Nov 26, 2002
How to look guilty
I must have that kind of face.
No, wait, scrub that. I must have that kind of mind. I always seem to feel guilty when passing through customs, even when I’ve got nothing to declare – which is always.
Well, I say always. I mean always as far as I know – because sometimes, you’ve got no way of knowing.
At university in the second year, I lived with five blokes. I’ve mentioned them before – they were the ones who were responsible for the electricity bill nightmare and the sorry tale of the seating rule.
Anyway. Five blokes, all a bit lairy and crusty. All a bit alternative and long-haired. I think I was the only one who graduated out of the whole lot – and in fact, I may well have been the only one who finished the second year – but that was only because I moved out of the madness and went to live and study in Spain. They may be equally crazy there, but at least it’s warmer than Liverpool.
Now this may come as a shock to those of you of a sensitive nature, but sometimes, students do bad things. Naughty things. Illegal things. Not me, obviously – I’m as pure as the driven snow slush, but some of my student housemates indulged in – how shall we put this delicately? – artificial stimulation to help them through the exams and to stay up all night writing essays occasionally. This is not unheard of in student circles, though not everyone did it, and not all the time.
I was a loss when it came to stimulants – still am, in fact. More than two cans of diet coke a day sets my heart racing, and if I have a cup of tea after about five I’m up all night. I once took some Pro Plus the night I had to write three essays in the computer lab. They gave me such bad palpitations and shakes I couldn’t actually concentrate on Brazilian hyperinflation or the ritual uses of the cenote in Mayan culture. All I could do was wonder when my heart would feel normal again.
So no, I don’t bother with artificial stimulants. I’m too hyper and edgy as it is. Which apparently made my room the perfect place for the lads to hide their stashes.
I was not aware of this.
I wasn’t aware that one of them, Brummie J, had discovered that if you pried up the coloured bubble segment of a Natrel deodorant lid – say, mine for example – there was a small compartment which was just big enough to store half a gram of speed. I was not aware that he had discovered this by fiddling with my Natrel deodorant, and that he was keeping his speed in my bedroom, on the mantelpiece, stashed in the lid of my deodorant. I was not aware of this, and if I was, I’d have been fucking livid, believe me.
He, meanwhile, for his part, was not aware that this was completely out of order. It hadn’t occurred to him that as well as being illegal, what he was doing was also deceitful and downright stupid. Furthermore, it hadn’t occurred to him that if I went on holiday, I might possibly take my deodorant with me.
A flight there. Two weeks. A flight back. Completely oblivious.
Arriving back at dawn on a Sunday, I traipsed into the house, expecting everyone to be asleep after a heavy night. But there was Brummie J, pacing the floor of the living room.
“Oh thank god you’re back,” he said, helping me off with my backpack. That’s sweet, I thought. He missed me.
“I was so worried,” he told me, emptying my backpack onto my bed. Not like him to help me unpack, especially at half seven in the morning, but still…
The truth emerged. He’d stashed his gear in my deodorant, and then I’d gone on holiday. I was speechless.
Now, had I actually unwittingly smuggled a quarter gram of someone else’s speed through two sets of customs, or had the deodorant actually run out and been thrown away the day before I left? Or had it fallen off the mantelpiece and rolled under the bed during my frenzied packing, or been sussed and nicked by the other housemates? It didn’t matter.
I was incandescent with rage at the thought that someone I considered a friend (albeit a slightly flaky one) would be so thoughtless. The outcome didn’t matter. The intention and the lack of consideration did.
I moved out and went to live in Spain, and I gave up using that brand of deodorant.
Since then, whenever I pass through customs, I feel guilty, even though these days I’ll make doubly – triply, quadruply – sure that I’m innocent. The trouble is, I’m fine until I think about it. As soon as I think about it, I’m doomed. As soon as I become aware that behind the glass, people are watching my every move, I become Mrs Shifty. Then I catch myself and try to remember to walk like I’ve got nothing to hide because, after all, I’ve got nothing to hide. Then I look like a guilty person trying to look innocent. And then I get pulled over.
I once flew from La Paz to Lima with giardia. I don’t recommend giardia – it’s horrible, it turns you feverish and shaky and makes you vomit and crap a lot. The day before the flight, I’d dosed up on coca tea (a natural andean stomach-calming remedy) and planned to do the same in Lima, to see me through a night in the city and then twelve hours to Santo Domingo.
Stepping wobbly of the plane, I made my way to the baggage reclaim, to pick up my backpack before getting the bus to my hotel in the centre of town. There was a long wait for the bags to arrive on the carousel. I was shivery and shaky, and my knees threatened to disappear from under me. Pale and clammy, I glanced around nervously, looking for the nearest loo.
By the time I passed through customs, the uniformed officials had clearly been watching this nervous, sweating, pale foreigner get off a plane from Bolivia and glance around nervously while waiting for her bag. Pulled over. Open the bags. Paw through everything.
There was nothing to find, except one solitary coca teabag in my wallet. The guards’ puzzlement was palpable, so sure that they were about to make a bust. For one long, horrible moment, I thought that they were going to either cavity search me (not wise, when your subject has giardia) or arrest me for bringing coca over international boundaries, which could be illegal, apparently – though not strictly speaking in teabag form, especially when you can buy boxes of the stuff in any Lima tiendita, the same as in La Paz, plus Lima airport was stuffed full of plastinated coca-leaf souvenir keyrings.
The lead sweaty official berated me in carefully modulated language, explaining as he ripped open the remaining teabag (the only thing between me and a major gastric event) that coca is used to make drugs and that you shouldn’t bring it over the border, though obviously he’d let me off one teabag’s-worth for a small processing fee.
Bribes. You have to love them.
I paid gladly, stuffed my things back into my backpack and walked twenty-three feet out onto the main concourse, where I plonked down in a chair in front of a cafe and ordered a mate de coca while I waited for the bus to town. I glanced over and saw the sweaty guard behind his glass window, watching me, stirring his own tea, and smiling. He waved, and raised his gourd. I did the same, smiling wanly.
