The main job of any security guard was to safeguard mighty business secrets from evil spirits. And to those shallow-minded guards, all the immigrants entering their buildings were potential evil spirits: communist conspirators, voodoo priests, bohemian poets (cynics), polygamists, KGB agents, Castro’s men, street girls from Havana, ship jumpers from the Hellenic Line, anarchists, sexual intimidators, true-blue adventurers, atheists…

Leaving the lobby and proceeding towards the elevators, according to the guard’s instructions, I dropped that thought. I was happy that he let me in (I did not wish to look for a restaurant job at that point). Still, I was alone, running a few minutes late for my first job. I was anxious to reach the basement and minimize my lateness. Once on the elevator, I forgot to press B and ended up on the 21st Floor. When the doors opened, a mahogany hallway from some forgotten American movie I had watched back home exposed itself in its materialistic beauty. Then it hit me: “THIS IS AMERICA!” I knew right away that this was the wrong floor, and couldn’t be the destination for an immigrant whose clothes still smelled of European corn fields. The paper which read See Bob at the Allied Maintenance Office in the basement was another indication of the wrong place for the wrong person. The elevator was in agreement, too. Oops! Wrong floor! — the cables squealed. The elevator doors got the message, also, producing a gentle closing sound by forcing their rubber strips into a hot, long — all the way to the basement — kiss! It descended with me, the only passenger.

I thought: This is it! This is that biblical Tower of Babel which was started and never finished in Babylonia. It continued to be built right here in America, in Manhattan, at 390 Park Avenue — in the twentieth century…

As I exited, the sign Allied Maintenance Corporation, Bob K., Supervisor was ready to “reprimand” me for being late. Something deep in me reminded me that I was a stranger in a strange land. The arrow next to the sign “took” me to the office where the office cleaners were supposed to report for work. A throng of immigrants were speaking different languages. I thought: This is it! This is that biblical Tower of Babel which was started and never finished in Babylonia. It continued to be built right here in America, in Manhattan, at 390 Park Avenue — in the twentieth century, after so many centuries proving the impossible task of completion. I felt like the lost spirit who accidentally forgot his body and was now floating in a strange land. All around me I saw a human bazaar: Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Argentineans, Cubans, Polish, Italians, a few Russian escapees, South Slavs and their neighbors, Greeks and Albanians, Haitians… Everybody was engaged in some linguistic murmur, at the same time grabbing their cleaning tools and supplies, getting ready to go to their designated floors.

My attention was sinking in anticipation of taking my first work assignment and training from a short, white man in his late fifties, with a thick cigar squeezed between his dark yellow teeth. It looked as if it were trying to escape from his mouth. He looked mean and fast, like a cotton plantation manager from an outdated book. Seeing him, I felt a bowling ball strapped to my feet. Though I wanted to run back to the elevators and forget all about this “nonsense” of cleaning the office buildings in America, my feet couldn’t move. I stayed.

Finally my turn came to speak to this capitalist boss, who was about to put his own imprint on my American destiny. This was much different than my job situation back home. There, when I worked summers as a parking lot attendant at the hotel “Beograd” in Zadar, my boss was one of my own. It was easy to relate to him, a short, calm guy with nice manners. He studied Economics at the University of Zagreb. After finishing his studies, he found the job running the hotel in Zadar.