I spent nine months in my mother’s womb before I was born, which was a painful but nice story for her. And then I spent another nine months in custody of the immigration system to be reborn again, which was only a good story for those who benefited monetarily. In my case I benefited from wisdom because I never had enough time on my own to think. And by wisdom, I mean I know what to do with my life now, not yours. You can call me El Marciano, Spanish slang for “the alien,” a name that in this story means both an outsider and one caught in the machinery of immigration. I hope you can learn from my story. Enjoy.

On September 26 of 2007 in New York City at 10:00 in the morning I thought “Damn I’m so lucky.” I almost missed my bus, but I got to the station right on time. I jumped on my bus and I’m ready to get to Miami. I’m dead tired and now it’s time to spend 32 hours inside a bus from NYC to Miami. I have a couple of beers for the ride, a brand-new pack of smokes for the stops, and some food. “I’m Ready.”

Between stations and stops I slept like 10 hours. The other 14 hours I spent thinking about how I can get some new work done. Also fix my life a little better than the way I was living it. “I got it,” I said. Life isn’t so hard. You just must go and do the things that make you happy, and it better be now because there might not be a next time. I was coming back home to ask my girlfriend to marry me and to travel the world together. Yeah, I had my mind made up. I felt so happy. It takes a second for your life to change, but it took 24 hours to get some change in my life.

On September 27 at 2:00 a.m. I got a text from a friend of mine. She says, “dude my fucking boyfriend is cheating on me.” She’s crying nonstop, so I tell her “don’t worry, it’s his loss. He’s not worth your tears. You’re a very sweet girl to be crying for a three-month old relationship with some prick.” I calmed her down a bit by telling her how the tour with I.R.A. went.

I said “those guys are awesome. Baltimore was full of great people. Boston is beautiful. The kind of place you just fall in love with and want to stay and live there forever. New York is always fun, but this time it was better than ever. I spent a couple of weeks with some great friends. Some I haven’t seen in years. This was an experience that I’ll never forget or regret.”

My friend feels better over the phone while I’m telling her this, but she’s been crying so much, she’s exhausted, so she says “Thank you for listening and the words and the company at 3:00 a.m. So, we say good night and she goes to sleep. By this time, I start noticing that the driver is starting to drive in between lanes, and there are only two lanes. Ours and the upcoming traffic, so I went to the front and asked the bus driver if everything’s ok. He replies “Huh?” I repeated my question and then said, “of course I’m ok.”

I started thinking of my friend Albert who once was coming from Texas on the same bus company I was in, and the bus driver killed himself slamming the bus straight into an eighteen-wheeler. Almost everyone got hurt on that bus, my buddy hurt his mouth badly against the seat in front of him, so he sued and got a settlement; good for him!

Back on my bus ride the bus driver is stressing me out. The rest of the people are asleep except one other guy and me. I go to the bathroom to see if it’s possible to smoke one cigarette there because if not, I must wait until 9:30 a.m. in Jacksonville, but guess what, the bathroom has a little window, and I can smoke a cigarette, so I did. I was sliding side to side in that little bathroom. I was so worried that I smoked two cigarettes in a row. I said, “world take me in your hands wherever you want me to go.” I went back to my seat to try to fall asleep.

I thought of my brother Danny, my friends Luke, Pat, and Cesilia until I fell asleep. I woke up in Jacksonville at 9:30 a.m. in the fucking greyhound station. “One hour stop!” screamed the bus driver, as we all leave the bus to eat a little breakfast. I had a pretty good sandwich and coffee as I charged my phone in the cafeteria. It’s about 10:30 now. Time to hop on the bus and finally get to Miami.

I made the line and showed the driver my ticket. He tells me, “long ride huh?” I said yup, can’t wait to get home as a guy dressed in forest green uniform puts his hands on my chest and tells me to leave the bus line to speak to him. “Are you a gang member?” he asked disgustedly while looking at my tattooed arms. Before I could say no he asked “are you a Salvatrucha, a mara 13? You look like one!” I replied, “No sir, I don’t belong to any gangs; I’m my own person.”

He pushed me towards the wall so I couldn’t run away and says, “show me your green card and I’ll let you go” as he was literally grabbing my balls as he searched me because that’s apparently what they do.

I told the asshole immigration officer that I was in the process of becoming a resident because a member of my family was sponsoring me, so I gave him my social security number. He pretended to call and got no answer from an HQ office. So, he says “you are under arrest and detained, grab your shit, you’re coming with me,” as he handcuffed my left wrist only.

I jumped on the bus and got my bag and bass. Before I touched the ground to leave the bus the officer said, “you better not have any weapons or drugs on you cause then you will make my day, I’ve been waiting to beat someone’s ass.” I laughed as he then handcuffed my other wrist.

We took a short ride to the immigration office building. Not a thing that I showed him of the papers I had my family fax him made him release me, so at 5:30 p.m. he took me to Nassau, the county jail in Jacksonville for the night. What a night. For those of you who don’t know, when you get arrested it takes about 12 hours or more to be processed before you even get to see a bunk and rest a bit.

When I finally made it in, I met the guys that were there. I saw no real danger and fell asleep. Woke up an hour later at 9:00 a.m. or so, to be transferred. So, we all hop on a tiny van. They put 10 of us in what seemed to be space for six then drove for about three hours and got to Orlando, near the airport. Everyone thought they were putting us on a plane to get deported right away.

Instead, they put us inside some warehouse cell units to spend three more hours waiting for the B.T.C. drivers to come for another crop of illegal aliens. I laughed when they said that. They finally got there and then took us for another ride. This one was a shorter ride, but it felt about an hour long. When we finally got to B.T.C., the Broward Transitional Center, another group of asshole officers grabbed our balls again. Some were trying to make fun of a Mexican guy who was apparently the stereotypical Mexican, short and whatever the fuck they were saying and laughing about.

I could tell the guy was a good, hard-working person that I felt I should’ve defended because he didn’t speak any English, but in these places, you are better off remembering their faces and names for when they need something from you. Some days later we found one of those guy’s wallet on his desk and we took it, he’s probably still wondering who took it, that fuck head. Karma is a bitch.

Anyways… we went into B.T.C. This place is sort of a camp where they hold you until they figure out what to do with you. They had an asshole judge, this prick named James Rex Ford. His daddy apparently invented the cruise control feature for the FORD car company, so imagine how spoiled this asshole was, but more on him later.

As they intake us, I manage to grab a hold of my cell phone to text some friends and family to tell them the address of where I’m at. A good eight hours pass, and we finally got taken to our cell rooms. I got # 322. Luckily, I got the one right next to the officer’s desk, who I called my personal secretary and security guard.

These rooms fit up to six people. I got a bottom bunk out of two Haitian guys and a Jamaican kid who was crying. His name was Darren. A very nice guy, but very easily influenced by his buddies. They always took advantage of him.

He was crying because just some days back, his girlfriend gave birth to his first son and he was the happiest man on the world but had just been picked up by immigration at his work, so he cried the pain away. These Immigration assholes are the best at destroying families.

There were also the other two Haitians. They were just speaking in Creole so I could only catch a certain number of words. All I could tell was that one of them, the older one, was mad, he was very mad, with sweat on his forehead, and the other Haitian was telling him something to calm down. They were both waiting to be deported.

The Haitians are the ones that get it the worse. If they want to fight their case, they must stay detained for about a year and if they are getting deported, they still have to wait six more months. Pretty fucked up.

So, I said hello, introduced myself, and felt a chill vibe. I made my bed up and laid on it on my back facing up, with my hands behind my head and wondered, “what now?”