The Tides of Change, a Novel by @rodeo670: Part 5

This is the story of Jordan Dela Cruz, a USMC Iraq War veteran who comes home to Saipan and becomes a History teacher to help the next generation break free from the shackles of the cultural generational poverty mindset, which keeps the status quo alive and keeps the people of the CNMI disempowered and believing that nothing will ever change.

Read Part 1 HERE
Read Part 2 HERE
Read Part 3 HERE
Read Part 4 HERE

Jordan felt a knot in his stomach as he drove up to the restaurant and began to park. While growing up, China House was where his family had always gone to eat on special days, so he saw it as a fitting place to tell his parents about his suspension over dinner. However, he did not expect it to be this packed on a weeknight.

He sat there, in his car, and thought for a while. He was more nervous now, knowing that so many people were inside, because he knew that an argument always broke out whenever he talked to his parents. No matter how hard he tried to keep calm, it always got bad. The last one resulted in him and his parents not speaking to each other for a whole week, which really tore him up on the inside. His family meant the world to him, but it was so frustrating to him that they could not understand why he was the way he was, and why he couldn’t give up on his dream to make the CNMI a better place for everyone.

He hoped and prayed that tonight would be different. Just once, he wanted things to go well between him and his parents. Just then, the clock on his car radio beeped, and Jordan looked over to see that it was 8:00 PM. He took a deep breath, sighed, and said to himself, “Here goes nothing,” as he got out of his car and walked into the restaurant.

“Hello, sir, is it just you tonight?” a woman asked as Jordan entered.

He looked around and saw the table that his parents were sitting at. “Actually, I’m here with Rob and Maria Dela Cruz,” he told the woman as he pointed to a table in the distance.

“Oh ok sir, your menu is already on the table; I gave them three,” she said, smiling. Jordan smiled back and thanked her as he started off in the direction of his parents’ table. Each step forward was a reminder of what was likely to happen before the end of the night as a result of him breaking the news to his parents. He wanted to just turn around, walk out the door, and go home. Still, he knew it had to be done, because if his parents were to find out from someone else, things would end up being much worse. He finally reached the table after what seemed like an eternity, and his parents stood up to greet him with hugs.

“Well, here we are, Mom and Dad,” Jordan said as he took a seat at the table, across from his parents. “How do we start this….hmmmm…”

“Well, son,” his mother began, “maybe you should look at the menu and order your food first? We have all the time to talk while we wait for our meals to arrive.”

He looked at his mother and said, “Mom, you know I always get the same thing whenever we eat here. Sweet and sour pork has been my favorite since I was a kid!”

“Yes, but I just thought that maybe you might want to try something different for once.” Maria looked around, raised her hand, and loudly said, “Excuse me,” beckoning the waitress over to their table. “We’re ready to order,” she said as the waitress arrived. The waitress acknowledged her and took out her writing pad, taking down Maria’s order. “We’ll have the fried chow mein with shrimp, beef broccoli, wonton soup, and sweet and sour pork.”

“Ok ma’am, and would you like any drinks in addition to your three waters?” the waitress asked.

“No, we’re fine with our waters right now, thanks.”

“Alright, I’ll be back in a little while with your order. Thank you!”

A few moments of silence passed before Jordan was able to get some words out. He always felt nervous when talking to his parents, because he never could control himself whenever tensions flared. And they always did, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it. “So...Dad, Mom, what have you guys been up to lately?” Jordan asked, hoping to break the ice in a good way. “Any interesting new cases you’re working on?”

“We’ve just been working hard, son,” Robert said. “Being the Attorney General is an excruciatingly busy job, you know.”

“Please, honey,” Maria began, “you and I both know that being the AG is nowhere nearly as hectic and stressful as being Governor Guerrero’s Press Secretary!”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean my job isn’t very hectic and stressful too,” Robert responded. Then he looked around, leaned in a little, and whispered, “it isn’t very easy, and it is actually quite taxing on my own conscience, to constantly cover for your uncle Jack, Maria.”

Maria looked at her husband, an eyebrow raised, and said, “And you think that having to constantly lie for him every day is any less stressful?” She looked at Jordan and told him, “I have to constantly go shopping, buying myself nice things, to bury my conscience and remind myself that without this job we wouldn’t be able to live the way we do!”

Jordan stared at his parents in disbelief. He already knew that those things were happening, but he never expected to hear it come out of their mouths, especially not while they were in a crowded restaurant. “Mom, Dad, if you guys hate your jobs so much, why don’t you do something about it?” he asked.

“It’s not that easy, Jordan,” Maria told her son. “You know the governor is my uncle, and that’s how I got my job…if I don’t follow what he says, your father and I will lose our jobs, and my uncle is so powerful that he can make sure we never work again. I can’t just let that happen! No matter what I do, I have to justify it with that. We need these jobs, son.”

“Mom, you can’t let him run your lives like that!” Jordan was beginning to ret riled up. “I didn’t go and almost die in Iraq to come home and hear that my own parents are committing injustices at the whims of some other guy! I don’t care if he’s your uncle, Mom!”

Just then, the waitress came with the food that they had ordered. “Here is your food,” she said as she began placing the dishes on the table. “We hope you enjoy your meal!” She smiled and walked away.

“Thank God for the food getting here just now, eh, Jordan?” Robert laughed. “You were getting pretty excited there, you almost drew attention to our table.”

“Yeah,” Jordan said, “yeah, I guess you’re right.” Jordan put some of the fried noodles on his plate and grabbed a few pieces of the sweet and sour pork. He started eating, and as he chewed, he thought of ways to break the news to his parents without them freaking out. He knew that when they freaked out, everything would go downhill from there because he would not be able to control himself.

After a while, he couldn’t figure out a sensible way to tell them, so he decided he would just tell them directly. “So, Mom,” he began as he put his chopsticks down and looked at Maria, “you know how I said you can’t let Uncle Jack run your lives like that?”

Maria set her fork down, wiped her mouth with a napkin, and responded, “Yes, son, what about it?”

Jordan started to look a little uneasy. He knew what was coming and was desperately trying to figure out a way out of it. After a few moments pause, he took a deep breath and said, “Well, Mom, Dad, I just want you to know that I really live by that principle. I don’t let anyone run my life for me but myself, and I always run my life based on my conscience and on what is just and true.” There was another brief pause as he took another bite of his food, hoping that the taste he had loved since his childhood would be so good that it would convince him to stop what he was about to do and just enjoy his meal.

“But…?” Robert asked.

Jordan washed his food down with a big gulp of water, cleared his throat, and continued, hesitantly, “But…I just got suspended from teaching today, indefinitely, effective immediately.” He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief for finally being able to get it out there, but he couldn’t, because he knew that the tension was only going to get thicker from this point on.

“What do you mean, you got suspended from teaching, Jordan?!? What did you do?” Maria asked, her voice just a little less calm than it was a few moments ago.

Jordan immediately tensed up. He was about to lose it. This was exactly why he hated talking to his parents about his life. They always responded to everything he said with anger and judgement, which always led into a very loud and vocal argument between him and his parents.

He tried so hard to hold back this time, but with every second that passed, his anger just kept welling up inside him until he said, “And there it is, Mom. There’s that judgement of yours! Why do I always have to be the one at fault with you guys, huh? It’s always, ‘What did you do, Jordan?’ or ‘You can’t do that!’ It’s never ‘Why did that happen?’ or ‘Why do you feel that way?’ Is this what you guys think of me? That I’m just some screw-up in life?”

---

Thank you for reading! This is just a part of a chapter of the novel...I would have posted the whole chapter, but it would have been way too long and you probably would not have stayed to read the whole thing. So I decided to break the chapters up into smaller parts for easier reading on Steemit.

As you read my novel, there will be words that you don't understand...those words are commonly used in our vernacular back home in the CNMI (the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands), kind of our own special version of English, I suppose, which mixes in words from other languages. Feel free to ask me what they mean in the comments below!

If you liked what you read, I hope you will consider translating that into an upvote and leaving a comment below to start a discussion with me about my novel!

---

Check out some of my other posts!

Six Sites You Need to Know About as a New Steemian
How You Can Withdraw Your Steemit Earnings to USD
How to Use Tags to Maximize Visibility for Your Posts and Gain More Upvotes
How The Minnow Support Project Helps You Achieve Your Dreams on Steemit
How I Achieved 200 Followers in My First Month on Steemit
Why I Chose to Invest $100 in Steem
How To Set Up Your Steemit Profile
The Dawn of The Dancing Dreamers
The Dawn of Friendship In a New Age
I'm Just an Island Boy Living in Utah who Loves EDM

---

---

!steemitworldmap 40.754539 lat -111.902618 long Salt Lake City, Utah local Steemian! d3scr