An American dream: The neighborhood pharmacy returns, courtesy of an Uzbek immigrant

SOUTH PORTLAND — When Moby Abdullayof muckled onto the ceremonial scissors Saturday, bringing blades as big as he was down across the red ribbon that blocked the doorway to his father’s pharmacy, it was the fulfillment of an American dream.

Not so much for Moby. At 3 years old, he was pretty focused on the wow-factor of his giant-sized implement of destruction. That, and making sure everybody knew it was his name on the awning of Moby Rx, a rare, independently owned pharmacy at the corner of Broadway and Waterman Drive in South Portland.

No, the dream belonged to Moby’s father, pharmacist Momen Abdullayof, 46, and it’s that one, very American, dream to which we can all relate – the simple satisfaction of opening your own business, of taking a firm grasp of the wheel with the full realization that, at last, you are in complete control of your own destiny.

Of course, the fulfillment of Abdullayof’s American dream was not delivered by destiny, or even fate. Mostly, it was blind, dumb luck. The fact that Abdullayof is an American at all is due to one middling bureaucrat in Rome, who could have sent him anywhere in the world. This what makes Abdullayof ‘s dream especially American – he’s an immigrant from Uzbekistan. What’s more, when he stepped off the plane in Portland 24 years ago, he couldn’t speak a word of English.

Abdullayof was 22 in 1987 when, despite the promise of perestroika, he decided the life of a tenant farmer was not for him.

“The government controlled everything,” he recalled with an easy shrug. “You could not do but what the government said you could do. The government owned all the land and you planted where they said you could plant. You kept what they said you could have. I said, this is not for me.”

So, he bid goodbye to his 10 siblings, eventually landing on the steps of the Roman consulate in search of refugee status.

“They said, ‘Where do you want to go?’ and I said, ‘I’m easy. As far as I am concerned, I can go anywhere.’ I did not have any family, anywhere. So, they just point me in a direction and then it was up to me to make something happen.”

Abdullayof could have ended up anywhere. Maybe New York City, and then who knows what might have become of him, he said with a slight shudder. But he was sent to Portland, where the Refugee Resettlment Program took him under its wing. 

The lessons were simple, at first: Where is the grocery store? What is the grocery store.

“You go into any new country and somebody helps you even a little, it goes a long way,” he said.

Soon, he had a working knowledge of American idioms and Portland bus routes. With a fresh green card in hand, he got a job stocking shelves at a local Shaw’s Supermarket.

“I was willing to work and for this work, at night, when there are no customers around, I did not need English,” he said. “It was just, show me what to do. OK, I can do that.”

In time, he moved up to a better-paying job at the B&M factory, while studying English through Portland Adult Education.

After a few years, Abdullayof enrolled at Northeastern University in Boston, under a special program that allowed him alternate three-months shifts of full-time school and full-time work.

“I graduated behind my peers, but in this way I was able to go to school, then make money to pay for some more school,” he said. “There were some obstacles, but I made it trough by taking any job. It was all the time, you want me to sweep that. Hey, that’s OK with me. I’ll sweep that.”

Communication, of course, remained an obstacle.  He took up the study of pharmacy, he said, primarily because math is a language that’s universal. By 1994, he was a full-fledged American citizen. By 1998, he was a college graduate with a pharmacist’s job at Rite Aid.

But, when it came time to lay down post-collegiate roots, Abdullayof knew Boston wasn’t where it’s at.

“It was too big a city for me,” he says. “Remember, I grew up in a small village.  Very small. I mean to say, I’ve tried to look for it on Google. It’s not there.”

After a brief stay in New Hampshire, Abdullayof was able to transfer to the Rite Aid store in Mill Creek. He came back to South Portland on purpose, he said, partly because Maine’s sixth largest city is “more my speed,” and partly because it’s where he started out in America.

“This is my home,” he said.

Abdullayof  worked for 10 years at the Mill Creek Rite Aid, until it closed last fall. Two years in, he met his future wife, Betsey, when she came in to pick up a prescription.

“He had the biggest crush on me,” she said, “but he wouldn’t ask me out for the longest time because he was my pharmacist.  The funny thing is, I kept going back there because he was so nice. I was living on the West End in Portland, but we didn’t like the service from the pharmacy there. So, my roommate and I came here [to South Portland] and we were like, ‘Oh wow, he’s nice, he’s helpful.’”

Eventually, the two married, and along came Moby – two letters from the father’s name, two from mom’s, at the suggestion of Betsey’s brother. “It was the only name we liked,” she says.

The family lives in Cape Elizabeth, only three miles from Moby’s eponymous shop.

Over the years, Abdullayof watched the behemoth he worked for, and others like it, push out all of the small, independent pharmacies that had for so long been a Main Street mainstay. The only one left, he believes, is Apothecary by Design in Portland. So, when Rite Aid closed up shop in Mill Creek, Abdullayof decided to try and bring back a little bit of Americana.

Noticing a mattress store for sale, but not having the wherewithal to swing a loan, he asked if a lease might be workable. It was, leaving Abdullayof credit enough to finance the rest of his start-up costs.

And so, South Portland got its own locally owned pharmacy last week, something it hasn’t had in years. Two days before the grand opening, Abdullayof was on the phone, trying to secure health care for his three employees. 

“That is not an easy thing to do in Maine, I have found out,” he said, “but I believe the best way to take care of your customers is to take care of the people who take care of them.”

Still, Abdullayof will be right there, too, also serving the customer. That individual service, he says, is where he can beat the big boys.

“You come in here, here’s the decision maker,” he says, pointing to himself. “It’s not going to be, hold on a second, let me call to my boss.  And then my boss is like, let me check with my regional officer.”

On the other hand, Abdullayof promises that his prices are comparable, thanks to his membership in a national co-op of independent pharmacies. And, unlike the box-store pharmacies, Abdullayof plans to carry medical supplies, like wheelchairs.

A licensed clinical social worker, his wife is part of the business, too, taking care of the books while Abdullayof takes care of the customers. Many of his Rite Aid regulars have found him already, he says, certain his fledging business is off to a sure start.

Running his own business is fine, says Moman, but it’s that acceptance into the community that’s priceless.

“I have worked in this neighborhood and this neighborhood made me who I am, really,” he says.