Why Visit America

by Matthew Baker

  COLLECTIBLES

  All forms of currency are accepted in America, including dollars, pesos, euros, yen, yuan, won, pounds, francs, rands, kroner, kronor, kronur, and rupees, but most businesses prefer that purchases be made with the national currency, the illustrious. While illustrious can be used to buy anything from a jeep to a slinky, the bills are also prized for the unique design, with each bill being printed on imitation gold leaf. Doomsayers who are convinced that the global financial system is on the verge of a total collapse pretty much any day now will also be pleased to learn that the illustrious is not fiat money but in fact is the only currency in the world currently fixed to a gold standard. Whether you’re simply hoping for a memento of your time here or you’re looking for a slip of paper that will still be worth something after the apocalypse, visitors can get illustrious at The American Bank (see: MAP OF AMERICA, FINANCIAL SERVICES #1).

  Other popular souvenirs for visitors include the national postage. So far we’ve only gotten around to printing a single design, featuring a bull and an armadillo sporting matching liberty caps, which among philatelists is often referred to as simply The American Stamp. Books of stamps can be purchased at the general store on Main Street (see: MAP OF AMERICA, DINING AND SHOPPING #1).

  Visitors interested in taking native animals, plants, and minerals home as keepsakes are encouraged to shoot as many coyotes as you can carry.

  RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES

  America has a relatively lax attitude toward law and order, which creates unique opportunities for recreation. As possession of marijuana is legal in America, visitors are welcome to toke a joint anywhere in the country. As possession of firearms is legal in America, visitors are welcome to do target practice anywhere in the country. All forms of gambling are legal in America, and visitors are invited down to the saloon every night to participate in a variety of contests, including hold ’em, arm wrestling, finger fillet, mancala, and honestly whatever the hell you’re into. America also has no laws against trespassing, granting all persons the freedom to roam, and nature enthusiasts are encouraged to hike, swim, kayak, fish, forage, stargaze, birdwatch, and camp wherever you’d like, although visitors should be warned that rattlesnakes and black widows are a common sighting here, that the local pharmacy is not reliably stocked with antivenom for rattlesnakes and black widows, that although the trout in the creek make for some beautiful angling the banks of the creek are swarming with fire ants and chiggers, that jumping off of the rope swing into the pond is relatively dangerous at any age, that hikers have occasionally been buried by sudden landslides and rockslides and mudslides in the hills, and that the abandoned silver mine is riddled with bottomless pits and flooded caverns and mazelike passageways that can bewilder even those explorers with enough common sense to bring a compass (see: MAP OF AMERICA, PRE-AMERICAN RUIN #2).

  For an immersive cultural experience, visitors who have never had the opportunity to use a fully functional outhouse are invited to use the wood outhouse at Bob Tupper’s (see: MAP OF AMERICA, PLACE OF GENERAL INTEREST #24), although you’re warned to knock first, as he’s often inside. For an authentic culinary experience, visitors who have never had the opportunity to try freshly squeezed cider are invited to try the cider press over at Pete Christie’s (see: MAP OF AMERICA, PLACE OF GENERAL INTEREST #27), although you’re suggested to bring apples, as he’s sometimes out. Jordan Fankhauser has a collection of wigs and toupees that is widely regarded as worth seeing (see: MAP OF AMERICA, PLACE OF GENERAL INTEREST #35). Vanessa Bergquist has a critically acclaimed biscuit recipe that can be whipped up in a jiffy (see: MAP OF AMERICA, PLACE OF GENERAL INTEREST #38). Dominic Deloatch can leap a parked car on a dirt bike (see: MAP OF AMERICA, PLACE OF GENERAL INTEREST #41). Stephanie Khan can do breathtaking magic tricks that defy all explanation (see: MAP OF AMERICA, PLACE OF GENERAL INTEREST #42). Ivan Stepanov lost a couple of toes to frostbite and isn’t shy about showing off the foot (see: MAP OF AMERICA, PLACE OF GENERAL INTEREST #43). Pam Cone plays a mean harmonica, and can generally be heard playing at sunset on the steps of her trailer while supper is cooking in her crockpot, and will even give visitors an introductory lesson in how to play (see: MAP OF AMERICA, PLACE OF GENERAL INTEREST #49). To experience some of the best in local conversation, visitors are invited to claim a rocking chair on the porch at Bev Whittaker’s (see: MAP OF AMERICA, SITE OF HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE #10), or to venture over to the abandoned lumber mill (see: MAP OF AMERICA, PRE-AMERICAN RUIN #3), where the local teenagers often like to hang out at night, swapping gossip and discussing colorful topics ranging from incels to bukkake.

  Hunters will be interested to hear that although there are currently no bounties being offered on local persons, Mx. Hannah Petrovich is offering a bounty of one thousand illustrious to the hunter who can bring her “a cougar with one eye and a black tip on its tail,” which she witnessed eat her pet chihuahua, Sugar, firsthand.

  SENSATIONAL READING

  The most popular genre of reading in America, by far, is “books that have been banned by other countries,” and there’s no greater collection of banned books in the world than in the glorious halls of The American Library (see: MAP OF AMERICA, SITE OF HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE #13). On any given afternoon, visitors will find venerable citizens of our country seated at the sunny tables in the library, perusing notorious novels and memoirs and manifestos. Books extolling the virtues of cannibalism. Books promoting obscene theories of evolution. Books detailing blushingly perverse sexual encounters. Books with thorough instructions for building homemade explosives. And yet the main attraction of the library is not the banned books section, but rather the archive of historical documents stored at the back of the library, where visitors can read the collected letters of Sam Holliday. Weighing in at over a kilogram, the letters are widely regarded as the most scandalous work of literature in the library. As interesting as banned books are, there’s nothing as exciting as getting to read letters written by somebody betraying a country.

  Here we’d thought that he’d just been quietly brooding this whole time. We didn’t realize until later that summer that for months he’d been mailing letters to institutions back across the border, trying to get the United States to intervene. He’d sent letters to Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and Homeland Security. He’d sent letters to the Army. He’d sent letters to the Navy. He’d sent letters to the Air Force. He’d sent letters to the Marine Corps. Out of what must have been sheer desperation, he’d even sent letters to the Coast Guard. Eloquent, heartfelt, pleading letters, explaining that we had seceded. Begging for somebody, anybody, to take action.

  “I am the only one here still loyal to this country,” Sam wrote in his seventh and final letter to the secretary of the Interior.

  The United States plutocracy was busy committing various acts of corruption. The United States military was engaged in multiple foreign wars simultaneously. Nobody ever responded.

  Sam had always been a meticulous record keeper, and kept a xerox of each of the letters in the safe in his office, for which we are grateful, given that the originals were probably lost, or shredded, or recycled, or are currently decomposing in landfills somewhere in the District of Columbia.

  PRICELESS PHOTOGRAPHS

  Belle had pushed him too far that night at the creek. After the fight over the fireworks, Sam finally quit waiting for the United States to intervene. He gave up writing letters. He picked up the phone. He’d decided that if anybody was going to act, goddamnit it was going to have to be him, and so that next week he made some calls, to real people, to ordinary people, people he had known back in the Scouts, people he had met during the Vietnam War, people he had befriended over at Veterans Affairs. People who doubtless owned starred-and-striped apparel, and believed in manifest destiny, and spoke of exceptionalism unironically, and stood for “The Star-Spangled Banner” during sporting events even when watching the sporting events on television, even when the sporting events were not being broadcast live, even when
the sporting events had been recorded decades prior. People who evidently were outraged to learn that we had seceded. Nearly a hundred people answered the call to arms. Nearly a hundred Yankees, mostly elderly, uniformly white, some suffering from diabetes, some diagnosed with hypertension, some obviously on the verge of dementia, armed with shotguns and rifles and pistols and revolvers. Fervid patriots of the United States, who couldn’t bear for the country to cede even thirteen square kilometers of land.

  We have an open-border policy. Our borders are literally never patrolled. Sam could have instructed the invading force just to drive straight into town on the highway. Instead, Sam cut a hole in the rusted barbwire fence out by the quarry in the dead of night, and the soldiers invaded our country under the cover of darkness, crawling across a hectare of rocky terrain to reach his property. Today visitors are welcome to strike a pose in the hole in the fence (see: MAP OF AMERICA, SITE OF HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE #5), which has since become an iconic location for selfies.

  There are rumors that one of the soldiers sprained a wrist in a ditch, and that another soldier was stung by a couple of scorpions during the crawl, although, honestly, who the hell knows.

  LEGENDARY PERSONALITIES

  Belle lived alone in those years, and almost always had. In her youth she had married a sweet friendly therapist whose name is not worthy of print, who after a couple years of matrimony had become abusive, slapping and hitting her one night when he was drunk. Belle hadn’t hesitated, had kicked him out the next morning, had filed a restraining order, had filed for a divorce, had sprayed the hood of his coupe with some birdshot when he had come around to try to reconcile, and had been reaching for a shell of buckshot as he had sped away with dust trailing his coupe. Afterward he had moved back to New Mexico, where he had come from, and where he later died of meningitis, which had saddened no one. The bastard had never been one of us. Belle had been one of us since birth. She’d had an independent, rebellious, freethinking spirit even when she was young, roaming around the town in ripped levis and baggy flannels. She had loved zines and comix. She had loved punk and grunge. She was the one who had first thought to hang a rope swing from the giant mesquite tree out at the pond, and had first dared to hold a seance in the abandoned silver mine, and had first dared to throw a party out at the abandoned lumber mill. She had inherited the family farm when her parents had been killed in a car wreck on the highway, and though she had always been somewhat reckless and irresponsible, through sheer grit and determination she had overcome the tragedy, transforming the property from a modest homestead into a thriving business in a matter of years, selling off the livestock to plant a magnificent vineyard, tearing down the house to build a grand hacienda. There was nobody who loved our town, loved the gulch and the creek and the hills and the plains, as intensely as she did, recruiting groups of us for hikes on the weekend or taking hikes alone when the rest of us were busy. She knew every centimeter of the land. She would notice if ragweed or mushrooms suddenly began growing in new patches of soil. She could tell the quality of soil from the taste of plucked chicory or clover. No matter where she was, she always knew where to find the nearest shade, or clay, or blackberries, or arrowheads. She hadn’t been the first libertarian among us, had been introduced to libertarianism by others here, but she was the first to propose secession. She had been fighting over a decade for our town to secede. She was elected president of our country at the age of fifty. America was her dream. And yet she’d only wanted for us to be free. She’d never wanted to lead us. She had resisted the nomination for president, and had only reluctantly accepted the results of the election. She worried that she didn’t have the qualities a leader needed. She thought she was too impulsive. She thought she was too temperamental. Like the rest of us, she’d always assumed that if we ever actually seceded, Sam would be our president. He was that admired. He was that respected. Sam was the best of us, and always had been. There was nobody whose character was held in such high regard. Belle had tried so desperately to persuade him during those meetings at town hall. She had longed for him to join us. We would have voted for him unanimously. He would have had her vote too. Instead, she had been forced to take on the burden of the presidency, and rather than leading us he seemed determined to oppose us. Belle would have hated for any of us to oppose the new country, but him of all people troubled her greatly. The situation tormented her, the situation anguished her, afflicted her with doubt and apprehension, until finally she confided to some of us that she was so frustrated and discouraged and angry that she would have liked to just exile him. By then she considered him an enemy.

  In America there’s no relationship that’s had such profound consequences for our country as the relationship between her and Sam. And yet she and he hardly knew each other, belonged to different generations, and encountered each other only a handful of times. In recognition of the historical significance, each of these locations is today marked with an official plaque. The spot in the parking lot of the pharmacy where she once exchanged some remarks with him about the sunny forecast. The spot on the sidewalk by the gas station where she once exchanged some remarks with him about a recent drought. The spot where she and he once had a friendly conversation about barbecued tofu during a community cookout. The spot where she once pulled over her truck to help him change a flat tire on his pickup. The spot under the awning of the bank where she and he once waited out a sudden downpour together. The spot on the bleachers where she once sat next to him during a local baseball game, her drinking a root beer, him eating some cotton candy, mere weeks before we seceded, when she’d tried one last time to convince him to vote for independence. His porch, during the argument about the flag. Her patio, during the incident at the summit. The confrontation at the creek.

  The penultimate encounter occurred on July Thirteenth, when she happened to cross paths with him at the general store, each pushing a shopping cart down the produce aisle from opposite directions, intersecting eventually at the crate of bananas. Without speaking to each other or acknowledging each other whatsoever, she and he are said to have engaged in simultaneous conversations with Joselyn Fankhauser, the teenaged clerk, about the ripeness of the bananas, Belle remarking upon how bananas tasted best when the peels still had a hint of green, Sam commenting upon how bananas tasted best when the peel was just beginning to turn brown, which many of us present interpreted as a coded debate about politics and democracy and nationhood. Neither she nor he bought any bananas. Two days later our country was invaded.

  THE SHOWDOWN

  In America, when we gather for meals, we have a tradition of always saving the best for last, regardless of whether the dish would technically be classified as appetizer

  or entree or dessert or digestif. Whether it’s sweet or it’s salty, we like to end with the best that we’ve got. This guidebook isn’t any different. Now that you’ve made it here to the end, dear visitor, we’re proud to present the premier tourist attraction in our country.

  Main Street. July Fifteenth. Sam Holliday came trotting into town at high noon wearing a cowboy hat and a white bandanna, swaying in the saddle of a stately horse as the flag that he was holding, Old Glory, waved grandly in the wind. Behind him marched nearly a hundred foreign soldiers wielding shotguns and rifles and pistols and revolvers, some with weathered skin, some with windburned faces, some with soul patches, some with gnarled beards, some with thick mustaches, with overbites and underbites and eyeglasses and eyepatches and fleshy scars and prosthetic limbs and beady squints and furious scowls and class rings with glinting birthstones, strangers to all of us, dressed in military fatigues and kevlar vests and hunting caps and combat jackets and an array of faded t-shirts screen-printed with images of bald eagles and bison and howling wolves. Mount Rushmore. Lady Liberty. We heard him and the soldiers coming, a distant murmur of boots and hooves, a growing chorus of voices and whinnies, frightening thunderclaps of noise, before we could see anything, and then he and the soldiers came into view, turning onto th
e street in a mass, marching straight to the center of town, occupying the section of the street just across from town hall. A militia of overemotional jingoists, looking agitated and disturbed and ready for a showdown. A terrifying sight to behold.

  Sam had chosen the timing of the invasion for maximum impact. It was a weekend. Saturday in the summertime. Some fifty of us happened to be downtown, observing the invasion from some fifty different perspectives. Pam Cone, who was leaning against the hitching post over at the saloon, stared at the soldiers while playing a song on the harmonica. Ward Hernandez stepped up to the doors of the saloon with a dishrag, gazing out at the soldiers with a frown, as Bob Tupper and Pete Christie, who had been playing a game of cards at the table next to the windows, turned to look at the soldiers through the dusty glass. Antonio Vega watched the soldiers from where he was pumping gasoline into a sedan, while Becky Coots, who had gone into the gas station to buy a portable phone charger just in case of emergencies, stared at the scene in the street with the cashier on duty, Rick Pinkney. Tim Kelly watched the soldiers from where he was pulling a sack of ice from a commercial freezer, while Cameron Ramirez, who had gone into the general store to hang a flyer about glee club, stared at the scene in the street with the manager on duty, Hannah Petrovich. The Fankhausers, who had just walked out of the bank with some complimentary lollipops and a receipt for a deposit, froze in the door of the bank. The Bergquists, who had just walked out of the pharmacy with a package of disposable razors and some prescription ritalin, froze in the door of the pharmacy. Across the street, the Garzas and the Dylans, who had just left the library together, stood stock-still in the parking lot with tote bags full of books, staring at the soldiers with expressions of uncertainty, confusion, fear, and dread. Ivan Stepanov peered over a gardening magazine behind the cash register over in the tobacco shop. Melanie Curbeam peered out under a conversion van in the service bay at the repair shop. Alex Cruz, who had been sitting on a bench playing a mobile game on his phone, literally gaped at the soldiers with a slack jaw. Tony Osin, who had been shuffling to his truck with a liter of margarita mix, was gazing at the soldiers with a look of astonishment. Walt Ho stared at the scene from behind the window of the salon, draped with an apron, getting his bangs trimmed by James Whipper, who was also staring, holding a pair of scissors. Bev Whittaker stared at the scene from the window at the dentist, draped with an apron, getting her teeth cleaned by Audrey Whipper, who was also staring, holding a strand of floss. Riley Whipper, Presley Johnson, Kendra Goldberg, Adrian Moreau, and Mike Cooks, who had just smoked a bowl and were all high as fuck, were watching in shock from the picnic table at the ice cream shop, holding spoons over a trough of ice cream, heaped scoops of maple walnut and salted caramel and praline and nutella topped with spirals of whipped cream, which was just beginning to melt in the sun. Allison Deloatch, who was working her first shift ever at the ice cream shop, her first job, was peering out the window of the ice cream sundae, clutching the binder with the instruction manual for new employees, as if that somehow might explain what to do in the event of an invasion. Kimberly Khan, who had been hanging from the monkey bars at the playground in her lucky outfit, off-brand chucks and a romper with rainbow barrettes in her hair, stared at the soldiers only a second before dropping to the woodchips and bolting back toward home.