Arrive into Atlanta after one of the most harrowing days ever. PIN number stops working; no trains to Gatwick; taxi to Victoria; expressway to yr skull. Never have the children and elderly of the Gatwick North terminal been more afraid than when we arrived with our suitcases and grit.
3 films and 2 half-eaten “meals” later, we finally land in the ATL, not fully aware of the ordeal that awaited us. Mark and I fill out our required landing cards (never have I been more thankful to be a Canadian and yet, simultaneously ashamed, knowing that I have been given preferential treatment over the passport I chose to fly with.) In the foreigners line, I am surrounded not by fat loud Americans but an armful of Britons about to be photographed and fingerprinted due to their alien status. I begin to grow a quiet rage in my stomach, slowly realising the inevitable: that I would have to be stamped and photographed by the US fucking government.
Welcome to America! You are a criminal in our eyes.
And then with a flash of my passport, it was over. No photogrpahs, no black ink, just walk. I am Canadian and thus apparently deserve special treatment. But I’m not – I’m a Spaniard as well and as such, would have been subjected to the humiliations that the Homeland Security buffoons deemed acceptable. I have not changed yet my suitability somehow has. White mask – I want to pull out my other documents and slap them all in the face.
The Atlanta airport was the most disagreeable experienced I’ve ever had in an airport outside of Canada. It is only here that one can truly understand the nature of American hypocrisy and ignorant indignation. From the security checks out of the airport to the claiming and re-claiming of luggage to the BA office deciding that my suitcase was a threat to national security, I have never hated a country more in my life than I hated America in those two hours. No one bothered to answer questions or provide justification for any requests, no matter how inappropriate the act in question. In fact, it is you, you with your questions and concerns and above all, logic, that is the problem. Everything in the interests of American security.
Including my luggage, still in London, far away from my strained face and tired body.
“Ma’am, did you have a gun in your bag?”
“Did you have something in the shape of a gun?”
All reasonable questions, I’m sure. That is, if I was entering a war zone. But then, as the Weather Underground campaigned, Bring the War Home.
Before we left London, I semi-joked with Mark that I was liable to make a scene or at very least ask a few questions. Of course, this was never an option if I ever wanted to be let into the country. However in the end it was Mark that came the closest to making a scene over the outrageous treatment we were all receiving, infidels and Yanks alike.
“Why do you have a Visa for Yemen in your passport?”
“Well then, why were you going to go to Yemen?”
“Why would anyone go to Yemen?”
I like the kebabs.
No one is spared from the humiliating subordination. The different is that only some of us are outraged by it all.
Once freed into the Atlanta air, we began the drive to Athens. I counted five Wal-Marts and eight Waffle Houses until I became blind by it all. I never realised the extent to which saturation can infest landscape. Saturated fat comes in many different forms of packaging and just like its artery-blocking cousin, the saturated fat of the brain clogs the cells of reason and capability. i.e. everyone is too friendly here. Canadians have the reputation for being nice, boring and nice yet again. God. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a huge city or maybe it’s because I’m just a cynical being in my true form, but the over-friendliness of this service industry hurts my teeth. I just want to get some dinner and instead I feel hostile. Saccharine smiles and all round plastic fantastic. No wonder they’re all packing heat. I couldn’t stop giggling at it all- not because I was amused or even entertained – but because it was the only way of releasing a reaction that did not encourage the potential gunshot wound.
But then there are the woods. Mark’s house is on the edge of Athens and is enveloped by forest, deer and a quiet beauty. It seems much like America itself: there is beauty here in vast amounts but it is hidden beneath the garish and nausea-inducing vulgarity. I wonder at the time what America could be if everyone woke up from their selfish comas for the first time and fulfilled the potential they have squandered through their greed.
