It’s fucking freezing in here. I shake and suffocate and tell myself it’s the fucking AC. Fucking Americans and their fucking AC. You were right, Sama, I did pick up the language quick.
They’re sending me back, Samati. They’re deporting me. The flight boards in less than an hour. I signed the form. Don’t hate me.
I didn’t have a choice. Whatever they tell you, if they tell you, whatever you hear, from anyone, know this: I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t choose to leave. I shouted and demanded, then I begged, for a lawyer, a phone call, a fucking paper to write you a note. They gave me the form.
I signed it. I don’t know what was on it. They wouldn’t let me read it. They wouldn’t let me call a lawyer. They uncuffed me, gave me a pen, pointed to the line. I signed. They took the form, replaced the cuffs. An officer stamped CANCELED – BOS in bright red on my travel permit. The sickeningly mundane thud, then nothing. They took everything. I cried.
I asked for my passport, could I at least have my passport back. They said I’d get it on the plane. Then they gave me a sandwich. A soggy cheese sandwich. Sama, I ate it.
I ate it. I was starved. And I asked for another, which they gave me with such a smile. They’re going to joke about me for days. They’ll call me the Cheese Man. The one who cried when they took his life away, so they gave him a sandwich.
The door.
“It’s time to go, buddy. These boys will escort you. You can make that phone call now.”
No, I can’t. If I do, if I call you, hear your voice, sleepy on the pillows, our pillows, I know I won’t be able to go. They’ll have to drag me on board.
“I don’t want it anymore.”
“You sure? Nothing you want to tell the Mrs.?”
What could I possibly say? I hope you got home safe, Samati. I hope you ate. Dinner, or breakfast. I don’t know what time it is. Please take care of yourself. Take care of our little one. I didn’t have a choice. I’m sorry…
I shake my head at the officer, who shrugs.
I am the last to board, to be boarded, handcuffed, escorted by two officers, like I could actually run. We cross the whole, fully boarded plane. I don’t look up. I wanted to. I wanted to show them I was not afraid, not wrong, not a criminal, not scared, but a woman in the fifth row put her arm on her daughter’s chest like a seat belt when I passed.
Last row, before the toilets, which have already begun to smell. A seat by the last window. My heart leaps. They took everything, but, Sama, they gave me the window.
One officer uncuffs me. The other hands my passport to the flight attendant. The young woman politely, shakily, asks me to fasten my seat belt. And to please leave the shade up for takeoff. I want to smile, but she will not meet my eyes and disappears. I think of all the mice, ants, and beetles crushed by terrified girls like her. I shouldn’t have looked up. The passenger across the aisle asks for another seat.
I can’t see Boston. Perhaps I’m glad. Perhaps I couldn’t bear it. I can see the sky, workers on the tarmac, lugging suitcases off a cart under the white and orange lights.
I cannot see the stars. The runway lights are too bright. The irony, that they should make the night less visible. It lies ahead, above, around me. The plane shifts its weight painfully. Slow, like it’s scared to move. Suddenly, it jerks forward. Careens down the runway, tearing through the air. The pull sucks me into my seat, knocks the air out of me. Blood pounds through my heart. Rush. Takeoff.
Tons upon tons of aluminum, steel, jet fuel, human bodies, suddenly weightless. Most of the passengers probably didn’t look up. On my first flight, few did. The children, one or two adults, but all the refugees. They looked out and down at the disappearing lights and sobbed and kept touching the glass as though to be sure it was real, then putting their fingers to their lips.
I can see Boston now. I watch it shrink, you in it, shimmer briefly, disappear. How easily, too easily. It’s gone. It could never have been.
I could have never come to America. I could have landed anywhere. You could have been wearing a different dress the night we met. Strangers seated in orderly rows, seat belts fastened, tray tables stowed. There are infinitely many lives. In this plane, in the sky, for the next few hours at least, all are the same.
A red light blinks on the wing. When we land, some of us will be home. They will not smell of plane long. To the rest, it will cling, like the dankness on unclaimed luggage.
I hope our child never knows this smell, Sama, that who we are does not cling to him. I hope he never feels this fear. I hope he speaks with no accent, that when he learns to say words like immigrant, border, his rs don’t roll, just slide off his tongue, lightly.