TTSOML #226: Jumping The Fence Into The U.S.

When I was dropped off at the border, I was made to go through security. On the U.S. side, I was greeted with the return of my I.D. and a copy of my restraining order against the guy from Wenatchee. The guard pulled out a diaper from my bag and looked at me harshly, asking in a stern and loud voice: "What's this?!" I said drily, "It's for me." He just looked at me and I repeated seriously, "I wear those."

Then I cracked up laughing and said, as everyone around was staring at me, "Come on, after what I've been through, can't I have a sense of humor?"

Then a few smiles cracked around the room and they looked at me in surprise.

I took the bag and asked where to go. A guard pointed out into the night, "That way." He said the U.S. border was "that way", across the freeway.

So I started walking "that way" in the middle of the night.

In my bag I had some diapers, some papers, and $30. I was carrying my son's diaper bag. The only other things I had were the clothes on my back, and one of my son's shoes. I don't remember when I put his shoe in my bag, but I think it was when I was arrested at Wal-mart, I asked the officer to let me get a couple of things, and for some reason, I grabbed one of my son's shoes. They were his first shoes, brown leather mocassins with a little giraffe. I only took one. I still have it with me, and in spite of my moving around, it is the one thing I carry with me at all times. I think about my son and I kiss his shoe.

I started walking, not knowing where I was going, and where I would stay the night. I didn't have enough money for even a hotel room. I walked across the freeway and then up a slope or embankment, and right in front of me was a chainlink fence. I could see the American gas stations they were talking about, beyond the chainlink.

I said out loud, "You've got to be kidding me." I thought, "I have to jump a chainlink fence to get back to the U.S.?" So I threw my bag over the fence, and I started climbing. Then it began to warp and wobble from under me. It was an unsteady fence, and the posts were too far apart to hold the fence upright and stiff. So I had to crawl down and then start climbing nearer to a post where there was better support. It was still iffy, but I did it, even though I ripped my clothing in the doing. I was then hiking through a construction zone and arrived at another fence. I thought, "What?!" and realized I had jumped over a fence, INTO a construction zone which was encircled with chainlink. I found another way to get out, through a small opening. So really, if I'd gone farther down the road, it wouldn't have been necessary to jump a fence. I was embarrassed, hoping no one had seen me.

I wandered into a gas station and tried to call my family. They said to come back to Wenatchee and that they were not going to wire me any money. At all. They said I had chosen to "leave the family" and leave the United States, and it was all my fault and I could figure my own way out of things.

So they left me with nothing, knowing what they were doing. They were angry. My relations with family weren't good before I left, which was why I had no problem leaving with my son to begin with. We had no "family" to speak of. My son was my family, and I and my son were going to create our own family somewhere else, with friends.

I hung up and wandered around, trying to find someone out and about, so I could ask where the hotels were. I waved a car down and asked the guy about it, telling him I didn't know where to go and didn't have money, having just come from over the border. I didn't give him the whole reason why. He said he couldn't let me crash at his place because his girlfriend wouldn't like it, but he'd pay the difference so I had a hotel room. He paid, and I invited him in because I didn't want to be alone and I couldn't sleep anyway. I wanted to talk so I told him about some of the things but not everything. He recommended I not tell a lot of people and then he tried to "get it on" and I told him to leave and said goodnight. He came back the next day I think, or maybe he didn't, but paid for one or two nights. I didn't receive any other cash from him, though I think he told me to keep my $30 too, so I had something to eat.

That was how I made it, my first night back in the U.S.