by Paul Blake
People often ask what it is like to live in another country, but no one asked what it is like to die in one. I pondered this question as I put Kevin’s ashes on the TSA’s customs conveyor belt in Newark, New Jersey, just after a contentious exchange with a wannabe cop, who did his best obtaining a GED. The ashes were already spread upon the Saigon River.
What was left, I was told, were the bones inside of an urn, inside a cubed box one might ship a small globe or 5 kilos of cashews from Australia. But it was my friend Kevin’s human remains, and I didn’t want to make a scene. I tried to discreetly slip insecure Officer Power Penis an official US Embassy letter and a certification from the Ministry of Health and Disease Control, which clearly stated the remains were in good health based on the number of red stamps on the documents.
As I passed the certified stamped papers, I hoped it would sufficiently explain why I was traveling internationally with human bones, as I figured it may be a red flag as it passed through the x-ray baggage machine.
However, an official letter alerted Captain Self-Important more than the 8,372 bags before, which contained foreign products from socks to microchips to lotus seeds that could unravel the economics of freedom quicker than Sargent Ball Fondler could read a sentence. “What’s this??!!!” he shouted as his routine of doing nothing was interrupted. “Sir,” I whispered, “I am carrying human remains and this is the paperwork.”
“Just put it through!” he said callously and it created a moment of uncomfortable silence as I stepped forward.
Then Agent Asshole added loudly, “NO ONE CARES!” Welcome to Newark I thought.
Then there was a moment of humanity as my tray of pinky bone, femur, skull or burned random trash from the Vietnamese crematorium entered the imaging chamber. I realized I was still wearing my wrist watch and I was seconds from the walk-thru cancer machine which would also show my bare bones. Looking backwards, a middle-aged white woman, who probably shouldn’t have sympathy towards my plight, agreed when I asked, “ Can my wrist watch take a ride with your stuff?”
The moment of sticking it to The Man together came to an end when the next federal agent, who should have given service in another life as a gym teacher or a bus driver, decided to use his power to examine my friend’s human remains.
Apparently, someone did care.
I refrained from wanting to tell the stoic Yes Man that this will be “the first time Kevin passed a drug test”, as Officer Grocery Douchebagger manhandled the urn out of the box and powdered tested what was left of Kevin.
A man who was still more of a man than a Newark TSA Agent.