Stepping out of that courthouse was awkward. Neither of us knew quite what to say. It was impulsive, crazy, and hasty, but that’s what people do when they’re young and drunk on love.
(When we called our family members later, none were surprised. Her family was okay with it, but my Jewish relatives, I could tell, hated it, hated her, but didn’t raise any objections, only a couple made snarky remarks… Not that I cared, though, because it didn’t matter to me where she was from, and I was an adult, on my own, anyway. I wasn’t living for them. I was living for me. I was living for my wife… Though we’d eloped, we’d planned to later have a formal ceremony, and if my relatives didn’t want to attend, that was their decision. I’d always had an estranged relationship with my family, and I wasn’t going to let people I barely knew control my decisions, though, later, I’d find that perhaps I should have listened to them more… At least in this instance…) Back to eloping, you might think that we went out for a special dinner afterwards.
Nope. We went back to my apartment and had a simple pasta dinner. We were too broke at the time to afford a fancy feast.
It was okay, though. We had simple tastes, and a casual meal at home satiated us both. Lying in bed, sipping gin, watching gameshows, was fine by us. Not a terrible way to spend a honeymoon. Besides, we were already in South Beach, a place where many would come anyway to have their honeymoon.
Now the issue of finances became more pressing, as did immigration concerns.
We came to discover that marrying wouldn’t alleviate our visa issues. It was, certainly, a giant leap. But it was really just the first bureaucratic hurdle of many that would present themselves.
In looking at our immigration options, both for America and Europe, I came to see the brutal truth of immigration policies the world over. Just how racist,
Buffalo Bangkok: Juvenile Delinquent xenophobic many were, but, more so, like so many issues, the biggest thing it came down to was cash. Cold hard cash.
Immigration policies are kindest to two classes of people. The first is the migrant worker, or the asylum seeker, refugee, the desperately poor, not so much out of pure altruism. But also because this is a person who will happily perform the most menial tasks, the jobs of janitors, slaughterhouse workers, construction workers, landscapers, maids, et cetera. Jobs that citizens of a rich, industrialized country generally don’t wish to do.
(A striking example of this is the oil-rich Gulf countries, Qatar, et al, where virtually none of the locals work and every job, especially lower wage, lower status jobs, are done by migrant workers from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, et cetera…)
The second beneficiary of immigration policies, who, by far, has it the easiest, is the person on the polar opposite side of the economic strata. The ultra-rich.
Upper-caste businesspeople and their ilk. Those who can outright purchase visas, purchase passports and citizenships. People like billionaire Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder, who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2012, became a resident of Singapore, and is now, according to Forbes, the island-nation's richest person.
(Again, why was I being Crack Whore Lewinsky? I wish I’d known Eduardo and Mark, and could have joined them in their dorm room hobby turned behemoth tech company… I could have immigrated anywhere with such ease… To Singapore, Austria, nearly anywhere…)
For such rich people, Billionaire Facebook Boy, expatriating is no hassle. They can pay the lawyer fees, buy property and investments, easily secure necessary documents to move internationally.
However, for everyone in the middle, everyone not desperately poor or stinking rich, immigration is often a bureaucratic labyrinth. One hurdle after another, though some countries make it easier than others, and the most restrictive countries, whether due to overpopulation, racism, xenophobia, protectionism, or whatever, make it damn near impossible, for anyone, even the well-heeled.
Buffalo Bangkok: Juvenile Delinquent America, the “nation of immigrants” has gone through various periods of opening and closing, making immigration easier or harder.
(When my relatives first arrived in America, from Russia, they simply jumped off the boat and walked in… Different times for sure… Although, in essence, that’s what Facebook Boy did in Singapore…)
Unfortunately, in Miami, it was especially difficult for anyone not Cuban (due to the “Wet Foot, Dry Foot” policy) to even get a green card, let alone citizenship.
My wife and I had originally wished to remain in Miami, at least for a while, and had applied for her green card, spent $1000 on it. But we were told, due to the office there being so backlogged, that it would take over a year to just arrange an interview for the green card. Let alone receive it.
While we waited, I still was having no luck finding work, though she found part-time work at a hotel that was likely a front for drug money. I mean, this was Miami, South Beach, after all. “Magic City,” a place built, literally, on drug proceeds, predominantly cocaine revenue.
(I’d highly recommend the documentary “Cocaine Cowboys” for further narrative on that subject…)
But yeah, the hotel my wife worked at had few guests. But it did have a steady stream of shady characters flowing in and out of the French owner’s back office.
The owner, fine with hiring illegals, mostly his fellow Europeans, mostly young attractive ladies, was a heavily tattooed middle-aged man, muscled up, with a French face, big hook nose and a glinty set of gold teeth.
My wife saw that he had a machine gun in his office. And spotted a massive bag of coke in one of his desk drawers, as well as duffel bags of cash in the hotel safe. So, yeah, pretty safe to say there was funny business. Although, for Miami, South Beach, it was standard operating procedure.
What was cool about her working there was all the free stuff she got. Because of the bags of money the place was raking in, the hotel awash in dirty cash, they didn’t care too much about the inventory in the restaurant and turned a blind eye, or didn’t notice that employees were plundering food, bottles of liquor, cigars. We saved a ton of cash surviving on free food from the hotel. It really got us through a tough few months; time I spent seeking work, doing part-time online
Buffalo Bangkok: Juvenile Delinquent page design and marketing gigs, online back office tasks, so we could make ends meet.
But still, things were getting rough, and it was becoming quite evident that I wouldn’t find steady work in Miami. I didn’t have much work experience, either, so I wasn’t thinking that I’d find a better situation elsewhere.
My wife’s family had a plant nursery business and were interested in growing marijuana, which I’d done briefly with a friend in high school. We’d grown a couple small plants in his closet. I was interested in getting into the marijuana business, although it was officially illegal in Austria. However, there were loopholes in the law that made it legal to possess plants and produce seeds, certain derivatives.
I’d also been studying German and was becoming more infatuated with the idea of going to Europe. I’d been to Britain, as a kid, to visit my aunt, but I’d not been to continental Europe and desperately wanted to go.
(It was a hoot, learning German, when I first started. It sounded so funny, making those sounds, especially the fronted vowels, umlauts. My favorites were the words “fünf,” German for five, which sounded absolutely hilarious to me. As did
“entshuldigung,” which means “excuse me.” I’d yell “entshuldigung” at my wife in our apartment, saying it loudly, saying it as much as I could. German, I found, to be a fantastically expressive, powerful language, perfect for yelling and cursing.) ((I think the best part of learning any foreign language is learning the curse words, dirty words, how to insult people. Learning the words for genitalia is tremendous too. It’s almost like when you learn to say “vagina” or “penis” in another language, you rediscover it, like it’s a whole new thing…)) We started talking more seriously about going to Europe, especially since my wife was becoming a little homesick too. We decided that it was the perfect time. We were young, and although we were broke, we weren’t tied down with debt or a house or kids. It was settled. We’d go. Head out to Europe, head over to Austria, together, and see what we’d find there.