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In October of 2009, I was briskly walking through the Port of Miami. I’d just left a cruise ship, where I had lived and worked as a comedy performer for the previous four months. I had two full suitcases and a backpack, and since I was living nomadically, this comprised about half of all of my worldly possessions.
I rounded the corner, full of vim and vigor, and then I saw the dog–more specifically, the drug-sniffing German shepherd–and I knew that I had made a horrible, horrible error in judgment.
In my wallet, wrapped very tightly in cellophane and scotch tape–because it was a premeditated crime–was the equivalent of four dollars remaining of a ten-dollar bag of marijuana. (Let’s be cool and not judge me.)
I had no choice but to go forward. I walked past the dog and he gave me a friendly sniff. The agent with the leash gave me a big smile and a little customs humor. “It’s my first day,” he said. “I don’t know if he bites.”
I gave him a “Ha-ha-ha-ha-everything’s-cool” laugh and continued walking. I was two feet from the door when I heard him say, “Excuse me, sir. My dog has just informed me that you have an illegal substance on your body. Is that true?”
I was busted; the dog was absolutely correct. It was my word against the dog’s and I naturally assumed the customs agent regarded the dog a much more reliable source.
Since I had absolutely no recourse, I chose honesty, and with a big, stupid grin, hoping we could be buddies and laugh this whole thing off, I said, “Yes, sir.”
The friendly demeanor was gone and it was quickly replaced with a fair, focused, and very firm tone. “All right, sir, here’s what’s going to happen. I am going to ask you to step with me into this room. There is a federal officer behind me.” A man in a suit appeared out of nowhere. “He and I are going to escort you back. We are going to search your bags and we are going to treat you with courtesy and respect. Do you understand everything I just said?”
I guess we weren’t going to be buddies. “Yes, sir.”
They brought me into a back room that had a number of long tables. My bags were laid out and opened. I was asked to stand behind a line and told that I was not allowed to touch anything I own.
I was assigned a customs agent that took on the role of “bad cop” from this point on; I will refer to him simply as The Hard-On.
“You are in so much trouble,” taunted the Hard-On. “You messed up big.” I had no choice but to believe him.
“What’s going to happen to me?” I inquired nervously.
“I don’t know, man.” He said it with a flippant-yet-menacing tone, seemingly enjoying this power over me. “You might go to jail, but you’re definitely going to be brought up on Federal drug charges.”
All hope flushed from my body in the form of underarm sweat.
Three agents were tearing through my bags, undoing the hours of Tetris-ing I had done to make everything fit. An older agent pulled out a small manila envelope that had been buried deep in my suitcase. He held it up and started to undo the clasp. My heart sank because I knew I was about to be horribly embarrassed.
Inside the envelope were five unpackaged DVDs. They were, you know… just part of my collection. Once he saw the title and cover art, he was going to know exactly what they were.
I needed to call it out, so I summoned all the courage I could muster, and with a forced amount of bravado, I announced, “That’s porn, sir. You’re opening an envelope of porn.”
He opened it and I was proven correct.
The Hard-On sternly turned his head to me and said (and I quote), “Kiddie Porn?! Better not be kiddie porn! You’re in enough trouble as it is!”
This was another situation where I reacted verbally, hoping my cleverness and charm would prevail. My gut told me to shut up, but my stupid brain vetoed that instinct. I don’t know where I summoned the moxie, but I responded sweetly, “I know marijuana’s a gateway drug, but I think kiddie porn is pretty far down that path.”
He found this neither informative nor charming.
They escorted me into a little Guantanamo Bay-esque room where they were going to pat me down and search my bathing suit area. The Hard-On asked me to undo my belt and the other agent with him said, “I’m going to touch you. Is that all right?”
Once again, I don’t know where this moxie came from, but I said, “Oh sure, as long as I’m not forced to touch you back.”
The Hard-On was even less happy with me at this point and joined in searching my bags. He grabbed my backpack, where I kept my most personal and valued items, and opened it. He began to pull everything out until he eventually found something that piqued his interest: a small, handwritten, brown book.
The Hard-On took the book and opened it. Something caught his eye and he started flipping through it, stopping every few pages to read or look at the pictures I had diligently placed in it. This was my journal. More specifically, this was my intricate, meticulous, and day-to-day account of an important and life-altering event.
He looked up at me, pointed at the book, and asked, “What is this?”
My heart sank. I knew I had to answer him, but I truly didn’t want to share with this guy. In 2006, I went home to live with my mother. She had been given six months to a year left to live and she asked me to come home and help her through it. I said yes and I took on the role as her primary care giver. It was one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful experiences of my life, and I had written down everything that happened.
With a much more inquisitive and gentle tone, The Hard-On repeated, “What is this?”
I told him the truth.
The Hard-On looked at me, and his face completely changed. “Was it cancer?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“My grandmother just died of cancer,” he said with strain in his voice, that sentence obviously being difficult for him to say out loud.
And suddenly, I was humanized to him. I was no longer the guy he had recently accused of owning child pornography. We were bonded in our mutual hate of a dreaded disease. We talked briefly about the women we lost and our experiences surrounding it. We commiserated, we even laughed. He told me a joke: “What do you get when you cross a brown chicken and a brown cow? Brown chicken, brown cow.” I gave him a forced “Ha-ha-ha-ha-that’s-awesome” laugh.
After all was said and done, he made it his goal to get me out of there unscathed. He conferred with his C.O. and it was arranged that there were no charges filed against me and I’d simply have to pay a small fine. My name is on a list, however, and if I ever go through the Port of Miami, they’re going to have to search my things. But I found a loophole: I’ll never again go to the Port of Miami.
When you meet somebody whose life has been changed or challenged by cancer, there’s a connection, like you’re both members of an exclusive club, which sadly isn’t so exclusive. You empathize with them, you want to treat them like they’re special, show them you understand because you’ve been down that same road. It’s not a club you want to belong to, but sometimes you don’t have any choice.
It’s Breast Cancer Awareness month. Which almost seems redundant. Not being aware of breast cancer, or any cancer, is hard to do if you’re alive and on this planet. It’s a disease that touches almost everyone, either personally or someone you love. According to the American Cancer Society, 1,665,540 new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in 2014. And 13.7 million Americans alive today have or have had cancer. If you don’t know somebody who has fought or won or lost a battle with cancer, just wait.
And that may be the best (unintentional) gift that cancer gives us. With its unifying grief, and its terrible consequences, it reminds us to be kind to each other.
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Good Things It Brings to the World
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