Since “joining” Uptown Updogs, I’ve become a lot of small dogs’ second-favorite person around the neighborhood of Morningside Heights. Twenty-one dogs, to be exact. And it goes hand-in-hand with the Smiling: each of these pup families gets a personalized version of the Smile. That is another mistake people make: giving the same smile to everyone they come across, regardless of circumstances.
There is no such thing as a universal smile.
And while I’ve considered letting Gigi in on my scheme because she is always very nice and attentive to her charges at the park, the risk of blowing up my spot is too big. The dog walks are just a stepping-stone, and I won’t be renewing the URL for Uptown Updogs come college acceptance letters. There’s a master plan in the works—and it is wrapped in Columbia University ivy.
So, yeah, there’s no circumventing that this is a bit of a scam. But what can I say? Dad calls it “the Great Hunger.” That thing that draws everyone around the world here, to America, to New York City. Whether you’re the worker scraping off the gum from a monument, the busy CEO that looks to the monument in question on their way to work every day, or the philanthropist tycoon worth billions and chiseled into marble for all the money they’ve donated to the city. Where you fall between the three, in America, the land of opportunities and blockbusters, depends on how hungry you are for it. How much gusto and hustle you can muster in pursuit of your goals and for that better life for your children.
Haltiwanger Hunger is its own brand of Hunger.
“Ma! I’m home for exactly nineteen minutes!” I shout, hanging the spare leash, ball thrower, and bag of dog treats in the doorway of our apartment.
Our building is a classic Upper West Side institution that also offers the amenities of the modern midtown high-rise building. As the super, my dad is responsible for running the day-to-day of the building, fixing things when they break down, and dealing with the demands of the wealthy tenants. It’s a pretty thankless job, but we get to live in this apartment rent free, even if it is by far the smallest of the bunch. An aboveground basement, really, considering the limited sunlight, leaks, and cold drafts in the winter.
I grab a Pop-Tart from the pantry while stripping off today’s Uptown Updogs shirt, which goes into the laundry pile by the hallway. Luckily, FATE does not require a uniform for after-hours extracurriculars, but in my case, “everyday attire” actually requires more preparation.
“Henri,” Ma mimics, mouth full of pillow, pronouncing it the French Haitian way: Uh-ree.
“You asked me to wake you up. So I’m waking you up.”
Light snoring.
“MA!”
“Just . . . give me, like, mmm’ten.”
I roll my eyes and disappear into the bathroom, still smelling of dog and now running late.
“Yo, Ma! Do you have the good leave-in conditioner?” I shout, purposely slamming the medicine cabinet a little too loudly.
“Don’t ‘yo’ me, Henri,” she grumbles, getting up and pushing past me to get into the bathroom. Her tattoo, a faded peach (“before the emoji”), is visible on her shoulder. Like I said, very close quarters. There’s something very strange about witnessing your 5' 6" Haitian mother slowly get more ripped than you. All her firefighter training has paid off. The woman is dangerously close to getting deltoids on her deltoids.
When Mom became a firefighter—or rather, became the sort of paralegal that tells her husband and son over dinner that she wants to become a firefighter, complete with a three-page plan of how it is all within grasp for us as a family in the next four years—I hadn’t predicted that I would become a live-in alarm clock. She’s currently a “probie” (probationary)—see also: firefighter in training, rookie, runt, worst schedule, and all kitchen duties. Her hours at the station are, by design, all over. There’s a pecking order. “Probies” are expected to adjust quickly, be they nineteen-year-olds still living at home or middle-aged women with a son and husband.
“Have you ever seen a burnt body?” Dad had simply asked, quieting the table. To him, it was a nonstarter—but all three of us knew even back then that that’s just how things go in this house. Somewhere between what Ma wants and what Dad wants, well, it’s not even a contest. The Haltiwanger household is a matriarchy.
“I’m not due at the station until tomorrow,” Ma explains. “I want to cook us a meal tonight so we can have a good family dinner and plenty of leftovers for you and Dad. So, tell me: what’s next on your busy schedule, then, son of mine?”
I catch the kitchen oven clock through the bathroom mirror’s reflection.
“Debate practice, meeting up with Ming, and then interview to walk a new dog.”
She shakes her head, chin resting on her hand. “I read an article that most kids your age consider six p.m. the end of the day. Free time to play video games and chat on the phone and worry about their crushes.”
“Those are only the kids boring enough to agree to take a survey of what they do with their free time, Mom. Who wants to be that?”
She shakes her head, now fully audibly peeing.
“Mom! Gross!”
“I’ll see you later tonight, okay! Don’t eat out!”
I let the apartment door close behind me, shaking my head and smiling—I still have a few private ones left, no capital S Smiles, no Smile™—and head back toward school.
Two
I attend FATE Academy on the Upper West Side. For the uninitiated, that is the Fine Arts Technical Education Academy. Around the streets of Manhattan, you might recognize us by our gray slacks and skirts, purple blazers, and navy ties. FATE is a very woke school, very woke. We pride ourselves on our wokeness. The student body is diverse and amassed from all corners of the city. There’s a giant photo of Barack Obama in Freedom Hall. Freedom is the south wing, Voice is the east, Action is the north, and Mindfulness is the West. (All that is missing is a recycled, environmentally conscious Sorting Hat to bring it all home at this point.)
Dad had pinched me when I made that joke during our tour.
“You’re only laughing at it because you’re inside it now,” Dad said. “Believe me. Kids are writing their homework on tiny chalkboards in Haiti right now. This is a true gift for us.”
My schooling is and has always been an “us” issue in the Haltiwanger household, which explains the bow tie he wore that day as well as Ma’s ironed hair and new dress when we were given access to this inner sanctum.
I was still in middle school over at MS 250 when we had first learned about the existence of the Fine Arts Technical Education Academy. MS 250 with the same off-putting sea-green walls in every classroom and metal-detecting security checkpoints that did not work, which only made passing through them more unsettling every morning. But for FATE, the elitest of the elite schools in Manhattan, “diversity” and “inclusion” have become key words, and simply spitting out another generation of world-wrecking Finance frat boys is no longer in vogue. (Don’t worry, they’re still alive and well.) And since these schools are looking to diversify their student body, and since I am: a.) very smart (not bragging, just true); b.) Black; c.) poor (sounds depressing that way, but strictly speaking, also true); and d.) the kid of immigrants, the admissions director literally shook my hand four times over the course of my interview. And so I was to be a FATE student: tuition, spaceship-looking building, and megawatt future all included.