Bienvenidos

I found myself standing alone. The luggage belt had stopped. The room had empty. I walked over to the customer service desk. After a bit of research on an outdated IBM, the man informed me that my suitcase had been held in Miami for additional screening. “It should arrive on the next flight in thirty minutes or so,” he said in rather good English.

I decided to wait outside. The automatic doors opened wide, and the hot tropical air slammed into my face as I strolled with my carry-on. Bienvenidos, read a sign embraced by two arching palms basking in the breeze, and I nodded politely. The sky was dull with humidity and sat heavily atop a rolling mountain range in the near distance. And I immediately felt infused in a dank tropical essence. Sweat beads rose on my brow as though they’d been waiting impatiently just below the surface of my skin, expecting to be needed any minute to cool me. How loyal they are, I thought. I sat back on my heels to take it all in, and adrenaline shot through my veins as I was suddenly lifted off my feet in euphoria. But a sudden tension sent a pain shooting down my arm, and the carry-on was released from my grip. My head flung wildly back and forth as my shoes scraped the ground. I could see one burly man on each side, clad in Hawaiian shirts, thick mustaches, and mirrored aviator sunglasses. “What the fuck?” I yelled as I gave it my all to break free from their grip. But the tension only tightened, and my feet lifted higher off the ground in panic. Here I was, two steps into Puerto Rico, and the travel advisory had come true.

Everything was a blur, and I don’t know—we ended up in a van. I only remember the door slamming shut. Nor do I remember exiting the van as my memory arrives at a grey metal door. It opened, and I was shoved inside. And that’s when I saw her. Her super long legs crossed atop a grey metal desk in a tiny electric blue miniskirt. Glossy candy apple lips. “Wait,” I shouted, looking back into her sparkling eyes as they shoved me on through a maze of fluorescent hallways. Out another door into an alleyway damp with the condensation of dozens of loudly humming air conditioning units, they shoved me across the way to yet another grey metal door. One opened it with a key. And as I was pushed inside, “You are under arrest for smuggling drugs into our country,” one of them said, then shutting the door behind him as he left.

Confused, I slammed my fist into the door and yelled to be let the fuck out. But nothing changed. So, I paced around the small, windowless room around a folding chair before a grey metal desk. A ticking clock high on the wall read 2:23 pm. I pulled out the chair and sat down and dropped my head into my hands. My stomach dropped, and I suddenly felt lost to the world. I fell into the deepest recesses of my mind, where I saw myself sitting on the floor in a damp, dark cage and smelled of piss that burnt my nostrils. I heard the leaking pipe of desolation drop by drop—third world dripping. I looked at the clock, 2:24 pm. “Shit!” I sat. I stand. I paced. I punched the door and slammed my fists onto the desk. I kicked the desk. I threw the chair. I picked up the chair. I unfolded the chair. I sat down in the chair.

2:25 pm.

11:47 pm.

The door opened, and I stood from a corner I'd been rocking in like a crazy person in a straitjacket. One of the men with the thick mustache and Hawaiian shirt, blue palm, with yellow background, threw his aviators across the desk. “Have a seat,” he said, and I did. Leaning toward me with his hands on the desk, staring deep into my vast, bloodshot eyes, he said, “You are going away for a long time, my friend.”

“This has got to be a joke,” I said. “I don’t know what you're talking about.”

He told me he knew who I was. He’d been anticipating my arrival—he knew I ran a crack house out of Old San Juan.

“I am an American citizen,” I said.

“So am I,” he said. And in a thickening accent, he leaned in close to spit on me as he said, “You are guilty, and if you do not confess, we will prove you’re guilty anyway, so do not waste your time. I assure you that you will go to jail for a long time, my friend.”

“But I just got here for the first time in my life, ten fucking...”

“Trust me—long time, my friend, long time, and you will go to Puerto Rican jail.”

“Please let me go—I don’t know what you are talking about,” I begged.

“Then why do you look like this?” he asked.

I looked down at myself, and then the other guy entered in his own Hawaiian, pink background, with my carry that he unzipped and dumped onto the desk.

“Come on, give it up—the dog is coming anyway,” said yellow, sorting through my dirty underwear, a toothbrush caked in dried toothpaste, crusty socks, a porn magazine, July, a pair of bent tweezers that he shoved in his pocket, a spoon with crusted peanut butter on it, and a folded photograph of Jenny. Sweet Jenny.

I snapped back, saying, “I am not a drug dealer, and I’m not stupid enough to fly with drugs, this fucking stupid,” I yelled when to my surprise, the long-legged woman, now in electric blue, lips still glossy apple, walked in through the grey metal door. I was happy to see her, but my heart shattered as I saw what she carried in her long glossy, French manicured nails. A large zip-locked baggie of what appeared to be full of marijuana. Trader! Still, I could not hate her, I loved her, so I directed my hate at the two mustaches in their Hawaiian shirts—wrong island idiots—that sat spoke with their smiles, pride in themselves, as they shoved the baggy it into my face.

“Oh, what is this,” said yellow, “This here is your marijuana, my friend."

“That’s not mine!”

“We found it in your suitcase,” said pink, as yellow, dropped the baggie on the desk to swab the inside of my canteen. Pink picked it up and waved it around like a flag symbolizing his personal conquest into my life and free will as a human being.

“This is bullshit,” I yelled but caught myself, not wanting to act a fool in front of the lady. I tried to catch her eye and just had for a split second—with a half-smile, she turned away. Shameful indeed, how could you?

“You are going away for a long time, my friend,” said pink.

Over and over, in my head, touching and testing my stuff, touching me, searching me over and over, yellow, pink, pink, yellow, eyeballing the lady, refuge in her curves, 1:12 am, eyes scratchy, fluorescent buzz, over and over, “Long time, my friend.” Again, against the wall.

“Now sit! This is your marijuana, no?”

I sat.

1:13 am.

Mustaches growing larger by the minute, pink poked his finger into the baggy swaying between the thumb and finger of his other hand. Yellow bobbed his yes, and my eyes bobbled back, following the baggy as pink swayed about. Maybe is it mine, I wondered. Back and forth. I began to consider my guilt. Yes, no, yes, couldn't be, but maybe...?

“A long-long time, my friend—far-far away from home,” said yellow.

I begin to believe. I began to realize.

The clock strikes two.

“The dog is coming,” pink with his hovering mustache floating about the room.

“Dog?”

“Dog.”

What dog?”

“The dog.”

“You know—”

“Do I?”

“You do.”

The dog never did arrive, tail wagging, tongue draped over a fang, but a third man did, in an official police uniform. The first I’d seen all day. His badge was shiny. His leather squeaked as he opened a briefcase. He removed a chemistry kit. He opened the baggie. He drew a piece of the plant material from the baggie and dropped it into a vial with some sort of clear solution. The pink floating mustache danced like a little girl waiting to see a pony jump out of that vial. Can I pee in the vial? Or maybe she had to pee. I had to pee.

“If it is marijuana,” said yellow, “it will turn blue.”

And the cop shook it vigorously.

We stared at the vial with heart-wrenching anticipation as my fair lady stood in the back corner, seemingly uninterested. In the corner of my eye, she picked at something in the corner of her mouth, most likely dried lipstick. I stared so deeply into the swirling fluid that I could see a tiny me walking by. I appeared to be in a. hurry. I passed a food court. A man was shoving a double bacon cheeseburger down his throat, and it smelled delicious. A fat little child sucked on what was left of cherry coke through a straw that collapsed his fat little checks in on themselves as his eyes crossed. His wife emptied her entire suitcase onto the floor, and I had to hop over her hair drier, almost breaking my neck, and she scuffed. "Honey, have you seen my everything?" I carried a half-eaten taco in my hand, and suddenly a squad of six men in black swat team-type gear surrounded me.

“Where did you get the taco?”

“Taco bell,” I said.

“Soft or crunchy?”

“Crunchy,” I say.

“I prefer soft.”

I shrugged. Your loss.

“Why didn’t you eat it?”

“I need to catch my flight,” I said.

“To where?”

“Puerto Rico,” I said.

“Hmm, Puerto Rico.”

“Yes.”

“Do you always dress like this?”

I look down at myself.

“Make sure to check out the southwest side of the island—the sea glows at night—it’s really something!”

“I will be sure to do that,” I said.

“Well, you better move along before you miss your flight.”

“Yes, thank you,” I said and tossed the taco in the trash, and I did not look back to see it removed for DNA evidence.

At security, a woman removed her belt, exposing the g-string underwear that disappeared deep into the cheeks of her ass. The TSA agent pulled out the July issue from my carry-on, and as he nodded in approval, I took a deep sigh of relief.

“Blondes,” he said with a click of the cheek.

I raised my eyebrows. I laced my shoes and barely caught my gate, hoping over the casted leg, jutting out of a wheelchair as the door was closing.

During the two-hour flight to the island, I dreamt of paradise as I looked out the window at the tops of the puffy white clouds.

“A long time, my friend!” awakened me from my dream with a shot of adrenaline that sat me up out of death with a gasp for breath. And the cop gave the vial one last good shake.

“Okay, okay—” I began to say, ready to confess.

“Negative,” the cop said as the solution remained clear.

The pink and yellow mustache became a thick pair of eyebrows that folded in on themselves as a blend of color kicked the chair. Hey, that’s my chair, I thought but said nothing.

“Test it again,” said the brow.

“It’s negative,” said the cop putting his kit away.

Pink and yellow split, and the three begin to argue and I take a moment to look at the lady. She gives me a grin that sends butterflies fluttering through my gut up into my heart. Hell, her grin turned into a wide sexy smile. And I turned my head like a curious little puppy dog, oh please scratch behind my ears! But her eyes softened from sexy to sad as she walked out the door, and with one last glance of her sparkling eyes, I love you. She puckered her glossy lips and shot me a kiss from across the room, and my heart exploded all over the tall, windowless walls. Then the door clicked shut behind her, and like a courageous lion, I roared, “Let me the fuck out of here, NOW!”

“Collect your things,” the defeated and muffled mustache in pink muttered—with yellow crossed arms, you can have the chair.

Without hesitation, I shoved my things back into my carry-on, and as I was being led out of the grey metal door, I took one look back at the clock, 3:42 am. And back in the damp alley with the deafening hum, I was taken to another door. As it was pulled, opened air conditioning slammed into my face, a jolting return to civilization, and the fresh scent of freedom—nothingness. In the middle of the floor of the empty luggage claim in the center of what seemed a spotlight upon a red carpet, alone sat my wayward suitcase. With another click, I turned around to see no one. That was it. It was over. I walked over to my suitcase, extended the telescopic handle, and rolled it behind me, waltzing straight for the automatic doors. Above, a camera followed me. In spite, I spotted a payphone and stopped and dropped in a few coins.

“Hello baby, I'm sorry to wake you,” I said to Jenny.

“It’s okay—I was worried—you never called. Did you make it? Is everything okay?”

“Yes, I made it,” I said.

“I hope you have a good time and be safe, and please call me every chance you get.”

“I will,” I said.

“Oh, and did you find the bag of herbs you stuck in your suitcase? Burn a bit at night, and they will keep the mosquitos away,” she said.

“Yes, I found it. Thank you, baby,” I said.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you too,” and I hung up the phone as the operator asked for another coin.

The automatic doors opened wide, and I walked out of the San Juan International Airport and into the dark rainy Puerto Rican night. Bienvenidos. The tropical air lit up with thunder before my eyes. The hair on the back of my neck stood erect, electrified, and I climbed onto a bus that read Old San Juan. Finally, I had arrived.