The flight that I booked was on Australia’s main airline, Quantas. The flight that I was put on was LAN, a Chilean airline which was en route to Aussie from Chile. Two things are to happen in Australia. There is no secret in saying that I needed a passport to finish my seasonal stint working as an illegal alien at The Peppertree. And the second reason is to dine at Pier, one of Aussie’s claimed best restaurants.
Crystal and Jake have joined me and are also travelling light and masking the fact that they too are working as illegal aliens. The plane leaves Auckland at 5:35am and arrives in Sydney around 9:00am Aussie time. And upon arrival the proverbial plane crashes into the fucking mountain. Metaphorically speaking of course.
We head straight to Customs as we have no baggage to claim. The Australian Immigration Services officer asks several basic questions like:
AIS: “Where are you staying?”
I didn’t know. We just planned on grabbing a taxi and heading to the nearest hotel.
AIS: “Do you know anyone in Australia?”
Me: “Yes. I was here two years ago. I might meet my friends but they don’t know that I am coming.“
AIS: “What are you planning on doing here?”
Me: “Eating.”
AIS: “Are you working in New Zealand?”
Me: “No. Just staying with friends.”
AIS: “How do you afford to travel like this without working”?
Me: “I work seasonal contracts in Alaska. It pays very well cause nobody wants to freeze their ass off or deal with 24 hours of sunlight.”
I get the gratuitous passport stamp. And in the mean while Crystal and Jake are grilled with similar questions. The whole process takes less than five minutes. We head to the baggage scan area and are flagged for further questioning.
A glass-eyed American on a Chilean flight with no luggage, with only a wad of cash inside a passport, no wallet, an empty backpack, two expensive bottles of booze, and several short trips through the Caribbean drug triangle with several stamps from Nicaragua and Costa Rica seems to throw up a red flag in Customs. And nevermind the “$400 fee paid” chicken scratch written in my passport next to a bunch of Swahili jibberish stemming from bribes in Dar Es Salaam, Nairobi, and Zanzibar. Fiji was flagged because I was only there for five days - and forget that they just had a government coup.
I am further questioned about my recent short trips abroad and why I would fly to Sydney for only two days. Crystal and Jake are questioned as well. And questioned as to their relationships with me. Jake is set free. But Crystal is dragged to a back room for further interrogation and searches.
I am passed a laminated sheet of paper by a tall, clean shaven, gorilla of a man. The paper indicates the rules of fair search and I am asked to comply with being frisked or face a “higher detention” status. There are four officials gathered around me at pretty much all times but their faces keep changing because they are bouncing back and forth between Crystal and I to make sure our stories jive. The hulking AIS agent asks me if I would like the search to be done in private or public. I tell him that I have no problem being frisked and searched in public as long as the frisking and searching isn’t so “thorough” that I stand to be embarrassed. He smiles and reaches for the rubber gloves.
I stand winged. Arms out like Jesus, feet at shoulder’s width. First he tightly rubs around the arms. I see flashbacks from Midnight Express. People walking around in circles at the insane asylum. The “bad machines” biding their time. Then he does the legs and dips his fingers into my shoes. My ribs are next. And then it happened. The agent grabs a handful of my balls and rubs down my taint for a brief but all-to-memorable climax, er, finale to my frisk down.
And guess what?
No dope. No bombs. Only a frank and beans and a rather surprised expression on my face.
I am not sure what the little magic wand that they rubbed all over my bags told them. But it was quite obviously bullshit. There were a few scribbles written down on varied pieces of paper. A few small forms were jotted out. And then at 10:30am, approximately one and a half hours after our plane landed, we were let go.
Travelocity, for some unknown reason, has cancelled our onward flights. So when we arrive in Auckland in two days we have no way of showing the NZIS that we intend on leaving the country. And I am sure that the little jots and scribbles taken down in Sydney will be waiting for us when we do arrive in New Zealand. And we will get to do the whole process again.
Wholesale disaster.
At present we are searching for plane tickets that will show NZIS that we only intend on staying there for two weeks. If that falls through then I might get my first Christmas at home in five years.
“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.... Everywhere you go....”
(To be continued...)
1 comments:
Simply brilliant!
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