“What the hell had I done to get me into this mess?” Reliving my past trauma

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

I heard the sound of the laughter outside the gate. For a moment, I had forgotten where I was, but upon opening my eyes, I was brought back to my harsh reality.

I waited for my eyes to adjust to the room. There were no windows in the cell so I had no idea what time it was. The heavy steel door was closed almost completely shut, except for a small sliver of light that was escaping from around the seams. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that the other occupants of the room were still sleeping. I saw some stirring in the corner of the room, and someone sat up.

I slowly shifted my weight, and turned over to the other side. I was not ready to greet anyone yet. The cold floor was already starting to do a number on my hips. Again, you take for granted some of the wonderful and almost neglected aspects of your life, until they are gone. My body was crying for a bed, and I had only offered it some newspapers.

My first night was a cornucopia of grief, and uncertainty. I spent most of the time hoping that one of those roaches I had seen would not crawl on me, and trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. I couldn’t stop picturing my parents. I knew my mom was panicking, my dad, and stoic, finding his best way to keep her calm. Both of them wondering how they were going to get me out of this, and worried if I was okay. It was in this moment that I felt embarrassed, and ashamed. How could I have gone and done this; it was also the time when I began to wonder, what the hell had I done to get me into this mess.

I scoured my thoughts thinking about some of the things that I could have done that would have the United States Government issue a warrant for my arrest. What really sucked was that there was no one who spoke English. The paperwork was all in Spanish, so it was difficult to know what I had signed. Now that I think about it, that probably was not the brightest thing to do, but what were my options at the time.

My mind went back to thinking about what I could have done. I had a feeling I knew what it was, and the interesting thing about it was that my ex-boyfriend had warned me that people were starting to get snatched up at the American border over some things that I had done when I was in my 20’s. I remember the phone call vividly.

“Simone,” he said, “I am just giving you the heads up. You know when you were picking up money in the States a few years ago.” “Um yeah,” I said annoyed. He had called me at work, and I really did not want to talk about things I had done in my past on the phone at work. “Well,” he continued, “I wanted to let you know that a few people have been snatched up and questioned about it. If I were you, I wouldn’t cross the border anytime soon.” “I had not planned on it J,” I said. I remember that when he told me, coldness ran through me like a lightning bolt. I had come such a far way from my time of silliness, and youthful ignorance. I was ready to move on to bigger and better things. I had started my business, bought a home that I was renting out, and things were going really well. This was no time to be running into past demons.

The light in the cell came on abruptly, snapping me out of my thoughts. I heard my cellmates beginning to stir. It was time for me to get out of my head, and into adaptation mode. I slowly opened my eyes, and stiffly propped myself up. Eight sets of eyes greeted me with curiosity.