Homeland Security

One of the customs agents blurts out, "Sir, please step to window number 2."

"Righty-O, Captain", I whisper to myself.

I walk across the freshly buffed linoleum floor and arrive at window number 2, where the female custom official seemed to sit ready to pry her fangs into fresh meat.

I arrived at the counter in fresh South American attire: a scruffy, unmanageable beard, a native Bolivian Indian shirt with a green, yellow, and orange collar, with cross-stitchings going down the front collar, and my half shoe, half sandal zapatos called Sanuks (check em out!).

She gave me a look as if I was Tarzan"s son, who was back from the Amazon, smuggling an Anaconda and some Colombian Bannanas.

I handed her my passport and U.S. Immigration form and waited for a response. She looked them both over in a glance. She didn't seem too interested in the documents as to this man with a dusty backpack thrown over his back. The only interest that seemed apparent was her slightly-squinted, alert eyes reflecting a chance to practice her heckling techniques for solo traveler"s venturing through South America for a solid chunk of time.

"Ahhhhhhh, Colombia. Hmmmmm, I see," the agent mumbled to herself.

I hear her and ask if there if anything wrong.

She gives me another, "Ahhhhhh Peru. Interesting. Hmmmmm, I see," in the same wise crack mumbled rythmn as the previous time.

She then responds to my question by leaning back in her office hair, letting out a sigh, and a series of endless questions, directed towards myself.

"How much money did you earn a month while saving up for your trip?"

"You worked at a sushi restaraunt, you say. Well, why did you work at a sushi restaraunt?"

"What did you spend your money on while you were in South America?"

I answer all of these questions and many more without giving too much or too little information, but just enough to answer her questions with well-rounded responses. When it came to the question of whether I had worked for money in any of the countries, well, let"s just say I had to give a well-rounded response in the steamy form of B.S., entirely skipping the part about teaching English to local Colombians.

Her questions finally end and now I feel like the woman knows me better than my own brother.

I do also like boxer briefs over boxer"s, in case you wanted to know, lady.

She slaps my passport up on the counter, followed by my United States Customs immigration form. I am abot to snatch both of them up, off the counter, when she pulls out a massive sharpie marker and writes, "C-1", in thick black capitals in the upper portion of my form.

I don"t think of anything when I see the "C-1".

The label didn"t seem to spook me. It just seeemd like a label the customs offical writes on every person" customs form if they are arriving from an international flight.

My whole initial conception of the "C-1" soon turned into dense, cloudy skies. The woman signaled me to the left and immediately i notice the lack of participants from my flight. Looking over my shoulder, it struck me that I was on a solo mission to Secondary Customs. Now, this is the part where the hairs on your neck start reaching for the sky.

After winding through five swtich-backs of black, airport line dividers and around an opaque white wall, I swiftly arrived at Secondary Customs.

In this seperate serach unit of the airport stood 3 uniformed secuirty officers, all with freshly shaven flat-tops and greasily shined balck boots.

Well, If I was honest enough not to get me in trouble and aswered all of their questions like a coherent, law-abbiding citizen, this would all be a walk in a very small park.

Now the time has come: I stroll up to a counter dragging my feet on the linoleum floor as 3 pairs of eyes follow me like I've got something they want.

A middle-aged gentleman looks up from his counter. He looked quite bored as I walked over to his counter, but once I arrived, his eyebrows perked up and his sagging cheeks tightened up,

"Heya there son", he blurts out in his best Houston-accent.

"Hello", I retort back

I initially want to give this guy a whole bunch of attitude for hasteling me. I mean, I was clean as a whistle. Clean as a 6 year old going to school with a sack lunch and L.A. Gears. They weren't going to pin anything on me, only poke me with never-ending questions a higher-up government official had created in hopes of catching bearded scoundrels who looked like they had been living the good life for far too long. Well, sheeit, I was guilty: the good life was still pumping through my veins. This man had probably spent the last 5 months, sitting behind a booth, cleaning his fingernails with his new Swiss Army knife, sucking on some Dip in his side cheek, and reading the latest addition of "Guns and Ammo", while his wife nursed 4 kids at home in a small, weathered one bedroom trailer. What the heck, I'll throw him a way out of his bordom and let him test his skills.

He puts on a pair of rubber gloves and gives them the ole" snaparew by pulling on the ends, quite similar to the style of a doctor telling you to spread em' and cough.

"Hmmmm", he says.

"Says here son that you were in Colombia."

"Yeah, it does say that," I say.

"What business did you have in Colombia."

"Well, first of all I don't do buisness. Colombia was nothing but what Epirurus would call pleasure".

This thought dosent actually leave my mouth, but hovers in the back o my head like a hot cannon waiting to explode onto the target.

"Oh, just traveling", I tell him.

"Traveling. Well, what do you mean by traveling? What did your travels entail?"

Now I begin to heat up. I start giving him the most simple and at times one word answers to satisfy his questions.

"Walking and taking pictures in beautiful landscapes," I tell him.

"Yeah but how much walking did you do and was the camera in your possession at all times?"

He seemed under the impression that I would tell him my life story and since I was not motivated to do so, he seemed to think I was toying with him. I knew this from the sight of the flesh on his face, going from pink to ripe tomato red.

He"s already asked me twice in ten minutes if I brought back any tobacco or food products into the country. I tell him "no", both times. Hmm.. maybe he thought I"d switch my answer, so he asked me the same question twice. But then again he could have been a rookie, stumbling over his own interrogation questions.

He pulls out a book on Peru, turns it so that the spine is sticking up to the ceiling and flutters through all of the pages in hopes of some sort of contra band falling out.

"How was this book?"

I retort back,

"Well, I was in Peru and this book is a book on Peru, so it was quite informative."

"Really", he says.

"Yeah, really", I say.

Through the small spikes of his flat-top I could now see small beads of sweat forming on his scalp. Each time he leaned back down to pull something out of my bag, a small bead would slide through the symmetrical spikes and slip down through the cracks in his lined forehead.

After rummaging through colorful, knitted Bolivian socks that hadn't been washed since I last needed them for a towel in a rest-stop shower, a metal Mate straw used by Argentinians to drink their tea (Herba Mate), a rusted metal compass, and my daisey-duke, cut-off jean shorts, still starched by the salty Carribean sea, he looks at me and says,

"Son what are you going to do with your life in the next couple of years?"

I puff my chest out, give him a mad-dog stare and say,

"I"m going to Harvard Law School next year."

"Really?"

"What field of law?"

And I tell him well, since I've been young, my motivation has been vehemently driven in the direction of stopping police corruption, corruption within the ranks of all government officials, from congressmen to government anti-terrorist teams (such as the one you are on buddy!), and the defense of minorities of the world!

He quickly shoves all of my dirt-covered belongings and tells me I can go.

"Thats it. You don"t need anything more? No more questions."

He stares the other way.

"No, you"re fine. Please go", he quickly mutters under his breath.

written by  kipmaddog on November 15, 2009 from Houston, United States
from the travel blog: adventures from down south
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