Simon Rich - Spoiled Brats - Stories

Kayla took a seat in the gallery, next to one of her fellow agents.

“Nice work with that comment,” she said.

“Thanks,” said Sparklegum12.

“Is he here yet?” Kayla asked.

“He’s coming.”

Thousands rose as the leader marched through a pair of large brass doors. His expression was unsettlingly grim.

“Where,” he asked, “is Kayla?”

The blood drained from Kayla’s face as she stood. The leader walked toward her, his silver cane clacking against the gleaming marble floor.

“You were given a simple task,” he said. “To distract Gabe from our mission to destroy him.”

“I’m trying my best,” Kayla said.

The leader slapped her hard across the face. She fell to her knees and wept.

“You don’t seem to realize what’s at stake,” he said. “Gabe’s fiction could upend the entire literary establishment. His stories are so original — so unlike anything from Iowa — it could turn the world of letters on its head. And once he conquers that arena, his power will only grow. It starts with a few online stories. Then he finishes his novel. The next thing you know, he’s become a figure so globally dominant, all mankind is crushed beneath his yoke. We must stop his rise!”

The conspirators murmured their assent. Since the moment Gabe first put pen to page, they’d done what they could to thwart his dreams.

They hired construction workers to drill outside his window every time he tried to write.

They created a phony law firm to hire him as a paralegal and fill up his weekdays with busywork.

They commissioned pornographers to create hard-core sex videos that catered to his specific tastes, and then sent him these videos, in the form of pop-up ads, whenever he was “on a roll,” so that the urge to masturbate would force him to abandon his fiction.

They paid actors to pose as friends and invite him to parties every Saturday, so that he’d be too hungover to write on his one day off. And they sent him a series of girlfriends to distract him from his art with a mixture of affection and love.

Still, despite their efforts, Gabe hadn’t abandoned his writing. He still threatened to collapse the status quo and tear apart the fabric of society.

The leader folded his arms across his chest.

“Where,” he asked, “is the online fiction editor of the Synecdoche Review ?”

A goateed man sheepishly raised his hand.

“Why did you publish his story?” the leader demanded.

The editor looked away. Tears were already streaming down his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was just too good. If I’d rejected it, he would have known something was up. I thought that if I made the story worse by changing the ending, and watering down the first paragraph—”

The leader wrapped his fingers around the editor’s neck.

“Please,” gurgled the underling as he tried to pry the gloved hands from his throat. “Please.”

The crowd watched in silence as the leader strangled the life out of his body. The editor kept struggling, but eventually his wriggling limbs went limp.

Kayla swallowed as some henchmen appeared and dragged away the corpse.

“Stop him,” the leader told her. “Or else.”

Kayla was lying awake in bed when she heard a soft knock on her door.

“Are you still up?” Gabe mumbled.

She let him into her apartment. He was holding a foil-wrapped platter.

“What’s this?”

“I did the lasagna.”

She looked up at her boyfriend; his eyes were as wide and fearful as a child’s.

“I’m so sorry about before,” he said. “I was being such an idiot.”

He put down the lasagna and gave her a tentative hug. She put out some plates and forks and they began to eat in silence.

“It’s still hot,” Kayla said.

“I took a cab,” he said. “I didn’t want it to get cold.”

She reached across the table and took his hand. He smiled with relief.

“What’s that?” Kayla asked, pointing to a paperback in his coat pocket.

He took it out and showed it to her.

“Practice tests,” he said. “For the LSATs.”

“Seriously?”

Gabe blushed.

“I just signed up for it. I’m taking it on the twenty-fifth. I’m going to spend this month studying. Just… going all out every weekend.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What about your novel?”

Gabe flicked his wrist.

“I think I’m done with that stuff for a while,” he said. “It was distracting me from what’s really important.” He looked up at Kayla and saw that she was grinning.

“Why are you smiling?” he asked.

“No reason.”

“Come on, tell me.”

“I’m just happy,” she said. “That’s all.”

“Nice kicks,” Dan said with a smirk.

I looked down and winced. I’d tried my best to wear cool clothes to Brooklyn, but Dan had zeroed in on my one lapse.

“The firm makes me wear loafers,” I said. “Sucks, right?”

Dan ignored me. He’d taken out a bag of loose tobacco and was rolling himself a cigarette. I thought about asking to bum one but was terrified I might cough in front of him. There was only so much embarrassment I could take. I’d been with Dan for fifteen minutes, and my lameness had already earned me two eye rolls, one for mispronouncing “Nostrand Avenue” and the other for quoting Modern Family. Add my Ferragamos to the mix, and it was a miracle Dan was still willing to be seen with me.

“So why’d you move out of Astoria?” I asked.

Dan rolled his eyes harder than he had all night, his lashes fluttering almost audibly.

“It’s so played out. It used to be chill. Now all anyone cares about is who’s got the newest iPad. It’s turning into another Park Slope. Just totally fucking bougie.”

I smiled. Only Dan would consider Astoria bourgeois. But that was the kind of guy he’d always been. At Dalton, when I was cramming for my SATs, he was sneaking out to unannounced Strokes concerts. He dropped out of Skidmore after less than a month and moved straight to Williamsburg, a full decade before it became cool. Now he lived in a neighborhood that was so hip I’d never even heard of it. He was always miles ahead of everyone and light-years ahead of me.

“So, how’s the band going?” I asked.

“We’re working on an EP,” he said. “But it’s hard to rehearse, now that Dave’s all Mr. Corporate.”

I nodded. Dave worked for the teachers’ union, but Dan’s definition of corporate was wide enough to include anything with steady hours. He’d had only one job in his life — running the guest list at a rock venue in Bushwick. He’d quit when they banned smoking.

“Hey, do you remember that time in ninth grade?” I asked, eager to reminisce. “When Mr. Hurwitz caught us with those beers?”

“Fucking Hurwitz,” Dan said, his rage untouched by the years.

I closed my eyes and luxuriated in the memory. Dan and I hiding behind a water tower, Pabsts in hand, trying not to laugh while our balding teacher shouted in the distance. It was the last time I’d felt cool enough to be his friend.

“I wonder what that fucker’s up to now,” Dan said.

I swallowed. “You didn’t hear?”

“Hear what?”

“Jeez,” I said. “Well, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but Mr. Hurwitz actually passed away.”

Dan laughed. “How’d that happen?”

“I think it was just his time. At the memorial service they said he was eighty-seven.”

Dan squinted at me.

“You went to his memorial service?”

“Yeah, me and Dave stopped by after work. It was nice. His daughters spoke. There’s pictures on Facebook if you want to check it out.”