WHO IS LIKE GOD?

WHO IS LIKE GOD?

It was an hostel in Indonesia but could have been almost anywhere. Thousands of hostels like this one have sprung up around the world for those who refer to themselves as backpackers or travellers. To call them tourists is something of an insult.

A series of travel books has been written for just about every country in the world giving maps, bus times, and places to visit which include accommodation. Some of the low budget guides even tell you where to park your four wheel drive and discuss the merits of five star hotels. Part of their mission appears to be to take the travail out of travel.

I am staying in one of these hostels although I am three times the age of most of the other people here and all too often I forget that they are young and have different interests. When I began traipsing around the world it was quite usual for people to call us hippies. Sometimes I have really good chats with these young men and women from the affluent Western world who are privileged to able to live well in poor countries. Many of them are exceptionally bright, articulate and full of interest in every thing and everybody around them and after spending time in their company I feel truly uplifted and think that the new generation will make wonderful improvements to the world.

Some other young people are completely different and want only to watch violent videos, football on TV, listen to their Ipods and show off their wealth in front of the locals.

It is a generation that has grown up with easy and immediate access to everything material that they wanted. They have no idea what poverty and hunger are and look upon it as some sort of crime or the result of stupidity. If this is so in India and Africa they will see many guilty people. Perhaps they have no idea that only a generation ago their family were standing on American street corners saying “Buddy, can you spare a dime?” or wandering bare footed through the bomb devastation of Dresden or Hiroshima. Something has been dreadfully lacking in their education which definitely includes a sense of history, they seldom know that a world existed before they were born and that everything moves in cycles, there are times of abundance and times of famine. Prosperity is not a permanent state as the financial crises of the new millennium is showing.

Last night I met Dennis from Holland, Hank from Michigan and Pierre from Paris. They all spoke English together and talked about visas, cheap airline tickets and places they had visited and were going to visit. Hank struggled more than the others with his English usage managing sentences such as; “I mean everything was sort of like, you know, O.K., kind of thing”

By chance, or the law of averages, they were all studying or had finished Business Studies at University and none of them was particularly interested in the subject. They had all ended up with debts and parental loans, they had all enjoyed the social life at college and none of them knew what was coming next or what they really wanted to do.

I woke up early, took a little walk and was sitting down with my first cup of coffee when Dennis came and sat down beside me and we started to talk. He was the sort of guy who will always be popular because he enjoyed talking, listening, asking questions and was generally full of life. In many respects he was much brighter than the others and certainly showed more interest in life about him and life within him.

“What were you doing at my age?” he asked with genuine interest.

“Oh, I had finished business studies.”

“Where did you do that?”

“New York.”

“How long did study for?” he said sipping from a mug of thick black Sumatran coffee.

“About five minutes.” I said with a smile on my face and he had a smile on his.

“I will tell you a little of what happened. In England in the late 1950s not long after the 2nd World War, we didn’t have television, computers, Cds, DVds, Ipods or any thing like that. My elder brother used to listen to radio Caroline on a crystal set that he put together himself, it was transmitted from a Pirate ship off the coast of Holland. The music was too wild for the BBC. Bill Halley was causing riots with Rock around the Clock, The Stones and Beatles were getting arrested for having drugs and Mariane Faithful had an incident with a Mars Bar. Our parents had been fighting a war for years, the worlds biggest, Empire was coming to an end, bomb sites were everywhere and the housing was in Nissan type army huts. Teddy Boys roamed the streets with smart clothes and flick knives, policemen could be very nasty if you were a Beatnik and had hair as long as the Beatles. Something new was happening, rationing was ending, contraception was begining and freedom meant we could do just about anything we liked - so we did.”


For the first time in my life I felt as if I was part of history and was enjoying myself. It was an exciting time, the music lives on and there is I fancy some jealousy among the present young for this ground breaking time.

“One day my father came home with a gramophone player which was electric and played 78 inch vinyl records using a metal needle. The sound was poor by today’s standards because of this system and because recording studies dangled one microphone in the middle of the bands who didn’t have mixing facilities.

My father had also brought some classical records and it was, apart from the radio, the first music that had ever come into our house. We listened as a family to the Planet Suit, Brahms, and Handel, I can remember them vividly. At the weekend my elder brother came home with three records that he had bought second hand from a friend at school.

The two of us spent all of Sunday listening to these three records which had A and B sides, my favourite was Blueberry Hill. The Stones and the Beetles band members were also listening to imported records and learning 12 bar Blues. Black music. When Bob Dylan sang “If you ain’t got nothing you ain’t got nothing to lose” we took it seriously - he sounded as if he was serious too. A generation of British white trash had discovered a music that they really loved.

The records came from America which was a long way away and there were hardly any planes, certainly no jets. A few weeks later one Friday after school I hitched to London and walked up and down the Thames river and came to Tilbury docks where there were ships loading and unloading their cargoes. I walked up gang planks of what to me were huge ships and asked if they were going to America. The first week I didn’t find any, the second week I didn’t find any either but a sailor told me that to get a job I must go to the Pool which is an office for merchant seaman looking for ships.

Three days later I was seeing Liverpool docks from the railings of a ship and I was on my way to New York. I had lied about my age by one year as I was only fifteen, been given a rail pass to Liverpool and signed on to a rusting cargo ship that had been registered in Panama and could just about float. Most of the crew came from the Caribbean and for the first time in my life I saw black people.

The crossing was incredibly rough, I was sea sick and had diarrhea for a week and then one foggy morning I saw the Statue of Liberty and shortly afterwards Manhattan. We tied up with the help of tugs to one of the piers and I was able to help with massive ropes and capstans having added fore, aft, starboard, larboard, and belay to my treasure of words. I saw the Empire State building which was taller than I had dreamed.

During this uncomfortable week on the Atlantic I had discovered that I was not destined to become a sailor and never wanted to be on rough sea again. I walked ashore with all my belongings which amounted to absolutely nothing. In my pocket was twelve dollars that had been given to me as an advance against my wages despite not being able to do even an hours work for the entire Atlantic crossing.

My one advantage was that I could speak English which wasn’t much of an advantage because no body else could. I heard Italian, Russian, and lots of Spanish because I was on the West Side where people from Puerto Rico lived.

I saw ice men. These were men who dragged massive chunks of ice along the streets and used ice picks to break pieces off and sell to people from their ice boxes. I saw massive red and green water melons, fire hydrants and no spitting signs.”

Dennis didn’t interrupt me once as I was telling my story. He had ordered a western breakfast and had a good appetite so I continued as he ate.

“The August day grew very hot and the tarmac stuck to my shoes as I crossed the road to buy fresh orange juice from market stalls. I found a shady spot outside a tenement building and sat on the steps completely mystified by everything going on around me. People of all shapes and colours, Cossacks, black women, Chinese children; everybody appeared to be poor and newly arrived.

I was too bemused to realize that I was in any sort of predicament but I had jumped ship, had no passport, no money, should have been at school, my parents didn’t know where I was, and was an illegal immigrant. These sorts of things are trivialities when you are young and naïve. I think naïve is a polite way of saying stupid.

During the course of the day hundreds, thousands of people walked past me sitting as I sat on the steps and none of them took the slightest interest. I only spoke to buy an orange juice, a donut and a slice of melon from gruff people.

Even as the grey shadows from the tall buildings fell across the street I didn’t think of finding a place to sleep, I was open mouthed with amazement as if I was at the cinema, everything was new, foreign and amazing.

It must have been at about 7.00 pm that a man walked by noticed me, turned back and came to speak. I later learnt that he was a Hassidic Jew, he wore a well worn black frock coat, black trousers, black shoes and had pieces of string dangling from his belt. He had probably never cut his hair but had trained it to curl around his ears in long loops, clipped onto the top of his mass of black hair was a skull cap. I had never seen one of these before.

“What are you doing here?” he asked
“I have come from England by working on a ship but I was sea sick and left.” I replied quite honestly.
“And what is you name?”
“Michael.” I replied and left of the Sir that I usually was expected to use for all teachers and older people.
“Who is like God?” He asked and I thought it a very strange question.
“Perhaps everyone, perhaps no one.” I said after a baffled pause.
“And why have you come to New York?” he asked half kindly.
“Perhaps because I like Blues Music.” Was the best answer I could find.
“Maybe so Michael. But you have also come to meet me. Now we will go to my house, you will stay with my family for a while, you can wash and we will eat together and my wife will make you a bed.”

Somehow I took all this in my stride and while he didn’t take me physically by the hand he had certainly taken me under his wing. I walked alongside him as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I washed my face and hands then sat down at a table with his family which consisted of about seven people. The three children were all younger than me. Everyone spoke Hebrew or Yiddish and there was singing, prayers and candles. It was the first meal I had eaten for a week, the bread was fresh and I probably ate more than my share. When I was shown my bed which was a mattress squeezed in alongside the children I lay down and fell asleep thinking I was in a tent. There were several suitcases on top of a make shift wardrobe which gave the impression that the family would be able to leave the apartment instantly if there was a knock on the door.

At that time I was capable of sometimes sleeping for fourteen hours. My much needed sleep was interrupted and next morning I had breakfast with Mr Abe before it was light. He told me that he was going to work and that I should come with him, adding that perhaps his boss would be able to give me a job.

We took a dark smelly subway ride to Brooklyn Heights and then walked through a labyrinth of alleys where people were sleeping on newspapers and cardboard. I realized that I could have been one of them and said so to Mr Abe.

“Many things could be, but what is, is. When you have a job you will have some money. From zero to one is a million. You have found a home and are welcome to stay with us, we can always put more water in the soup.”

We continued up hundreds of subway steps and emerged by the law courts and walked quite quickly past. Nearby there were shops that sold stationery for the lawyers, we went inside one and then down into a large basement with no windows but rows of electric lights with bare bulbs and half a dozen men in skull caps were working by a long table. Neon lights weren’t common then.

After half an hour the boss, whose name was Joseph came over to say good morning.

“Do you think that you can find a job for this young man Joseph? His name is Michael and is part of my family.”

“Who is like God?” Joseph said to me.

“Perhaps everyone, perhaps no one.” I replied quite quickly and easily as it had seemed to go down well the day before.

“Come and meet Moses, he will show you what to do, its easy work and if you keep your eyes and ears open you will soon learn the printing and stationery business.”

Moses was busily and methodically working and I stood alongside him and watched. After using a guillotine to cut large sheets of paper to size he began a binding process, making covers, placing the papers into a hand press and then applying glue to the edges. I stood and watched for half an hour as he continually repeated this process. What amazed me was the meticulous manner in which he worked and the enormous care that he took at every stage of his work. It was a simple and repetitive task but he never lost concentration for a moment.

During a pause I said to him

“You are taking enormous care with your work.”

He looked up for the first time from is work and opening his hands wide at waist height said.

“If it’s for the customer it has got to be good.”

Denis was a quick and astute young man with sense of curiosity who had taken the trouble to listen attentively.

“And that was your five minutes of Business Studies?”

“Yes, it’s all you need to know. But I learnt other valuable lessons too.”

“Like what?”

That the world will only become a better place when people practice “random acts of loving kindness”.

Anything else?

“That 'Michael' means “Who is like God?” in Hebrew.”

Anything else?

“That somehow people are able to find a life even after they have had a number tattooed on their forearm.”


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