Washout

One last time

   Streetlights flash over head, distorted by the pounding rain. I hear shouts and heavy footfalls, but everything is so confusing I can't make out from which direction they're coming from
    I am running for my life. The migrant village where I had been staying for several weeks has just been stormed by border patrols.
    I know this is my last chance to cross the border into America, and a new life.
   I have to trust the dark to hide me from view as I see the infamous fence fading into the distance.
   My heart is beating so loud in my chest I'm sure it alone will give me away. The last time I was this scared, my younger brother was shot.
    I clamber up the hills into the vast desert, without the privilege or the horror of knowing the fates of those I left behind. Those like my husband.

•

    I sit up in bed, my heart still hammering. I crossed the border three years ago, and the few terrorizing moments still appear in my dreams every night.
    I sigh, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I take a moment to gather myself, and then I'm up.
    I change the sweat soaked sheets on my small bed, wadding them up to bring to the laundromat. I put water on for tea and put a slice of bread in the toaster. While my breakfast is cooking, I wash my hands and face, and pin my hair up.
My underwear, socks, slacks, shirt, and sweater were all laid out the night before, by me of course, so putting them on is easy. Then I'm eating, getting my jacket, locking the door, and heading straight to the elevator.
This is my routine every morning; simple, uncomplicated, unobtrusive. I'll walk the 5 blocks from my apartment to the subway, where I'll ride for 20 minutes to the office where I work as a secretary.
The subway station is loud and shadowy, with flashing lights and train whistles. It reminds me much of the countless times I tried to cross into America, legally, from my home in Mexico.
I hold a pole and stand between a large man in greasy work boots and a small woman with glasses. I have always ridden the subway assuredly and with ease. These past few months, however, I have looked around anxiously, scared I will see the wrong face watching me in the crowd, or hear the wrong words from behind me.
My dark eyes study the faces around me. Some are old, and tired, lined with a wrinkles and a kind of forgotten nostalgia. Some are young and full of hope and promise, their innocence not yet scarred by reality.
I wonder how many of them do not belong here, like mine.

•

    It's a 10 hour workday before I can take the subway home again. My fingers and back are sore from leaning over to type all day, and my eyes are bleary from reading the small print.
     I'm so tired I forget to be cautious on the way home, daydreaming as I step off the terminal and begin my slow walk home.
    The tv's are on in the window of the Burly Appliance Store, and I pause for a moment to rest and watch the news.
    The screen shows live footage from Arizona, where the 20 foot high wall is in mid construction. The newscaster, a pretty woman with dark eyebrows, is reporting in the background.
    "President Trump is moving fully forward with his construction of a wall across the Mexican border. The wall should be finished in Arizona by April of this year, the white house says, if all goes according to plan."
    I knew already, of course, but hearing the words leave her mouth seem to make it real. Behind me, I hear a woman cluck in disgust.
    "Ain't no right thing." She says. "Ain't no right thing, what he's doing."
    I stay silent, my eyes fixed on the screen, when a man joins the conversation.
    "It's a damn fine thing. A true show of America's strength. Not to mention it'll keep all the illegals out, we got enough drugs and crime in this country already." He snorts.
    I'm tempted to ask him if he was ever forced to live under a leader he didn't elect, or watch his neighbors forced from their home for hanging the wrong flag in their window, or see his young brother of 9 be shot down in the street.
    I wonder if he ever had to resort to feeding his children mealworms because there was no food and no work. I wonder if he had to leave everything behind and risk his life to come into a new country.
    I wonder if Donald Trump has ever had to do any of those things.
    I say nothing, however, and soon the man leaves. There was nothing I could've said that would've changed anything, anyway.