The United States Versus Rita
Lovely Rita, meter maid, where would we be without you? She had worked for the NYPD Traffic Section, Staten Island 121st Precinct on Richmond Terrace for eighteen years. She was a graduate of Curtis High School, where Rita had learned English very quickly by necessity. Her mother Adriana was from Guatemala, where Rita and her brothers and sisters were born. They had come to Staten Island when Bill Clinton was president and the attitude towards Central American asylum was moderate. They had never really gone about the official asylum process through INS, because it would have cost Adriana too many days pay.
Adriana cleaned houses and apartments for people at $100 a day for eight hours. She did that six days a week for the past twenty-one years. At first she worked to get passage for her children from Belize, where they were staying with a cousin. Then she got the double payment to the Sri Lankan landlord to secure the basement apartment for her kids. For the last eighteen years Adriana did everything in her power to provide for her five kids so they could have a good American life.
Rita was the only one of Adriana’s children that spoke with a slight Hispanic accent. Her siblings were as Americanized as apple pie. She was proud that they had all graduated high school and gotten good jobs, mostly with the City. Little Marta had done so well that she had gotten a scholarship to the College of Staten Island, which was part of the CUNY system. She graduated with a degree in accounting and was working for the Borough President’s office in the accounting area. She was especially proud of Marta.
Rita had successfully paved the path for her siblings by figuring out how to get hired by the City without showing definitive proof of citizenship. She did it by getting a Curtis High School ID and using it to get an official Borough Resident ID issued by the City of New York. She had to wait in line at Borough Hall and she went late in the day when everyone wanted to go home, but that worked well. Technically they were supposed to ask for a birth certificate,but they never did. With hat she went to the Social Security office with an employment letter she paid $50 for and was able to get her Social Security card. With the Borough Resident ID and Social Security card she was able to go to DMV down on Hyman Blvd. and get a non-driver NYS ID. That was as legal as she needed so long as she wasn’t leaving the country. Those cards made her NYPD application go through very smoothly. The City was quite desperate for low-paid meter maids, since they only made $33,500 per year starting salary (but she did get City benefits with that). That was about $16/ hour, which made her feel bad for her mother until she realized her mother’s $12.50/ hour compared to her $12.18/ hour after taxes, FICA and benefits. Damn!
But eventually Rita was able to move out of Adriana’s apartment and set up on her own (with a roommate). Over eighteen years, Rita had managed to save almost $40,000 in her bank savings account. She had no idea what she was saving for, but it seemed the prudent thing to do. She spent her vacation time either helping her mother or volunteering at the recreation center. Rita liked kids. She had always thought she would marry and have children, but life hadn’t worked out that way. She was pretty enough, but not very glamorous. A few other police force guys had asked her out, but she just wasn’t comfortable going out with them. As time went by it got harder, not easier. And Rita was used to disappointment, so it was all good. She decided her life was about service, not happiness. Service to the City, to the Church, to the Rec. Center and to her family. It was enough.
One day she was working on upper Bay Street and there was a Porsche Cayenne parked illegally overhanging the bus stop. Rita was a relatively friendly meter maid who cut Parker’s lots and lots of slack. But this Porsche was making it difficult for all the bus riders to get on and off. So, Rita started writing out the $65 ticket, figuring anyone driving a Porsche could probably afford it. The problem was that her scanner kept defaulting every time she pointed it at the bar code on the registration sticker. She had that happen once or twice, so she just wrote the ticket out by hand by noting the registration and license number. It took a bit longer and sure enough, the owner showed up and threw a fit. He finally just came out and said he was exempt from ticketing. Rita just handed him the ticket and walked away.
Several days later, Rita got called into her supervisors office. He and someone in a suit who said he was from NYPD legal asked her to sit down. They wanted to know what had happened with the Porsche. She explained what she knew. They then asked her if she was prepared to put in a termination on the ticket and declare it to be her error. Rita had never made an error in her job and she expressed her unwillingness to do so. The man in the suit then opened a file and said that the department had learned that she was not a U.S. citizen and had taken this job under false pretenses. Rita was stunned. They went on to say she needed to go downstairs to see the INS people and that she was terminated as a meter maid.
INS was all business. They asked her about relatives and she said she had none. They handcuffed her and took her to a bus that went to a facility near Newark Airport. She was shown to a cell and finally taken in to meet with a lawyer, who had her file and simply gave her a copy of the indictment that said, The United States of America v. Rita Guasto. He said there was little to be done and that she would be flown to Guatemala City in a week. If she shared any information about other illegals she might get special consideration.
Rita kept her mouth shut and went with the flow. She did manage a note with a cleaning woman to get word to Adriana. She would contact her from Guatemala. Rita had $20 in her pocket and immediate used it to get a room and started looking for work. All she could find was cleaning woman work, which was fine. Eventually she called her mother and told her to get the money out of the account and give it to her siblings. She would find her way and stay in touch. Lovely Rita.