why it’s not good to lie to Customs

Happy Birthday, Herbert Eck!!!

Sour mood alert! I was in such a strop when I arrived at work that when I angrily smacked on the light switches, I hit them so violently I literally saw sparks. I’m in a sour mood not because it’s raining, but because I was woken up yet again at 4:30am by my upstairs neighbor praying. At 5am his grandkid started wailing for whatever reason…possibly because HE WAS WOKEN UP AT 4:30AM BY HIS GRANDFATHER LOUDLY PRAYING. Just sayin’.

This past weekend stank. The weather was stunning, yet I was housebound due to a pile of freelancing, and then my neighbors decided to make it worse. On top of the usual clomps and stomps and crashes, one of them chatted on the phone so loudly at numerous times, I could still hear every word she said even though I was wearing ear plugs. And another one of them blasted organ-heavy religious music on Saturday afternoon, singing along in such a manner that can only be described as “opera singer gets electrocuted.” He feels the spirit of Jayzus, yes he does. Up, up, up! goes my merry blood pressure.

Today marks 10 years since I got chucked out of England. The condensed version:

I wanted to move to England. I decided to buy a roundtrip ticket that would keep me in London for a month, where I would live with my friends in New Cross. If I didn’t find legal work during that time, I’d go home. Simple as that. But I was confident (naively so) that I would find a job somewhere—even if it meant scrubbing toilets in an American hotel chain. So I packed quite a few of my possessions and took them with me. That was my fatal mistake.

Virgin Atlantic alerted Heathrow Customs to my suspicious load of stuff, and I got grilled as soon as I arrived at Passport Control. I panicked and denied that I was going to look for work. Dumb move, considering I was carrying (ahem) resumes and a book called HOW TO GET A JOB IN EUROPE. Which they found, of course. They confronted me and I admitted that I was planning to look for a job, but would only accept legal work. That’s the truth! Why would I want to stay there illegally, always looking over my shoulder, unable to ever go home, unable to open up a bank account or get healthcare coverage? No thanks. But because I’d already lied to them once, they didn’t believe me. So out I went.

First I was stuck in a locked room full of illegal immigrants and criminals. Hotness. I was the only female there, and certainly the only American. We were separated from the cops by a sliding bulletproof glass window. I used the pay phone to call my mom, bawling the whole time, asking her to pick me up at Newark that evening. I sat there, surrounded by my boxes and bags, weeping the whole time.

They kept me there for hours, then finally pulled me out so I could see them search my stuff. They searched every nook and cranny of my bags, pulling out everything and examining it. They made fun of my CDs and my bulk bottle of Tums. They sneered, “Why are you trying to take jobs away from the British?” (I bit my tongue instead of replying, “Do you realize how many of your countrymen have moved to my country and taken away jobs from Americans?”) On and on it went. It was humiliating and the only thing missing was them strip-searching me and doing a cavity search.

Finally they hauled me onto the plane. A policewoman accompanied me and wouldn’t return my passport until I was buckled into my seat. Well, thankfully I wasn’t put in fucking chains like Kate on Lost! I was still mortified, though, especially since everyone on the plane glared at me because the flight was delayed thanks to me. They were all seated, waiting for take-off, delayed because of me. I cried the whole way home.

And do you know what? It took 2 ½ years before I was even allowed back in the country. Initially I tried to go back for a vacation in March 1997, but the Embassy (or maybe it was Virgin?) called me the night before I was scheduled to leave and said, “Don’t even try it—you won’t get through.” So I had to cancel my trip at the 11th hour. That summer I went to the British Consulate in New York City to apply for a visa (which was now necessary for me to return to England) and get interviewed by a Consulate official. My application was rejected, because they thought I would try to disappear into the night in England and live off the blood and sweat of hardworking Englishmen everywhere. It didn’t help that I was still living at home at this point and only working as a temp. I just didn’t have enough roots to ground me to the US (in their eyes, anyway).

Two years later I tried again; this time I submitted my application to the British Embassy in DC and went into my interview armed with a copy of my apartment lease, a letter from my boss, copies of my bills, etc, etc—anything that would prove that I had a solid life in the US. The interview lasted all of two minutes. The guy was like, “Yeah, sure, I don’t understand why this is even an issue” and stamped the visa in my passport. DONE! Plus he made sure I was removed from the customs watch list in Heathrow’s computers.

Thankfully Virgin turned my unused 1997 ticket into a voucher that could be used at any time, and that’s what I used to go back to England in 1999. Although I had supposedly been stricken from Heathrow’s computers, I nonethless opted to play it safe and fly into Gatwick instead.

My journal entry from that day:

17 October 1996, Thursday

Oh my god, my worst, my absolute worst, nightmare is happening right now, and I pinch myself repeatedly but I CAN’T WAKE UP. I’m in England, at Heathrow, but they’re not letting me into the country. They’re sending me home tonight on Virgin. Oh my god, I’m starting to cry again…I can’t stop crying…I can’t stop these waves of horror from drenching me.

At Passport Control, the guy asked me too many questions, and I go so nervous, and I figured it was routine (they always ask me so many questions, stupid questions), but heightened, because of all my bags. Yet I still didn’t make that connection, and all I could think was that they just thought I was suspicious. It took two hours for the whole terrible process to be complete—the questions, the hostility at my lying, the paperwork, the suspicion, the searching of my boxes. I couldn’t stop shaking. The guy had already talked to Annida to verify my story, and after those two hours, I was finally allowed to see Annida, Yannick, Jim, and Richard. My heart broke. I couldn’t stop sobbing. I must’ve looked so horrible. They looked so wonderful. I wanted them to stay all day, and I thought they could, but then the bastard came out and said I had five more minutes, like I was a prisoner, and I had to leave them again…leave them after so little time. … Now I’m in this locked room full of immigrants, and two keep hogging the phone, so I can’t call Doppie. I called Mom and bawled. …

Oh god, I am such a wreck. I am such a failure. My dreams just EXPLODED in my face and now I have nowhere to go. Even after the rush and stress of the airport last night, everyone kept saying how happy they were for me, how proud. Proud, proud. That’s all I heard. Terry was absolutely beaming with pride. He and Mom kept repeating, “You will do this!” I will succeed. But I failed. Now I am going home to nothing and I am so fucking scared. Richard kept telling me to go to the embassy in DC and try for either a generic work visa or to use them for officiality once I get a job while in the States. Annida seemed to deem this just a minor setback. I have no faith anymore. Fate is determined that this won’t happen. Oh my god, I would sell my soul to make this horror go away. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. “What happens to a dream deferred?” I have nothing else to hold on to. England was my only salvation. I am going home to months and months of aloneness and alienation. I can’t take any more of that! I can’t take anymore of being worth nothing! …

I always think of this experience as my Sliding Doors moment—the point in time that changed the entire course of my life. But really, that’s not very accurate. Even if I had gotten through, there’s no guarantee I would’ve found a job. Chances are, I would’ve ended up slinking home at the end of the month, tail between my legs, my dream indefinitely postponed, back to square one. Or perhaps I would’ve gotten through, only to decide at a later date that London was too expensive, or just not what I wanted after all.

Also, in Sliding Doors, the moment that changed Gwyneth Paltrow’s life was an insignificant moment: she missed the train. It wasn’t a big, grand, thrown-out-of-England moment. And maybe that’s the whole point: the pivot on which our lives swing, sending us in one direction versus another, is microscopically small. Maybe the moment that changed everything for me was something like that: something so insignificant, I didn’t even notice it. Like today, when I was hurrying out my front door and the sleeve of my trenchcoat got caught on the door handle. I pulled it off and the belt of my coat promptly got caught. I laughed “Fuck!” and then went on my way. Minor, but maybe that’s the point. In getting delayed by a split second, maybe I narrowly avoided getting injured on the Beltway, or narrowly missed meeting a kindred spirit while sitting in traffic—both of which could have changed the entire course of my life.

It’s a cunning little thing, life is.


song heard most recently before posting: 

Just for Now—Imogen Heap