Detained

by Sparrow

Sparrow

I visited Canada this month and was detained at the border by the Canadian authorities. First of all, I was the last one off the bus, because I slowly put on my socks and shoes. (I was barefoot on the bus.) Inside the border control office, I was ushered to a window where an immigration officer sat at a raised desk, a bit like a judge. He had a crewcut and an impassive, military face. He asked for my passport, of course, and my ID.

Because I live in a tiny mountain town in upstate New York, my non-drivers license gives a post office box as my address. My first whiff of trouble came when the officer asked: “This address, is it a shelter?”

In other words, am I homeless?

Come to think of it, I was wearing an old shapeless sweater, a slightly battered Yankee cap and a flowing white undisciplined beard. A charitable observer might compare me to a Sufi saint. To a more critical eye, I look like a stumbling tramp.

“No, it’s a house. I live there with my wife,” I replied, trying to sound calm.

“What sort of work do you do?”

I’m 71 years old, as my ID clearly shows! What sort of work do I have to do?

“I work as a journalist,” I replied — which I do; every month I write a preview for Chronogram, the premier arts magazine of the Hudson Valley.

“How much money do you have on you?”

“Maybe $35.”

“Do you have access to more money?”

“Yes, I have a credit card. I can show it to you…”

“Do you have any food, firearms or other weapons?”

“No.” (This was a lie. I had a stack of rice cakes, half a jar of almond butter, one slice of gluten-free raisin bread and a small plastic container of tahini.)

“Do you have any cannabis?” my inquisitor asked with a concerned look — though marijuana is legal in Canada.

“No.” (This was true.)

“Why are you coming to Canada?”

“I’m visiting friends of mine.”

“What’s the name of your friend?”

“Marcus Boon.”

“What does Marcus do?”

“He’s a professor at York University in Toronto.”

“Do you have a return ticket?”

“Yes, I do.”

I produced it for my interrogator. It showed that I was returning Tuesday, four days later.

There was a pause, then, still with an emotionless face, the officer asked me to step to the side.

A second officer led me to an adjoining room, where a slightly angry-looking woman asked to see my bags. She placed them on a table and told me to step back two paces. Then she began methodically examining every single item they contained.

“Do you have anything sharp in here?” she asked.

I mentally examined all the contents. “No,” I said finally.

Two days later, I was planning to give a poetry reading at Marcus and Christie‘s house. Therefore, I was carrying an envelope full of poems. Here are a few examples:

Subsistence Poet

I write

just enough

poems to

survive.

Tragic Thought

Even

this

anarchist

poem

somehow

benefits

capitalism.

Spiritual Complaint

Jesus died for my sins,

but I like my sins.

The woman puzzled over these literary works. Should such a poet be allowed into Canada?

Every night I make a small monollage. It’s a term I invented for a collage with only one item. Many of the items are pieces of paper I find on the floor. Let me show you an example

:

The bag-exploring woman gazed incredulously at the monollages.

She was especially puzzled by a plastic case of earplugs I carry, in case I go to a rock concert. They look like lozenges, but you mold them into the shape of your ear.

“What are these?” she asked.

“Earplugs,” I helpfully replied.

Surprisingly, she confiscated nothing. Instead, I was led into a waiting room with two perpendicular rows of metal seats. The room had a large picture window and in it was the actual Niagara Falls.

Mist rose from the mighty cataract separating two formidable nations. A thoughtful Canadian architect had designed this picture window to entertain undesirables.

“What a view!” I said to a fourth officer, whose job was to guard me. He nodded and smiled.

“The woman who just examined my stuff was really confused by my monollages,” I told him. “I make these little artworks every night.”

He nodded, and looked vaguely interested. “Would you like to see them?” I offered.

“Sure,” he replied.

I took out the envelope, and showed him the pieces one by one. One of them is four inches of black thread taped to a piece of card stock.

“You should call that one ‘Mend Me,’” the guard suggested.

It’s the first time anyone had offered a title for a monollage.

“These are really unique,” my guard remarked, in his role as art critic.

Soon I was a summoned to a fifth officer, a young woman with a farm girl face.

Again she asked for my passport, my ID; I also produced my press pass, from the Kingston, New York Sheriff’s Office.

“What sort of work do you do?” she inquired.

Again I told her. Also, I mentioned writing for this magazine.

“I understand you only have $35. Do you have access to more funds?”

I explained again that I had a credit card, and that my bank account contains roughly $80,000.

“Do you have any proof of the money in your account? Any bank statements?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Where do you live? Do you rent, or own a house?”

“I own a house, with my wife. Also, I co-own my father’s old apartment, in Brooklyn, with my sister.”

“Why isn’t your wife with you?”

“She has a job, with rescue horses.”

“Do you have any proof that you own the house? Any bills, with your address on them?”

“No, I don’t.”

After a while, when you’re being interrogated, you start to doubt your own story. Do I really have a wife? Do I actually own an American dwelling? Perhaps I am a homeless vagabond, with a gift for self-embellishment.

“I expected this sort of problem when I came back to the USA, not coming into Canada,” I told the fresh-faced woman. She replied with a crucial line: “You’re an American, so you have a right to enter America, but you don’t have a right to enter Canada.”

I hadn’t thought of that. It happens that my wife and I traveled three weeks before to Reykjavík, Iceland; Berlin; Amsterdam; Cardiff, Wales; and London. Nowhere did we have a problem entering a country. But my wife is rather normal-looking. The next time I travel somewhere alone, I’m going to ask a woman on the bus, “Do you mind posing as my wife? I can pay you $25…”

Also, all those countries — Iceland, Germany, Holland, Great Britain — have one thing in common: Donald Trump didn’t threaten to invade them and make them the 51st state. I am paying for the sins of my erratic president.

Well, someone has to pay for them and it looks like he’s not going to.

Eventually, the farm-faced woman relented, and let me into capacious Canada, first handing me a sheet of helpful hints for my next voyage:

In order for the immigration officials to make a fair assessment of your status and intentions, please provide this officer with the items indicated below:

A list of 13 items follow, including “INCOME TAX (most recent and past forms)” and “DOCUMENTATION REGARDING CRIMINALITY (police certificates, court dispositions, notice to appear in court, etc.).”

When I returned to the bus, I asked the driver: “Will we be late getting to Toronto?”

“No, we’ll get there at the scheduled time.”

I guess the Megabus company expects one of the passengers — perhaps always the last one off the bus — to be detained, questioned and offered an exquisite view of Niagara Falls.

_________________

Sparrow is an incomparable person, poet, and Alte friend.

This piece first appeared in hudsonvalleyone. They gave us permission to reprint for ALTE. More Sparrow pieces: https-//hudsonvalleyone.com/author/sparrow