Imperial (32 page)

Sometimes a Border Patrolman smiles white-toothed and friendly at me, with his arm on the windowsill of his white Bronco; he just wants to know what I am doing down here. I can’t help but like him. He’s so genuinely interested in me! But this wasn’t quite like that; oh, no. The Immigration man, scratching his chin, asked me how long I had been in Mexico, and I said three hours. He stared at me for a long time. To me it was not so strange to go in and out of Mexico like that, especially if one is writing a book about the border, but evidently the Immigration man considered it quite aberrant. And so he began to fill out an orange slip, taking his time to look at me again and again; I hope that he derived as much satisfaction from his work as Harold Bell Wright once did. That dark-faced old plainsman turned often to look at me now while his keen eyes, dark still under their grizzly brows, were soft with I forget what. He had a shiny badge, too (an invented novelistic detail, for I could see him only from the chin up in his sad little window). Then it was time to pull into the special parking bay in order for a relentlessly smiling man in a white uniform to ask me if I had any bomb-making materials. Thanks to him, no doubt,
we need have no fear that our lands will not become better and better as the years go by.

The woman I was with (the love of my life who had just replaced the love of my life) was getting very thirsty. Half an hour earlier, while our rental car idled at the tail of the queue, I’d promised her that the instant we reached Calexico I’d buy her a tall juice, a soda or whatever fruit of the gardens of Paradise she desired; she was tired; she’d done all the driving; and although she denied it, I suspect that she now began to be a little anxious. Meanwhile (the plot silts up), another official took my passport, studied my Yemeni visa for three utterly silent minutes (he’d never seen one before, I suppose, and the fact that it allowed multiple entries surely enhanced my aura of evil). He said:
Ai, yi, yi!

Next came the bitter officer; perhaps Barbara Worth had jilted him. But please don’t accuse him of slackness. He’d never been cheated out of a dollar in his life. And here I should tell you that they all wore what Otis B. Tout would have called “a grim smile”; everyone in
Silt
has a grim smile, and everyone talks like this:
Folks, no matter if the river eats up the entire towns of Alexico and Exical, we’ll move back and let it eat. When it gets through, we’ll build a bigger and better town.
It gives me pleasure to assume that had my bomb obliterated even more of Imperial than the Salton Sea flood, these protectors of Northside would have built bigger and better checkpoints in the end. As Border Officer Gloria I. Chavez once remarked,
I think we all feel sorry for ’em.—
But pardon me; my narrative flow’s silting up; let the headgates open!

The officer who was bitter looked me up and down, said to the woman I was with: Does he ever change his expression?

That’s just his expression, she said.

He smirked at me, grimly of course, and said: So how are you feeling now? Are you happy or sad?

I’m probably about as happy as you, officer, I replied.

They had all the luggage out of the car by now and their dog was sniffing under the seats. They were pretty sure that I’d sold out at a fancy price. The dog discovered nothing, so the officer who was bitter pushed the dog’s head down and made him sniff again.
TREASON IS HERE
. Sad to report, the dog discovered nothing for the second time. So they sent us into a corridor to sit below a lady at a high desk. To look at that gal was a pleasure; to be near her was a delight. Actually, that was my novelization: I forgot what she looked like.

The woman I was with was too nice to complain, but I knew that she must be getting more thirsty now, so I asked the woman at the high desk if there might be a soda machine. Sipping at her soda, she replied that there wasn’t, but there was hot water in the bathroom. The woman I was with then asked whether she could step outside and smoke, and the woman behind the desk told her that she could not.

To the right of the high desk there was an open door, through which I could see two brownskinned women sitting at a table while a female officer interrogated them. After awhile, one of the brownskinned women came out, silently weeping, with her wrists already cuffed behind her back.
As she passed, the people turned to follow her with their eyes—the “old-timers” with smiles of recognition and picturesque words of admiring comment.
The female officer followed her into the elevator, where she had to stand facing the wall, so that the last I saw of her was her crossed wrists locked together against her buttocks. The other woman, the one still in the interrogation room, was now also crying.

The officer behind the desk looked quite indifferent. She’d seen it all before. I can’t help believing in people.

We all do it. The woman I was with (she was not the one who had been the love of my life, but the next one) became decidedly anxious; I decided that this must be the reason she was not holding my hand, but my interpretation might have been my novelization; she would soon stop holding my hand forever; anyhow, I let her be as we sat there, outwaiting the other detainees; sugar beets could have grown admirably in that eternity. I felt like novelizing just then, so I pretended that Yemen could have been Imperial, and Imperial could have been the Bedouin-haunted desert of northern Yemen, with the bittersweet smell of qat blowing in the wind, and two veiled women walking alone between mountains; then there was lovely desert nothingness all the way to honey-colored ovens in the earth. That was when I, sitting in the back seat of the Land Rover beside Mr. Ahmed, began to float higher and higher above this blankness, tasting the deliciousness of dreamy dissociation; I was daydreaming about Imperial and the blue beauty of the Salton Sea, pretending that I could get out of the Land Rover whenever I wanted, leave behind those two qat-chewing soldiers with machine guns who sat in the front seat. I’d wander wherever I chose; no one would kidnap me for being a foreigner, or hate me for being an American, which is to say a pawn of international Jewry; oh, I had tired of being hated! I could hardly wait to come home to Imperial. And now that I was in Imperial, awaiting my turn to be “processed” into American cheese, I day-dreamed about the ancient mud skyscrapers of Yemen; in my visions I remained so free; I married both veiled women and disappeared with them behind the mountains forever.

Time went by and time went by, until finally the officer who’d said
ai, yi, yi!
came downstairs from some high and secret office whose filing system must have been still more intricate that Harold Bell Wright’s, and he clutched a long printout of my international comings and goings, among which were doubtlessly included my visits to what they called “rogue nations”: Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, and I don’t know what all. He marched over to me and announced: We’ve found out quite a lot about you.

That’s nice, officer, I said.

Perhaps I should have shown more gratitude for his efforts, for he looked sad and out of sorts then. I was cross with them all for not allowing the woman I was with to drink anything but hot bathroom water. Possibly the tears of those two brownskinned women had caused me to wonder how nice all this was. Otherwise I would have been more polite; I’m sure I would. Anyhow, the officer who’d said
ai, yi, yi!
strode to the woman at the high desk, showed her the printout, and said to her these magic words:
It reads just like a novel.

That was when I truly did begin to feel sorry for him. He had written a novel in which I was a big fish, an al-Qaeda terrorist from Yemen, while he was Sherlock Holmes:  

IMPERIAL

by

THE OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES
IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE
WHO’D SAID
AI, YI, YI!

1

We’ve found out quite a lot about you, I informed the suspect Vollmann, who turned pale and began to tremble. It was never my privilege to unmask finer subversion than was exhibited at Imperial on this day. It was quite a kick, if you know what I mean. Eggplants, bomblets and melons of mammoth proportions were shown. In short, the suspect Vollmann was everything you could ask for in a suspect. He thought that he could sneak an eggplant by me, but what scum like him will never understand is that we’re highly visible. We’re on the border. We’re in the hills, day in and day out, to try and deter them. And I was the one! It was I who had foiled the conspiracy of the traitor Vollmann!
This was a totally needless and senseless act,
I informed him with a grim smile while Agent Marlowe was putting the handcuffs on.

This Vollmann had confederates, too.
Get out!
I yelled at them. They turned and slowly, slowly walked back into Mexico across the humming throbbing bridge.

Naturally there was a dame involved. In material advantages she was pretty damned well supplied, if you know what I mean. To look at her was a pleasure; to be near her was a delight. But I had the goods on Vollmann. I couldn’t cut her any slack. I told her to listen up good. I told her to be a loyal American. If she didn’t watch out, it was going to be hot bathroom water for her for the next twenty years!

You never should have gotten mixed up in this, I said to her with a grim smile.

She started bawling and wanting to know what she could do to help the suspect Vollmann. Now, dames have always been a mystery to me. But this was a pretty clear-cut case. I looked her right in the eye and said: That guy’s no lily. Forget him.

She tried to plead one more time, but I said to her: You’ve already played your hole card. But I’ve trumped you. Agent Marlowe over there’s going to take you upstairs. They’re going to ask you a few questions.

Nothing changed; nothing even flickered in her greenish-brownish eyes. And I didn’t like that.

You’re holding out on me, angel, I said to her with a grim smile. What’s the dope?

Just then I heard the ticking sound coming from her purse.

Get out, everyone! I shouted. Threat alert!

My colleagues evacuated the office, taking the dame with them. The last I saw of them, they were slowly, slowly walking back into Mexico across the humming throbbing bridge.

I went through her purse pretty fast and pretty careful, I can tell you. What I was thinking to myself was:
Ai, yi, yi!
I found a solid gold cigarette lighter, a rock of cocaine as big as Gibraltar, three illegal aliens, two of them with tentacles, and then (needless to say, it was in a secret compartment) I dug out the other bomb, the real one, a sweet little softnosed nuclear job set to go off within the hour. I whipped out my .45 and shot it to smithereens. Single-handed, I saved the entire towns of Alexico and Exical.

Now, you might think that’s the end of the story, but it’s not quite the end, because it’s my story, if you see what I mean. It’s a story about me.

My superior officer, the dark-faced old plainsman, turned often to look at me now, while his keen eyes, dark still under their grizzly brows, were soft with fond regard. In accordance with Führer Directive No. 27, Vollmann was handed over to a secret military tribunal. (We need to get these criminals behind bars where they can’t harm anyone.) As for the dame, she’s still doing time in Calipatria. I sort of steer clear of dames like that.

But nobody would ever read his novel now, because I turned out to be nothing but a dud bomb. Poor man!

As for the officer who was bitter, I never did feel sorry for him. I disliked his inquiry on the subject of my expression. When they finally let us go, he asked the woman I was with about the Russian tattoo on her arm, and the way he asked was ingratiating, which proved that he wanted to show amends, at least; he even waved when we drove away, but I wouldn’t wave back; in fact I stared at him with the most expressionless face I possessed, because in my novel called
Imperial,
when brownskinned women weep in handcuffs they must be victims even though I don’t have a clue what they’ve done; and he was a part of “the system” which made those two women cry, so I didn’t like him. Moreover, as it happened, he was black, and in my novel, when black men are rude to me, they must have it in for me because I’m white.

1

the officer with a chip on his shoulder looked me up and down and said to the woman I was with: Does he ever change his expression?

That’s just his expression, she said.

He smirked at me and said: So how are you feeling now? Are you happy or sad?

I’m probably about as happy as you are, officer, I said.