Annex Quest House
House on Red Corner · 2005-06-30
We landed http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifin Toronto about an hour ago, okay, landed is the wrong term ( too much time in the film/television industry which uses just about every word incorrectly form normal American speech.) The Little Bug was really good on the train even though she was unable to get any real sleep the whole trip. All fifteen hours of it, including three hours at the border.
She is right now fighting to be able to sleep in mum and da’s bed, instead of getting relegated to one of the suitcases! Between you and me, I know she’ll stay in the bed with us cause we might be crazy but we aren’t stupid.
The train from New York city was full of people like us ( wink, wink) so when we got to the border the Immigrations Services were expecting us. You know passenger rosters and whatnot, it was all in there. There was the typical declaration of customs and that was all filled out. We got interviewed by a really hardcore US official who must have thought he was fighting the war on terrorism personally. After which he said to me, ” Nathan, you need to speak to the Immigrations Officer. He’ll come find you.”
At this point I began to freak out.
Oh sure it was a real quiet and steady freak out ( I have seen too many spy movies to be big and panicky about it.) But it was a freak out nonetheless.
After what seemed an eternity where I sat there wondering what he could possibly need to speak to me about, he showed up. He pulled me into a private space and asked me, “Have you any felonys or DUI’s? How about misdemeanors?”
“No” I said.
“Ok,” He replied matter-of-factly, “We’ll see.” And he left.
I sat down and then the freak out went to a new internal level. As my mind raced about in tiny little circles it tripped and fell down a deep, dark hole of despair as soon as the memory banks spit out a conflicting answer. Imagine my horror and chagrin as I recalled the Weapons charge against me in Florida, nearly ten years ago.
Oh SHIT! I thought. I’m gonna get pulled off this train and stranded in Niagara Falls, New York because of something I did when I was 24. Walking home from camping trip south of Orlando, Florida. Up I-95. With green dreadlocks, an orange pauncho and a large set of juggling sticks. With a hurricane coming right towards me. I made it nearly as far as Daytona when the State police picked me up. When he asked me one question it totally changed my reaction to this simple border crossing nearly ten years later.
“Do you have any concealed weapons on you?” The trooper said.
“Yes, I got a knife in my pocket.”
So after a night in jail, my mom’s lawyer came and bailed me out, got me to plead nolo contendre and I went home. Now, on the train to Toronto to reaffirm this commitment to a new way of life, my innards got knotted up. In fact, they really didn’t release until we were well into Canada and the sun was slipping below the horizon as we headed west.