Why Visit America

by Matthew Baker

  I did also have a lot of anxiety.

  My family lived in the suburbs of Nashville, in a house that can only be described as gigantic, just gargantuan. Slate shingles, dark brickwork, flanked by a pair of turrets. Three stories, plus an attic and a basement. A proper mansion. My bedroom was circular, overlooking the driveway from the top of the east turret. In the west turret, my sister overlooked the net hammock hanging between the magnolias. When the blossoms got blown down from the trees, the grass around the hammock turned pink with petals.

  If the exterior seemed excessive, the interior was even worse.

  A popular measure of spiritual health in those days, perhaps you’ll recall, was that known as “the ratio.” We were taught the ratio in school. Belongings per person, of course. At the time, 100:1 was considered the healthiest. A ratio of 1000:1 was considered inexcusably high. A ratio of 10:1 was considered irrationally low. 100:1 was about the ideal proportion.

  Well, our ratio was staggering. Including clothing, shoes, jewelry, tableware, furnishings, appliances, decorations, knickknacks, toys, and etcetera, our ratio was approximately 9000:1. A grossly unhealthy figure.

  For anybody, doing anything, having a ratio of that size would have meant suffering a certain amount of prejudice. For a thirteen-year-old girl attending a private school in Tennessee, having a ratio of that size meant being an absolute pariah. Schoolwide my nickname was “Her Highness.” Kids sometimes taped dollar bills to my locker to mock me. I kept every last one, I am ashamed to say, which only made the bullying worse.

  The common belief was that families like ours were afflicted by an appetite of the eyes—that we simply stuffed our spaces with things to look at. My family, however, if not a contradiction to the rule, at the very least contained an exception: my mother was blind. (My father often joked that she never would have agreed to marry him if she could have seen him, although she of course had touched his face and said she found his features quite appealing: slick graying hair brittle with mousse; a wide forehead lined with creases; a broad angular nose with a lump at the bridge, a healed fracture, from a college wrestling tournament; rather plump lips; a boxy jaw with a cleft chin. A landscape pleasant not only to touch, but also to look at. My mother in contrast was plain: straight black hair, an unremarkable nose, and thin lips.) My mother could read Braille, and had an unusual hobby. My father owned, had inherited, a department store, and at that time every register in the department store contained a roll of paper that the register would punch for each transaction. The holes punched into the paper weren’t Braille, of course, but rather a code that could be fed to computers, which were then used to compile purchases and calculate profits. (“$176.86,” “$97.45,” “$231.07,” etcetera—that’s what the dots meant.) But when my mother could get him to remember, my father would bring home spools of that punched tape for her, and as she swung with us in the hammock or lay with us by the fireplace, she liked to run her fingertips over the holes, reading—not what the computers read, but instead searching the spools for patterns she recognized, like some type of game, shouting with pleasure whenever she did find letters or words or phrases, such as “love,” in the endless strings of empty holes. The exercise perhaps was similar to a girl fluent in Morse, standing at the checkout in the department store and searching for meaning in the dings and trills of the registers, finding words such as “love” in the sounds, when what the registers were truly saying was simply “cancel sale” or “transaction completed.” (Or is what the registers were truly saying “love”? What dictates meaning: intent or interpretation?)

  Regardless, my mother, though blind, was just as bad as the rest of us. Just as we felt intense longing at the sight of new bicycles on display, she too was overcome by sensations: the noise of a new electric fan; the scent of new teak bowls; the flavor of a new latex balloon; the texture of rippled bottles of perfume. Our appetite was visual, aural, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and indiscriminate especially. Weekends, driving home from brunch, I would feel the tension mounting in the sedan, our unspoken struggle to suppress a swelling craving to shop, an almost bursting desire. There was never any question of whether we would break. We always broke. Passing the shopping mall, we would beg my father to stop, lost whole days there, basking in the dusty warmth of the skylights, trembling with the faint quiver of the escalators, buying mounds of blazers and polos and blouses and skirts, fragrant candles, spongy luffas, opal sunglasses, crystal armlets, a brass spyglass, a framed chalkboard, an iron luggage rack, a hardwood table with fluted legs. At the supermarket, we would toss spare placemats, novelty mugs, fuzzy slippers, board games that we would never play, into the cart with the groceries. At gas stations, we would follow my father inside, impulsively shoving packs of baseball cards onto the counter, random magazines, used videos, gaudy mood rings. My father, who never smoked, always bought a plastic lighter. We spent as much on merchandise as gasoline.

  We weren’t without conscience. And we weren’t unconscious of the economics. Bringing home shopping bags, dumping piles of superfluous belongings onto my bedspread, I would feel nauseous with shame. Truly, hideous, just utterly gross. All of us did. We understood that in a society where many still lacked everyday essentials, to live as we lived was simply abhorrent. Barbaric, even. But our yearning to consume—to possess new objects, something, anything—was insatiable. We couldn’t help ourselves.

  I have a memory of lying sprawled across the carpet in the master bedroom, watching my parents in their bathroom, my mother flossing, my father shaving—carefully maneuvering the razor over the cleft in his chin, then flicking cream and flecks of stubble from his razor into the sink—as he talked to us, trying to comfort us. In the mirror, my sister was jumping on the canopy bed behind me, making the sheets flail with every bounce.

  “Just look at history,” my father argued, rinsing his razor. “Having lots of stuff used to be considered a mark of prestige. Noble. Desirable. Sexy. The ultimate ambition.”

  He told us to ignore the bullies at school, saying that feeling guilty about buying extra things was “silly,” merely “cultural.” But his voice had a tremor, and his cheeks had suddenly flushed—regardless of what he said, he was embarrassed of our lifestyle, the same as the rest of us.

  But honestly, there was also an intense feeling of pleasure, of fullness, that came from our lifestyle. Inanimate things, just like animate beings, have a presence, a powerful presence. In my bedroom in the turret there was an elevated window seat. And sitting there—looking, not outward, but inward, facing the bedroom—I was often given the distinct feeling of being embraced. By all my belongings. Felt held by everything. The sparkling waterfall chandelier suspended by a chain from the center of the ceiling, the painted armoire standing cheerfully against the wall, the wire mannequin heaped with hats and caps, the bookshelves crammed with novels with gleaming jackets, a quartz geode, an empty birdcage, a golden clock shaped like an hourglass, coats and dresses and jeans and sweatshirts stuffed into the closet on wooden hangers, dirty laundry overflowing from a wicker basket, colorful beanbags, a tufted chaise, the cashmere throws my mother insisted on buying for me, which were always folded in a neat arrangement on the lid of the cedar chest, a rainstick, a bike helmet, a bocce set, jump ropes, golf clubs, a lacrosse stick bought on a whim, a sturdy walnut chair, a matching rolltop desk, a cushioned stool, a mirrored vanity, bubbling lava lamps in a range of colors and sizes, elastic hair ties, scattered bobby pins, glass fairies, rhinestone tiaras, various pairs of swimming goggles, the gigantic fake butterflies my father had strung above the bed for me, which sometimes quivered in the breeze from the vent in the ceiling, a nightstand cluttered with bejeweled rings and diamond chokers, a pogo stick lying on the rug, towers of unread magazines, piles of unwatched videos, decks of playing cards, packs of sidewalk chalk, yo-yos with tangled strings, twisted belts, glittering wands, jars crammed with crusted paintbrushes, a hairdryer, another hairdryer, a purse, a purse, a purse, a purse. A world of things, and ever
y day the world was changing, the character of the bedroom constantly shifting, old objects disappearing into drawers or boxes as new objects appeared. I was protected there, kept safe from any feelings of boredom or emptiness. I felt very near to content.

  I could have been happy hiding away in that turret forever, pretending nobody existed except for my family.

  Weekday mornings, the thump of the school doors behind me felt like the thud of an executioner’s blade.

  I did have one friend at school, Madison Gates, a toothy redhead with a latex allergy. The school nurse had once touched her throat while wearing latex gloves, and her entire face had broken out into a rash. Madison had thought the rash was hilarious, if somewhat painful, but that incident—that and her hair—was the origin of her personal nickname: “The Red Queen.”

  Madison’s family lived a block away from mine, in a gated mansion with an antebellum design. Marble driveway, sculpted hedges, a pillared awning over the porch. Four stories, plus an attic and a basement. Their ratio was simply beyond estimation. Madison was an only child.

  Madison’s windows overlooked the swimming pool and the wading pool and the pool house in the backyard. Her bedroom was twice the size of mine, and equally crammed. (Her belongings aren’t necessary to list in entirety. Just picture mine, but with a touch of adventurer. Bottled ships, model carriages, a longbow with a quiver of feathered arrows. Etcetera.) Madison was the one who forced me to learn Morse. She had learned the code from an old military manual that she had inherited from her grandparents, and during sleepovers, in the moonlight, lying with me on her waterbed, she would drill me on the alphabet by tapping my forehead with the code. I can distinctly remember lying there: happy, tired, smelling of chlorine, blinking drowsily at her face as her fingertip softly tapped the alphabet into my skull. Madison would refuse to let me sleep until we had gotten through each letter. She would always fall asleep facing away from me, but when morning came, I often awoke to find her clinging to me, like a drowning girl to some passing wreckage, with sweaty hair matted to her face. I really loved that.

  Madison had a reason for drilling me—at school there were times when we needed to talk confidentially, without any fear of being overheard. This was generally whenever she caught sight of Cody Walden. During our lunch hour, for instance, Cody had shop class, and he somehow always managed to sneak out—would come roaming into the cafeteria, grinning impishly, wearing plastic safety glasses flecked with sawdust, to the cheers of his friends. Cody was a squat stocky boy with wide shoulders and a thick torso and a mess of hair so fair that the color seemed almost white. He had developed a reputation for being intensely emotional: a fierce temper, a moody humor, passionate loyalty to his friends. He loved to discuss obviously implausible hypotheticals. He delighted in stunts. He rejoiced in pranks. He earned grades that were utterly abysmal. There was nobody as popular. As he roamed past where we sat, Madison would clutch a fork or spoon, frantically tapping a coded message into the laminate surface of the table: “love of my life.”

  Her fear of being overheard wasn’t paranoid. Cody’s ratio was perfect. A girl like her daring to aspire to a boy like him was a joke—one that other kids would have found hysterical—in moments her social status at the school would have sunk from outcast to laughingstock. Our ratios were by far the largest in the school. Even the other rich kids shunned and mocked us. Madison didn’t stand a chance.

  Even my parents felt some embarrassment about how we lived. Madison, however, felt no shame. She truly believed there was nothing wrong with her lifestyle, and shopped without qualms. Together we were monsters. Our sprees were legendary. We ravaged outlets; we plundered boutiques. Lugging shopping bags through the parking lot toward where my parents were parked, we would be taunted by strangers, kids in basketball jerseys leering from pickups, spitting, “Y’all are gross.” Madison would snap, “Go fuck yourselves.” (She never would have been so brave at school—kids we had never seen before were nowhere near as frightening as kids we had to see daily.)

  Madison’s parents were bankers—a mother with rusty hair who habitually wrung her hands, a father with a faint voice and a receding hairline, rather timid people—themselves the children of bankers. Giving money away, modest living, was not in their blood. Her parents must have suffered some ostracism too: when speaking of other adults, her parents referenced only coworkers, neighbors, hairstylists, physicians; like my parents, her parents didn’t seem to have any friends.

  Nevertheless, her parents did have certain aspirations for their daughter, socially. (Also for me perhaps: her parents treated me like an adoptee, and seemed genuinely concerned for my welfare.) I don’t think her parents ever had any ambitions of their daughter becoming “popular.” Her parents simply wanted her to fit in, belong. To be accepted by her community, rather than abhorred.

  Thus, at the conclusion of the school year, these rather timid people concocted a bold plan. That summer, without her consent, her parents announced that she would be having “a pool party.”

  Nine girls from our grade were invited—girls who held student council offices, who starred in theater productions, who excelled at debating competitions, who took camping trips together, who had actual love lives—the same girls who curtsied to us in the hallway and the cafeteria and the gymnasium, crooning “Her Highness” and “The Red Queen.” I would have been mortified, absolutely humiliated, if my parents had mailed those girls invitations to “a pool party.” I felt just nauseous, imagining the confused murmurs, then shrieks of laughter, as the girls slit the envelopes and read the invitations. Madison, however, didn’t really care. “They won’t come, and that’s all that matters. They won’t even reply, and the party will never happen,” Madison said.

  Yet the girls did reply, and unanimously accepted.

  I still cringe at the memory of that fateful day.

  Madison made me swear to come, which she was wise to do—that morning of the pool party, only my loyalty to her could have gotten me into a bikini and over to her house. I was terrified. Madison looked miserable, flopped across a wicker couch in her solarium, holding a pillow to her face as if attempting to smother herself, while her parents bustled about excitedly, dusting mirrors, sweeping bathrooms, squeezing lemons for homemade lemonade. Their cheery mood suggested they expected this gathering to be the beginning of a new era. Madison was wearing a glittery silver bikini that sparkled in the sunlight, complementing the dark speckle of freckles on her arms; her knees were streaked with sunscreen; I realized suddenly that her feet were tapping a message into the wicker couch, over and over, a single word: “doomed.”

  I was worried the girls were planning some type of prank, or had decided that the party would be an amusing diversion, like tourists agreeing to visit a zoo of especially grotesque creatures. But when the girls arrived—and they arrived together, leaping from the bed of a truck—the looks on their faces made the truth quite plain. They had come because they had been guilted, or forced, into coming, by their parents. They were not tourists. They were knights, ordered out onto a battlefield; they stayed huddled close together, because they were not ready to die.

  Madison’s parents had resisted the urge to buy balloons, streamers, paper lanterns, silk leis, any frills whatsoever. But the house itself was frills. The girls—Scarlett, Leah, Adriana, Brianna, Reagan, Emmylou, Jasmine, Chloe, and the puny waif, Dolly—advanced cautiously through the great room, avoiding touching any of the furniture. In the kitchen, the girls accepted lemonades but refused straws—nonessential, wasteful—and greeted us politely but warily, then ventured out into the backyard. Even wearing only swimwear, the difference between us was stark. Our swimsuits were brand-new, never worn. As for them, some wore faded bikinis, bleached nearly colorless by years of sunlight and chlorine, while most simply bathed in bras and cutoff shorts. Likely none of them had ever swum in a private pool before. The girls stood uneasily in the shallow end, clutching the lemonades, whispering.

  Standing on the tip of
the diving board, Madison made an attempt at a peace offering.

  “There are towels in the pool house,” she called.

  The girls huddled together to discuss the offer, and then nudged their tiny spokesperson to speak.

  “We dry off with the sun,” Dolly beamed.

  Madison rolled her eyes, bounced once on the diving board, and did a cannonball.

  Ultimately the party was uneventful, and a disaster. I spent the afternoon floating around nervously on an inflatable swan, trying to turn invisible, wishing the other girls weren’t there so that we could actually enjoy ourselves. Madison alternated between performing hostile maneuvers on the diving board and flinging her vast arsenal of pool toys into the water—beach balls, dive rings, foam noodles, plastic donuts—as if attempting to overwhelm her enemies with belongings. By then the girls seemed to have forgotten about us altogether, gossiping and snickering by the ladder, occasionally batting away approaching pool toys. Madison’s parents watched the scene from the windows in the parlor. Whatever her parents had hoped to witness—cultural differences overcome by the power of youth, social prejudice vanquished by the fabled magic of teenage spirit—remained a fantasy. The girls did not want our friendship, and were experienced at avoiding unwanted possessions.

  When their ride honked in the driveway, the girls quick gathered their crumpled shirts, then withdrew en masse, leaving a smattering of damp footprints that shrank and disappeared in the sun.

  “That was awful,” I murmured, draped limply over the neck of the inflatable swan.

  “Who’d want to be friends with those snobs anyway?” Madison laughed.