Short Story
Nothing in Common
A Simple Story #1 — Calaif Arrives
Calaif first showed up at my home through an AirBnB booking.
He does door to door sales. That’s a tough hustle.
He needs to stay positive 100% of the time. And I must say, I’ve witnessed that he manages to do that.
How does one person stay so positive? ALL THE TIME. But he does. It’s a gift.
He also is a rapper. He writes poetry. And lyrics. He records his work.
And I have this sense that one day he’s going to be this monumental producer. Because he’s a giant when it comes to managing people.
We joke a lot together. We imagine we’re on a sitcom, and he shows up at the door…. “hey, where am I? I’m sure not in Brooklyn any more!” And the soundtrack laughs.
We tell people we’re “hashtag Nothing in Common.”
He’s young. I’m old.
He’s a guy. I’m a woman.
He grew up in Brooklyn and Harlem. I grew up in farm country in Pennsylvania.
And oh yeah, he’s black. I’m white.
Podcasters would have nothing on us. Our conversations are all over the map.
We imagine doing an MST3K type series, except we’ll watch TV shows that each of us picks, that neither of us would watch on our own. I would never watch wrestling. He’d never watch the Great British Bake Off. The conversations would be epic.
We are both naturally curious about each other’s perspectives. And that is what makes the conversation so interesting.
Calaif’s mother died when he was young. His dad died while he was visiting at my home here. It was a very sad day. All the guests here heard him crying. They all came up to the kitchen to tell me, “Susan, Susan, Calaif’s in his room, crying, something is really wrong!”
Everyone was here for him, to console him.
He left some days later to go take care of business, but months later, returned.
It was here through a program I teach that I call VisionQuest, that he changed the trajectory of his life.
Yesterday morning, I was preparing a room for an incoming guest, making a bed up with freshly laundered sheets. We’re good like that here at this AirBnB.
Calaif was standing in the doorway.
We were talking about what motivates people and sharing our stories. We do that a lot.
“Yeah,” he said, “it reminds me of that time that this dusty white dude showed up in our office and nobody wanted to be bothered with him.”
“A dusty white guy?” I queried. It’s not often I hear the word ‘dusty’ as an adjective to define someone’s character. Or even appearance.
“Yeah, dusty. You know, dirty. He was basically homeless.”
“Oh, I see.” I still was a little surprised by the use of the dusty word, but okay, I decided to myself, I’ll roll with it. “So where was this? What office were you working in at the time?”
“It was in New York City,” he explained, “and he just came in off the streets, looking for a job. It was obvious he was living on the streets. He was so dusty.”
I felt like the dusty thing was getting worn out at this point, but I was not to be deterred in getting to the point of the story.
“Everyone in the office looked at him. Nobody wanted to work with him. Nobody wanted anything to do with him. So I said, fine, I’ll take him on.”
“Wow. What happened then?” Now I was really curious.
“I took him down to the Goodwill and got him some new clothes.”
I was guessing they weren’t dusty.
“I trained him up. Within a couple of weeks, he became a top earner!”
“Really? That seems like a miracle!”
“Yeah it was great. After about 3 weeks,” he continued the tale, “he showed up to work with a brand new suit and tie. He was the guy nobody wanted. But you know, I had hired ten guys before I found this guy, and none of them had what it took to stick with it and put in the time and the work. He turned out to be the top performer in the office. All because I gave him a chance.”
“It’s hard to find people who are really motivated to do whatever it takes to become successful at what they do. I guess that guy gave it his all. He was lucky you believed in him. And I guess also, he really had nothing to lose.”
“Nothing at all,” Calaif said.
And as we do in all our conversations where we are totally in sync and understanding each other, totally vibing out, with everything that matters in common, his eyes sparkled knowingly, and I’m pretty sure, mine did too.
This is a series.
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