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My pasty fingers were trembling as my flight from Stockholm approached O’Hare International Airport 15 minutes ahead of schedule. I feared that my luggage would be sniffed by a tenacious German shepherd and searched by a stoic U.S. customs agent who played rugby on the weekends. I worried that I would walk out of the airport and collapse on the concrete pavement in front of a python of Yellow Cabs as my lungs filled with the suffocating humidity of one of Illinois’ infamous dog days of August. Accustomed to the chug-chug of the passenger train to Tallinn and the putt-putt of the bus to Rakvere, I feared I would have to ride through six lanes of traffic on the tollway at 75 mph (121kph) with my eyes closed and my arms cradling my stomach. Last but not least, I was afraid that by the end of the day, my stomach would explode from the mega hamburgers, deluxe pizzas, and super burritos my family would order to welcome me home.
Seven hours after landing at O’Hare, though, I arrived safely in Springfield. Abraham Lincoln lived in Springfield from 1837 to 1861, and my parents have lived here since the 1940s. I attended kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and college here. After living in Tapa for three years, I encamped in Springfield to assess my parents’ health; to catch up with my nephews, who were both in high school, and my nieces, who liked playing cards and board games now; and to spend some time with an aunt and an uncle who were dealing with cancer.
From August to December, I worked in Decatur. At 65mph (105kph) on a four-lane highway, Decatur is 35 minutes east of Springfield. I taught three developmental writing classes three days a week to 40 students at Richland Community College, and I tutored individuals in the college’s learning center. While American English requires commas much more often than British English, my Decatur students, many of them in their 20s and 30s, repeatedly made some of the same mistakes my Tapa students made.
During the Christmas and New Year holidays, I hunted for American alligators and searched for Coach purses in Houston with a good friend from high school and her family; scored a career high 172 points during a family Wii bowling tournament at my sister’s house in Petersburg (Illinois); and rode buses and subways from friend to friend, store to store, and bar to bar in Chicago. I decided not to teach at Richland in 2010. So as I write this, I am still living with my aging parents and searching for a full-time job with a nonprofit organization in Chicago.
The first couple of months I was back here in America, sitting in the living room behind the morning newspaper and in front of the nightly television news programs, two things kept slapping me in the face: pointless violence and shameless voyuerism. In September, just 40 minutes northeast of Springfield, in a rural area like Pariisi, a husband, his wife, and their three children were murdered in their home. In October, 20 minutes northwest of Springfield, in a town the size of Haljala, a 74-year-old woman was charged with killing her granddaughter’s husband.
In Springfield, which has only a few thousand more residents than Tartu, there were a total of 12 murders in 2009. In Chicago, there were 458 murders. With nearly 3 million residents, that was just 1.5% of the city’s population. Yet it meant reading “was shot”, “was stabbed”, “was killed”, “was strangled”, “was run over” or “was smothered to death” in the newspaper every day of the year. It meant hearing the stories on the nightly news, too, and, in the case of a 16-year-old high school student, whose fatal beating in September was captured on video, it meant seeing the attack over and over again on a number of Internet sites. Lastly, it meant the wide smile I had displayed ever since I had sailed past the customs agents at O’Hare began to droop.
Even though I felt safe walking around Springfield, driving through Decatur, and riding the subway in Chicago, I was disturbed by the number of murders. I had returned to the wealthiest, most gifted, most generous, most tolerant nation in the world, had I not? How in singular sophistication that constructed the international space station, donated more than $3 billion to charity, and elected an African American President had America preserved its cowboy mentality of the late 1800s? I was also baffled by the motives behind the murders. The Mafia wasn’t silencing snitches in central Illinois; Crips weren’t retaliating against Vice Lords in Chicago. No; a grandma discharged a Glock 17. No; three teenagers repeatedly whacked another boy with a railroad tie. Finally, no matter how mad I had ever been at my students in Tapa or frustrated with my co-workers in Chicago, I was unable to fathom the anger that boiled over and incited toilet-using, potato chip-eating individuals to kill, to kill more than once, to kill people they knew.
Repulsed by these senseless murders, as well as the ones in Fort Hood, Texas and Lakewood, Washington, I was also vexed by America’s interest in other people’s personal lives, particularly Tiger Woods’ and Jon Gosselin’s. One week in August or September, a national, half-hour entertainment news program opened every night with reports on Gosselin’s activities over the previous 24 hours. After three or four banal stories with shots of Gosselin getting out of a car or walking down a sidewalk, I asked my mother why his pending divorce was of national importance. She told me that there had been a reality TV show about him and his wife raising their eight children (a set of twins and a set of sextuplets). I was still confused about why the nation pried into this difficult period in this ordinary family’s life and, fed the details, how we were supposed to respond.
I didn’t understand either why Woods’ fender-bender gripped the attention of America’s news, entertainment, and sports media for more than a week at the end of November. He was not injured, and he had enough money to buy himself a new Cadillac Escalade. He would golf again. Naively, I asked why the story did not end there. My brother-in-law explained to me that the morning of the accident, Woods had been running away from his Swedish wife, who had been chasing him down the driveway with a golf club because she had suspected him of having an extramarital affair. Again, I searched for the reason the eyes of America were transfixed on Woods even though he wasn’t on the golf course, wasn’t even tied for the lead on the final hole of a PGA classic.
Fortunately, my stomach did not explode after I ate a double bacon cheeseburger with onion, tomato, and lettuce from Steak ‘n Shake, one of my parents’ favorite restaurants. A few weeks later, it felt pretty good after three pieces of a cheesy, stuffed, onion, sausage, and green pepper pizza from the Giordano’s just off Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. I did not have indigestion after I ate a bean and cheese-stuffed burrito de pollo asada with rice from Luevo Leon in the city’s Mexican neighborhood. Yet news of a murder, whether it is from Springfield, Illinois or thousands of miles away in Springfield, California, makes me nauseous, and Americans’ obsession with digging for intimate details in the lives of people they do not know upsets my stomach.
My pasty fingers were trembling as my flight from Stockholm approached O’Hare International Airport 15 minutes ahead of schedule. I feared that my luggage would be sniffed by a tenacious German shepherd and searched by a stoic U.S. customs agent who played rugby on the weekends. I worried that I would walk out of the airport and collapse on the concrete pavement in front of a python of Yellow Cabs as my lungs filled with the suffocating humidity of one of Illinois’ infamous dog days of August. Accustomed to the chug-chug of the passenger train to Tallinn and the putt-putt of the bus to Rakvere, I feared I would have to ride through six lanes of traffic on the tollway at 75 mph (121kph) with my eyes closed and my arms cradling my stomach. Last but not least, I was afraid that by the end of the day, my stomach would explode from the mega hamburgers, deluxe pizzas, and super burritos my family would order to welcome me home.
Seven hours after landing at O’Hare, though, I arrived safely in Springfield. Abraham Lincoln lived in Springfield from 1837 to 1861, and my parents have lived here since the 1940s. I attended kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and college here. After living in Tapa for three years, I encamped in Springfield to assess my parents’ health; to catch up with my nephews, who were both in high school, and my nieces, who liked playing cards and board games now; and to spend some time with an aunt and an uncle who were dealing with cancer.
From August to December, I worked in Decatur. At 65mph (105kph) on a four-lane highway, Decatur is 35 minutes east of Springfield. I taught three developmental writing classes three days a week to 40 students at Richland Community College, and I tutored individuals in the college’s learning center. While American English requires commas much more often than British English, my Decatur students, many of them in their 20s and 30s, repeatedly made some of the same mistakes my Tapa students made.
During the Christmas and New Year holidays, I hunted for American alligators and searched for Coach purses in Houston with a good friend from high school and her family; scored a career high 172 points during a family Wii bowling tournament at my sister’s house in Petersburg (Illinois); and rode buses and subways from friend to friend, store to store, and bar to bar in Chicago. I decided not to teach at Richland in 2010. So as I write this, I am still living with my aging parents and searching for a full-time job with a nonprofit organization in Chicago.
The first couple of months I was back here in America, sitting in the living room behind the morning newspaper and in front of the nightly television news programs, two things kept slapping me in the face: pointless violence and shameless voyuerism. In September, just 40 minutes northeast of Springfield, in a rural area like Pariisi, a husband, his wife, and their three children were murdered in their home. In October, 20 minutes northwest of Springfield, in a town the size of Haljala, a 74-year-old woman was charged with killing her granddaughter’s husband.
In Springfield, which has only a few thousand more residents than Tartu, there were a total of 12 murders in 2009. In Chicago, there were 458 murders. With nearly 3 million residents, that was just 1.5% of the city’s population. Yet it meant reading “was shot”, “was stabbed”, “was killed”, “was strangled”, “was run over” or “was smothered to death” in the newspaper every day of the year. It meant hearing the stories on the nightly news, too, and, in the case of a 16-year-old high school student, whose fatal beating in September was captured on video, it meant seeing the attack over and over again on a number of Internet sites. Lastly, it meant the wide smile I had displayed ever since I had sailed past the customs agents at O’Hare began to droop.
Even though I felt safe walking around Springfield, driving through Decatur, and riding the subway in Chicago, I was disturbed by the number of murders. I had returned to the wealthiest, most gifted, most generous, most tolerant nation in the world, had I not? How in singular sophistication that constructed the international space station, donated more than $3 billion to charity, and elected an African American President had America preserved its cowboy mentality of the late 1800s? I was also baffled by the motives behind the murders. The Mafia wasn’t silencing snitches in central Illinois; Crips weren’t retaliating against Vice Lords in Chicago. No; a grandma discharged a Glock 17. No; three teenagers repeatedly whacked another boy with a railroad tie. Finally, no matter how mad I had ever been at my students in Tapa or frustrated with my co-workers in Chicago, I was unable to fathom the anger that boiled over and incited toilet-using, potato chip-eating individuals to kill, to kill more than once, to kill people they knew.
Repulsed by these senseless murders, as well as the ones in Fort Hood, Texas and Lakewood, Washington, I was also vexed by America’s interest in other people’s personal lives, particularly Tiger Woods’ and Jon Gosselin’s. One week in August or September, a national, half-hour entertainment news program opened every night with reports on Gosselin’s activities over the previous 24 hours. After three or four banal stories with shots of Gosselin getting out of a car or walking down a sidewalk, I asked my mother why his pending divorce was of national importance. She told me that there had been a reality TV show about him and his wife raising their eight children (a set of twins and a set of sextuplets). I was still confused about why the nation pried into this difficult period in this ordinary family’s life and, fed the details, how we were supposed to respond.
I didn’t understand either why Woods’ fender-bender gripped the attention of America’s news, entertainment, and sports media for more than a week at the end of November. He was not injured, and he had enough money to buy himself a new Cadillac Escalade. He would golf again. Naively, I asked why the story did not end there. My brother-in-law explained to me that the morning of the accident, Woods had been running away from his Swedish wife, who had been chasing him down the driveway with a golf club because she had suspected him of having an extramarital affair. Again, I searched for the reason the eyes of America were transfixed on Woods even though he wasn’t on the golf course, wasn’t even tied for the lead on the final hole of a PGA classic.
Fortunately, my stomach did not explode after I ate a double bacon cheeseburger with onion, tomato, and lettuce from Steak ‘n Shake, one of my parents’ favorite restaurants. A few weeks later, it felt pretty good after three pieces of a cheesy, stuffed, onion, sausage, and green pepper pizza from the Giordano’s just off Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. I did not have indigestion after I ate a bean and cheese-stuffed burrito de pollo asada with rice from Luevo Leon in the city’s Mexican neighborhood. Yet news of a murder, whether it is from Springfield, Illinois or thousands of miles away in Springfield, California, makes me nauseous, and Americans’ obsession with digging for intimate details in the lives of people they do not know upsets my stomach.
Mu kahvatud sõrmed värisesid, kui mu lennuk Stokholmist lähenes O’Hare rahvusvahelisele lennuväljale 15 minutit enne plaanilist saabumisaega. Ma kartsin, et mu pagasit nuusib jonnakas Saksa lambakoer ja seda otsib läbi stoilise rahuga USA tolliametnik, kes mängib nädalavahetustel ragbit. Kartsin, et kõnnin lennujaamast välja ja kukun kokku betoonsillutisel ussina lookleva kollaste taksode rodu ees, kui mu kopsud täitusid lämmatava niiskusega ühel Illinoisi kurikuulsal kuumal augustipäeval. Harjunud Tallinna reisirongi tsuhh-tsuhhi ja Rakvere bussi tavapärase törra-törraga, olin hirmul, et pean sõitma kuuerealises liikluses maksustataval teel 75 miili tunnis (121km/h), silmad suletud ja kätega kõhtu hoides. Mitte vähem oluline oli kartus, et päeva lõpuks mu kõht lõhkeb mega-hamburgeritest, deluxe- pitsadest ja super-burritodest, mida mu pere minu kojusaabumise puhul tellib.
Seitse tundi pärast O’Hare’is maandumist jõudsin siiski õnnelikult Springfieldi. Abraham Lincoln elas Springfieldis aastatel 1837 – 1861 ja mu vanemad on elanud siin alates 1940st. Käisin siin lasteaias, alg- ja keskkoolis ning kolledžis. Pärast kolme aastat Tapal jäin Springfieldi paigale, et hinnata oma vanemate tervislikku seisundit, viia end kurssi oma kahe keskkoolis õppiva õepoja ning kaarte ja lauamänge mängida armastavate õetütarde tegemistega ning veeta aega tädi ja onuga, kes on vähiga kimpus.
Augustist detsembrini töötasin Decaturis, kuhu Kiirusega 65 miili tunnis (105 km/h) neljarealisel kiirteel Springfieldist itta on 35 minuti tee. Õpetasin 40 tudengile Richland Community College’is kolme kirjutamiskursust kolmel päeval ja juhendasin kolledži õpekeskuses tudengeid individuaalset. Kuna ameerika inglise keel nõuab komasid palju sagedami kui briti inglise keel, siis minu Decaturi tudengid, paljud neist 20. ja 30. eluaastates, tegid korduvalt samu vigu, mida minu Tapa õpilased.
Jõulude ajal ja uuel aastal jahtisin Ameerika alligaatoreid ja otsisin Hustonis hea sõbra ja tema perega keskkooli päevilt Coach’i rahakotte, saavutasin karjääri kõrgeima tulemuse 172 punkti pere Wii-keeglivõistlustel õe juures Petersburgis (Illinois); ja sõitsin Chicagos busside ning metrooga sõbra juurest sõbra juurde, kauplusest kauplusesse ja baarist baari. Otsustasin mitte õpetada Richlandis aastal 2010. Nii et kui ma praegu seda kirjutan, elan ikka veel oma vananevate vanematega koos ja otsin täiskohaga tööd mõnes Chicago mittetulundusettevõttes.
Esimesed paar kuud, kui olin siin Ameerikas tagasi ja istusin elutoas hommikust ajalehte lugedes või õhtusi uudiseid televiisorist vaadates, kippusid kaks asja mulle näkku kargama: mõttetu vägivald ja häbitu vuajerism. Septembris tapeti ühes külakeses, suuruselt umbes nagu Pariisi küla, 40 minutit Springfieldist kirdesuunas, oma kodus mees, naine ja nende kolm last. Oktoobris mõisteti umbes Haljala-suuruses asunduses, 20 minutit Springfieldist edelas, 74-aastane naine süüdi oma lapselapse abikaasa tapmises.
Springfieldis, kus on vaid mõned tuhanded rohkem elanikke kui Tartus, oli 2009. aastal kokku 12 tapmist, Chicagos aga 458. See oli 1,5 % linna elanikkonnast, kuna Chicago rahvaarv on kolm miljonit. Ent see tähendas lugeda ajalehest “tulistati”, “pussitati”, “tapeti”, “kägistati”, “jäi auto alla” või “lämmatati surnuks” aasta igal päeval. See tähendas kuulda neidsamu lugusid õhtustes uudistes. 16-aastase keskkooliõpilase juhtumi korral, kus surmatoov peksmine septembris oli võetud videosse, tähendas see näha rünnakut ikka ja jälle mitmetel Interneti-lehekülgedel. Viimaseks tähendas see ka seda, et too lai naeratus, mis oli mu näol, olles möödunud tollitöötajatest O’Hare lennujaamas, hakkas tasapisi haihtuma.
Isegi kui tundsin end turvaliselt kõndides ringi Springfieldis, sõites läbi Decaturi ja reisides metrooga Chicagos, olin häiritud mõrvade arvust. Olin tagasi pöördunud kõige jõukamasse, andekamasse, heldemasse ja tolerantsemasse riiki maailmas, eks ju? Kuidas selline ainulaadne mõttekeerukus, mis konstrueeris rahvusvahelise kosmosejaama, toetas rohkem kui kolme miljardi dollariga heategevust, valis afroameeriklasest presidendi, on säilitanud oma 1800. aastate kauboi-mentaliteedi? Ka mõrvamotiivid ajasid mind segadusse. Maffia ei vaigistanud ülesandmisi Kesk Illinoisis, Crips’id ei maksnud kätte Vice Lords’idele Chicagos. Ei - vanamemm kasutas relva Glock 17. Ei - kolm teismelist peksid korduvalt kaaslast raudteeliipriga. Lõpuks, ükskõik kui pahane ma olin oma õpilaste peale Tapal või kui iganes pettunud oma kaastöötajates Chicagos, olin võimetu aru saama sellest ülevoolavast vihast, mis õhutas tualetti-kasutavaid, kartulikrõpse söövaid indiviide tapma, tapma rohkem kui korra, tapma inimesi, keda nad tundsid.
Tundes vastikust nimetatud mõttetute mõrvade suhtes, samuti ka nende suhtes, mis pandi toime Fort Hoodis, Texases, Lakewoodis ning Washingtonis, valmistas mulle meelehärmi ka Ameerika huvi kaasinimeste isikliku elu vastu, eriti Tiger Woodsi ja Jon Gosselini eraelu vastu. Ühel nädalal augustis või septembris algas riiklik pooletunnine meelelahutus-uudiste programm igal õhtul ülevaatega Gosselini tegemistest eelneva 24 tunni vältel. Pärast kolme
-nelja banaalset lugu kaadritega autost väljuvast või mööda kõnniteed minevast Gosselinist küsisin emalt, miks mehe eelseisev lahutus on riikliku tähtsusega. Ema vastas, et oli näidatud tõsieluprogrammi Gosselinist ja ta naisest kasvatamas oma kaheksat last (kaksikud ja kuuikud). Ma ei saanud endiselt aru, miks rahvas topib uudishimust nina tema tavalise pereelu raskesse perioodi ja söödab ette lahendusi, kuidas me peaksime reageerima.
Ei mõistnud ka seda, miks Woodsi plekimõlkimine köitis Ameerika uudiste, meelelahutuse ja spordimeedia tähelepanu rohkem kui nädala vältel novembri lõpus. Ta ei saanud vigastada ja tal oli piisavalt raha, et osta endale uus Cadillac Escalade. Ta mängib jälle. Naiivselt küsisin, miks lugu sellega ei lõppenud. Mu õemees selgitas mulle, et õnnetuspäeva hommikul põgenes Woods oma rootslannast naise eest, kes oli teda golfikepiga mööda maja juurde viivat sissesõiduteed taga ajanud, kuna kahtlustas, et Woodsil on abieluväline suhe. Taaskord otsisin põhjust, miks Ameerika silmad kinnituvad Woodsil isegi siis, kui ta pole golfiväljakul või teda tabab ebaõnn PGA mängudes.
Õnneks ei läinud mu kõht lõhki pärast kahekordset juustu-peekoniburgerit sibula, tomati ja rohelise salatiga Steak ‘n Shake’ist, ühest mu vanemate lemmikrestoranidest. Mõni nädal hiljem tundus see üsna hea pärast kolme tükki juustumaitselist sibula, vorsti ja rohelise pipraga täidetud pitsat Giordano’st, veidi eemal Chicago Magnificent Mile’ist. Mul polnud seedehäireid pärast ubade ja juustuga täidetud burrito de pollo asada ja riisi söömist Luevo Leon’is, linna Mehhiko-piirkonnas. Ometi olid need mõrvauudised kas Springfieldist Illinoisis või tuhandeid miile kaugemal Springfieldis Californias, mis ajasid mind iiveldama. Ka ameeriklaste kinnisidee kaevata välja intiimseid detaile nendele tundmatute inimeste elust oli miski, mis tekitas mul seedehäireid.
Tõlkija: Anna Kraubner
