Popshot Magazine – August 2019

profile murders. Shows about space exploration or aliens and the upside-down.
Corruption and power and desperate, worthy heroes. Always the same stories.
Sometimes I called Candice’s phone, hiding my number. I’d breathe down the
receiver, trying to sound like a lost soul trapped in her subconscious, exhaling fast or
holding the silence in my mouth, waiting for her to fish it out.
“Hello? Who is this?”
She knew it was me. Most of the time she didn’t pick up, and I’d reach her voicemail
where she would politely ask me to leave a message.
“Bonjour,” I’d say, Bitch I’d think.
For a while I spent a lot of time in my room. Mother said I should get out more.
Go for a walk. See friends. But they were all there on my screen, taking me to my
favourite places; the Wild West, downtown New York, airless shopping malls and
hotdog stands and high schools with kids even more lonely than I’d been. I loved it
all – the fictional White Houses and pretend Presidents. The FBI headquarters and
the clapboard homes in Southern suburbia where I could almost feel the moisture
swelling the air. Twisty shows about terrorists, the way they festered people’s fears.
There was so much at play in America, so much to see, to do, to learn. After a while
I realised I couldn’t see it all from my laptop. I needed more than two dimensions.
I needed to be there, for real.
Before America I’d been not good for much. My LinkedIn profile claimed I was a
digital nomad and freelance pop culture journo, but I was just another graduate back
at home with broken dreams, getting his clothes washed by his mother. The theory
was I could live anywhere. Do anything. But I didn’t feel I was ready to put myself out
there. Besides the world was already full of other people’s words, and none of them
meant much anymore. Everything was fake, contestable, phony, fantastical.
I got fed up. Mother was worried I was depressed; my room stank of sweat and
socks. Even calling Candice was getting boring.
“You’re pathetic,” she’d say. Or “Fuck off loser.” It was so nice to hear her voice and
how mad I could make her. The things she said even sounded like American insults
and I took that as a sign; it was time to go there.
So I shut my eyes, I booked my tickets and I flew.
I was petrified of crashing, but as the plane descended I had this physical sensation
that good times lay ahead. It felt like syrup was being slowly poured over my body.
That I was entering a sweetness. The liquid sugar of optimism warming my veins.
In America I was pleased to find I was interesting. I was British in a way I’d never
been British before; polite, worldly, calm. Flags flapped in the airport with their
cheerful stripes and stars. Welcoming.
I didn’t know how long I was going for, I figured until my B2 visa ran out. I had a
credit card and some of grandma’s inheritance to keep me going and soon I found a
place to stay, lodging with an older couple who kept themselves to themselves.
When I ate, the food tasted bland and bloated and it always came in boxes, like
presents in the post. I changed my clothes too, opting for a preppy look. Styled my
overgrown hair into a neat ponytail like the tech elite did in Silicon Valley.
I got it all figured out in America. Suddenly, being away from my country meant I
was in demand in it. People wanted me to write, to add some US filtered flair to their
content.