WE lived on the top floor of a three-storey apartment, and our balcony faced the Bay Area Rapid Transit elevated tracks. The sound of trains going by could be heard day and night, and the first service would rouse me early in the morning.

The nearest station was the end of the line, if I recall correctly. We were a 10-minute walk from a large supermarket surrounded by a parking lot, like the ones you see in the movies. There was also a diner, where I sampled my first truly American doughnut – the sweetest I had ever tasted, even for a child with an unrepentant sweet tooth.

My best friend, who lived one floor down, was Hakeem, an Afghan boy a year or two younger than me. He probably migrated from his home country as an infant with his mother, a pretty lady whose face resembled the girl with striking green eyes in that famous 1985 National Geographic cover photo.

Hakeem and his mum lived with her partner, an African man who wasn’t born in the US, judging by his accent. Hakeem called him by his first name, something I wasn’t accustomed to when addressing adults. And, my friend had a peculiar favourite dish: white rice sprinkled with sugar. When I told him that Malaysians ate rice with savoury gravies like curry, he thought it gross and grimaced. He was very much American, but not of the variety usually shown in the media and popular culture.

We discovered that a Japanese university student named Hiro lived on the first floor, and befriended him. Us kids would just show up and spend the whole afternoon watching television in his unit, since there were restrictions in my household (for me, at least) and Hakeem didn’t even have a TV. In hindsight, it’s perplexing why Hiro let us in – he would study in his room while we watched shows to our heart’s content, and we would simply leave when we were done. Such discipline Hakeem and I had.

One day, shortly after the summer holiday began, Hakeem came knocking on the door (there was no WhatsApp then) to alert me to something “interesting” that could be viewed only from my bedroom window. He walked in – I told him to “Open your shoes!”, which he did but found weird – and headed straight to my room, got on my bed, carefully pulled up the shades and gazed outside in awe.

Curious about this “interesting” sight, I joined him. There, in the garden of the adjacent apartment, I saw a young woman in a bikini laying on her stomach, sunbathing. You could say it was an important moment for me, on the cusp of adolescence and bearing the weight of Asian values and moral codes that clashed with the fact that this woman was, of her own will, sunning herself out in the open, and society was totally cool with it. Mind blown.

I had always been fascinated by elevators, and used to ride them for fun back in Malaysia. So, I was thrilled that our apartment had an elevator, which we used all the time given that we were on the third floor. It was here – in a First World country, ironically – that I had my maiden experience of being stuck in one. The light stayed on (thank goodness), and I realised I had company: a large grasshopper on the back wall that seemed oblivious to my distress.

By my estimate, I was stuck between the first and second floors. Battling panic, I pressed the emergency button, which immediately connected me to a police dispatcher. Her tone and manner was exactly like what I had seen on TV! But I was in no excited mood; I was genuinely frightened. The dispatcher, in her calm voice, assured me that she knew exactly where I was.

It must have been a good 10 minutes before I heard voices from above, and the doors cranked open. The elevator was caught slightly below the second floor.

As my eyes adjusted to the brightness of the summer sun spilling in, I made out the silhouette of a man reaching out his hand. “Hey buddy, don’t worry. You can come out now.” It was a police officer, also just like the American cops on TV. He pulled me up and on to the second floor, where Hakeem was standing next to him.

The officer turned his head and mumbled in that classic California cadence into the walkie-talkie in his chest harness, notifying the dispatcher of the rescue. “OK, kid, you take care now, yeah?” And off he went on his way. The grasshopper, too, had gotten out (without help). It wasn’t there when I looked back into the elevator, which stayed stuck with its doors ajar. “That was so cool!” exclaimed Hakeem.

I still bear the scars from this rather mundane incident. I’m less likely to take the elevator, preferring the stairs if they’re available. This used to be my daily exercise.

We left the Golden State about a year before the big San Francisco earthquake of 1989. The relativity of the cultural meanings and values that ultimately shape our individual identity is often based on the social relations and environments we experience early in life. Oftentimes, it’s the humdrum, everyday stuff that we look back on for solace. – August 14, 2020.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.