They pulled up outside of my house. I wanted to give them a ride, I was willing, because the minute they get pulled over they get deported. A family friend brought them over. One with papers. I wanted to see the lawyer; he helped Alejandro get free. I was determined that Cristian needed representation, that things needed to be explored. I was thrilled when his mom and sister pulled up. I thought I might have to go alone. I'm glad that they said fuck that, we want answers and were willing to sit down with this guy.
I was getting excited about the new house. The papers were scanned. Things were in boxes. It was over, right? Just let us go over there.
I watched them in my rear view mirror. I could see his sister's face, small and short, in the passenger's seat, as if she was pressed up against the windshield. She is in a wheel chair. Spina bifida. It's how she rides.
"Hey, tell me if he has a deportation order in his file?" the lawyer asked the ICE agent. He hung up the phone.
"Cristian accepted involuntary deportation the last time. He will be transferred to downtown ICE tomorrow. It's a holding tank, then he will be sent to Stewart. There is zero percent chance he will get out of this".
"Exactly, how much chance?" José, the family friend, asked in accented English.
"Zero" the lawyer responded. "I am going to beg for him tomorrow, tell them he has been in the United States since he was a little kid and does not know Mexico. That he graduated from an American high school. That he has never done anything wrong, that his record is clean. I am going to plead for mercy, but ICE isn't known for mercy....".
Giselle looked at him from her wheelchair, face piercings and all. "Tengo una pregunta..." she began.
"How can I get myself legal?"
"You don't have papers either?" the lawyer asked. She and her mother both shook their heads.
"Someone would have to marry me, right?" she asked.
"Yes" he responded, "it's complicated".
We walked out. They were stone faced. We pushed the button on the elevator. And then they crumpled and cried.
I drove home. And Alec and I signed our lives away on the papers. "Does it feel funny?" one of the realtors or lawyers asked us. "No. It just hasn't sunk in. It's like another lease".
My princess house. It is like a little castle, so pretty, so perfect. So removed from every sense of reality.
And Cristian, sitting in jail, waiting to get deported again. "He shouldn't come back" the lawyer told us, "es grandote. The could put him in the federal pen for five years if he gets caught again".
I drove through town. Outside of the pizza place, a white guy held a scary looking ladder. A brown man stood on top, fixing some facet of the roof.
I went to work. The holidays were over. We had a workday and I was determined to get things done, all the things that had been neglected during the house-buy situation. I heard some noises outside and finally opened the shades on my classroom windows. A white man stood outside, wearing a helmet, a huge winter coat and work gloves. It had gotten pretty chilly. Actually, downright fucking freezing. Two Mexican guys stood out there, wearing pull over sweatshirts, hoods up, and no gloves. One had a chainsaw. The other had a rope. They hacked and pulled the base of the old oak tree down, while everyone in good gear stood with arms crossed, watching.
And I screamed and raged and swore out the window and nothing changed at all.
Nothing.
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