Simon Rich - Spoiled Brats - Stories

“Wassup to you as well,” I say politely.

“Some girl’s here to see you,” he tells me, his lips curled into giant grin.

I sigh. It is probably inspector to arrest me. I am thinking of fleeing through window, when I look into the hallway and catch sight of yellow hair.

“Claire?” I say. “What are you doing here?”

She holds up empty pickle jar.

“Just returning this,” she says. “You weren’t at your usual spot.”

She passes me jar, which she has cleaned with soaps.

“You can keep it,” I say.

I mean for my voice to sound formal, but it comes out soft and broken. I have vowed to the world that I will be success, but setbacks have transformed me into liar. My stomach is sick with shame.

“Is everything okay?” Claire asks.

“Is fine,” I say.

She notices my legal forms, picks them up, and whistles.

“Whoa,” she says. “Herschel, you got nailed. ”

She flips through them one at a time, shaking her head back and forth.

“These vendor forms are unconscionable,” she says. “Even a native English-speaker would have problems understanding them. The entire system’s completely prejudicial against immigrants.”

I nod in agreement.

“It was very confusing when the Negress refused my bribe.”

Claire coughs.

“Herschel,” she says, putting hand onto my shoulder, “I think you should consider letting me help you with your business.”

I shake her off.

“I am not one who takes charity.”

“Everyone needs help sometimes.”

“Not me,” I say. “Is fine. I will figure out forms on my own.”

Claire folds her arms. “What’s your Social Security number?”

“Social what?”

She starts to unzip her pack. I sit on bed and sigh. It is too late now to stop her.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s going to be okay.”

She reaches into bag and smiles.

“I’ve got my lucky troll.”

Claire hands me her computer box and points at grid of numbers.

“There!” she says. “I made you a spreadsheet. This number’s all your fines, this number’s all your tax obligations, and this number’s the investments you’ll have to make in order to become health-code compliant.”

“What is this red number? With minus sign in front of it?”

She hesitates.

“Your profits.”

I begin to feel dizzy. We have been working several hours without an interruption, and now I can no longer run from truth.

“The business has failed,” I admit to Claire. “There is no way for it to make moneys.”

“That’s not true,” she says. “You could increase production.”

I shake my head.

“Impossible. I am already filling cart up to brim with jars, and also my coat and pants.”

“Then you’ll need to get some workers,” she says, entering numbers into computer. “If you put six more carts on the street, you could easily net two thousand dollars every week.”

I hesitate.

“Maybe is smart idea,” I admit. “But workers cost.”

“You could get interns.”

I raise my eyebrows; this word is unfamiliar.

“ ‘Interns’?”

It takes long time, but eventually she is able to explain this thing to me.

“So they are slaves,” I say. “And it is not illegal?”

She hesitates.

“Basically.”

She types business description onto Columbia University website. Within minutes, there are messages from students desiring to do my slave labor, all of it for free, in exchange for nothing.

“My God,” I say, my heart speeding up. “My God!”

I leap up from bed, my hands trembling with excitement. I can feel my legs begin to dance.

“Lye dye dye!” I sing. “Lye, dye dye dye, dye dye!”

I dance for some time.

“Claire!” I say when I have caught my breath. “You have saved me!”

“It was nothing,” she says. “A piece of the cake, right?”

I take her hand and squeeze, even though she has no glove.

“You are good, strong help,” I say.

She bites her lip, her cheeks turning bright red.

“Okay, enough resting,” I tell her. “It is time to return to work.”

You cannot murder interns, but other than that, they are the same as mules. You can rob them, abuse them, debase them. There are no limits. When a man agrees to be intern, he is saying, “I am no longer human being with rights, I am like dog or monkey. Use me for labor until my body breaks and then consume all of my meats.”

I would sooner die than serve as intern. But for students of Columbia University, it is very popular. Within one day, a hundred men and women send me résumés in the hope that I will choose them as my slaves.

“This girl looks impressive,” Claire says, picking résumé out from giant stack. “She was editor of the Spectator. That’s the big Columbia student paper.”

“She is too fat,” I say. “She will eat all of my pickles.”

“Herschel, that’s really insensitive,” Claire says. “You know, it’s illegal not to hire someone based on their looks.”

“I am not hiring anyone,” I remind her. “I am choosing interns.”

Claire sighs. Part of her, I can tell, regrets having told me about concept of interns. But now it is too late. I know about interns and will always have interns, until the day I die.

“I want forty strong bucks,” I command, “with large hands for carrying.”

Claire pretends as if she does not hear me.

“How about this guy?” she says. “He’s a computer-science major. I bet he’d design us a website.”

“A what?”

“A site on the Web.”

“A what?”

“A website.”

I shrug.

“Is fine.”

sarahsstatueoflibertygarlicpickleswithsaltpicklecompany.com

“Herschel’s Dream”

Press release by Graham Metzger, media-relations intern

Herschel Rich came to this country with a bold mission: to achieve success without compromising his radical belief system. Now, after years of struggle, his dream is becoming a reality.

Herschel’s anticorporate commitment to agricultural sustainability has won him accolades all over this city. The New York Times called his pickles a “hipster delicacy,” and Lady Gaga tweeted that his pickles “will make you see God.” Jay Z recently announced that Herschel’s pickles will be the official pickles of the Brooklyn Nets, with their own stand at the Barclays Center.

But no one appreciates Herschel more than the young men and women who work for him.

“Herschel changed my life,” said Josh Herson, a rising junior at Columbia, who mans one of Herschel’s forty pickle carts. “Last year at this time I was thinking about becoming a banker or working for some soulless ad firm. But interning for Herschel has shown me that you don’t have to sell out to succeed.”

According to Claire Whitman, the company’s chief spokeswoman, pickles are only the beginning. Sarah’s Statue of Liberty Garlic Pickles with Salt Pickle Company intends to open a political action center in Williamsburg, with a focus on immigration reform. And an art zine is being planned in collaboration with the Vortex Factory, the profits of which will be donated to worthy causes.

When I asked Herschel about these developments, he responded with the pithy poeticism that has made him such a cultural icon in Williamsburg.

“Everyone must return jar. Or they will be severely violenced.”

It’s hard to think of a better metaphor for our times. If we don’t give back to society — if we don’t “return our jars”—then our world may very well fall apart. Luckily, we have Herschel to help us hold it all together.

Strange things soon begin to happen. People start to camera me when I am manning cart. Customers ask me to write my name on jars that they have bought. One day, newspaper lady asks my opinion on “Occupy movement.” I do not understand her words and so I let Claire answer.