We've Moved

http://usafteramerica.blogspot.com/

We've got a new puppy and some plans!

Changes

The worst vice is advice. I got that from Al Pacino, so it must be true, right?

When I first started writing this blog, I was convinced I was the absolutely only person in Mexico under my set of circumstances. In fact, I can go back to that initial entry and read my plead, my message in a bottle to the information super highway, is there anyone who gets this? And the deluge started. I was shocked to discover not only were there other people living this life, but there were thousands more asking the same questions as me. What do I do? How do I survive? As I passed through my stages of grief; anger, denial, bargaining, etc., I felt a kindred spirit in many of the women I was in contact with. We all complained, we all cried, we were all at least a little scared. And now, we were not alone.

Through our moves and the changes that were a consequence of those moves, I can honestly say I'm in my last stage of grief: acceptance. I feel like I've gained enough wisdom that I should be sporting long, flowing robes and a white ZZ Top beard to accentuate my vast knowledge. And thanks to my waning estrogen, the beard part is underway.

Now I read comments from anti-immigrant article posters and just kind of smile and thank God I don't live next door to these racist pricks anymore. I read questions about living in and moving to Mexico followed by emphatic answers that I know are wrong, but those just make me smile too. Why do we need so desperately to get it right?

I have been a guilty advice giver in forums and pages on many occasions. It's one of the things I'm giving up, along with magazines like Glamour and Cosmo. I don't need 200 recipes that I can whip up for party guests, I don't need to see pictures of shoes I can't afford or sex positions that give me a charlie-horse. I also don't need to tell anyone else how great, or how scary, it is in my shoes.

Immigration changed my world and upset my apple cart. But I could have just as well stayed behind in the cushy, English-speaking world of 24-hour conveniences and central air conditioning. I've been guilty of using that tactic in a stupid fight every now and then. Yes, Salvador and I still have stupid fights; well, his fights are stupid, mine make complete sense. And it's pretty air-tight to add the, “I changed my whole world for you” exclamation mark at the end of a sentence.

But if love doesn't upset your apple cart, what would?

I'm not here because of a piece of paper, I'm here because of a man. Whatever bitter remains to my initial hurt and surprise that Salvador was actually deported, who knew I wouldn't get my way, right, stems more from my lifelong attitude of “you're not the boss of me” than from any actual disappointment. To my detriment I've held that sentiment toward people who were in fact my boss, so how could I possibly lay my snarkiness aside for some insignificant border patrol agents or a judge?

Is this the right move? Am I confident that I will look back on Juarez and say, “good job, Cheryl.”? Absolutely not. I play devil's advocate to this move every day, especially when it's a particularly hard day. I wonder when my career will look like it's chugging ahead instead of spinning its wheels in the mud. People around me wonder the same about my marriage, when is the white girl going to come to her senses and leave this guy behind to shoot it out solo? If this were a poker game, I'm all in, I've got nothing left to up the ante and no poker face.

But that's not an immigration issue, that's a life issue. No one knows what the future holds. Comfy suburbs, world's most dangerous city, either way it's a crap shoot. I feel that I'm in a place where so many chapters have written their own endings: daughter is grown and living on her own, family members and friends have taken their own paths, finances were completely fucked anyway; it's a great time for a fresh start.

Not everyone can see it that way. They shouldn't even try. Part of my “no more advice” strategy includes not trying to sugar-coat or sooth guilt either. Will your marriage make it? Will your kids? Will the border eat you alive? Will you just wind up wearing down and getting divorced? OK, OK, last piece of advice: you get what you think of. Like right now, I'm attracting a piece of chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, because I'm thinking about it and I happen to know that I have both readily available. I'm also attracting the thought that Juarez is a good move, for now, and I'm reasonably safe, as reasonably safe as I would be anywhere considering that I share the planet with people, some desperate and some not so bright. And if my driving improves, my chances of survival probably double.

You can't live your life on the fence. The grass looks greener no matter where you look until you jump down. To quote Mick, it's creasing your butt.

With the changes in my own perceptions, I've decided to make some other changes as well. I'm not frequenting the immigration forums or Facebook pages, not contributing with my nasty links about politicians or political parties. I see the need for fighting the good fight, but after a day of fighting for space on the bridge, and fighting for recognition of a job well-done, I'm tired.

I realize when I come home, husband unlocking our gate, dog coming to the car to lick me with her disgusting tongue that has probably been licking her butt all afternoon, that I'm just happy. Happiness is not my street address, it's not where I am, it's who I am and who else lives at this address.

So now that I'm not walking around wondering, “what the hell?” I've decided it's time to start blogging about something new. New adventures, living in Juarez, getting into the sights and experiences here as we start, little by little, to actually live here, not just grocery shop. Moving again in the next few years to the Xalapa area, building a house in Mexico, learning enough Spanish to have a real conversation on my own!?! Imagine all the new things I'll have to whine about. And screw up.

Got any advice? Just kidding.

Not the End of the World

Trying to be polite doesn't make certain things any less true.

For example, when you're sick with the plague on your 40^th birthday which you not only have to spend at work but sitting next to the chucklehead who's been coughing all over you for days and then when you start coughing, asks if you have allergies, you are within your rights to daydream about beating him like a human pinata all day.

Also, the same elastic pants that you would sneer at when you were 20, just make good sense twenty years later.

And any douchebag who claims to know the day, let alone the time of the rapture, when even the Bible says that no one knows, is a tool who deserves to be made fun of from now until, well until there really is a rapture.

Maybe it's my generally jaded outlook on life, I'm not a “glass is half full” kind of person, more like a “what the hell is in this glass, did you pee in here?” kind of person. I am not only comfortable with the concept that the world will end with some kind of hellfire and brimstone event, but I embrace it. Although I don't know how I feel about a rapture, I'm thinking more that evolution will just keep progressing. And if you look around on any given day at the morons who have been allowed to inhabit this planet and how the human race is obviously failing on many fronts, I predict that whatever cataclysmic event took out the dinosaurs will eventually get around to us. Yes Christians, even you. Maybe it's time you man up and stock up on canned goods and bottled water. Just in case you hadn't noticed, prayer is ineffective on zombies.

We've been mentally preparing for the shit to go down for years. My daughter and I used to play a game that went a little something like this, “OK, it's the end of the world and there's only 2 things to eat. Would you eat a dog turd or a finger from the neighbor?” We not only wrapped our brains around the idea that we would both be morally comfortable with eating human flesh, but we had a list of determining factors, who would be high on the list of probable meals. Like the old people next door would probably be tough because they were so old and bony. We'd have no problem with bashing their heads in so we could steal their supplies, but probably pass on consuming their meat. The chubby kids down the street though, considering you never saw them without a mouthful, probably delicious. Like little, walking Happy meals.

So I felt mentally prepared if Saturday had been the End of Days. I think it would have taken Salvador some convincing if he had been left behind with his heathen wife. He's a much more sensitive, kind person by nature, probably would question whether or not we should be sharing our supplies and making polite small talk with someone right before I decapitate them with a shovel. Well, I guess that could be part of our strategy. Distraction.

Something more startling than possible apocalypse happened to me Saturday. There was a comment, “well you're just not being a good American.” and my first response was impossible to keep to myself, “I don't consider myself an American, good or otherwise.”

“Then what are you? Mexican?”

Good question.

After my world ended, and I know the precise date, August 28, 2010, the day we pulled out of my driveway, moving truck stuffed floor to ceiling but still missing so many American comforts, 2 scared dogs, 2 scared people, 1 map, 1 passport and a gnawing worry in the pits of 2 stomachs, I had to drive to keep myself sane. Concentrate on the road, keep an eye out for cops, because if we get pulled over, my undocumented husband is going to jail and I have to do this alone. If hail or comets had shot out of the sky, if zombies with oozing sores and rabid, foamy mouths had been throwing themselves at the truck, it couldn't have been more strange.

Now I live in my post-apocalyptic world and it is good. Like all good movie endings, after the pandemic has wiped out most of the population, the threat gone, the strong survive and get back to what was really important. They settle in, strangers in a strange land, but there is no question of going back. Home is gone, time to make a new home.

Maybe that's why the whole, I know the precise moment of the rapture sounds so funny to me. What a typically American concept! Why of course the world will end on this day, this is when my Day Planner stops and all my loose ends have been wrapped up tightly and all my paperwork is signed and my text messages will be sent, “been raptured, will miss you”. So neat in its finality.

When the real end of the world will be messy, chaotic, you'll have to improvise and sometimes you won't know if you're going to make it. But if you do, don't expect to be the same. Nothing's the same, after the end of the world.

All the Mother's Days

Cavewoman Cheryl would have woken up at this time, 3 am, the world still a peaceful place, everything that will be trying to eat you in a few hours still snoring in the fetal position.  She would have patted her caveman husband on the back and made sure that the cavekids were comfy and she would have headed out to seize the diem.  She would leave at this time for a purpose, the least amount of traffic at the watering hole, she would get the best wood for the fire, pick the nicest berries and grasses, thinking ha-ha bitch cave neighbors,  the early bird gets the worm.

Our gatherer natures have evolved and fine-tuned so that we are natural multi-taskers, we can plan a meal, pay a bill, disinfect a boo-boo and update our status on Facebook simultaneously.  Beats the hell out of keeping one eye on the tall grasses and up in the trees waiting for something with sharp teeth to pounce.  But you had to give props to the tiger stalking you too, she was just another woman trying to feed her family.  When your mother told you that she had eyes in the back of her head, it seemed that it was true.  Can you imagine how much more you'd get done?

I have found that living two different lives as two different people actually appeals to my OCD/ADD nature.  It requires constant multi-tasking and maneuvering.  Two different languages, although the kind people of El Paso forgive quickly when I forget and launch into a stream of Spanish at 4 in the morning at the 7-11.  "Working very much?" the chubby Hispanic man with the crooked teeth asks in his hesitant English.  "Si, mucho trabajo," is my reply and he smiles, relieved that I will give him an out.  I think "yo comprenda", it's frustrating and too damn early to jump through hoops that just make you feel stupid while you're still having this out of body experience.  Coffee in hand, it's back to work and my mother tongue.

My new job is technical so there are a million new acronyms to memorize.  But really, my job is sales, making the company money and that I know I can do without learning "nerd speak" as well as Spanish.  My new co-workers are babies so they babble on and on about relationships that I want to assure them they will have forgotten by the time they hit 25.  My new wardrobe is business casual, so I'm trying, as a good mother-figure should do, to show these single teenage mothers, so disillusioned and tired that their faces show an age they haven't imagined yet, to cover up at work, or run the risk of attracting Loser #4.  They haven't learned the old adage yet "you don't shit where you eat" and every day is a new chance to flash some cleavage at the hoped for knight in shining armor who will rescue them from the 40 hour work week.  My new boss is a man, a nice man who's gone through a bad divorce.  A nice man whose job I've already decided I want.  This requires some stealth.  Cavewoman Cheryl would pull out the big club and fight for the coveted territory.  Modern day Cheryl has to present it subtly, with a resume and an updated flow chart, but don't let the Power Point graphics fool you, it's a fight none the less.  In another life, 20 years ago, I'd be using my cleavage to frost this cake.  Now I've got to do it on personality and skill.  Part of me wishes I'd had a mother-figure at work who would have taken me under her wing, part of me is just tired and wishes my breasts were still perky.

At the end of the day, it's back to Mexico.  Where people assume that the American will let them cut in line, or maybe it's because I'm a woman.  Either way, I'm pretty sure they are unprepared for the barrage of swears and gestures they receive.  It's too hot for diplomacy.  The A/C in my car blows hot sand into my face, I've been up for 12 hours and I've had about 12 cups of coffee.  The sound of your bumper touching my car, metal on metal, just brings me back to Cavewoman.  Fight or flight and I'm going to kick your ass right here since insurance won't cover your stupidity.  Back at home, it's my other wardrobe and my other mindset, wife in comfy sweatpants and flip-flops.  Wife who is supportive and appreciative of her stay-at-home husband even when he doesn't appreciate himself.  Wife who defers the smallest decisions to her man because I want him to get comfortable in the family pants once more.  Wife who has to stay out of the way while he cooks because otherwise single-mother, micro-manager, OCD, "he's not doing it the way I would do it" Cheryl would just take over.  Because I can bring home the chorizo and fry it up in a pan.

What prepared me for two lives and lists and sticky notes and arbitrage in my khaki pants?  Motherhood.  I spent some time in the recovery room after my two day ordeal of back labor and cutting and poking.  It was a nice, warm blur.  Comfortably numb.  There was a light somewhere, a soft light, the nurse seemed to have a halo and murmured something about internal bleeding.  Is this death?  Whatever it was, it was painless and I was sleepy, so sleepy.  Then I was back in a room, I had pulled through, it was time to get up and walk, now here's your baby, hold her, feed her, take some pills, you've got to poop before we'll let you go home, put on her diaper, you want to bond, but sign here, here and here.  Congratulations, it's a girl.

And a fast introduction to life for the next 18 years.  Gone was the girl, home came a woman.  "Dude, where's my car?  And my keys?  And my panties?"  She became a woman with the most organized diaper bag, extra onesie, extra diapers, extra nipple, extra clothes, baby book always ready to record those cute moments I'm missing because I have to work two jobs.  Work, work, work, drive, cook, nurture, sleep.  I found there was a system that made everything run smoothly.  Multi-tasking was my middle name.  After a couple of months the shock that "they" had really fucked up and sent me home with a baby was gone.  I was a well-oiled machine.  I can do anything.  Chicken pox?  Bring it.  No daycare?  It's now officially bring your child to work day.  Of course you can copy your hand 100 times.  And we're going to make homemade Christmas tree ornaments and read this Dr. Seuss and teach you to tell time with a paper plate too.  Look at me go.

In quiet moments I realized we were growing up together.  She would share her first joke that she made up with me, I'd laugh more because I happily noticed that my daughter, at three, had impeccable comedic timing than at the actual material.  She would tell me, "you know Mom, everything that poops can also fart.  Even worms."  Good to know.

Who knew that this would prepare me for so much unknown?  Move to Mexico and start from scratch?  Well, I made it through teething and that "I don't bathe" phase.  Gently manipulating a man to hand me the reins, a man who subconsciously sees his blood-sucking ex-wife's face on the face of every woman, a man who openly flirts in a needy, little boy way is nothing compared to gently manipulating a stubborn 6-year-old into letting you pull out that dangling baby tooth.  Protecting your spouse's feelings and keeping him safe from the scary world of immigration comes naturally when the mother tiger still rumbles somewhere deep inside.  It all started that day, that day they handed me 7 something pounds of bald perfection.  More than any other single event, it made me the woman I've become.

So Happy Mother's Day to all the amazing, strong, intelligent, compassionate and cool Moms I know.  Hats off to you for being able to get a raise at work while getting a colicky baby to sleep at home.  Hugs to you when you are crying in the kitchen and wondering how life got this crazy.  And remember that you're not just a mother, you're still you, but adding mother to your long list of accomplishments makes you incredible.

It's Not Ideal

It's the longest conversation with the least amount of words. “Dad's going to rehab.”

One more thing I feel like I need to apologize for. That I didn't actually do. But I've failed on this subject so much in the past, the apology is always there. My daughter, even though I might picture her face as eternally the same sleeping toddler face I used to kiss after tucking in, is actually about the same age now that I was when I had her. In other words, she knows enough to know how life should have been and will, at least for the next 10ish years, until she has had her own children and hopes they let her slide a bit and then realizes that Mom put forth the effort in spite of obvious, hmmmm, problems.  Ah, idealism, how I miss you.

I tried in the beginning, when we first split up. I had read an article or two in Glamour magazine about how to be a single parent so of course I was completely prepared. I was supposed to be positive about her father, tell her that he loved her, we both did, we just weren't going to live together anymore. She was 3, how much more of an explanation do you need? You definitely can't explain that moment she tucked her head in the bedroom and he's there getting some things but he's been drinking and you can tell his voice is getting sharper and the evil twinkle is in his eye and he bites you on the cheek. She saw it and reported it to the babysitter the next day. “Oh that was nothing,” you laugh it off one more time, wishing you could check your cover-up without it being obvious now and swear to yourself that now that he's out of the house, now that those papers are filed, you're changing your name back and you'll be goddamned if you're making up stories about bruises anymore. “Never again.” is your mantra but you still live like a battered woman long after you're sleeping in the middle of the mattress and have a new driver's license with a smiley face and a maiden name.

Because the phone still rings at 3 in the morning and it's him. You know before you make yourself pick it up that's who it is and if you were smart, you'd never answer. Nothing good comes of these conversations. You're right back in it all over again. You start out with logic and end up saying something horrible hours and cigarettes later. Because what else is there to say when someone says, “the name on the bullet that kills me will be yours.” Really? That's all it takes to kill you is a break up? Apparently you're not quite as resilient as I am.

Because your daughter, a chubby-faced, innocent 4 year old who looks like her father more and more every day, asks you, “Mommy, what's a whore?” and the same old arguments and defenses bubble up inside you while on the outside your mouths moves and asks, “where did you learn that word?” even though you know the answer. He's just not going to play along with this, we loved and now we both love you strategy, is he? Not ever.

Poor kid, she's so confused. You don't want to slip again and get angry so you pretend he doesn't exist and we don't talk about him. Except every time he fucks up, which is often. My mother asks me years later if I can't just move on. The pot calling the kettle black. Yes, I believe with the proper medication I could. Until that happy day, no, not until he's on the Ex Island and must fight to the death on pay-per-view for our amusement and $39.95.

The last time I saw him I realized I was close to forgiving. If I hadn't been so nauseous, it might have happened. He's coming up to my car, why can't he have the decency to just stare from the garage through his Old Style haze? No, has to come to the car and stick his head in the window and look at the car, it's new, has to give his opinion even though he and I both know that he doesn't know shit about cars. And makes small talk, as if we were old neighbors or something. My fight-or-flight responses no longer respond. My fists don't clench. I'm not rehearsing for an unexpected jab that turns into a black eye. He's getting old. He looks like hell. Skinny, scrawny chicken legs that are moon white, chest and arms with a hillbilly tan, pants falling down but not in a cool gangster kid way, in an I'm an old man with no ass way. I see some pubes sticking out. I feel sorry for him, embarrassed, like when I accidentally watch a few minutes of American Idol tryouts. He still thinks this is 20 years ago, still strutting around like the neighborhood gigolo. Old ladies at the car dealership used to send him gifts at Christmas time and tell him he looked like Kevin Costner.

He didn't.

And that is where I want to leave him, unchanged, frozen in time, standing in the driveway with his fourth beer, like a real Norman Rockwell painting entitled “Study in White Trash”. That would be a conversation that I wouldn't have to apologize for, wouldn't shut her off, wouldn't relive the past, wouldn't hurt or disappoint her yet again. That was then, an unfortunate accident which fortunately made you.

“Well that's good honey.” I'm rolling my eyes at myself inside. You're doing it, you're being just like your father, just bouncing by anything that represents an emotion that you can't deal with.

It would be so much more honest to deal with it head on. And I could easily put all the blame on him, he's the one with the police record that proves my point. I come off smelling like a rose, he just smells like weed and vomit and too much aftershave depending on what day it is.

Maybe I've come to appreciate why my Dad does it to though, that skipping over the bumpy part of the ride, that editing before we view the tape. Ideally we'd all get very Dr. Phil and dissect everything we put on the table. But we're past idealism.

The Enemigos

El Paso, a town full of people just like me.  4 words Spanish, 2 words English, 3 words Spanish, 5 words English, it's comforting to realize that there are hundreds of others who just kind of gave up at verb conjugation and yet continue to exist in a place so bilingual.  I am not alone.  However, their inability to merge, that we do not share.  

Learning some Spanish has come in handy, a few words really catch my fancy; like "enemigo".  Sounds like Carrie Bradshaw's term "frenimies".  You know your frenimies, women who you should like, co-workers or neighbors or other soccer moms who you have to socialize with on some level.  They smile, they chat you up, they tell you they love your haircut, but you know under their padded bra, down at the core, they can't stand you.  You know, since they're a female, the moment they leave this false exchange of pleasantries that they will run to report back to their pack on all your weaknesses.  "Did you see that haircut?  Oh my God!" and the pack will giggle in approval and growl in your direction.

It seems no matter how old we get, we're really still just minutes away from reverting to "Mean Girls".  The break room at work is not really a place for a few quiet moments of reflection, "how the hell did I talk myself into this shitty job?"  No, it's a place where the pack sharpens their barbs and has a little pep talk about how to bring you down.  It may be the common watering hole but that doesn't mean those bitches aren't mean mugging you either.

I have never done well with frenimies.  I'd prefer to solve personal problems like a man, direct confrontation.  I am not bilingual with cold shoulder or eye rolling either.  I'm the type of person, maybe it's just rude, maybe it's just my Tourette tendency to say whatever pops up in my brain, I'll tell you that your haircut was a bad idea.  And I'd rather you did the same.  Then I'll tell you to fuck off.  And then laugh.  Real friendship.  I can do that with a guy.  I just asked a male co-worker last week, "Hey are those your Grandpa's pants?"  They really were his Grandpa's pants and they came with a story.  It was funny and interesting.  We bonded.

So when I applied my strategy to the leader of the frenimies, yes, there was a pack in our group of 3 females, our boss was definitely the leader.  Her eyebrows made it so, real eyebrows shaved off, new ones painted on in a look of perpetual surprise and domination.  See, it's not that I'm not catty, I just say this shit out loud.  So eyebrow chick had declared that the three of them would be attending high-impact aerobics in the mornings on certain days.  Don't like it?  You better.  More important than the cardio benefits is your place in the pack.  Pack underlings know this so they sign up for lots of things they don't want to do.  Eyebrow chick asked me once, "What about you Cheryl?  Want to go to aerobics?"  That was my ticket in, I know it now.  I could have sat at the cool kids table and mocked all lesser packs and loners.  I screwed it up instead with a snide remark about how I can't really picture myself lighting up while doing step aerobics.  Eyebrows went up even higher on the forehead.  Entry denied.  A week later, the aerobicizing pack came back from lunch, containers of cheesecake and diet Cokes in hand.  I asked, out of curiosity not cattiness, "Did you guys do aerobics today?"

Eyebrows went up again.  Why can't I just stop myself?  "Yes."

"So why are you eating all that cheesecake?"  If we were really in the jungle, this is the part where the poison dart would whistle across the room and pin me to my swivel chair, mid swivel.  All three turned and the hair on their backs should have been up in fighting position.  Eyebrows answered for them, sweetly, way too sweetly, "we're hungry and it's very good.  Would you like some?"  Don't take food from frenimies.  I know that, even though it's been a while since I've been in a pack atmosphere, I've grown a little long in the tooth and a little slow in the uptake but even I remember that.  "No thank you."  I swiveled away.  Stupid, stupid, stupid, say something about a woman's relationship or her outfit and she'll be angry for a while, maybe a long while.  Say something about her weight and you've made an enemigo for life.

It's not that I ever wanted to be friends with Eyebrows or her minions; but it would have been nice to be friendly.  In situations like this I've always had to seek out the company of men because I find the female language uninterpretable.  I thought I've grown enough, enough time has passed, I'm no longer the young girl who wears the skimpiest outfit that can still be considered work appropriate.  I'm no longer single and on a hunt of my own.  I'm no longer anywhere near the objectionable person I used to be.  Why don't these bitches like me?  

Do we ever get past the pack mentality as women?  Do the older, wrinklier versions of ourselves ever stop growling to the younger, prettier, smarter, flirtier versions of us?  Is it biology?  The new, more fertile females of the pack trying to fight for domination or is it just insecurity?  Or is it just girls?  Aren't we supposed to be working together, furthering our cause, the female cause?  Isn't it enough that we have to settle for job security rather than something we really love?  Isn't it insulting enough that we work for .78 cents for every dollar our co-workers with penises make?  Then we go home to our real jobs, raising children and cleaning the house.  You would think odds like that would make the pack mentality dissolve and the alphas and the betas would all get coffee together while we plot to take over the world, but not right now because we have cramps.  But when our periods are over with, watch out.

We took a test on Friday, our last, "now you really made it and have proven yourself worthy of these headphones" test.  Our trainer had been too busy with aerobics and cheesecake to teach us most of what was on the test but Eyebrows was available to "help" with the answers.  She gets a bonus based on how many people pass.  I saw her walking quietly behind the swivels, pointing at the screen and whispering in ears.  All I got was the eyebrows.  That look, it said everything, "talk about my fucking cheesecake, you're on your own."  I failed.  Which was only insulting because the rest of my class, complete uber-retards, miraculously, passed.

Eyebrows took me aside to give me the bad news.  She did it with such a sweet voice, "Well you're more than welcome to train again..." she trailed off, knowing that even with anesthesia I couldn't do that again.  She even did the fake pat to my arm.

I drove home, disappointed.  I had imagined getting fired, but going out in a blaze of glory, something George Costanza-ish that would include fire alarms or an official inquiry.  I've been fired a lot.  I've been fired by better and I've been fired for worse.  I came home and told Salvador that I had failed.  He laughed hysterically, asking again and again, "you mean all the stupid people who didn't even care and were getting high in the parking lot passed and you failed?"  Knee slapper.

And I started laughing too.  It was funny.  Besides, this is what I wanted, this honest friendship, this place where you feel comfortable enough to say, "you really fucked that up, didn't you?"  He hugged me and patted me on the head too, told me a better job was on the horizon.  But then he laughed again.  No frenimies here.

Up In Smoke

We have conversations regularly that hint at it.

"You know if you hear gunshots that you're supposed to get on the floor right?" he asks me.

"Well, yeah I guess so."

"Because the bullets they use can go right through walls."

"OK.  Hey do you want some cereal?"  And it's put aside again, but it's always there, under the surface.  Sometimes we laugh about it, "check us out, we're bad ass, living in Juarez and coming home late at night."  But it's not really funny.  More than any other experience in life, immigration has reminded me that you never know where the day may take you.

Watching the coyotes on the Cordova Bridge, the 4 men work as a team, all carrying the necessary equipment to pose as window cleaners, but they don't persist and argue with you for change like career window cleaners.  Then that guy is reading a piece of paper.  Now he's got a rope.  I think the idea is that the coyote will lower you onto the highway in El Paso, which is great if it works.  Personally I wouldn't do it.  Remember climbing the rope in gym class?  I was always one of those kids who hung on at the bottom and whined about the rope burns I had just from holding on with sweaty hands.  My rope climbing skills wouldn't take me far.  The coyotes customer struck out that day as well.  I imagine him having woken up even earlier than I did, carefully changing clothes for the day, tucking important papers away in hiding places, the little money he has, ready to hand over to the man who will be holding his life, literally, in his hands.  Kissing his family good-bye with promises of more money than they've ever dreamed of coming soon.  A better life.  All to end with handcuffs and a barrage of paperwork in English and Spanish.  Sign here, here and there.  Now get the hell out of our country.  It wasn't part of the plan.

Immigration reminds you that no matter what you had planned, sometimes a higher power, could be God, could be ICE, steps in and changes those plans forever.  I remind myself while I sit with my headphones on and parrot my lines that this wasn't a step in my career, this is a paycheck.  I swallow it down, the shrieking misery, "we're broke, we've got mortgages and car payments and private school."  Not exactly broke by Mexican standards though, are you?  This was not part of my plan.  And it's doable for the moment but when I imagine the future when security and retirement funds and investments are supposed to provide a soft, comfy place to rest my fat ass and realize that quite possibly, the plan may be just this, me sitting on the bridge and driving to one more job that I don't like.  When you don't know how the day may end, what happens when that day extends to days and days on end?

You stop yourself from thinking that, take it one day at a time, this is just temporary you tell yourself.  But little things come up that remind you that whimsical fate has a say-so in too many things that are just beyond your grasp.  A sick relative, someone you love and they're so far away now.  A grown child, starting their independent life out of range of your advice or even your hugs.  How come everyone else seems like they're making plans and their dominoes stretch out for miles, standing straight and awaiting the final direction when mine keep falling down?

Immigration reminds you that through a turn of unexpected events a loved one might be gone.  You might not ever get the phone call, or when you do it will be too late.  All it takes is something careless, someone else's plan succeeds, yours goes up in smoke.  When I come home in the afternoon, driving down Juan Pablo Boulevard and look to the right, there is the Federal Police station, there is a tall structure that looks like a more grown-up version of a tree house.  There is a space at the top.  There is a gun poking out of that space. Pointed at me.  Every day the plan succeeds, you come home alive and in one piece to find your spouse did the same, that's one more teeny miracle that you stack up against the huge obvious fact that it could all end unexpectedly.  A finger poised carelessly will bring down your dominoes and all you can do is watch.

I watched my neighbors gather outside Sunday, an older lady running down the street, three children under the protection of her arms.  Moments later, a taller, younger man running in the same direction, a small, fluffy white dog under each of his arms.  A flame rising up behind their house, panic sounds were audible from our neighbors on the street, the heat and chunks of ashes covered us while we waited for the fire department.  We all realized while standing there that the wind was blowing so hard that the fire could go anywhere.  Our plans could go up in smoke.  I was on the cell phone getting the news from home that my Grandma was in the hospital, heart condition deteriorating, health failing, perhaps her question of would we ever see each other again while she was still living didn't actually have a question mark.

So we live with no plans.  Yesterday's grudges and arguments are forgotten, it's too much pressure on the delicate balance of this moment.  Tomorrow is a hope but there's nothing solid there.  Hard to plan a career when you don't know what country you'll be in.  Hard to know what country you'll be in when it's all just a pile of paperwork and guesses right now.  All I have is now.  My big plan is to be able to get my check on Friday.  So I kiss Salvador and tell him I love every time I leave.  I tell him I love him in every text message.  Just want to get that out there one more time.  Just in case something doesn't go as planned.