Black Catz

Chapter Eighteen - "Lights, Check-in, Action!"

Most of the lights on the other side are that of our colors: red, blue, and white, like Henry wore when he left. The colors appear in the circles of buildings, and the squares, and the rectangles, and the octagons, and the triangles, and every other shape a building might have; they grace up—the colors—as far up as the buildings go, and as wide as they go too.

"So this is how much it's grown, eh?" said my mother, admiring all eight of the buildings which were now covering her in their shadow...the colors of the building glowing and radiating over my mothers' face...her eyes wide open, admiring back. "Seems like you haven't had it that bad, then?" she then asks me, not truly knowing a fuck about what I've been through, not truly knowing a bit of anything, but rather simply thinking that a look of a city can have an effect on a person's emotional well-being, personality, and heart—well, if you don't already know...it doesn't.

The beautiful girl's eyes opened as wide as my mother's. They also had that new-look on them: like they hadn't seen any of this before. "You know, I once saw it in a picture," she said. "I saw videos online, of how it was growing, but damn, Ludy, y'all really stepped on up." she said.

Remember ladies, "yo, dude!" reminded the sergeant before rolling up, telling us we were approaching the destination, telling us what the windows already did: we're here; we're at the check-in window.

"Don't talk much," muttered my mother before the next welcoming chatter blurted out from the other side of the window.

The check-in officer is a short, stubby man. The funny thing is that he has the color of my mom, and my grandmother, and most of the Catz—yet, here he is, checking for those with his color, banning those with his color from crossing over to enjoy what those without his color made to enjoy, instead of doing the obvious and helping those with his color to see what he's been lucky to see. A stubby mustache hung and flared over this officer's lips—his big, fat lips.

Gallego, read his badge.

Is he one of me? Is he my kind? Am I, my own kind?

While Gallegos uniform was identical to that of the officer driving us across, the colors and names were different—just a 'tad. Border Wall Officer, said Gallegos tag, his badge; while West Wall Sergeant, said our "chauffeur's" tag, his name plate, plated over him to give us his title for us to refer to him whenever need be.

"Sergeant Rumper," the check-in chubby man announced, nodding in recognition at our driver.

"Wall approaching," repeated the Alexa.

"God damn, thing," divulged the sergeant, clapping back at the Alexa, turning it off. "These things never shut up," he then uttered to the sergeant in the check-in window, whom was now smiling and laughing, smacking his hand at the rail below him, that which borders his window, his clap as that of a man laughing at a joke he did not think was funny but still needed to laugh at in order to keep his position in whatever ladder, or pyramid, he had chosen to live in.

In the tone of the sergeant and of Gallegos, my mind drifts to a belief and question: are we being driven to a cross investigation (literally) or a sortie of sorts (also literally)?

*******

Looking down at the check-in officer, I could see his sparkly, fresh white New Balance shoes usually seen on fathers or older men of that age, worn and tied nicely at the end of his uniform pants, suitably straightened and ironed to a teat, until you could only see that one line in the pants that can't be creased or ironed out because it always re-appears with the folding and tucking of any pants in any situation, in any side of the Wall.