“Why would Haitians lie like that?” doubted Garvey, who again forgot to lower his head coming down the small stairs leading to our family’s tiny basement apartment in Mrs. Sanjenn’s one-family home.

“I hope that cleared up your mind,” I laughed as he bumped his big, round head. “You mean you truly believe those Haitian rumors about New York?” It was just a manner of speaking about the biggest and richest city in the world.

Amazingly, later that night, Garvey and I would learn our first lesson about life in America from Dad. “Life is hard, but there is work in New York. That’s what a man needs to survive,” declared my father, home after his sixteen-hour shift; he was a machine operator in a glue factory in Westbury, Long Island. He was sipping hot ginger tea – extra sweet, Haitian-style. Like his Mom, Annaira, Dad only talked when it was absolutely necessary. He told us about America, about things that aroused our interest.

Later, his talk turned into preaching. “There’s lots of racism, but if you’re not afraid to work you can have a better future. That’s your pot of gold.” He spoke without coaxing – confident that he was giving us hard-core, unadulterated facts that could easily carry their own powers of persuasion. That would be one of Dad’s few lessons to us about our lives in New York.

Dad, sitting in an old, dark-brown rocking chair, kept fidgeting restlessly. His overstretched muscles seemed to ache a great deal; each new position brought a little grimace to his dark, oval face. He asked about our progress in school as his beady, distant eyes vaguely looked around the badly ventilated, moldy, mildew-smelling basement. It was about the size of a tiny closet space in Dr. Manton’s two-floor apartment near Central Park, where I sometimes helped Mom with her day housekeeping.

“Anne, ki jan ti mounn yo ap travay lekol?” (How are they doing in school?) Dad asked Mom about our school progress. He was looking for confirmation. During his inquiry, his eyes fixed a stony glare on our malfunctioning heater.

“Tin, why don’t you go to bed? You have to wake up at four thirty for work. Don’t worry about the kids’ school. They’ll do fine. They came from the best school in Haiti, first-rate all the way! And I heard things are easier here than in Haiti.” Mom spoke as if she possessed scientific proof to confirm her beliefs.

Dad was still gazing with fascination at the broken heater. It turned on and off by itself. The warmth coming from its red-hot coils seemed to elevate his spirit, making him sound like the famous, hopeful minister Martin Luther King. “The English, that is the challenge.”

Dad got up and headed toward the curtained shower in the tiny bathroom. It was perfumed with a permanent, nearly unbearable stench from a mixture of dampness, dirty linens, cleaning products, and toiletries.

That night I went to bed sad. My fourteen-year-old mind had to look at America through many different lenses: Mom, Dad, Auntie Margo, Mom’s friend Madame Severe, plus Mrs. Sanjenn. I couldn’t focus the different lenses. I felt as if my dreams about New York had been confiscated without warning. I began to wonder aimlessly about life in general. A big part of me wanted to hold onto the good dreams, but they were evaporating just like the smell of cheap perfume – strong at first, then gone.

I thought about Auntie Margo’s beautiful home in Queens Village. I thought about skyscrapers, the subway, new cars, big stores full of clothes, toys, and furniture. I kept saying to myself they must be real, America must be real. At the same time, everything in New York felt and looked fake. The wonder that had bubbled inside me, like white foam in a glass of good beer, was fading away.

That night I dreamed of the Korean girl who had been in my English as a Second Language class at Jamaica High. She had just been raped and killed in her luxurious building near school. In my dream, her assassin -- looking like a gorilla monster wearing AMERICA in big red letters -- came to get me.

I was afraid of tossing on the top level of the old bunk bed -- not that the squeaky noise could wake up my younger sisters, Mara, Nine, and Alto as they huddled together on the bottom bunk like a giant turtle in deep sleep. But my screams woke my parents in their tiny bedroom, overstuffed with a full-size bed. A thin, unpolished plank of wood served as a door but gave them little privacy from our bedroom, which was no bigger than the doll’s house I had seen hanging on a giant tree in someone’s backyard on television.

“Wake up, wake up Awona, stop screaming!” Mom shook me from my sleep and looked at me in a bewildered way.

“Not me, not me, please love me, put me down,” I continued yelling. Though my small, slanted eyes were wide open, I was still looking at the hands of the assassin trying to grab me.

Mom questioned me sternly, expecting an honest reply. I stared blankly around the tiny room as she made me climb down from the top bunk. As we stood face-to-face, I noticed a little bit of myself in her body. Her middle-aged fat carried in her stomach and her football-sized bosoms showed through her light jersey nightgown. When she didn’t get an answer from me, Mom reminded me that I used to have nightmares in Haiti about the Tonton Macoutes and zombies coming to get us.

“You’re big enough to stop that bad habit. Call on the Virgin Mary and St. Jude for help and go back to sleep,” Mom commanded, expecting loyal execution of her order, like a sergeant in wartime. She returned to her bedroom, looking a little angry because it was about time to wake up to prepare Dad’s breakfast and lunch for work.

In the morning, as I walked for half an hour toward school, my soul felt like a New York winter. I’d heard the complaints from many Haitians: “Pagin bagay pi di ke New York winter!” (Nothing is worse than a New York winter.) And I kept repeating to myself, “St Jude, defender of hopeless causes, help me find my pot of gold in America!”