Andrés Neuman - The Things We Don't Do

“I said keep your mouth shut, moron.”

They frisk me. Then the two officers move a few metres away. They are talking. I overhear snatches. The car roof is beginning to burn the palms of my hands. The sun is piercing, like a lance.

“What do you reckon?” I hear the burly one say. “Do we search it or not?”

I can’t hear the lanky one’s reply, but I suppose he has agreed because, out of the corner of my eye, I see the burly one opening all the doors and rummaging around. He flings my backpack on the ground. He flings my toolbox after it. Then my fluorescent sign. Then my football, which bounces off along the highway. The officers carry out their task very meticulously.

“There’s nothing here,” the burly one remarks, almost disappointed. “Shall we check the seats?”

The two men clamber into my car and start inspecting the backrests, under the mats, the glove compartment, the ashtrays. They leave everything turned upside down. I venture, for the first time, to make a timid objection:

“Excuse me, officers, do you have to be so thorough?”

The burly one climbs out of the car and hits me with his stick. For a moment I feel like I am floating. I fall to my knees.

“Have you got something else to say, huh? What have you got to say now?” the burly one yells close to my ear.

“I assure you, officer,” I stammer, “I’ve nothing to hide. Truly.”

“You haven’t?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, I tell you!”

“Then don’t answer back!” the burly one screams, giving me a sharp kick in the backside. “I can smell liars like you a mile off. And I’m never wrong.”

“Officer, I swear, honest…”

“Shut up, sonofabitch!” the burly one roars again. But this time he doesn’t hit me.

Cars speed past us like the wind. In the meantime, the lanky officer is still searching my car.

“Aha!” the lanky one is suddenly excited; his voice sounds oddly shrill. “Look at this,” he adds, passing my briefcase containing the company accounts to his partner.

“Where did you find it?”

“Under the passenger seat.”

“And what is it? Open it. You can’t? Give it to me. It’s probably got a combination lock,” and then he exclaims, as he tries to force open my briefcase, “I thought as much, I thought as much, I know a liar when I see one!”

I would tell them the combination, but at that point I am too terrified to open my mouth.

“Let’s arrest him,” the lanky one says. “We can open the briefcase when we get to the station.”

The burly one slowly begins to handcuff me.

“But, officers, this is a mistake!” I make a final attempt. “I’m completely harmless.”

“We’ll see about that, lowlife,” the lanky one says.

They make me sit on the back seat and they close the doors.

They stay outside the car and call someone over their radio. My shoulders are aching. My head hurts, too. My ribs are throbbing. A nasal voice replies on the other end of the radio. I don’t like this at all. Cars keep driving right past us. I don’t know whether I should say something else. I hear my football burst.

EVERY DAY, from eight in the morning to six in the evening, I watch Mexicans, Colombians, Chinese, Poles, Ecuadorians, Indians, Koreans file past, and they all look at me as if begging for mercy. That’s what gets to me about them, you know. Not that they’re fuckin’ Mexicans, Colombians, Chinese or Poles, but because they look at me that way. As if I, and not the law, were going to judge them. It’s simple, buddy. I’ve no idea what things may be like in your country, but that’s how it is here in Atlanta, at least. And they’re pretty fair, you know. If you haven’t done anything, if you really haven’t done anything and aren’t thinking of doing anything, if you aren’t carrying or looking for anything weird, if you don’t deal in drugs and your friends don’t either, if you’re not planning anything dangerous against something or someone in this country, then you’ve got no cause to worry. If something so logical doesn’t seem that way to somebody, let him come over here while I call a fuckin’ doctor.

Europeans are different, of course. Those bastards look you in the eye. They challenge you. They give reluctant answers to the questions I have to ask them, because it’s my fuckin’ job, not because I’m interested in their stupid lives full of landscapes, monuments and ruins. Just this morning, for example, there was a sonofabitch French guy who queried everything I was asking him. Put your finger there again, I would say. And he replied: Is it absolutely compulsory? How long are you thinking of staying in the country? I asked him. And him: Isn’t that private information? I have my rights! Things like that, you know. I was on the point of calling security. But it wasn’t worth it. If you do, the embassies draw my bosses’ attention to it, and my bosses draw my attention to it. So I sighed, stamped his passport with the fuckin’ Admitted and put a mark on his boarding card for them to open his luggage. I don’t know if over there, in his oh lá lá France they respect the law. But here at least we try.

Why do they find it so hard to understand how things work? Seriously, it’s like adding two plus two. I ask, they answer. The security personnel want to make sure their belongings aren’t dangerous, so they show them. We check they have enough money so they don’t go begging in the streets or robbing people, they confirm that they do. What the hell is so strange about that? There are three or four rules, you know. And this is a great country precisely because it has rules. It’s nothing against anyone, you know. If there’s anything suspicious, I’m sorry, buddy, but here you stay. If you’re clean, Okay, then you simply go through. On your way, and next! Seriously, just like two plus two. But no. Lots of them play the victim. Or look at you as if you knew them from somewhere. Or play the tough guys, like those sonofabitch Frenchies. But take away their passports, close their embassies, and then see where that leaves them. Not much better off than an Ecuadorian, an Indian or a Korean. And take away their clothes, credit cards and fuckin’ perfume. Then I’m not sure there’d be any difference at all, you know.

I don’t find my work boring. It doesn’t exactly enchant me either. I mean, I don’t enjoy it the way I enjoy beer, ice cream or the Hawks’ games. That’s obvious. But doing your duty, as my father used to say, is not something to be measured by how much you enjoy it, but by how important it is. And doing an important job is an honour not everybody can claim, you know. I mean, guarding our borders so that no criminals get in is not the same, with all due respect, as washing cars or serving hamburgers, for example. Those jobs are as honourable as any other, but they don’t give you the same sense of pride. I know because as a youngster I served hamburgers and washed cars. You can see the difference just from the uniforms. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. And anyone who prefers to wear a fuckin’ apron rather than a badge, well, let them swear it on the Bible.

The days pass by slowly, you know. The faces, questions and gestures are always the same. You can’t move from your seat because there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of them. Your fuckin’ arse starts to ache so much you can hardly walk when you go to the toilet. The airport noises drill so deep inside your head that when you leave the airport you can still hear them. You hear them in the car, the subway, the shower, in bed. But in the end you get used to it.

When I arrive home, you know, when I take off my uniform, shirt and shoes, sometimes I feel distant from it all. I lie there stretched out. I watch TV until late. I don’t talk to my wife much. And when I explain something to my children or draw their attention to something, it’s as if I’m speaking some foreign language.