Wayward: Fetching Tales from a Year on the Road

locked down at heathrow

dink: [di NG k] noun, slang. An irritating, contemptible individual. Use: The customs officials that he encountered at Terminal Five were a bunch of dinks.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything crazy.” His eyes told me that he was speaking the truth but it was the white rubber gloves that were scaring me. I’ve never seen a TV show where the guy in the white gloves just gives you a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the ass.

Plus, I’d just been fingerprinted and was standing outside of Heathrow’s lockdown. I was much less concerned with where his fingers were headed and more worried about how I had ended up in the pokey.

I had come from Italy, where I’d taken a train all day, followed by a cheapo flight to the UK. About ten hours of travel. I had, as is geographically mandatory, walked 39 miles through Heathrow before arriving at the customs podium. I was exhausted, melancholy and quite ready to fall into the arms of my boyfriend, who was waiting for me in London.

“How long will you be here?” Oh, this crap. Couldn’t they read the neatly printed “7 days” in the box of the same question? I noticed that his fingernails were manicured, which struck me as bit metro for such a tough guy gig. He thumbed through my passport, which was nearly full of stamps and visas.

“What are you doing here?” I’m a tourist. “What will you do when you’re here?” I will go see Bruce Springsteen in Hyde Park, see a couple more concerts and visit with friends. “Who are your friends?” I thought for a second about taking a philosophical approach and asking in return, “Yes, good point. Who are our friends?”

Instead I rattled off a few names, including Lewis’. I hoped that this gentleman wouldn’t ask me about how I’d met Lewis, a story that involves caipirinhas and a make out session on a picnic table in Chile.

“I see here that you’re a writer. What do you write?” I explained that I was a freelance travel writer. Officer Manicure asked if I did anything else, insinuating that this couldn’t possibly be a real job. I explained that I didn’t, and that I was making my way around the world for a year with this income.

He sucked air through his teeth and made his eyebrows go cross-eyed. “How much money do you have?” I told him about ten grand. That didn’t seem like enough, based on his reaction. He abandoned his podium, directed me to heel and led me to collect my bags.

Along the way he told me there was probably no issue but the answers I’d given fit a profile similar to one of people who might disappear into the country. I explained that I was not fond enough of kebabs and greasy chips to stay in the UK. He laughed and assured me that we’d have this settled in no time. “I’m really jealous of what you’re doing, this trip. I wish I could do it.” He had the miserable look of somebody who took holidays on the English seaside.

My bags were searched, specifically for anything that would indicate I’d come to England forever. The good officer told me that often they find cards from going-away parties. He found my Western Europe Lonely Planet. “This is good. I’ll be able to show them this and corroborate that you’re on the trip you claim to be on.” He confiscated all of my notebooks and my collection of receipts. “This is all good. It proves that you are who you say you are.” It was a strange place to have an identity crisis.

I also produced my onward ticket, a flight to Spain. He did the air- sucking thing again and explained that thirty quid flights didn’t stand as any kind of evidence for departure, because cheap flights could be abandoned. He lamented there might be some issue with my not having a return flight to America, even though I had a ticket out of the country.

I spent the better part of the next three hours in an intimidating questioning room. Everything in the 10×10 room was nailed to the floor, making me imagine just what maniac had started swinging chairs to initiate that protocol. I could see the other rooms through glass, both occupied with stressed-looking travelers being questioned for God Knows What. Manicure asked me about ten more questions, then asked if he could contact Lewis to corroborate my story. I agreed, hoping this would settle the entire thing.