This elderly lady is from Caucasian decent. She looks to be around the age of 70, as her skin is wrinkled and her hair is as white as snow. She looks so pure, so harmless, so …. wholesome … she looks directly at me greeting me with a heart warming smile. Smiling back … our interaction dies …. She turns around facing the front of the bus … that’s strange.... She smiled at me …. Hmmm I mustn’t be that scary after all…. Suddenly the bus starts again and we turn right onto a packed Southwest Freeway. “10:45, I am going to be really late, really really late” ….
Resting my head against this firm window, everything seems different, well slightly different to say the least. Things have changed, and I can’t explain why, I just know they have … people acknowledge me. Do I still look like an immigrant?, because … well I remember when no body wanted to have anything to do with me.
* * *
There we were, travelling across the vast red desert, with only the humming of the engine to be heard. That dark tar strip with yellow strips defines where we were going and where we had come from. The bus driver every few minutes looked back at us, but never once did he flinch, he was examining us through a one way mirror, as though we were not worthy of his conversation. The bus was crowded and continued to rattle as the gears changed. Leaning against my window, the road was moving south quickly, faster and faster we were leaving our past behind and roaming into a vast foreign land. All I had in my mind, was the Capitol Dome, my image of salvation. "200 miles to Washington" read a large green signpost. The desert sand was steaming if I recall, we were racing to so called freedom, but the desert didn’t seem to be moving. Looking into the window I saw; a dark skinny 30 year old unshaven man, staring at me as though he is looking for something, something he simply is unable to find.
* * *
I can still remember that man … searching for a truth … a truth I am still not sure if he has found… Life can do that too you I think…. Leave you searching for a truth … a truth you simple may never find. Finally, we can get a straight run on this freeway. Very quickly the bus gains momentum and we are left once again to ponder on our thoughts. Leaning back in there seats, just look at these people… did they ever suspect that life would lead them down this path? Our inspector, she sits there at the front, counting her blessings and minding her time, did she ever think life would lead her to being a bus inspector? … How then do these people claim themselves as better than me? Just because I am darker than them, they all stare, with there distrusting eyes. They all wait for the chance to swoop and destroy my minimal chances of prosperity … This just must be the way, outsiders are treated … well it is all I have ever known.
The memory of those white men dressed in crisp suave black shirts. They called them boarder patrol … and here we were, waiting their approval for a second chance. Well you may not call this a second chance, but back then, anything compared to Mexico, was a second chance … The continuos rattling back and forth of that bus, the god forsaken bus … is the fondest memory I have of that bitter night. All I could do was take solitude in the fact that I was legal and reassurance in salvation of the Capitol Dome … but I had heard stories … stories about how cruel these white men could really be … if they didn’t like the look of you … you could never step foot onto this “fertile land”. Panic was streaming. No one was confident … just imagine ... these men had your lives in the hands, they determined your future. We had no future were we had come … dreams did not exist … for having dreams did not make you smart, knowing that they wouldn’t come true, that did. I still remember it, their tight grip on my shirt, as they dragged me off the bus, as though I was a rag doll. Dropping me in the dirt and kicking me. I did nothing… and they treated me like a criminal… I was legal!!! And they kicked me … All I could hear was that rattling of the bus as they left me laying against its sturdy frame. Spitting on me as I dragged myself back into the bus, they hated me … “go home!” they shouted … “what did I ever do?” … “I couldn’t change where I had come from, but I wanted to change were I was going” … I took it all though, took all their hate and anger, for the good Lord, he may judge, it is not my place.. His will be done … Utter joy, I still remember it, when we left those phantom figures in the dust, and headed to Washington DC, the home of the Capitol Dome.
Suddenly the traffic starts moving, “11:50, well at least we are almost there”… The heavy rural bus pulls into Pennsylvania Ave, and immediately stops ... “end of the line!”, yells the driver.
Stepping out onto the hard tar road, a satisfying crisp cold breeze fills my lungs. Grabbing my bag, I remember this road ever so clearly …. That old rattling bus stoping… the driver simply just pushed us off … and we, we were left to fend for ourselves … but it didn’t matter, that majestic Capitol Dome, a symbol of hope and prosperity … was right there, right there in front of me. I had been granted my second chance … my salvation had been granted …. The racism … well I just have to deal with it …. “his will be done, his will be done” ….
I still Thank God everyday for that day … the day I was given a second chance … Whilst walking, I can still feel the shadow of the Capitol Dome slide across my face.