There you are in Mexico, sitting in your home made from old garage doors from the United States. Suddenly, the telephone rings. You figure it's a customer looking for the drugs you sell. You figure wrong. It's actually your cousin who illegally crossed the border into the U.S. last year.

"You've got to come to this U.S. city," says your cousin. "The city officials and the employers all love us here."

"Who's 'us'?" you ask.

"Illegal aliens," says your cousin.

"Why?" you ask.

"Well, some are just crackpots who think they're being compassionate and that they're helping with a new version of the old Underground Railroad that helped slaves get out of the American South. Some are employers, and they like us because we work cheap and under the table and we don't complain for fear of being deported. The charities like us because they need warm bodies to puff up their lists of needy clients so they can get more money. The slumlords like us because they can rent us apartments for higher rents because they know we'll crowd in them like sardines and we won't complain for fear of being deported. The politicians like us because the crackpots, the slumlords, the businesses, the charities and U.S. citizen Hispanics who identify with us, all like us and support the politicians with donations and votes if they'll look the other way and screw their fellow citizens," says your cousin.

"Will the politicians screw their fellow citizens like that? Man, that sounds like Mexico."

"You bet they'll screw them. Oh, they dress up what they're doing with all sorts of lies, but most of them don't really understand why they shouldn't be doing this. They're more interested in their resume enhancements, the power and prestige they get by being politicians, and in all the other perks including the groupie chiquitas that flock to them."

"Hell, even their President Bush loves us. I figure that's because his brother married a Mexican girl and he now has brown nephews. Hell, the Bushes are on their way to becoming full blooded Mexicans! Look at a Jeb Bush family photo portrait and you may wonder who in the hell the white guy is with the brown people. Give it a few more years and one of white Jeb's brown kids; the one named George Bush, may even run for president of the U.S. Man, ain't that a kick, though? Two white presidents named George Bush and then one who is brown. They'll probably start doing Aztec dances in the White House and maybe they'll replace that stupid Fourth of July holiday with Cinco de Mayo."

"Where do you find work?" you ask, trying to get your cousin out of his digression into genocidal assimilationist dreams of brown people replacing white people, and wiping white people off the face of the Earth.

"We can stand on street corners to get jobs, or we can go to the official Job Centers that the crooked politicians have opened all over the place, just for us. We have to play the wink and nod game, though, and give them phony ID. Don't worry, they don't really check our ID and just wink and nod back to us. Hell, there are ten of us at the Job Center that I use who are named Vicente Fox. By pretending to check our ID the Gringos get some legal cover in case the government ever changes and they start enforcing immigration laws. Most of the Job Centers also have signs saying that it is the employer's responsibility to check ID of anyone he hires. Of course, the employers never do that. They just wink and nod too. It's a big scam."

"Yeah, but if you're working on the cheap how do you pay for housing, food, medical needs and all the rest?" you ask.

"No problemo. Get this. It's like a self-perpetuating machine. We get low wages and no medical or dental insurance, but we don't pay taxes on our low wages and we get free medical and dental care from the charities. We also can get free clothes and food from the charities and some of them even help us pay our utilities."

"Free food, too?"

"You bet. And when there are holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, some of the local police officers come to us and give us big bags of food with turkeys and all kinds of stuff."

"What's Thanksgiving? Oh, I remember, that's one of the Gringos'--the old people-- holidays. Did you just say the police give you free food? They don't arrest you?"

"Nah, they don't arrest us. The cops don't bother us unless we do some big crime such as murder. And, if we do a big crime and if we're fast, we can slip back across the border and they'll never get us."

"Well, what about your kids?" you ask.

"We put them in the local schools. See, the schools also have a wink and nod, don't ask, don't tell policy about illegal aliens, and besides the schools get money from the state based on the number of warm bodies in the schools, so they love us."

"Well, what about the Gringo kids in the schools? Do they mind that their education is suffering because of non-English speakers?" you ask.

"What Gringo kids? Most of them don't go to the public schools in many cities anymore. Their parents take them to schools in areas that are whiter or put them in private schools."

"Man, it sounds too good to be true, but if you're telling me the truth, that place sounds like heaven on Earth. I'll be up there next week. Can I live with you?"

"Sure. I'm living in a one bedroom apartment with 11 other guys, but we have some floor space that we'll rent to you at a good price. We're taking over this place from the white people, but we're making them pay to support us. You'll love this place."

#  #  #

"THE OUTSIDER"
H. Millard's novel of alienation in post-American America is available.
Get it by telephone: 1-877-823-9235, at Amazon.com or from Barnes & Noble. If THE OUTSIDER doesn’t appear when the link page opens, just type in the author’s name or ISBN and it should take you to the book. The book is also available in brick and mortar stores, either on the shelves or by asking for it.
The ISBN for the OUTSIDER IS: 0-595-19424-9 (helps when ordering).
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