Gary Shteyngart - Little Failure

The next day, there I am, sleepless and angry. Everything we do here at the Solomon Schechter School of Queens is, in a way, an exchange of ideas. Jerry Himmelstein sees me coming; the spittle is arching from his lips and blowing in the wind. He looks at me with dull unhappiness. This is how it must be, and there is no return from what we must do.

I punch him in the stomach, the soft American plushiness of it.

He takes two steps back and breathes out.

“Agoof.”

The garden apartment (second floor, right) where the author grew short, dark, and furry.

THE TERRIBLE THING about the major belief systems (Leninism, Christianity) is that too often they are constructed along the premise that a difficult past can be traded in for a better future, that all adversity leads to triumph , either through the installation of telegraph poles (Leninism) or at Jesus’ knee after physical death (Christianity). But the past is not simply redeemable for a better future. Every moment I have ever experienced as a child is as important as every moment I am experiencing now, or will experience ever. I guess what I’m saying is that not everybody should have children.

But in 1981 triumph is at hand. An official letter arrives in our mailbox. MR. S. SHITGART, YOU HAVE ALREADY WON $10,000,000.00!!! Sure, our last name is misspelled rather cruelly, but cardstock this thick does not lie, and the letter is from a major American publisher, to wit the Publishers Clearing House. I open the letter with shaking hands, and … a check falls out.

PAY TO THE ORDER OF S. SHITGART

TEN MILLION AND 00/100 DOLLARS

Our lives are about to change. I run down the stairs into the courtyard of our apartment complex. “Mama, Papa, we won! We won! My millionery! ” We are millionaires!

“ Uspokoisya ,” my father says. Calm down . “Do you want an asthma attack?” But he is nervous and excited himself. Tak, tak. Let us see what we have here .

Around the glowing surface of the orange dining table imported from Romania we spread the contents of the voluminous packet. For two years we have been good new citizens, watching X-rated movies, getting jobs as engineers and clerk-typists (my mother’s pianist’s fingers will finally be put to meaningful use), learning to Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of American, And For the Something For Which That It Stands, Unavoidable, With Money For All.

“Bozhe moi,” my mother says, my God , as we look at the pictures of a Mercedes flying off the deck of our yacht toward our new mansion with an Olympian swimming pool. “Oy, does it have to be a Mercedes? Tphoo , Nazis.” “Don’t worry, we can trade for a Cadillac.” “ Bozhe moi . How many bedrooms does this house have?” “Seven, eight, nine …” “You said the kids at school have houses like this?” “No, Papa, this one, ours , will be bigger!” “Hm, the way I understand it, the house doesn’t come with the prize. The prize is just ten million, and then we buy the house separately.” “ Tphoo , they always say here ‘sold separately.’ ” “You can forget about the yacht, it’s dangerous.” “But I know how to swim, Mama!” “How do you keep the pool open in the winter? Snow will get in.” “Look, there are palm trees! Maybe it’s in Florida.” “Florida won’t be good for your asthma with all that humidity.” “I want to live in Miami! Maybe there aren’t Hebrew schools in Miami.” “Everywhere in America there are Hebrew schools.” “We could have been in San Francisco already, if not for your wolfish relatives.” “San Francisco? With the earthquakes?” “For ten million we can live in two places!” “Remember we have to pay taxes, so it’s more like five million.” “Oy, those welfare queens will get our other five million, like President Reagan said.” “ Tphoo , welfare queens.”

We sit down and, using our collective four-hundred-word English vocabulary, begin to unravel the many documents before us. If we take the ten-million-dollar check to the bank tomorrow, how long before we can buy a new air conditioner? Wait, it says here that … Yes, we have already won the ten million dollars, no disputing that, but a panel of judges still has to award the money to us. First we must fill out the winner’s form and select five national magazines that will be sent to us free, or at least the first issue of each will be free, and then the Americans will likely send us the rest of the money. Fair enough. First we must acclimate to our new wealth, expand our literacy. I am proud of Papa’s new car, a bulbous 1977 Chevrolet Malibu Classic with only seven million miles on the odometer, but it is time to get acquainted with the finer autos, so I order Car and Motor, Motor and Driver, Carburetor and Driver, Muffler and Owner . And for the last selection, something that maybe has my Star Wars Monkey, Chewy, in it: Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine .

We sign everywhere we need to, even places we probably don’t need to. We sign the fucking envelope. “Write neater!” Mama shouts at Papa. “No one can understand your signature!” “Calm yourself, calm yourself.” “Get the stamps!” “Wait with your stamps already, what does it say. No postadzh necessary .” The Publishers Clearing House has even taken care of that little detail. Classy.

I walk solemnly to the mailbox and deposit our claim on the future. Adonai Eloheinu , I say to our new God, please help us get the ten million dollars so that Mama and Papa will not fight so much, and there will be no razvod between them, and let us live somewhere far away from Papa’s wolfish rodstvenniki who cause all the trouble and let them not yell at Mama when she sends the money Papa says we don’t have to her sisters and Grandma Galya in Leningrad who is dying still.

That night for the first time in months the Lightman without the pupils and irises does not appear in my wood-paneled closet. In my first sleep in weeks, in my actual dreams , I walk into SSSQ a multimillionaire, and the pretty girl with the big teeth who’s always tanned from Florida vacation kisses me with those big teeth (I haven’t gotten the mechanics of kissing down yet). The kids make fun of Jerry Himmelstein, but I say, He’s my friend now. Here is two dollars. Buy us both the Carvel flying saucer cookie ice cream. And keep the change, you gurnisht! You nothing.

We find out the truth quickly and brutally. At their respective workplaces, my parents are told that the Publishers Clearing House regularly sends out the YOU HAVE ALREADY WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS missive and that these are routinely thrown in the trash by the savvy native-born. Depression settles over our nonmillionaire shoulders. In Russia the government was constantly telling us lies — wheat harvest is up, Uzbek baby goats give milk at an all-time high, Soviet crickets learn to sing the “Internationale” in honor of Brezhnev visit to local hayfield — but we cannot imagine that they would lie to our faces like that here in America, the Land of the This and the Home of the That . And so we don’t give up hope entirely. The judges are probably reading our application right now. Maybe I should write them a letter in my burgeoning English. “Dear Publishers Clearing House, Spring is here. The weather is warm and rainy. Birds come From south and sing songs. My mothers pianist fingers hurt very much from the typing and she has only one suit for work. Please send the money soon. We love you, Family Shteyngart.”