Emiliano Mancilla

The uber had polarized car windows, which is a bad signal in Mexico given the high levels of insecurity in certain zones, but it was getting late, and Anne lived far away and there weren’t many drivers around, some had cancelled us because of the distance, we had to try our luck with this guy. 

I opened the door and a glimpse of purple neon lights filled the interior, I hadn’t seen much of that because of the pandemic, some warning thoughts arrived for a second, nevertheless I felt I could be in control of the situation. 

We had been kissing for a while, you can suppose that all my attention was on her, I just couldn’t help enjoying her warmth, her smell, her legs. She was more eloquent and started talking with the driver as soon as he started taking route. In a moment of distraction, I could notice something different with his voice, which awoke my curiosity, so I asked him about where he was born. 

 “How could you notice he is not from here?” asked me Anne

I just knew. 

The conversation, little by little, turned more and more interesting, as he was born in Jalisco, but lived as an undocumented immigrant in New York half his life. Which is a risky but intriguing way of living, especially in New York, the paranoia of getting caught and deported was a common guest in our driver’s mind. There’s always this fear in general about police officers and what they can do, remember what happened to George Floyd, the imagination about what could happen to a Latino with no papers is always latent. 

It seemed like I did the right questions when he told us about the time where they got accidentally into a police checkpoint in the middle of the highway, his wife and his baby daughter were with him, and it seemed like the end was 2 cars away in the line. The gates of hell were open and there was no escape. 

His wife looked at the skies and started praying, our driver just imagined the worst, how they would take them to a horrible place and separate him from his daughter, and the only idea he had was to convince his 2 year old baby girl to be adorable, say “Hi” and “What’s your name?” and smile as much as she could to the officer. 

With the cold cold sweat dropping in gallons, he put his best face on and proceeded to talk with his daughter. 

“Baby, when the officer comes to us, say hi and ask him for his name, send him lots of kisses” and put the example, waiting for their potential hero to mimic 

“Yes daddy” responded the child with a big smile unaware of the situation 

Suddenly he was approaching the officer, every spin the wheel took felt in slow motion, the panic slowed the heartbeat of our protagonist, and the seconds could be seen as hours, as relativity didn’t matter anymore. 

I squeezed Anne’s thigh to increase the tension. 

Once the car was in site, our driver could see the face of the officer closer than ever, covered with his black sunglasses, imposing a pale color of emotion.

And just before anyone could open their mouth, Baby played her part. 

“Hello officer” and laughs and kisses caught his attention and a sign of relief started glowing. 

“That’s a pretty-pretty baby girl” 

“Thanks officer, it seems like she likes you a lot”

“Yeah, she’s adorable, you can go”

And hiding the emotion, he turned on the car and started taking route, when another officer’s voice interrupted the moment. 

“Hey, stop the car, did you check his papers?”

The sound of saliva going through the throat of everyone inside the car could be heard miles away. 

“Of course, you have your papers, right?”

“Yes officer”

“See? There’s nothing to worry” responded to the other officer and looked back.

“You can go guys, have a nice day”

As soon as they were away, the tears dropped, and he just could blame God for that kind of miracle. 

We arrived at our destination and then we felt as close as brothers, the driver said goodbye as a gentleman and as soon as we left the car, Anne kissed me as if there was no tomorrow.