Authors: Juan Pastor
I
like to be in America
Okay by me in America
Everything free in America
‐
West Side Story
cataclysmic
event that forces mankind to live underground. I
personally pray that that will never happen. I don't see how
anyone can long survive without the rhythms of day and night,
the phases of the moon, the seasons. These rhythms define
life. These rhythms are the point of life. These rhythms are life!
I
am not even sure how long, really, Sin and I have been
underground. We slept twice. Once on the floor of a lateral
cavern, using our space blankets. Another time on wooden
bunk‐type beds in a dry timber supported chamber that
looked like it had once been part of a mine, or maybe
something even more clandestine. I don't know if we slept
when it was nighttime, or just when we were so tired we
couldn't go on any longer, or both.
The
only times we bathed were twice when we crossed
underground lakes, and once when we stood, fully clothed (to
wash both ourselves and our clothes), under a small waterfall
that flowed down a fairly well‐lit air/light shaft.
I
wasn't even sure where we were going. I wasn't sure
how long it would take. After a while, I wasn't even sure I was
following a sane person. If he was crazy, and I followed him, I
proved I was as crazy as him, so what did I have to loose any
more?
Sin climbs the ladder, and I follow.
"Don't look down." He says. "But don't look up either."
He pushes up on the trapdoor. Dust, debris, straw, and
spiderweb
strands rain down on us like confetti. Most of what
falls on me gets trapped in my blouse, either inside my collar
or in my cleavage. The helmet keeps most of it out of my hair.
Sin
holds the trapdoor as he lifts himself out onto the
floor above us. Then he lowers the trapdoor so it lays flat on
the floor. He kneels down, and extends his hand to me as I
stand a few rungs from the top of the ladder. I grab his hand,
and he hauls me out through the portal. I say portal because
that's what it feels like, a portal between two worlds, a portal
jealously guarded by the wizards of both worlds. Or a
wormhole maybe linking two regions of warped spacetime.
"Well. Alice." Sin says. "How does it feel?"
"Alice?"
"Yes." Sin says. "You know. Alice in Wonderland."
"Si." I say, remembering the beautiful story. "Alicia en
Mundo
Maravilloso. And are you the Sombrerero Loco?"
"Well." Sin says. "I'm loco. And it's a good thing, or you
wouldn't
be here now."
"Be where?"
"Welcome to America." Sin says.
"We crossed the border?"
"Some time ago."
Straw is all over the floor. A horse is in its stable. It
chews
hay with a slight side to side grinding motion of its
lower jaw, and looks at us as if it is the most natural thing in
the world for two people to emerge from the earth through
the floor of its barn.
My
arms are now around Sin. He leans forward to
accommodate me. I kiss one of his stubbled cheeks, then the
other. I notice how badly he smells. I notice because he smells
worse than me. And I smell very bad. I don't care.
"Gracias." I say. "Thank you for getting me here."
"You're welcome, my dear."
"I wish Rosaria could be here with me."
"I know."
He
shows me a postcard of a really pretty cheerleader
with really long blonde hair and really long tanned shapely
legs. She has high white boots and a very skimpy white
cheerleader outfit with red trim. Just above the cheerleader's
blonde hair are the words, "WISH YOU WERE HER". Below her
long shapely legs it says, "Greetings From The Arizona
Cardinals".
We
are, both of us, in what Sin calls a "head‐shop,
smoke‐shop, hippie‐paraphernalia‐shop, drugstore".
"And here's one you can send your family." Sin says.
He hands it to me. It has a print date of 2010, but it
looks old‐fashioned. It reads "Greetings from ARIZONA.
Contained in each letter of "ARIZONA" is a picture of
something Arizona is famous for. There is a clip‐art sun shining
down on that very same ARIZONA. There is another of an old
propeller airliner flying over a golden pasture with cacti
growing in it, and a cowboy riding a bucking bronco. The
bottom of the card reads:
THE ONLY STATE TO STAND UP TO
'DOING
OUR PART TO MAKE A SAFER AMERICA'
I can't tell if the card was printed by someone who
means
it, or by someone who is making fun of the people who
mean it.
"Who prints these cards?" Sin asks the pony‐tailed man
behind the counter.
He is not a young man. His hair is so jet‐black it gives of
a sheen of deep deep blue. He has Indian features. It is a bad
idea to ask what tribe one belongs to, according to Sin, but
the man looks to be Yaqui, Pima, or Mayo maybe.
"I do." The Indian says. "Immigration is a bummer, isn't
it?"
know
whether to believe it or not. But when I think about it,
Sin has never lied to me except for those few times when he
hasn't exactly told the truth, but even then he hasn't really
lied, he's more just not told the truth. There is a difference.
I
am in a class, listening to a lecture about human
anatomy. It is boring as ever, not so much the material being
taught as the manner in which it is taught by the person by
whom it is taught. I could learn more in five minutes talking to
Sin, or reading one of his journals, but Sin isn't here now and
neither are his journals.
He's
told me that the boredom is part of it, and if one can go
through all the mind‐numbing boredom, and still remain
excited about learning, one is 95% of the way home, as he puts
it.
I
always thought he was kind of poor, and kind of
crazy, but that he meant well, and he was trying to make up
for some crime he'd committed earlier in life. As it turns out,
he wasn't crazy. Well, maybe a little. But he definitely wasn't
poor.
Anyway,
here I am a student at the University of
Arizona College of Medicine at its Tucson Campus. I read all
the inspiring stories about why the people who are studying
medicine are studying medicine. I listen to the Aspiring Doc's
Podcasts. I let them interview me. I want to tell the truth, so I
do. I tell them about my friend Rosaria. I tell them about the
shootings. I don't think anyone believes me. They never air or
post my interview. The only one that believes me is the
woman that gives me my health physical.