la frontera

I had a field trip concellation today, so I had the mornig free to make a trip down to hacienda del mar with chairs and a kitchen table and a few other boxes of art materials. I dutifully stopped at the border line to declare items. There were parking spaces and a cluster of uniforms at an outside desk. I walked up to declare my kitchen table. BNorder crossing and declaring household items for a new residence involves vocabulary I do not yet have. A woman handed me a blank sheet of paper and walked away. I held this paper in my hand for a moment and waited. Nothing.

I made a list. A stalky man with a hare lip and a courderoy border patrol shirt looked at the list and asked me how much everything was worth. Hmmm . . I did buy the furniture at thrift stores, and I can't really price a box of my sketches and journals . . so I hestitated.

Suddenly a yell from behind me, from the US side. And the hare-lipped border agent was off, speeding towards the border in his corduroy shirt faster than I thought he would be able to move. Someone next to me casualy explained, 'Someone ran across, to try to get to America. you know, an illegal.'

And so I was waved through without assigning any price to the objects in my car.

***

After assembling my table, setting up the assembled table and chairs with ridiculous concern regarding their position under the ceiling light, discovering that Tuesdays is trash day, having an apologetic encounter with the neighbor's contractor over using our driveway, and learning the work for locksmith[cerrajeria] whilst getting keys made, I was back in line to cross the other way,to get back to the US.

There was a some kind of big commotion ahead of me, and then two large truck pulled in front of my car, with teams of armed men hanging off the sides of them. The fuerzas especiales were on their way somehwere. It might take some getting used to, the amred men securing all over the place. It might also be the US at some point in the not distant future.