Simon Rich - Spoiled Brats - Stories

“I am Herschel,” I say. “From village of Slupsk.”

“Cool,” one of them says. “An international student.”

Another one squints at my wool and pokes his fingers at the buttons.

“Where’d you get this?” he asks. “Housing Works?”

“I make it from old rags,” I admit.

For some reason, this pathetic fact impresses them.

“That’s rad,” they say. “Talk about DIY.”

“I am very hungry,” I say.

“You came to the right place,” says the man with the longest beard. “We’ve been Dumpster diving all semester, and this place is by far the sickest.”

I do not want to become sick, but my hunger is extreme. I say a quick prayer and then dive inside the trash bin.

“Oh my God,” I say when my eyes adjust to the light. “There is so much food!”

“I know,” says the long-beard man. “Have you ever seen anything so fucking First World? It’s, like, ‘Hey, I’ve got a good idea. Let’s rape the earth with chemicals, wrap the crops in plastic, drive them across the country, then bury them all in a landfill.’ ”

“Is fine,” I say. I am not really listening. There are so many foods in front of me that my mouth has started dripping. Suddenly, I see something shocking. There is entire package of beef sausage completely unopened. Somehow the hobos have missed the best item. I rip off the wrapper and shove it in my face before anyone can take it from me. The meat is so delicious that my eyes fill up with tears. When I climb out of Dumpster, the bums are all staring at me, a look of horror in their eyes.

“I am sorry,” I say, offering them rest of my sausage. “We can share the remaining flesh.”

They hop back a step, like they are afraid.

“We’re freegans,” one of them says.

“Where is Freega?” I ask them.

“It’s a political philosophy,” the long-beard man explains. “We only eat discarded food that’s cruelty-free.”

“Why?” I ask.

They all start speaking rapidly of books and essays they have read. Their words are so long I cannot understand how they have learned them. Eventually, though, I understand their point: their parents are millionaires and they live this way for sport. I am so impressed, I nearly drop my sausage.

“Someday I will be wealthy like you,” I vow. “And you will teach me to play your rich-man games.”

I lean back into Dumpster and grab more meats. Soon, I have stuffed my coat so full that one of my pockets unravels. A penny falls out and I watch with panic as it rolls toward the group of wealthy children. A boy with glasses picks it up and gasps.

“Whoa,” he says. “How did you get this?”

“Through labors,” I say. “Please return.”

“It’s a 1906,” he says, squinting at the coin. “And barely circulated. Holy shit — look at the polish on that Indian head!”

His bearded comrade glares at him.

“ Indian head?”

“Sorry,” the boy says. “First Nation… head.”

He clears his throat and smiles at me.

“How much do you want for this thing?”

At this point, I begin to get excited. I do not know much of coins, but I am skillful with negotiations.

“How much will you pay?” I ask.

The boy reaches into his pocket and pulls out clump of moneys.

“I’ll give you ten bucks.”

I bite my lip to keep myself from grinning. Ten dollars is more than one week’s salary in pickle factory. I want to take his offer, but I know I must hold out for more. When there is an opportunity in life, you must take biggest advantage.

“Twelve,” I say, speaking firmly.

A long time passes. My heart is beating so fast in my chest, I am worried the freegans can hear it.

“Fine,” says the boy with the glasses. “Twelve.”

He peels me off some banknotes and chuckles to himself.

“Where else am I gonna find another 1906, right?”

I smile with triumph and pull out rest of pennies.

“Right here,” I say — and sell them all.

I spend the afternoon by water, eating my sausage and counting my stack of moneys. It is eighty-four dollars, more than I have seen in my whole life. I know from experience in Whole Foods that prices in Brooklyn have increased. But it is still a sizable fortune — enough to buy more potatoes than I could even carry.

As I gaze at the Statue of Liberty, I begin to think of Sarah. Sometimes, when it was too cold to sleep, she would ask me to speak make-believe.

“Close your eyes,” I would say as I wrapped blanket tight around her body. “I have found gold on the street and we are rich.”

Then I would tell story of our day. For breakfast we eat entire tin of herring. Then we take bath, using water so hot it can melt soap. In the middle of work, we take hour-long break from our factories. And what do we eat? Another tin of herring, our second of the day. It is even bigger than the first. We have seltzer from the cart. Each one of us gets our own glass. Would you like a refill? asks the seltzer man. Yes, I say, but please this time with flavors. I will have to charge double, he says. That is acceptable, I reply, the price does not upset me. We drink two more glasses of seltzer, with red and purple.

After work we meet and it is light, because we only labored for twelve hours. We put on store-bought clothes and spend the evening promenading. Sarah is dressed in ribbons that I have purchased new. She is so beautiful that no one can believe it. The women compliment her ribbons and her face, which is covered in the powder that she likes. I take her to the picture show and we sit in the cushioned chairs in front. You cannot sit there, says the usher, unless you order candied orange. That is not a problem, I say. Here is the money for candied orange. The man is shocked and has no choice but to bring us the candied orange in front of everyone. People see that he was wrong to doubt us.

For dinner we eat two more tins of herring. We are so full of foods, we do not even want to eat more. If there was more food there, we would not eat it. I crank the Victrola, which I have purchased in full, and we dance to the song of our choice. Then we lie with each other, on pillows stitched from cotton and stuffed with the feathers of a bird.

We always said that if I died in factory, or she from birthing child, then the other would keep fighting for this dream. It is one thing saying words, but another thing to live them.

I look out at the statue and imagine she is Sarah, dressed in stylish green robe from the Gimbels. With one arm she holds English book, which she used to teach me spell. With other arm, she waves to me from across the sparkling bay, her hand raised high in the clouds.

“Look, I found the money,” I whisper to her. “It is just like how we dreamed.”

She looks down on me with tight-pressed lips and steely eyes. I laugh to myself, because of course I have seen this expression before. It is like the look she gave me on her birthday, when I dipped into savings jar to buy her salted shrimps.

“Do not worry, my love,” I say to her. “Your Herschel is not getting lazy.”

I gaze into her bright-green eyes and grin.

“He is only just now getting started.”

There are three important keys to pickling: patience, hard work, and rage. Rage, of these three, is by far the most vital. Pickling can be torture, like living inside endless nightmare. The only way to have success is to approach each day with violence.

As crazy as it is to believe, my eighty-four-dollar fortune is not so vast. Prices have changed in past one hundred years, and I must use my moneys cleverly.

I spend forty-two dollars on supplies I need to make first batch of pickles. That includes twenty glass jars, one tub of vinegar, garlic, salt, and herbs. I also buy ladle, to scoop water out from river. The cucumbers I get from the Whole Foods, inside their garbage bins.