How I've Been Helped in America

Shaw has been my greatest comfort and my greatest resource. When I came to America, as I soon found out, my expectations were skewed. Everyone was NOT out to help me, some would even try to kill me or use me, and they certainly did not see me as an equal. I wonder what it would be like if I hadn't spent my first night in America in jail with him. He showed me the ropes, hooked me up with a job. I asked him why, later, he changed his mind about me because I was simply a woman.

"You're different," he said, "you have personality."

Some call it personality, some call it being abrasive.

The ward boss was a large man with heavy hands, a great woolly beard and stern eyes. He was arm wrestling when I first met him, and I watched as he snapped a man's arm like a dry twig. He then got up, punched me in the arm and we began to converse about where we would work. Well, Shaw actually did all the talking. He was the brains, I was the muscle, a peculiar role reversal. I don't know how I got out of doing most of the talking, and how he never figured out that I wasn't Scottish, or anything close to it. I suppose Shaw said that I was a mute.
The ward boss controlled what little political power we had, not that I particularly cared, and in return gave us shelter and means to find a job. Domestic stuff. A fair trade in my opinion. I just wanted to work. That doesn't mean that I didn't have aspirations.
Shaw told me that though there wasn't a Norwegian ghetto in New York, there was one in Seattle, Washington, in a place called Ballard. He said it was by the sea. I knew that was where I wanted to be, close to my people, where the tall trees and ocean meet. I hoped that someday, if I were to stay in America for the rest of my life, that I could somehow end up there. So Shaw holds me close, soothes me like one would a savage beast, and tells me of how someday we'll make it to a place where we can both be happy.