by Cleo Odzer
Hair fashioned ladylike on top of my head, paint kit sealed with a new green thing, I boarded the flight to New York. Once upon a time I'd cautioned myself never to fly directly into the States, since that was my home country and that's where Customs would be hardest on me Oh, well.
On reaching the New York Customs table, I knew I was in trouble. "Where are you coming from?" the Customs man asked.
"Portugal."
He glanced quickly, without really looking, at my passport. "You haven't been to India?" he asked next.
"No."
Shit! He knew! He wouldn't have asked about India if he hadn't known I'd been there. How had they found out? They knew . . . about India, yes, but what else? Maybe not everything.
Try not to be the enemy, I told myself. I changed my story. "Yes, I've been to India."
He still didn't open my bag. A bad sign, since they were opening everybody else's. "Why did you tell me you hadn't been there?" he asked.
"Well, uh, you see, I've been living in the East . . ." I scrambled to invent something plausible. "My fiancé works there. He's an entomologist. I draw his insects—want to see?" The inspector didn't look the least bit interested. "Uh . . . well, anyway, every time I've come back to the States I've had a hard time going through Customs. I'm always detained for HOURS. So, since I had to get a new passport, I thought I could just skip that part about travelling in the East, so I wouldn't have to spend the whole day here." I tried to look foolish instead of terrified. "I'm sorry. I guess it was an asinine idea."
I didn't notice him signal anybody, but guards suddenly flocked around me. He still hadn't touched my bag.
"You changed your passport in Lisbon?"
"No, no! My old one got destroyed. A nail polish bottle opened in my bag and ruined it. It ruined other things too. That's when I thought of the idea to say I came from Europe. Really, I know it was silly, but you've no idea how much trouble I have at airports when I say I'm coming from the East. Here, let me show you the insects."
I didn't get the chance to display my art work. The Customs official handed my passport to a man in uniform.
"Take her to the back room. You go with him."
Airport security officials surrounded me, and one picked up my suitcase. I followed them to an area most passengers never see, a room with a metal counter along one wall. My luggage was piled there and opened. One man and one woman remained with me.
Oh, shit—I was dead.
Be cool, I thought to myself. Don't admit anything until you absolutely have to. Maintain. Hold on to it. Don't lose it yet. See where it goes. Internally, everything trembled, but externally I managed to hold my pieces together. I had control over my body. It didn't shake. I didn't wring my hands. My face didn't look petrified. I looked apologetic, resigned and understandably concerned Sighing audibly, I made a wide gesture and placed one hand on my hip while leaning suavely against the metal counter. I shook my head, pursed my lips, and gazed at the floor, "I did a dumb thing, I know," I said.
"Where is he?" one uniformed person asked the other.
"He's coming."
"Uh-oh," I tried to say in a joking manner. "Who's coming?"
"The Carver."
They were joking back at me.
Half-heartedly the woman feigned a search through the luggage, but obviously the real deal would happen with The Carver, whoever that was. She ran her finger over some clothes and unzipped my make-up kit She moved aside a pair of shoes. She examined the outfit on my souvenir matador doll. Her hand encountered the paint kit. And then moved on. The kit hadn't caused her to register the slightest alert Her body hadn't stiffened in suspicion She'd come upon it and moved beyond.
"You wart to empty this suitcase now?" she said. She wasn't asking a question. "Put everything on the side there."
Panic was in me. I felt it But I didn't let it express itself. I remained poised and responsive. She hadn't flashed on the paint kit. Now if only I could continue to keep it firm their awareness. They mustn't notice it.
I removed items from the case, listening to their voices behind me. They were talking to each other and only half watching me. To stall, I folded articles as I took them out and stacked them neatly on the counter. I concentrated on the sound of their words and waited for them to be aimed in another direction. The moment came. If their eyes pointed where their voices projected, they weren't looking at me. Keeping the paint kit covered with a velvet dress, I lifted it out and placed it among my other belongings.
"Here he is! Here's the man himself."
Unmistakably The Carver, the man came in holding a knife. "Here I am," he said.
"A-ha," I said lightly. "Now you must be The Carver. I can tell." I smiled at him.
"The Carver? Is that what they called me?"
Though half joking with me, he was serious as he set to work on my poor suitcase. He demolished it. Cut it up. Ripped the lining out. Made sweeping stabs at its defenceless sides. The thing was in shreds, dappled with see-through holes and protruding slivers of wood.
But The Carver didn't find anything. They appeared disappointed "There’s nothing here. You can pack up."
"I can go?"
"You can go. I’m sorry about the suitcase. Only doing what I get paid to, you know."
"Oh, that's okay," I said, feeling Born Again. "Hey, listen, I deserved it Shouldn't have lied about being in India Stupid of me."
The Carver probably thought the other two had carefully searched my things, and they probably thought the man a the Customs desk had done the search. I couldn't pack fast enough. No neat folding now. I did use caution with the paint kit though It was not too late for someone to flash on it if it were seen. Again I listened for the direction of the voices behind me, but I could tell they weren't paying me any attention.
Somebody helped carry the mass of tom leather and wood that no longer functioned as a suitcase. In the taxi leaving the airport, I released the emotions I'd been holding in.
Oh my god—that was dose!
I was supposed to meet John at a nearby airport hotel I stayed there overnight but in the morning decided to wait for him a Momsy's. The room rates were high aid those timed encounters never seemed to work I bought a new suitcase but kept the slaughtered hulk so I could show John what the Carver had done.
In front of her frosted antique mirror, posing with a leg on a chair and an arm curled before her, Momsy asked me, "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Can't you tell? Look a this muscle! I joined a health club. What do you think?"
In the four days I stayed with her, she never noticed the shipwrecked-looking suitcase.
Though I'd left a message for John at the hotel, I phoned every day to check if he'd arrived. From the Kathmandu experience I'd learned not to trust desk clerks. American desk clerks proved to be of a different character, though for John did get my message and phoned as soon as he had registered.
"Hi," came the warm voice from a face I could tell was smiling. "Applecroc! I missed you."
"How are you? I low was your trip?"
"Terrible! Wait till I tell you."
When John picked me up, I showed him the leftover shreds of the case. "They were waiting for me," I told him. He caught his lower lip with his teeth and raised his eyebrows. "They knew I was coming from India. How did they know that?"
Both of us lifted our shoulders and shook our heads.
"Computer?" suggested John. "They probably have us all in a computer."
"Did you have trouble getting in?"
"No."
"So! And I wasn't coming from the East. I came from Portugal. A harmless little country. I don't get it."
"Did anybody in Lisbon know what you were doing? Maybe somebody informed on you."
I thought of Marine, but he knew where the dope was hidden. If it had been him, they'd have gone straight for the paint kit. "No, I don't think so. Besides, they weren't looking for powder. They were looking for hash in the exact place I used to carry it—built into the sides of t
he case. Too bad for them; they were two years too Tate."
"That girl you sent who went down at Heathrow. You've been writing her in jail, haven't you? They might have your name from that."
"Lila! Her cases did have hash in the sides. Maybe. Anyway, I'm finished in the West. I can't run this route anymore. Not even to Europe. However it happened, they know me now. I only go East. Australia's probably okay. Anywhere but here . . . Unless I use another name. . ."
John's connection lived in Washington, D.C., and that's where we went. Or rather we went to a Sheraton outside of Washington. Way outside. In the sticks. I hated it right away.
"What a boring place," I complained. "How Long are we going to be here?"
"Until I sell the dope. A few weeks. Then we can go to San Francisco."
"San Francisco! Great! I’ve never been there. Can't wait."
The weeks in Washington dragged on and on. What a horrible, pokey place. I grew irritable. "I hate Washington," I said every day. "Why would anyone want to five here?"
"Actually we're in Maryland."
"Figures."
Another week. Then another week. I was sick of the hotel room. I was sick of John's doll friends. I was sick of the train ride into town.
"Listen," I said to him one day. "Why don't I meet you in San Francisco? I can't take this place anymore. Besides, I've had an idea. I want a passport in a different name. It might take time for me to get one, so I should start right away."
Much of the dope had been sold, so John gave me my share of the earnings. I spent two days turning tens and twenties into hundred-dollar bills.
John accompanied me to the airport. He laughed because I'd hidden my stash inside my Body.
"This is America," he said in a mocking voice. "They don't frisk you for weapons here. Especially not on domestic flights. They use metal detectors." He smirked. "Welcome to the developed world."
"Oh, right. I forgot about the metal detectors. Force of habit."
We kissed goodbye a thousand times. I would miss him. "You'll he coming soon?"
"Maybe the end of the week. Call me?"
"Every day."
In San Francisco I checked into a skyscraper in the centre of town. Now this was a place to five! Not like Maryland—ugh. This place had everything, and I wanted to do everything. I found a frisky club to hang out in at night. I found a connection for cheap and excellent brown dope. I bought two films to show in Goa, The Blob and The Thing That Swallowed the Earth. I planned to have the elephant tattoo on my foot coloured in.
John didn't arrive at the end of the week. Not the week after.
I started proceedings for acquiring a passport under a different name. I'd come across the way to do it in the novel The Day of the Jackal. First I had to find the name of someone who'd been born near my birth date and who died shortly after, before developing a history. Then I had to apply for a copy of the birth certificate. From there it was a matter of building identification.
I began at a cemetery. I perused tombstones, checking dates. When I passed a man walking the other way, we looked at each other sympathetically. I chose a girl who'd died at the age of four.
Next stop was the newspaper office. To find my "parents" name and maiden name, I examined old editions around the date of death. That done, I needed identification. I applied for a library card under the girl's name. A receipt for the cleaners . . .
When I'd collected a few such pieces, I went to the Records Office and asked for a copy of my birth certificate. "My mother can't find the original," I told the helpful clerk. "We've looked ALL over the house. Searched the entire attic twice!"
I was amazed when he actually handed me a new certificate. I couldn't believe how cosy it was. It had taken less than an hour.
But I needed more identification than that for a passport. A driver's license would be good. I didn't think I remembered how to drive, though, and anyway, that would take too long. Someone told me about a non driver's license, specifically for identification.
"But they take forever to get," the friend told me. "Five or six weeks. Unless you go outside the city. I knew someone in Oregon who got one the same day."
I called Oregon. Yes, the phone voice affirmed, I could acquire a nondriver's license the day I applied.
First thing one morning, I flew to Oregon. Cute little state. Very efficient. Wouldn't want to five there, though. When I boarded the evening flight back to San Francisco, I had a new piece of identification. It had my picture and everything. Neat.
Now, in possession of the proper materials, I went to apply for a passport. Unfortunately something blew into my left eye on the way to the government office. I stopped in a doorway to pluck it out but couldn't find it. The nasty thing pained me mercilessly, and when I turned in the application, I was holding a tissue to my red and runny eye.
"I need the passport as soon as possible," I told the official. "Must meet my fiancé, the entomologist, right away in Paris. It's at emergency."
The man accepted the documents and said he'd have it ready by the end of the week.
In the meantime I frequented the frisky club, spoke nightly to John, and contacted an old friend in Los Angeles.
"Why don't you come visit me," she said. "San Francisco isn't far from here."
Great. Who knew how long I'd have to wait for John? I told her I'd be there Friday, as soon as I picked up the new passport.
Thursday night I received a warning. I received a warning but didn't pay attention to it. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. And I'd always been so heedful of warnings!
It came from the hotel desk clerk. He called me. Said he thought I should know that two F.B.I. agents had been asking questions about me. A superb warning. I should have listened to it. I should have checked out immediately and into another hotel under a different name. I should have stopped everything and reassessed my every involvements. I should have. Two years earlier I would have. But I didn't.
On Friday morning I packed an overnight bag to take to Los Angeles. Out of habit I inserted my travel dope inside my body. I remembered the metal detectors. Oh, well.
I deposited the bag in the lobby to be picked up on the way to the airport, then went to the passport bureau and turned in my receipt. "Is the passport ready?" I asked.
The man looked at the slip of paper and told me to have a seat. I'd be called. Before sitting, I left the room for a kiosk I'd noticed down the hall to buy myself a Three Musketeers.
Candy in hand, I turned around with my change and saw three men in suits charging down the hallway. They stopped when they spotted me, looked relieved, and strode over waving badges.
Oh, shit.
"Is this your application?" One man had my passport application in his hand. He also held the nondriver's license with the phoney name and my real picture. No use denying anything, was there? My body tingled as fear coursed through it. The air became thick and difficult to breathe. "You have the right to remain silent."
Oh my god. Time turned weird, and in slow motion one of the men held my hands together and fastened them with handcuffs.
As the air and my body returned to normal, I found myself being led through the lobby of the government building. Handcuffed and surrounded by three men who looked like presidential bodyguards, I thought I'd the of embarrassment as people turned to watch us pass. I was wearing a blue knit top with two-foot-long fringes. With difficulty I manoeuvred the fringes until they fell over my arms and hid the handcuffs from view. By the time the four of us squeezed into an elevator, only a fringe-covered bulge could be seen in front of my body.
We alighted to an area I never imagined existed in that building. After passing several guards and metal doors, I was led to a section of barred cubicles and was locked in an empty cell. The place felt deserted. No sounds of shuffling or shifting came from the other cells. It would have been more comforting to have someone to talk to or an eye to catch through the bars. I tried to engage the guards in conversation when they came to look at me, but it se
emed they wanted only a brief ogle and went eager to return to their own company to discuss me among themselves.
My brain now seemed to be working too fast, and I couldn't think or plan or form a strategy—maybe because there wasn't anything to plan? The future—next week, tomorrow, the next five minutes—was blank.
For lunch they brought me a delicious sandwich I couldn't eat. My stomach wasn't working either.
Eventually a man and a woman came and collected me like a piece of baggage. They signed for me, ushered me down corridors, and talked about me as if I were an inanimate object to be shipped. The elevator took us to a parking lot, but before placing me in the back seat of the car, they added a chain around my waist that fastened to the handcuffs. Though we were in an unmarked car, I felt that every person in the street noticed me, the chained thing in the back seat. Was I breathing?
They escorted me to a tall building and propelled me into a whirlwind—questions, fingerprints, an appearance before a judge that happened so fast I had no idea what was said. When they took my picture I tried to regain myself by striking a dramatic pose—head cocked, lips pursed like Marilyn Monroe. Someone giggled, but someone else said we had to do again, and this time without my theatrics. My belongings were searched, taken somewhere, and searched again; then I was placed in a tiny cubicle with another woman prisoner and toll to undress.
"Now what?" I asked my fellow captive, as she seemed experienced at this.
"Body search," she answered. "If you have anything inside you, you better get rid of it. It'll be worse for you if they find something."
Shit! As it was I couldn't believe the good fortune that my stash hadn't been in my handbag. And luckier still, I had a good-sized supply of dope with me. What great timing that they'd arrested me on the way to the airport, and that I had—unnecessarily and out of habit—stored a travelling cache of goodies inside me. I had no intention of flushing it down the toilet now. Drugs were not involved in the situation so far. For me to get dope sick would change the nature of the crime. I had to save the stash.
In a hurried frenzy I dog it out of my vagina and shoved it up my ass. If Mental could do that, so could I. OW! Hey, that hurt. How in the world had Mental stuffed half a pound up there?