With the announcement of our wedding, many of you may have noticed that it actually took place over a year ago, so, why did it take me so long to write about it?
Well, some marriages are better than others and ours started off as a tragedy. Just over a month into our new life, as newly-weds, we were already separated and I was absolutely devastated.
As I entered my family home, all alone, the surrounding walls began to obnoxiously shine a brilliant white, while slowly looming in on me. All I could do was stare, deep into that painted drywall, while being repeatedly tormented by the soul-crushing memory of Sarah’s wretched face as she burst into tears at the airport.
As I repeated my words of wisdom: “Just think of this as a vacation. My Visa will get approved any day now and we’ll be...” she did the unexpected; she broke down into tears and, in that moment, I finally realized the gravity of the situation. I tried to console her, but time was rapidly ticking away and there was nothing that I could do to fix this.
We hugged and kissed good bye and then I spent the next ten minutes watching, helplessly, from a distance as, again and again, she fell to pieces in the TSA line. It was awful, I could see that she was desperately trying to compose herself, but she was overcome by waves of despair that contorted her face in ways that I will never forget.
For days, this memory replayed, over and over, as I continued staring at that wall, like some shell-shocked GI, who just lost the only friends that he had ever known.
Then, when things couldn’t get any worse the British Government attempted to finish me off. We had been waiting months for them to approve my Family Visa and when they finally got around to sending it out, those bastards rejected me.
So, I was forced to take a break from wall-spotting to call Sarah with the bad news. As you can imagine this didn’t go over well, and, once again, she unravelled at the seams, wailing like some wounded animal. Then Sarah realized that my application was rejected over simple mistakes by the government and we were going to have to appeal their decision, which usually takes years.
Fucking years!
Can you believe that shit? Well, I couldn’t, so, as my grief subsided, I became determined to get back to Sarah, regardless of the consequences.
My only option was to pose as a tourist, but the problem was, now that we were married and my family Visa was just rejected, it was almost impossible to receive a tourist Visa, because they would assume that I’m attempting to live there. Also, with Cerebral Palsy a ten hour flight destroys my body and I couldn’t imagine getting denied entry into the UK and then having to do another transatlantic flight in the same day, in all honesty, it would probably result in permanent physical damage.
So, there I was, scouring the internet: reading every immigration horror story that I could find; looking for any angle. Then I found it: the Holy Grail of beating the system, in the form of a reality TV show called: UK Border Force.
Oh man! This show had it all, from arrests and interrogations to how the enforcers collect evidence out of your luggage, and, in that moment, I grabbed my laptop; booked a flight; and then spent the next few weeks studying that show.
Now, I’ve spent my whole life avoiding incarceration: sporting polo shirts; the preppy haircut; and I even drove unassuming vehicles, but there I was, walking directly into the lion’s den with the knowledge that an arrest was imminent.
I was praying that I would get a laid-back immigration officer who would make my detainment and interrogation easy, but I didn’t; I didn’t even get an average one: I literally got the worst guy in the building.
This all became clear as he silenced my greeting with a talk-to-the-hand motion and then he proceeded to chug more than half of his over-sized bottle of Mountain Dew, while I patiently waited, plotting my revenge. When he finally finished, in his most sullen voice he said: “passport.”
That’s when I unloaded on him, I spilled my guts with every reason of why I should be denied entry.
Now, this might sound crazy, but his job was to look for deception in order to reject me and I wasn’t going to give it to him, because fuck him!
The guy’s face dropped and I could see that his day just got a lot worse and that’s when I began bombarding him with all the evidence proving that I was still a tourist that was about to spend a lot of money in Britain and if that wasn’t bad enough, I kept mentioning things that I knew would escalate this into a human rights case.
I could tell that he wasn’t buying it, he was one of those cynical types that hates people like me, who ride the wave of a coy persona, falling ass backwards into all the goodness of life, while he scraped and toiled in misery. He was one of the few that could see the criminal that resided behind my polo shirt. The jig was up and he went on the attack; the interrogation had begun.
He didn’t believe a word that I said, tearing my story apart and randomly calling me a liar, but I had the paperwork to prove that all my lies were true. He became more and more infuriated as the interrogation progressed, until he eventually just stopped and began staring at me, coldly. He knew that I’d manipulated all the evidence, right down to the fake itinerary; sight-seeing flyers and a ticket for a return-flight, planted in my suitcase; I even memorized a list of Michelin star restaurants and all of this was killing him.
“I’m legally detaining you under the blah blah bah, fuck you, I’m bloody angry, act of 1964!” he announced, before escorting me to a holding area. The room was filled with gloomy foreigners; one crazy lady that was shouting obscenities and a guard who was the target of the abuse.
I immediately began playing the naïve tourist role to get the guard on my side: “Is this bad? I mean, I’ve never had anything like this happen before...”
The guard was quick to comfort me, but I knew exactly what was happening: the angry immigration officer was pleading with his supervisor to ignore all the evidence, while wishing that he was a better employee, so, his supervisor would take him serious. Instead his supervisor was scolding him in front of all of his colleges and docking his pay, so, he could no longer afford Mountain Dew, but then my daydream was interrupted as the immigration officer returned.
In a deflated voice he muttered, “Your Visa’s approved, ‘elcome to Engmumum!”
I quickly grabbed my things and raced toward Exit were I hugged and kissed Sarah, who has got to be the luckiest girl on earth. I mean seriously, I took on the British government and destroyed a guy’s career just to be with her, who could ask for more?
What a lucky girl!
