16. Coming to America

I WENT TO STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY."

"And what is it you said you do for work?"

"I'm in advertising."

"At what company?"

"Well...you see. I'm sort of between companies."

"You were fired or laid off?"

"Not exactly."

"Well which one was it?"

"I quit so I could drive to Alaska."

Outside, a thousand pitter-patts crashed against the south-facing window. A custom official escorted a father and his son into the main lobby. "He's got bears," he announced to the room. "Two of them."

My own personal customs official--I don't know his name--he didn't share--even the state trooper who pulled me over in Anchorage gave me his name--let's call him Short, Fat, and Bald, or ShoFaBa, asks me to empty the contents of my pockets.

On the counter I place my wallet, a receipt from a motel on the AlCan Highway, three pens of varying colors, an iPhone with its rubber sleeve ripped at the receiver, and my car keys.

"Turn your pockets inside out, sir," he asks me.

I do.

"They call that a Hoover wallet," I inform him. "From the Great Depression. When no one had money. They blamed it on Hoover."

"Turn the waistband of your pants inside out for me."

He examines and finds nothing.

"I can see where this is going, sir."

"Lift up your pant legs for me."

He sees wicker socks I've worn for the last three days.

"And I just want to put it on the table, that I neither consume nor transport any illegal drugs, nor firearms."

"Your cap sir."

I hand it over.

"There is some alcohol in my trunk, but this will probably be a waste of time for both of us."

He pulls out my license from my wallet.

"The address on your wallet doesn't match the address you gave me."

"The address on my wallet is my summer house," I inform him. It is unclear whether I should tell him that I keep the remote Suffolk Country address so I can save money on my car insurance. This might be fraud. Or something. I don't know if customs is concerned with fraud. But he might have friends he can call. "Lived out there when I went to college. Never bothered to change that address."

"So do you live in Riverhead or in Queens?"

"Queens, sir."

"And you work in Queens."

"No, I don't work."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you said you were in advertising."

"I'm between companies."

"Which ones?"

"PantherBrain to Ogilvy & Mather."

"Never heard of them."

We are sitting in a customs office in International Falls, and a man who rifles through tourist's underwear bags for a living is telling me he's never heard of the most famous ad agency in existence. This does not surprise me.

"They're kind of a big deal."

"And that's where you'll be working soon?"

I am now officially lying to a U.S. Customs Official. "Yes, sir."

He nods his head, up and down, like an inverted grandfather clock, counting a second like any other second. "Is your car unlocked?"

I tap my keys sitting on the counter.

"This will only take a minute and I can get you on your way?"

"Is that like a metaphorical minute?"

"Have a seat, please."

Behind us are a line-up of office chairs manufactured at the pasty gray office chair depot in the sky. I take the one closest to the door. Sitting three chairs down for me is another young scruffy male traveling alone.

"What are you in for?" I ask him.

"Excuse me?"

"What are you in for?" Did he not get the joke or just not understand my mumbling? Could have been both.

"They just stopped me," he said.

"Where you coming from?"

"Nova Scotia."

"No shit. I didn't know you could drive off of Nova Scotia."

"It's the long way. The ferry is shorter."

"I'm coming from Alaska." In my head there is a map. There is string pulled taut from Alaska to International Falls, Minnesota, and another line pulled taut from Nova Scotia, Canada to International Falls, Minnesota. "We kind of traveled from the exact opposite sides of the continent," I said to him. "And ended up in the same place."

He takes a second to do the geometry himself. A car is leaving Nova Scotia traveling at 60 miles per hour..."Yeah."

"Where's your final destination?" I'm hoping he says Los Angeles. Then I would say New York. And we would live in a bizarro world of wayward travelers. But he disappoints. He tells me "North Dakota."

"On purpose?"

"Um, yeah."

"That's cool. That's like the one place I haven't been." That, and Los Angeles. Which would have been cooler. He disappoints me. He makes me want to settle for Oakland.

I take my throne.

I have a vague recollection of my friend, Pascal, who is almost a lawyer, arguing that the customs process is a violation of 4th Amendment principles. I do not remember drawing my own opinion on the matter. This is not serving me well.

It is four PM, I think Central Time. I lost count somewhere in Canada. I think Manitoba. I like the name Minnedosa. Minnedosa, Manitoba. That's even better than Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. And that's a hard name to beat.

Outside, my customs official is walking away from my opened trunk back into the building.

"Is everything in that car yours?"

"Everything, everything?"

"Everything."

"Not the quilt in the back seat. That is definitely not mine."

"Who does it belong to?"

"A friend of mine."

"Where is your friend?"

"Yonkers."

"And he gave it to you?"

"I am transporting it back from Alaska on his behalf."

"Is there anything special about this quilt I should know about?"

"It might smell like drool." I think this over a second. "It might also smell like I slept with it in my car in a Manitoba rest stop."

He fixes his stare on me a second too long and then returns to the trunk. The seconds on the wall clock keep ticking along, but nothing is moving. I pull my phone out of my pocket. I open it to Paper Toss and set it to Easy.

A tiny, digital crump of paper is moved, left to right, by the gentle hum of an office fan. The paper hits the left rim of the waste-basket, bounces straight up in the air and falls in.

"Sir, you can't use that here." Another customs official has taken time away from important paperwork to inform me of this.

"Use what?"

"Your phone."

"I'm not using my phone."

"What's that in your hand?"

"It's a video game system."

"It's a phone sir."

"It's a computer, that has a phone as one of its functions. A function, I am not currently using."

"In any case, it's not allowed."

"Is that the law?"

"It's our rules, sir."

It doesn't seem fair that they can make up whatever rules they want in their little customs office and I am expected to comply by this. My congressional representative is Carolyn Maloney. I make a note of this. There's also Schumer and Gillenbrand in the Senate. Maybe I'll write them.

If I ever get back to New York.

I put the phone away.

"So you must see a lot of weird stuff come through here."

If he won't let me distract myself, then I'm going to distract him.

"Excuse me?"

"You must see a lot of weird things around here."

"Sure."

"What do people try to smuggle?"

"All sorts of things."

"What's the craziest thing you ever saw?"

He puts his papers down and takes off his glasses. "It's not that we see weird things," he tells me, "It's that we meet weird people."

I don't appreciate the tone of his voice. "Guess it takes one to know one."

He rolls his eyes and goes back to his keyboard.

I turn around to watch the customs official go back through my car. The poor guy is now hanging out my driver's door, his ass against wet asphalt. There have to be better jobs in the world.

Like writing advertisements for big pharmaceutical companies.

Or driving to Alaska on a whim.

"Do you find that interesting?"

"Excuse me." I turn and it's my old friend the video-game fascist pestering me again.

"You seem to be pretty interested in the affairs of our office."

"I'm sort of a captive audience."

"Be that as it may, is there something you want to tell me?"

"What would I want to tell you?"

"Anything that would make this afternoon go more smoothly."

"Oh, I see."

He gives me one of those looks you see on the cop shows on TV when the cop wants to pretend that he's your friend.

"There is this one thing."

The face gets friendlier. We are now golf buddies. Our wives exchange pot roast recipes.

"Well..." I look back at the car. The customs official is going through my glove compartment. He is finding Radiohead CDs and a speeding ticket from Alaska. "How long does it take to get to Duluth from here?"

"Duluth?"

"Yeah, that's a city around here right."

"About three hours."

"Three real hours or three Google hours, because Google directions say they take longer than they actually do."

"Three hours sir."

"Is that driving like a girl, three hours, or driving like--"

"That's driving with a healthy respect for the safety and well being of oneself and others."

So, like two, two and a half hours. It's been a long road trip. I can't respect speed limits anymore. It's just me and the road out there. Me and God.

And points don't transfer over between states. I think. My friend, The Great Sha Rhu Khan, told me that. He's almost a doctor. I didn't double check myself.

And then I sit down again. And I am out of clever things to say and cool games to play. At the pace I am traveling, zero inches per hour, I will never make it to Duluth or Mackinac Island or Ann Arbor or DC or home, and I will die, right here, in my chair, in Minnesota.

Minnesota. At least that's a cool name. Not as good as Minnidosa. Not as good as Manitoba. But much better than Queens.

"We'll have you on your way shortly," the customs official promises. And two hours later, after they've checked through my laundry bag, camera bag, laptop bag, through my suitcase full of clothes, through my camping gear and sleeping bag, through my glove department and fuse box, under my floor guards and in my engine, with that mirror that goes under the bumper, takes out my spare and checks the rims, I am finally, mercifully, free to go.

My official hands me back my keys.

"Sorry about the mess," I tell him.

"That's alright. Have a nice day sir."

Yeah, what's left of it. "Thanks," I tell him.

Out at my car, the customs official has strangely moved the trash from my front seat and set it down on the floor. My map is stacked nicely. So are my tissues. In the back seat, my quilt is folded and my boxes of mac & cheese lined up in a row. He zipped up my suitcase.

Of all things, this custom official spent more time cleaning up after me than I spent cleaning up after myself.

Exactly two more hours.