It Happened When I Was Nine- Wendy Amador (2022

By Wendy Amador

Stay in your car Smoke a cigar, play some guitar, it doesn’t matter what you do, but stay in your car. Don’t open that door. Please, just stay in your car.

If they come to your house, ask them who they are. It doesn’t matter if they’re scary, keep that piece of cheap redwood between your ear and the avatar. Don’t speak English? Ask your daughter to translate the warrant. I must repeat myself, don’t open that door.

Check the signature on the page, your name, the address If they ask questions, don’t say yes. Ask for a lawyer.

I knew someone once who opened that door. His daughter was my best friend. We’d play barbies in the hall and talk about our mothers’ folklore. But not law. No, we never did talk about that. Maybe if we had, her father would not have been gone for over a year. I was there. When the black SUV was waiting that morning. It was 6 a.m. and the car’s windows were darker than a winter morning in Seattle. He didn’t know they’d be there. I still remember the fear in his eyes. He knew it was I.C.E. I was too young and naïve to understand what that meant. Powerless. A morbid feeling, I never did shake. No one dared ask what he saw in those camps. But he returned another man.

So I beg you, don’t open that door Please, just stay in your car.