The man who does my dry cleaning is Armenian. He owns the A1 Arl. Clarendon Valet and can repair shoes (as well as bags and belts and luggage), replace zippers, alter your clothes, and make keys. He is a big guy with a voice and accent straight from an old 1930s monster movie, but his gestures are gracious and kind. He works at least 12 hour days, from 7:00 to 7:00. I know his name (Aharon) from his business card and I have seen the picture of his family (wife, two children - the photo is group shot, a little dated)hanging on the wall. He has always been nice to me when I drop off my three shirts, one suit. Aharon's storefront is right where the new stores are happening. Only a block or two away are the Apple Store, Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, and Vesta home furniture. Rents must be skyrocketing and I worry for this man who works alone all day in a tiny space repairing shoes and taking my drycleaning.
He is Armenian, which I didn't know at first. He has a quote by William Saroyan, which hangs prominently over the cash register. That gave it away:
"I should like to see any power in this world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people whose wars have been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose music is unheard and whose prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy this race! Destroy Armenia! See if you can do it. Send them away from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then, see if they will not live again, see if they will not sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia."
I want to ask Aharon about his family one day. I want to confess that, despite all my degrees and education, I had never heard of the Armenian Genocide, in which over 1.5 million Armenians were exterminated in 1915 by the Ottoman Turks, until I was 32 years old and even then I didn't really look into it. I wonder what it feels like to feel your blood, your heritage and your people slaughtered like cattle in recent memory and yet not widely remembered - not by the world, not by my history books. I wonder how it feels to think of myself as one of an "unimportant people" and have that exist as a sort of badge of honor. This man repairs shoes to feed his family and I worry for him. Yet, he has a family, a business of his own, presumably a home, (all of which trumps my present circumstance) and can exist as a living memory to the 1.5 million slaughtered for no reason.
I want to ask Aharon how all of this must feel - is he happy? scared? are his kids going to college? is his home a happy one? did his parents live through it, or was it his grandparents?
But I don't ask. I smile. I talk a little about the weather. I patronize in more ways than one. I ennoble this man I've never really met. I put a dollar in the tip jar on the counter.
