Why Visit America

by Matthew Baker

  She dreamed of that night again, she cried out from the nightmare, and when she awoke she drank cold pure water from a jar, gratefully, gulping, and then the jar was taken away from her and with water still dripping from her nose and her chin she reached for the child who had been brought to her where she lay on the cot in the creaking shanty, and she held the child in her arms, clutching him greedily, kissing his head, stroking his cheeks, whispering, “You’re mine, baby, all mine.”

  Appearance

  We sit in the parking lot and we wait.

  We do not drive what you would expect. Some kind of van would be best, or a truck maybe—something dark-colored—but what my grandfather has is a white sedan.

  Lights above the bar’s back door cast yellow squares onto the cement. The back door is what separates the bar’s kitchen from the bar’s garbage. It is a metal door and from the outside has no handles.

  We can take only one, sometimes two, per trip. My grandfather’s trunk has its limits.

  We do not listen to the radio.

  Our problem is a problem of borders. Our house was built at the northern border of our property, and our property sits at the northern border of our town. Our town itself is at the northern border of our state—Rhode Island—which means that when we look north from the window above our microwave, all we see are borders, piled on top of each other, sharing the same space.

  The cooks take turns throughout the night carrying loads of trash out to the garbage bin. Already a cook with dark dreads has taken his turn, and also Ryan Williams, who goes to my school, in the grade above me, and also is a cook. We are waiting for the Unwanted, who, like all of the Unwanted, we know will have skin so pale that the skin will be nearly transparent, and hair as white as his skin. The bar hired him several weeks ago. The bar’s owner would not reason with my grandfather.

  Understand that I know the proper terms for them. I know the terms used for them on podcasts and television. What I use are the terms my grandfather prefers—Unwanted, Squatters, Trespassers, Spares—the terms we hear at the supermarket, at the hardware store, on the porches of our neighbors. Unwanted can be both singular and plural. I’ve heard it used both ways.

  The back door opens. A cook has shoved the door open with his butt, bent over dragging a pair of trash bags backward toward the garbage bin. Stepping between the squares of light on the cement, the cook props the door open with the brick the cooks keep there.

  I’m wearing the white t-shirt of my high school’s chess club, dark athletic shorts, and plastic sandals. It is December, but I am always warm. Even wearing only this, I am sweating. It is all the fat on me. I like to sit how my grandfather sits—with his hands on his stomach, the fingers of his hands interlocking—but my hands are so fat that I have trouble fitting my fingers together. When it happened, the Appearance, I was four years old. The Unwanted have been here with us for thirteen years, so now my age is seventeen.

  Brett, get out of the car, my grandfather says, and then I know this cook’s our man.

  * * *

  We have had the misfortune of taking three of them.

  Two of them—the two Unwanted who stepped out after the cook on trash duty, one holding a lighter, the other carrying cigarettes—are in our trunk. It appears the bar had made some even newer hires. We duct-taped their wrists and ankles, then gagged them with their aprons.

  The other cook is in our backseat.

  He has spit out the apron we gagged him with.

  Please, my name is Zachary, he says.

  His hair is buzzed to the scalp—a style preferred by many Unwanted, as the color of their hair is one of the things that sets them apart. Beneath the skin of his face, pale blue veins are visible, the veins charting different territories on his forehead, his temples, his cheeks. This is the other thing that sets apart the Unwanted—those of us who were here before the Appearance, what’s beneath our skin is hidden. The Unwanted often wear makeup, to make their skin more opaque, but Zachary, sprawled across our backseat, is not wearing makeup.

  The other two had been.

  Outside the stars appear in their various constellations.

  My fingers are coated with the makeup from their throats.

  My grandfather would be displeased if he knew I thought of this Unwanted as a Zachary. Names are something one is given when one is born, my grandfather has said. The Unwanted were never born, he says, so it is unnatural for them to take names. When my grandfather does speak to an Unwanted, he uses either You or Spare.

  My grandfather wears old blue jeans, his work shirt from his job at the plant, and a dark cardigan unbuttoned over the work shirt. He prefers to wear his work shirt when we come for the Unwanted, as some kind of statement. He wears the cardigan, however, to cover the Edward stitched above the work shirt’s breast pocket. He prefers the Unwanted not know his name.

  Where are you taking me, Zachary says. I must finish my shift.

  Brett, put the apron back in that Spare.

  I can’t reach it, I say.

  The fields that we’re passing now are some of the fields where the Unwanted first appeared thirteen years ago. My school, Zachary’s bar, are both at our town’s center. We are moving from our town’s center toward the outskirts, toward our house.

  I do not remember the Appearance. Some of the kids in my grade remember where they were, what they were doing, when they first heard. I don’t remember the day at all.

  What I do remember is a few years later, when I was seven, the day I heard my grandfather had been fired. Where I was, what I was doing, when I heard my grandfather had been fired, was herding stray cats into our shed. I liked to bring them there, keep them locked inside until they would start fighting. It wasn’t my grandfather who told me he had been fired. A friend told me as he helped me herd the cats with sticks. Your grandpa isn’t on vacation, my friend said. Your grandpa got fired, just like my dad.

  My grandfather had been telling me he’d been taking sick days.

  He’d been sitting in our kitchen, drinking juice and staring out the window, for a week.

  Please, tonight I must take my daughter to her dance practice, Zachary says. My wife, she cannot drive.

  Zachary’s English is proficient—better than most Unwanted’s.

  I’ve seen videos online of the day of the Appearance. Ours was not the only state affected—most of the Heartland was, parts of the Southwest, some of the Northwest, most of New England. In Rhode Island, only eight or nine thousand Unwanted appeared. As everywhere else, they appeared out of nowhere, in fields, where before there had been nothing. None of them speaking English. None of them speaking anything. Some of them old, others only children, all of them naked. All of them walking in from the fields toward the lights of the nearest town.

  Our state is not an island.

  In the videos, the hospitals and the police stations are crowded with Unwanted.

  Nobody knew what to do with them. The Unwanted could not tell us where they had come from, so we could not send them back.

  Even now, now that many of them can speak English, the Unwanted will not say. If they remember anything from before the Appearance, they are not telling us.

  Brett, my grandfather says, because Zachary is still talking.

  Zachary’s apron is on the floor of the sedan behind my grandfather’s seat.

  Zachary’s wrists and ankles are still taped.

  I am still sweating.

  I lean over the gearshift and reach for Zachary’s apron. Still I cannot reach it.

  Use your shirt, my grandfather says.

  I do not like to take off my shirt except for when I am alone. I cannot describe what it is like to be both fat and in high school.

  The only thing worse is to be in high school and an Unwanted.

  Zachary says, Please, if you want money, I have—

  Zachary is gagged with my t-shirt.

  My high school is eighth grade through twelfth grade. A few of the eighth-graders—born the year aft
er the Appearance—appear to be at least half Unwanted, if not fully. Skin somewhat transparent, hair as white as their skin. But they were born here in Rhode Island, are citizens of the United States, and so the school’s administrators cannot have them deported.

  Rhode Island is still the only state where it is illegal to be an Unwanted. After my grandfather was fired, he fought alongside the other unemployed who brought the case to state courts. My friend, herding a straggling black cat into the shed, said my grandfather and his father had not been fired for being poor workers. They had been fired, he said, because their jobs had been taken.

  Spares will work for anything, my friend said. Like a dollar an hour. Those fuckers.

  My friend had often cursed in this way—emphasis always on the curse word, as if by its very nature it did not already have it.

  Rhode Island was the only state to load the Unwanted onto buses and deport them to other states, but ours was not the only state affected. The job shortages are everywhere. In other states, factories are often fully staffed by Unwanted. The grocery stores. The gas stations. The kitchens of restaurants and bars. Even in our state, the law against them is not enough. They come anyway, taking the jobs that require no paperwork, no college or even high school diploma. The state does not have the money it would take to deport all of them.

  A popular metal band is fronted by an Unwanted—the lyrics to her songs are often about her experience as an Unwanted, often critical of the ways they have been treated.

  She does not understand.

  We had not known they were coming.

  I can only listen to her songs when my grandfather is out looking for work. And her band cannot come to Rhode Island, when her band is on tour.

  First word they taught me was broom / didn’t know where to put us, gave us vacant rooms / at Little Rock’s airport hotels / had us sweeping and mopping to cover our bills.

  In other states, the Unwanted were treated less charitably.

  I have seen videos online I cannot even talk about.

  Our sedan blows past our mailbox and our driveway and our house beyond it. The windows of our house are dark. Beyond it, our empty shed.

  Zachary has spit out my t-shirt.

  What did you do with Jamie and Paul? Zachary says. After you put me in the car—what did you do to them? Did you hurt them?

  They’re coming with us, my grandfather says. Brett, put the shirt back in.

  Zachary has white stubble on his cheeks and his jaw. His eyes are a dark brown color. I have never before seen an Unwanted with brown eyes. Normally their irises are a pale blue, so pale that the irises may as well just be white.

  I put the t-shirt back in.

  We follow the road past more fields toward the border station. The border station is lit by lights that shoot cones of yellow into the sky. Before my grandfather pulls up to the border agent’s booth, he has me roll Zachary onto the floor of the sedan. He tosses his cardigan over Zachary’s head, then some unfolded maps over Zachary’s body.

  What we are doing is illegal. But in the same way that law enforcement in our state is willing to pretend that Unwanted are not living and working within the borders of Rhode Island, law enforcement is also willing to pretend that those same Unwanted are not sometimes disappearing. As long as we do not make it impossible for them to pretend, law enforcement will leave us be.

  It is a matter of keeping them unseen, the Unwanted that we take.

  This is why my grandfather prefers to take only one, sometimes two, per trip.

  My grandfather’s trunk has its limits.

  It is easier when they are simply in the trunk.

  We pull up to the border agent’s booth. My grandfather puts the sedan in park, takes my license, indicates to the border agent that he cannot roll down his window, and then steps out of the sedan. Per my grandfather’s instructions, I pretend to be singing along with a song over the radio to mask the sound of Zachary’s gagged shouting. Our radio is not on. I am not a gifted singer. My grandfather shuts his door.

  I am in here, in the sedan, with Zachary.

  Zachary is on the floor under a pile of maps.

  Door’s closed, I say. Quit yelling.

  Zachary quits.

  What I want to know is, why even come here? I say to him. I talk through my teeth, without moving my lips, so that if my grandfather looks back over his shoulder he will not see me talking.

  Zachary makes a sound.

  You could go anywhere. New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut. There are lots of legal places.

  Zachary makes another sound. My grandfather opens his door, sinks into his seat while shouting goodnight to the border agent, and shuts his door again. The border agent waves us through. My grandfather gives me back my license. We drive north.

  Those fuckers, my friend said, helping me shut the doors of the shed. Why don’t they go back to their own planet?

  Like my friend, many believed the Unwanted were aliens who had migrated from some other planet—as if going on a vacation. Others, like our bus driver, believed the Unwanted were beings from another universe in our multiverse, beings who had somehow been taken from their universe and transported to our own. Others believed that hell was full up, and that the Unwanted were excess demons—others that what was full was heaven, and that the Unwanted were excess angels.

  But even then, I knew the truth about the Unwanted.

  That what they are is only people.

  Are you listening to me? my grandfather says. Spare, are you listening?

  Zachary makes a sound.

  I spent five years in state court getting that law passed to keep you out, my grandfather says. And now they won’t enforce it. So I’m going to enforce it. We’re going to. Me and my grandson.

  Zachary makes a sound, then no more sounds at all.

  Our sedan passes the towns of those who live in Massachusetts.

  My grandfather prefers to do it outside of Boston.

  When my grandfather is driving he cannot sit how he likes—with his hands on his stomach, the fingers of his hands interlocking—but he makes a face that gives one the impression that he is still doing it.

  My grandmother knows something of migrations, wherever she is—she left my grandfather when my mother was still only a child.

  My grandfather’s cheeks and jaw are spotted with white stubble.

  I think this is what bothers him most about aging—that in some ways he is beginning to look like them.

  I have always lived with my grandfather—my mother knows something of migrations.

  And not even my mother knew the name of my father.

  We park the sedan in the graveyard my grandfather prefers, on the outskirts of Boston, just beyond the city limits.

  My grandfather puts his arms back into his cardigan, leaves the cardigan unbuttoned over his work shirt. We get out of the sedan, drag Zachary out of the backseat, then haul Jamie and Paul out of the trunk. Zachary spits out my t-shirt. I do not put it back on.

  I take the aprons out of the mouths of Jamie and Paul.

  They, like Zachary, have questions.

  My grandfather takes out his knife.

  Please, my name is Jamie, and—

  My grandfather cuts the tape from Jamie’s ankles.

  You are not welcome in Rhode Island, my grandfather says.

  My grandfather cuts the tape from Paul’s ankles.

  I know what my grandfather does not seem to. That anywhere we leave them will be somewhere they are not from. That they are not welcome here. That even where they are legal, they are still called the Unwanted.

  Where are we? Paul says. Please, do not leave us here, my boyfriend is—

  My grandfather cuts the tape from Zachary’s ankles, saying, You can undo each other’s hands after we’re gone.

  The makeup from Jamie and Paul’s throats still coats my fingers. I cannot see it but I can feel it. The graveyard is not lit by any lights. I know that the veins in their throats are more visible tha
n the veins in their faces, where their makeup has not been rubbed off. The moonlight outlines the shapes of the Unwanted, but not much more than that.

  We walk back to the sedan.

  To answer your question, Zachary shouts at me, because the money is in Rhode Island. And because Rhode Island is my home—just like you live there, I am from there too.

  What question? my grandfather says to me.

  I do not say a thing.

  You are not from there, my grandfather shouts at Zachary. You came there from somewhere far away. Rhode Island belongs to me, and my family, the same as it always has. My grandfather lived there, and his grandfather before him. It does not belong to you.

  We get back into the sedan.

  I drape my t-shirt over the backseat, because it is still damp from Zachary’s saliva.

  Our sedan passes the towns of those who live in Massachusetts.

  We drive back toward Rhode Island.

  What I know about migrations is what I have been taught in school. My grandfather’s grandfather did live in Rhode Island, and so did my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather. But our people have not always lived here. Before they came to the United States, they lived in what is now Germany. Before they came to Germany, they lived in what is now Turkey. Before that, somewhere else still.