My jay/day good deed
Tomorrow being “jay/day,” I had an opportunity this afternoon to participate in a very personal way. I got an emergency email on Sunday night from Debra Chiat in Rome. “Inti,” (short for "Antonio”), a young man who grew up in her household, was stranded in New York. He and a friend had come here to spend the summer, and had high hopes for getting a job and a place to live. The friend got cold feet after a few days in the Big Apple and headed back to Rome. Inti was also about to give up and head home, as well.
Debra was obviously worried that one of her babies (he’s 19 now) was all alone in the big city. So I got his cell phone number and took him to lunch today at a trendy new Indian restaurant in Chelsea, where we had one of everything. I asked him what type of work he was looking for and he said he could be a bus boy. (He’d love to be a waiter, but he’s not confident enough in his English.) So I turned to our waiter and said, “Do you need a bus boy?” and he responded, “Well, actually we do!” So right there and then, I helped Inti fill out the application and he is going back at 5 p.m. today for his “audition.”
We then headed off to the Gap to get him a black t-shirt for his “bus boy” uniform and stopped by a local hostel to check availability. (They had none.) I got on the phone and called a friend who is looking for a roommate and he is going to speak to her on Wednesday.
I’m exhausted!
If you know of anybody who has a room to rent or knows of a job for someone who speaks fluent Italian and pretty good English, please write to me immediately in case the bus boy interview and the roommate interview I got for him doesn’t work out. (My address is at the top of the page.)
I also took Inti to two other Italian restaurants and spoke to the managers about getting him work. I also got him a list of hostels in the city and offered to loan him a cell phone so he could make and receive phone calls from prospective employers or roommates. And I told him he could stay in my apartment this weekend while I'm up in the country.
And as I said goodbye to him at the subway, I explained that the biggest lesson I learned from "Nonno Jay" (Grandpa Jay) was to be bold; to step right up and tell people what you want and how much you want it. And that is Jay's legacy to me.
Spread it around, people.
Steve