The Good Luck of Right Now(52)

The border patrolman looked at Father McNamee for a few seconds, pushing his lips together so hard, they began to turn white.

Father smiled back at him.

“What about you, miss?” he said. “Miss? Can you turn and face me, please?”

“What?” Elizabeth said without looking at the man.

“What do you do for a living?”

“I used to volunteer at the library.”

“Now?”

Elizabeth remained quiet.

“Backseat?” he said, pointing his nose at me.

“Yes?” I said.

“What do you two do for a living?”

“I have always worked at the f*cking movies,” Max said, and I could hear the anger in his voice. He sounded very anxious. I could tell he was on edge. “What the f*ck, hey?”

“No need for profanity, chief. Dial it down back there. You?”

I looked up and could feel the border patrolman looking at me from behind his mirrored sunglasses.

“I used to take care of my mother,” I said, telling the truth.

“That’s not a job,” he said. “Is it?”

“It’s all I ever did.”

“What do you do now?”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I remained silent.

“Not a real job between the four of you,” he finally said, and I could tell he hated us—that he thought we were all retards.

You are a retard! the little man in my stomach yelled.

“What kind of a special crew do you have with you, Father?” the man asked.

“A very special crew. The most special you can have! God’s special children here. I can assure you.”

The border patrolman’s forehead was all wrinkles.

“Your mother’s your primary source of income, Chief Two?” he said, and then pointed at me.

It took me a second to realize I was Chief Two, but when I did, I said, “She was my mother.”

“You don’t take care of her anymore?” he said. “What happened? Your mother fire you?”

“She just died of brain cancer,” Father McNamee said. “And our trip is a bit of a memorial. You’re being a tad insensitive, aren’t you?”

The back of Father’s neck was red, and I could tell he was angry.

I could see Father’s eyes reflected in the man’s sunglasses; Father’s eyes were sucking again, like great whirlpools.

The patrolman tapped our passports on his palm a dozen or so times, like he was debating what to do with us.

Finally, he said, “Welcome to Canada,” and handed Father McNamee our passports.

“Whew!” Father McNamee said as he rolled up his window and drove away. “I thought he was going to search us. And I have a half-dozen or so undeclared bottles of Jameson in the trunk!”

We drove for ten or so minutes in silence. I could tell that patrolman had made everyone feel extremely anxious. But we didn’t talk about it; we just stared out our windows.

“What the f*ck, eh?” Max said, finally breaking the tension, and then laughed at his own joke.

Elizabeth groaned.

When no one said anything, Max added, “We’re in f*cking Canada, eh?”

Father McNamee laughed like he finally got the joke, and when I asked what was so funny, Father said people in Canada often end their sentences with the word eh?

“That’s a stereotype that will offend the locals,” Elizabeth said.

“What the f*ck, eh?” Max said again in a funny voice and elbowed me.

I laughed, even though I knew Elizabeth didn’t want me to.

Then no one said anything for a long time.

“I didn’t like that border patrolman,” I said to my reflection in the window.

No one said anything in response.

As we drove through the bleak snow-covered flat countryside, passing so many silos with French names written on them, moving farther and farther up into our northern neighbor, it looked like the world wasn’t really round, but an enormous tabletop that some giant had made into a diorama called Canada, and I kept thinking about the questions the border patrolman had asked.

Are those types of questions able to define us as people—measure our worth, our goodness, and whether or not we are safe visitors?

Where are you going?

What do you do for a living?

Business or pleasure?

Do the answers prove whether our lives matter, and whether we’re worthy of being admitted into Canada?

If we’re dangerous?

What was the point of asking any questions whatsoever, especially considering the fact that we could have easily lied and said anything that came to mind?

Any criminal worth his or her salt would be a proficient liar and could easily get through the border patrol stop, but—left to our own devices—people like me will fail every time.

I wish we had said we were doctors trying to cure brain cancer and were off to a secret underground laboratory in the northern territories—that we were on official world-saving business and didn’t have time to answer petty and asinine questions.

“Stand aside, Border Patrol, for we are off to do great things that will amaze you,” Father McNamee might have said, and we would have felt so proud. “Dare not stop us, for you do not want to block progress for all humankind!”