Why Visit America

by Matthew Baker

  * * *

  I live a different life now. A simple life, working at a farmers market, selling jars of raw honey. Middle age seems to suit me. My family owns perhaps more than we need, but our ratio is healthy, our house spare and tidy, a teal bungalow with a tire swing in the yard. I’ve learned to prefer this lifestyle. My children have never known any other. I buy pastries and greens to give to food pantries. I buy sweaters and peacoats to give to new immigrants. I help organize fundraisers to support renovations at the public library. I have friends who love me, who throw a birthday party for me once a winter. I try to find a healthy balance between volunteering and leisure. My husband is a lawyer for the city, a hulking cheerful man with thick dark hair who loves to rockclimb and waterski and volunteer at the animal shelter, bathing stray cats and dogs.

  The house smells like dough and chocolate from the cookies my youngest daughter baked after supper. All of my children are asleep now. My husband is soaking in the bathtub. He’s staring at me as he does, watching me gargle mouthwash at the sink.

  I spit into the drain and say, “What?”

  “You’re beautiful,” he says.

  I know that when he says that, he means the inside of me as much as the outside. I am compassionate. I am generous. I am not wasteful. Like him, I find satisfaction in helping others. I am often happy.

  * * *

  But still, sometimes there are days when a dark terrible mood comes over me, a crushing sense of emptiness, a sense of utter misery, when the sound of my children choreographing a new play in the attic can’t help me, when the sound of my husband singing while canning jam in the kitchen can’t help me, when the sound of the bluebirds twittering on the birdfeeder in the backyard doesn’t help me, when nothing seems to help, days that find me driving to the local shopping mall, days that find me driving back from the shopping mall, days that find me hiking out of desperation into the woods behind the house with a shopping bag full of boxes, in secret, alone.

  I sit under the sycamore trees at the edge of the ravine deep in the woods, in the overlapping patches of shade and light, which ripple across the grass with the occasional gust of wind, dimming and then brightening whenever a cloud passes over the sun. I arrange the boxes next to me, and then peel off each of the wrappers, slowly, delicately, savoring the experience. The supple feel of the plastic. The synthetic scent of the plastic. The glossy shimmer. The plastic peels away with a beautiful frailty, as if begging to be removed. I set each crumple of plastic in the grass, and then gently slip a finger into the tab of each lid. I open each of the boxes. I reach into the packaging, taking out each of the products, carefully arranging the objects in the grass around me. A porcelain teapot. A tortoiseshell hairbrush. A pewter cocktail shaker. A brass pocket watch. A rose-colored bottle of perfume. Now the things are mine. I sit there with the objects until the excitement has faded. The luster fades. The newness fades. The objects are only objects. Tossing the junk into the bottom of the ravine, I go home.

  The Sponsor

  Less than a month before our wedding, our headline sponsor goes out of business, and just like that the money disappears. Jenna gets the call. Ty and me are sitting on the futon in tank tops and khaki shorts, gawking at photos of the new weight room at Gillette Stadium™, where he works as a trainer for the Patriots®; the sunrise is still tinting the sky, bluebirds are chirping happily in the trees, and then suddenly she bursts into the apartment with the news. Jenna, Jenna, dear sweet fragile Jenna, with her bright eyes and her snub nose and her chipped nail polish, standing hardly taller than a snow shovel, wearing yoga pants and a sports bra with her hair pulled into a ponytail and her mascara smeared from crying. The ad department left her a voicemail while she was in spin class. A recording spoken by a robot. The corporation is bankrupt. The sponsorship is canceled. Her voice cracks as she explains. “I tried calling back, but nobody’s even there,” Jenna says. In an instant, the budget for our wedding has been slashed in half. I try to sound optimistic. “Maybe we could just, like, scale back,” I say. Jenna trembles. Verge of weeping. About to snap. “Brock, this is supposed to be the most important day of our lives,” Jenna says, her voice squeaking. Ty wipes his mouth, sets a McMuffin™ in a wrapper down onto the table next to a cup of Folgers® on a coaster, and then says, “Realistically, you’ll probably spend the rest of your lives trying to forget the wedding ever even happened. I mean, name a single wedding you’ve been to where the couple wasn’t divorced within three years.” Jenna is stunned. Her cheeks flush like she’s just been slapped. She looks at me, then points at Ty. “This is your best man? This? This?” I’m like, “Ty, bro, get out.” Ty leaves, but I wouldn’t dare embark on a quest this desperate alone, so I secretly send him a message to wait for me, and then after consoling Jenna, vowing to her that I will save the wedding, swearing to her that I will find another sponsor, and kissing her goodbye, passionately, I meet him down on the street.

  “I was just trying to keep the situation in perspective,” Ty says, leaning against a parking meter with a squint.

  “We’re not like that.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s the real thing.”

  “So true.”

  “Fuck, man, if we don’t find a new sponsor, the wedding is going to be ruined,” I say, starting to panic.

  Ty takes me by the shoulders. I’m tall. He’s taller. He looks me in the eyes. “Brock. I’m here for you. This is why you have a best man. Seriously. I’m going to help you save the day. Let’s make some calls.”

  We sit on the hood of a station wagon sponsored by Walmart®, flip-flops flat on the pavement, dialing numbers shoulder to shoulder, just like we used to do when we lived next door to each other as kids, when we’d call around the neighborhood to recruit friends for a sleepover or a game of catch. The situation is grim. Jenna and me applied for and received all of the usual sponsors for decorations and regalia, but replacing any of those would have been simple compared to trying to replace the headline sponsor. With less than a month until the wedding, we don’t have time to go through the proper application process. Ty and me are forced to call the corporations directly, angling to land an interview on the spot. We stick with companies headquartered in town, hoping the ad departments will take pity on a local couple. We switch to professional voices. We turn on the charm. Most of the receptionists hang up on me without even bothering to say no. Ty isn’t having any luck either, cursing every time he gets rejected.

  I’ve just about run out of ideas of companies to try when he hangs up with a whoop.

  “I got us an interview at BJ’s!”

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “You know, like Costco, or Sam’s. Just worse.”

  I grimace.

  “What?” Ty says.

  “I just wish the name was different.”

  “Brock. You’re not going to find another sponsor with this much cash. Honestly, bro, you’re not going to find another sponsor period. I haven’t even come close with the other calls. This is the play.”

  I imagine the name of the company on a banner at the ceremony, cringing, but then remember that a minute ago we didn’t have an interview anywhere. The quest had seemed impossible. The wedding had seemed doomed. But we can do this. We still have a chance.

  I offer him a fist-bump with a grin.

  “I can’t believe you got us an interview with less than a month to go,” I say.

  “Must be desperate, who knows, but the interview’s in an hour, so let’s hit the road,” Ty says.

  I dig through pockets, taking out keys with a jingle. Ty glances at his coupe, which is sponsored by Nike®, then looks at my pickup, which is sponsored by Denny’s®. “We can’t show up in that,” Ty says. “No offense. I’ll drive.”

  I grab the fluorescent binder with the wedding paperwork from the glovebox in my pickup, Ty stomps the clutch and punches the brake and hits the ignition in his coupe, and we drive through the city, Ray-Bans® on. We were supposed to work out at t
he gym today. We’ve got a tub of creatine riding in the backseat. I stare into the wing mirror, at my stubble and my neck and my shoulders and my arms and the road stretching behind the car in a blur of dark bricks and gray stones. Colorful kites are flying above the John Deere® Boston Common. Tour guides in colonial costumes march along the Freedom Trail, presented by Twinings™. I love having ripped muscles, the sensation of tight abs straining against the shifting momentum as the car takes a turn, the feeling of pecs too firm to bounce as the car rolls over a speed bump, of tensing a rigid bicep, of flexing a hard tricep, of quads and calves that—

  “We’re here, bro,” Ty says, shifting into park.

  BJ’s® has a black leather sofa in the reception area of the ad department.

  “Let me do the talking,” I whisper.

  “Just don’t make any blowjob jokes,” Ty whispers.

  “I’m not an idiot,” I whisper.

  “But seriously though,” Ty whispers.

  An assistant leads us into a boardroom to meet with a pair of ad execs named Paige and Katie, who both wear gray suits and browline glasses. We sit when we’re invited. Oxfords clacking on the floor, the assistant takes the fluorescent binder from me, walks along the conference table, past all the empty chairs, to hand the wedding paperwork to Paige and Katie, and then leaves the boardroom. Sunlight shimmers on the glass walls.

  “So you’re interested in BJ’s.”

  “Um, the company, yeah.”

  Paige and Katie flip through the paperwork in the binder.

  “Tell us about the wedding.”

  I swell with pride on reflex. “Jenna, my girlfriend, or fiancee technically, she has a vision, she has an eye, she’s been planning this since she was in kindergarten, and—”

  “What’s she do?”

  “Ambulance technician.”

  “How about you?”

  “Cement mason.”

  “Guest list?”

  “Uh, four hundred and twenty-one.”

  “That’s it?”

  “We’ve also got some great-grandparents who’re going to stream the wedding from their nursing homes.”

  “We don’t care about senile guests.”

  “Oh.”

  “We’re only interested in mobile consumers.”

  “Totally.”

  “These engagement photos are really lovely.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You make a very beautiful couple.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Let’s talk about finances.”

  I feel a pump of excitement. “Well, between the photo booth, the fireworks, the dancers, and all of the complimentary taxis, to cover the reception alone we’re going to need—”

  “The finances of the guests.”

  “Er.”

  “Average income?”

  “Uh, ninety-six thousand and fifty.”

  Paige and Katie lean in toward each other, murmur, then nod, and turn back to us with smiles.

  “Sorry, fellas, just isn’t going to work for us.”

  My heart sinks. Paige and Katie stand. I run my hands through my hair and over my mouth in distress and then suddenly am begging, “Please, we had a different sponsor, a legitimate national headline sponsor, we did everything like we were supposed to, we applied over a year in advance, we had to turn down other offers, and then our sponsor went out of business and didn’t even tell us what was happening until this morning, and it would mean a lot to our friends and our families to hear that our wedding had been saved by a local company, you’re the only ones that can help us,” but Paige and Katie are already walking out of the boardroom, leaving the fluorescent binder with the wedding paperwork behind.

  Jenna sent me a selfie of her binge-eating a pint of gelato, asking how much luck we’re having. I send her back a sweaty-face smiley with a couple of thumbs-up emojis, saying that we’re still looking. We’re not. BJ’s® was our last chance. There’s nowhere else in town to try. I feel dizzy leaving the building. I stumble into a mailbox. I lean against a streetlight.

  “Deep breaths,” Ty says.

  “This is a nightmare,” I say.

  Ty calls an emergency meeting at noon with the other groomsmen, Braden, Parker, and Alejandro. Braden and Parker are twins. Alejandro is an only child. When we were kids we built a fort out of used tires and scrap metal in Ty’s backyard, where we’d go when we were dealing with bickering parents or dying grandparents or just wanted to hang out. Braden went to school at Energizer® Tufts. Parker went to school at Zippo® Emerson. Alejandro never went to anywhere and works in construction like me. As charcoal briquettes burn in the grill, we smoke a joint in neon lawn chairs in the dazzling sunshine on the stoop of Alejandro’s house, which used to be sponsored by Budweiser®, fell into disrepair, plunged in valuation, and now is sponsored by Hellmann’s Blue Ribbon Mayonnaise®.

  “We tried literally every company in Boston,” Ty says.

  “I’m doomed,” I say.

  “You really are,” Braden says.

  “You totally failed,” Parker says.

  Ty reaches into the cooler and flings a handful of ice at Braden and Parker, who duck the cubes with a pair of grins. Across the street, kids in bright swimsuits run through sprinklers on the lawns of houses sponsored by Marlboro® and Drano® and Spam®. Rainbows fade in and out above the spraying water. Alejandro tears the plastic wrapper from a package of paper plates, delts bulging.

  “It’s not like the wedding is canceled,” Braden says.

  “There’s still going to be a wedding,” Parker says.

  I explode, “You guys don’t get it. It won’t be the same. That sponsor was like half of the budget. That sponsor was backing all of the highlights. The rest of the sponsors are just for props. Fuck, this ceremony was her dream. You should’ve seen her face when she’d talk about it. The way she’d glow. I’m serious, this is going to break her heart. She doesn’t deserve this, she’s a good person, she’s responsible, she’s friendly, she never swears online, she never posts politics, she’s nice to old people, she volunteers with cancer kids. And she isn’t even like that to get sponsors. That’s just who she is. She’s perfect.”

  Braden and Parker get somber.

  “The best a man can get,” I murmur, trailing off.

  A breeze drifts across the yard. The smell of freshly mowed grass. A couple of bottles clink together as melting ice cubes shift in the cooler, and then the street is quiet again aside from the occasional squeal from the kids across the street. Alejandro squats on the stoop, lays Johnsonville® brats onto the grill with a sizzle, pops the caps on some bottles of Heinz® and French’s®, sets a bag of Lay’s® chips by the plates, and then suddenly freezes with an expression of shock.

  “Guys. Brock,” Alejandro exclaims. “I just figured out how to save the wedding.” He turns to me with an excited look. “You just have to talk to Simon.”

  My mind flashes onto a pale, skeletal, frightened face: Simon, the goth kid from the neighborhood, who used to wear eyeliner and lipstick, was known to hold seances in the graveyard across from the dollar store, got ass-beatings with a pathetic regularity, and never had even a single friend.

  Ty squints. “Simon from the block?”

  “No way,” I say.

  “Dude somehow landed a job at Mattel,” Alejandro says.

  “I won’t.”

  “He runs the advertising department for Barbie,” Alejandro says.

  “I can’t.”

  “He’s living in Washington now. I ran into him last month. He was back visiting his mom. I got his number and everything,” Alejandro says.

  “He’d never help me,” I say.

  “Are you kidding? After you grew up in the same neighborhood? The same block? How could he deny a bond like that?”

  “Because he hates me,” I say.

  “What, cause of the incident with the zucchini?”

  “Man, that wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yeah, you can’t be blamed for
that.”

  “Seriously, he’s probably forgotten all about that by now.”

  Alejandro is already dialing the number. He’s always been the runt of the group, jacked now but still the shortest. He loves any chance to act as spokesperson.

  “Simon? Yo, what’s up. Alejandro, from the block. Listen, we’ve got a situation. Do you remember Brock?”

  Ty grabs me by the arms and looks me in the eyes with a grin.

  “Bro, seriously, just imagine the annual budget for the ad department at Barbie.”

  Alejandro covers the mic on the phone.

  “He wants us to drive down to talk about the deal in person,” Alejandro whispers.

  Ty does a fist-pump, high-fives Braden and Parker.

  I grimace.

  “This is going to be a hell of a Hail Mary,” I say.

  We hop into Alejandro’s jeep, swing through a Speedway® for some Cokes™ and a Pepsi™ (Ty always has to be different), and then road-trip down the coast with hip-hop thumping over the stereo. Seagulls soar above the expressway. Models shimmer on the billboards. The sky is crystal clear. We hit the District at sunset, gliding through downtown with windblown hair. Tourists are snapping photos of the Goldman Sachs® White House. Flags billow majestically at the base of the Washington Monument, presented by Viagra™. On the sidewalk, beggars in ragged clothing sit slumped over hats full of change. A rabid-looking hobo with bloodshot eyes and a natty beard stands at a corner, tinted fluorescent red by a stoplight, holding a battered cardboard sign scrawled with a slogan: “Masters Brand Their Slaves.”