me to the airport "Kennedy" with his black Toyota. Previously, we left Lara at the bus station. And a song came to my mind, which at first I made fun of, later it entered my ear in a magical way, and now I lived it: "Jugo, Jugo", from "Nervous Postman". If I had been in New York a year earlier, every line from that song would have been true, and "old mother, holding gold and dollars" would have been waiting for me. It's true, that South, the "birthplace", is no longer there, but that's why it's there: "The sky is not blue anywhere..." Well, why not...
I also remembered what Lara told me in the "Toyota": "Americans are friendly, honest and open, but they don't respect the family like we do in Montenegro!" And now, twenty days later, when I close my eyes, I can see New York in the fog, Boston in the rain and Chicago bathed in sunshine...
Bonus video:
