11.07.2002 - 12:29 p.m.

It is 5:30 in the morning when we leave the hotel for the airport. I'd slept for three hours. I'd tried for five, but I just hadn't settled down until I'd laid there for the first two, staring at the ceiling, the wall, and the way the alarm clock numbers stretched behind one lens of my glasses. I'd tried TV, but all that was on was election recaps, which I really hadn't cared to see.

So it is 5:30, and the boss and I are standing outside with our bags, and the taxi is finally pulling up to the entrance. The driver hops out, scurrying to open the trunk and put our bags in before we have a chance to do it ourselves. I am almost embarassed for him; I liked staying in the hotel, pretending I was rich and famous or something, but I don't really want people waiting on me. The boss talks to the driver during the ten-minute trip to the terminal, because the boss talks to everybody, even before dawn. I am too tired to talk, but I listen. I always listen.

The cab driver has been in Indianapolis for two years. Eight years in D.C. before that. "You have no idea of the traffic," he says about why he left. He originally came from Ethiopia.

"Wow, so you're Ethiopian," the boss says. I'd been wondering about that, too. He had a vaguely Arabic accent and bone structure, but also very dark skin that seemed somehow very thin and tight over his face.

"No, no I am American," the driver corrects, thumbing his chest. "I take test to be citizen. I vote."

"Oh, right. Congratulations, by the way. I just meant, you're from Ethiopia."

"But I am American now."

That kind of pride impresses me, I suppose because I believe in so little. I admire people who can find enough truth in an idea to be so glad of it. If asked what I am, I am much more likely to say, "Twenty-three," or "blonde," or "working stiff," than "American." It's not that I think I am not American, or that I don't like America; it's just not what I think about first. Or second, third, or fourth. To me, it's an idea, a cause, and not necessarily an identifier.

The boss keeps the interview going, but always circles back to the experience of emigrating, to asking about how the driver had the strength and courage to leave everyone and everything he knew, his family and his job teaching accounting, to be a cab driver in America. The boss is having trouble getting the driver to admit that it was hard.

"That is the thing about America," the driver keeps saying. "You can be anything, as long as you are hard worker. I am hard worker." I smile out the window at this. I think what he's saying is true, but I know of very few American natives who would admit to that last qualifier. Most of us think more in terms of what we deserve, of what life owes us. We don't like to hear about qualifiers.

We arrive at the airport, and the boss still hasn't gotten the driver to admit that he regrets any part of his decision to spend sixteen-hour workdays half a globe from his family. I think the boss is so stuck on that point because of his own family; he has missed them terribly just for the three days of the conference. I don't think he would be capable of leaving them.

And I don't think the driver understands that this is what the boss means by "hard," either. Ten years ago in Ethiopia, when he left, there was a civil war and a government that was really corrupt, not the way we complain about sex scandals, but truly dysfunctional. In Ethiopia, life was always hard, no matter what you tried to do about it. Missing someone is just not on the same scale of difficulty, not when you can at least be sending that person money. You can at least have some control.

We thank the driver, the boss tips him, and we walk into the airport.

I spent several years in college searching for God, then a few in pursuit of Love. Since 9/11, I've been looking for Patriotism, too. I feel like I should believe in something you start with a capital letter, even if I can't quite wrap my mind around any of the usual ones.

"You can be anything, if you are a hard worker."

Maybe I could believe in that. It's not an absolute.

-stonebridge

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