47: Life, Liberty, Pursuit
May 2014
The trees flittered under a light breeze around the Supreme Court as I walked. Bright white clouds dotted the sky over Washington, DC as I made my way from Capitol Hill to Downtown to meet with Murad. The last time I had seen Murad was in Amman, shortly after I had arrived in 2011, when he’d come to assist his family in Palestine with the sale of some land. Now, we had made plans to meet at a coffee shop near the White House.
Standing about 6’4”, with slicked-back, wavy grey hair, Murad epitomizes the enigmatic Arab chieftain. My shift at Merchant Jack’s didn’t start for four hours and his day was free until the evening. We decided on a walking conversation and started down 16th Street and toward the National Mall.
“So, buddy, what are you doing? What are you up to these days?” Murad said.
“Man, I’m not doing anything. I’m working for Merchant Jack’s like I did before I left. It was a bad time to return.” I said, as we walked along the Vietnam Memorial.
“You know that’s my client, right? I do real estate development and site selection for Merchant Jack’s.” Murad said.
“I had no idea.” I said. Deus ex machina.
Flocks of tourists passed by us as we made our way through the Vietnam War Memorial toward the Korean War Memorial, talking about my experience abroad.
“You went to Iraq? What was that like?” Murad said.
“You could see how much of a cluster-fuck it was, and will be going forward.” I said. I talked about the contractors I’d met at the Rotana Hotel, and how the developments in Iraq looked like the housing tracts in Las Vegas or Phoenix. I talked about meeting military contractors in Amman who’d arrived just before I left, who were tasked with training freedom fighters (ISIS militants) for the burgeoning civil wars in Iraq and Syria.
We talked more about the war in Syria and the destruction being wrought. “You know, it’s just an absolute mess out there. You’ve got the Ba’athists vs the Shia, and the Kurds vs Turks and the Palestinians vs the Israelis; then you’ve got monarchies against the Muslim Brotherhood. They’re all majaneen (crazy) — these conflicts are never going away. They’d rather rule over rubble than work together.”
Murad was born just outside of Jerusalem and having grinded to establish himself in the exceptionally competitive Los Angeles commercial real estate game, has little appreciation for the self-defeating behaviors of any actor in the Middle East.
We walked through the Korean War Memorial. The memorial is comprised of dozen or so bronze statues of soldiers in combat gear, wearing ponchos, standing in loose formation as though they’re awaiting an ambush. “See this,” Murad said “the older generation likes to see the soldiers; they don’t like the abstract modern style as much.” A tour group of people in their 70s and 80s slowly walked around us as we stopped to stare at the details on the soldiers’ faces.
We walked to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial then to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Memorial. We talked more about Murad’s career, his life; how he ended up a real estate guy when all he ever dreamt of doing was coaching football for USC.
Finally we reached Jefferson. Alone, on a peninsula in the Potomac, under a rotunda.
“This is my favorite monument in all of DC. See, it says we are ‘endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness……’ See, he says ‘pursuit,’ that’s what I love about this country. There are no guarantees. I’ll tell you what, the best thing my father ever did was make sure his children all had American passports.” We walked counterclockwise through the Jefferson Memorial rotunda, reading the inscriptions derived from Jefferson’s writings.
I told Murad I felt lost after coming home from Jordan. I had met my challenge and had no idea what direction to go in now that I’d been out of the professional world for over six months. We walked up Constitution Avenue into Capitol Hill and stopped at a Mediterranean restaurant for lunch.
“So you grew up in LA, and left. Then you went to Vegas for school, and left. Then back to LA. Left to Jordan. And you left that. Now you’re here. What are you doing here? You got this Supreme Court thing coming up. Do you want to be a cop? Did you ever want to be a cop?”
“I mean, I guess. It’s a job. People there seem to like it. And it’s a far cry from what I’m doing now.”
“And the State Department’s out?”
“No. I’m still weighing the thought of working in politics. It’s hard to get behind all the bullshitting diplomacy entails. I don’t want to go into it and feel like a fool, like I did when I worked for the Germans.”
“Ok, well, here’s something I’m just thinking about, ok? I’m talking off the cuff here. What if you come out to LA, and I train you to do what I do. You would be my guy for Merchant Jack’s.”
“Wow. Thank you. But I have to think about it,” I said. As if there was something to think about.
The day ended with Murad leaving me at Merchant Jack’s before my shift started. We walked through the store and he rattled off the store layout and square footage from memory. We snapped a photo, hugged goodbye, and I went to work.
The next day, I received an email from the Director of Real Estate at Merchant Jack’s. He writes that he’s going to be in DC the following week and we should get together. A week later we meet face-to-face and we’re talking about my potential career in real estate. I tell the Director that I’m days away from my interview with the Supreme Court Police and fully intend to pursue that as an option. The Director tells me to do what’s best for me, but that we should remain in contact, should circumstances change. I promise to do so.