Once Deported
An Immigrant In My Own Family
I was deported at thirty, handcuffs and papers that took me from my lover my dog my job my beat-up Subaru and a cabin in the Ortiz Mountains with the view of the mesa across to the Sangre de Cristos to the north, back in a town of dreams, or rather nightmares, with no grounding no clothes of my own no money of my own calling immigration each week only to be told soon soon soon but maybe not though, he’d said then, you were married? You did all the paperwork? And I’d been holed up in the hills in the trees and comfortable with the footprints of black bears hidden and hunched up on the oak tree overhead as I’d crossed the creek to get to my cabin with Charlie following along unaware and the owl hooted just as lightning crashed in front and I cringed in fear put down the phone burst into tears with no markers of my own, I was a lost kid back in my hometown, an immigrant in my own family.
APPLICATION REPORT
By Officer F. Right
CODE: P
SURNAME: Leamy-Serrano
MAIDEN NAME: Leamy
GIVEN NAME: Sarah
CHOSEN NAME: Sleam
NATIONALITY: English.
DATE OF BIRTH: 05/31/1967
SEX: Not often enough, she stated.
GENDER: Questionable.
PLACE OF BIRTH: Worcester
DATE OF LEGAL ENTRY: July 1989
DATE OF REQUIRED EXIT: October 1989
DATE OF ACTUAL EXIT: March 1992 (first time, repeated every year until married July 1997)
REASONS GIVEN FOR ILLEGAL EXTENSION: “Too much fun,” she said when questioned.
DATE OF DEPORTATION: March 1998
REASONS GIVEN: We could.
DATE OF LEGAL REENTRY: November 1998
CURRENT STATUS: Barely legal.
TYPE: Applicant stated, “I want to stay in a country where I made a home, found community, built a life for myself, finally feel safe, and I worry about the prick of a president deporting me again because I’m not straight enough, normal enough, mainstream enough to eat his words and smile without gagging.”
CURRENT STATUS: Pending.
Turning Twenty
Afternoon in the pub with Mum & Dad, their local of course. You have a few quiet drinks together. Although you’re not really allowed one. Doctor’s orders. Makes sense, but still. Your dad gets you a half instead of the usual pint. Mum has a chardonnay. Dad has his bottle of some oddly strong beer. You all eat salt and vinegar crisps. The pub is fairly quiet for a Saturday. It’s one you all used to go to, years ago when you still lived at home. Now though, you live in London. It’s not the best time in your life. Broken teeth. You’d been pregnant and now you’re not. Failed college. Broken spirited. You quip that at least it’s sunny on your birthday but no one smiles. Your dad is in his striped shirt, a tie, top button undone, it’s the weekend after all. His hair was cut recently, and no longer reminds you of Einstein. You miss his crazy white hair. Your mum tries hard to keep you all talking but it’s not working. When it’s time for another your dad goes to the bar, and you head to the bathroom. You do your business, flush, and wash your hands. The door opens and closes. Same story, different day. A female voices asks, am I in the wrong bathroom? You turn, tall, scruffy, and pretty skinny these days, pale face, haunted eyes, and needle marks on your arm. She takes in your haggard angry expression and backs out, hands up, panicked, screaming silently. She slams the door. You stand there and dry your hands before walking back out to your mum and dad. Your mum asks you what’s wrong. You tell her. You can’t hold it in. You tell her. Your mum stands up fast, this woman in the thick dark glasses and bleached albino body. She storms over to that woman. And she tells her, my daughter is sick, she’s getting poked and jabbed by doctors everyday, blood drawn, pills to medicate, MRIs and CAT scans, dentists once a week to fix a broken face, and all those bloody hospitals and you dare judge my girl, she yells at the woman in slacks and a pale pink blouse. Your mum is relentless. She stands there. Full of a mum’s fire and ice. And this is why you hate your hometown. And why you love your mum.
Safe Finally
The diesel engine rumbles behind me as I adjust the red and grey rucksack on sweaty shoulders, unused to such July humidity. New York City, Day #1, it’s too bright for my blue eyes and I squint. An empty sidewalk leads to a park if I can call this patch of littered concrete a destination; there are three wooden benches with a single busker playing a shining horn, surrounded by bags of clothes, papers, bedding. A moment of relative calm brings me closer, and I sit with a grunt, bone weary after the two flights, two trains and one bus from Bromsgrove, England. I made it. I’m here. I collapse onto that bench and gulp in the fumes and soak up the heat under my feet, and think, I’m free at last. They won’t find me here.
