Chinga la Migra!

"Debord," I said, "immigration agents told Thomas Warziniack that they never make mistakes."

A gray line of smoke rose between Guy Debord's fingers. The thick, bony smell of his Gauloises! My nose wet, twitching like a lilac.

"Shimmy, the endless series of trivial confrontations is set up again, from competitive sports to elections, mobilizing a sublunary interest," he said, waving his dainty Gauloise.

"Unlike suspects charged in criminal courts," I said, "detainees accused of immigration violations don't have a right to an attorney, and three-quarters of them represent themselves."

I watched Guy Debord's ripe giant shoes and their delicious laces. Just in case.

He walked into the kitchen, probably to see if my food was still in its dish. The loose laces on his giant shoes are precocious, like leaves on the back deck I would crunch between my teeth if he opened the back door and let me out.

I added, "Less affluent or resourceful U.S. citizens who are detained must try to maneuver on their own through a complicated system."

"Shimmy, there will be people living on the surface of the earth, and even in your apartment -- perhaps in the empty wicker newspaper box under the bed -- when the United States has disappeared."

Debord's hand reached for the back doorknob. Something scratched the hardwood floor beneath the stove.

A venal dog injected into sheep or other livestock, a venal dog is falling in Rogers Park -- sprayed from helicopters over homes.

"The mixture of ethnicities that will dominate is hard to predict, as is their cultures, even their languages," Debord said.

Turn the knob. Pull backward!

He continued: "The central, and profoundly qualitative question, will be this: have these future peoples, through an emancipated practice, dominated the present technology, which is generally that of artifice and dispossession? Or are they dominated by it in some way that is even more hierarchical and enslaving?"

"It becomes your word against the government's," I said, "even when you know and insist that you're a U.S. citizen. Your word doesn't always count, and the government doesn't always investigate fully."