That Time I Got Deported, Part 2

I scraped by with crappy jobs like typing academic papers, and amused myself with petty crime. My favorite activity was to break into people’s houses while they were away. Because very little crime happened in the better neighborhoods, London house doors were usually closed with a thin hook and eye clasp. Throwing myself hard against the door usually burst it open. Or I went around the back, put my jacket around my hand, and broke a window. Once in, I went exploring, looking in closets, opening and closing drawers. That’s as specific as I’m going to get, because I don’t know what the statute of limitations is in England.

My dream was to have a comedy career, like Monty Python or something. What it was, I didn’t know. I met up with another druggie, a comedy writer, and we cobbled together an act. A godawful act. Many times I was told to “gerroff!” by the audience. Once in an East London pub, I spent the entire night talking to a pub owner who’d had half his face nearly burned off. He agreed to have me appear that weekend. But when I turned up, the pub was closed. Nobody there. I was determined to keep going, but the immigration office found me and ordered me out of the country again.

I went back to drama school to get a student visa. This time, I was old enough but the schools I auditioned for all turned me down because of my weight. As the latter from Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts put it, “your severe overweight makes it clear you are not serious about a career as an actress”.

The prestigious Drama Studio in Kew accepted me, on condition I lose twenty pounds a term. The first months went well. But slowly my mental health deteriorated. I became psychotic, hallucinating and not knowing if I knew people from real life or TV. In those days, the English didn’t know from psychiatrists or medications and didn’t tolerate my showing up late and disoriented for classes. I dropped out. My student visa was revoked and I was ordered out of the country again.

I appealed, and was told I could go back to America and return while my appeal was appending. I hadn’t seen my family since I first left America, so I decided to go home for Christmas.

So I went back home, my appeal pending. I was delighted to show my family back in America I had lost some weight. I lied fluently about being in school, telling funny stories about first-year student plays. They didn’t notice I was psychotic; but then, they had never noticed before, no matter how floridly stoned I was.

But then my father called me into his office.

“What do you have to say about this?”

He handed me a letter on blue air-mail stationery from my landlady.

Dear Mr. DeCarlo

I am writing to tell you that your daughter Elisa left her school some months ago. Since then, she has been occupying my flat, working some kinds of odd jobs. Her flatmate is a drug dealer.

Sincerely,

Melisande Woodbury-Jones.

It was revenge, pure and simple.

My father’s eyes were cold blue steel. “You are coming home.”

Oh god, coming home. I couldn’t do it. Returning in disgrace, staying with my parents, whom I couldn’t stand. After I’d dropped out of the first drama school, I wrote to my father about wanting to start a comedy career. He told me to stop these fantasies and get my ass back to America. To me, America meant New York, New York meant my parents, so I couldn’t go back to America. It didn’t occur to me that I might go to California, or Vermont, or even Ohio.

I agreed to come home, but I had no intention of doing so. I’d disappeared before. It could be done again, once I got back.

So, the morning after I’d returned from America, the morning after the immigration officers took my passport, I was taken into a small windowless room. I sat opposite two officials. One held out an entire dossier on me. At age 20, I had already amassed quite a bit of data. Ads in local papers for my comedy act. Medical papers. Drama school applications, orders to leave the country, including the latest one.

“Your flatmate Dennis Redford is selling drugs, and we know that you are selling drugs as well.”

“I’m not selling drugs, I’m taking drugs!” What can I say? It made sense at the time.

“You are being flown back to New York a week from today. If you’re not on that plane, we’ll know it.”

The two officers escorted me to the United Airlines ticket desk and watched as I bought a ticket for the following Tuesday.

“Dennis, I’m selling everything, I’m being deported!” I announced when I walked back into my flat. I wasn’t sorry to be leaving Dennis.

I started packing when I remembered my cats. Oh my god, my cats! Peaches and Demented. Demented’s original name was Zoe, but she was prone to seizures from over-excitement, so we began calling her demented little Zoe, and somehow it was shortened to Demented. She was a beautiful tortoiseshell and I loved her more than anything. My other cat, Peaches, was a true English marmalade. I knew Dad would say absolutely not if I told him I was bringing home two cats. Screw him, I wasn’t leaving my cats.

With most of my belongings either shipped or left behind, I returned to Heathrow airport, my cats in a wicker basket fastened with leather straps. They were to go in the special baggage. I got good and drunk on the flight home. My father and younger brother met me at JFK. When we went to the baggage claim, I confessed to my father that I had brought my cats back to America. To my horror, they weren’t in the special baggage claim! I burst into tears! Peaches and Demented were somewhere lost back at Heathrow Airport! My cats were gone! Or they were in the baggage hold, dead from cold and lack of oxygen. My father kept saying we had to go home, it was too goddamned late, why did I care about the goddamned cats? I refused to budge until the baggage hold was completely empty.

My cats! My beautiful English cats! Alive!

I returned home in disgrace. Consigned to my childhood bedroom. Movie posters peeling off the walls. My books. My encyclopedias of living things. But I had my cats. My sanity would have to wait.