A United States Citizen

Cloves and grease traveled to Nikki’s nose. She flared her black nostrils and breathed in slowly, slowly. The sound of the drill with its lights affixed to it cut into her consideration of him. Vlad gave his name with a smile. She looked at him and eased a hand down her ebony inner left thigh, perspiration popping up like buds of lilacs on her skin despite the air conditioning. After he put the screw into the door, she watched with acuity how he performed his tasks. The sound of the drill became a symphony of work and agility. He pulled the door upside down and toiled on the spring mechanism. She wore a University of Delaware t-shirt, reflecting the school she chose to study at a few miles away. She allowed her nineteen-year-old self to use her credit card on a bit of an annoyance. Her closet door had to be fixed. For months it stood off the track. She felt cool, despite the sweat on her leg. The August heat could not contend with the air conditioner. At least that worked.

She walked around her room and sat on the side of her bed, never leaving the sight of Vlad’s performance. He looked to be in his early thirties. Her eyes followed as he drilled home the metal pieces, expertise and care exuding from his industry. Home alone except for Vlad, she had seen him park his late model black Mercedes-Benz just out front. 

“No truck?” she asked.

“No, that is for bigger projects. I usually take car on small jobs.”

Sweat and cinnamon lingered in the air as he chewed his gum and focused completely on his task. He took plastic pieces and metal pieces and fitted them in the right places.

Nikki heard the door open. Her eyes became saucers. She rushed over and put down the hand that held the drill.

“You’ve gotta hide! Look, get in the closet!”

“Nik’, I brought bread from the bakery,” Her mother Cecily Tester mentioned as she entered the door. After entering the kitchen, she plopped down the baked goods on the counter. Nikki helped to put his tool bags in the closet with Vlad.

“Alright, you’ve gotta stay quiet, okay?” It was a question in a whisper but it seemed spiked with an exclamation point.

“Okay,” Vlad replied.

Nikki walked her way to the kitchen. “Mom, I thought you’d be home later.”

“I got off early from work. What’s that smell?” Cecily asked.

“What’s it smell like?” Nikki asked, nervousness creeping into her voice.

“I don’t know, like oily and spicy….”

“Could it be from the baked goods you just brought in, Mom?” Nikki suggested.

“Who’s car is that outside the house?”

“Do you think it could be the neighbors?”

“Don’t answer me again with a question, young lady.”

Vlad shifted his weight. The sound resembled a thud like a seabag full of apparel dropping.

“Someone else is in this house.” Cecily floated past her daughter and went down the hallway to her daughter’s room. She opened up the door and the closet and saw Vlad standing there smiling with his bags of tools. Nikki followed her. Each step seemed like a trudge.

“Who the hell are you?!” Cecily asked.

“I’m Vlad. You must be Miss Tester.”
“Mrs. Tester. And why are you in my teenage daughter’s closet?”

“The door ma’am. I fix it.”

Cecily looked at her daughter. “Nikki, you want to come over here and explain this young man in your room?!”

“I thought you’d be back later…I just went on the Thumbtack app and found a guy to fix my closet door.”

Cecily looked around with her ebony hands on her hips.

“Do you have a visa? Green card?”

“I am American citizen. Six years,” he canted his chin up a bit in saying this. “I mean no harm to you or your daughter.”

“You’ve got a businesscard?” Cecily queried.

“They're all in my truck. I can give you my site.” He retrieved his smartphone.

Cecily looked at the site.

“You stay right here. I mean come over here to the front of the room,” Cecily instructed.

Nikki rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth. She inhaled sharply. The bite of the greasy tools and the sweat and the cloves all intermixed in her nostrils. She sniffled back a tear. Vlad looked at her with his mouth slightly agape. Cecily pushed past both of them and took into her possession her own phone.

“I’ve got ICE on speed dial. You’re about to go to a facility, sir!”

“Oh my God, Mom! Do you remember the last call you made to them? Mr. Hernandez who had been a US citizen his entire life?!”

“This is different. That last call was the ‘previous’ call. This is the call to end this. He’s a foreigner. Six years? Hasn’t been off the boat for three weeks, probably."

Nikki reached for Cecily’s phone. Vlad put out his hands.

“Wait! I just want to do job, get paid, and go. This is it.”

Cecily dialed. She looked at Nikki. “Your father’s not going to be too glad about a strange man in our home…in your room.”

Nikki pushed air from her lungs and held onto her elbows.

“Yes, Immigration and Customs Enforcement? Yes, I can hold.”

Vlad and Nikki exchanged glances. 

“Yes, I’d like to report an illegal alien in my house. My daughter. Yes. He doesn’t appear to be armed. He has some tools, though. I mean, can’t you have someone come out here and arrest him? He was already let in by…no, don’t think you do. He was let into my house by my daughter. Okay. Okay.”

She ended the phone call. She cast a mean eye at Vlad.

“You’re not out of this. They’ll be agents here in the next fifteen minutes. Well, I can handle this. ”

“Mom, you’re making a big thing out of nothing. Could you please just let the man fix the door and be on his way?” Nikki’s jet eyebrows furrowed.

Cecily looked at the two of them. Her gaze then fell upon Nikki. “If I ever catch you with one of these men again, you’re going to have to move out of this house and into a dorm room. You will pay for all your meals and other amenities on your own. Do you understand me, young lady?”

Nikki rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time and placed her hands at her sides. “Yes, Mom. Now can we please just let the man work?”

Vlad looked at both of them. Cecily narrowed her eyes and sucked her teeth. “Hurry up with it. I don’t want to be hearing a whole bunch of noise this time of day.” Nikki perked up some and grinned at Vlad. He curled his mouth into a half frown, and turned around and started back work on the door.

“Finished,” Vlad chimed. “I’m going to let this one be on the house. I don’t want more trouble.”

ICE Agent Graymere Fonty rolled up to the house with ICE Agent Mallory Daystar. They hopped out of the vehicle and approached the house. Cecily answered the door. 

“Good afternoon, officers,” she greeted them. “He’s coming down the hallway, now.” Vlad walked with Nikki behind him. 

“We understand you’re causing a disturbance in this household. Where are your documents?”

“I have them in car. If you let me, I’ll get them.”

Everyone but Nikki walked outside of the house. She propped herself up on the large divan just under the window. Her brown eyes never ceasing to take their attention off of what happened. Vlad journeyed to his vehicle with the grace of a regal title holder. He opened the door and right then, the glint of the firearm flashed in the afternoon sun. Vlad jumped back with both hands in the air after withdrawing the paperwork declaring him a United States citizen.

“Alright! Get on the ground!” Daystar commanded.

“No!” Nikki screeched and got up from her place on the sofa. 

Fonty brandished his gun as well. Vlad tucked his head. “I have no weapon.”

“Get down on the ground and spread your legs!” Daystar instructed.

Vlad complied.

“Now interlock your fingers on your head!” Fonty barked.

Vlad abided.

This whole time, Cecily stood adjacent to the car while a small crowd began to form. People with their smartphones trained on the ICE agents. 

“Disperse, or we will be prompted to use force against you all!” Announced Daystar. Vlad allowed the plastic ties to go around his wrists. He felt the pieces slicing into the heels of his hands. Blood trickled out a bit as the two ICE agents walked him to their cruiser. Some of the blood got onto Font’s hand, he wiped it on Vlad’s light gray shirt. It looked like a piece of rock with a showing of iron cast on it.
Boos all around and now a news van came into view. The two agents closed the door and before they sheathed their pistols, Nikki burst out of the house, arms flailing with tears streaming down her face. The agents lifted their guns and fired at the young woman.

Blood spurted from her frame as Cecily ran to the agents. “That’s my daughter!” She rushed over to her side. Nikki’s ebony eyes looked gray. A limpness to her body explained everything.

“Oh, no!” Cecily sobbed as she rocked her daughter in her arms. Police officers started marking the area as a crime scene. The severed cuffs on Vlad’s wrists unrestrained his hands. 

The newswoman quickly came to the scene to try to get some information.

“What happened here?” reporter Sandy Gomez asked.

“You didn’t see it? Everyone in the world is going to know that ICE agents killed an innocent kid in cold blood right here in Newark, Delaware!” neighbor Karl Gaines exclaimed.

Police arrived on the scene after reports of gunfire from agents and immediately arrested Fonty and Daystar. Gomez ran over to the front of the Tester house. The lights and the microphone all got propped up so that the picture and sound could be optimized.

“We are here in Italian Grotto development where it appears two ICE agents just shot and killed a young woman. Details are scarce but we will be updating you with breaking news momentarily. Live in Newark, Delaware. I'm Sandy Gomez.”

Nikki had been transferred to an ambulance that followed the police cruiser. Cecily looked down at her blood drenched hands. Her head kept shaking from left to right like a slot machine character denying the user the luck of making coins spit out of it. She rose to her feet but she could only half stand. Her husband Norman Tester grabbed her and held her tight. He had just arrived on the scene. They hugged but soon the police escorted them to the side of the street.

Crime scene investigators walked up to the location with their instruments. More police approached the couple.

Detectives Beverly Helser and Julton Chew looked down at them.

“We’re extremely sorry for your loss,” Helser intoned.

Chew then sat on his haunches, eye level. 

“We’re going to need to get some information from you. We know you’re grieving and this is all new, but there is a serious case against these two agents. They will be prosecuted in a court of law. But we need to know everything that went on here,” Helser sighed.

“What happened here?” Cecily asked, sunlight caught in her eyes. “A murder scene is what happened. I wanted this to be a smooth transition. I––I wanted to just report an illegal immigrant. But now my daughter––! What in hell am I  supposed to do?! Just watch her die from men with masks and guns?! I thought they’d protect us!” She looked over in Vlad’s direction. He held his head. Police spoke with him as Sandy Gomez started to encroach. Cecily continued to shake her head. Great tears cascaded down her face as she rocked slowly, slowly. She shrieked. And heads turned to face the terrific yelp. Tester still donned his uniform as a security guard at the Christina Mall. Blood stains sullied his pristine creases. Some more first responders brought them away from their positions. He looked up it looked like the yellow of his eyes had become even more sallow against his coal black skin.

“I wasn’t here. Only my wife,” Tester started to explain. “She should have all the information you will need.” Then, he clutched his chest, he fell to one knee. Coughing and wheezing, his eyes looked wild. A first responder noticed this and applied aid. Vlad attempted to rush over with the first aid personnel as they lifted him onto a gurney from another ambulance. 

“Sir, please stand back. We’ve got it from here,” Officer Bizelle Compton instructed.

Vlad had been prevented from going over to the parents. He shook his head and continued to answer questions from the police.